Mike Mentzer's Last Interview 6/01
Ironman
Just weeks prior to Mike Mentzer's death on June 10, 2001, and his brother Ray's death two days later, Mike submitted to a Q&A session with The Sandwich. In this, his last interview, Mike reveals for the first time some very personal things about himself and his philosophy of life. You may laugh, get pissed off, be shocked or throw this magazine down in utter disgust, but herein lies the truth according to Mentzer. It's a swan song that's likely to stir up plenty of controversy, just as Mike would've wanted it.
The Sandwich: How are things?
Mike Mentzer: Things have been going along very well. I own a mail order business, as many people know; maintain a Web site, which requires a lot of work; I write articles; and I'm working on a video. All of that takes up a lot of time, but I live up to my responsibilities, enjoying it, working up to 10, 12 hours a day. That's been my pattern for many years. I can say my life revolves around my work.
TS: After the first interview we did, you disappeared. What happened?
MM: I had a number of medical problems, including one that involved surgery on my cervical spine. I had pneumonia, bronchitis and recently discovered blood clots in my lungs. It's fairly severe, but I'm on potent blood thinners, which should take care of the problem.
For those who might be interested in why Mike Mentzer has blood clots in his lungs, it was discovered a while back when my brother, Ray, was having surgery for clots in his arms, at the places where they hook up the dialysis machine. Many people already know that my brother has a life-threatening kidney disease requiring 4 1/2-hour dialysis sessions three days a week, which is very harrowing and debilitating. During one of the procedures it was discovered that he has a genetic disorder known as antithrombin deficiency, which means his blood clots too readily. The doctor told him, if you have brothers or sisters, tell them about this because they'll have it too.
TS: Has your relationship with Ray always been this close?
MM: [Laughs] Ray and I have had a rocky relationship most of our lives, although not horrible. The typical brother thing. But here, recently, with us both being sick, we've become closer. We spend a lot of time together. In a sense that's a positive because brothers should be close, not bickering. We're finally relating together as two brothers should.
TS: I understand that Ray received a surprising get-well note.
MM: Actually, he received a phone call, believe it or not, from Arnold Schwarzenegger, which I found very touching, and I thank Arnold for that. Arnold called Ray and asked him how he was doing, told Ray he could call Arnold anytime he needed something or for any reason. It was a very benevolent gesture on Arnold's part, and in my eyes it raised his stature as a human being. I was shocked when the call came! I told Joe Weider many years ago, I hope Arnold really learns to mature and actualizes his full potential, because he's quite an outstanding individual.
TS: What made you decide to write Heavy Duty II?
MM: Eleven years ago I decided to become a personal trainer, and I took my job very seriously. It's my job to use all of my knowledge to help my clients achieve their goals. When I first started training people, I used Arthur Jones' basic theory of high-intensity training, having my clients do 12 to 20 sets three times a week, which is certainly less than is suggested by the volume advocates. But I had to admit that they weren't making the progress that was possible. Progress was faltering, coming in tiny dribbles here and there. I knew something had to be wrong, and I knew the problem couldn't be undertraining; it had to be overtraining. I don't think any athletes in the world, including bodybuilders, undertrain. In fact, the predominant mistake in all of athletics is chronic gross overtraining.
I knew there was a problem with Arthur's theory. It says, in effect, that to be productive, exercise must be intense, brief and infrequent. Well, I realized after long study and thought that he was correct on the first principle of the theory of high-intensity training-that, yes, to be productive, exercise must be intense.
But what the hell is brief and infrequent? Those are two very broad terms that weren't given sufficient explanation. Joe Weider's system suggested that everyone perform 20 sets per bodypart, six days a week. Arthur merely reacted and arbitrarily said, No, doing 20 sets per muscle while training six days a week is too much. He decided to cut it in half and said, train three times a week and do 12 to 20 sets for the whole body, not for each bodypart. That was his flaw. His interpretation of brief and infrequent was arbitrary. What I did was continue to methodically reduce the volume and frequency of my clients' training over a period of time until finally I got it down to two to four sets per workout once every four to seven-sometimes 10 or even 14-days, and finally, finally, my clients were making the kind of progress I always knew was possible after properly applying a valid theory.
Arthur made an enormous contribution with the basic theory of high-intensity training, and I take pride in having refined it, developing it to a point where I can say that, at least in terms of practical necessity, I've perfected the theory of high-intensity training. The evidence is not just the logic of my system of thought but my clients' progress. Almost every client who has come to me over the past 11 years had been doing volume training, was very frustrated, made little or no progress. Once I put them on the Heavy Duty program and worked out their volume and frequency requirements, they made progress that ranged from satisfactory to literally phenomenal-off the charts.
