Mike Mentzer's complete bodybuilding career

[MAXX]

Very well put together video by John Little on Mike Mentzers complete bodybuilding career

[Humble Narcissist]

Thanks for posting this but Mentzer was the most overrated bodybuilder ever.

[MAXX]

Thanks for posting this but Mentzer was the most overrated bodybuilder ever.

you may say that because of how much more attention he got for being more intelligent.

But it's undeniable he was one of the best in the 70's, and the best in the 1980 Mr. O which was rigged by Arnold.

[Straw Man]

Thanks for posting this but Mentzer was the most overrated bodybuilder ever.

what an idiotic statement

the dude was a top tier bodybuilder for all of his career and he stopped competing when he was only 27 or 28

[Humble Narcissist]

you may say that because of how much more attention he got for being more intelligent.

But it's undeniable he was one of the best in the 70's, and the best in the 1980 Mr. O which was rigged by Arnold.

He was not nearly as intelligent as he thought he was. He had a great run for a couple years as an amateur and had 1 good Olympia placing at #1 in his weight class before losing the overall to Zane. Then '80 came and he had his meltdown. He was not the best in '80. Not even close.

He only won 1 or 2 pro contests in his whole career and this is why he was overrated. By listening to his fanboys you would think he was one of, if not THE greatest ever.

[pamith]

Brutal if true

[_bruce_]

Mentzer was clever and thoughtful but his theories were not that practical.
Physique wise he was outstanding.

[Pet shop boys]

Thanks for posting this but Mentzer was the most overrated bodybuilder ever.

The impact he had on bodybuilding was undeniable......  he was respected within the bodybuilding community and many people (40 years ago) thought he was the best built man in the world right when he decided to walk away from the 'sport" because he didn't believe in the Weider's politics .


Bob Chick was way more ovarrated than Mentzer.



WoooSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH H

[Humble Narcissist]

The impact he had on bodybuilding was undeniable......  he was respected within the bodybuilding community and many people (40 years ago) thought he was the best built man in the world right when he decided to walk away from the 'sport" because he didn't believe in the Weider's politics .


Bob Chick was way more ovarrated than Mentzer.



WoooSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH H

He was insane, not respected by anyone but his fanboys. His training theories were/are provably wrong and has caused many years of wasted effort. He was never the best built man in the world and got a gift of 5th place at the '80 Olympia. He was not even close to the best except in his own mind. After losing he lost his shit and quit forever from competition. The last 20 years of his life he looked completely untrained.

[Dokey111]

He was insane, not respected by anyone but his fanboys. His training theories were/are provably wrong and has caused many years of wasted effort. He was never the best built man in the world and got a gift of 5th place at the '80 Olympia. He was not even close to the best except in his own mind. After losing he lost his shit and quit forever from competition. The last 20 years of his life he looked completely untrained.

and yet we are still talking about him.  Face it, he made his mark.

[Humble Narcissist]

and yet we are still talking about him.  Face it, he made his mark.

Not for any good reason.

[The Scott]

I tried High Intensity in (I think) '77 and '78?  It did not work for me but on others I knew that took steroids it worked great!  I think Mentzer was fairly intelligent  but once he started down the Path of The Methsiah, he lost the ability to reason and ultimately all credibility.  He took his theory of training to the ultimate end where it made sense on paper but in the real world that paper was worthless.

His world fell apart.  He lost his fiance, Cathy Gelfo, his business and finally his life.  The footage  behind the scenes of his final Heavy Duty training with that weirdo Markus Reinhardt and Mike's lethargically  out of his mind brother, Ray revealed the truth of that old PSA, "This is your mind...This is your mind on drugs".  Yup.  It was TRUE.

[GymnJuice]

I tried High Intensity in (I think) '77 and '78?  It did not work for me but on others I knew that took steroids it worked great!  I think Mentzer was fairly intelligent  but once he started down the Path of The Methsiah, he lost the ability to reason and ultimately all credibility.  He took his theory of training to the ultimate end where it made sense on paper but in the real world that paper was worthless.

