Mike Mentzer was right about everything

Mike Mentzer was right about everything

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  1. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Unironically yes, but Yates was better

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      finally a good thread followed by a good post
      what's going on here don't tell the newbies how to actually get gains....

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      404 chest and bis not found

  2. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Elaborate

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous
  3. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >dead at 49

    Maybe using toxic levels of roids for 20 years wasnt actually right

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      How are you supposed to go until failure on exercises if you work out alone? Doing curls and OHP until failure is pretty easy but how are you supposed to squat/bench until complete failure?

      The meth probably didn't help either.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >How are you supposed to go until failure on exercises if you work out alone?
        By spending less time on compound lifts and more on machines and dumbbells.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Technical failure is good enough. You don't need to keep going until you drop the bar on yourself.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Going to failure often is fricking moronic if you are natty. I hate roidtrannies giving out shitty advice. Only roidtrannies can go to failure every workout and benefit from it. Natties will need a week to recover in some cases, just not worth it. Better to do a moderately-high volume (not roid-troony level extreme high volume) at a light-medium intensity.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >Only roidtrannies can go to failure every workout and benefit from it.
          This is not true at all.
          >need a week to recover in some cases
          Yeah. If you're doing so much damage to your body that you need a week of rest, then take a week of rest.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >Natties will need a week to recover in some cases
          So what's wrong with going until failure and then resting 5-7 days? Don't the HIT guys recommend that you only work out 2 days a week if you're natty?

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            I've been doing full body once every 5 days. Works great. Soon I'll switch to once every 6.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              Very interesting! How long have you been lifting seriously prior to changing to 1 workout every 5 days? Do you workout for maintenance or did you see any gains? Do you do any other exercise the rest of the week?

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                7 years. That's not to say that I've made seven years' worth of progress. Most of that time was spent spinning my wheels, doing more volume than my body could handle. This past summer I cut down the volume and started taking every set to failure, and have put on 15 pounds since.
                I do see gains on this full body program. I've been hitting PRs on every exercise for almost every session for the last 5 months.
                The only other exercise I do during the week is low-intensity stuff like hiking, easy swimming, etc.
                Thanks for the questions.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                Maybe you can post routine?

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                Not that anon but see

                >What's your schedule for that day?
                I have my exercises organized in a push pull leg order, so each muscle is getting ~10 minutes or so of rest. Every muscle gets covered every session.
                In order,
                Dumbbell Chest Press
                Cable Rows
                Front Squats
                Shoulder Press
                Lat Pullovers
                RDLs
                Incline Dumbbell Chest Press
                Curls
                Calves
                Dips
                Waiter Curls
                Situps
                OHTEs
                Upright Rows
                Reverse Curls

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              Full body HIT 5 times a week?

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                I think anon meant 1 workout EVERY 5 days

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                I can't read

                I've been doing full body once every 5 days. Works great. Soon I'll switch to once every 6.

                What's your schedule for that day? Do you only do a single exercise per muscle group or do you do a variation in order to hit all the muscles in larger muscle groups?

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >I can't read
                It's ok mate, it happens to me too. I think IST has affected my reading comprehension since I am reading too fast, essentially "scanning" the text lmao

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >What's your schedule for that day?
                I have my exercises organized in a push pull leg order, so each muscle is getting ~10 minutes or so of rest. Every muscle gets covered every session.
                In order,
                Dumbbell Chest Press
                Cable Rows
                Front Squats
                Shoulder Press
                Lat Pullovers
                RDLs
                Incline Dumbbell Chest Press
                Curls
                Calves
                Dips
                Waiter Curls
                Situps
                OHTEs
                Upright Rows
                Reverse Curls

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                Interesting, if you workout alone how do you know when you've gone close enough to failure? I imagine just one set a week to technical failure wouldn't be enough for most.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                Technical failure is good enough.
                Though, I'm not thinking about hitting failure while I'm doing the set. I'm thinking about hitting a rep goal, which is always one more than what I did the previous session. The progressive overload keeps the intensity high.
                Doing it once a week is good. Beginners could do it more frequently. Advanced lifters need more rest.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                Technical failure is good enough.
                Though, I'm not thinking about hitting failure while I'm doing the set. I'm thinking about hitting a rep goal, which is always one more than what I did the previous session. The progressive overload keeps the intensity high.
                Doing it once a week is good. Beginners could do it more frequently. Advanced lifters need more rest.

                It wasn't the technical failure part, but the amount that you were asking about, wasn't it?
                Yes. Just one set is enough. Think of it like a signal you're sending to your body. Once you've sent the signal, there's no reason to send it again. Sending it again and again costs resources that you'd rather spend on making new muscle.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                What does OHTE stand for?

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                Overhead tricep extension?

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                Yes

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Most people need to go to the gym every day to keep their hormone levels healthy. If you are really active, play sports and so on, then yeah I agree once a week gym is fine. But the average person I assume sits on their ass all day, does no cardio, so once a week gym would do next to nothing, unless troony.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >Only roidtrannies can go to failure every workout and benefit from it. Natties will need a week to recover in some cases, just not worth it.
          Which is fine because doing a 6 day PPL is a roidtroon split anyway.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          I made my best gains running a brosplit going to failure on at least one set every exercise, relatively low volume.
          I then tried a more measured approach of higher volume and concurrent sets x reps, didn't do much for me.
          I think it just depends, people are different.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Some people are definitely more workhorse oriented than others who are more racehorses. Am I gonna tell the guy in this thread that his hamstrings didn't get a lot bigger when he added volume, when he clearly experienced that they did? No way. Nor will I say that one properly executed set isn't enough to stimulate optimal muscle growth for some people, (who are experienced lifters I might add)

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Makes fricking sense if the name of the game is recovery. Wtf are you doing every day in the gym anyways you dumb ass. I bet you sit on your phone for minutes between sets homosexual.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          cope, as long as u dont train to failure u will always be a ngmi

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        machines. weight machines were invented specifically for bodybuilders

        https://i.imgur.com/2JE29XG.jpg

        Mike Mentzer was right about everything

        He absolutely was. and he was ribbed in 1980, its almost comical to look at the pictures now and see how much better he looked than Arnold at the show. I did his HIT for about 6 weeks, and saw stupid gains every week.
        However, I had to stop because I would literally sleep for 12+ hours after each workout and if I didn't eat enough I would get physically ill and have panic attacks. It was interfering with my life and so I went back to being a scruff and working out normally.

