Could we not sum up Mike Mentzer by hypothesizing that if we were presented with a young MM and we said: ‘ok, Mike, do this routine x times a week, blah, blah…’ The fact is, through excellent genetics AND an incredible work ethic and ability to tolerate genuine pain, he would attain a physique most folks would give up a pinky for. The point being, MM is very much like his HVT nemesis Arnold in that, despite what arguments you may pose regarding genetics and drugs, these guys had an incredible work ethic, winning mentality, were stubborn when it mattered and had a titanic self-belief, and that’s what made them special.
Special message to anyone that attributes this all to genetics/drugs: do you really believe that special sports people like Mohammed Ali, Usain Bolt, Lionel Messi or Tiger Woods (I cite a few examples) owe it all to genetics and/or drugs? Come on.
Thanks bud, and good job yourself. Its so easy for these things to very quickly spiral out off control, many a good person has fallen into the trap…just proves we’re only human.
Was talking about meeting Yates just prior to him announing his retirement from bodybuilding on my log the other day. I asked him about training with Mike and how he trained him etc. But it got me thinking about the HD1 routine. A cleint of Mikes used to post on Bill Sahlis old HIT forum, he said Mike had the average (genetically) client move pretty quickly to a 3 set workouts every third day.
W/O1
Incline press
Lateral raise
Dips
W/O2
Pulldown
Rows
Curl
W/O3
Squat or leg press
Leg curl
Calf raise
To me this was a perfect “consolidation” workout (for bodybuilding). If this became “too much” for an individual, perhaps instead of reducing the frequency, have them preform a deload / maintenance week, or just train to vanilla failure without adding intensifiers or set extenders.
100% Dan, I grew better on the consolidated HD1 program i mention above, but my strength and conditioning improved moreso with full body training. So i mix and match…depending on how the wind is blowing haha.
Pity my then girlfriend / now wife didnt have good photography skills, she got a disposable camera so i could get my photo with him, i got the photo and the next day went skipping to the store get them the pics developed only to find she hadnt forwarded the camera to take pics…DUUHH!!! ::
I agree, same split I like to use but mine is a little longer ; two exercise per muscle ( compound and single joint ) for two or sometimes three sets each. Workouts total 12 to 16 sets at around 30 minutes , three days a week.
Single set / failure / full body workouts were productive for my first 5 years then caused me to over train despite reducing volume and frequency to a ridiculous amount. I stuck with it far too long and wished I would have started working a split routine 10 years before I did.
Should really have sacked her lol. Nah, these days they’d still mess it up, many are too busy taking selfies and admiring themselves to see anything else around them.
I still people mentioning this pre-1980 MrO full body / 3 times a week routine as the most productive; however, in an interview given to John Little for his book “The Wisdom of Mike Mentzer”, in a chapter called “Mike Mentzer’s Most Productive Routine” a completely different one is given: split (Legs/Chest/Tri for Monday, and Back/Traps/Shoulder/Biceps for Wed) with multiple sets. This is more resembling DY’s approach, IMO.
Sorry, but incredible work ethic and ability to tolerate genuine pain are very subjective issues which differ a lot between people within a very broad continuum. I witness a lot of young people nowadays claiming that they work hard (whether it’s their daily jobs or training) and being around them I understand that what their call “very hard and difficult” is just a warm-up for me. I would also argue that Arnold has had a titanic self-belief, but that’s for another post, I guess. Hardly I know anyone who is less self-assured / self-confident. You don’t need to be a great psychotherapist to see it.
In relation to Lionel Messi: that’s the case of a God’s gift and less of a determination. I always valued more such people like Cristiano Ronaldo who are not less gifted in comparison to Messi, but take it to a different level by their determination and a hard work. As far as I remember, there were many guys (Gary Lineker, Eden Hazard) who skipped training, although managed to shine during the games. But this is an exception and a sign of a gift.
I assume there should be a clarification whether we are talking about the most productive hypertrophy / off-season routine and the most productive pre-competition routine, because the goals, methods, structure, diet etc. are completely different.
I have only seen his pre-olympia routine and his routines that he wrote in his HD books
I understand that he worked for nautilus in the 70s, but i do not know what his routine was during that time…gonna assume fullbody 3x/week as thats how Jones supposedly trained his peoples
I have the book Mike Mentzers Complete Book of Weight Training…
Chapter 27 shows his routine, which is a split…not sure how productive this routine was as the book was published in 1982 and we all know he went downhill after the olympia
I think that MM was one of those guys who could grow just looking at barbell/exercise machine (not mentioning copious amounts of drugs he used as Scott told us several times). As Jack Neary once joked, 'When Mentzer had 14 1/2-inch arms, he was only three years old and probably didn’t do much of anything for them anyway". He was born to be big, he had large wrists and long muscle bellies. Besides, I suspect, he had mostly FT muscle fibers in his whole body - that’s the reason he preferred to train hard, briefly and infrequently., losing strength with more volume and frequency
