Pic related Mentzer pioneered HIT and had all kinds of "science" and "theory" based ideas and protocols about training and nutrition that he shilled in books, tapes, and DVDs.
Then he died of a massive heart attack at age 49.
Obviously his untimely and his impressive physique had the same root cause: massive gear use, which he responded to very well.
Why do people still believe any of these drug abusers discovered special muscle building techniques that natties can benefit from?
I like Mentzer. He is very well spoken and had a very likable personality. But at his core he is just another roider over-complicating fitness and people listen to him because he's big not right.
>and had a very likable personality
Very arguable. I don't dislike him though, in fact I feel sorry for the guy.
>people listen to him because he's big not right
This might be my biggest fitness peeve. Cannot stand hearing normies talk on something with lifting, and they’re clearly wrong, but they say it very matter of factly and if you press them about it or offer actual sound factual advice against it, they tell you you’re wrong because XYZ fake natties said so and they’re big and natural
I legitimately don’t know how people get like this. It’s one thing to be new and not super experienced yet, but even when I first started I never did that or bought into any bullshit
I'd say a good majority of human beings live life partially in the real world but also in their own delusional made up bullshit worlds.
>at his core he is just another roider over-complicating fitness and people listen to him because he's big not right.
Fuckin nailed it
Bodybuilding is not complex at all, just take drugs and if you have the genetics to respond well & the genetics for good insertions then you will look "good" and otherwise you won't. It barely matters what you do in the gym, for good responders what's in your stack matters way more than your routine.
So many people fall into the fallacy of "successful person did x which means doing x is why they were successful" when very often the factors for success are not things you are seeing (genetics, drug use) and what you're seeing (exercise selection, diet) is either not a significant factor or even something they're doing wrong but the unseen factors outweigh it.
>It barely matters what you do in the gym, for good responders what's in your stack matters way more than your routine.
I don't think that's true, because some people respond to training differently. My biceps never grew til I started doing high frequency preacher curls, then they noticeably grew in just a few weeks.
HIT and powerlifting both popularized two different meanings of intensity. For HIT, intensity is how close to failure you go. For powerlifting, it's how close to your 1RM you are. HIT guys consider a 20RM set to failure with a dropset after intense, powerlifters consider a single with your 2rm intense. It makes reading threads really annoying cause you can't always tell what people mean
>trains like Mentzer
>grows same mustache as Mentzer
Was HIT really just a facial hair program all along?
Also good physique, did you always train HIT or recently switch?
>HIT and powerlifting both popularized two different meanings of intensity
Very well put
>did you always train HIT or recently switch?
I used volume in high school. I don't see a problem with it because like I said, skill and endurance, but if you're replicating sets and if you're hardest set isn't to failure then it's not a hypertrophy program. This time around starting a couple years ago in my late 20's I used 531 (which I consider to be HIT lite), then DC (which worked but also broke me off because I'm not that tough/roided), and now I'm just on a sort of brosplit with 1 set to failure for each lift.
>Was HIT really just a facial hair program all along?
Now that I think about it I wasn't able to grow a mustache for most of my life until I started doing this. Lol
You should quit now and save yourselves the effort. You were never going to make it. Why not take the hours you would waste in the gym and spend it watching Rick and Morty instead? Wouldn't that make you happier?
>~~*Metzner*~~ fanboy can't comprehend his guru is wrong so he must concede to calling his opponents redditors
And yet, to this day, no one has been able to prove him wrong.
More people are making better gains with volume work. If his way was better, more people would do it and see superior results.
Most people have not progressed to the point where they are doing so much damage to their bodies that they must reduce the volume. Beginners can grow from any amount of volume. What do you see at the elite level? They don't do very high volume. Without drugs, their bodies cannot handle that much stress.
to this day no one has ever followed heavy duty with any success at the competitive level
all the natty bodybuilders pre steroid era and modern natural(drug tested at least) bodybuilders do at least moderate volume training each muscle 1-2x a week
mike mentzer recommended advanced trainees to train a muscle group once every 7-14 days for like 1 total set
Heavy Duty specifically? Idk about that. There are competitive natural bodybuilders that use the HIT principles in their own routines. Off the top of my head there's John Heart, and from him you can find others.