        >dead at 49

        Maybe using toxic levels of roids for 20 years wasnt actually right

        Mentzer was pretty scientific about his PEDs, he had a congenital heart defect and his brother had a renal failure also inherited at birth

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          *robbed

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Can I get a QRD on which characteristicsa are contestants judged in Mr. Olympia? In your pic Arnold height and frame mogs him, otoh Mike is leaner and his physique seems to have more symmetry and balance, so depending on the criteria either could take it

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              Size, shape, symmetry, balance. It's very subjective, in the end, so some judges prioritize certain things over others. Also, this was back in olden times, before we had umpteen divisions, so there was less guidance to limit the judges' personal tastes.
              But then again, the Olympia is notoriously political and an embarrassment to the professionalism of the sport.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                Having abs is a good start, with Arnie doesn't, so you can understand why bros were mad.
                Other than that, size, symettery, definition, and proportion and the last is the one thats most important for aesthetics.
                Arnie's got big breasts, big traps, good hams, good delta but his shit don't match up, look at his forearms compared to his upper arms then look at Mike's.
                This is before the mass monster era, where size doesnt beat all.

                Hmm I get it, indeed it becomes clear why people are pissed off at the judges for that one

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              >Height and frame
              Can't be changed through training and diet
              >leanness, symmetry and balance
              Can't be changed through training and doet

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              Having abs is a good start, with Arnie doesn't, so you can understand why bros were mad.
              Other than that, size, symettery, definition, and proportion and the last is the one thats most important for aesthetics.
              Arnie's got big breasts, big traps, good hams, good delta but his shit don't match up, look at his forearms compared to his upper arms then look at Mike's.
              This is before the mass monster era, where size doesnt beat all.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              Arnold sausagepigger gave the judges the best reacharounds.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              >height and frame
              >bodybuilding competition

              this website has melted your brain.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            it politics

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Arnold was better. Watch Total Rebuild or video from the show instead of random pics. In that pic Arnold is relaxed with bad posture lol. Arnold was clearly better when you look at real comparisons and Arnold was a fraction of his 74 form. Now 81 with Franco was some bullshit

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          What was the exact routine you followed?

  4. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Check out Jay Vincent (ignore his book shilling) and Mr. America Heart. Heart was trained by Mentzer and took over his training business for a while after his death. The zoom zooms on youtube don't like it because they're dogmatic and think that if they spend 5 hours a day in a gym eventually a woman will talk to them and let them frick.

  5. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    His principles were spot-on, but I feel that his method of application can be tough to get right consistently, especially without a training partner. Using exclusively a couple of intensity methods and refusing to do more than one set can sometimes limit your ability to produce that growth stimulus.
    I prefer to look at his written work as principles with demonstrative examples rather than prescription.
    Does anyone have that google doc with all of the supporting studies in it? I remember someone came in and posted it in a thread a while back, and I'd like to review a few of them.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Hope this is the right one
      https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRLVvEbt6ynpuBei0AIC0uMtq0v-sOna7FxSOpQ8ZvS2GDyVqlFdeQ7WROKap2VSv67qQOq_8g1XYCP/pub

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Wow, didn't know this existed! Really appreciate it anon

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        That's the one, thanks! I'll be sure to bookmark it this time.

        I think any lifter will be helped by focusing more in controlled reps, time under tension and pushing closer towards failure, but yeah a spotter can make all the difference when you're trying to push yourself. It's an effective program for a lot of people but you would have to be an insanely motivated/disciplined individual to truly, TRULY push yourself to the levels of failure, repeatedly with no rest between sets.

        It really does require a certain mentality. I enjoy intensity-based training a lot, but it's not for everyone.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >When muscle strength decreases by ≤20% immediately after exercise, it is usually restored within 2 days after exercise. By contrast, when muscle strength decreases by ∼50% immediately after exercise, especially for the initial exposure to eccentric muscle contractions, it remains below pre-exercise values at 7 days after exercise”
        This part is very interesting to me. I've been doing a lot of rest-pause training (DC style), so I'm testing strength of a muscle about thirty seconds after failure every session. I usually get half the reps on my second set and a couple less on my third, but I'm still finding that I'm stronger the following week. I wonder if this is just from being adapted to training, compared to the untrained subjects in the study.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          A key concept that is not captured by research studies is that the amount of rest required is not static. It changes over your lifting career. The more advanced you are, the more damage you can do, the more rest you need.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Godlike document
        Could do with a short section on how rep cadence protects against injury. I can't remember if it was Mentzer in Heavy Duty or McGuff & Little in Body By Science, but I've definitely seen the point made that injury is frequently the result of performing reps with momentum - because obviously momentum adds to (or rather, multiplies) the force on the joint when comes time for the muscle to arrest the momentum, and with heavy weight that's a massive amount of greater stress you're putting on the tissues of the joint, not just the muscle itself. Training under control, slowing the eccentric and pausing at the bottom, totally deletes any momentum and thus all that potential for injury entirely
        Also, I'm not sure if the author has read it, or whether he came up with his critiques independently, but the late Dr Ralph Carpinelli published a number of papers ripping apart the volume-based literature. He also published one specifically ripping apart Schoenfeld's meta-analysis. His own recommendations were in line with high intensity principles although I don't believe he advocated for it in name.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Quality post! I am in my late 20s and am getting concerned about future injuries. Even though I do the lifting movements consciously, I sometimes move the weights faster than I should. I think it's a good idea to lift the weights in a slower and controlled fashion and will make sure to do this from now on

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Just read this whole thing, feel like I needed way more rest than 2 days so I’ll try mentzers style

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      I think any lifter will be helped by focusing more in controlled reps, time under tension and pushing closer towards failure, but yeah a spotter can make all the difference when you're trying to push yourself. It's an effective program for a lot of people but you would have to be an insanely motivated/disciplined individual to truly, TRULY push yourself to the levels of failure, repeatedly with no rest between sets.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >Using exclusively a couple of intensity methods and refusing to do more than one set can sometimes limit your ability to produce that growth stimulus.
      Thats why you hit failure, that is the growth stimulus. Hit it once and deplete the muscles then move on.

  6. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Can anyone that is working out using heavy duty method post body? I always wanted to try it out since I have learned about it 3 years ago but I'm too much of a pussy and I have heard that it destroys your central nervous system and you have to rest a shitton to recover.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Here's a pic of myself in natural lighting to honestly present my physique. I don't actually do HIT but I definitely do low volume. A pulldown & a row for back, pec deck for chest, an OHP, cable lateral & reverse pec deck for shoulders, an overhead extension & pushdown for triceps, a preacher curl & hammer curl for biceps, a weighted crunch for abs & a hack squat, leg curl & calf raise for lower body. Over half these exercises are done for just TWO work sets to failure, (one for abs & calves). 3 sets maximum, (& that's from a hard warmup set on rows, hack squats, OHP & triceps with like 5 reps in the tank done to acclimate myself & get my joints feeling 100% ready - some would call it a warmup set but I want to be transparent).
      So not HIT 1 Set training, but rather 2 sets, training a muscle every 4 days, or occasionally 5.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Thanks for explaining everything fren, looking bretty good

  7. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    What rep ranges are recommended for HIT training? Is it the same as powerlifting style training where you go heavy weight for 3-5 reps but with more focus on tempo and time under tension?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Your working set is until failure, which should occur at the earliest at 8 reps, if you can do more than 12 reps before failure then you're not using enough weight. Reps should be very strict, 2-3 seconds on the way up, pause, 2-3 seconds on the way down

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Anything between 5 and 30. I don't think tempo or time under tension are important. Your reps near the end of the set will slow down whether you want them to put not, so you don't need to focus on it. Just make sure that you are always pushing to get one more rep than you did last time.

