[ttwarrior1]

"WARM MARBLE" The Lethal Physique of Bruce Lee


By John Little
Introduction by Mike Mentzer

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It is absolutely amazing how much of an impact that Bruce Lee's strength and physical development have had on athletes, bodybuilders and average men all over the face of the globe. As a young boy in high school, I can clearly recall all of the talk among my friends about the great Bruce Lee; they all were intimately familiar with Bruce's films; and they would discuss not just his epochal martial arts skills, but, also, his incredible strength and lean, shredded physique.
As Mr. Little reports in his article, even such a personage as Joe Weider remarked on the astounding muscular refinement and definition of Lee's physique, especially the master's abs. As Mr. Little also explains, Bruce Lee's physique had a remarkable influence on some of today's top physique champs. Bodybuilding luminaries, including Lou Ferrigno, Lee Haney, Dorian Yates, Rachel Mclish, Lenda Murray, Flex Wheeler and Shawn Ray have all spoken on record concerning the enormous impact the physique of Bruce Lee had on them. Why? Why would the physique of the mighty mite, never massively developed along the lines of the bodybuilding greats I just enumerated, but described by some "as the most defined physique in the world." I leave that unanswered, as author, John Little, will provide an incisive, eloquent answer...
Subsections in the article will titillate the legion of existing Lee fanatics, and whet the appetite of those for whom this article will serve as their initial introduction to the subject. For instance, Functional Strength, Unbelievable Strength, A Battle in San Fransisco, The Bodybuilding Connection and The Routine, will rivet the reader's focus such that he will finish this article in one reading, and prompt him to want to re-read it and re-re-read it.
I've been extremely impressed over the years as to how many bodybuilders are also highly trained martial artists. In fact, over the years I having personally supervised the training of many martial artists, with many of my phone clients already being rabid Lee fans, and martial artists seeking the most efficient manner of training for strength and speed; which was the goal of Lee's training. Also, I receive more e-mails, letters and phone calls from martial artists than any other type of athlete. This I believe follows from Lee's well known concern with weight training to develop efficiency and strength.
I am extremely proud to say that one of my best friends, for the past 22 years, wrote this article, which is excerpted from one of the 11 books he's written on Bruce Lee. I first met John Little at Eaton's department store in Toronto where Arnold, Franco and I had made an appearance for Weider and the IFBB, in 1979. We hit it off immediately, as John was philosophically oriented, along with having a passionate interest in bodybuilding. After that initial meeting, we met at Lou Hollozi's gym in Toronto in 1980, where I conducted a seminar; and, with that, John and I further cemented our friendship. Subsequently, John made a number of trips to Los Angeles, where he'd usually stay with me in my apartment in West Hollywood. His primary purpose in traveling to southern California was to pursue the subjects of those he wrote books about, including Steve Reeves and Lou Ferrigno.
It was finally, in 1992, that Joe Weider brought John to Los Angeles to write for Flex. This only lasted three years, as John was more interested in writing freely about his passion, namely - philosophy, martial arts, the philosophy of Bruce Lee's, who, too, was a fervent student of philosophy, his personal library packed with philosophy books that extended from the floor to the ceiling and spanned the length of the room. His quest for the truth saw him avidly studying philosophies ranging from that of Krishnamurti's to our most revered, Ayn Rand.
Bruce Lee's life was most interesting as he rose from a starving, poor boy in Hong Kong to the world's most celebrated movie star in Hollywood, having a greater impact on more people than that of Elvis Presley's, James Dean's and Marilyn Monroe's combined!
I trust that you, dear reader, will gain much knowledge from John Little's article, along with the added inspiration that will act to have you approach your own training with greater inspiration and motivation than ever before. Above all else, I ardently desire that you will read John Little's superlative article mostly for the sheer pleasure of it.
Mike Mentzer

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"If you're talking about combat -- as it is -- well then, baby you'd better train every part of your body!" -- Bruce Lee (from the video, Bruce Lee: The Lost Interview)
There's an anecdote that has endured some 28 years concerning the texture of the muscles that adorned the physique of the late martial arts pioneer/philosopher, Bruce Lee.
It concerns a lady named Ann Clouse, the wife of Robert Clouse, the man who directed Lee's last film Enter the Dragon for Warner Bros. It seems that Clouse's wife had ventured onto the set of the film and was mesmerized by Lee's incredible physique as he went through his paces choreographing the fight scenes for the film, stripped to the waist under the hot and humid Hong Kong sun. In between takes, Ann approached the young superstar and asked if she could "feel his biceps." "Sure," Lee responded -- it was a request he'd received on numerous occasions -- tensing his arm and inviting her to check it out for herself. "My God!" she exclaimed, drawing her hand back instantly, "It's like feeling warm marble!"
It's fascinating that almost three decades later, people are still talking about the body of Bruce Lee -- although it is by no means surprising. The Lee physique, once described by no less an authority on such matters than bodybuilding magnate Joe Weider as "the most defined body I've ever seen!" has attracted (much like the man's martial art and philosophy) a following that not only rivals but exceeds those of Elvis Presley, James Dean and Marilyn Monroe -- combined! Certainly his following exceeds that of any bodybuilder of a similar vintage. And even more fascinating is the fact that almost everyone gets something different out of Bruce Lee -- martial artists revere his physical dexterity, power, speed and the genius he displayed in bringing science to bear on the world of martial arts; moviegoers are impressed with the man's screen presence and animal magnetism, along with the fact that he single-handedly created a new genre of action film thus opening the door to the Stallones, Schwarzeneggers and Jackie Chans who were to follow in his footsteps; philosophers are impressed with Lee's ability to bridge the philosophical chasm separating East and the West and to synthesize the best aspects of both cultures. But there exists another pocket of humanity that sees in Lee something else -- although not entirely unrelated -- the bodybuilders. Bodybuilders, young and old, know from one quick glance at Lee's physique exactly how much labor went into its creation -- and they are, one and all, very impressed.
Ironically, bodybuilding luminaries of no less stature than Flex Wheeler, Shawn Ray, Rachel McClish, Lou Ferrigno, Lee Haney, Lenda Murray and former Mr. Olympia, Dorian Yates -- that is to say, the best in the business - have all spoken on the record regarding the impact the physique of Bruce Lee had on their bodybuilding careers. "How could this be?" I can hear you ask, perhaps somewhat incredulously. After all, Lee was only 5'7" tall and checked in at a weight that fluctuated between 126 to 145 pounds! What could a behemoth like Dorian Yates, for example, see in Bruce Lee's physique that would give him grounds for any form of inspiration? The answer, in a word, would be quality.
There has seldom been seen - this side of a jungle cat -- the incredible sinewy and ripped-to-the-bone quality of muscle displayed by Bruce Lee. He was ripped in places that bodybuilders are just now (28 years later) learning they can train. Every muscle group on his body stood out in bold relief from its neighbor -- not simply for show (unlike many bodybuilders) but for function. Lee was, to quote his first student in the United States, Seattle's Jesse Glover, "above all else, concerned with function." Lee's body was not only a thing of immense grace and beauty to watch in action, but it was supremely functional. Leaping eight feet in the air to kick out a light bulb (as evidenced in Lee's office-wrecking scene in the MGM movie Marlow), landing a punch from five feet away in five-hundredths of a second and catching grains of rice -- that he'd thrown into the air -- with chopsticks were things Lee had trained his body (and reflexes) to accomplish. In fact, during his famous "Lost Interview" Lee referred to his approach to training as "the art of expressing the human body." Indeed, perhaps never before has there been such an incredible confluence of physical attributes brought together in the form of one human being -- lightening fast reflexes, supreme flexibility, awesome power, feline grace and muscularity combined in one total -- and very lethal -- package.
Furthermore, the Lee physique was balanced and symmetrical and, while not everyone can be said to admire the massive musculature of our Olympians, everyone -- or so it would seem (including the world's greatest bodybuilders) admire the "total package" that was Bruce Lee.

Who should have won? Judge for yourself.

All of the aforementioned champion bodybuilders have indicated that Bruce Lee was a major influence on their bodybuilding careers, which is no small accomplishment when one considers the fact that Lee never entered a physique contest in his life. Ironically, despite his influence being, felt by the hardest of hard-core bodybuilders, Lee himself was never interested in developing a massive musculature. One of Lee's closest friends and an instructor in Lee's art of Jeet Kune Do, Ted Wong, recalls that "Bruce trained primarily for strength and speed." The physique -- while certainly appreciated by Lee -- came almost as a by-product of such training. According to those who met him, from Hollywood producers to his fellow martial artists, Lee's muscles carried considerable impact. Taky Kimura, one of Lee's closest friends (in fact, the best man at Lee's wedding in 1964) recalls that Lee was never loath to remove his shirt and display the results of his labors in the gym -- often just to see the reactions of those around him. "He had the most incredible set of lats I'd ever seen," recalled Kimura, "and his big joke was to pretend that his thumb was an air hose, which he'd then put in his mouth and pretend to inflate his lats with. He looked like a damn cobra when he did that!"
Lee's physique holds up under scrutiny and has survived the passage of time simply because it possessed what many consider to have been the perfect blend of razor-sharp cuts, awesome muscularity, great shape and an almost onion skin definition. The muscles that bulged and rippled across the Lee physique were thick, dense, well-chiseled from their neighbor and, above all, functional.
Functional Strength
Dan Inosanto, another of Lee's close friends and himself an instructor in Lee's art, adds that Lee was only interested in strength that could readily be converted to power. "I remember once Bruce and I were walking along the beach in Santa Monica, out by where the 'Dungeon' (an old-time bodybuilding gym) used to be," recalls Inosanto, "when all of a sudden this big, huge bodybuilder came walking out of the Dungeon and I said to Bruce, 'Man, look at the arms on that guy!' I'll never forget Bruce's reaction, he said 'Yeah, he's big -- but is he powerful? Can he use that extra muscle efficiently?"
Power, according to Lee, lay in an individual's ability to use the strength developed in the gym quickly and efficiently; in other words, power was the measure of how quickly and effectively one could summon and coordinate strength for "real-world" purposes. On this basis, according to those who worked out with Lee from time to time such as martial arts actor Chuck Norris, Bruce Lee -- pound for pound-- might well have been one of the most powerful men in the world.
Unbelievable Strength
Lee's feats of strength are the stuff of legend; from performing push-ups - on one hand! - or thumbs only pushups, to supporting a 125-pound barbell at arms length in front of him (with elbows locked) for several seconds, or sending individuals (who outweighed him by as much as 100 pounds in some instances) flying through the air and landing some 15 feet away as a result of a punch that Lee delivered from only one-inch away, the power that Bruce Lee could generate -- at a mere bodyweight of 135 pounds -- is absolutely frightening. Not to mention some of his other nifty little habits like thrusting his fingers through full cans of Coca-Cola and sending 300 pound heavy bags slapping against the ceiling with a simple side kick.
Strength training -- qua strength training -- was Lee's primary objective with resistance exercise. Later, as we shall soon see, his training evolved into more specialized applications that were beneficial to his specific goals as a martial artist. But before we get to there, let's first take a look at how Lee was first drawn to bodybuilding.
Ideals & Possibilities
For a number of years, Lee had made a concerted study of exercise physiology and anatomy. Refusing to merely accept tradition for tradition's sake - a stance that made him increasingly unpopular with the majority of his fellow martial artists who had been raised and were now in the process of passing on (without questioning) the various martial traditions of the East -- Lee's background in physiology and kinesiology had imbued him with the ability to discern a useful exercise from an unproductive one and therefore he was able to avoid the obstacle of wasted time in any of his workouts. Lee believed that the student of exercise science should aim at nothing less than physical perfection, with all that it implies in its totality; he should want great strength, great speed, great coordination, exuberant health, and, by no means least, the muscular beauty of form which distinguishes a physically perfect human being. To Lee, the whole secret of success in bodybuilding lay in the principle of progressive resistance, but he also recognized that there was another component that had won a place in the vocabulary of physical culture and that word was persistence.
Certainly Lee was nothing if not persistent in his quest to fully explore and express the potential of his body, a physique that not only looked phenomenal on a movie screen but that also possessed a musculature that was geared for function. Given the physiological fact that a stronger muscle is a bigger muscle, it was only natural that Lee would in time come to appreciate the superior health-building benefits of bodybuilding -- but I'm getting ahead of myself.
Let us now examine the situation that first caused Lee to appreciate bodybuilding and then we shall focus on what routine he utilized to build the muscles that served him with such tremendous efficiency. While Lee may have been aware of the general benefits to be had from a program of progressive bodybuilding exercises, it took a violent encounter to make him fully cognizant of the merits that a more regular and dedicated approach to bodybuilding could provide.
A Battle in San Francisco
One evening while Lee was preparing to teach a class to a group of select students in his modest San Francisco kwoon (kung fu school), the door to his school suddenly flew open and in walked a group of Chinese martial artists led by a practitioner who was considered to be their best fighter and the designated leader of the troupe. According to Lee's wife, Linda, who was both present and eight months pregnant with the couple's first child, Brandon, at the time, Lee had on a prior occasion been served with an ornate scroll saying in bold Chinese characters that he had an ultimatum: stop teaching non-Chinese students Gung fu (the Cantonese pronunciation of Kung Fu) or be prepared to fight with San Francisco's top Kung Fu man. Now, the day of reckoning had come.
Lee handed the scroll disdainfully back to their leader. "I'll teach whomever I choose," he said calmly. "I don't care what color they are." While Lee's non-racist views are today generally applauded, in San Francisco's Chinatown in the mid 1960s they were tantamount to treason -- at least within the Chinese community. Indeed, teaching Chinese combative "secrets" to non-Chinese races was perceived as the highest form of treason in the martial arts community. By his words and demeanor, Lee had effectively thrown the gauntlet back at the feet of his would-be challenger and, while Lee had many virtues, it is well known among his friends, family and students that patience in suffering fools and their ignorance was not one of them.
A fight immediately broke out and, in a matter of seconds, Lee had the previously bold and self-righteous kung fu "expert" running for the nearest exit. Finally, after much legwork, Lee was able to throw his man to the floor and extract a submission from him. In a rage, Lee threw the entire troupe off the premises, cursing them out in Cantonese, en route. However, Lee quickly learned -- to his shock, given that the fight had lasted all of three minutes -- that he had expended a tremendous amount of energy in the altercation. "He was surprised and disappointed at the physical condition he was in," recalled Linda of the occasion. "He'd thought that the fight had lasted way too long and that it was his own lack of proper conditioning that made it such a lengthy set-to. He had felt inordinately winded afterwards."
It was this fight more than any other single event that had given Lee sufficient cause to thoroughly investigate alternate avenues of physical conditioning. His conclusion? He would need to develop considerably more strength -- of both his muscles and cardiovascular system -- if he was ever to become the complete martial artist he had envisioned becoming.
The Bodybuilding Connection
Knowing that the muscle magazines were the only existing source of current health and strength training information, Lee immediately began to subscribe to all of the bodybuilding publications he could find. He ordered bodybuilding courses out of the magazines and tested their claims and theories. He made a habit out of frequenting second-hand bookstores and purchasing books on bodybuilding and strength training, including one written by Eugene Sandow entitled Strength & How to Obtain It -- which was originally published in 1897. Lee's hunger for knowledge in the field of bodybuilding ran so high, that he purchased everything he could get his hands on -- from "hot off the press" courses to back list classics. No price was too high for knowledge, particularly if its application resulted in the acquisition of greater bodily strength, power and physical efficiency.
From this point on until his eventual death in July of 1973 (of a cerebral edema), Bruce Lee amassed a tremendous personal library of books on philosophy, martial art and an extensive selection of tomes that dealt extensively with physical fitness, bodybuilding, physiology and weight lifting. Lee would underline certain passages of text that he found particularly meaningful and would constantly jot down thoughts of how this information could be applied to martial art in the margins of the books. "Bruce used to come into his school in L.A.'s Chinatown with an armful of articles from the muscle magazines," recalls Inosanto. "He'd say 'look at this: these bodybuilders all say that they do this in order to increase their strength -- it's a common denominator running throughout all of their writings.' He'd look for consistency in things like that and would compare and eliminate the additional data that he felt was superfluous."
The Routine
After much research, and with the help of two bodybuilders who were also his close friends and students in the San Francisco Bay area, Lee devised a three-day-per-week bodybuilding program that he felt fit his strengthening and bodybuilding needs perfectly. According to one of these men, Allen Joe, "James Lee and I introduced Bruce to the basic weight training techniques. We used to train with basic exercises like squats, pullovers and curls for about three sets each. Nothing really spectacular but we were just getting him started." This program actually served Lee well from 1965 through until 1970 and fit in perfectly with Lee's own philosophy of getting the maximum results out of the minimum -- or most economical -- expenditure of energy.
The every-other-day workout allowed for the often neglected aspect of recovery to take place. Lee coordinated his bodybuilding workouts in such a way so as to insure that they fell on days when he wasn't engaged in either endurance-enhancing or overly strenuous martial art training. The program worked like magic; increasing Lee's bodyweight from an initial 130 pounds to -- at one point -- topping out at just over 165 pounds!
According to Glover, however, Lee wasn't particularly pleased with the added mass; "I noticed that he was bigger after he was weight training. There was a time after he went to California that he went up to 165 pounds. But I think it slowed him down because that was real heavy for Bruce. He looked buff like a bodybuilder. And then, later on I saw him and this was all gone. I mean, one thing that Bruce was [about] was function -- and if stuff got in the way, then it had to go. Bruce wanted his weight training to complement what he did in the martial arts. A lot of what Bruce was doing was about being able to maintain arm positions that nobody could violate in a fight. Like, if you take most people who are into bodybuilding or weight training, most of them are interested in simply building up their muscles to a bigger size, particularly the major muscle groups -- not much attention is paid to the connective tissues, like ligament and tendon strength. Well, Bruce's thing was 'let's build up the connectors and we won't worry so much about the size of the muscle.' Again, Bruce was about function."
Gearing his training for function, Lee's bodybuilding routine incorporated the three core tenets of total fitness- stretching for flexibility, weight training for strength and cardiovascular activity for his respiratory system -- the original cross-trainer!

