Great program for maintenance. No reason to have long workouts at our age.
Actually it's pretty much the same workout I have done since I adopted HIT years ago. I got interested in HIT in college because I had too much going on to spend a lot of time in the gym. An abbreviated workout seemed to be the solution.
I never was interested in pure powerlifting or bodybuilding and just wanted to fill out my upper body since as a racing cyclist my quads just grew like crazy but my upper body was like a marathoner's. So the one or two sets to near failure worked out perfectly. I went from ~160 to ~185 in two-three years on HIT- all the while staying extremely lean from cycling. I eventually got to about 190 where I started seeing diminishing returns. And honestly hitting 190 interfered with the bicycle racing I was doing (you really feel extra weight- fat OR muscle- on hills).
Now I lift just to maintain bone mass and general strength. Since my Gold's gym closed a year ago I don't bother with a gym membership anymore. I have two dumbbells, a bench and 200 pounds of weight for the dumbbells. I can do 100 pound dumbbell rows for 15-20 reps easily but I usually stick to maybe 85 pound max for dumbbell benches since it can bother my shoulders. I do 5 exercises a week with weights, all with dumbbells: bench, row, military, curls and kickbacks. I never deviate from the 15-20 rep set. The first few reps feel just like a warmup while the last 5 are where I feel the effort. I have never felt better.
I currently am in the mid 200 pound range at 5'9" tall. I could stand to lose 10 pounds but really not much more than that. I think my perfect weight is 190 where I am actually very lean.
I never go to complete failure. That 1 or 2 extra reps kills my nervous system and makes me feel terrible. That's where I differ from Mentzer. He was on PEDs so maybe that let him go deep. I have friends who, as professional cyclists, used EPO. They could go hard EVERY day when on it. As a natural I could go hard cycling once every 3 days before I'd get sick. So chemical enhancement of recovery is tremendous.