  8. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    died at 50 from heart problems
    meanwhile Arnold is still alive

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >genetic heart condition
      >runs grams upon grams of deca
      >heart attack at 50
      Seems really obvious to us now, but that's the way it goes.

      A key concept that is not captured by research studies is that the amount of rest required is not static. It changes over your lifting career. The more advanced you are, the more damage you can do, the more rest you need.

      That's why I'm saying it's interesting. These untrained subjects took longer to recover than I do, after training for years. Makes me curious.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >That's why I'm saying it's interesting. These untrained subjects took longer to recover than I do, after training for years. Makes me curious.
        Gotcha

  9. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    HIT training can be disproved with a few basic thought experiments. If one set to failure is good, why not 2? Or 3? 4? Why would 1 set arbitrarily be the most you should do? Or what about going all the way to eccentric failure? How many sets would you do if you were doing that instead? What about people who go into lengthened partials after hitting concentric failure? Are they doing too much even with just 1 set? What about myo-reps? Are the differences between muscles that need less volume (hamstrings) versus ones that need more volume (traps, lats) accounted for?
    >t. 22 sets of horizontal pressing a week, most of them to failure, can recover just fine

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >If one set to failure is good, why not 2?

      If that first set still leaves with you with energy to go for a second it wasn't until failure

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        This is completely incorrect. If you hit muscular failure, meaning you cannot lift the weight anymore, you've hit failure. This does mean that you won't be able to lift the same weight for the same amount of reps again though, one of those values will have to drop as you have damaged your muscular endurance. At the end of both my upper days, I do 3 sets of pause deficit pushups. I could probably do 25+ reps if I was fresh, but because I'm highly fatigued, I can only do 9-10 reps. If you are completely gassed out after 1 set to failure, this means you need to increase your work capacity as it is incredibly weak.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        This is completely incorrect. If you hit muscular failure, meaning you cannot lift the weight anymore, you've hit failure. This does mean that you won't be able to lift the same weight for the same amount of reps again though, one of those values will have to drop as you have damaged your muscular endurance. At the end of both my upper days, I do 3 sets of pause deficit pushups. I could probably do 25+ reps if I was fresh, but because I'm highly fatigued, I can only do 9-10 reps. If you are completely gassed out after 1 set to failure, this means you need to increase your work capacity as it is incredibly weak.

        And to prove my point, when I do incline curls to failure typically the last rep lasts for as long as 7 seconds. There is virtually no way I could get another rep unless I use a ton of cheating with my shoulders or if I rest (which is what I do as I like doing myoreps on these) which means that I have certainly hit true muscular failure. I do 3 sets without any problem despite going to failure 7-9 times because of the myo-reps I do.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >If one set to failure is good, why not 2? Or 3? 4?
      The onus is on the volume crowd to prove why I would need to do more than one set. One set is enough to stimulate muscle growth.
      Let's also not forget, none of the sets are free. They all cost resources, and each one after the first gives you a diminishing ROI on those spent resources.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        One set, no matter if it is to failure or a few reps shy of failure, is not enough to fully stimulate the muscle, since you have not yet hit the baseline of your muscular endurance. As you do sets, your ability to produce force begins to deteriorate due to fatigue, and at a certain point it begins to rapidly drop off. This is when you have done enough work. As an example, in a fresh state one could do an endless amount of pushups (to a point of course). You could do a set of 30, then 29, 28, 28, 27, you get the point. It drops off very slowly. But in a fatigued state, you might get 24, then 22, then 18, then 15. If you were to keep going you would reach the floor, which you can't really go below (EG if you're strong enough there will never be a case where you can't do 5 pushups, it simply isn't possible).

        >Let's also not forget, none of the sets are free. They all cost resources, and each one after the first gives you a diminishing ROI on those spent resources.
        The first part is true, but the latter isn't. One set, while it depletes fewer resources than more sets, also produces less stimulus. You need to strike the balance where you aren't doing so much that the muscle cannot recover in time before the next session, but you also need to do enough so that the muscle overcompensates and becomes stronger. If I were to do one set of chest, even if it was to failure, I would full recover within hours, and because the stimulus was not very great, I wouldn't get much adaptation either. If I do 8 sets instead, I would take more like 60-72 hours to recover, and by the time I get around to my next session my chest would be stronger than before because of overcompensation.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >fully stimulate the muscle
          There's a significant difference in the way that you see muscle building vs how I see it. I see it as a binary question. Has a signal been sent to my body ordering it to build more muscle? Yes or no? If yes, then I don't need to do any more for that muscle during that session. It's time to rest up for the next session. It's like flipping a light switch. When you walk into a room, do you flip the light switch three times? No, there's no point. Just once is enough to allow current to flow.
          The light switch analogy was Mentzer's. Here's one that I made up: Imagine you're in your car, and you see a red light ahead of you, so you stop your car. You successfully received the signal that you should stop. Now imagine that the city had installed three identical traffic signals, one on top of the other. All three turn red, telling you to stop. MAYBE the drivers could receive this signal from further away, so it is technically more effective. However, it cost the city three times as much. Was it really worth it? Definitely not.
          >not yet hit the baseline of your muscular endurance.
          The point of the workout is not to test the limits of the work you can do. The point is to stimulate muscle growth. That's it. There's no need to do any more work once the signal is sent.
          >One set, while it depletes fewer resources than more sets, also produces less stimulus.
          You get the most bang for your buck with the first set.
          >you also need to do enough so that the muscle overcompensates and becomes stronger.
          Yes. You do not need a second set to do this. One is enough to send the signal to your body telling it "Hey, this stressful event occurred. We need more muscle here to deal with the stressful event in the future".
          >If I were to do one set of chest, even if it was to failure, I would full recover within hours
          Would you recover enough to do one more rep than you did on the first set? That doesn't take hours. That takes days, unless you're on drugs.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >Has a signal been sent to my body ordering it to build more muscle? Yes or no? If yes, then I don't need to do any more for that muscle during that session. It's time to rest up for the next session. It's like flipping a light switch. When you walk into a room, do you flip the light switch three times? No, there's no point. Just once is enough to allow current to flow.
            This is not how the body works though. In reality, stimulus is a spectrum. If the stimulus is weak, there will not be an incentive for the body to produce a strong adaptation. If the stimulus is too strong, the body will not be capable of adapting. If you strike the right balance, the body will be able to recover and it will overcompensate.
            >The point of the workout is not to test the limits of the work you can do. The point is to stimulate muscle growth. That's it. There's no need to do any more work once the signal is sent.
            Again, a weak stimulus is not conducive to great amounts of muscle growth. The bodybuilder is a workhouse; in order to accumulate enough stimulus to produce enough growth, he must be able to accumulate very large amounts of high quality tonnage while keep systemic fatigue low.
            >You get the most bang for your buck with the first set.
            This is true however, your most high quality set will be your first set (sometimes second though, as sometimes you may not be fully warmed up and in the groove on your first set). But even though it is slightly more high quality, it doesn't negate the effect of set multiplication that will add much more stimulus for the body to grow.
            (1/2)

