He took Arthur Jones info, refined it and was shunned for this but in the end, there's no doubt all things considered and equal Heavy Duty Training or HIT is the optimum training protocol for muscle growth. Note I said OPTIMUM.
I'm very glad he exposed the IFBB's and Arnold's corruption. And it's totally understandable why he walked away. Exposed the ads in the mags and their fake promises and lies. In the reasons all end in greed as the reason as always.
If Mentzer's training was the prevailing protocol and brief and infrequent trips were the norm, there'd be alot less hours spent in gyms and much more results and quicker assuming
nutrition was adequate for training and rest of 4-7 days after a session. Genetic potential would be reached faster and 75% of the supplement industry wouldn't exist.
Mike was one of a kind and his contributions will reverberate for a long time.
Here's a gem for the gym.
In what way was mentzer a genuis? His ideas have been debunked long ago. No top elite bodybuilder, enhanced and natural, don't even use his methods. And yes that goes for Yates too.
If hit worked so well how come in 50 years it has never, ever proven what it promises. Even mentzer never practiced what he preached. They guy was out of shape most of the time because he was lazy. He wasn't a true bodybuilder. He built his body the conventional way, just look at his pics at 19. He had already most of the size from lifting high volume. Then he went into bodybuilding contests, got lucky on some wins but was mostly thrashed by better bodybuilders such as Zane, Szkalak, Coe, Dickerson and, of course, Arnold.
He regurgitated Ayn Rands nonsense which is a philosophy that should only appeal to disillusioned teenage boys. By the time they're 20 or over they should have grown out of that rubbish but not mentzer. He couldnt even come up with his own philosophy. The guy was a nut ball, certainly not a genuis. Even the golden era didn't like mentzer. They may say he was a nice guy, bit weird, but a nice guy. But that's it. None of them say mentzer was a fun guy to be around or he was the soul of the party. They're just being polite. The truth is most couldn't stand him as they would often get into debates with mentzer when he came up with his HIT rubbish. Just as Max_Rep about mentzer. Everything had to turn into a debate. The guy was so highly opinionated of hi self he thought he was better than he actually was.
There are far better bodybuilders to look up to instead of this failed human being. Yes, he was institutionalised. Yes, he was homeless for a while, he was living out of his car one point and was often seen car parks mumbling to himself. Yes, he wasn't good with money. He'd spend it thinking that his HIT courses would be a long term money making scheme. It wasn't. Hit died down in the 80's when it was found out what fraud it was and still is. He lost his money because he didn't invest. He lost his girlfriend who went on to bigger and better things. He ended up broke, out of shape, old and living with his ill brother in a small apartment in their late 40's. Does this all sound like a genuis to you? Certainly not me. He was a failed con man who should be long forgotten. He has done nothing for bodybuilding apart from crying about the 1980 olympia until his dying days. If you look up failure in the dictionary you'll see a pic of mentzer right by the word.