Hypertrophy Buff Dudes do Mentzer
- Thread starter watchnerd
- Start date
bluejeff
Level 7 Valued Member
There's always a battle in my mind between the idea of abbreviated sessions with the potential for great gains, and the desire to train more frequently because I like to train. Mentzer's style of HIT, as well as HIIT (for cardio) appeal for the former reason, but I can never get past wanting to do the movements I like more often because of how they make me feel.
P.S.- in light of recent threads, I am little surprised we don't have a "hypertrophy" topic label around here yet
P.S.- in light of recent threads, I am little surprised we don't have a "hypertrophy" topic label around here yet
watchnerd
Level 8 Valued Member
P.S.- in light of recent threads, I am little surprised we don't have a "hypertrophy" topic label around here yet
watchnerd
Level 8 Valued Member
There's always a battle in my mind between the idea of abbreviated sessions with the potential for great gains, and the desire to train more frequently because I like to train. Mentzer's style of HIT, as well as HIIT (for cardio) appeal for the former reason, but I can never get past wanting to do the movements I like more often because of how they make me feel.
P.S.- in light of recent threads, I am little surprised we don't have a "hypertrophy" topic label around here yet
When one considers all the pre-exhaustion and warm up sets, I'm not sure Mentzer's routine is truly abbreviated.
LukeV
Level 7 Valued Member
I've always lifted alone so never required or even really appreciated the benefit of a companion or spotter but two new members of my gym have got me thinking. They always attend together, similarly attired, with knee sleeves, elbow sleeves, wrist straps and headbands. I estimate each at max ~12% body fat but with minimal muscle tone. They religiously hoop and holler to motivate and always chalk up. They refer to each other as "bro". The spotter cries out "you can do it" and "c'mon, c'mon, c'mon" before leaping into action with loud grunts when there's about eight or so reps in reserve. And there's always shrill cries and high fives when a set is completed. I can see what I'm missing
LukeV
Level 7 Valued Member
If it was Stuart McRobert who invented the phrase "abbreviated training" his recommended workouts were a country-mile from Mentzer's HIT. Abbreviated training was somewhere on a spectrum from Schwarzenegger to Mentzer, but definitely not single set, not to failure and not infrequent in the way HIT came to be advocated. It's been a long time since I read Brawn but I recall the recommendation as a single workout for each muscle group, around three sets, around 8+ reps, not to failure, about twice a week. So definitely not HIT, but definitely not Schwarzenegger eitherThere's always a battle in my mind between the idea of abbreviated sessions with the potential for great gains, and the desire to train more frequently because I like to train. Mentzer's style of HIT, as well as HIIT (for cardio) appeal for the former reason, but I can never get past wanting to do the movements I like more often because of how they make me feel.
P.S.- in light of recent threads, I am little surprised we don't have a "hypertrophy" topic label around here yet
John Grahill
Level 8 Valued Member
Mike Mentzer had many approaches to HIT. As did Dorian Yates. Frankly its supposed inventor Arthur Jones did too.
If interested in HIT type training I'd suggest reading " Body By Science" by Dr. Doug Mcguff and John Little.
If interested in HIT type training I'd suggest reading " Body By Science" by Dr. Doug Mcguff and John Little.
John Grahill
Level 8 Valued Member
Yup. Wasn't he a big believer in the 2 to 3 sets of dips or benches, 2 to 3 sets of rows or chins and 1 set of 20 squats done twice a week or something to that effect?
John Grahill
Level 8 Valued Member
Depends on how you look at it. I don't have it in front of me but his initial "Heavy Duty" but I believe it was warming up for the compound movement then hitting say the fly movement followed by your workset with an incline. He believed this initial effort sufficiently warmed up the body and subsequent exercises didn't need a warm up. Took about 15 to 20 minutes maximum. He was constantly tweaking his programs and eventually added rest days, shortened workouts and eventually came up with a consolidated workout wherein you did dips and deadlifts one workout and chins and squats another.
3letterslong
Level 6 Valued Member
He usually added pull-overs and SLDLs after the squats. He had a few routines, some with more exercises, some with less. His philosophy was to use the amount of exercises that would let you gain strength, even if it was just two, and to slowly eke up the poundage over time, even if you needed to add 1/4 lbs washers to the bar as you ended a cycle. John Christy carried on his ideas. It's really interesting to read both their works.
Requires a haha and sad emoji.
Your boy Doc Mike is similar here.
John Grahill
Level 8 Valued Member
Yes sir I believe you're right. I have "Beyond Brawn" somewhere, I should go look for it. Was an interesting read.
Bill Lets
Level 6 Valued Member
For those more interested in Mike Mentzer you can check out JOHN HEART MR AMERICA YouTube channel. He was trained by Mentzer and did his consultations after Mike died for around 14 years along with Mentzer’s wife until she passed and Mentzer.com came to and end. If you check out John’s channel and don’t like the content don’t blame me. Just saying.
Adachi
Level 7 Valued Member
This one is a deep cut.
bluejeff
Level 7 Valued Member
I confess to not having read any of Mentzer's work. I've watched a video or two, and read some articles. I guess I was under the impression that (also according to the video in the OP) each exercise had only one or two warm up sets, followed by the all-out set. So my impression was that it ended up being three sets-ish per exercise. Unless you're doing three sets per head of the tricep or something like that, it doesn't seem that long? That's two exercises for chest/triceps, legs (squat/leg press, extensions) , back/biceps, hinge (say DL and then reverse hypers or somesuch), and shoulders (could be lateral raises and military press). By alternating upper and lower body, you'd only have something like six sets per training session. At least that's what I'm picturing.
Edit: even if you consolidating all that into 2-3 sessions per week, you're only doing 6-12 sets per session, which is well within the range typical SF programs have for a total session.
Adachi
Level 7 Valued Member
In his own words - it's as much warm-up as you need to perform, in order to make the most of the single top work set.
that's in the right neighborhood as far as his demonstrations go.
one warmup and top set per muscle group. I haven't seen him work a separate head separately in the same workout. either on video or in writing.
That's in the right neighborhood. He described his own workouts and the workouts he prescribed to his clients to be something like 2 hours a week. 2 sessions of an hour, each. or 4 30-minute session. but he went as low as 1 hour per week in the gym, leaning on compound movements even harder in the program design.
watchnerd
Level 8 Valued Member
That's the kicker.
I can't get to max effort on a top set with just 1-2 warm up sets.
I need like 5 (or more if lower body), 2 actual warm ups, and then another 3 or so of getting progressively heavier.
Maybe one can get away with 1-2 warm up sets if one is a newbie, but if you're a newbie, you don't need HIT.
Adachi
Level 7 Valued Member
In one of the video clips I've seen of Mentzer demonstrating - as coach - the trainee took about 5 sets to prepare for the top set. The last one was a single with a close weight, to the work set. As far as I can tell - there is no specified number of warm-up sets.