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              >stimulus is a spectrum
              correct you fricking dipshit, and once you have achieved true muscular failure your body has gotten the message. if you go to failure 1,000 times in a workout that doesn't mean you are going to get bigger, it means you are going to snap city. that is the point HIT is trying to make.
              once the biochemical signal has been sent saying, "100% of the muscle fibres had to be recruited to lift this load, we need more glycogen in order to repair and grow more fibres", there is literally nothing else your body can do besides wait. lifting past this point is just setting you back due to injury
              lift to failure over and over i dont give a frick but it does LITERALLY nothing

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                Fricking moron, the more you dig into your muscular endurance, the greater the stimulus provided to your body until you hit baseline. There is a reason why we can't just do all out grinder 1RMs on everything, spend 10 minutes in the gym and get insane gains, and there is a reason why nobody does 1 set on every exercise, it's because it's markedly inferior for gains. If it was superior, EVERYBODY WOULD BE FRICKING DOING IT ALREADY. If 1 set was enough, training autists who try literally everything and closely monitor their progress would have already found that reducing their sets down to 1 would give them better gains. But they haven't, look at all the enormous frickers who bench your deadlift and squat combined. They do a LOT more than just one set. The more reps with high amounts of mechanical tension you accumulate, THE STRONGER THE FRICKING BIOCHEMICAL SIGNAL BECOMES, STIMULATING THE BODY TO OVERCOMPENSATE MORE STRONGLY. And besides all this, one set to failure doesn't make a dent in your recovery, meaning if it worked, WE WOULD DO ONE SET EVERY DAY AND GET FRICKING HUGE FROM A 24HR RECOVERY CYCLE.

                Literally all HIT does it keep you small, and if you complain about it other HIT-bros just say you aren't actually hitting failure. Fricking ridiculous.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                why not just lift until your muscle snaps then you stupid c**t, there is obviously a spot where there is no further benefit to muscle fibre growth.
                if you can hit muscular failure every 24 hours on the same muscle then you are drinking a cup of deca a day and i will pray for you
                I do HIT and I do more than one set because i know that I don't hit failure. nothing wront with that, I did legs today and did 3 sets of quad extensions as hard as I could until i felt like I was going to pass out, and on the third set I couldn't even do 1/10th of a rep at the end, there was simply nothing left in the tank for my quads
                I used to be a volumechad as well and I can say with 100% certainty it feels like I just started working out again. the gains are incredible, I actually have doms again, and I feel amazing when I'm done lifting
                do what you want i couldn't care less but you sound dumb as frick and irrationally invested in IST bullshit gl

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >why not just lift until your muscle snaps then you stupid c**t, there is obviously a spot where there is no further benefit to muscle fibre growth.
                Dumbass obviously there is a limit but it's not one fricking set, one set is nothing.
                >if you can hit muscular failure every 24 hours on the same muscle then you are drinking a cup of deca a day and i will pray for you
                If I was doing 1 set on one muscle and that was all I was doing I could do 4 fricking eccentrics past failure and still recover just fine. I do 11 sets of chest TWICE A WEEK WITH 0-2 RIR. And even more than this, 8 of those sets produce immense amounts of stimulus and fatigue due to the absurd stretch I get on my pecs (ATG ring dips and ring pushups) so they fatigue me even more than a set of say bench would. 7 sets a week would be fricking nothing. If you can't recover from that then you have garbage recovery and need to fix it immediately. Even on something heavier like squats, I do 4 sets twice a week typically with just one rep in reserve, and I recover just fine, and this is on top of a frick ton of other leg work. And I still progress just fine with no injuries.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >Has a signal been sent to my body ordering it to build more muscle? Yes or no? If yes, then I don't need to do any more for that muscle during that session. It's time to rest up for the next session. It's like flipping a light switch. When you walk into a room, do you flip the light switch three times? No, there's no point. Just once is enough to allow current to flow.
            This is not how the body works though. In reality, stimulus is a spectrum. If the stimulus is weak, there will not be an incentive for the body to produce a strong adaptation. If the stimulus is too strong, the body will not be capable of adapting. If you strike the right balance, the body will be able to recover and it will overcompensate.
            >The point of the workout is not to test the limits of the work you can do. The point is to stimulate muscle growth. That's it. There's no need to do any more work once the signal is sent.
            Again, a weak stimulus is not conducive to great amounts of muscle growth. The bodybuilder is a workhouse; in order to accumulate enough stimulus to produce enough growth, he must be able to accumulate very large amounts of high quality tonnage while keep systemic fatigue low.
            >You get the most bang for your buck with the first set.
            This is true however, your most high quality set will be your first set (sometimes second though, as sometimes you may not be fully warmed up and in the groove on your first set). But even though it is slightly more high quality, it doesn't negate the effect of set multiplication that will add much more stimulus for the body to grow.
            (1/2)

            >Yes. You do not need a second set to do this. One is enough to send the signal to your body telling it "Hey, this stressful event occurred. We need more muscle here to deal with the stressful event in the future".
            Again, stimulus is not an on/off switch. It's more like the temperature of an oven. Not enough heat, and your food won't cook. Too much, and it burns. Just the right amount, and you get a good meal. Set multiplication is required in order to accumulate enough stimulus for the body to adapt.
            >Would you recover enough to do one more rep than you did on the first set? That doesn't take hours. That takes days, unless you're on drugs.
            I would actually never recover enough to do one more rep than last time, because very little if any overcompensation will occur from just one set. If I do 4 sets however, next session I may be able to add a rep or two, or a little bit of weight.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              >If you strike the right balance, the body will be able to recover and it will overcompensate
              The right balance is one.
              >Just the right amount, and you get a good meal. Set multiplication is required in order to accumulate enough stimulus for the body to adapt.
              This is quite simply untrue. One set IS enough. You should give it a shot yourself.
              >I would actually never recover enough to do one more rep than last time, because very little if any overcompensation will occur from just one set.
              Again, this is untrue. I have been getting an extra rep on just about every exercise since I changed my program from a high volume one to a low volume/high intensity one. Though it also depends somewhat on the rep range. Adding a rep on your 5RM is way harder than adding a rep on your 20RM, and 15-20 reps per set is where I've been training lately.
              >Set multiplication is required in order to accumulate enough stimulus for the body to adapt.
              Set multiplication is not required by any means. All that happens is that you deal more damage to your muscles that your body then has to heal before it can even begin to build new muscle, which was the objective in the first place. Why would you intentionally destroy the old muscle that you worked so hard to build when you don't have to?
              The body is very lazy, and very conservative with it's resources. It is going to adapt in the minimum amount required to deal with the stressful event. It's not going to adapt any "more" by dealing an unnecessary amount of damage to it. By doing all these extra sets, the only thing you've accomplished is to delay when you can do the next session.

