Arnold Schwarzenegger - 1980 only - the lean dry champ

[pellius]

Doms does not tell you if a muscle has recovered or not. It indicates lactic acid burn and nothing else. I dont always get sore after i train but i see consistent results.

Fwiw abs forearms calves need 24 hours biceps triceps deltoids need 48 chest lats quads hams traps need 72 and not more.

The smaller muscles in the midback and upper midback presumably need 48 but since you cannot really isolate them 72 is a safe bet.

Trust me, young grasshopper, you can safely work a sore muscle provided its gotten the required number hours of rest assuming you eat and sleep enough.

Gee, if only I had trained my calves every three days while it was still sore instead of every five days I might have put on five inches on my calves instead of just almost four inches on a bodypart that is universally considered virtually unresponsive to resistance training.

[pellius]

very well said methyl mike.   when i was younger i thought you had to get sore to get results. and should wait until soreness was gone before training again etc. then one day i was holding my baby nephew. i was stiff and holding tight as i was scared to drop him etc. then for 3 days after wards i was so sore in my bicep. i mean more sore than any weight training ever did.  now did i do muscle damage? did i explode with growth?   no freaking way. being sore was a way that my body told me i did something i wasnt used to had nothing to do with building muscles. in fact i have found that if i do train when i am sore the soreness goes away much quicker. ( removal of waste products and helping to heal etc)   so you are right about doms. 

I never said that DOMS per se was a necessary condition for muscle hypertrophy. Just like a rapid heart rate and heavy breathing is not necessarily an indication of aerobic or anaerobic activity. My heart rate goes up just by sitting in traffic and I can start breathing heavily just by being angry. None of that will improve my physical condition. Muscles can grow just by eating more or in the case of one of my nephews who never touched a weight in his life grew big legs just by growing up.

DOMS for me was an indication that I did something to that muscle that it was not use to. A stress it was unaccustomed to which I believe is more likely to stimulate an adaptive response. Why would it adapt to something it was already use to?

One of the principles of Arthur Jones was to do the minimum amount necessary to stimulate this adaptive response. If you can get that adaptive response with one set and get that same response with three sets, why do three? As Jones' said, "It is wasted effort at best and counterproductive at worse."

When I trained six days a week it made no difference in my physique when I cut back to four. Again it made no difference when I cut back to three. And it still hasn't made a difference when I cut back to two. The only real difference is that I am able to live a more fulfilling life because I have more time to other things then just slave away at the gym six days a week, month after month, year after year, like I see the majority people that I've known for years and they don't even look like they lift at all.

I don't think my calves would have improved one iota if I trained them every two or three days instead of every five day. So why do more if it makes no difference?

[njflex]

You really are not a very intelligent and thinking person. Of course, Mentzer thought his training protocols were the best. Just like Arnold, Cutler, Coleman, and every other serious competitive bber does. If they didn't think it was optimal they would do something else.  How can you be such a clueless moron? And Mike didn't criticize "Arnold's" training per se but volume training in general. Arnold, being the number one bber in the world was the prime example. If so many people trained like Arnold how come so few come even close to Arnold? Other than hard core gyms like Gold's Venice and Bev's Powerhouse, just take a look at everybody in the average commercial gym slaving away day after day doing set after set. The vast majority of them don't even look like they have ever lifted a weight in their life. Take a look at yourself and make an honest assessment. Do you think that if a person saw you at the beach or pool they would comment on how good and in shape you look? I'm far from stage ready fodder and you might think I look like a concentration camp survivor but I get complimented all the time. A solid six-pack does it every time. Something you haven't had in decades if ever.

And it's utter nonsense that training heavy doesn't give your muscles the "pop" that doing more sets and training lighter does. I know Arnold said that about Franco (though never said that about Mentzer. I don't even think he even bothered to comment on Mike and give him any notoriety. Just more made up bull shit from you.) but he was wrong. Just like he was wrong that concentration curls will give you a bicep peak and wide grip lat pulldowns will give you width anymore than a narrow grip. How your muscles develop and look is purely genetic and has nothing to do with how you train. Now tell me how Coleman's muscles didn't "pop" because he always trained so heavy? You seem to know very little about bbing and resistance training. Proven by what you write and how you look.