Bruce Lee's "Lethal Physique" Bodybuilding Program
(performed on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays)

Exercise	Sets	Repetitions
Clean & Press	2	8
Squats	2	12
Pullovers	2	8
Bench Presses	2	6
Good Mornings	2	8
Barbell Curls	2	8

The Breakdown of the Routine:
1.) Clean & Press: Lee would begin this movement by taking a shoulder-width grip on an Olympic barbell. Bending his knees, he would squat down in front of the resistance and, with a quick snap of his arms and a thrust from his legs, clean the barbell to his chest and stand up. After a brief pause, Lee would then thrust the barbell to arms length overhead, pause briefly, and then lower the barbell back to the top of his chest. After another brief pause, he would lower the barbell back to the floor (the starting position). With absolutely no rest, Lee would then initiate his second repetition of the movement and continue to do so until he had completed eight repetitions. After a very brief rest, so as to take full advantage of the cardio-respiratory benefits as well as the strength-building benefits, Lee would perform a second -- and final -- set.
2.) Squats: This staple of bodybuilding movements was the cornerstone of Bruce Lee's barbell training. He had dozens of articles that he'd clipped out on the mechanics and benefits of squats and he practiced many variations of this exercise. In his routine, however, he performed the exercise in the standard fashion. Resting a barbell across his shoulders, Lee would place his feet approximately shoulder-width apart. Making sure that he was properly balanced, Lee would slowly ascend to a full squat position. With absolutely zero pause in the bottom position, Lee would then immediately return -- using the strength of his hips, glutes, hamstrings, calves and quadriceps -- to the starting position, whereupon he would commence rep number two. Lee would perform 12 repetitions in this movement and, after a short breather, return and re-shoulder the barbell for one more set of 12 reps.
3.) Pullovers: Although there exists no physical evidence that Bruce Lee supersetted barbell pullovers with squats, there is reason to believe that this was case -- if only for the fact that such was the method advocated in the articles he read. Squats were considered a great "overall" muscle builder, whereas pullovers were simply considered a "rib box expander" or "breathing exercise." Consequently, the fashion of incorporating pullovers in the late 1960s and early 1970s was as a "finishing" movement for squats. This being the case, Lee would perform the movement in the standard fashion; i.e., by lying down on his back upon a flat bench and taking a shoulder-width grip on a barbell that he would then proceed to press out to full extension above his chest. From this position, Lee would lower the barbell -- making sure to keep a slight bend in his elbows so as not to strain the elbow joint -- behind his head until it touched the floor ever so slightly and provided a comfortable stretch to his lats. From this fully-extended position, Lee would then slowly reverse the motion through the contraction of his lats, pecs and long-head of the triceps. He would repeat this movement for two sets of eight repetitions.
4.) Bench Presses: Bruce Lee was able to develop an incredible chest musculature. His upper pecs were particularly impressive, bunching and splitting into thousands of fibrous bands. And, as far as his personal training records indicate, the only direct barbell movement he performed to develop his chest was the good old fashioned bench press. Lying down upon a flat bench, and again taking a shoulder-width grip on an Olympic barbell, Lee would press the weight off the support pins to arms length above his chest. From this locked-out position, Lee would then lower the barbell to his chest and, exhaling, press it back up to the fully-locked out (or starting) position. He would repeat this movement for six repetitions and then, after a brief respite, return to the bench for one more set of six reps.
5.) Good Mornings: A word of caution about this exercise. Lee performed this movement to strengthen his lower back. However, one day in early 1970 he loaded up the bar with 135 pounds (his bodyweight at the time) and -- without a warm up -- proceeded to knock off eight repetitions. On his last rep he felt a "pop" and found out later that he had damaged the fourth sacral nerve of his lower back. The result was the Lee had to endure incredible back pain for the remainder of his life. This is not to say that the movement is without merit, just make sure that you perform an adequate warm-up prior to employing, it. Placing a barbell across his shoulders, Lee would place his feet three inches apart (Lee would later confide to Dan Inosanto "You really don't need any weight but the empty bar on your shoulders Dan -- it's more of a limbering movement") and bend over from the waist keeping his hands on the barbell at all times. Lee would bend over until his back was at a 90 degree angle to his hips and then return to the upright position. Lee performed two sets of eight repetitions of this movement.
6.) Barbell Curls: Bruce Lee performed barbell curls not only in his garage gym on Roscomare Avenue in Bel Air, but also in his studio office in Hong Kong. They were a staple or "core" movement in his weight training routine and were also responsible for building a very impressive pair of biceps on Lee -- not to mention incredible pulling power, which he used to such good effect in all of his sparring sessions! To perform this movement properly, Lee would take a comfortable shoulder-width grip on the barbell with his palms facing forwards. Keeping a slight bend in his knees for stabilization purposes, Lee would then contract his biceps and curl the barbell up to a point level with his upper pecs. Pausing briefly in this fully-contracted position, Lee would then slowly lower the barbell back to the starting position. Two sets of eight repetitions of this movement would typically wrap up Lee's bodybuilding routine.

Get Mentzer's Latest Book Muscles in Minutes

Going Beyond "Routine" According to Inosanto, Lee didn't just train with the above listed exercises. He would also incorporate weight training into his martial art workouts. "Bruce would always shadow box with small weights in his hands and he'd do a drill in which he'd punch for 12 series in a row, 100 punches per series, using a pyramid system of 1,2,3,5,7 and 10-pound weights -- and then he'd reverse the pyramid and go 10, 7, 5, 3, 2, 1 and finally "zero" weight. He had me do this drill with him and -- Man! -- what a burn you'd get in your delts and arms!"
It didn't stop there however. When Lee wasn't training with weights in his martial art workouts or during one of his three designated whole-body training sessions, he could be found curling a dumbbell in the office in his house. "He was always using that dumbbell," recalls Linda in looking back on her husband's training habits. "Bruce had the unique ability to be able to several things at once. It wasn't all unusual for me to find him watching a boxing match on TV, simultaneously performing a full side splits, while reading a book in one hand and pumping a dumbbell in the other."
Incredible Abs
By far the most impressive of all of Lee's bodyparts was his abdominal muscles, which he trained daily. "Bruce always felt that if your stomach wasn't developed, then you had no business sparring," recalls Wong. "He was a fanatic about abdominal training," concurs Linda, "he was always doing sit-ups, crunches, Roman Chair movements, Leg Raises and V-ups." Chuck Norris has gone on record recalling the time that he went to visit the Lee family and seeing Bruce lying on the living room floor bouncing his son Brandon on his abdomen while simultaneously performing dumbbell flyes for his pecs and leg raises for his abs - and watching television to boot!
Forearms of Steel
In order to improve his gripping and punching power, Lee became an avid devotee of forearm training, While many champion bodybuilders shy away from direct forearm training, Lee made it a point to train his forearms daily. "He was a forearm fanatic," laughs Linda in retrospect. "If ever any bodybuilder -- such as Bill Pearl -- came out with a forearm course, Bruce would have to get it." Bruce even commissioned an old friend of his from San Francisco, George Lee (no relation) to build him several "Gripping machines" to which Lee would add weight for additional resistance. "He used to send me all of these designs for exercise equipment," recalls George Lee, "and I'd build them according to his specs. However, I wasn't altogether foolish," he says with a laugh, "I knew that if Bruce was going to use it, it must be effective, so I'd build one to send to him and another for me to use at home!"
Allen Joe recalls that Lee had a favorite dumbbell exercise that he used to train his forearms with constantly: "Bruce was always working on his forearms. He'd pick up a weight and go to the edge of the sofa and start doing wrist curls while he was watching TV. Then he'd do his abdominal work -- and then he'd return to his forearm training. The dumbbell curl he liked best was a Zottman curl, where you would curl the weight up one side of your body and then you twist it and bring it down on the other side. He'd do that all the time!"
Knowledge Is Power
For the past seven years I've been hard at work compiling all (and I mean ALL) of Bruce Lee's training programs, notes and annotations on physical training for a book series that, like Lee's training methods, has proved to be constantly evolving (the training material has been presented in the book entitled The Art of Expressing The Human Body, Tuttle Publishing, Boston). And what amazes me after having looked through all of his materials is just how thorough his knowledge of training actually was. Lee collected over 140 books on bodybuilding, weight training, physiology and kinesiology during his lifetime, in addition to well over 2,000 books on philosophy and the martial arts. Lee believed that you could never know "too much" about a subject that could benefit your health and he lived his entire life trying to acquire as much knowledge about health and fitness as he could.
Although Lee is no longer with us, his teachings and his example live on. Certainly this is so in the realm of exercise science. Lee epitomized the athletic ideals of diligence, hard work, bearing up under adversity and refusing to short-change either oneself or one's potential. "Low aim is the biggest crime a man can commit," he once told Tae Kwon Do Master, Jhoon Rhee. "Remember, Life is a journey, not a destination."
The Roman philosopher Seneca once said that, "Life, if thou knowest how to use it, is long enough." If this is so, then Bruce Lee's life was long enough to be a fulfilling one, perhaps - given what he accomplished and the enduring influence of his example -- it might just be considered one of the more meaningful lives of the twentieth century. And it was Lee's commitment to excellence - and to a principled approach to training - that resulted in the creation of one of the greatest physiques in modern history.