              It looks like you agree with me that the first set gets you the most bang for your buck, as it's the most high quality. Hear me out: What if you went into the gym, did one very high-quality, highly stimulative set, rested enough to recover from the set, then came back and did another high-quality set, and repeat? You'd see tremendous results.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >The right balance is one.
                Why would it be one? One is chosen entirely arbitrarily, and it makes no room for differences between individuals, let alone differences between different muscle groups.
                >This is quite simply untrue. One set IS enough. You should give it a shot yourself.
                My chest and hamstrings were lagging muscle groups in the past. Once I began training them through as large a range of motion as possible, while significantly ramping up the volume for them (More so chest as the chest can take more volume than the hamstrings), they began growing extremely rapidly (My hamstrings in particular completely transformed in the space of 2 months, and are now one of my best bodyparts). So no, I don't buy it at all. Plus, there will be one muscle that hits failure on a compound, while the others will still have a few reps in reserve (EG if hypothetically the muscle that failed had infinite stamina, the other muscles would be able to perform X more reps). What does HIT have to say about this? And what about other mostly-neglected muscles, such as the lower traps, infraspinatus, brachioradialis, neck, VMO, adductors, hip flexors, etc? How does HIT account for any of these, as I have never seen a HIT program contain work the adductors, external rotators, brachioradialis, lower traps etc?
                >Again, this is untrue. I have been getting an extra rep on just about every exercise since I changed my program from a high volume one to a low volume/high intensity one. Though it also depends somewhat on the rep range. Adding a rep on your 5RM is way harder than adding a rep on your 20RM, and 15-20 reps per set is where I've been training lately.
                I've been steadily progressing on squats just fine, doing 4 sets twice a week on top of a ton of other leg exercises. Are we both right then?
                (1/2)

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >One is chosen entirely arbitrarily, and it makes no room for differences between individuals
                One is the least arbitrary. It is the minimum. Your recommendation of three or five or whatever number of sets is arbitrary.
                With the HIT methods, the number of rest days are adjusted to account for the individual differences. There are a lot of ways to make a program with the principles, so my opinion isn't the end-all be-all on this.
                >What does HIT have to say about this?
                Same as any other bodybuilding program. Do isolations for muscles not covered by the compounds.
                >I've been steadily progressing on squats just fine, doing 4 sets twice a week on top of a ton of other leg exercises. Are we both right then?
                Sure, why not? I used to make a lot of progress on a high-volume program as well.
                Let me tell you about a little experiment I ran on myself. After I listened to Mentzer's tapes, I didn't believe it either, so what I did was I put myself on the highest amount of volume that I could fit into my weekly PPL schedule. A couple weeks later, I hit the first of many plateaus, as measured by my progress on the first set of the first exercise, which had come to a halt. Upon hitting a plateau, I did one of two things: I either reduced the number of sets on every exercise by 1, or I added 1 rest day into the rotation. I saw this as the minimum alteration to the program needed to see if there was any legitimacy to the whole HIT thing. What happened was that every time I reduced the session volume or added that rest day, I would break through that plateau. My bodyweight had been stuck at 175 for several years before this. 6 months later, I'm at 192, and the crazy thing is that it hasn't felt difficult at all. The change has been miraculous, and my progress isn't slowing down at all. It's like night and day. I feel like I'm making newbie gains again.
                Please consider this experiment yourself. The next time you hit a plateau, consider reducing the volume JUST slightly and see

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >One is the least arbitrary. It is the minimum. Your recommendation of three or five or whatever number of sets is arbitrary.
                >With the HIT methods, the number of rest days are adjusted to account for the individual differences. There are a lot of ways to make a program with the principles, so my opinion isn't the end-all be-all on this.
                You could stop shy of failure; this could be considered a fraction of a set if we standardize all sets to be to failure. But you could also go beyond concentric failure to eccentric failure; is this now still 1 set, or is it something more? Again, not all sets are born equal, so even 1 being the minimum is entirely arbitrary as not all sets are the same.
                >Same as any other bodybuilding program. Do isolations for muscles not covered by the compounds.
                Fair response
                >Sure, why not? I used to make a lot of progress on a high-volume program as well.
                I broke my plateaus by doing MORE volume, not less. My hamstrings didn't grow, so I did more volume. They grew absurdly fast and are now one of my best bodyparts. My lats were stuck for quite awhile. I threw in 3 sets of pullovers and front lever pulls on my lower body days. They're now growing again. My upper back was a weak bodypart of mine during the early parts of my training. I doubled how much I was doing for it, it's no longer one of my weaker bodyparts. Brachioradialis wasn't growing at all, I started doing 3 sets of reverse curls with myo-reps 3 times a week. Now it has improved significantly. My rate of progression on squats wasn't particularly fast or consistent. Threw in one more set on both days while adding more leg volume. Now I'm consistently progressing from session to session.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >You could stop shy of failure; this could be considered a fraction of a set if we standardize all sets to be to failure. But you could also go beyond concentric failure to eccentric failure; is this now still 1 set, or is it something more? Again, not all sets are born equal, so even 1 being the minimum is entirely arbitrary as not all sets are the same.
                Mentzer's response to this was that the intensity threshold that must be met to stimulate growth is not 100%, but possibly only 70 or 80%. The reason for going to failure (I think technical failure is good enough, no need for negatives or any spotter) is that when someone is in the middle of a set, it is impossible for us to determine where the intensity truly is. The only levels we can accurately measure with our bodies are 0% when we're sitting on a couch, or 100%, after taking a set to failure. If we were machines we could accurately measure it like "oh, after that rep, I hit 64.7% intensity, let's do one more". We're not machines, so taking the set to technical failure is just an insurance policy to make sure the intensity is high enough to cause growth.
                >These two are contradictory
                They are not. I do mean it's the most effective, precisely because it makes the best use of your body's resources. Maybe I didn't make myself clear earlier. Each additional set after the first does provide some more stimulus, like you said, but you get diminishing returns. The fatigue, however, keeps going up and up and up. Each set after the first just does not have enough of an ROI to make it worth the time and energy.
                I do think giant sets are also effective, but unnecessary.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >Mentzer's response to this was that the intensity threshold that must be met to stimulate growth is not 100%, but possibly only 70 or 80%. The reason for going to failure (I think technical failure is good enough, no need for negatives or any spotter) is that when someone is in the middle of a set, it is impossible for us to determine where the intensity truly is. The only levels we can accurately measure with our bodies are 0% when we're sitting on a couch, or 100%, after taking a set to failure. If we were machines we could accurately measure it like "oh, after that rep, I hit 64.7% intensity, let's do one more". We're not machines, so taking the set to technical failure is just an insurance policy to make sure the intensity is high enough to cause growth.
                Maybe this could work for more inexperienced lifters, but as you advance you become better and better at tracking how many reps in reserve you have. Most advanced lifters can tell you exactly how many reps in reserve they had on a given set, with maybe a deviation of 0.5 RPE. Also technically concentric failure is not 100% intensity; complete eccentric failure would be. And what about lengthened partials? I've seen some people hit technical failure at rep 15, but continuing with lengthened partials for another 10+ reps. And more than this, 1 set to failure on a short-range movement will not provide the same stimulus and fatigue as a set to failure on a long-range movement because of stretch-mediated hypertrophy. Even if they are the exact same intensity, one produces more stimulus and fatigue while the other produces less. Once again, not every set is born equal, EVEN IF intensity is equalized between the sets being compared.
                (1/2)