The most common split in competitive natural bodybuilding today is the bro split, hitting each muscle once per week.
Muscle atrophy sets in about 20 days after lifting weights with that muscle. To account for individual genetics and experience let's just say it's two weeks. Why not give a muscle two weeks of rest before hitting it again? More rest = more growth up to that two week mark.
>There are competitive natural bodybuilders that use the HIT principles in their own routines
the original HIT was a 3x a week full body protocol
but current HIT proponents are opposed to such training
john heart himself tells others to train each muscle once a week tops, he was never that great in terms of upper body development and he is a mere shadow of his former self
>The most common split in competitive natural bodybuilding today is the bro split
yeah, which has nothing in common with HIT except maybe the frequency, if that
>Muscle atrophy sets in about 20 days after lifting weights with that muscle
this is based on very flawed old research
>Why not give a muscle two weeks of rest before hitting it again?
because it starts detraining before a week is over
>More rest = more growth up to that two week mark.
I wish it were the case but it isn't
Have you ever taken a two-week vacation and hit pr's when you got back? I have, and I know others that have. Two weeks after stimulating muscle growth is not enough time for atrophy to begin.
>Have you ever taken a two-week vacation and hit pr's when you got back?
I hear about people experiencing this but it doesn't work for me, if I stop training for a week or more I get weaker
>Two weeks after stimulating muscle growth is not enough time for atrophy to begin.
we don't know this
but he never used heavy duty, he used a essentially a brosplit
look up his blood and guts video tapes he did like 4 sets to absolute muscular failure on each muscle group directly not counting his "warmups"
he also didn't use slow tempos
his training is very similar to max-ot
>never that great in terms of upper body development
Regardless of what you think of his physique, he was competitive. That's why I brought him up.
oops nvm I misread
yeah john heart trained "high intensity" but the training he did wasn't just one set per muscle group a weak which is what heavy duty has you do
he just did one set per exercise, with various exercises for a given muscle group
he also doesn't look nearly as muscular as he used to these days, this is something that is common in HIT proponents for some reason that I don't understand, they promote a training method that they never used in their prime to BUILD muscle not just maintain or slowly shrink with over the years
doing the reading it seems increasingly glaring to me that HIT was meant to be done on machines
consistent force seems to be at play, from the start of the movement to finishing, it seems much more realistic to go to failure on machines than free weights
im basically a dyel though
>no one has ever followed heavy duty with any success at competitive level
Dorian Yates you dumb zoomer
He didn't use heavy duty. He used something with higher frequency and slightly higher volume. He'd have his working set to extreme failure, but he'd also ramp up to it, at levels high enough to accumulate some volume
dorian made most of his gains on an upper/lower then on a body part split training each muscle once ever 5 days with much more than 1 set per muscle group
his workouts are all uploaded on youtube anyone can see he didn't do heavy duty lol
If your going say that the biggest and most successful Heavy Duty trainer of all time doesn’t do Heavy Duty congrats on your retarded strawmen I guess.
When people refer to Heavy Duty of course this can refer to how Dorian did it, why would people want to follow Mentzners stricter version when you can apply it like Dorian and get results.
Because "heavy duty" refers to Mentzer's specific and retarded routine. Yates used HIT, but not that specific routine. He called his own version blood & guts
t. quitter, drug-user, and fraud.
>over-complicating fitness
If you've read his work, he actually simplified it.
Having to push yourself to absolute failure every training session is more complicated than listening to your body and doing what works for you is more complicated and dogmatic that normal
>over-complicating fitness
Opposite! Just train to failure once or twice a week on compound lifts and you'll be good. Simple but not easy.
>Simple but not easy.
Rich Hickey would be so proud of you for knowing the distinction.
>Why do people still believe any of these drug abusers discovered special muscle building techniques that natties can benefit from?
Because people who are interested in bodybuilding are almost always insecure nerds searching for a father figure. The middle-aged strongman scientist archetype hits all their critical points.
It's why Rippetoe is so successful.
I have been noticing an insane parallel between the men boomer men look up too and what bottoms find attractive. 18yo sissy trannies and boomer love the same sort of man
W... what folder do I save this in?
The homework folder
>Men want to be him and men want to be with him.