PELLIUS,,good posts man and again genetics and response to all the factors needed to develope a well rounded physique .whether its personal or stage physique it takes years and years of cycles to attain and maintain the highest level build.but normal folk like us for most part here can get a great build especially after doing it 10 or more years pretty easy and maintained just through good eating and  proper training and rest.the 'pop'the fullness/extreme look need is all drugs and more for long time/lenghts .not that you don't that already......

[bigbychoices]

and yet we still have a person continue with the name calling and insults. smh.  its kinda funny how jones and mentzer always said do the bare minimum to stimulate growth.  ( which i do agree with) however when looking at their "1 set to failure" idea why did they want to go so deep into failure? why not stop at just positive failure? that would be the minimum wouldnt it? why the negative failure? why the static failure? why the forced reps?  hmm it looks like they actually did way much more than just going to the minimum? anyways enough about a has been mentzer. genetics is the single most determining factor in bodybuilding. period.  everything else is important of course but nothing fixes bad genetics. take all the drugs you want but if your receptors dont  take them what good is it?    train whatever way works for you. gymnasts train hours a day and they have very muscular bodies ( no heavy duty there lol ) track sprinters train hours a day and have very muscular bodies ( again no heavy duty)  football players workout with weights and do ungodly preseason training and are muscular( no heavy duty). the list goes on and on. pellius if you found something that works for you than great. thats what we are all here trying to do. become the best we can. not everything works for everybody. THERE IS NO ONE WAY TO TRAIN.  name calling and putting people down is just childish.  arguing when wrong is just childish ( and stupid too) .

[pellius]

and yet we still have a person continue with the name calling and insults. smh.  its kinda funny how jones and mentzer always said do the bare minimum to stimulate growth.  ( which i do agree with) however when looking at their "1 set to failure" idea why did they want to go so deep into failure? why not stop at just positive failure? that would be the minimum wouldnt it? why the negative failure? why the static failure? why the forced reps?  hmm it looks like they actually did way much more than just going to the minimum? anyways enough about a has been mentzer. genetics is the single most determining factor in bodybuilding. period.  everything else is important of course but nothing fixes bad genetics. take all the drugs you want but if your receptors dont  take them what good is it?    train whatever way works for you. gymnasts train hours a day and they have very muscular bodies ( no heavy duty there lol ) track sprinters train hours a day and have very muscular bodies ( again no heavy duty)  football players workout with weights and do ungodly preseason training and are muscular( no heavy duty). the list goes on and on. pellius if you found something that works for you than great. thats what we are all here trying to do. become the best we can. not everything works for everybody. THERE IS NO ONE WAY TO TRAIN.  name calling and putting people down is just childish.  arguing when wrong is just childish ( and stupid too) .

First of all, you started with the personal insults and now whine when it comes back at you.

I'm going to give you another chance and answer you in a civil manner as you have brought one good point. Why employ intensity variables? Why not just stop at positive failure? Mike Mentzer brought up a similar argument except on the other side. Why stop at three sets? Why not do five sets? Ten sets? How about sixty set squats that Arnold did in the early days?

The argument and theory proposed was that a muscle has to be subjected to a level of stress it is not accustomed to. It will not respond to a stress that it is already used to. That's where the idea of progression is paramount. No one really talked about that back in the seventies. It's was always about getting a pump and doing more. Not with Jones. He said you should always attempt the "momentary impossible". If you fail at 8 reps the last time you have to try for the 9th. At some point, that level of intensity isn't enough. Say you are pushing 200 pounds for those 8 reps but fail at the 9th. That just means you are no longer able to push 200 pounds but maybe you can still push 194 pounds for the next rep, and maybe 188 lbs for the next. Which you can do with the aid of a spotter or some machines that will allow you do it. To force out those reps beyond positive failure. Forced reps. Doing this "digs deeper" into the muscle, "inroads" as Brian David Johnston put it. Intensity is increased and the muscle is subjected to a new unaccustomed stimulus.

But isn't more sets an "unaccustomed stimulus"? Sure, but is it conducive to muscle hypertrophy? Just like running longer at a slow pace will condition your body for endurance but will your muscles get bigger and stronger? No, extended aerobic activity has a catabolic effect on your body. It is forming itself to adapt to the extended levels of aerobic activity you are subjecting it to. Great muscle mass isn't going to help you in that respect. Being smaller and having less muscle to oxygenate makes it easier to extend aerobic activity. As Jones would say, no amount of low-intensity training will compensate for lack of intensity. And a high amount of high-intensity training will overwhelm your recovery abilities. You will sap too much of you energy that has other priorities other than building a 20-inch arm to take care of first.