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >They are not. I do mean it's the most effective, precisely because it makes the best use of your body's resources. Maybe I didn't make myself clear earlier. Each additional set after the first does provide some more stimulus, like you said, but you get diminishing returns. The fatigue, however, keeps going up and up and up. Each set after the first just does not have enough of an ROI to make it worth the time and energy.
                If you accept that each further set provides more stimulus, then you will grow more from the greater stimulus. The greater fatigue produced from set multiplication is irrelevant until it grows great enough to the point where you cannot recover before the next session; this is a problem with recovery management, either within the training variables (too many sets in this case), or within the outside of training variables (not enough sleep, poor diet, etc). And because you can recover from more than one set within 48-96 hours, even if it is to failure (or even eccentric failure, I do 1 set for my gastrocs 3x a week while getting extremely close to eccentric failure while spending an enormous amount of time in the stretched position. This is a pseudo-form of HIT that I would consider to actually be good since the set incurs so much stimulus and fatigue from going close to eccentric failure that one is sufficient, I would be too sore from a second set to run 3x a week. That being said if I did 2x a week I would do more sets.) HIT is inherently flawed because you could do more sets to get more stimulus and still recover before the next session.
                >I do think giant sets are also effective, but unnecessary.
                They are entirely necessary in many cases if you want to accumulate enough volume. Instead of doing sets on triceps, abs, forearms, upper traps, and rear delts, while resting for 2-3 minutes between each set, you can just go through all of them without any rest and complete the sets while saving as much as 30 minutes.
                (2/2)

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >Set multiplication is not required by any means. All that happens is that you deal more damage to your muscles that your body then has to heal before it can even begin to build new muscle, which was the objective in the first place. Why would you intentionally destroy the old muscle that you worked so hard to build when you don't have to?
                Because your body will not overcompensate due to the lack of a sufficient stimulus. And besides, there is nothing in your body that detects that failure has occurred, the only thing it knows is tension. So why would concentric failure be where you should stop anyway? Would HIT be better if every set was to complete eccentric failure instead? It's still one set after all, it can't be too much.
                >The body is very lazy, and very conservative with it's resources. It is going to adapt in the minimum amount required to deal with the stressful event. It's not going to adapt any "more" by dealing an unnecessary amount of damage to it. By doing all these extra sets, the only thing you've accomplished is to delay when you can do the next session.
                Exactly, it will do the minimum required adaptations needed. Therefore if you only do one set, it does not provide a sufficient stimulus for a strong overcompensation effect. Doing more sets produces a greater stimulus for the body to adapt, and therefore it does, and you get bigger.
                (2/3)

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >It looks like you agree with me that the first set gets you the most bang for your buck, as it's the most high quality. Hear me out: What if you went into the gym, did one very high-quality, highly stimulative set, rested enough to recover from the set, then came back and did another high-quality set, and repeat? You'd see tremendous results.
                I wouldn't, because the stimulus I would receive wouldn't be strong enough. Instead of one set to failure, I can do 8 or more perhaps, and rest for at least 48-96 hours depending on what frequency I have the muscle at, and come back and do it again. I would finish recovering and overcompensating a few hours before the session, while on HIT I would have finished recovering and completing the (small) amount of overcompensation ages ago and I would spend 4-5 days not really doing anything as the muscle has already recovered.

                If HIT is the only way, then explain to me this: How did I go from not being able to go down 1/8th of the way on a nordic curl, to doing full reps easily, when I did 3 sets of nordic curls twice a week, typically with 0-1 reps in reserve, on top of 3 sets of hamstring-dominant hinges twice a week? Surely I would have overreached and my progression would have stalled from all this volume!

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >If HIT is the only way
                I've never said it's the only way. It's the most cost-effective way.
                The most cost-effective way, however, is what I believe to be necessary to reach our genetic potential.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >If HIT is the only way, then explain to me this: How did I go from not being able to go down 1/8th of the way on a nordic curl, to doing full reps easily, when I did 3 sets of nordic curls twice a week, typically with 0-1 reps in reserve, on top of 3 sets of hamstring-dominant hinges twice a week? Surely I would have overreached and my progression would have stalled from all this volume!
                Because when you train pure strength you are training something different.

                Strength has a neurological component to it. If you want to train strength you can literally lift everyday if you'd like so long as the reps are low.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                Neurological ability had frick all to do with it, the difference came from the fact that my hamstrings ballooned in size from the stimulus I was giving them. After just two months they were unrecognizable, and a year later they're one of my best bodyparts when they used to be one of the worst. If instead I tried peaking my nordic curl, in the first few weeks I would have tapped out my potential strength gains from neurological ability, maybe I would get 1/6th of the way down instead of 1/8th before falling. And nordic curls are not particularly technical anyway, so the only explanation is that I got stronger because my muscles got bigger. But how would that happen if I'm "over-reaching" from doing 12 sets of hamstrings a week at 0-1 RIR instead of one or two at 0 RIR?

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                Neurological ability had frick all to do with it, the difference came from the fact that my hamstrings ballooned in size from the stimulus I was giving them. After just two months they were unrecognizable, and a year later they're one of my best bodyparts when they used to be one of the worst. If instead I tried peaking my nordic curl, in the first few weeks I would have tapped out my potential strength gains from neurological ability, maybe I would get 1/6th of the way down instead of 1/8th before falling. And nordic curls are not particularly technical anyway, so the only explanation is that I got stronger because my muscles got bigger. But how would that happen if I'm "over-reaching" from doing 12 sets of hamstrings a week at 0-1 RIR instead of one or two at 0 RIR?

