Mike Mentzer’s Intensity for Density Training
Welcome to this addition of the FitBit brought to you by Phaze One Fitness and me, your host Jerry Bacall. This season we’ll be switching gears and concentrating on putting your gains in overdrive. Much like Season 1, we’ll be reminding you of the importance of the mind in training, as that is one of the foundational concepts of this program.
We’ll also be taking a trip back in time to discuss the popular training principle introduced by Mike Mentzer known as Heavy Duty. In 1978, Mentzer won the Mr. Universe in Acapulco, Mexico with the first and only perfect 300 score. He became a professional bodybuilder after that ‘78 Universe win. In late ‘79, Mentzer won the heavyweight class of the Mr. Olympia, again with a perfect 300 score. But Mentzer wasn’t just a bodybuilder. He was one of the first to promote philosophy in bodybuilding along with his high intensity principles.
Throughout Season 2, Phaze One Fitness will be visiting the different high intensity training principles used by Mentzer and his predecessor Arthur Jones, the inventor and developer of Nautilus equipment. Nautilus was designed around full range, variable resistance, high intensity, short duration workouts intended to completely fatigue the muscle from origin to insertion.
The Nautilus cam, the brilliant design of Arthur Jones, got its’ name because of its’ resemblance to the Nautilus shell. For all you marine biologists in the audience, a nautilus is a highly evolved mollusk. Jones acknowledged that the muscle is generally tapered in shape with the main density in the middle of the muscle and a taper as it nears the origin and the insertion. Based on that, Jones acknowledged that the muscle has it greatest strength where the muscle fiber is most dense, and lesser so, where the density decreases.
Therefore, the design of the cam, both in size and actual shape, works directly with the muscle being affected. With the variable resistance, a safe, effective intensity can be achieved while moving the muscle through its full range of motion from pre-stretched to full contraction.
Additionally, Nautilus compound machines, where two exercises for the same muscle group are performed in immediate succession, are designed to go from a single joint motion to a double joint motion. The design is to warm one joint at a time. Example….For the chest, the initial exercise is a chest fly, working only the shoulder joint and then moving to a press movement actuating both the shoulder and elbow. The same holds for shoulders, back, and legs.
Season 2 will also contain Tips and Tricks that the pros use to give that bit of an edge to an exercise as to gain the most benefit. What you’ll see, is at the elite levels of fitness, it’s a game of inches rather than miles. The tiniest changes in form can accelerate gains far beyond what you would imagine.
So let’s kick it off with a few of Mike’s basic principles which led to his success. Mentzer took the bodybuilding concepts developed by Arthur Jones and attempted to perfect them. Through years of study, observation, knowledge of stress physiology, the most up-to-date scientific information available, and careful use of his reasoning abilities, Mentzer devised and successfully implemented his own theory of bodybuilding. Mentzer's theories are intended to help a drug-free person achieve his or her full genetic potential within the shortest amount of time.
As we discussed in Season One, and I will continually remind my listeners, success in any venture that takes place over a period of time should always be viewed as a function of goal over time. To put it simply, success should always be determined by making the greatest amount of gains over the shortest period of time. If you reached a goal in a year that you could’ve realistically achieved in 6 months, were you really successful. Sure, you were successful in the fact that you did achieve your goal, but that success is diluted because you could have reached that same goal in half the time with a different mindset.
Mentzer insisted that weight training had to be brief, infrequent, and intense, to obtain the best results in the shortest amount of time. This regimen is based on working the muscles, maintaining perfectly strict form, while moving the weights in a slow and controlled manner, working the muscles to complete failure, both in the positive and negative movement. For those of you who are not sure about “positive and negative” ….the positive movement puts the muscle into contraction while the negative movement takes it out of contraction.
Again, Mentzer believed the formula for maximum gains was very high intensity, very brief, and infrequent workouts. Understanding that intensity can be a relative term, you may think that your workouts are in fact intense. And for your level of training and skill set you may be correct. However, if you were to watch a Mentzer training routine you would probably conclude that your workouts aren’t quite as intense as you felt they were. Again, that’s fine, but for maximum gains you should be constantly testing the intensity of your workouts always looking to increase it, but never sacrificing form, and keeping the body part workouts less frequent, to avoid overtraining and injury.
As we move along in this season, we’ll investigate what else Mentzer has to offer with his Heavy-Duty training system, and we’ll also be discussing the diet that it takes to fuel these intense workouts. Hint: it may not be as drastic as you think.
Thanks for tuning into this edition of the FitBit brought to you by Phaze One Fitness. If you have any questions or comments, please email us at info@phazeonefitness.com and I will be happy to respond. Join us again when we’ll be digging deeper into Mentzer’s training and diet. Until then, I’m Jerry Bacall wishing you success and above all please stay safe and healthy.