His world fell apart.  He lost his fiance, Cathy Gelfo, his business and finally his life.  The footage  behind the scenes of his final Heavy Duty training with that weirdo Markus Reinhardt and Mike's lethargically  out of his mind brother, Ray revealed the truth of that old PSA, "This is your mind...This is your mind on drugs".  Yup.  It was TRUE.

 

[Hypertrophy]

I tried High Intensity in (I think) '77 and '78?  It did not work for me but on others I knew that took steroids it worked great!  I think Mentzer was fairly intelligent  but once he started down the Path of The Methsiah, he lost the ability to reason and ultimately all credibility.  He took his theory of training to the ultimate end where it made sense on paper but in the real world that paper was worthless.

His world fell apart.  He lost his fiance, Cathy Gelfo, his business and finally his life.  The footage  behind the scenes of his final Heavy Duty training with that weirdo Markus Reinhardt and Mike's lethargically  out of his mind brother, Ray revealed the truth of that old PSA, "This is your mind...This is your mind on drugs".  Yup.  It was TRUE.

Mentzer was correct in with many of his ideas, based on what research in sport physiology is now telling us. But there is a limit to how much intense exercise the body can absorb. That, most likely, is why steroid users got more benefit- they have the recovery capacity. But for natural athletes, a few brief efforts do work.


If I want to improve my sprint in cycling, I do about 5-6 sprints in one session, 1 day a week. This effort is very similar to doing a 6-10 rep squat in duration. The sprints are done at a little less than all out. When I first started doing them I used to go as hard as I could and I used to do them twice a week. But after examining my power records over time I found I made the greatest power improvement backing off the throttle a little and adding in more rest days. By doing this I recorded a 60% increase in 10 second power over 3 months. That was amazing to me.


Mentzer started having personal issues after his last Olympia- that's obvious. It seems it was all downhill after that.

[Humble Narcissist]

Mentzer was correct in with many of his ideas, based on what research in sport physiology is now telling us. But there is a limit to how much intense exercise the body can absorb. That, most likely, is why steroid users got more benefit- they have the recovery capacity. But for natural athletes, a few brief efforts do work.


If I want to improve my sprint in cycling, I do about 5-6 sprints in one session, 1 day a week. This effort is very similar to doing a 6-10 rep squat in duration. The sprints are done at a little less than all out. When I first started doing them I used to go as hard as I could and I used to do them twice a week. But after examining my power records over time I found I made the greatest power improvement backing off the throttle a little and adding in more rest days. By doing this I recorded a 60% increase in 10 second power over 3 months. That was amazing to me.


Mentzer started having personal issues after his last Olympia- that's obvious. It seems it was all downhill after that.

Which studies in sports physiology tell us Mentzer's ideas were correct? No one that I know of in the field train their athletes this way.

[Bevo]

I remember seeing a vid of Mike in his later years smoking a cig and taking a break, the guy he was training says to him “I paid you to train me not sit around and bs” something along those lines hahaha

Brutal

[Hypertrophy]

Which studies in sports physiology tell us Mentzer's ideas were correct? No one that I know of in the field train their athletes this way.

lol - I really think you are trolling now.


As far back as Roger Bannister setting the mile were people investigating the effect of short and infrequent intervals, aka HIIT. When I was in college studying chemistry I started reading Astrand and Rodahl's Textbook of Work Physiology where they showed conclusively the resounding benefit of short intervals on fitness. That book was published in 1970. here is a link if you want to read it: https://www.mewsie.org/textbook/textbook-of-work-physiology/


Why don't we start with something very recent -  Martin Gibala's seminal research on extremely brief and infrequent workouts:


https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22289907/


https://highintensitybusiness.com/martin-gibala-phd-hit-vs-hiit-part-2-190/
 

[Humble Narcissist]

lol - I really think you are trolling now.


As far back as Roger Bannister setting the mile were people investigating the effect of short and infrequent intervals, aka HIIT. When I was in college studying chemistry I started reading Astrand and Rodahl's Textbook of Work Physiology where they showed conclusively the resounding benefit of short intervals on fitness. That book was published in 1970. here is a link if you want to read it: https://www.mewsie.org/textbook/textbook-of-work-physiology/


Why don't we start with something very recent -  Martin Gibala's seminal research on extremely brief and infrequent workouts:


https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22289907/


https://highintensitybusiness.com/martin-gibala-phd-hit-vs-hiit-part-2-190/

What? Roger Bannister was a distance runner. No NFL or Div 1 football team uses HIT to train their athletes. Oh, I forgot, the 1973 Army team used it for 1 or 2 years.