[Chi_archie]

good stuff guys. At almost 50 years of age I can tell u it gets a bit tough to keep the body fat off. i think I'm in damn good shape for my age, but the best benefit is to be agile and mobile later in life so you can enjoy your golden years. Soo many people work and work all there lifes and neglect there body cause there too lazy or too tired. then they finally retire with there $$ and can't climb a set of stairs. sad. I wanna be able to enjoy my $$ later in life and thats why i stay in shape.

good stuff Happy Boy

[ttwarrior1]

on next monday to discuss training with guest marcus reinhardt

[ttwarrior1]

You can't make an injury better by ignoring the pain. It just gets worse. Also, if you lay off, the pain just "sits there." The method that seems to works best is... to get circulation into the injured area without causing extra pain. I mean any pain.
Because...

If you grit your teeth and put up with even a little bit of pain, the injury doesn't go away. It just gets worse. The exercise has to be totally pain free.

That's why "Slow Rep Speed" is perfect for detecting exactly where and when the pain is coming. As the exercise is done very slowly you can detect exactly when the pain occurs and can then move the elbow, the wrist, or change the body position whatever it takes to get rid of the pain. In this way, you can still do the exercise and rehabilitate the injured joint at the same time.

Once you've got the "pain free" track nailed down, you're on your way to rapid healing.

"What If The Pain Still Won't Go Away?"

Sometimes the pain is persistent and won't go away even with this "Slow Movement" type of exercise therapy. If the pain persists, follow these rules and your recovery should be much faster.

Rule #1
Once you get injured... everything changes. Forget about your current rate of progress. Your new goal is to heal the injury. Focus all your attention on getting better.

Rule #2
Don't lay off... It doesn't help. The pain just stays with you... It doesn't seem to matter how long you lay off. You must actually work the injury out of the joint. Which leads to the next rule...

Rule #3
Find exercises that cause no pain. This is important! When I say no pain, I mean no pain. Not pain that is tolerable or less than it was. I mean no pain. Simply put... pain sets up a histamine reaction which causes swelling and blocks circulation just like your nose plugs up with allergies...That's why you take anti-histamines to reduce the swelling. Using pain-free exercises gets circulation into the injured area.

Note: the exercise has to be pain free even before you warm up the joint. Not after.

Rule #4
Don't be fooled by Endorphin release. It will mask the pain. Even if you can't feel it... the injury is still taking place. You must find exercises that don't cause pain without any warm-up. This will accelerate the healing tremendously.

Rule #5
After you have found pain-free exercises, continue to work the area using the very slow rep speed method. It will stimulate circulation and sweep out all the accumulated toxins.

Rule #6
Ice the injured area each night until it goes numb. Your body will sense the cold and send more nutrient rich blood to the injured area. Be careful you don't overdo it and get frostbite.

Rule #7
Take aspirin about every three hours. It is a mild anti-inflammatory and allegedly thins the blood to aid in penetrating the swollen tissues. Don't take it before workouts as it will mask pain. You need pain to tell you when you are re-injuring yourself.

Rule #8
Don't ignore the first signs of pain. Be alert on every exercise. If you feel a little tinge of pain, either make adjustments in your exercise form or stop the exercise and go to something else. Most of the damage can be avoided if you're alert to the very first signs of pain. (Joint pain, not the lactic acid pain associated with muscles working.)

[ttwarrior1]

My HEAVY DUTY™ Life

by Kevin Dye
Adelaide, Australia)

---

My introduction to Mike Mentzer and HEAVY DUTY™ began the winter of 1978 while I was visiting a friend. We both started training at the same time, a year earlier on our 15th birthdays after both receiving Bullworkers (I progressed to free weights Christmas 1977, after realizing my Bullworker could only take me so far). During my visit with my friend, he was proudly showing me his muscle magazine collection, when one grabbed my attention...a 1976 Muscle Builder with a moustached guy on the cover that could have easily been mistaken for Hercules himself! Aware of my eagerness to acquire this particular magazine for my own collection, my friend bartered hard, but I didn't care, I had to have that gem regardless of the cost. We finally agreed on two muscle magazines and a cassette holder. I proudly took my newly acquired bounty home to devour the contents. Amazingly, here was a guy promoting a system so far removed from the style of the day, it was akin to discovering aliens lived amongst us!

Until then I had slaved away for 3 months on a Frank Zane style routine, 12 sets per muscle, 5 days per week, but I can't say I had seen anything spectacular for my efforts. That was "the way", so who was I to contest it? Yet Mike did, with conviction and science to boot! I was enthralled by Mike’s approach, and immediately became a fan, buying anything and everything with Mike Mentzer on the cover or within its pages. Like my vast Bruce Lee collection, my Mike Mentzer amassment soon expanded extensively. Then my Dad came across a small bodybuilding shop across the other side of the city that imported various products from the USA, best of all it stocked Mike's HEAVY DUTY™ courses! Talk about "the golden fleece"! My Dad would go out of his way to get me a booklet each Friday morning...despite working 12-hour night shifts. As soon as he walked in the door with my latest treat, I'd retreat to my bedroom where I'd read and reread it for hours until it was firmly ingrained in my subconscious. I embraced HEAVY DUTY™ because it made sense. Monday and Thursday I trained legs, chest and triceps. On Tuesday and Friday back, delts, and biceps.

When I was 18 years old, I got the most incredible news...Mike Mentzer was coming to Australia! (where I live). This was a few months before the 1980 debacle that changed Mike's destiny and my perception of bodybuilding contests. I was so excited about going to greet my teen hero at the airport; I literally lost my voice the day of his arrival. I was devastated, I had so much to ask Mike, yet all I could do was to squeak out a request for Mike to sign my HEAVY DUTY™ booklet and a picture I had drawn of him. But before we met, I struggled to find him in the airport. I frantically looked around, without avail...until I spotted an Arab looking guy with a rugged jaw-line that reminded me of Roger Ramjet, next to him stood Cathy Gelfo, Mike's girlfriend at the time. He was bronzed; just how I envisioned my hero would be. What amazed me immediately was how Mike's chest jutted out from atop his shirt, reportedly his weakest body part. I remember thinking if this was his weakest muscle; I can't wait to see his strongest! What struck me next was how his calves stretched the bottom of his pants. Being a calf nut all my life, I was mesmerised, following Mike around the airport like a zombie. My girlfriend and I drove away that day leaving Mike standing next to Paul Graham as they awaited their lift. The rest of the day my head was buzzing as I anticipated seeing Mike pose that evening at a bodybuilding contest for which I'd bought a ticket to attend.

Arriving at the contest, Mike stood in the doorway in a short-sleeved brown velvet top selling his courses from a suitcase. What could be mistaken for legs, hung from his wide shoulders! I had to get a closer look, but trying to be discreet I went to the bar to order an orange juice - drinks were included in the admission price. While waiting for my order, I snuck a look at Mike standing behind me...there they were, Mike's freaky triceps...hanging over his elbows! I had never seen anything like it, and haven't since, despite meeting most of the champs since then, the cream of the crop in their prime. Champs like Matt Mendenhall, Lee Haney, Lou Ferrigno, Rich Gaspari, Gary Strydom, Lee Lebrada, Dorian Yates, Robby Robinson, Albert Beckles, Paul Dillett, Lance Dreher, and Kevin Levrone. While most out-weighed and out-muscled Mike, none had the impact Mike did. His charisma was unmistakable! Then again, nothing comes close to meeting your teen idol in the flesh.

Mike ended the bodybuilding show with a rugged posing display, which was the final proof I needed about the validation of HEAVY DUTY™. I was enthralled to see Mike in all his glory hitting Herculean pose after pose, like I'd statically seen in all the various bodybuilding magazines. Mike then answered a few questions, which was ruined by a drunk in the audience who kept badgering him about eggs. Until Mike ended his tyrant mirthfully asking, "You know what eggs are, don't you"? That cracked the audience up! Then the time was up so Mike left the stage. The night was over and it was time to head home. I barely recall the drive home that Sunday night; my mind was swirling over from what I had just witnessed. The next day my HEAVY DUTY™ workouts took on a whole new perspective, and my outlook was cemented about which approach was the best means to achieve my goals - I have never looked back since then.

Later that year the bizarre happened; Arnold regained his Mr. Olympia crown, Mike was shunted to 5th place, and bodybuilding contests lost their interest to us both. Being just 2 states away, I spoke to those who were there, who confirmed the fiasco, some witnessing champs smashing their trophies in the car parking lot! Shortly afterwards, Mike disappeared from the bodybuilding scene, and despite a brief period where he published his 'Workout' magazine in 1983, he went AWOL. I continued to train HEAVY DUTY™ style, but with an added rest day each week on an ABA BAB set-up like Mike and Ray did before their departure. Despite being in my early 20's, the added rest day was a bonus, as I felt better recuperated. That was how I proceeded with my workouts throughout the 80's, despite dabbling with HIT full-body workouts now and then via Mike's mentor, Arthur Jones. Being the only HIT advocate around, I was keen to discover for myself what his version of HIT could deliver. My best gains were 2 kgs in 2-weeks! That was, despite my best efforts, after being stuck fast at 78 kgs for 2 whole years.

Early 90's I returned to studies to earn a university degree, and coincidentally Mike resurfaced as a trainer. Mike was rewriting his HEAVY DUTY© book, so I called him to place an order and to chat. It was great to hear his voice again, Mike sounded firmer than ever about the validity of his system, based upon a better understanding of the practical application of his principles he’d gleamed from his in the gym clients. Despite already being a HEAVY DUTY™ advocate, Mike's return reinvigorated me. I even underwent hypnosis sessions to boost my pain-threshold and intensity levels. I saved up, being a poor university student, and in 1995 I became one of Mike's phone clients. This was during Mike's HEAVY DUTY II: Mind and Body™ stage, where he was getting all the pieces together to formulate his next stage of evolution. He even offered for me to go into business with him, selling his new HEAVY DUTY™ book in Australia, but I had to turn him down due to my tight study schedule. Mike had some new tweaks he'd been testing out on his clients, yet he was still in an experimental stage. He even stated to me; "you are part of an experiment". His next book was a year away; Heavy Duty II: Mind and Body. I resumed with what worked before, and I did quite well on a 3-way split Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Late 90's, I contacted Mike's biggest client, 280+# Aubrey Francis. Aubrey was doing 2 set workouts using Mike’s Consolidation Routine, every 7-10 days...and growing bigger and stronger! That peaked my interest and curiosity, and shortly afterwards, Mike linked me with Dr. David Staplin, who also successfully using the Consolidation Routine. Mike's push to get me to change to his ultimate inclination of HEAVY DUTY™ was the final prompt, so I switched routines to his Consolidation Routine. Every Sunday afternoon following a nap so I was 100% fresh, I'd HIT the gym. And while I did well the month I kept with it, the mental anguish of being away from the gym became overwhelming, so I went back to what Mike taught me years prior. I've since come to realise I possess better recuperative abilities than most, hence my ability to train more frequently than many trainees and still make consistent progress.

On June 9, 2001, I wrote to Mike informing him of a web site who posted a negative analysis of Mike’s HEAVY DUTY™ system in an attempt to squash what had previously been a feud due to differences in values. The following morning I awoke to a slew of emails from around the world informing me of Mike’s demise! I went into shock! I had a young son by then, who I went out on daily walks with. The next couple of weeks, we went for long, silent walks each day, because I couldn’t come to terms with the fact that Mike was gone. It took me two weeks to even let my wife know! She knew what Mike meant to me, yet I couldn't find the words to tell her. Fortunately, the good that came from the bad during that grave period, was the close, cherished friendship I built with Mike's heir and successor - Joanne Sharkey. She supported me through that horrid time of my life, and we continue to stay in touch, despite our hectic schedules; her keeping the Mentzer legacy alive, me earning my second degree. Joanne helped me cope by confirming mine was one of the last emails Mike read his last fateful night on earth. I find deep solace knowing that. Mike touched both our lives, and made us better people for having known him.

Mike's teachings remain with me; they have taken me a long way from the bony skeleton I was back in 1977. My workouts are a far cry from what they once were, out of necessity, due to the poundages I now handle and the intensity levels I generate. Nowadays, three sets per workout is my lot...six intense minutes that takes me to my limits! And I continue to progress every workout!

