Author Topic: Mike Mentzer - Discussion  (Read 415062 times)

dseiler

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Re: Mike Mentzer - Discussion
« Reply #675 on: July 05, 2017, 07:29:11 AM »
When Ray was in Sydney he gave seminars and also conducted two training camps at two of my gyms. Had two gyms then. He trained a couple of bodybuilders and one made good gains doing what Ray said.

Essentially you train body parts twice a week....once directly and once indirectly. He would alternate push and pull movements and combine chest with biceps and back with triceps done on different days. On back days the biceps are getting an indirect workout. On chest days the triceps are getting an indirect workout. Legs were on the day between. Sometimes he did shoulders and calves on the Saturday. He surely didn't do what I would say was volume training. His protocols were a challenge to finish and most people found that method too difficult and taxing. Ray and I agreed that to stimulate hypertrophy you had to exhaust the muscle and the symptoms were the same no matter how you achieved it. Ray's method got there quicker than mine. What I found was that almost all the champs needed many, many near maximal sets to get huge muscles. Ray boasted that he could exhaust a muscle in one rep. No one took him up on his challenge. I suspect that 'rep' would be sustained, etc.

Ray was quite knowledgeable about how to do exercises. Hand positions and that sort of thing made a difference so he watched for those things when helping others. I recall his changing my hand position on an exercise at Golds Gym in Venice in 1991. I was doing chest presses on a Hammer machine. Oh, about machines. For some strange reason few people used Nautilus at Golds Venice. They were in the second room so easy to access even in busy times. I guess there was a rebound from what Arthur Jones wrote so most of the muscleheads used free weights or equipment in the main gym area.

Ray stayed at my place for about a year back in 87-88. Kathy and their daughter, Dagny, stayed longer as Ray moved out. I had introduced him to Pam who he eventually married. They all returned to LA in 88.

One day when I was training triceps I finished up using a heavy stack for lying triceps extensions. Ray saw what I was doing and without any warm up proceeded to duplicate my set. After he finished he rubbed his elbows. Silly of him to not warm his elbows up. I guess he figured he was much stronger than me so could handle the weight with ease. Not so. I had been training for a while on that exercise so was able to handle more weight than anyone else in the gym in that movement. Ray was a big guy. Muscle for muscle one of the biggest guys I have seen. Somehow he doesn't look that big in photos.

One day at Golds I introduced Ray to Paul Dillet. Paul was weighing 290 that day and even though Ray was over 260 he looked small beside Paul. Afterwards he had to mention how ugly Paul's veins were. He was amazed that I had met more people than he had in the gym and he lived there. Well, Ray didn't go out of his way to talk to others. He just wanted to be left alone.


Great stuff. Man, Dillet was freakish.

SilverSpoon

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Re: Mike Mentzer - Discussion
« Reply #676 on: July 05, 2017, 08:19:54 AM »
yep you have to warm up before making an all out effort,  that's a given

I'd also heard that fellas who did do AJ's full body wo 3 times a week made ggains on the legs but not elsewhere so much because they always did do legs first so after that effort their energy/power was shot and they couldn't put the necessary effort into upper body work after that



A fellow who worked at Nautilus by the name of Joe Mullen had a very logical approach to alleviate this inherent problem with Jones' HIT (a problem I experienced myself).  Simply put, you evaluated each full body workout grading each exercise that you did.  Whichever exercise you did worst at, you trained first the next workout, with the best exercise from the previous workout being performed last.  My brother (who competed at NPC Nationals a number of times) commented to me that my training made me bigger, but that I was too balanced, nothing had a "wow" factor.  FYI, I was always natural, so I used to retort that maybe there was a key difference between my training and his (one he would never acknowledge).

Mullen recommended using compound movements almost exclusively, and to really only focus on single joint rotary movements if one were glaringly weak in an area, or if one were getting ready for a contest.  I can tell you that his method produced very good results for me when I was working crazy hours (70+ week) and was only training Monday and Friday of one week, then Wed. of the following week.