Yes, gymnasts and sprinters train hours a day doing anaerobic activities and they are muscular. They are muscular because of this high-intensity short burst of energy and they do it for an extended period of time. So though they are muscular they are not bbing muscular. They train too much and burn too many calories to support great muscle mass and they don't do the very specific resistant type training that is necessary to build the extreme muscle mass of a bodybuilder. Remember, bbers are not athletes and nowhere where will you find in any sport that requires physical endurance and agility built like anybody on the stage at the last Arnold. You may find some great physiques in many sports but not bbing level physiques. A bodybuilder is a very specialize showpiece.   

[pellius]

BTW, of course, there is no one way to train. That's obvious. People are doing all sorts of things. You see many styles of training and the only challenge I see is trying to determine which one is the worse. Right now Cross Fit is on the top of my list.

But when it comes to general principles there does in fact exist one optimal way to train that applies to everybody. I'm not saying that there is one specific training protocol that applies to everyone but one general training principle that applies to everyone. Although everybody likes to say, "We're all different", that is true in that we are unique in specifics. That's obvious by just looking at each other. But biologically we are all virtually identical. We all function in the same way. We all have a heart, lungs, kidneys, use oxygen, process carbohydrates protein, fats the same way varying only in specifics. If that wasn't the case medical science couldn't possibly exist. If we all operated differently we'd have to reinvent the wheel every time we try to treat a person.
For example, if you have a bacterial infection you get treated with an antibiotic. You and everybody else. In my case, I am allergic to Penicillin so
I am given Tetracylince instead. The specifics vary, in my case Tetracycline; the general principle, being treated with an antibiotic, applies to everybody.

Though we have our differences I always give credit where credit is due regardless of my personal feelings and on this board only Vince Basile has
tried to make this point. If a training principle is true, it is true for everybody.
In the case of training where the three factors: duration, frequency, and intensity may vary someone depending on a variety of factors but how it is applied will be the same for everyone.

There are many ways to train but there is only one optimal way to train. We just haven't found it yet though we've improved considerably since Arnold's heyday.

[hipolito mejia]

Some people had the top 6 as followed :

Dickersons condition was on point there.
Sadly, he  is in critical condition now.

[bigbychoices]

Dickerson could get ripped and he held that condition for months.He trained very light alot of sets and reps and very little rest between sets. He competed in every grand prix show ( i believe). I never liked his physique personally. I never seen how he could win but again he was one of those guys that looked good by himself. I never thought he was in proportion his shape just looked odd. And he was a small man too. But he did very well. Its sad to know hes not doing well nowdays but it happens to us all.

[Pet shop boys]

Dickerson could get ripped and he held that condition for months.He trained very light alot of sets and reps and very little rest between sets. He competed in every grand prix show ( i believe). I never liked his physique personally. I never seen how he could win but again he was one of those guys that looked good by himself. I never thought he was in proportion his shape just looked odd. And he was a small man too. But he did very well. Its sad to know hes not doing well nowdays but it happens to us all.

WooOSHHHHHHHHHHHH

[illuminati]

Some people had the top 6 as followed :

Only those that have bad eyesight.
Also I’m sure many had varying Top 6 order
The only important one was the Judges Top 6.

Ifs & Buts - If My aunty Had wheels she’d be a Bicycle

[ArnoldPlatz]

1980MO

[ArnoldPlatz]

1980 studio shot

[harmankardon1]

1980MO

destroying them, they all look like also rans...

[Methyl m1ke]

You did well training your calves. Everyone on Ironage appreciated what you wrote about how you did it as 'Mark Twain'.

Most bodybuilders do too many exercises. Well, they fear muscles will shrink if they don't train them at least once a week.

I happen to be one of those lazy guys mentioned above. I was always looking for the bare minimum but maximum benefit way to train.

We both found some success by going way beyond what most people do. Yet, we must have been doing something similar otherwise

significant growth wouldn't have occurred.