[Megalodon]

I remember seeing a video of Mike in his later years smoking a cig and taking a break,  the guy he was training says to him “I paid you to train me not sit around and bs” something along those lines hahaha

Brutal

The Mentzers had an extremely defeatist attitude. These are the last people anyone needs advice from.

[illuminati]

you may say that because of how much more attention he got for being more intelligent.

But it's undeniable he was one of the best in the 70's, and the best in the 1980 Mr. O which was rigged by Arnold.

He had a good physique & a few very good body parts .
Yes he was quite articulate & good at presenting his "Theories" - More intelligent than who
He was a Rec drug addict & went mad.

He most certainly didnt have the best physique at the 1980 Olympia - And as for Arnold rigging the contest 

Really !!!
Notice I haven't said who was the best that day. I wasn't a judge & Very likely Neither were You.

[Hypertrophy]

What? Roger Bannister was a distance runner. No NFL or Div 1 football team uses HIT to train their athletes. Oh, I forgot, the 1973 Army team used it for 1 or 2 years.

You made that up, lol.  It took me all of 5 seconds to find out the Houston Texans Strength and Training Manual. They sure as shit do HIT - both in their running and weight training. They leave it up to the athlete to find out what works for them.  Read it yourself: http://tomhayden3.com/data/texans_fitness.pdf


"How Many Sets? In the past we assumed that the number of sets you performed determined whether or not you produced the best results. Through experience we’ve learned it’s not how many sets you perform. The key is how you perform each set. You can gain strength completing one set or ten sets. It’s also possible to gain no strength regardless of how many sets you perform. During the season most athletes barely have enough energy to recover from game to game. Your goal must be to perform as few sets as possible while stimulating maximum gains. It must be a priority to eliminate non-productive exercise. Once you have warmed up, why perform a set that is not designed to increase or maintain your current level of strength. Multiple Sets For those athletes that want to perform more than one set the same rules apply. "




Roger Bannister was the first miler ever to use short interval training to achieve a world record. At a time when people were  training for hours he limited his workouts to a 30 min a day routine and doing hard intervals twice a week. That's it.


The connection between interval endurance training and strength training is undisputable- they both cause mitochondrial changes. So what works for one works for the other:  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25539479/

[pkaz]

I knew his brother Ray. We used to have breakfast together at Rocky Cola Cafe in Hermosa Beach. We spoke a lot. HIT was BS as described. Ray and his brother trained like everyone else. Multiple warm up sets increasing weight each set and then one all out last set. The thing that they did different was more rest days. Training like every other day. They both had great genetics for building muscle. Add some great anabolic's and bam... Ray was one of the strongest guys I ever knew outside of Rory Leidelmeyer. Ray owned a gym in Redondo Beach called Muscle Mill. 

[Fortress]

I met and spoke with Mike in 1994 at Gold’s Venice.

Guy was fried and completely detached from reality.

Essentially, a chain-smoking psycho who looked worse than shit.

Looked terrified to stand with me in a photo. After it was taken, he almost ran away out into the parking lot and then disappeared.

Everyone at the front counter, a few big names amongst the group, shook their heads and were laughing. A few were telling me how absolutely mental the guy was.

[stingray]

I knew his brother Ray. We used to have breakfast together at Rocky Cola Cafe in Hermosa Beach. We spoke a lot. HIT was BS as described. Ray and his brother trained like everyone else. Multiple warm up sets increasing weight each set and then one all out last set. The thing that they did different was more rest days. Training like every other day. They both had great genetics for building muscle. Add some great anabolic's and bam... Ray was one of the strongest guys I ever knew outside of Rory Leidelmeyer. Ray owned a gym in Redondo Beach called Muscle Mill.

Mentzer at age 15/16 had some damn good size.

I have a nephew who is 16, trains pretty hard, eats great, good natty supplemnts, he looks nothing like mentzer at the same age.

[Vince B]

In my opinion Mike was a better bodybuilder than Frank Zane...smarter, too.