There are a vast number of trainers worldwide who follow Mike’s Heavy Duty system and that number continues to grow, which speaks volumes for Mike's teachings. As I enter my 50th year on this ball of dust, each year I get reminded how right Mike was about bodybuilding. He was a man, he wasn't a deity, but I can say whole heartedly he was more right than wrong. I am living testimony to that. Mike was a thinker; his ultimate goal was to get others to think for themselves. The dogma that directed bodybuilding is what started Mike challenging "the powers that be". If Mike left anything behind, it was the belief every aspect of training, and life, should be critically analysed and assessed and not blindly accepted. That magazine I bartered for at a young, impressionable age was the catalyst that changed the destiny of my life. I had a wonderful teacher, one that's served me well throughout my life. He left a profound impression on me, one that lasts the test of time.

"A teacher affects eternity: he can never tell where his influence stops."
– Henry Adams

[ttwarrior1]

HEAVY DUTY™ - a Scientific Perspective
Dave Smith, PhD
Manchester Metropolitan University, UK

James Fisher, MSc
Southampton Solent University, UK


Sometimes potential newcomers to Mike Mentzer’s HEAVY DUTY™ high-intensity training inquire asking for referrals to studies conducted that support Mike’s teachings. The following article is quite substantial in answering this type of question, and the writers are certainly credible and qualified based upon their experience and education. I would like to introduce the writers to you:

Dave Smith is Senior Lecturer in Sport Psychology at Manchester Metropolitan University, which is one of the largest exercise science facilities in Europe. Dave had worked previously as a personal trainer utilizing high-intensity training with considerable success. Dave knew Mike for some years and had even written articles for Mike in the past. They had a mutual respect for each other.

James Fisher is Senior Lecturer in Sports Conditioning and Fitness at Southampton Solent University and is also an Assistant Coach with the British Wheelchair Basketball team, where he is involved in the athletes’ conditioning. Again, he is a strong advocate of high-intensity training. It is my hope that James will write an article for Mikementzer.com in the future as he finishes his current study which might also further support Mike’s HEAVY DUTY™ teachings and philosophy.



Ten years after his death, Mike Mentzer’s HEAVY DUTY™ high-intensity training philosophy still generates a huge amount of debate amongst bodybuilders. In his books, Mike claimed that his HEAVY DUTY™ training was, in essence, a scientific approach to training. Indeed, ‘The Science of Bodybuilding’ in Chapter 3 of HEAVY DUTY© (also known as HEAVY DUTY 1), outlines his key training principles. However, although at face value his approach certainly appears logical, it is difficult for most trainees to evaluate whether the scientific research on resistance training substantiates this claim. This is simply because most people do not have easy access to the (sometimes obscure) body of work examining this topic. This article, therefore, aims to explore the scientific literature on resistance training to put Mike’s theories to the test. In it, we will examine some of the key tenets of HEAVY DUTY™ to determine whether it truly does represent a scientific approach to bodybuilding. Though the article is not meant as a comprehensive review of the resistance training literature, or of Mike Mentzer’s views on every single aspect of resistance training*, we will summarize the key findings relating to the main tenets of the HEAVY DUTY™ approach.

* For a comprehensive explanation and discussion of Mike’s key training principles, see High Intensity Training the Mike Mentzer Way© (Mentzer & Little, 2003) and The Wisdom of Mike Mentzer© (Little & Sharkey, 2005)

Intensity and the Importance of Training to Momentary Muscular Failure:
Mike often focused in his writing on his principle of ‘intensity’, which he defined as the percentage of momentary muscular effort being exerted (see, for example, High Intensity Training the Mike Mentzer Way©, chapter 5). This in itself is controversial, as the term ‘intensity’ is often used in the literature to refer to load. For example, and typically, Willardson and Burkett (2008) and Fry (2004) point out that it is a common term for percentage of 1 repetition maximum (%1RM). This definition is problematic. For instance according to this definition, if one individual performs an exercise with a weight of 80% of 1RM, and performs one easy repetition with that weight, this person is training more ‘intensely’ than another individual who performs a hard set to momentary muscular failure with 79% of their 1RM. Clearly this is nonsensical; Mike’s definition of intensity seems much more logical as it refers to how the word ‘intensity’ is usually used in the exercise setting, i.e. to refer to the severity of the exercise. He argued that trainees should exercise to the point of failure, as this will ensure individuals make a sufficient inroad into the body’s reserve capacity to stimulate muscular adaptations:

“Carrying a set to a point where you are forced to utilize 100 percent of your momentary ability is the single most important factor in increasing size and strength”
--- Mike Mentzer (High Intensity Training the Mike Mentzer Way©, p. 41).

A similar suggestion was made by Willardson (2008), who suggested that training to momentary muscular failure may provide greater stimulation to the higher threshold fast-twitch motor units which are capable of producing the greatest increases in strength and hypertrophy. Thus, training to momentary muscular failure is theoretically more beneficial simply because doing so would ensure recruitment of as many motor units and muscle fibres as possible. Unfortunately, few studies have directly addressed the concept of training to momentary muscular failure whilst accurately controlling for other variables such as load, volume and frequency. Those that have, however, have produced some interesting findings.

For example, Rodney et al. (1994) reported significantly greater gains (41.2% to 19.7%) in dynamic strength when training to muscular failure compared to sub-maximal sets of exercise. Similarly, Schott et al. (1995) reported significantly greater gains in isometric strength when training to failure compared to stopping the exercise short of failure (24.9kg to 14.3kg), and Drinkwater et al. (2005) reported significantly greater dynamic strength gains (9.5% to 5%), and also peak power for a bench press throw exercise when training to muscular failure compared to not training to failure (40.8W/10.6% to 25W/6.8%). Notably Folland et al. (2002) reported no significant difference in strength increase between a training time of around 7 minutes (to failure) and 25 minutes (not to failure), suggesting that the same strength gains could be achieved in approximately 30% of the time by training to momentary muscular failure. Overall, therefore, the evidence suggests that individuals should be encouraged to train to momentary muscular failure, as this appears to maximize muscle fibre recruitment and leads to greater improvements than sub-failure training.

Training Volume:
Mike argued that one set to failure per exercise was sufficient to trigger an adaptive response and that any more exercise would simply be wasted effort and possibly counterproductive in that it would increase the likelihood of overtraining:

“…one set to failure is all that is required to stimulate an increase in strength and size – with no number of lesser sets having the same effect”
– Mike Mentzer (Muscles In Minutes, p. 26).

The number of sets is one of the most controversial issues in resistance training, and one of the most well-researched. Reviews, such as those conducted by Carpinelli and Otto (1998) and Smith and Bruce-Low (2004), have concluded that one set per exercise produces optimal results. In the Carpinelli and Otto paper, they found that single sets produced optimal results in 33 studies out of the 35 they reviewed. In contrast, Peterson et al. (2004, 2005) also analyzed this issue and claimed that multiple sets were superior. However, their own data clearly did not support their conclusions as in fact there was no statistically significant difference between the effect sizes of the different training volumes (see Carpinelli’s excellent 2009 article for a discussion of this issue). Overall, therefore, the weight of evidence strongly supports the HEAVY DUTY™, one set to failure approach.

Training Frequency:
In contrast to many bodybuilding authorities, who suggest training up to six days per week (sometimes even twice per day), Mike argued in his revised HEAVY DUTY© (1993) book that bodybuilders should train no more than three times per week with each muscle group trained no more than once per week. Later, in HEAVY DUTY II: Mind and Body© (1996), Muscles In Minutes© (2000), and High Intensity Training the Mike Mentzer Way© (2003), he argued that even this routine would constitute overtraining for many people and advocated a training frequency of once every several days at the most, with those especially prone to overtraining advised to train every 5-7 days (and in some cases even less frequently) using primarily compound movements (a method he termed ‘consolidation training’). Some have argued that such training frequencies are not sufficient to induce optimal muscle gains. However, the scientific research appears to suggest otherwise. A plethora of research, reviewed by Carpinelli et al. (2004) and Smith and Bruce-Low (2004), suggests that there is little or no difference between training 1, 2 or 3 x/week for both trained and untrained persons. Though no research has been published to date examining the effectiveness of consolidation-type training (the second author of this paper is undertaking such a study at present), there are some interesting findings on the recovery period following intense resistance training which appear very supportive of the need for relatively infrequent training to ensure recovery. For example, Cleak and Eston (1992) considered maximal eccentric exercise of the biceps, reporting changes in relaxed joint angle and swelling between 24 and 96 hours. In fact, maximal isometric strength had not returned within the 96 hour period. Newham et al. (1987), also considering maximal eccentric biceps exercise, reported a 50% decrease in strength immediately after training, and only a recovery to 80% of that prior to training after 2 weeks!

Another recognized indicator of muscle damage is swelling as measured by magnetic resonance imaging. A study by Nosaka et al. (1996) with untrained persons reported enlargement of trained muscles from 1-day post training up to 23-days post training, further suggesting that adequate recovery from intense training sessions can take considerable time.

Other research has reported significantly elevated creatine kinase levels and rating of perceived muscle soreness at 96 hours post exercise, as well as significantly elevated resting metabolic rate 48 hours post exercise (Dolezal, et al., 2000). All this research seems to suggest that recovery from hard training takes days, and in some cases up to several weeks. Therefore, it is very important to allow adequate recovery time between workouts, and this might be several days or even longer depending on the individual. Indeed, Mike argued latterly that attempting to prescribe rigid guidelines for frequency of training was a mistake as individual needs varied so much in this regard, something borne out by the above studies, all of which found considerable inter-individual variability.

Repetition Duration:
Mike advocated that repetitions should be performed slowly and deliberately with the weight always under full control to maximise muscle tension. In Muscles in Minutes©, he advocated a duration of about four seconds on the positive (lifting) and the same on the negative (lowering) portion of the repetition on most exercises, with a two second pause in the fully contracted position. Comprehensive reviews of this topic (Bruce-Low & Smith, 2007; Carpinelli et al., 2004) have supported Mike’s claim that a relatively slow cadence can produce optimal gains in strength and hypertrophy, but that ‘super slow’ (10:4 to 10:10 cadence) training does not offer additional advantages (Mike held that conducting “super slow” training beyond his recommended cadence could actually hold back the bodybuilder’s progress, because he would get tired quicker). For example, Johnston (2005) considered force production in a case study, reporting little difference in forces generated or experienced where movement was performed at repetition durations that maintained muscular tension (including 10:10, 5:5, and 2:4 (concentric: eccentric). Nevertheless, when attempting to move the load explosively, forces increased by as much as 45% initially, but then decreased by 85% for most of the repetition. This is likely due to the excess force provided to overcome the inertia being so great that momentum carries the weight through the rest of the range of motion. Johnston suggested that explosive lifts would likely recruit fewer muscle fibres due to momentum and that the diminished recruitment through most of the range of motion would be less effective for enhancing muscle function. This has previously been reported by Hay et al. (1983) with arm curl exercises. A study by Tran, Docherty and Behm (2006) considered decrement in force production and rate of force development, noting significantly larger decreases following sets of 10 repetitions at a 5:5 repetition duration compared to 10 repetitions at 2:2, and 5 repetitions at 10:4 repetition durations. This larger decrease in force production suggests fatigue in a larger proportion of muscle fibres, potentially stimulating greater growth and strength/power gains. Also, Bruce-Low and Smith (2007) specifically considered the risk of injury from ballistic exercises, reporting some disturbing statistics suggesting that explosive lifting can cause injuries to the wrist, shoulder, elbow and lumbar regions. Overall, therefore, Mike’s recommendation of a relatively slow speed of movement during resistance exercise seems both efficacious and prudent according to the research findings.

The Importance of Genetics:
Mike strongly emphasized in his writings that not everyone could develop to the same degree, and that although everyone can improve with proper training, few people have the genetic predisposition to enable them to develop a Mr. Olympia physique. Indeed, he devoted whole chapters in HEAVY DUTY© and in High Intensity Training the Mike Mentzer Way© to this issue. This issue is often evaded in the bodybuilding magazines and books, and yet there is now a large body of evidence that various genes do indeed play a huge role in response to training. For example, myostatin [an “anti-growth” genotype, inhibiting muscular development] appears to be important, and research suggests the genetic variation in the IL-15RA (receptor-a gene) is a significant moderator of muscle mass in response to resistance training. Other genotypes include ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNTF), where the G/G and G/A genotypes have shown significantly greater muscular strength compared with the A/A homzygotes. There is also alpha-actinin-3 (ACTN3), where the R577X genotype is generally associated with muscle function, contractile properties and strength/power athletes and could modulate responsiveness to training. Stewart and Rittweger (2006) provide a comprehensive review of molecular regulators and genetic influences, and suggest that these genetic effects likely account for 80-90% (!) of the variation in muscular strength and cross-sectional area.

A very simple demonstration of the importance of genetics is shown by Van Etten et al.’s (1994) study. This reported significant increases in fat-free mass for a mesomorphic (muscular) group after 12 weeks of resistance training, where an ectomorphic (thin) group recorded no significant improvement having followed an identical training routine. Therefore, it appears that those who are naturally lean and muscular to start with, can gain strength and size to a much greater degree than naturally ‘skinny’ individuals. So, as Mike often emphasised, genetics are a key factor in bodybuilding success. As Arthur Jones once said on this topic, you simply can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. However, as noted above, everyone can improve on their existing condition with proper training, and a great deal of exercise science research suggests that HEAVY DUTY™ is an effective way for individuals to maximize whatever potential they do have.

