Nothing was as bad as mega mass 4000, that thick nasty goop lay in your insides like cement lol.
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No doubt at it. But when it first came out i recall it was being touted by some promoters to be as effective as steriods lol. Plus is was a ridiculous price in the 90s, like 4-5 times more expensive as it is now.
Mentzer pretty regularly used protein powder when he did his Olympia preps. In his Heavy Duty Journal that shows part of his 1979 prep he had a āprotein drinkā most every day. So this whole perception he had been anti supplements of any kind until the 1990s is a bit wrong.
To Mikeās credit, protein powder and creatine are very useful. Iām sure he felt so as well, as I canāt imagine how awful protein Back then mustāve tasted.
Just to be clear Dave, Iām not trying to discredit Mike for advocating the use of supplements, my point is theres individuals who knew him fairly well (such as John Little) or met him over the years that say he didnāt push or promote supplements as Mike himself believed that lf the individual simply observes a well balanced diet then they didnāt NEED nor require the use of supplements.
With that said, by the mid 90s supplements had come a long way in terms of quality and better understanding/data etc. So perhaps he became more open to certain supplements.
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I didnāt figure you were, but you also raise a good point that Mike was pretty much a ādo as I say, not as I doā type of guy and can therefore be kind of a contradictory person.
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Funny you should say that, on one of those mid 90s audio tapes he also talked about using a weight gainer supplement in his younger days that in his words āactually garenteed a pound of muscle gain per dayā, he said he just got fat and by the time heād dieted back down to his original starting weight heād actually less muscle.
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Guys, Iād be Interested in hearing opinions with regards to pre exhaustion. Obviously Mike was a big advocate.
Persoanlly am starting to view the idea of pre exhaustion as advocated by Mike and AJ, whereby a single joint movement is taken to failure and immediately followed up with a compound movement as nothing more than a drop set of sorts.
So for example, if you pre exhaustion the pecs with a cable cross, pec deck flye or dumbbell flye, the brunt of the work of course is done by the pecs, but thereās still a fair degree of involvement from the front delts and even the triceps, then you move a quickly as possible to a watered down compound movement where the supposed weak links, in this case the front delts and triceps should be fresh and the pecs are exhausted.
Personally I got better results staying on the same machine, so in my case taking a set of pec deck flyes to failure and instead simply preform an immediate drop set using performance pins.
Not to mention, how many times have you been in a gym and youāve taken your set of letās say leg extensions to complete failure, but the leg press or squat machines are a 3 day camel ride on the other side of the damn building?? Or worse still, someone has nicked the machine your were going to supersetting your leg extensions with??. Of course thatās another issue altogether.
Thatās the thing with pre and post exhaustion, with pre the compound movement suffers, with post the single joint movement suffers. Going forward Iāll probably keep the two separate, for example OHPs one day and laterals on another.
Not big on pre-exhaustion because the progression on that second lift is pretty much guaranteed to suffer. For instance, when I did the Heavy Duty I and Heavy Duty II routines, I would make great progress on the Dumbbell flye, but I could never seem to add any reps or weight to the incline bench afterwards. In retrospect, I believe I couldāve progressed both, had I just delineated the two and done them separately.
I am a fan of rest pause though. If Iām not rest pausing, Iām also a fan of super setting/ giant setting assistance work when itās different Muscle groups (ie pull-ups, Tricep Extension, Lateral raises, Barbell curl) then repeat for x sets. Saves time and is good for conditioning. My hardest supersets are Romanian deadlift/pull ups and paused squats/pull ups. That gets my heart rate in the 150s-160s usually.
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Correct me if I am wrong
Jones and Darden use pre-exhaustion sparinglyā¦once a week or once every couple weeks, kinda like the negative only exercises or the specialized routinesā¦it is used to add variety to the loading methods
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Just skimmed thru 5 mentzer books, only thing I could find on supplements is to use supplements as a supplement and that most are scamsā¦I am paraphrasing
I do recall from his tapes that he endorsed creatine and twinlabsā¦I could be mistaken as I have not heard the tape in probably 15 years
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An interesting discussion. I really like when someone question what we do in terms of outcome.
Personally, I fell in love with Dr Dardens Leg killer specialization routine, featured here on T-nation. Here I found that keeping the weights on the pre-exhaust (db squats 30-10-30), in favor of the leg press (where I gradually increased the weight) followed by the final 60 sec wall squat hold - really pushed my legs to the limit.
I have always believed that legs need lots of attention, meaning more of either volume, frequency or intensity. Nothing extraordinary with that, as legs feature several muscle groups.
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Not too sure about AJ, though he did build double compound machines.
As far as am aware, all of Mikes routines and workouts (bar for his consolidation routine) included pre exhaustion). Every workout in HD1 and HD2 included pre exhaustion.
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Yes that is what Mike didā¦pre-exhaust every workoutā¦which may be why over training could happen quicker
As for AJ, if you look at the routines of the Colorado experimentā¦the only double machine used for the majority of the period was the double shoulder
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Or how he had the likes of Viator and Oliva double pre exhaust the legs with leg extensions and leg presses before immediately moving into barbell squats. Either way, they both advocated the use of pre exhaustion.
What am interested in hearing is people opinion with regards to the idea behind pre exhaustion, as i mentioned previously, my own view is that its nothing more than a drop set of sorts, a set extender.
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Mike sent me a bunch of that Twinlabs product with the creatine and protein mix for free. Chocolate flavor.
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Then would you think that supersets or giant sets be the same as pre-exhaustion or dropsetsā¦ as you sayā¦set extenders?
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Personally ive never been a fan on moving from one exercise to the next with little rest. Whether it be two opposing muscle groups or the same bodypart. If i was for example i was supersetting curls and pushdown, id still take a few minutes between sets.
Mike said a long time ago that āanything you can do to make an exercise harder is a step in the right directionā.
For me, rest pause and omni contraction, negative only, static holdsā¦heavy enough that you require a training partner to help you into the contracted position. Such as max contraction training.
Another one which i know youve been fortunate enough to use on a few occasions are the X Force machines.
These for me are as Mike said āa step in the right directionā.
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I fell in love with very little rest between exercises and the negatives too
I am HIT4ME from the original Darden forumā¦the one that likes golfā¦if you remember
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Ah yes Dan isnt it? Thought it was your good self. 
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