                Plus I did not train low reps, in fact while right now I mostly train in the 5-10 range for nordics I used to do more like 10-15 reps on band assisted nordic curls. Last I checked 10-15 is a very mediocore rep range for strength.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                As an addendum, I think mentzer-bros highly underestimate the recovery capabilities of the body. Even I did myself despite never believing in HIT personally. Recovering for 4-6 days after just ONE set is frankly absurd, the body's recovery capabilities are not remotely this weak. If there are dudes who can run Super Squats without any problems and make enormous gains, "high volume" training (as HIT-bros call it lmao, really it's just training) is not flawed in the slightest

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >Recovering for 4-6 days after just ONE set is frankly absurd, the body's recovery capabilities are not remotely this weak
                One set per exercise. This is about where I'm at right now, requiring at least 4 days to recover from my full-body sessions.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                Also one thing I think you don't get: Local muscular stimulus and fatigue are, for all practical purposes, the same thing. You can't get one without the other. HIT-bros think that after your first set, you have gotten the maximum amount of stimulus, meaning that you cannot get any more from subsequent sets, but fatigue alone will rise if subsequent sets are performed. This is entirely false, subsequent sets will result in both more stimulus AND fatigue. Obviously if you too many sets you'll produce an amount of fatigue you cannot recover from, but if you do too little you won't get enough stimulus. Again, it's a balance. Now systemic fatigue is a bit different but that's a different discussion.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >HIT-bros think that after your first set, you have gotten the maximum amount of stimulus
                What are you, a frickin' telepath now? No "HIT-bro" says this. It's just the most cost-effective. That's it. NO PERSON has unlimited time, unlimited calories, unlimited recovery ability, or any other resource that factors into bodybuilding.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >If HIT is the only way
                I've never said it's the only way. It's the most cost-effective way.
                The most cost-effective way, however, is what I believe to be necessary to reach our genetic potential.

                These two are contradictory; somehow HIT is the most "cost-effective", meaning not the most effective (just the most bang for your buck apparently?), yet it is also the best way to reach our "genetic potential" (which doesn't exist anyway since the natural limit isn't real). Interesting. And if we're talking cost-effective, you should be doing giant sets, as they are the best time-saving method that exists in lifting by cutting out unnecessary rest time (which makes up the majority of the time most people spend in the gym)

                >Recovering for 4-6 days after just ONE set is frankly absurd, the body's recovery capabilities are not remotely this weak
                One set per exercise. This is about where I'm at right now, requiring at least 4 days to recover from my full-body sessions.

                If I did one set per exercise I wouldn't even feel anything the next day, and I wouldn't grow at all from the insufficient stimulus.

                This is backwards. It is natural group that needs more rest.

                Not necessarily. While roids do increase recovery abilities, due to the fact that you are much stronger on steroids, you generate much more fatigue and require more rest. Also it is necessary for connective tissue recovery.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >since you have not yet hit the baseline of your muscular endurance.
          That is literally training something else.
          Failure is failure, add some drop sets and beast the muscle but then you are done and wait.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            The most sure-fire way to know that you have done enough work is if your strength has decreased by a significant amount from when you are fresh. One set is not enough to do this. If I do a set of squats, to failure, and I rest for 4-5 minutes, I can repeat the same set while slashing only 1-2 reps. If I instead did a set to failure at the start of my workout, then came back once I finished and tried to take the same weight again, I would probably get like 3 or 4 reps instead of 12. One set to failure is not sufficient to fully stimulate the muscle, the body is not a fricking lightswitch. All the biggest bodybuilders, roiders or natty, use set multiplication. Frick, all the biggest and strongest powerlifters, roiders or natty, also use set multiplication. No one does one fricking set for the majority of their work BECAUSE IT ISN'T FRICKING ENOUGH. I would love if it was enough because 1 set to failure for each muscle group is easy shit, slogging through a workout where you have to 20 sets to failure is MUCH harder.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      The idea behind only doing 1 set is that the receptors that signal for muscle growth are binary - they are either overloaded and signal your body that there's a need to adapt or they aren't and no signal is sent. A single set that's taken to complete momentary muscular failure is enough to make all the receptors in the targeted muscle fibers switch on, and after this point no additional volume has any positive effect.
      >Or what about going all the way to eccentric failure?
      You are supposed to go until concentric, isometric and eccentric failure. A HIT set of bicep curls would look something like this
      >slow, controlled regular curls until you reach your failure at 8-12 reps
      >cheat the weight up to the middle of the rep and do an isometric hold until failure
      >cheat the weight up to the top position and do negatives as slowly as possible until failure
      Might look a bit different for other muscle groups but you don't just go until concentric failure, ideally you want a spotter to help you set up negatives when you've hit failure already.
      >Are the differences between muscles that need less volume (hamstrings) versus ones that need more volume (traps, lats) accounted for?
      If the HIT model is true then you also only need one intense set to make high volume muscles grow, assuming you also take them to complete failure.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >The idea behind only doing 1 set is that the receptors that signal for muscle growth are binary - they are either overloaded and signal your body that there's a need to adapt or they aren't and no signal is sent. A single set that's taken to complete momentary muscular failure is enough to make all the receptors in the targeted muscle fibers switch on, and after this point no additional volume has any positive effect.
        The problem is that 1: The signals for muscle growth are not binary. 2. Singling out this quote, "they are either overloaded and signal your body that there's a need to adapt or they aren't and no signal is sent." This is entirely false. We know from both scientific literature (I know cringe but still) and lots of anecdotal data that you can make gains just fine training with as many as 4 reps in reserve. In novices it can be as many as 6 reps in reserve.
        >You are supposed to go until concentric, isometric and eccentric failure.
        Then I am already doing this for my gastrocs, as I go all the way to eccentric failure. The only reason why I use 1 set on these is because I do them with a very high frequency, if I did the same frequency as mentzer-bros I would do more sets (And I'm starting to get less sore as my recovery improves over time, so I may move up to 2 sets across all 3 sessions in the week soon anyway).
        >If the HIT model is true then you also only need one intense set to make high volume muscles grow, assuming you also take them to complete failure.
        Then it is certainly false; you can do a single set of weighted pullups to failure, then jump up to the bar and do negatives until you can't do them anymore, then take off the dip belt and continue until you can't do one negative pullup. This still would not represent enough stimulus to effectively grow the lats, I've tried, trust me.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >We know from both scientific literature (I know cringe but still) and lots of anecdotal data that you can make gains just fine training with as many as 4 reps in reserve. In novices it can be as many as 6 reps in reserve.
          Novices make gains doing whatever, but the idea of making gains while you still have reps in reserve doesn't contradict HIT. You have different types of muscle fibers and not all are recruited immediately when a muscle is contracted. If a muscle is made up out of 10 fibers, it's possible to exercise in a way that only engages 9 out of 10 fibers, with fibers 1-4 being the only ones that were stimulated enough to grow - so you can still make gains while having a lot to give, but you would make more gains if you could manage to overstimulate fibers 5-10 in this example.
          >Then it is certainly false; you can do a single set of weighted pullups to failure, then jump up to the bar and do negatives until you can't do them anymore, then take off the dip belt and continue until you can't do one negative pullup. This still would not represent enough stimulus to effectively grow the lats, I've tried, trust me.
          Mentzer's method for going to failure on compounds where weaker muscles would give out before the intended targeted muscle was to first isolate it and then perform the compound immediately after, so for pecs you could do flies first and then immediately bench afterwards while your triceps are considerably more rested than your chest.