--- Dave Smith and James Fisher

[ttwarrior1]

The Big Picture

Many bodybuilders apparently don't understand that the big picture in bodybuilding involves two elements of equal value, literally 50-50, not 60-40 or 70-30 - but 50-50.
There's no gain saying that the workout itself is important, it's only 50 percent of the big picture. The second element, not one scintilla less important than the workout, is the rest period between workouts. And here's why. The workout understand doesn't actually "produce" muscular growth; it serves merely to "stimulate" the body's growth mechanism into motion. It is the body itself - of course - that produces the growth, but ONLY if left undisturbed during a sufficient rest period. If you don't rest enough, you don't grow enough - if at all!


Strength and Size


For many bodybuilders, not all, strength increases precede size increases. In other words, they grow stronger for a while without getting bigger. It is important that this be understood for reasons related to motivation. As one continues to grow stronger, however, his strength increases will ultimately yield a muscle mass increase.
I was just such an individual who gained mass cyclically. I can recall numerous stretches during which my strength increased regularly for a few months without an accompanying size increase. Not knowing at the time that for some strength increases precede size increases; this was very frustrating for me. In fact, I was tempted to cease my training efforts a number of times, but I persisted: and my burgeoning strength always finally gave way to an appreciable size increase. I have observed this same phenomenon with some of my personal training clients. They'll gain continuously in strength for two to three months, with little or no mass increase and then - BOOM! - within a short period they'll find themselves six or seven pounds heavier.

Continuous Increases


On the other hand, some bodybuilders experience consistent, proportional strength and size increases. An outstanding example of this was one of my personal clients. During a four-month period, his strength went up on every set of every exercise each and every workout, for a total of close to 400 sets! And every time we weighed him before a workout he was heavier. In that time, he put on 35 pounds of bodyweight, most, if not all, in the form of lean mass, as evidenced by his increased definition. This individual, Christian Obrest, was all but ecstatic as he gained more muscle mass in that four month period with his two to three weekly workouts averaging 17 minutes, than he had gained in the preceding four years working out two hours a day six days a week!

[King Mayan]

tt, im about to do 32 sets for my quads/hams...

i love the growth

[ttwarrior1]

32 pussy sets, thats why you need so many sets, you are a pussy. Plus a warmup set is not a set, its a warmup sets.

Warmup sets and 1 set to failure. There is no such thing as gaining extra muscle or extra strength. Once muscular growth is stimulated it can't be stimulated anymore than what is is and any more than that is overtraining and halts alot of the progress that you would see.

32 sets , why not 31 or 33. If 32 is good, 31 must not be enough and 33 is too much hey.

Just because you may be gaining doesn't mean you are doing it right. There may be more than 1 way to skin a cat but there is also a best way.

[ttwarrior1]

Im doing super slow today. 1 set of 1 or 2 reps, 30 up and 30 down super slow continuous tension after a couple warmup sets. Total upper body workout.

[itchypickle]

http://www.spartanrace.com/georgia-o...t-conyers.htmlMayan you Fukk....get your ass down here and enter the Spartan Sprint this weekend outside the ATL!

6 weeks of training and ready to hit it with the guys/gals from the box.

[King Mayan]

http://www.spartanrace.com/georgia-o...t-conyers.htmlMayan you Fukk....get your ass down here and enter the Spartan Sprint this weekend outside the ATL!

6 weeks of training and ready to hit it with the guys/gals from the box.

Fukk that itchy, I'm too big for that shit, I would Lose muscle by the seconds..

TT, 32 volume sets, you wouldn't survive with all the blood in your legs, you would faint...
It's way easier to do 1 heavy set than 32 sets/1 minute rest with moderate controlled weight. You pussy.

[itchypickle]

Dont limit your challenges...challenge your limits bro. It'll just be your cardio day with an hour or of pain

[ttwarrior1]

lol volume is easy
1 set is harder than 2 sets and so on

Your not in shape enough to do super slow or one set to failure in good form

Lmao at blood, who cares about suck pumps that dont cause or help with growth

[Chi_archie]

I did HIT religiously from the time I was a young teenager until the age of 27-28 . I did some German Volume Training (10x10) for 10 weeks or so and the results were the best of my life since I had first started.

[PickWinnerAllDay]

One thing I've never understood is men who work hours and hours a day on their body, but don't play any sports.

I know some guys who have never picked up a basketball, baseball, football, or played any sport but they spend hours a day at the gym making sure their muscles are big. But what exactly does that do for you? Don't understand it personally. Basically the only good it does is help you out on moving day. I don't know many girls who like big muscles. Toned is about all they care about.

[ACoochy]

tt, im about to do 32 sets for my quads/hams...

i love the growth

Mayan TT is mostly correct here...

To prove it do what was said for 6 weeks and if ur bench 1RM doesnt improve by at least 10 pounds then i'd be shocked

Just trying to point u in a path that i believe will help the most..

[dimaggio8]

Once muscular growth has been stimulated, it can't be stimulated anymore than what it is. Anymore than the exact precise amount is overtraining. There is no such thing as stimulating the muscles further by doing a 2nd set after doing one set to failure. The stimulus responsible for increasing size and strength is the last rep of a set carried to failure, and that last rep has to be progressive resistance or overload. Aka , one more rep than your previous best or more weight, or more time under tension. A 2nd, 3rd set or more does absolutely nothing but go into your recovery ability causing you not to gain as much muscle or strength that you could have. Mr Olympia dorian yates, 1st mr olympia larry scott, 4 certification programsmt the editor of ironman magazine, the inventor of nautilus and medex and cybex all agree with what i posted. Either growth is stimulated or it isn't.
For the dumb folk that are stubborn or have been brainwashed into believing something else i will explain more.

Think of your muscles as dirt on the ground and building muscle as the mountain on top of the dirt.
You do a set and a hole is dug into the dirt, aka the muscle.

Example: you do a set of standing barbell curls to failure where you can't do another rep. You have damaged, aka , contracted muscle cells.
This is like digging a hole into the ground.
Now by doing a 2nd set or 3rd and so on, all your doing is making the whole deeper and deeper. You do not want to make the whole deeper. By doing the 1 set to failure in the curl you have stimulated growth. Not too many people know , but the exact same chemicals in the body that are used for recovery are the exact same chemicals used for muscular growth.
By doing a 2nd or 3rd set or more after you have done 1 set to failure all your doing is digger a deeper hole , now your body has to use up your resources that would be used for muscular growth. They now have to be used for recovery when they could of been used for growth.
The very 1st thing the body needs to do to grow is to recover. The muscle cannot gain muscle or strength until it has recovered. Aka filling up the hole that was dug. After the hole is filled up, if growth was stimulated, the body then overcompensates and builds dirt on top of the ground, aka, making your muscles bigger.
A set you can normaly perform 10 reps with and for some reason you only did 1 rep, would you ever grow or gain strength? No. Why? Because the intensity of effort on that rep is low and your muscles are not fatigued and have no reason to expand beyond its existing compacity.
If you only did 7 or 8 or 9 reps you still would not grow because your body knows it can do 10 reps . After each rep you do the body contracts more and more muscle cells until it can no longer do another rep. If you do 10 reps your body still would not grow because you can curl the weight ten times.
In order to grow you have to do what you haven't done before and that is an 11th rep . Not 2 or 3 or 4 sets, but 1 set and one set to failure where you can't do another rep and you do that 11th rep.
This goes for all exercises. If you can incline dumbell press 80 pound dumbells for 5 reps, the next workout you either have to do
1. go up in weight or
2. Do the 80 pound dumbells for 6 reps , or more.
No growth can be stimulated by doing a 2nd set or 3rd, or 4th or 5th or 6th set. Once growth has been stimulated by doing that 11 rep on the curl or doing that 6th rep in the dumbell press. No 2nd set is needed or should be even desired. Any more sets goes into your recovery ability and is overtraining.
This is why people can lift weights for years or everybody can do a routine and people can see various results.
They all stimulated growth if they went up in weight or reps, but people are seeing different results only because some people can tolerate more exercise or have different recovery abilities. The fact that you feel like you can do more doesn't mean you should do more and it shouldn't.

I said it earlier in this post and I'll say it again. THE ONE AND ONLY STIMULUS RESPONSIBLE FOR INCREASING SIZE AND STRENGTH IS THE LAST REP OF A SET CARRIED TO FAILURE AS LONG AS PROGRESSIVE RESISTANCE OR PROGRESSIVE OVERLOAD IS APPLIED. ALL THE OTHER REPS OF A SET DO NOTHING, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING BUT WARMUP REPS UNTIL YOU DO YOUR LAST REP WHERE GROWTH CAN BE STIMULATED.

The body was not meant to lift weights. God did not itend for the body to be used for weightlifting. This is only done for various reasons, like getting better at sports, wanting to big build bigger or stronger muscles for whatever your own personal reasons are.
The body has week links when lifting. Like when doing bench presses. The front deltoids and triceps are being worked much more then the chest. Or when doing pulldowns the biceps and shoulders are being worked. This is why people complain when lifting that they feel nothing in a certain area they think they are working.
This is why you should use great form and slow your repititions down so you can get a muscular contraction in the muscle group you are training. Many times it is also necessary to pre exhaust the muscle to remove the week links.
Example: When doing pulldowns you 1st need to warmup your muscles. Do a light set of pulldowns for a few reps, not to failure with a light weight, then do a medium set, aka a slightly heavier set not to failure .
Then go over to the pullover machine and do 1 set to failure in the pullover or in the dumbell pullover with a weight you can do for around 10 reps.
As soon as you cannot do another rep. Walk over to the pulldown and do 1 set to failure in the pulldown. For the very 1st time in your life you may of experienced something you have felt before. The feeling of having to stop your set because you are getting a cramp in your lat or feel it so much in your lats you feel like they are going to explode. You have stimulated real muscle growth without having week links like the biceps and shoulders involved.
No 2nd set is needed . A 2nd set would do nothing but go into your recovery ability causing you not to gain as much strength and muscles as your genetics allows.

The proper way to train has been out for year right in people's faces for everyone to see for years but along the way people have tried to sabbotage it with other various workouts, beliefs, aka, like religious beliefs or economic beliefs to make you believe that something else is the truth, when in fact, the exact opposite may be true, and usually is.

What about certification programs? Anyone can become a certified trainer. In fact you can become a certified trainer online in less than 3 hours. You purchase the program online. You then click the option that you have read the material and are ready to take the test. You then take the test online. You then get graded. 3 hours later you are a certified trainer. Now guess what. Did you know most cerification programs don't even really grade you? Why? Because they want your money. They are not going to flunk anyone for the most part because if they do , then they can't take your money and send you a certification certificate. Most certification programs are exactly alike with some modification so they don't copy other programs. This is how and why anyone can start a certification program. Its all about the money.
So who certifies the cerifier? Who certifies them? The answer is noone. Anyone can be a certified trainer and anyone can start their own certification program. In fact if you wanted to start your own certification program tommorrow, you could and for very little cost.
As an experiment, i stopped writing this and became a certified trainer again in less than 30 minutes. Not hard at all. There are several hundred certification programs and they all have one goal. Get you certified and take your money. Then out of the blue, you need to send more money in a year to remain certified. Did i lose training knowledge in that year that i have to send money to regain it?
The moral is, most certification programs are crap , in fact horrendous just like most training programs people are on.
Most certified trainers don't even know the basic fundementals of their field. This goes for alot of our leaders in various fields. The best trainer at your gym could be the strongest guy , but i doubt it, but could easily be someone that has never touched a weight. You don't gain knowlege by lifting weights. You gain it from learning by reading, and observing and having an open mind. Of course not many knowledgable people have never not touched a weight, but listening to someone with great genes, or on growth hormone or says listen to them because they are certified may not be the way to go either.
This reminds me as a child when i never touched a weight and overheard someone recommend for someone to do 4 sets of 8 on a certain exercise. I was only 4 years old, but i remember asking why not 3 sets of 8 or 5 sets of 8 or 3 sets of 7 or 3 sets of 9.
I never got an answer , except for a mean look. I doubt anyone can clearly answer this, with the exception of myself and a few other individuals. Being a genious that didnt talk much as a child that was known to be shy, such a response by me then was probaly too much for the gym trainer to handle.
Congrats if you read all this. You may have finally learned something this year. This will be posted and has been posted on various forums. Even been offered a job at an online bodybuilding site because of it. Yes its true, im eating doritos as i write this. But we all have things to learn and our own weeknesses.
Goal + plan + motivation is the key to success.


If anyone really want to learn how to lift weights, learn something of value or to finally gain some real muscle, strength, or get in shape or better at there sport. How about contacting someone that will tell you the truth?
Im already training over 400 people across the country online with near 100 percent success rate. All free, I"ll never charge anyone that needs help..
You can contact me, owner of Bluegrass fitness


Join my yahoo group. Groups.yahoo.com/group/Heavy_Duty
I also highly recommend everyone join high intensity nation here on facebook if you want to learn more about training.

Wow that's a lot of words. But I think I get what you are saying. Basically if you are doing a 200 lb leg press and have been doing one set of 12 reps, try and get in the 13th?

