You see Mentzer created quite a lot of commotion with his Heavy Duty training articles. Mike said that all bodybuilders were overtraining and this was slowing down their progress, and while most bodybuilders like Arnold were training for 2 or more hours a day 6 days a week and doing 20 or more sets per body part, Mike.
High Intensity Training, Heavy Duty, Mike Mentzer and Arthur Jones FREE HIGH INTENSITY TRAINING NEWSLETTER Bodybuilding / Health / Fitness weekly e-mail tips, stay informed and stay motivated, join today! Sign up free by sending an e-mail to High Intensity Training, Heavy Duty, Mike Mentzer and Arthur Jones Arthur Jones gave us the original theory of HIT. His three truths include: Training must be intense enough to trigger the growth mechanism, meaning forcing the muscle to grow because you have subjected it to stress it could not perform, i.e. Because of this intense stress, the workload (training session) must not exceed the body’s ability to recover, so the workouts must be short. Because every workout is so stressful, they must be infrequent to allow sufficient time for full recovery. Mike Mentzer made a major contribution to the advancement of HIT with his theories of Heavy Duty Training, and with his discovery of genetics and their relationship of exercise tolerance.
Due to the resurgence of rest/pause training, we present the following excerpt from Mike Mentzer's Heavy Duty Journal. The concept is thought provoking and innovative. When you buy The Wisdom of Mike Mentzer eBook in bulk. With his revolutionary 'Heavy Duty' system, Mike Mentzer changed the way bodybuilders train. Mike Mentzer has 11 books on Goodreads with 840 ratings. Mike Mentzer’s most popular book is High-Intensity Training the Mike Mentzer Way.
This logical next truth helped us understand that no single workout program or schedule can fit all weight trainers. We now introduce the next ' truths' of HIT allowing you, for the first time, to know and understand the whole truth about HIT. Added to the first four comes. Since muscle grows from origin and insertion, every rep must be full range stretch and contraction, controlled and deliberate.
Half reps, excessive momentum and cheating do NOTHING to stimulate full muscular growth. Remember, we want full, complete stimulation of all muscle fibers, not just some. Recent studies have shown the eccentric movement (resisting the weight) actually stimulates more muscle fiber than concentric, and since adding negatives on a regular basis to our workouts. Well, my leg press has gone up four plates in just four training sessions. Some, like Mentzer, say that nutrition isn’t that important and others, like Chris Aceto, suggest it is the most important aspect of training. Well, the last truth is that training and nutrition are two wheels of the same cart.
Both wheels and the cart roll forward. It doesn’t matter which wheel (training or nutrition) you take off, the cart goes nowhere.
So, to review the truths of High Intensity Training, • Train your muscle to failure (and occasionally beyond) to force new growth in your body in response to a need.• Design a program that is short and focused. Why is there no mile sprint? Because sprinters run with 100% intensity and cannot maintain that intensity for long distances. Neither can you train for two hours with this intensity.
My max is about 40-45 minutes.• Train each bodypart no more than once a week to allow sufficient rest and growth between training sessions.• Each of us has differences in our ability to recover from HIT. If you find yourself making little or no progress, you are probably over training, THE biggest problem in bodybuilding today.• Keep every rep strict and controlled. Do not bounce, swing or stop short of either full stretch or full contraction.• Slow your pace when resisting a weight and use eccentric movement to recruit the most muscle fibers.• Spend as much time planning your eating program as you do your training program. Use as much discipline at the table as you do in the gym. For more tips on High Intensity Training subscribe to our free newsletter.
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Mike Mentzer's Lost Heavy Duty Training • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • December 31, 2017 Mike Mentzer's Lost Heavy Duty Training By Paul Becker of TrulyHuge.com While many people know the basics of Heavy Duty training, the advanced techniques are known by only a few. The advanced and super advanced techniques were fully researched and tested by Mike in the late 70's, but following the infamous 1980 Mr.