>Why do people still believe any of these drug abusers discovered special muscle building techniques that natties can benefit from?
People would rather look for the holy grail, easy way out solution than actually work out consistently for a few years. More news at 11.
HIT was not invented by Mentzer it was the logical conclusion from looking at the research while the shit you're clinging to is dogmatic tradition created from Weider roiders. Mtor, law of all-or-none and Henneman's size principle all point towards HIT training and some of this proven science was discovered in the early 1900s (all-or-none applying to skeletal muscle). The other side is more similar to jogging than bodybuilding. Jogging is lots of "volume" and we know very clearly intensity is what stimulates all the muscle fibers and only by stimulating all your muscle fibers can you grow maximally.
Go read some nautilus bulletins before continuing your crusade. You need to know the basics before you start seething about it. No, I won't sit here and debate with you. You need to do some 101 research instead of blind fanboying over "natty" Arnold.
>MUH BASEDENCE PROVED HIT TO BE TRUE!!!
How about you post body instead?
>Mtor, law of all-or-none and Henneman's size principle all point towards HIT training and some of this proven science was discovered in the early 1900s (all-or-none applying to skeletal muscle). The other side is more similar to jogging than bodybuilding. Jogging is lots of "volume" and we know very clearly intensity is what stimulates all the muscle fibers and only by stimulating all your muscle fibers can you grow maximally.
Mechanical tensions is probably a better way of characterizing it than intensity.
But I agree the volume = hypertrophy stuff that Israetel and others push is garbage.
but volume does = intensity = hypertrophy...?
what are you saying here?
too much volume doesnt = hypertrophy? id agree but its proven that 6+ (even 4+ all the way up to 20) reps will grow muscle better than 1-3 ranges
>but volume does = intensity = hypertrophy...?
Volume does not equal intensity. If you can repeat a set then it wasn't as intense as it would be if you could not repeat it.
>6+ (even 4+ all the way up to 20) reps will grow muscle better than 1-3 ranges
Intensity isn't 1-3 reps. It's when the last rep is failed. You get more mechanical tension the harder the set is. It doesnt matter how many reps you did. As long as you failed to get the last one it was high intensity.
>As long as you failed to get the last one it was high intensity.
So isometrics are the ultimate method, since they elicit the maximum amount of tension, and failure is a guarantee.
I havent heard a good response from HIT fags to this argument ever. With overcoming isometrics, you reach highest activation possible, about 15% more than dynamic reps, and over 5 seconds your muscle fibers have time to cross bridge more than normal, resulting in the highest force output and tension absolutely possible, yet it doesnt seem to produce the large results it should according to theory.
maybe cause the muscles in your body are all connected and you dont absorb the barbell into your body to do curls..
HIT still requires eccentric contraction, that's what creates hypertrophy, not "JUST PLANK FAILURE BRO"
nobody ever said that, what a shit strawman
Maximum possible tension is an overloaded eccentric.
>So isometrics are the ultimate method
no, because even though isometrics build just as much muscle as any other type of contraction they also accumulate more central nervous system fatigue than concentric and eccentric contractions
just try and flex your right arm with a maximum isometric voluntary contraction right now on for just 30 seconds and then compare it to a regular dumbbell curl set of 8-10 reps to failure for the same duration of time, the isometric requires far more concentration and neural drive.
isometrics have been shown to increase tendon stifness the most out of any other contraction type and they also build just as much muscle as dynamic contractions
eccentrics require the least voluntary muscle activation compared to any contraction type but provide identical muscle gains because passive tension is higher than in concentric and isometric contractions (this is why EMG data always shows eccentric repetitions as having abysmal readings)
concentric contractions have almost as high of a voluntary activation as maximal isometrics but basically provide no passive tension
while isometrics have some passive tension and basically maximum voluntary activation in a muscle, when you are reaching muscular failure your concentric reps start looking more isometric than anything else, that's when tension is the highest and it's not a coincidence
this is why sprinting basically does nothing for muscle growth despite your muscles contracting very fast, what stimulates muscle growth is your muscle fibers pulling against resistance in a sustained fashion, you can achieve this with concentrics, eccentrics and isometrics but you need maximum effort and slow speed
>sprinting basically does nothing for muscle growth
wtf why are sprinters jacked then
Nobody cares you gay fucking nerd. Being a huge scientific dork about weightlifting is the Molecular Gastronomy of fitness - a fucking fad that's going to come and go while everyone else happily makes gains without it.
