Heavily involved in methamphetamine. Lost his mind from it. Used it originally to be a productive genius. To use his own words. He tried to start a magazine but it failed. Back in the day he was making 200k a year which was a huge sum of money back then but went from that to nothing. He would waste his money on stuff like movie making equipment that he knew nothing about. Invested everything in his magazine that he lost. He even wrote back in the day when he was competing that he worried steroid and speed were having an effect on his mental health.
Him and Arnold patched things up toward the end of his life. He finally by most accounts got off drugs and began training people. Since he was now a trainer he came up with this crazy training systems that he never used. It was training them for 15 to 20 minutes and not training again for 5 plus days. Very convenient for a personal trainer. That's why I suspect almost all trainers are HIT guys. At least to their clients.
When he won the Mr. America he would train his whole body in one shot. It was a mixture of free weights and nautilus. From there he went to dividing his body in half. This is the split he used. Day one: Thighs, chest and triceps. Day two: back, delt and biceps. He would train 4 days a week with that split. Mr. Florida Frank Calta trained in a similar way except he used what he called rotation for recuperation. Mentzer read of this and further changed his routine. He didn't follow a calender but monitored how he felt. His rotation when like this. Monday and Friday were thighs, chest and triceps. On Wednesday he would train back, shoulders and bicep. So one side of the split would get hit twice and the other once a week. Next week he would reverse it so Monday would be Back, delts, and biceps with legs, chest and tricep being hit once on Wednesdays. Friday it would be back, delts and bicep. Every week he would rotate it like Frank Calta. It was his most productive routine. 6 sets and under per body part. Some like biceps sometimes received only three.
There is a controversy about the amount of sets he used. David Young who posts here said he trained in the same gym as both Mentzer and Viator. He said and why would I not believe him that both used a lot more sets than what they wrote about.
That blond in the picture is Cathy Gelfo. She was Mike's girlfriend. She dumped him and it really hurt Mike. Maybe she couldn't take his mood swings from speed and steroids? I don't know. She married bodybuilder Clint Beyerle who I think came from money and became a chiropractor.
Mike Mentzer is one of the biggest influences on bodybuilding. The foot print he left was huge. I think I have just about every article he ever wrote. It was tragic that his brother died so closely to him. I often wonder if it was a suicide?