TS: Why would anyone recommend a training routine that wasn't productive for the great majority of people-a training philosophy that doesn't help anyone who isn't genetically gifted and taking quite a bit of drugs?
MM: It's the understandable mistake of thinking that more is better. More money, more knowledge, more values are better than less. Therefore, more training must be better than less. Over a period of time Weider kept publishing that until it became associated with his name, and that ended up giving him a strong emotional investment in the idea of volume training. He just refuses to see otherwise. It's too late, in other words. He can't backtrack now and say he was wrong. That would be a personal blow to Joe's ego.
By the way, the first interview I did with you, I said that Joe was small-minded. Upon reading that, I was a bit disturbed because I'd recently had lunch with Joe, and I was surprised. At the age of 80 Joe has a very active mind, not a small mind. We sat at the restaurant for an hour and a half, and he lectured me the whole time on his particular philosophy of life. It's not objectivism, but I can respect someone who's not an objectivist so long as they have strong convictions with regard to their philosophy, and Joe most certainly does have strong convictions.
TS: You've done well as a retired professional bodybuilder. What recommendations could you give soon-to-be-retired bodybuilders who'll leave the scene due to drug-related health problems?
MM: Good question. I'm still involved in the sport. I keep a fairly close eye on what's going on with regard to the top guys today. It seems to me that many of them, including some of the last generation of bodybuilders, didn't take the time to cultivate other interests. As with some of the last generation of bodybuilders, these people are going to end up bereft. Not having bodybuilding, they're not gonna have much else either. They're gonna end up broke, having a difficult time emotionally. I see the markings already in some of these people.
TS: What do you see?
MM: In terms of their character, their philosophy of life. These people are solely committed to bodybuilding as the one central issue of their life, many spending up to $70,000 dollars a year consuming nightmarish quantities of a panoply of drugs-steroids, growth hormone and a vast number of others I haven't taken the time to learn how to pronounce, let alone spell. They made this their primary concern in life, and I see that some of them have minimal interests outside of that-like going to the movies, being with their girlfriend, going to the beach.
In talking with them, I see that they're limited intellectually. They're not concerned about their future. They're going to have a very difficult time. It does concern me a little bit, as I
have a passionate interest in bodybuilding and concern for the sport. But, there's nothing I can do. I've been writing for 23 years, and I view myself primarily as a teacher. I don't grant these people that they've been unconscious for 23 years. They could have read my material and gained the message that there's more to life than bodybuilding, that learning how to think is equally important-it's more important, in fact.
As I mentioned before, I do a number of things. As a retired bodybuilder I continue writing for magazines, primarily IRONMAN, which I'm proud of, as IRONMAN is the only magazine seeking to take an objective approach to this thing. I don't know of any other magazine that has given any positive attention to high-intensity training, whereas over the past several years we've seen an increasing number of articles written by a variety of writers in IRONMAN, giving it a more balanced editorial thrust. And I thank John Balik for it.
John has been a friend of mine for 25 years. I can recall 25 years ago when he lived in Virginia and I was going to the University of Maryland. Once every few months he would drive over and take photographs of me out in the field behind my apartment. He still has those photos, and he's published some of them. In addition, he followed me all over the world, photographing me and others in all the top contests for many, many years. I know him well enough to say he's probably the most decent, the fairest man in bodybuilding publishing right now. In fact, I've thanked him before, but I'll thank him again.
Eleven years ago I was having a difficult time financially, and John knew about it. Out of sheer good will he ran a series of quarter-page ads for free-ads mentioning the fact that I was starting a phone-consultation business. Once that first ad appeared, my phone started ringing immediately, and it hasn't stopped ringing since. In fact, if I wanted to, I could make my living solely on phone consultations. All I'd have to do is take out a sizable ad in any of the magazines focusing on my phone-consultation business. All I do presently is mention the fact at the end of my articles in IRONMAN.
TS: For bodybuilders who are going to be retiring, like Shawn Ray, Kevin Levrone, Ronnie Coleman-
MM: [Interrupts] Those are good examples of the opposite of what we were talking about. Kevin Levrone and Shawn Ray are both bright individuals who seem to have taken the time to engage in a diversity of interests, and their future looks bright.
