I don’t put much stock in things written about someone after their death. I think Mentzer wrote a lot about consolidated routines etc but I tend to think his most productive routine was the one he was doing when I watched him train at Spartan Gym. It was a basic go from one Nautilus machine to the next very quickly , using the whole stack on each and pushing it with some help to do forced reps. He was a huge as I ever saw him! I could be completely wrong but I tend to think much of his later writings were great in theory but untested by him.
Scott
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You pretty much echo my own thoughts Scott.
Mark
Also appeared in Ironman magazine. And lines up with an old high intensity instructional video mike did. Saw it on you tube.
“High Intensity Training the Mike Mentzer Way” is the book that Mentzer was supposedly almost finished with before his death. However, much of the writing feels like a combinations of his older and newer works. I am skeptical how much of it was ‘new’ really, but if you want an available paperback of a decent all around “Mentzer writing” it’s pretty good. I do see it new on Amazon for only $15.45.
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I like it better than HD2. There is more about contest prep,alternate exercises,and lots of pictures. I think a better explanation of intensity techniques such as rest pause,negatives ect.
There was an exercise change in the shoulders and arms day. He took out curls and added pulldowns.
I think it makes that day well rounded as far as the upper body. You have pulldowns and dips that day.
So with the chest and back day and the arms and shoulders day your hitting your upper body well.
Btw when I was a client we took out the back superset on the chest and back day… He had me just do the pulldown that day.
It was pre-exhaust Pec deck /.incline press
Pulldown
Deadlift.
Those are basically the routines in his old pamphlets, except for the Biceps…
Mike’s reasoning for keeping the second pre-ex move low repped was the muscle was already warmed up, so he didn’t see the logic in warming up all over again. He wanted to “get it while it’s hot”! (MM)
What spacing did Mike have you on dips-rule?
every 4th day to start
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Thanks! I see great value in 3 days rest between workouts. It’s become my norm.
.He wanted to keep the duration of the set lower if it was pre-exhaust. This is why one 1-3 reps for incline press. 3-5 on the dips after the pressdown.
He thought it was more anaerobic that way. Not because of a warm up. He just did not want to warm up to be excessive
.
The warm was to be done on the compound movement. Warm up on the incline press. No need to warmup on the pec-deck.
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I envy you spoke with Ray, dips_rule, he’s almost the “unspoken” Mentzer brother…literally. Any more you can add about your interaction?
No the is pretty much it except for some of it was personal not meant to be put online. At least my part.
OK thanks, understood.
on the contrary:
http://boiseexperiment.com/HeavyDuty/
If anyone has seen better results in that little time in two ADVANCED trainees that didn’t involve anabolic steroids, I’d sure like to see it.
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Believable ???
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Wow, a lot of information in the write up of this experiment , it’ll take me a week to figure it out, ha ha .
Scott
After reading the background material on the two subjects, that may be a little misleading:
BigAndy and RonnieB have work and families that have taken center stage these days, while workouts come around only when there is extra time left in the day. In the initial interview with BigAndy he said “We are out of shape now, and want to see if we can’t make some CRAZY progress!!"
So maybe you have former athletes, now out of shape, who are rebuilding muscle they previously had carried. Muscle memory seems to be a pretty well accepted phenomena.
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Impressive muscular gains , but a fair amount of fat gained as well , just by looking at his arms, waist and head.
Was this additional muscle gained , new or regained ?
The fact that it goes against so many people i know personally who knew HIT/Heavy Duty inside out and had negative results from Mentzer’s Consolidation Routine means that I remain a little sceptical about this .
But by the same token if legitimate, then it shows that such a routine can benefit some people.
Mark
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I haven’t read the results carefully but just skimming through them I did see muscle memory and regained muscle mentioned several times. It is interesting how so many of these Colorado type experiments are using subjects that are regaining size they previously had. I can’t say that’s the case here but I’m wondering if it is? Maybe someone who can absorb all the info in this experiment better than me can answer this?
Scott