[Chi_archie]

Wow that's a lot of words. But I think I get what you are saying. Basically if you are doing a 200 lb leg press and have been doing one set of 12 reps, try and get in the 13th?

I like your brand of humor sir!!!!!

[ttwarrior1]

correct

[King Mayan]

Damn, what a great leg workout I had today..

I did more that 32 sets.. My legs were pumped, fascia stretching, life is good.

[ttwarrior1]

who cares about pump, pump has nothing to do with growth or strength. People get pumps all the time, means nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Your just being stubborn

[King Mayan]

Sorry guy, in bodybuilding the pump is essential..

Damn i love Mind blowing pumps..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drioQ...e_gdata_player

[baskets]

goddammit Mayan. post the correct link. this is important business here

[ttwarrior1]

your wrong about the pump, all your getting from a pump is a feeling

You get pumped by doing 1 set to failure by the way.

What next , a vid where arnold says to lift weights everyday and train each bodypart 3 times a week like he recommended forever before he was told he was nuts and his books failed.

[baskets]

that was a good video.

[sickler]

One thing I've never understood is men who work hours and hours a day on their body, but don't play any sports.

I know some guys who have never picked up a basketball, baseball, football, or played any sport but they spend hours a day at the gym making sure their muscles are big. But what exactly does that do for you? Don't understand it personally. Basically the only good it does is help you out on moving day. I don't know many girls who like big muscles. Toned is about all they care about.

Vanity, self esteem........they're easy to spot because the thing most of them have in common is their legs aren't developed. Work the upper body like crazy but neglect the legs.

[ttwarrior1]

How many REPS? How much WEIGHT? Would you believe me if I said, "Unless you are an absolute beginner, DON'T be overly concerned about it."

Experienced Gym Go'ers can STOP counting REPS, STOP filling out workout charts, and STOP getting overly concerned with how HOW MUCH WEIGHT to use. Okay, it’s easy to be thinking, “Yeah, but how do I know if I am performing the correct number of reps?” Or, “How do I know if I am using the correct weight?”
To this I would reply, first define “correct number?" Or, define “correct weight?”…

The truth is, science and the experts have NEVER figured-out the “exact number” of reps, or the “exact weight” we should all be using…and they probably never will. There are just too many variables existing from person to person. Instead, the experts agree on “parameters”. In other words, they agree that it’s somewhere between “here” and “there”…and there’s a lot of latitude, which makes the so-called targeted number (of reps and weight) pretty easy to hit. The real purpose of repetitions is to allow a targeted muscle to perform physical work continuously for an optimal amount of time to stimulate an adaptive response (get bigger and stronger). That amount of time is between 40-seconds and 90-seconds, depending “which” expert you ask. In terms of “reps”, these time parameters equal somewhere between 8-20 strict repetitions being the targeted number. Again, that’s a wide and therefore pretty easy target to hit.

The thing ALL qualified experts DO agree on is that the 2 MOST IMPORTANT criteria to increasing strength or stimulating muscle growth are:
1 - Reaching a high level of intensity of effort or maximal exertion during exercise.
2 - Exercising in a manner which is made progressively more difficult to perform and therefore challenges you current maximum capacity to perform work.

So, “how” does this all apply to never having to count reps, or, get overly concerned about choosing the correct weight, or not having to write down the weight and/or reps? Easy…

Say, you are on vacation and decided to hit the weight-room at your resort. Again we’re talking about a person who’s been working out with weights for a reasonable amount of time. You walk over to (say) the Lat-Pulldown machine. Not knowing the machine, most experienced lifters would just arbitrarily select a weight, and then perform a “test rep” or two. Based on your experience and knowing your own body, you would probably be able to immediately (and intuitively) assess if the weight was a bit too light, a bit too heavy, or just right....

Now, after making a weight adjustment, let’s say you then strictly performed as many repetitions as physically possible. Because you performed the exercise to a point of momentary muscular familiar, it’s then a certainty that you reached an appropriate level of “intensity”, and performed the work to the limit of your own physical abilities. Therefore the exercise would be “both”, intense enough and progressive enough to produce an adaptive response within the working muscle. As long as the weight wasn’t ridiculously too light or too heavy, does it really matter how much weight you used, or how many reps you performed? Not really. Again, it’s because the target number of both is wide, therefore pretty easy to hit.

In Summary: The next time you go to the gym, instead of using a machine you are familiar with - try a new one. Make an educated guess at the starting weight, try a test rep or two to confirm, make the adjustment (or not), and then perform - in strict form - as many reps as physically possible. If you do this, there’s 99% chance that you will have met ALL the criteria to make that muscle grow and become stronger. Using this training protocol, you will continue to get stronger, and experience a variety in training that will help you avoid staleness or training plateaus. Give it a try!
~Franny Goodrich

[ttwarrior1]

The Big Picture

Many bodybuilders apparently don't understand that the big picture in bodybuilding involves two elements of equal value, literally 50-50, not 60-40 or 70-30 - but 50-50.
There's no gain saying that the workout itself is important, it's only 50 percent of the big picture. The second element, not one scintilla less important than the workout, is the rest period between workouts. And here's why. The workout understand doesn't actually "produce" muscular growth; it serves merely to "stimulate" the body's growth mechanism into motion. It is the body itself - of course - that produces the growth, but ONLY if left undisturbed during a sufficient rest period. If you don't rest enough, you don't grow enough - if at all!
Mike Mentzer
Strength and Size

For many bodybuilders, not all, strength increases precede size increases. In other words, they grow stronger for a while without getting bigger. It is important that this be understood for reasons related to motivation. As one continues to grow stronger, however, his strength increases will ultimately yield a muscle mass increase.
I was just such an individual who gained mass cyclically. I can recall numerous stretches during which my strength increased regularly for a few months without an accompanying size increase. Not knowing at the time that for some strength increases precede size increases; this was very frustrating for me. In fact, I was tempted to cease my training efforts a number of times, but I persisted: and my burgeoning strength always finally gave way to an appreciable size increase. I have observed this same phenomenon with some of my personal training clients. They'll gain continuously in strength for two to three months, with little or no mass increase and then - BOOM! - within a short period they'll find themselves six or seven pounds heavier.
Mike Mentzer
Continuous Increases

On the other hand, some bodybuilders experience consistent, proportional strength and size increases. An outstanding example of this was one of my personal clients. During a four-month period, his strength went up on every set of every exercise each and every workout, for a total of close to 400 sets! And every time we weighed him before a workout he was heavier. In that time, he put on 35 pounds of bodyweight, most, if not all, in the form of lean mass, as evidenced by his increased definition. This individual, Christian Obrest, was all but ecstatic as he gained more muscle mass in that four month period with his two to three weekly workouts averaging 17 minutes, than he had gained in the preceding four years working out two hours a day six days a week!
Mike Mentzer

[itchypickle]

You meatheads

Real men can out pike press, plange pushup, out thrust, and burpee your butts any day.....I post for TIME damnitt!

[LostBankroll]

I wonder how phat those gueys cauks are at the gym. Im sure they soft cauks are larger than my hard on

[ttwarrior1]

Sorry, Tell Me Again? WHY Did Your Personal Trainer Say You Should Be Doing This?

"FUNCTIONAL TRAINING" Another DUMB Fitness FAD We Will ALL Be Laughing at in 5-Years. No sooner had SKETCHERS SHAPE-UP SHOES been exposed by experts as a foolish way to get in-shape, now health clubs across the country are having a love affair with "FUNCTIONAL TRAINING".

At least this fad has "some" scientific validity and value. Unfortunately, it has little to no value to the average client being trained by the average Personal Trainer. Functional Training is used – and rightfully so – in physical therapy and rehabilitation. Here, it "does" have merit. When patience need to re-acclimate themselves to every-day tasks that you and I would take for granted, functional training is then prescribed.

In a nutshell, Functional training is promoted as a way to strengthen your "core" (another media-created buzzword), and improve your "balance", to make you stronger and better capable to perform "real-life" physical tasks, like carrying groceries upstairs, stooping and bending while gardening, or plain ole house cleaning. The objective is to perform strength-training exercises in an "unstable" environment. The SHAPE-UP SHOE works on the same principle. It challenges your "balance" as you walk in them. So what! Eventually it was determined that altering your natural walking mechanics was – for many reasons - unwise.

In gyms everywhere, we are seeing people sitting, standing, or lying on big inflatable exercise balls while performing resistance exercises. Again, the supposed value is that by creating an unstable environment in which the client must counteract, while simultaneously dealing with a particular resistance. Sounds good on paper, but the only thing it really does is prove that the Personal Trainer is a "dumbbell" themselves, and that the client is NOT using the best exercise protocol possible to accomplish what is probably their goal; to improve the way their body looks. Yes, you heard it here first: This form of training does not - to any great extent - cause improvement in overall physical fitness, muscular strength, muscular development, or body composition. Instead, it makes you look a bit silly in the gym, resembling a circus performer, instead of someone training in the safest and most efficient manner possible.

This faulty science is also behind much of the "Sports-Specific" Training that is being marketed to High School athletes, and athletes of ALL ages for that matter. However, that will have to wait, and be another topic for another discussion. The best "functional" training for any sport, is the "sport" itself. We get better at throwing a football by throwing a football. Conversely, the only thing flipping tires makes us better at, is flipping tires. Make sense?

Bottom Line: "functional training" does play an obviously important role in the lives of certain individuals. I am NOT hating on functional training per-se, I am against it being a mainstream first choice exercise application for your average "hey, I wanna lose a few pounds and shape-up" individual. These are the folks being ripped-off because it is NOT the best protocol; yet, gyms are hyping it at the "next big thing!" It is not.
Franny Goodrich

[ttwarrior1]

H.S. FOOTBALL PLAYERS: If you are LIFTING to become BIGGER and STRONGER for the upcoming football season - you should know the "Bizarro World" relationship between the Weight-Room and the Football Field.

We all ACCEPT the fact that football is a bone-jarring and joint-mashing activity. Speed and explosiveness "is" the goal. What too many testosterone-gushing teenage football players DO NOT realize is that to get bigger and stronger, in the fastest time possible - the exact OPPOSITE is true.

Think of strength training as the Bizarro World of opposites:

1 – Unlike driving an automobile, the FASTEST way to get BIGGER and STRONGER is to go SLOWER. In other words, speed, explosiveness, and acceleration is great on the football field, but it will STOP your progress in the weight room. Slower controlled reps, builds a bigger muscle, and a stronger athlete.

2 – Because teenagers have feeling of invincibility, they often laugh at safety precautions. Unfortunately, the most obvious example is "prom-night driving". What H.S. Athletes SHOULD realize, is that in the case of building bigger muscles, as fast as possible, the SAFEST way is also the BEST way. DRIVE (lift) S-L-O-W!

3 – To BUILD Strength, we must NOT demonstrate strength. In other words, "How Much Ya Bench" or doing a 1-rep max only proves you are a DUMBBELL, or worse, your uninformed strength coach is.

4 – Speaking of Coaches: Most of today's' informed strength coaches have abandoned the Neanderthal weight room practices of doing Power-cleans, Clean n' jerks, and other old school nonsense. Why? Because sports-science has shown that the skill, speed, and explosiveness of these-type lifts, DOES NOT transfer to specific sports. And, it's stupid to be putting such needless wear n' tear on your joints, tendons, and ligaments - save that for the football field.

5 – The bottom line: In the weight room, where getting BIGGER, STRONGER, and MORE POWERFUL is the likely goal; Slow, Controlled, and Safe - BEATS - Fast, Explosive, and Dangerous, every time. Not to mention, your joints will thank you, 20 years from now. Don't be a Dumbbell.

Parents; You're welcome.

~Franny Goodrich

[ttwarrior1]

In this first of a two-part series, Mike Mentzer begins to align his reasons, deliver the unassailable logic, responsible for his belief that fulfilling one's potential should require very little time, less than even Arthur Jones believes possible! Although controversial, one must admit that Mentzer stimulates thought like no other writer in the field.


Prior to the advent of most - no, all! - of this century's greatest scientific discoveries, e.g., the airplane, the radio, the television, interplanetary travel and personal computers, how many of the great American unwashed would have granted any plausibility to such. Damned few, aside from the literal tiny minority of scientists researching those areas. It wasn't that many decades ago that the philistine public had the attitude: "Go to the moon? Impossible!" And what about the television; which, to my mind, is the greatest invention in history? Before its invention, the overwhelming, predominant majority never even conceived that the television might some day exist. It's not that they questioned the possibility, or plausibility, it might happen, as was the case with the airplane; after all, men had been attempting to simulate the flight of birds since time immemorial. The idea of an actual television never, ever occurred to them because there was no imitation of it in nature, nothing that existed provided the slightest clue that someday there might exist such a superlative, unrivalled device. Think of what is actually involved in television: the artificial generation of radio and TV waves, inserting perfect color images and sound into the waves; then broadcasting them to every millimeter of space in a prescribed area - and so on.


(An interesting side note: In the Spring 1999 issue of Exercise Protocol, Arthur Jones stated in his article Strength Testing VII -- "Eventually, the Wright Brothers did build an airplane that would fly, but only after many years of trial and error tinkering, with no slightest help from the scientific community. In fact, most scientists continued to believe that flying was impossible for several years after the Wrights were flying on a daily basis in front of thousands of witnesses.