I suggest you have a go at seeing if you can put an inch on your upper arms. My triceps respond the best. Well, I tore my right

biceps doing those stupid heavy dead lifts. My triceps today are bigger than ever which is a surprise as I am 77 and 1/2.

I do just two exercises for arms. I train once a week because I literally am not up to training that hard twice a week. So select an

effective exercise and have a go. I like to superset bis and tris. I get a good pump this way.

Im sorry I have to ask what in the FUCK machine is that? I mean thats a bit much to isolate what your long head of your triceps? Which is also hit with 100 other much simpler exercises?

[AbrahamG]

Gee, if only I had trained my calves every three days while it was still sore instead of every five days I might have put on five inches on my calves instead of just almost four inches on a bodypart that is universally considered virtually unresponsive to resistance training.

I'm a lazy fuck tonight.  Direct me to your calf protocol.  Very impressive.  I have always struggled with calves and admittedly, they still suck.  But, they've improved more in the last 5 years training them Palumbo style than they did the 1st 25.  Dave recommended training calves twice a week.  2 exercises per calf workout and only one set of each til failure using a weight that you can get at least 15 reps.  I add a 3rd exercise so I'm doing basically 3 sets of 15 twice a week. 

[Vince B]

I never said that DOMS per se was a necessary condition for muscle hypertrophy. Just like a rapid heart rate and heavy breathing is not necessarily an indication of aerobic or anaerobic activity. My heart rate goes up just by sitting in traffic and I can start breathing heavily just by being angry. None of that will improve my physical condition. Muscles can grow just by eating more or in the case of one of my nephews who never touched a weight in his life grew big legs just by growing up.

DOMS for me was an indication that I did something to that muscle that it was not use to. A stress it was unaccustomed to which I believe is more likely to stimulate an adaptive response. Why would it adapt to something it was already use to?

One of the principles of Arthur Jones was to do the minimum amount necessary to stimulate this adaptive response. If you can get that adaptive response with one set and get that same response with three sets, why do three? As Jones' said, "It is wasted effort at best and counterproductive at worse."

When I trained six days a week it made no difference in my physique when I cut back to four. Again it made no difference when I cut back to three. And it still hasn't made a difference when I cut back to two. The only real difference is that I am able to live a more fulfilling life because I have more time to other things then just slave away at the gym six days a week, month after month, year after year, like I see the majority people that I've known for years and they don't even look like they lift at all.

I don't think my calves would have improved one iota if I trained them every two or three days instead of every five day. So why do more if it makes no difference?

Not really the thread for this discussion. Anyway, let's talk about frequency of training the same muscle. According to Hypertrophy Specific Training they recommend training after there is no more protein synthesis following a serious workout. This synthesis apparently diminishes after about 36 hours. Thus, they recommended training the muscle every 48 hours or every two days. In practice this was three days a week.
The other consideration was recovery. According to The Stress of Life by Hans Selye he recommended training a muscle after it had recovered. Mike Mentzer and Arthur Jones both embraced this recommendation. Thus Mike would often train each muscle once a week.

Clearly this is what Pellius did for his calf growth. He says, "So why do more if it makes no difference?" Well, did he try training more frequently? If not then he literally has no idea about frequency except to do as Selye suggests.
Why train more frequently? Simple to avoid the repeated bout effect. If you wait until a muscle totally recovers you then have to do something much more intensive, etc., the next time you train.
An analogy is lifting a heavy truck tire. It takes a big effort to lift that tire but hardly any to keep it rolling along. If protein stops being synthesised about 48 hours it makes sense to train shortly afterwards.

How soon should that next workout be?
A slight diversion into pinch gripping. I had contests at my gym for pinch gripping. This led to my designing and building two pinch grip machines. Before a contest I would train for a couple of months. What I discovered was that the ideal
rest period was 2 days. That meant training every 3rd day. If I trained sooner I didn't make any progress in the amount I could lift. So every 3rd day it was. The training paid off because I lifted 92.5 kg with one hand on my pinch grip
machine. I claim that to be a world record. I just hoped this frequency was also applicable to hypertrophy.

In 1999 I trained arms and calves for a month. I trained them every 3 rd day without missing a workout. In that 30 days I trained 10 times. I gained over an inch on both arms and calves. Unfortunately I accumulated injuries because of two things. I had contact with my elbows during the triceps extensions....that caused the protective sheath to become inflamed so training ceased. I was doing ballistic bounces for calves for many many sets with up to 700 pounds. Those
bounces are not recommended because the Achilles tendons got inflamed.