Another way around the problem many faced with Jones' training recommendation that I have used personally is to train the smaller bodyparts first as a warm up to the bigger compound movements.  I would start some of these workouts with movements such as 4-way neck, bicep curls (which never seem to get adequately directly worked in a true Nautilus program as they are only done towards the end of a workout) tricep, calves.

dj181

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Re: Mike Mentzer - Discussion
« Reply #677 on: July 05, 2017, 09:34:21 AM »
^^^ Thanks for the feedback brosef

AJ wrote an article about true athletes training, you know like baseball, basketball players, sprinters, and he advised for ttrue athletes to make the muscles directly involved in their sports as strong as possible while training the other muscle to an adequate level of strength

me thinks that was/is great advice

bigbychoices

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Re: Mike Mentzer - Discussion
« Reply #678 on: July 05, 2017, 09:48:51 AM »
aj was smart and mostly right. and yes you should always train a weak bodypart not only first in the workout BUT also the first workout of the week.  and you dont need alot of different exercises . the only reason to do 3 or 4 exercises is to get away from the boredom of doing one exercise to many times. each may hit the body part slightly different but not really anything to noticable. do you know that alot of strength and size doesnt actually come from the positive portion of the lift but actually from the negative. and yes depending on how hard you train you do need more rest. BUT if you dont max out dont go crazy failure with forced reps negatives etc like aj and mike wanted people to do then youcan train more often. in the day guys trained cuz they loved to train. love the sound of the weights hanging with friends etc. nowdays they hurry up like they hate training and being in the gym. get done fast take drugs eat.

NarcissisticDeity

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Re: Mike Mentzer - Discussion
« Reply #679 on: July 05, 2017, 11:57:31 AM »
 :)

NarcissisticDeity

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Re: Mike Mentzer - Discussion
« Reply #680 on: July 05, 2017, 02:55:27 PM »
 :)

bigbychoices

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Re: Mike Mentzer - Discussion
« Reply #681 on: July 06, 2017, 04:59:41 AM »
for the record    mike never trained dorian. NEVER. he always tried to make people think he did by taking photos of him "helping" dorian.   even dorian himself as always said mike didnt train him. he just incorporated some of his ideas into his training. period. again mike was trying to push his theory by using dorian.   mike was a decent guy but completly loony near the end. hell even in the 80s he was losing it.   

NarcissisticDeity

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Re: Mike Mentzer - Discussion
« Reply #682 on: July 06, 2017, 01:56:22 PM »
 :)

NarcissisticDeity

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Re: Mike Mentzer - Discussion
« Reply #683 on: July 06, 2017, 01:58:57 PM »
 :)

NarcissisticDeity

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Re: Mike Mentzer - Discussion
« Reply #684 on: July 06, 2017, 02:49:33 PM »
 :)

NarcissisticDeity

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Re: Mike Mentzer - Discussion
« Reply #685 on: July 06, 2017, 02:53:33 PM »
 :)

illuminati

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Re: Mike Mentzer - Discussion
« Reply #686 on: July 06, 2017, 03:00:54 PM »
Mike seemed quite charismatic
Spoke well & presented a 'New Training Technique' that
A lot of people bought into.

He did have a good thick physique - chest & back lacked a bit.
And he looks very good when stood on his own.
Was to light at the 80 Olympia & no where near good enough to win
It that year.

Sadly he was emotionally unstable / destroyed by that Olympia
Likely not helped by taking recreational drugs he relied on,
Coupled with a fragile mind / ego.

He & Ray died far to young.

NarcissisticDeity

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Re: Mike Mentzer - Discussion
« Reply #687 on: July 06, 2017, 03:04:51 PM »
Mike seemed quite charismatic
Spoke well & presented a 'New Training Technique' that
A lot of people bought into.

He did have a good thick physique - chest & back lacked a bit.
And he looks very good when stood on his own.
Was to light at the 80 Olympia & no where near good enough to win
It that year.

Sadly he was emotionally unstable / destroyed by that Olympia
Likely not helped by taking recreational drugs he relied on,
Coupled with a fragile mind / ego.

He & Ray died far to young.

Arnold had a point about that gut thing  ;D

NarcissisticDeity

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Re: Mike Mentzer - Discussion
« Reply #688 on: July 06, 2017, 04:14:44 PM »
 :)

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Re: Mike Mentzer - Discussion
« Reply #689 on: July 06, 2017, 06:46:42 PM »
Mike seemed quite charismatic
Spoke well & presented a 'New Training Technique' that
A lot of people bought into.

He did have a good thick physique - chest & back lacked a bit.
And he looks very good when stood on his own.
Was to light at the 80 Olympia & no where near good enough to win
It that year.

Sadly he was emotionally unstable / destroyed by that Olympia
Likely not helped by taking recreational drugs he relied on,
Coupled with a fragile mind / ego.

He & Ray died far to young.

forgot to mention he wasnt good enough to even beat zane or dickerson.....and died a junkie.   Some thong hero.

Griffith

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Re: Mike Mentzer - Discussion
« Reply #690 on: July 06, 2017, 11:43:58 PM »
Arnold had a point about that gut thing  ;D

I think that was because Mentzer used also heavy weights on his abs and midsection.