Lifting has been faggy since that garden gnome invented it and the only people that ever made it cool did what was called HIT and you fags hate to see it.
>my gimmick is better than tried and true methods because I HECKIN LOVE SCIENCERINO!
Post body
It's not a gimmick. I just understand that the mechanical tension in your hardest set is the only thing that contributes to muscle growth and anything you do aside from that only develops skill and endurance.
Also I don't love science. I arrived at my conclusions without any of that p= n= sample size nerd shit.
>Also I don't love science. I arrived at my conclusions without any of that p= n= sample size nerd shit.
This.
The volume crap just fatigues you and wastes time.
none of you two will post body and neither will i
You can do the broest brosplit with the shittest form and still get huge if you pin enough.
>why do people
Because retards, that's why.
JFC, those are kids who haven't even finished puberty, and they've already fucked themselves for life with roids, SARMs, and other crap.
They'll be paying Derek's or some other TRT telemedicine mill for life to maintain a semblance of a healthy hormonal profile.
Sad, tbh.
I use some of his training methods
>rest pauses
>short rest
>drop sets
>forced reps
His weekly volume wasn't good, especially for a natty
He is right, and his training is effective. It just doesn't move the needle nearly as much as having top 0.01% genes and gear (and having good responses to gear).
People are retarded and addicted to magical thinking
>Why do people still believe any of these drug abusers discovered special muscle building techniques that natties can benefit from?
Because they look special, and people want to believe they could recreate that look if they only knew how.
Because his training works
You would know if you did it
Instead you made this thread
kys
I've done 1 set of squat a week to failure for past 6 months, previously did 3 sets close to failure 2 times a week.
The only thing that mattered was calories. My squat only went up if i bulked , didnt matter if i did 6 or 1 set
I have gained 45lbs to my squat while dieting. I had a shit ass 295x5 and now 340x5 in three months
>Why do people still believe any of these drug abusers discovered special muscle building techniques that natties can benefit from?
This is really just a youtube grifter problem. Most forums where fitness is actually discussed instead of just clickbaited about are pretty clued in about drawing a line between information that's only useful when "better lifting through chemistry" is involved and more broadly-applicable stuff.
>lift heavy thing
Oh wow this is so complicated. It surely needs a lot of "science" to do effectively.
Remember to buy my book, which is full of "science", and buy my supplements which were created with "science".
If you're gonna take lifting tips from anyone, it should be dudes that look like this.
>chink rice patty farmer lives to 120 doing back breaking manual labor all day
>roid chud dies at 49 of heart attack
unironically, yes
Longevity is for morons. Anyone who unironically wishes to live past 60 is a homo. What's there to enjoy about long life? Wow I get to shit myself and be senile, fucking amazing!
If you don't roid and live healthy, lift weights, do cardio, fast ocassionaly and shit like that you will have a good life in your (g)olden days
If you're not retarded, maybe even enjoy grandchildren.
Alas your post reeks of live-reckless-die-young mentality. How old are you?
I'm 38, married and have have two sons and in better shape that majority of my peers
Opposite is true, it's morons who tend to die young.
Didn't he also smoke meth as a preworkout?
>Didn't he also smoke meth as a preworkout?
Kek, I didn't know that.
He was literally a gay/bi meth addict.
Ok so give a full routine for a HIT protocol. Ive been wanting to try it and im starting a deload week so fuck it lets run it this next cycle.
>special muscle building techniques that natties can benefit from?
As in lift as hard as you can in a set?
I haven't read any of his stuff but HIT is all about training intensity.... which is sorely lacking in most commercial gyms.
Just like how powerlifting programs/techniques are too popular for bodybuilders.
If you want just try it out. Then you know if it's shit for you or not.