Exercise selection is extremely important because some exercises work only up to a point...such as triceps press downs. Good for a warm up but not for maximising hypertrophy.

[pellius]

I'm a lazy fuck tonight.  Direct me to your calf protocol.  Very impressive.  I have always struggled with calves and admittedly, they still suck.  But, they've improved more in the last 5 years training them Palumbo style than they did the 1st 25.  Dave recommended training calves twice a week.  2 exercises per calf workout and only one set of each til failure using a weight that you can get at least 15 reps.  I add a 3rd exercise so I'm doing basically 3 sets of 15 twice a week. 

Everything was outlined on the Ironage site. We're talking 25 years ago. I can't remember everything I did. But I'm not sure it matters. Only the principles which is to do something that your muscle is not use to. I had to keep thinking of ways to increase intensity and stress stimulus. There was no such thing as this number of sets and this number of reps. I trained the calves one leg at a time using only a dictionary and door jam to manually help with forced reps, static holds, and negatives. I, in a sense, only did one set but sometimes that "set" would take as long as ten minutes. Burns, rest-pause, negatives, static holds, extreme stretching. But it didn't start out like that. I gave up on calves and didn't want to waste time in the gym doing them. I just started doing them at home barefoot on a dictionary just to keep tone and flexibility because I have heel spurs. So I started with just a traditional set and notice a slight improvement. I think it was because I was doing them bare-footed which gave a very different feel. More complete and natural and more freedom of movement then when my feet was confined in a shoe. Then I added forced reps, then negatives, then rest-pause, then partials/burns, then partials/burns as my "rest pause" in which I would do another forced rep. I also got a different feel doing it on the flat floor using my toes to grip the floor, then go back to the dictionary and stretch and do more partials then explode to the top helping myself by pulling up on the door jam. When I say explode I'm only trying to explode but my calves were so fatigued that there were no explosive jerk movements. As A. Jones said, you are less likely to injure yourself (provided form is sound which is easy with calves) because your muscle gets weaker with each successive rep. So as you progress through a set intensity goes up but force generated goes down. You're too weak to injure yourself. So it would be partials up and down psyching myself for the big forced rep. Up and down, muscle burning like hell, building up to the big explosion where I would try to generate as much force as possible.

I would not be able to duplicate that routine if I had to. I'm not sure I would have tried in the first place if I knew what was in store. It was a crazy, disturbing period in my life. To be so obsessed with a calf muscle. I'm reminded every time I look at my right calf. The little lump where it tore and the muscle bunched up. BBers in the gym think it looks cool and someone told me the day when I was at the Vitamin Shoppe that it looked like pro-level calves but to most normal people it looks like I have a tumor. They always say something like, "What happened to your leg?" When I worked at the hardware store sometimes a customer will ask one of the other employees what happened to that guy's leg. To most people it doesn't look developed, it looks deformed. I wish there was some way to go in there and shave off an inch or so to make it look more normal. But then it would leave a scar.

[pellius]

Not really the thread for this discussion. Anyway, let's talk about frequency of training the same muscle. According to Hypertrophy Specific Training they recommend training after there is no more protein synthesis following a serious workout. This synthesis apparently diminishes after about 36 hours. Thus, they recommended training the muscle every 48 hours or every two days. In practice this was three days a week.
The other consideration was recovery. According to The Stress of Life by Hans Selye he recommended training a muscle after it had recovered. Mike Mentzer and Arthur Jones both embraced this recommendation. Thus Mike would often train each muscle once a week.

Clearly this is what Pellius did for his calf growth. He says, "So why do more if it makes no difference?" Well, did he try training more frequently? If not then he literally has no idea about frequency except to do as Selye suggests.
Why train more frequently? Simple to avoid the repeated bout effect. If you wait until a muscle totally recovers you then have to do something much more intensive, etc., the next time you train.
An analogy is lifting a heavy truck tire. It takes a big effort to lift that tire but hardly any to keep it rolling along. If protein stops being synthesised about 48 hours it makes sense to train shortly afterwards.

