T: Hi Mike. What's going on in your life? Why don't you tell us what kind of things you've been doing, and how your career is going?
MM: There is only one valid theory of exercise science and most of what has been said has been said by people with no background in philosophy, logic, or science. For that matter, most of what has been said has been said by people who had no background in gardening or gynecology, either, which harkens me back to the 1980 Olympia Contest where history's ultimate non-Ayn Rand person, Arnold Schwarzeneggar, accepted the Olympia crown when every man, woman, and child in existence (I should know, I polled each of them independently, except for a contentious individual in Fresno who refuses to accept my calls) believes I should have been the winner. We may be able to send a man to the moon, but when it comes to recognizing the rightful winner of the 1980 Olympiad, mankind is surely arrested in its development.
T: Uhh, okay?great. Listen, a lot of people are still interested in heavy-duty training and this concept of "one set to failure." For those readers who weren't around in the seventies, could you please clarify this interesting and provocative training theory?
MM: Back in 1980, just before the 1980 Mr. Olympia contest, I was in phenomenal shape; I was the romantic and spiritual ideal of any self-actualized human being. Do you, perchance, remember that sonnet written by Karen Carpenter?who, incidentally, was a classic overtrainer?where she sang, "On the day that you were born, the angels got together and decided to create a dream come true, so they sprinkled moon dust in your hair, and la-de-da-de-da-da-da-da-da?" Well, I was that individual on whom the angels sprinkled their precious extra-terrestrial dust! I had trained with the ultra high intensity of a mad bull who had just heard his mentor, Ayn Rand, verbally attacked by the other bulls in the pen and various other farm animals in general. I had, in short, trained to failure!
T: Mike, you seem to be rather obsessed with this 1980 Olympia?
MM: One set! One set no matter what! I once had relations with a woman. One pelvic thrust! That's all. She refused to have an orgasm, but that was because of her own physical and intellectual limitations. I once was fed a turkey leg at Thanksgiving. I inserted the whole leg?which clearly came from a fowl who was a chronic overtrainer?into my mouth, chewed once, and swallowed. Now, this was before I had mastered the "one set to failure" concept, and the leg lodged in my throat and was expelled forcefully only after my brother Ray exerted a forceful Heimlich maneuver. No matter that the hurling fowl leg shattered most of dinner host Joe Weider's collection of fine china, the experience only reinforced my own ideas about the validity of heavy duty training.
T: Why don't we talk some other time, okay? I really have to go service the laser printer?
MM: Look, I'll prove it to you: Einstein proved the theory of relativity, correct? Well, then, ipso facto, if my sister has a house in Albany with a couple of infants?who happen to habitually overtrain, mind you?and she refuses to lend her brother any money even though he promised to pay her back once the world recognizes him as being its true intellectual leader, and this brother was robbed of the 1980 Olympia Contest, it becomes crystal clear, right? Now, given that the vast majority of bodybuilders are intellectually self-arrested, you couldn't possibly understand that, so don't bother getting contentious with me. Now, we can build a toaster that toasts bread until it's the color of Halle Barry's firm curvilinear backside, so why can't we understand that there's only one valid theory of training?
T: Mike, gotta' go. Really. I'm needed back on the planet Earth.
MM: Yes, it's true that I admire Ayn Rand, but I am slightly discouraged that she doesn't answer my mail or return my calls. Yes, she's been dead about sixteen years, but that seems to me to be a poor excuse for ignoring someone who is her intellectual equivalent. My biceps are considerably larger too, but I suspect that she, despite her inestimable intelligence, was a chronic overtrainer. Yes, yes, we may be able to build one of those funny little devices that gives a man a shock when you shake his hand, but it's apparent that mankind isn't ready to accept heavy duty training yet. Back in Sydney, in 1980, they also weren't ready to accept that man is a heroic being whose highest moral purpose is the achievement of his own happiness, whose noblest activity is productive achievement, and whose only absolute is reason, either. For that reason, I will not rest until I short-sheet the beds of all the judges involved in that reprehensible decision.
T: Uhh, thanks for your time Mike! Gotta' run. Really. Thanks.