HIT isn't just about intensity, it's the training philosophy that claims that muscle is built by training infrequently and with low volume
the problem with HIT is that it forces people to use very low frequency and volume(one set per exercise/muscle aweek), the intensity part is good, except for the retarded slow rep tempo is demonstrably shown to be inferior for strength, speed and muscle gains.
slow eccentrics are fine, but so are fast eccentrics and concentrics should be as fast as possible no matter what
he was addicted to meth. Meth is a harsher compound than steroids
Actually very likely, Caucasians get addicted to meth and coffee very easily and it ages the heart quick.
>Actually very likely, Caucasians get addicted to meth and coffee very easily and it ages the heart quick.
He was also gay, and gays use a lot of meth.
Because most people have shit genetics and think there is some secret training or diet or supplement that will finally unlock their gains, when in reality they will never make it. They will spend years and years trying different things and each one failing one after the other, but they will keep trying, spending hundred and thousands of dollars, and countless hours and stressing over every variable. It's a delusion and mental health issue. People just can't accept that they have trash genetics for building muscle. Most people accept very quickly that they will never run a 10s 100m sprint. But for bodybuilding, there is this delusion that genetics don't matter and it all down to hard work and doing everything right. It's over, just train for fun and health, you will never make it.
>Because most people have shit genetics and think there is some secret training or diet or supplement that will finally unlock their gains, when in reality they will never make it. They will spend years and years trying different things and each one failing one after the other, but they will keep trying, spending hundred and thousands of dollars, and countless hours and stressing over every variable. It's a delusion and mental health issue. People just can't accept that they have trash genetics for building muscle. Most people accept very quickly that they will never run a 10s 100m sprint. But for bodybuilding, there is this delusion that genetics don't matter and it all down to hard work and doing everything right. It's over, just train for fun and health, you will never make it.
This is the truth, but people here will tell you that you are a demoralizer.
The irony is, is that the DYEL who comes on here complaining that they've been working out for 3 years and still look like shit get told that "you are doing something wrong, try this or that obvious thing that you've already tried, and magically your muscles will start growing." These people who say this are the true demoralizers on the same level as the ~~*weider*~~ magazines saying that if you do this routine and take this supplement you can look like the guy on the cover, when it's really genetics and drugs, and they just want your money. All these fitness gurus just want your money telling you what you want to hear, giving you the new special amazing routine that will finally make you big. It's fucken genetics ffs. People with good genetics grow big on any fucken routine. That's why there are so many vastly different routines that seem to work very well (for those with good genetics).
>Why do people still believe any of these drug abusers discovered special muscle building techniques that natties can benefit from?
this
it's just genetics and steroids
the fact that people have made gains and built impressive physiques training in hundreds of different ways should be evidence of that
The problem with shit like bodybuilding is that you really don't even need to lift to know what works and what doesn't and being huge is no proof that you know any better. Bodybuilders and lifters don't like to admit that because if they are big clearly whatever they are doing is working but that's a really poor argument. Just because something is working at all doesn't mean it's the right or ideal way to do something - maybe they could have had even better results doing things differently.
do you even know what you are talking about. Mike trained 3 days a week and did 5 sets a muscle group a week. His whole schtick was finding the most efficient way of training and it boils down to effort and training to failure.
I don't care what he did because it has nothing to do with my point. Just because it worked for him, and even if it works for everyone in general, doesn't mean it's ideal unless you can prove it somehow, and the fact that he was a "successful" bodybuilder is not proof.
you're retarded and your point is discarded
Your idol was a confirmed meth junkie and literally sucked dick.
So you have no argument, thought so.
shit shoulders tho
I'm somewhat of a calisthenics athlete. I do not lift weights whatsoever. From my personal experience, the only thing that seemed to work from what Mentzer claimed was giving your body more time to rest as well as carb intake. I now only workout 3 days a week as far as strength goes, but run an extra day. I was able to drop the number of sets I did as my reps got higher but there still needs to be some volume involved. Even when I was doing slow pushups, I would purposely stop after a few sets and wouldn't feel any soreness the next day. Maybe with weight training it's different, but I don't see hit as any different than doing light weight/high volume. I only ever felt sore or saw myself making gains from doing reps in the hundreds, mainly squats.
>Then he died of a massive heart attack at age 49.