How soon should that next workout be?
A slight diversion into pinch gripping. I had contests at my gym for pinch gripping. This led to my designing and building two pinch grip machines. Before a contest I would train for a couple of months. What I discovered was that the ideal
rest period was 2 days. That meant training every 3rd day. If I trained sooner I didn't make any progress in the amount I could lift. So every 3rd day it was. The training paid off because I lifted 92.5 kg with one hand on my pinch grip
machine. I claim that to be a world record. I just hoped this frequency was also applicable to hypertrophy.

In 1999 I trained arms and calves for a month. I trained them every 3 rd day without missing a workout. In that 30 days I trained 10 times. I gained over an inch on both arms and calves. Unfortunately I accumulated injuries because of two things. I had contact with my elbows during the triceps extensions....that caused the protective sheath to become inflamed so training ceased. I was doing ballistic bounces for calves for many many sets with up to 700 pounds. Those
bounces are not recommended because the Achilles tendons got inflamed.

Exercise selection is extremely important because some exercises work only up to a point...such as triceps press downs. Good for a warm up but not for maximising hypertrophy.

I use to train calves six days a week. It did nothing. I'd sometimes go as high as twenty sets. After trying every conceivable routine that's when I decided to just not waste my time anymore. I was just going to live with 13-inch calves. There's worse fates in life.

To stimulate an adaptive response you HAVE to do something more intensive than the previous session. Do something that you haven't done before. As Jones' put it, "Attempt the momentary impossible." So, to be able to generate as much force as possible, as much muscle contraction as possible, your muscle has to be fully recovered. If you were going to compete in a powerlifting tournament you wouldn't train the day before or even two days before. You want to make sure you are fully rested and fully recovered so that you can perform your best. Same principle. When doing a workout you want to be able to put the maximum amount of stress and load on your muscle and the muscle can only perform optimally when it is fully recovered.

There is zero doubt in my mind that I would have improved one iota if I increased frequency. It only would have made the training that much more miserable if I continued to try to do that kind of routine when I wasn't refreshed and primed to push myself to a level that I hadn't done before. It sometimes was as short as three days but it was usually around the 5th day when I was all psyched up and ready to go.

[Vince B]

I use to train calves six days a week. It did nothing. I'd sometimes go as high as twenty sets. After trying every conceivable routine that's when I decided to just not waste my time anymore. I was just going to live with 13-inch calves. There's worse fates in life.

To stimulate an adaptive response you HAVE to do something more intensive than the previous session. Do something that you haven't done before. As Jones' put it, "Attempt the momentary impossible." So, to be able to generate as much force as possible, as much muscle contraction as possible, your muscle has to be fully recovered. If you were going to compete in a powerlifting tournament you wouldn't train the day before or even two days before. You want to make sure you are fully rested and fully recovered so that you can perform your best. Same principle. When doing a workout you want to be able to put the maximum amount of stress and load on your muscle and the muscle can only perform optimally when it is fully recovered.

There is zero doubt in my mind that I would have improved one iota if I increased frequency. It only would have made the training that much more miserable if I continued to try to do that kind of routine when I wasn't refreshed and primed to push myself to a level that I hadn't done before. It sometimes was as short as three days but it was usually around the 5th day when I was all psyched up and ready to go.

The consideration that I also took into account was how swimmers and track athletes trained. They train daily and still manage to improve. How is that possible if what you say is true? Would you discard decades of experience and train the swimmers and sprinters every 5th day? Well, I doubt any swimming coach would even entertain that protocol. The point is how come they improve if they train hard daily for years? I know they taper off before competitions but daily training seems to be what everyone does.

If one is growing rapidly the euphoria is substantial. In 1999 I was running to the gym for those brutal workouts...pain and all. I knew I would keep growing. I got quite strong over the month in arms and calves.
Would I have grown as much had I followed your protocol? I don't think so. It is a pity that scientists haven't solved these problems. It would be refreshing to know for sure exactly what to do. I don't subscribe to the notion that
everyone is different. Well, there are individual differences of course even re fibre composition. However the theory of hypertrophy has to take differences into account and provide a theory that is applicable to everyone who trains.