Olympia, Mike retired from competition. After that he worked as a personal trainer and concentrated on what works best for beginners and intermediates. And so Heavy Duty for advanced and super advanced trainees became all but lost, even though Mike made the best gains of his life using these techniques. Climbing The Ladder Of Intensity Mike knew that, as a bodybuilder grew bigger and stronger, he would eventually require an even more intense training stress if he hopes to continue progressing.
If the stress is not more intense he will stagnate and stay at the same level of size and strength. Beginners For beginners starting a weight training program is a huge leap in intensity from not training, and this is why they make such rapid gains at first. To keep progressing they can simply keep increasing the weights and decreasing the rest periods between sets. When they stop making gains this way they are ready for the next level of intensity. Intermediates At this stage a more intense stress is required, this is be done by using Pre-Exhaustion sets, for example a set of Leg Extensions to failure followed by a set of Leg Press (or Squats) to failure. Also forced reps and negatives to go beyond the point of positive failure can be occasionally used.
These techniques will carry someone into the advanced level, Mike reached this point and using these techniques he was unable to get bigger or stronger, this forced him to do further research into the highest levels of intensity. Advanced At this level Mike found that he was so strong and his willingness to work at maximum effort was so high that each rep of a set was so intense that oxygen debt and lactic acid build up was practically immediate and severe enough that he was forced to stop due to cardiovascular limitation rather then because he reached a point of actual muscular failure. He looked for a way that he could do even more intense reps while at the same time slowing the build up of lactic acid and the onset of oxygen debt in his muscles. The way he did this was to do his own version of Rest Pause training, he used a weight that would allow him to do one all out maximum rep, then rested for 10 seconds, this would give enough time for his muscle to clear out waste products and bring new fuel and oxygen so he could do another all out rep. After the second rep and another 10 seconds rest he would have his training partner help him do another all out rep, or he would reduce the weight by 20%.
He would then rest 15 seconds and do his last all out rep. This was considered one set, with each and every rep of the set being an all out effort. 1 Mike Mentzer Set = 1st Max Rep + 10 Second Rest + 2nd Max Rep + 10 Second Rest + 1 More All Out Rep or Reduce Weight By 20% And Do The Rep + 15 Second Rest + Final Rep An example rest pause workout that Mike would do for his chest was Pec Deck 1 set of 4 Rest Pause reps, Incline Bench Press 1 set of 4 Rest Pause reps and Dips (Negative only style) 1 set of 5 reps. Mike then had to ask himself what could be more intense then Rest Pause training? Super Advanced Heavy Duty Mikes next step up the ladder of intensity was what he called Infitonic training; he followed each maximum positive rep of a Rest Pause set with a maximum negative Rep. He had his training partner push down a little on the negative and he would fight to resist it, lowering it as slowly as possible.
He then rested 15 seconds before his next maximum positive and negative rep. The very highest level of Heavy Duty he called Omni-Contraction training, meaning all contraction. There are three ways a muscle can contract, that is lifting a weight (positive), lowering a weight (negative) and holding a weight (static). In Omni-Contraction training Mike would make each a maximum effort.
He would do his one all out maximum positive rep, followed by a maximum negative, but during the negative he would stop the weight and actually try to raise the weight again (which was impossible). He would do these static holds at three different points during the negative rep, the first was at the top, close to the fully contracted position, the second was halfway down and the third was close to the bottom position. Each position was held for a count of 3. The Results Mike and his brother Ray used these advanced and super advanced techniques in the summer of 1979 and it resulted in Mike gaining 14 pounds of pure muscle in 9 weeks (while losing fat and at an already advanced level of mass and strength), and winning his first pro show beating the likes of Robby Robinson, Danny Padilla and Roy Callendar. While Ray was able to improve so much he walked in and took the Mr. America crown that year.
So maybe, just maybe, if you have tried Heavy Duty and it stopped working it was because you didn't know the higher techniques on your way up the ladder of intensity. Try them for yourself and find out.
This article is dedicated to the memory of Mike Mentzer, whether right or wrong he sure made us think. Paul Becker's Truly Huge ebook Would you like to have TRULY HUGE MUSCLES IN SIX MONTHS OR LESS? Can you imagine holding in your hands, the program that actually guarantees you will be?
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