[.ca] High-Intensity Training the Mike Mentzer Way (ISBN 0071383301)

a logical approach to training:
its another great book by the legendary mike mentzer.his advice is full of logic and his is the only rational voice in bodybuilding. a reviewer with a stupid name showed his dismay at the picture showing mentzer reading a newspaper.it shows the usual concrete bound mentality that scoffs at any mention of the terms logic,reason or philosophy in a bodybuilding magazine or anywhere.he again whines that it is no big deal reading descartes or kant.well,mike didn't read to showoff his erudition the way scumbags like u do.and what does the comparison with arnold's stupid degree mean.with the current low standards in academia any fool can get a degree.how in the hell can u compare a business degree to philosophy.philosophy is the most abstract subject there is and MBA means just that:master of bull and advice.the reviewer is completely unaware of mike's revolutionary contributions to exercise science.so what that he didn't have a phd.neither did plato or aristotle.i have a masters degree in philosophy(cum laude),but i know it's worth.it belongs in a dustbin along with your stupid,cynical review.

The Only Way to Train that Makes Sense:
I trained inconsistently for about 13 years from the age of 18 to the age of 31. I used the usual volume approach which is taught in the bodybuilding magazines and most of the bodybuilding books. At the age of 32 I finally decided to get serious about training. I found that I reached a plataeu after about 1 1/2 years of steady training in which I hardly missed a single workout. I was eating well and doing the things that the bodybuilding magazines teach (i.e. multiple sets per exercise, multiple exercises per bodypart, 60 to 90 seconds of rest between sets, ect.) yet my strength virtually ceased to make any progress. I was at a complete loss when I decided to look up Clarence Bass on the Internet. He is a well known bodybuilding author. He suggested Mike Mentzer and his training methods to all those seriously interested in making continued progress in bodybuilding. After trying Mike Mentzer's training methods for 6 months, I am convinced that this is the best way to train. I am now back on the road to continued gains in strength and muscular size. I would reccomend Dorian Yates also as a source of information (you can order his books thru this web site). Yates won 6 Mr. Olympia's using the Mike Mentzer high intensity system.

It'll work---for a couple of months:
There's a reason why High Intensity Training has pretty much fallen by the wayside. The number of people doing HIT is in decline. If you visit Cyberpump, the website dedicated to HIT training, the number of members who no longer do HIT apppears to be steadily increasing. Stuart McRobert's Hardgainer Magazine (the bible of low volume high intensity training) is even ceasing publication Why is this? Well, it's because HIT does not work well as a long term training methodology. After a relatively brief period of time all the training to failure and beyond burns you out. And you often reach a point where you need more volume. It doesn't have to be a lot of volume, ala Arnold. But, it needs to be more than your one set to failure routine. I've lifted for close to thirty years with good success and no significant problems, and I've tried every method. Anything will work for a couple of months. You can't comment on how effective Mentzer's methods are unless they've worked for a year or more. There are no original ideas in Mentzer's work. It's all recycled Nautilus/Arthur Jones stuff. Why Mentzer is held in such esteem is beyond me. All he did is take Jones's stuff and declare that it was still too much volume , and water it down. The problem wasn't that it was too much volume, it was that every set went to failure. If you don't go to failure all the time you don't fry your nervous system, you can do more volume, you gain mass and strenth better, and you can make progress longer. If you do very low volume and high intensity you will gain for a few months and hit a wall. When you hit the wall, the Mentzer/HIT crowd will tell you you must be doing too much, even though you're hardly doing anything all ready. This idea that muscles take weeks to recover from weight training is just plain and simple physiologically wrong. It will lead you to train in a way that in the long run will not be productive, and you may become frustrated and give up. About 90% of people give up weight training because they don't get the results they expect. Books like this one are a big part of the problem. Use these methods for a short term cycle, like 6 weeks or so, every once in a while, to change things up a bit. But, this is not going to be a long term way of training for most people. Even Dorian Yates, who some of the other reviewers talk about, only used these methods for a few weeks before going back to his old methods. Yates used to make fun of Mentzer for saying that Yates trained with Mentzers methods, because it really wasn't true.

In the end, it doesn't really matter.:
Yes, Mentzer's way is more efficient, with shorter workouts and longer time off, but the results soon plateau,(as with -any- method), and this way is really difficult to tough out during those times. Many trainees have had great strength improvement without the muscle they hoped for, and of course , Mike was on steroids when he looked good. Athletes will still have to spend tons of time on metabolic conditioning,(strength-endurance). So: It's not the best for building tissue, not the best for plateau jumping, not the best for athletes, and (although good for strength), not explosive, so not good for strength in competitive lifts. What is it good for? : A 'shot in the arm' for guys are screwed up from over-training,(Mentzer is the product of much volume before discovering this method). and guys without much time. Any system properly executed will keep injuries to a minimum, BUT it's worthwhile to note that Dorian Yates is probably the most injured top physique star ever. If the top exponent of a method can't keep form well enough to avoid injury, can you?

Informative, but arrogant and insulting:
Hello. Thank you for reading my review. This book is informative and most people entering the "iron game" will find it helpful. I don't think the late, great, Mike Mentzer controlled the content of the book too much, however. Unfortunately, the author goes off on how Mr. Mentzer was black-balled because he did not participate in the scam that is and was the "mainstream" bodybuilding market. This group recommends almost every unproven supplement, and features training articles written by genetic freaks that ingest steroids, human growth hormone, diuretics, fat burners, etc. (Some even have column discussing drug "stacks"). With all of those drugs, an athlete can train far more frequently and longer than a drug free individual. That is a fact. Mr. Mentzer stepped outside this groupthink and said that you don't need to train as freqeuntly or for as long as other athletes in his era were. Mr. Little implies that this cost Mentzer the opportunity to reach the upper echelon of the sport. He provides no evidence for this insidous charge, and then proceeds to condemn most of the other pro athletes of his generation. Mr. Little even shows a picture of Mr. Mentzer reading a newspaper with a caption that describes how Mr. Mentzer reads to stay informed about things outside of the gym! What is that?? Further, he talks about Mentzer reading Kant and Descartes. So. I read those books and I'm not particularly intelligent. Helpful, interesting and even enjoyable, yes, but reading philosophy doesn't make you smarter than someone else. The not-too-subtle implication was that the other elite bodybuilders of Mentzer's era were stupid. Are you kidding me?? During their pro careers, Arnold got his business degree and became a very successful real-estate investor, Franco Columbo became a doctor, and Serge Nubret was a successful actor in France. (Rent or purchase Pumping Iron for more information. Mike Katz was a school teacher and great father). Also, Mr. Little talks about Mentzer's good looks and how that was a first for a professional bodybuilder. ??? Nubret was a legend for his appearance, and Arnold and Franco were pretty handsome, too. As for the traing information. It's all widely already known: You should not train longer than an hour in each session, because you cease producing growth hormone after that. You should only work a body part no more than twice a week. Smaller muscles require less sets that larger muscles. Slow execution on each exercise. Arnold, Franco, and all of the other greats trained more, but it worked! Of course the average person can't train like a professional, but this is common sense. I can't throw a baseball for nine innings at 95+ m.p.h. like Roger Clemens, either. Avail yourself of the copious amount of information on the Internet, magazines, the library, and of course Amazon.com to assist you. Also, ask other bodybuilders questions. Most people are honored when someone seeks out their opinions. Thank you again for reading my review. R.I.P. Mr. Mentzer