Just a heads up to guys who were a fan of Mike . There’s a video on You Tube titled the Mike Mentzer Story. About 20 minute of still pics spanning his career with his voice narrating it . Maybe it isn’t new to some of you but I never saw it before so thought I mention it.
I think was very well done. Talks how he got involved , his progressions, set-backs and mistakes , competition and his eventual mental and drug problems. He comes across as a very intelligent guy as I think we all know he was. Really a shame how it all turned out for him and his brother.
He is definitely trending on Youtube over the last 18 months or so. Jay Vincent mentioned him a lot, and the algorithm took over. Depending on the slant, he is either a charlatan or a genius.
Mentzer was an amazing person
And yes people are trying to hop on the heavy duty bandwagon but they are still not accepting it or digesting it properly
Everyone’s perceptions are going to be shaped by their personal experiences and worldview. I don’t know if there’s necessarily a “wrong” Way to digest the life of Mike or his training principles.
I used to be obsessed with Mike. I owned several of his books (Heavy Duty, Heavy Duty II, The Wisdom of Mike Mentzer, High Intensity Training the Mike Mentzer Way) as well as about 20 different training manuals of his that I bought from eBay. I was fascinated by his writing style and philosophy on training, I was convinced it was the only true most productive way to train.
I watched a podcast called Muscle Minds that featured the hosts talking about Mike Mentzer. His training principles and it seemed like he had a decent bit of influence on the hosts, one of them being Scott Stevenson, who had his own training system called Fortitude Training. I ended up giving that a shot and broke out of the plateau I had been stuck in for a while during my HIT days. This story might seem somewhat tangential, but I think it goes to show the error in blindly following another man and his ideas. Sometimes people have to find their own best way. Mike can give you a place to start but I believe his black or white views on Training are incorrect.
I’ve basically posted my entire training history over the past 2 and a half years on my log, but I’ll post a pic from when I was doing Heavy Duty at 175 lb:
Be careful with narrow minded assumtions before having the entire picture. The journey of @davemccright can be followed through his log, and it’s an amazing read. He is a role model considering his work ethics, always searching for a program that would/will challenge him into further progression. I’m personally heavily influenced by that! I guess THAT is what we have in common with Mike Mentzer…
Any trainee in search of better development will realize the available methods are the foundation to be adapted/adopted into your own preference in order to resist adaptation - while having fun!
I really appreciate the kind words brother! That’s really what this game is all about, constantly learning, adapting and applying! Mike Mentzer taught me several valuable lessons about recovery, Intensity and progression. These lessons were taken with me as I’ve branched out and found further progress with other methods of training. It’s all a journey and that’s what I’m trying to share
well… that took care of that! I love it!