"Then, when a few scientists finally did become aware that flight was possible, the first thing they tried to do was steal credit for the discoveries of the Wright Brothers; both Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, and the then director of the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, entered into a criminal conspiracy to steal credit from the Wright Brothers. . ."


This conforms to the pattern, the mode of response, to Mr. Jones' discovery of the Nautilus machines, exhibited by members of the bodybuilding orthodoxy and, to some degree, by the so-called exercise "science" community. I refer to the pattern using a mnemonic device - namely, IRACS; first they ignore the discovery, then ridicule it, attack it, copy it and, finally, they steal it. With no presumption of stature intended, this is happening to me, with my further development and promotion of the theory of high-intensity training. The most remarkable involves a widely-recognized, first rank physique champion of 30 years ago; one who, not long ago, claimed to have discovered (and is now selling) an "exciting, startling new approach to training centered around intensity and workouts lasting ONLY nine minutes!" Most interesting is that this same individual had written a few articles over the years attacking my theory of training; then, recently, purchased a sizable number of my books wholesale to sell through his own distribution company. He apparently had read my books, as soon after his receipt of them, prior to his "exciting new discovery," I received a very laudatory letter from him indicating how great my ideas are, concluding with a sincere "thanks" for my having educated him on how to best proceed with training.)


*** *** ***
For most of this century, everyone - not merely a majority - uncritically accepted the notion that it would take five to 10 years to actualize one's muscular/strength potential. Why has that belief prevailed for so long? Why does it still predominate? Largely because of the inability or unwillingness of most bodybuilders to engage in the mental effort required to understand the requisite theoretical knowledge. (I say "inability" because, while that knowledge does exist, it is so lost amidst the reams of concrete-bound, unscientific hypotheses posing as scientific fact, that many never find their way to it.) The only source of knowledge for the small number of alleged misfits involved in the "esoteric" activity of weightlifting/bodybuilding early on was physical culture magazines; which published exercise information that revolved around the use of the Swiss ball, the Indian club, calisthenics, some weights and the specious, sophistic "notions" of their eccentric publishers.


It was at the conclusion of World War II that weight training gained a wider recognition. Doctors at that time realized the need for rehabilitation procedures to restore strength to various injured bodily areas was acute. The need for truly effective rehabilitation of war veterans prompted a scientific evaluation of weight training protocols; and it was the pioneering - albeit, rudimentary - investigations by De Lorme and Watkins that were primarily responsible for the increased acceptance of weight training by the scientific community; which, then, trickled down to the muscle magazines.


The continued research conducted in this area are not in close agreement, although a general overview emerged. The original work of De Lorme and Watkins recommended the following program:


1 set of 10 repetitions, with one half of 10 RM
1 set of 10 repetitions, with three-quarters of 10 RM
1 set of 10 repetitions, with 100 percent of 10 RM
In essence, De Lorme and Watkins were recommending three sets for each exercise, usually 10, all to be performed three days a week. As I've explained before, the number "3" has a certain traditional magic in our culture: there's the three bears, the three stooges, the Holy Trinity, three square meals a day and the mystic belief that catastrophes occur in lots of three. (I found it interesting recently, while reading Aristotle, that he noted the ancient Greeks' propensity for the number "3," also.) And why would De Lorme advocate the performance of three sets; where the first set is done using one half of 10 RM; the second set with three-quarters of 10 RM; and, finally, the last set was with 100 percent of RM - all for 10 reps? The use of one-half, three-quarters and, then, 100 percent of RM, always for 10 reps, represent a misguided, but scientific groping.


De Lorme's approach was quickly picked up by Bob Hoffman, the publisher of Strength and Health magazine, the premier muscle publication of the 50's and 60's, one that purportedly existed to advance "the science of modern exercise." Hoffman's publication advocated three sets of 10 reps for each exercise, with a total of 12 exercises (the "Baker's Dozen," as he referred to it) to be conducted three days a week. I'm always suspect when so-called scientific discoveries rely on convenient numbers, ones that are traditional favorites, like three, ten and twelve. As I've, also, stated before, there is no room in science for the arbitrary or the traditional. A truly productive, scientific approach to exercise involves the application of factual, theoretical principles discovered through a "genuine empiricism," or logic applied to the material provided by sensory experience.


In the 1960's, Joe Weider made his way onto the scene, intent on wresting the lion's share of the bodybuilding/weightlifting market away from his nemesis, Bob Hoffman. In order to do so, he had to present the reading public with something new. He accomplished his goal by using more modern - "hip" - terminology in his articles and ads; making celebrities out of bodybuilders to use on his garish magazine covers and to sell his supplements; last but not least, he had to establish a new, superior, "scientific" approach to bodybuilding exercise. To this end, he started the "Weider Research Clinic," a quasi-scientific forum, really, made up of his bodybuilding champions and writers, a few of which were exercise scientists. And Joe, like others in this field, sincerely believed that if an individual was an exercise scientist, with a Ph.D. affixed to his name, this somehow made that individual's proclamations on the subject of exercise unquestionable and absolute; and that their contributions made his publications "scientific."


*** *** ***
(To the young, sincere and uninformed: No, not all scientists are hallowed seekers or guardians of the objective truth. Remember the Wright brothers and Alexander Graham Bell. And don't make the mistake of thinking that a Ph.D. is a perfect reflection of a Platonic archetype in this, the real world. In fact, as Ayn Rand identified, because of the collapse of philosophy in the 19th century, science is following a similar, though slower, course in this century. This is as it must be, by the grace of reality, as philosophy is the fundamental, integrating science. Or, as Aristotle, the man responsible for the discovery of logic and, thus, of science, put it: Philosophy is the base of science. The purpose of philosophy, ideally, is to identify the fundamental nature of reality so that the special sciences can then study isolated aspects of the universe.


Unforutnately, there is little today that promises a Second Renaissance, or the return of philosophy to its proper role. This is because our universities are teaching the evil views of Immanuel Kant, who was a subjectivist - he held that reality is not real and that man's mind is impotent - the man ultimately responsible for the collapse of philosophy mentioned earlier. It is our universities that are the major villains in today's intellectually-morally bankrupt culture, as there exists an overwhelming preponderance of professors teaching Kant's ideas, including the notion that absolutes don't exist; therefore, fundamental principles don't exist.


If nothing is of fundamental importance what does one think about? Anything or nothing, since no-thing is more important than anything else. It is people's unwillingness or inability to think in terms of fundamentals, essentials and principles that leads to confusion; and is what prompted someone to designate ours the Age of Complexity. Inundated by a ceaseless profusion of data, facts, notions, information and (dis) information, the philosophically bereft, unable to identify what is of fundamental importance, cannot structure his thinking; and is overwhelmed by an unnecessary "complexity." Such is why bodybuilders are agonizingly confused, never certain as how to best proceed with their training or nutrition, almost hysteric in their perpetual search for the "answer."


Let me remind you that Ph.D. literally means Doctor of Philosophy. Considering that today's philosophy departments are dominated by Kantians; and that philosophy's role in the intellectual division-of-labor is to establish the epistemological (intellectual) criteria to guide human knowledge in general and the special sciences, it is little wonder that we are witnessing the continuing destruction, or dis-integration, of science, including exercise science. As I've explained in the past, many exercise scientists don't even understand the simple fundamentals of their own field.


If you are thinking that this is too professorial or intellectual, let me remind you: It was 23 centuries ago, in the Golden Age of Greece, that men simultaneously exalted the power of the mind and admired the beauty of the human form. They clearly understood that to achieve one's full human stature requires more than a healthy, muscular body; it requires "a healthy mind in a healthy body."


The ultimate purpose of my articles is not merely to provide the readers with another training program(s), and expect him to blindly follow it. That would not be worth much long range. Instead, my purpose is to help you gain a firm intellectual/conceptual grasp and understanding of the basic principles of bodybuilding/exercise science; which is a prerequisite for learning how to think logically about it. Having procured a logical, rational perspective, makes it possible for one to become more or less intellectually independent on the subject; never again having to rely on the vascillating, suspect opinion of others. In the process of learning to think logically about bodybuilding, you'll discover that you've learned something about the nature of thought itself; which can then be extended to other areas of human life. And with continued study and effort, you will progressively expand your intellectual range; and, thereby, mature as a human being should.)


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The core principle that guided the Trainer of Champs and his minions was the bootleg logic "more is better." To them it seemed self-evident: more knowledge, more money, i.e., more values, are better than less; therefore, more exercise is better than less. (In fact, nothing is self-evident except the material provided by the senses, e.g., the "redness" of an apple is self-evident, it doesn't have to be proven.) The development of a practical, scientific approach to productive bodybuilding exercise requires knowledge that goes beyond the self-evident to the highly abstract, i.e., that which is not directly perceivable, e.g., the concepts "theoretical" "logic" "growth stimulation" "growth production "recovery ability" "fundamentals" " derivatives" "principle," and, yes, "ethics." (Bear in mind, also, that since man's knowledge is gained and held in conceptual form, the validity of his knowledge depends on the validity of his concepts, i.e., their definitions. Along with the fact that the bodybuilding orthodoxy's conceptual range is profoundly limited, they never define their major concepts - making the use of logic impossible.)


Dealing with higher, abstract knowledge is exactly what today's most celebrated "post-Modern" (Kantian) philosophers don't want you to do. Revelatory of the post-Modern's approach to the realm of the intellect is this quote from its most celebrated proponent, Michael Foucault, "My work irritates people because my objective isn't to propose a global principle or analyze anything. . . .The conception of philosophy is no longer that of a tribunal of pure reason which defends or debunks claims to knowledge made by science, morality, art or religion. Rather the voice of the philosopher is that of informed dilettante." And if you think that junk is relegated merely to ivory tower intellectuals, you are wrong. It has already penetrated bodybuilding (and every other area of human life), as two of my most virulent detractors have made statements reflective of Kant's and Foucault's influence. Jeff Everson, for instance, stated a few years ago in M&F, that ". . . in bodybuilding, there are no fundamental principles" - while more recently, Fred Hatfield exclaimed "All training theories are good!" These two statements express essentially the same thing because, if all training theories are good, then neither fundamental principles nor derivative principles exist. If fundamental or derivative principles don't exist, then knowledge doesn't exist; and for some, it doesn't; at least it has little value to them. Fundamental principles of bodybuilding science do exist, dear reader; and by the time you finish this two-part article series, you'll be able to grasp them and their important inter-relationships.


(The Greeks, as I stated earlier, lived in a Golden Age - precisely because they believed in the existence - the importance - of principles. Today we are no longer living in a Golden Age nor even a Dark Age -- but, instead, a Black Hole; and it's because of the abandonment of philosophy, i.e., fundamental principles. And when fundamental principles are denied, then ethical principles, too, are inexorably rejected since they are derivatives, i.e., based on and derived from philosophical fundamentals. Anyone with a child going to a public school need not be convinced that we are living in a Black Hole. Death and murder was the goal of Kant and it was the goal of Foucault. And it's no co-incidence that Hitler and Eichmann were Kantians? After all, if reality is not real, then man is not real; so, why not butcher him? It won't matter. No one will know because, as Kant posited, the mind is impotent. To those still reading this: keep in mind that the first requisite for building a healthier, more muscular body is that you have a live body, something that too many in today's world, including the students at Columbine High, are losing prematurely.)


It wasn't long before Joe Weider had taken over the market via skilled "manipulation of the masses," as he was once quoted. Now, rather than training in a reasonably sane fashion as advocated by De Lorme and Hoffman, Weider had an entire generation of new bodybuilders training for two, or more, hours per session using the Weider Double Split System - involving two such long workouts a day - and later, three times a day - with the Weider Triple Split. Of course, this mad, marathon training conducted six days a week - (an arbitrary, blind, doubling of De Lorme and Hoffman's three day a week protocol) - worked for none of his natural, non-steroid readers; despite their wasting of hundreds of dollars a month, in many cases, on his ever-enlarging inventory of "miraculous" nutritional supplements.


Many of his readers failed to realize that the heavily-muscled champs purportedly using this volume (over)training approach were taking ever-increasing quantities of steroids and other drugs to enhance their recovery abilities; and, thereby, compensate for what otherwise would have amounted to chronic, gross, mindless overtraining. (Who, in their right minds, would want to train for four to six hours a day, six days a week? And why six days a week? Well, there's an easy "scientific" answer to that: the seventh day was off for Sabbath, or religious observance!)


It wasn't until the early 70's, that there arrived on the scene an unusual individual, one smart enough to boldly and successfully challenge the insanity, and to provide a more rational alternative to what Weider and Schwarzenegger was advocating - namely, Arthur Jones. While Weider operated semiconsciously on the unchecked, unchallenged premise "more is better," Jones reacted violently (having developed a keen disdain for Weider's intellectually sloppy, pseudo-scientific approach), and brazenly proclaimed that "less is better." With that, Jones recommended, not 12-20 sets per bodypart involving six day a week workouts; but, instead, his notion of 'less is better' led him to advocate 12-20 sets, not per muscle group, but, for the entire body; and to be conducted three times (again, the magic number " 3") a week.


The more intelligent bodybuilders of the time immediately recognized that Jones was on to something, as we sure as hell weren't making any progress with the Weider approach; and because Jones was offering what this field sorely needed - a truly theoretical approach to training.