Arnold on the other hand would deliberately try to keep his waist trim and do broomstick twists and body weight exercise for abs.

pellius

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Re: Mike Mentzer - Discussion
« Reply #691 on: July 06, 2017, 11:59:34 PM »
I think that was because Mentzer used also heavy weights on his abs and midsection.

Arnold on the other hand would deliberately try to keep his waist trim and do broomstick twists and body weight exercise for abs.

The abs is a relatively thin muscle. Even when thickly develop they do not give the appearance of a distended gut. They will show through and appear more defined when fully developed.

The "broomstick" twist is an absolutely worthless exercise and will do nothing to "trim" your waist. The light twisting movement is a good warm up but you  can do that without a broom stick which adds nothing to the movement and only ties up the broom which should be used to sweep the floor.

illuminati

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Re: Mike Mentzer - Discussion
« Reply #692 on: July 07, 2017, 01:23:15 AM »
The abs is a relatively thin muscle. Even when thickly develop they do not give the appearance of a distended gut. They will show through and appear more defined when fully developed.

The "broomstick" twist is an absolutely worthless exercise and will do nothing to "trim" your waist. The light twisting movement is a good warm up but you  can do that without a broom stick which adds nothing to the movement and only ties up the broom which should be used to sweep the floor.




Yes - all that is correct.
Yet mike did have a turtle belly on stage
& Arnold didn't.

Also Arnold had the better overall physique than Mike
Considerably so.

Mike's Mental state & Recreational Drugs stopped him from
Improving his physique & he became a wreck mentally
& Physically.

pellius

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Re: Mike Mentzer - Discussion
« Reply #693 on: July 07, 2017, 03:45:56 AM »



Yes - all that is correct.
Yet mike did have a turtle belly on stage
& Arnold didn't.

Also Arnold had the better overall physique than Mike
Considerably so.

Mike's Mental state & Recreational Drugs stopped him from
Improving his physique & he became a wreck mentally
& Physically.

Mike's "turtle belly" was in 1979. I think it had a lot to do with him not sucking in his stomach  like Arnold and most bbers at the time have always done. Even skinny guys will have some distention when they relax their gut and let it hang out.

Mike's life is a tragic story.

bigbychoices

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Re: Mike Mentzer - Discussion
« Reply #694 on: July 07, 2017, 04:49:58 AM »
like i always said i think mike was the first to use insulin. ( i have no proof he never admited it. he interviewed tim belknap about being a diabetic) and then it seemed his gut got out of control. also he ( and others) used the gh from dead people for a short time. plus he did train his abs heavy ( not heavy duty but he used weights)

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Re: Mike Mentzer - Discussion
« Reply #695 on: July 07, 2017, 04:58:25 AM »
Quote from: NarcissisticDeity gink=topic=628065.msg8822335#msg8822335 date=1499382884
:)

that's the comparison pic that AJ took of Mentzer and Baldwin

at that time '74 they both had 17 1/4 inch arms and AJ predicted that Baldwin arms were near maxed out but that Mentzer could get his up to 19 due to having the longer ttriceps

pellius

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Re: Mike Mentzer - Discussion
« Reply #696 on: July 07, 2017, 10:29:59 PM »
that's the comparison pic that AJ took of Mentzer and Baldwin

at that time '74 they both had 17 1/4 inch arms and AJ predicted that Baldwin arms were near maxed out but that Mentzer could get his up to 19 due to having the longer ttriceps

Baldwin, never consider a thickly built bber, is killing Mentzer in the pec department.

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Re: Mike Mentzer - Discussion
« Reply #697 on: July 08, 2017, 01:01:48 AM »
Baldwin, never consider a thickly built bber, is killing Mentzer in the pec department.

that's true

just as AJ said, Mentzer and Caesy V were limb guys while Franco was a torso guy

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Re: Mike Mentzer - Discussion
« Reply #698 on: July 08, 2017, 02:51:32 AM »
like i always said i think mike was the first to use insulin. ( i have no proof he never admited it. he interviewed tim belknap about being a diabetic) and then it seemed his gut got out of control. also he ( and others) used the gh from dead people for a short time. plus he did train his abs heavy ( not heavy duty but he used weights)

It was Milos who brought the use of insulin to bbing.

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Re: Mike Mentzer - Discussion
« Reply #699 on: July 08, 2017, 04:36:57 AM »
forgot to mention he wasnt good enough to even beat zane or dickerson.....and died a junkie.   Some thong hero.

This is manifestation of some unresolved daddy issues.