  10. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    things he got right:
    - g4p is lucrative
    - meth is a great appetite suppressor
    - artur jones was a daddy (at least he thought he was his daddy)
    - nothing homosexual about using BDSM apparel in a live TV show
    - lift with great effort

    arnold was also a g4p bussy boy so I'm not even getting into the Olympia or Volume Vs Intensity debacle, but at least he wasn't so up his ass

  11. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    His advice and training style only works if you're on roids. If a natty takes a 2-3 or longer day break between workouts and expects to make gains she'll end up being disappointed with a pathetic physique.
    >t. natural bodybuilder

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Also this, I still don't think it's optimal for roiders however it works much better since muscle protein synthesis is only elevated for 48-72 hours for natties iirc, while it stays elevated for much longer for roiders which is how some of them get away with insanely low frequencies.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      This is backwards. It is natural group that needs more rest.

  12. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    You guys are arguing about the extremes. Yet I've seen work of mMentzers where it's an a/b split hitting everything either 1.5 or 2x per week.

  13. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    roids
    somewhat irrelevant for non-competitive and wamen

  14. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I don't necessarily think Mentzer was right 100% of the time. For example I think training a muscle once every two weeks or less is too low frequency for 99.9% of humanity. But I will say this about anti-failure advocates: You are working backwards from your conclusion. You've concluded that a certain number of sets are best for muscle growth based on studies of people not training intensely & say, 'Don't train to failure' because you've got this number of sets on your mind when you say this & you correctly know that you & many others wouldn't recover from going to failure on this many sets. But you are working backwards from your conclusion. Instead, go to failure on every set of every exercise intended to build muscle that's safe to do so, (Not the big 3 powerlifts), & just do the number of sets that you can now recover from. Hamstrings can't recover from the 5 sets of leg curls you used to do when you start training them to failure, & you can only recover from 2 of these sets? Then 2 sets it is. Don't preach that failure training is too hard to recover from when you're doing as many sets as someone who leaves 4 reps in the tank on average.

  15. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Certainly right about the israelites

  16. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    It's jarring to see this much debate without someone being asked to post body

  17. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Can someone in the thread provide me a legit Mentzer or Yates workout plan or split? I want to try this when I bulk again, and don’t trust random google pop ups

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Mentzer has it on youtube

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        It's all a Google away. Yates routine was

        Day 1: Chest / Biceps
        Day 2: Quads / Hamstrings / Calves
        Day 3: Off
        Day 4: Shoulders / Triceps
        Day 5: Back / Rear Delts
        Day 6: Off
        Day 7: Repeat

        https://revolutionaryprogramdesign.com/dorian-yates/

        The exercises performed are all in here

        I appreciate it brothers. Gonna get yuge

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      It's all a Google away. Yates routine was

      Day 1: Chest / Biceps
      Day 2: Quads / Hamstrings / Calves
      Day 3: Off
      Day 4: Shoulders / Triceps
      Day 5: Back / Rear Delts
      Day 6: Off
      Day 7: Repeat

      https://revolutionaryprogramdesign.com/dorian-yates/

      The exercises performed are all in here

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >Can someone in the thread provide me a legit Mentzer or Yates workout plan or split? I want to try this when I bulk again, and don’t trust random google pop ups
      You can find him talking about it on some of his videos.
      Basically he broke things down into a PPL routine.

      Push, legs, pull, legs, push.
      This is roughly 2 hours per week.
      72 hours between sessions, due to the nature of training to failure with heavy weights he used a lot of machines.

      Day 1 pick 2 exercises to super set with minimal break between them. Like 5 second break.
      For me my favourite is OHP to failure, then immediately switching to BP.
      Have a 5 minute rest... something unrelated to failure... like back extensions.
      DONE
      Try to not deliberately train those muscles for up to a week.

      Then go legs,
      Pull
      Legs
      Long rests between sessions like 72 hours.

      The entire theory revolves around this.
      >do the damage to stimulate growth mechanism
      >allow the body to recover
      >allow the body to grow

      Hitting muscles that haven't recovered yet, puts you into a training deficit.
      This ia different than pure strength training which is MANY MANY SETS of a few reps per week.
      Fin

  18. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    do you know he flipped right

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      I don't know about that, he certainly died

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous
  19. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    How do I apply high intensity training if I like to workout 6 days a week?

  20. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    YES.

  21. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Here is a program summary in spreadsheet form. Minimum 2 days rest inbetween each session. Example would be: Monday -- Thursday -- Sunday, next week would be: Wednesday -- Saturday -- Tuesday. Remember the cadence should have very slow negatives and positives slow enough to have no momentum. You can add an intensity technique for the last exercise of each superset. Something like A dropset, restpause, isometric holds, additional negatives, a superslow negative. Will include the non-changed HiT program spreedsheet screenshot also.

  22. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Fairly certain i just transcribed this directly or 90% directly from a Mike Mentzer book

  23. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >do cluster set of curls
    >biceps sore af the next day

    It felt like staying in that "near failure" zone for an extended period of time was incredibly beneficial. I don't know what I'm doing, though.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Holy shit. I just looked it up and THIS is what myo-rep sets are lmao

      I guess I discovered this on my own. I'm a genius.

  24. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    So? What’s the consensus? There’s a lot of conflicting information in this thread. Anons saying that HIT is bs and doesn’t induce enough muscular stimulation to promote growth, while others say it does.
    Is it, like many things, all just a matter of experimentation and preference?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      There's no real consensus.

      Try doing a cluster set of bicep curls with a weight that you think might be a bit too much. The last minute it felt like my biceps were actually starting to break down, and I've never felt that with traditional sets before. It seems like keeping a muscle in that "near-failure" state is incredibly effective.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >Is it, like many things, all just a matter of experimentation and preference?
      In my opinion, yes. Provided that you push yourself in the gym, progressive overload combined with a good diet and rest will give you results no matter what. Unless you are competing with the best of the best then it won't matter if a program is 5% or even 10% more effective if you're just some natty guy who wants to train to become stronger and look better, and because consistency is so important when working out you should focus on a schedule that you like and can stick to. HIT is very time effective in two ways, your workouts won't be as long as traditional ones and HIT stresses the importance of rest so you won't work out on as many days in the week as before, so even if the program is equal to or even slightly worse than conventional methods then it will save you A LOT of time in the long run. I like going to (or at least trying to go to) complete failure on isolation exercise because it burns so fricking good, and while it might only be placebo it feels like you're getting a lot of work done from getting so unbelievably sore from a single set.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      It absolutely works, but its a commitment, it doesn't mesh well with any other routine and you need to have your schedule, diet, and lifestyle on point.

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