Within a short time after Jones' proffered his theory through the very pages of Ironman, myself and numerous others realized we weren't experiencing the progress that the theory suggested was possible. Jones, in fact, stated repeatedly that the actualization of one's muscular/strength potential should not require the 5-10 years as everyone had thought; instead the actualization of potential should require but two years! As much as this small minority believed in Jones and his revolutionary, theoretical approach, it was soon apparent that there was a flaw in it. As much as we hated to admit it, we weren't realizing anywhere near the results we had expected; the progress being only slightly better than that delivered by the blind, nontheoretical, volume approach. Better, but not good enough.


It wasn't until well after the end of my competitive career, in 1980, that I developed an impassioned, unswerving devotion to discovering the flaw in Jones' theory of high-intensity training. . .

[ttwarrior1]

While part-one of this article certainly piqued the interest of our readers, the following is certain to do the same, as Mike Mentzer levels damning indictments against the bodybuilding orthodoxy, exercise science and, even, Arthur Jones. Here he explains more of the thought processes, and identifies the basic principle, that led to his conviction that bodybuilders can actualize their potential in a very short time.

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In Part One, of this three-part series, I made the point that for most of this century the predominant majority of bodybuilders and strength athletes sincerely believed that it should take 5-10 years to actualize one's strength/muscular potential. This was because both the bodybuilding orthodoxy and the exercise science establishment were - are - unaware of the logical requirements of developing a truly scientific, theoretical approach to exercise; and that such was the direct result of living in a period of philosophical default. Today, many academicians are devoid of even a nominal grasp of the rudiments of rationality; which is why confusion is the intellectual hallmark of our time; and explains why bodybuilders are impotent against the ceaseless tide of false ideas, fraudulent claims and outright lies promulgated by many in the bodybuilding/fitness media. As a result, many are wasting hundreds of hours a year, year in and year out, in the attempt to develop a physique that they could have developed in one year!

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The subject of logic is vast; a complete examination of which is certainly outside the scope of this work. I will address, however, one of the most crucially important aspects of logic - (completely overlooked by all of the bodybuilding orthodoxy and, to a large degree, by exercise science) - which relates to the role played by unequivocal definitions. Because man gains and holds his knowledge in conceptual form, it is the validity of his concepts, i.e., the precision of their definitions, which determines the validity of his knowledge.
To quote Ayn Rand, from Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, on this issue, "Since concepts in the field of cognition, perform a function similar to that of numbers in the field of mathematics, the function of a proposition is similar to that of an equation: it applies conceptual abstractions to a specific problem.
"A proposition, however, can perform this function only if the concepts of which it is composed have precisely defined meanings. If, in the field of mathematics, numbers had no fixed, firm values, if they were approximations determined by the mood of their users - so that "5," for instance, could mean five in some calculations, but six-and-one-half or four-and-three-quarters in others, according to the user's 'convenience' - there could be no such thing as mathematics."
A theory, properly defined, is a set of principles, or propositions (statements of fact), which claims to be either a correct description of some aspect of reality and/or a guide for successful human action. A theory can fulfill its proper intellectual function only if the major concepts that make it up have precisely defined meanings. This is true of any theory, whether it be the theory of relativity, the theory of evolution or the theory of high-intensity training. The process of establishing precise definitions is rigorously demanding; which is why the mystics and skeptics (most people, today) turn away from the realm of the intellect. Concepts are the tools of thought; the better your tools, the better, i.e., more precise, the closer to the actual facts of reality, will your thinking be. (From Chapter Three, Another Kind of Definition, of my book "Heavy Duty II: Mind and Body.")
Balancing the Theoretical Account
Since starting my personal training business in the late 1980's, I've had considerable success with my clients. Their progress, early on, was primarily satisfactory (better than most); at times dramatic; and, in a few cases, phenomenal. In the very rare cases where progress was poor, such was the result of either very poor genetics and/or mistakes on my part, mistakes which I won't make again.During the first couple of years, all of my clients trained three times a week - Monday, Wednesday and Friday - averaging seven to nine sets a workout, on a split routine. (I had learned much earlier that Jones' prescription of 12-20 sets per workout for the full body, conducted three times a week was too much for almost everyone.) While most trainers and trainees settled - and still do - for progress unpredictably in tiny dribbles every now and then, I, on the other hand, expected my clients to make progress, i.e., grow stronger, every workout.
The reader may be wondering how I had ever come to think that bodybuilding progress should be experienced every workout. Allow me to explain. I was in the midst of a period of very intensive study of philosophy, logic and the nature of the theoretical knowledge. I had arrived at a juncture in my studies where I clearly recognized that, if in possession of a truly valid theory, and the proper, practical application of the theoretical principles is made, then progress - no matter what the field of endeavor - should be immediate, continuous and worthwhile, until the goal has been reached.
My belief gained currency when I looked at other contexts of knowledge. In medicine, for instance, once the "germ theory" of disease had been discovered by Louis Pasteur in the 1880's, researchers couldn't work fast enough; and it was less than a century before they had discovered cures for practically every infectious disease that had plagued man from the beginning. In aviation, the Wright Brothers' first successful flight of 1903 led to the Russian's Sputnik orbiting the earth in 1957 and the United States putting a man on the moon in 1969. In physics, it was Einstein's theory of relativity, developed in 1905, that rapidly resulted in the theory of fission and the discovery of the cyclotron in the 1930's.
Given the knowledge and depth of understanding described above, I developed an intransigent conviction that the bodybuilding orthodoxy, the exercise science establishment and even the leading high-intensity theorists were off the mark. Yet, I couldn't ignore the evidence regarding my own clients' progress. While their progress was practically always immediate from the outset of their training, it wasn't always continuous and worthwhile. Why not, if, in fact, I was in possession of a valid theory and was making the proper, practical application?
I was left to conclude that there had to be a flaw(s) in the theory of high-intensity as proffered by Arthur Jones; and uncritically accepted by just about everyone within his sphere of influence. Encapsulated, Jones' theory held that, to be productive, exercise must be intense, brief and infrequent.
Recall from above that, in the field of cognition, concepts play a role similar to that of numbers in equations; but that they may do so only if the concepts are precisely defined.
If any of the major concepts of the theory of high-intensity training were improperly defined, practice would be skewed to that extent; and progress would be compromised. In checking Jones' theory, the first thing I did was go to the cardinal fundamental, the principle of intensity; and found it properly defined. He defined intensity as "the percentage of possible momentary muscular effort being exerted." (The theory of high-intensity training further maintains that to stimulate optimal increases in strength and size one must train to failure, i.e., where he's exerting himself with 100 percent intensity of effort. If one doesn't train to failure, where does he cease the set? Stopping anywhere short of failure is inexact and arbitrary.) Jones was correct, as he had defined intensity in terms of its essential characteristics. Using Jones' definition, in other words, one could conceivably identify the intensity of any activity from low-intensity aerobics to training to failure with weights, where 100 percent intensity of effort is required. This stood in sharp contrast to the bodybuilding orthodoxy, who was using the term 'intensty' with greater frequency, but never defined it, often using it interchangeably with volume. Then there was the exercise science establishment, who had denied the validity of Jones' definition-by-essentials; and defined it loosely, by non-essentials. Two of today's more celebrated exercise scientists, William Kraemer, Ph.D., and Steven Fleck, Ph.D., defined intensity in their book Periodization Breakthrough, as "a measure of how difficult training is" and even more loosely, less philosophically acceptable - "a percent of the maximal weight that can be lifted for a specific number of reps." (To what is one referring when pointing to the "difficulty" of training? And, once difficulty is defined, is it the difficulty of a set, a workout or what? And by identifying the percent of a maximal weight that can be handled for a specific number of reps, how was the weight and the number of reps to be performed arrived at? One may be instructed to perform six reps with 80 percent of his one rep maximum when, in fact, he's capable of performing 10 reps to failure; therefore, his intensity of effort would be low; and little in the way of growth stimulation would be induced. As Jones has indicated, the number of reps performed by individuals with 80 percent of their one rep maximum will vary greatly, depending on the individual's fiber type and neuro-muscular efficiency. In his own research, Jones found one individual who could perform only three reps to failure with 80 percent of his one rep max on the Curl, and another who could perform 27 reps with 80 percent of his one rep max on the same exercise!)
After having precisely defined intensity, Arthur Jones made a grievous mistake, one that seriously compromised the efficacy of a superior approach to training, such that I and thousands of others who thought we had happened upon the Rosetta Stone of bodybuilding quickly grew frustrated. It was here that Jones left the realm of science and cognitive precision, and slipped into the arbitrary. Whereas the dominant training ideology of the time, as espoused by Weider and Schwarzenegger et al, advocated that everyone train each muscle with 12-20 sets two to three times a week, for a total of six days a week, Jones properly countered, stating that such a regimen amounted to gross overtraining. His prescription for the problem, however, wasn't much better: He suggested that everyone train the entire body three times a week, with a total of 12-20 sets per workout. This, too, given the higher intensity levels than advocated by the Weider approach, soon resulted in gross overtraining.
Jones' theory, recall from above, stated that - to be productive, exercise must be intense, brief and infrequent. However, what does brief and infrequent mean exactly? Jones equivocated, and left his legion of devoted followers - many of whom seemed to regard him as omniscient and infallible - bereft of rational training guidance.
In a very real sense, Jones was merely reacting to Weider in knee-jerk fashion. This was due to a critical blind spot on his part. Jones wasn't intellectually ensconced in theoretical fundamentals as much as he was literally obsessed with discovering methods for making extremely accurate measurements of certain derivative aspects of exercise science; with things like torque, muscular friction, range of motion and stored energy, to name a few. As noble an endeavor as this may be, the appropriate integration and application of such knowledge is possible only within the context of having first fully grasped the fundamentals.
Science is an exacting discipline whose purpose is to discover the specific, precise facts of reality. Weider's notion that one should perform 12-20 sets for each muscle is not exact, far from it. What is it exactly: 12 sets or 14 or 17 or 20 sets? And if 12 sets is sufficient, why do 20 sets? Since Weider never provided any explanatory context to support his notion, it amounts to nothing more than a groundless assertion. Jones' response wasn't based on a scrupulous process of thought either. To advise people to train with 12-20 sets for the whole body, instead of each muscle, is just as arbitrary as Weider's prescription.
Scientific Precision
"A number of the bodybuilding orthodoxy's self-styled "experts" have even alleged that there are no universal, objective principles of productive exercise. They claim that since each bodybuilder is unique, every individual bodybuilder requires a different training program. And then they contradict themselves by advocating that all bodybuilders train in the same fashion, i.e., two hours a day, six days a week." (From Chapter One, Bodybuilders Are Confused, of my book "Heavy Duty I.")That allegation was leveled primarily against Joe Weider and his bodybuilding orthodoxy, at the time I wrote my book in 1993. I have since come to learn that the exercise science establishment holds the exact same belief; and that they lifted it from Weider. You don't believe me? You don't believe that exercise scientists, the supposed guardians of rationality and logic in this field, could be so wanting that they would steal false, contradictory ideas from that catch-all of irrationalists?
As evidence, I quote from the book "Science and Practice of Strength Training," authored by Vladimir M. Zatsiorsky, professor of exercise science at Penn State: "Each of you is a unique individual in every way; and your resistance training program must meet your unique needs - for there is no one all-encompassing 'secret' program." Dr. Zatsiorski - remember, he is an exercise scientist - inexcusably contradicts himself later in the same book when he recommends that bodybuilders perform 15-20 sets per bodypart virtually every day, with up to 60 sets per workout. And later, Professor Zatsiorsky spills the beans, confessing that he gained such knowledge from "observations of professional bodybuilders," and from "studies which show greater hypertrophy from such high-volume training." (Some readers may recall past writings of Jones and myself indicating that, all too often, alleged 'studies' in the field of exercise science were never conducted at all.)
If, according to Weider and exercise science, there are no universal, objective principles how could bodybuilding exist as a science since the purpose of science is to discover universal principles? And since this Zatsiorsky eschews the universality of principles, claiming we are all "unique in every way," why, then, go ahead and advocate a universal training prescription?

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So far, I've indicted Weider (and the orthodoxy), exercise science and, to a lesser extent, Arthur Jones; everyone there is to indict, in fact, as all training approaches - except mine - are based on the same basic principles, differing only in degree. The primary problem with the Weider and the exercise science approach is that it's based on the premise "more is better." The idea that "more is better" means precisely that - more is better means more is better. You see, there's a (false) built-in guarantee, you can't fail. If 20 sets is good, i.e., yields satisfactory results, then 40 sets would be even better, and 80 sets better still. The advocates of the "more is better" approach won't go that far because they "sense" that there's a factor involved that precludes the possibility of performing such a high number of sets. Factor X was first identified by Arthur Jones - namely, the fact of a limited recovery ability. Jones' awareness that the human reserve of biochemical resources needed to recover from a workout is not infinite; and is what led him to state: "It is only rational to use that which exists in limited supply as economically as possible." However, Jones didn't carry that fact to its logical conclusion, and merely advocated "less is better," i.e., less than Weider. The principle that I am advocating, the one that makes it possible for the bodybuilder to actualize his potential in a very short time, is that neither "more is better" nor "less is better," but "precise is best."