He was an addict on meth and male dick by the end
My best gym bro friend who literally looks like Jeff said went to the crew name forums and paid 20 euros and now he is doing one upper and one lower per week. I think he was looking for an excuse to quit but he is already at his natty peak so he can’t lose gains now lol
The truth is that almost anything works as long as you're consistent about it and eat enough protein. Those Bronze Age guys like Sandow had no steroids or isolation machines and they still look impressive. Hell, you could go back to ancient times, where they would train with stone halteres while having 0 knowledge about diet and still looked good. Bodybuilding isn't complicated.
Muscle protein synthesis returns to baseline for natties after like 3 days of not training a muscle (maximum), this has been consistently replicated. Waiting 7-14 days in between training a muscle group is the opposite of the most efficient way to build muscle as a natural.
True, but just eating protein also elevates MPS
Not enough to stimulate muscle growth on it's own without training stimulus for a natural lifter
that myofibrillar protein synthesis response to exercise is in a fed state already
myofibrillar protein synthesis is literal muscle growth
There's also muscle wastage whenever you're not in protein synthesis, eating protein balances it out but both effects are small so you end up just maintaining. This is why just eating a high protein diet without lifting won't make you gain a statistically significant amount of muscle.
training makes your muscles use more amino acids from your blood stream
those amino acids are used to build muscle proteins in muscle fibers that are stimulated with tension
that's myofibrillar protein synthesis
eating protein doesn't stimulate myofibrillar protein synthesis beyond a certain point and that is the real reason why you can't just eat a ton of protein and get huge, training increases MPS further beyond but there's still a limit and that limit is why you can't keep making gains non stop
I don't know what muscle protein synthesis is and I don't really care. If you lift hard you can't do it again 3 days later. If you don't lift hard your body has no reason to carry more muscle.
Also
>this has been consistently replicated
Everybody who lifts hard these days is on roids. There is no way anybody got a group of hardcore natties and tested their muscle protein nerd shit. They did lackadaisical lifts and recovered in 3 days and no gains were seen. I guarantee it.
How long does it take for your body to clear away cortisol? Depends on how much damage you're doing and how good your lifestyle is. Usually more than three days.
One of the biggest flaws with HIT is they don't differentiate between recovery times for different muscles. If you train your biceps or rear delts to the same level of failure as your quads or pecs, the small muscles are going to recover faster. There's simply less tissue to repair for a given level of fatigue, so you can train the small muscles more frequently.
kek, bunch of dyels itt justifying their limp dick, low energy workouts. Waste of gym space
The key to knowledge is your experience and applying what you learnt
Pontificate or theorise all you want but any ‘insight’ you gain from doing so is useless unless you can put it into practice
Ergo, the only way you can criticise these ideas is if you try them yourself and see what works for you. The benefit you gain is not from following these ideas blindly but from tailoring them to your specific circumstances which is what effective people do
the real redpill is the fact that HIT is actually high volume training in disguise. If you do a set to concentric failure, then you continue the set for another 3+ minutes with drop sets, forced reps, eccentric reps, etc, you're just cramming a ton of sets back to back into one crazy set (think about it, if you hit concentric failure, then switch to doing eccentric reps, you're suddenly much further away from failure again, but you're starting to approach eccentric failure as opposed to concentric failure. same thing with drop sets, you suddenly go from 0 reps from failure to say 8 reps from failure due to the load reduction. the only difference is that instead of resting for a few minutes to let your reps in reserve fill back up, you're reducing the load, cutting out the harder portion of the lift (the concentric), or using assistance to gain reps in reserve back so you can begin approaching failure again).
Not really. The whole volume v HIT debate was about guys who followed Arnold’s advice who spent 3+ hours in the gym sometimes twice a day and people like Dorian who showed up and worked out 45 mins to 1 hour and did it differently. https://youtu.be/1d7n3xaEEOg
You can’t really understand the context of this debate until you read Arnold’s encyclopaedia of bodybuilding and see his ridiculous routine or were alive in 80s-90’s and had to read all this stuff in magazines.
>when youre a roidmonkey you make hella gains no matter if you train 45 mins or 3 hours
wow, you taught me the meaning of total surprise.
post body
If you're not training 10 reps from failure you don't need to spend 3 hours in the gym doing 40 sets per muscle group lol
Mike Mentzer on the mistakes he made.