[oldtimer1]

I use to read everything Arthur Jones wrote back in the day. I still have his original book that was put together with staples. Having said that I don't idolize him like those who passionately follow high intensity almost like a religion. In truth he spent most of his adult life weighing around 145lbs severely out of shape. I know his followers like to pull out pictures where he claimed to be 205lbs for a brief period in his life. When he first broke on the scene with his machines he was a little out of shape guy that liked to bully people with a gun on his hip.  His cam had no science behind it and when challenged he appeared to hire a math teacher who put out mathematical formulas with no values attached that amounted to gibberish in relevance to the topic at hand. One thing I will say about the cams is that the strength curve was correct for many exercises in that it got harder going toward full extension. Having said that some of his machines to this day are the best in the business.  His Med X machines are the smoothest machines going and a lot of very competent engineering was involved.

HIT guys like to say if volume was the correct way to train why aren't there more Arnolds in the gym. A complete incomprehensible illogical statement. The same can be said if reversed for HIT. The truth is there have been more successful athletes and bodybuilders using multiple sets than those using machines and single sets.

Many of the claimed success stories of  HIT are bull shit. For advertising he would take a volume champ and have them train for a week or two for photos then claim them as a success of Nautilus. Sergio Oliva is a prime example. He trained with a ton of volume. Jones paid him to go down to Florida for a couple of weeks then claimed his body was the result of Nautilus and HIT. Another is Casey Viator. One guy I know said he counted 16 sets for one body part when he trained for the 1982 Olympia his best ever condition.  I can add to that list Boyer Coe, Joe Means and few others.

Training with intensity with low sets is tool. It's not the exclusive way to train. If intensity was the magic bullet we would all be training with sets of one rep. There have been a few very successful guys that trained with HIT. Dorian Yates comes to mind. He would do one or two non taxing warm ups then hit that one set to failure. He went from two work sets per exercise to one work set in his training history. John Cardillo was a Mr. Canada who made a similar transition like Yates from two work sets an exercise to one. I remember he was fond of one set with slightly more traditional reps to failure. David Mastorakis was truly a Jones type success story. At one point he trained with 90% machines for one set to failure.  Mentzer used a combo in his training of one and two sets to failure. Another guy told me in the gym his warm up sets were heavy and he considered them sets but I'm not clear on that. No one can take a heavy set without a warm up. It would be an injury waiting to happen. Maybe on a machine you can get away with that.

[Stanly]

I use to read everything Arthur Jones wrote back in the day. I still have his original book that was put together with staples. Having said that I don't idolize him like those who passionately follow high intensity almost like a religion. In truth he spent most of his adult life weighing around 145lbs severely out of shape. I know his followers like to pull out pictures where he claimed to be 205lbs for a brief period in his life. When he first broke on the scene with his machines he was a little out of shape guy that liked to bully people with a gun on his hip.  His cam had no science behind it and when challenged he appeared to hire a math teacher who put out mathematical formulas with no values attached that amounted to gibberish in relevance to the topic at hand. One thing I will say about the cams is that the strength curve was correct for many exercises in that it got harder going toward full extension. Having said that some of his machines to this day are the best in the business.  His Med X machines are the smoothest machines going and a lot of very competent engineering was involved.

HIT guys like to say if volume was the correct way to train why aren't there more Arnolds in the gym. A complete incomprehensible illogical statement. The same can be said if reversed for HIT. The truth is there have been more successful athletes and bodybuilders using multiple sets than those using machines and single sets.

Many of the claimed success stories of  HIT are bull shit. For advertising he would take a volume champ and have them train for a week or two for photos then claim them as a success of Nautilus. Sergio Oliva is a prime example. He trained with a ton of volume. Jones paid him to go down to Florida for a couple of weeks then claimed his body was the result of Nautilus and HIT. Another is Casey Viator. One guy I know said he counted 16 sets for one body part when he trained for the 1982 Olympia his best ever condition.  I can add to that list Boyer Coe, Joe Means and few others.

Training with intensity with low sets is tool. It's not the exclusive way to train. If intensity was the magic bullet we would all be training with sets of one rep. There have been a few very successful guys that trained with HIT. Dorian Yates comes to mind. He would do one or two non taxing warm ups then hit that one set to failure. He went from two work sets per exercise to one work set in his training history. John Cardillo was a Mr. Canada who made a similar transition like Yates from two work sets an exercise to one. I remember he was fond of one set with slightly more traditional reps to failure. David Mastorakis was truly a Jones type success story. At one point he trained with 90% machines for one set to failure.  Mentzer used a combo in his training of one and two sets to failure. Another guy told me in the gym his warm up sets were heavy and he considered them sets but I'm not clear on that. No one can take a heavy set without a warm up. It would be an injury waiting to happen. Maybe on a machine you can get away with that.

I do not think Arnold trained as much as people think. People like Zane & other champions at that time laugh at the "yeah Arnold blasted every day twice a day in the Gym". sure he trained hard before a Mr O but not all year round.

[Vince B]

I use to read everything Arthur Jones wrote back in the day. I still have his original book that was put together with staples. Having said that I don't idolize him like those who passionately follow high intensity almost like a religion. In truth he spent most of his adult life weighing around 145lbs severely out of shape. I know his followers like to pull out pictures where he claimed to be 205lbs for a brief period in his life. When he first broke on the scene with his machines he was a little out of shape guy that liked to bully people with a gun on his hip.  His cam had no science behind it and when challenged he appeared to hire a math teacher who put out mathematical formulas with no values attached that amounted to gibberish in relevance to the topic at hand. One thing I will say about the cams is that the strength curve was correct for many exercises in that it got harder going toward full extension. Having said that some of his machines to this day are the best in the business.  His Med X machines are the smoothest machines going and a lot of very competent engineering was involved.

HIT guys like to say if volume was the correct way to train why aren't there more Arnolds in the gym. A complete incomprehensible illogical statement. The same can be said if reversed for HIT. The truth is there have been more successful athletes and bodybuilders using multiple sets than those using machines and single sets.

Many of the claimed success stories of  HIT are bull shit. For advertising he would take a volume champ and have them train for a week or two for photos then claim them as a success of Nautilus. Sergio Oliva is a prime example. He trained with a ton of volume. Jones paid him to go down to Florida for a couple of weeks then claimed his body was the result of Nautilus and HIT. Another is Casey Viator. One guy I know said he counted 16 sets for one body part when he trained for the 1982 Olympia his best ever condition.  I can add to that list Boyer Coe, Joe Means and few others.

Training with intensity with low sets is tool. It's not the exclusive way to train. If intensity was the magic bullet we would all be training with sets of one rep. There have been a few very successful guys that trained with HIT. Dorian Yates comes to mind. He would do one or two non taxing warm ups then hit that one set to failure. He went from two work sets per exercise to one work set in his training history. John Cardillo was a Mr. Canada who made a similar transition like Yates from two work sets an exercise to one. I remember he was fond of one set with slightly more traditional reps to failure. David Mastorakis was truly a Jones type success story. At one point he trained with 90% machines for one set to failure.  Mentzer used a combo in his training of one and two sets to failure. Another guy told me in the gym his warm up sets were heavy and he considered them sets but I'm not clear on that. No one can take a heavy set without a warm up. It would be an injury waiting to happen. Maybe on a machine you can get away with that.

Sufficient time under adequate tension is the main factor in hypertrophy. To guarantee you have sufficient time it is easier to do many sets with an adequate resistance.

The intense last rep or two are what counts and these accumulate until a training stimulus is achieved. Thus, we find most big guys doing heaps of sets. 

Training with intensity without considering the time under tension isn't going to be optimum for maximum hypertrophy.

If we look at the guys who really pushed the intensity factor we find that they tore muscles. Dorian, Ronnie, Franco, and others.

Intensity is one factor in hypertrophy. A certain threshold must be reached to stimulate growth.

[tommywishbone]

I thought this was a thread about ARNOLD FUCKING SCHWARNEGGER !

[Stanly]

Sufficient time under adequate tension is the main factor in hypertrophy. To guarantee you have sufficient time it is easier to do many sets with an adequate resistance.

The intense last rep or two are what counts and these accumulate until a training stimulus is achieved. Thus, we find most big guys doing heaps of sets. 

Training with intensity without considering the time under tension isn't going to be optimum for maximum hypertrophy.

If we look at the guys who really pushed the intensity factor we find that they tore muscles. Dorian, Ronnie, Franco, and others.

Intensity is one factor in hypertrophy. A certain threshold must be reached to stimulate growth.

truth in this.

[IroNat]

This thread makes for interesting reading.

I've been training for over 40 years.

Hormone levels and muscle attachments have a great deal to do with one's bodybuilding success.