Mike Mentzer and High Intensity Training

Nothing polarizes proponents of weight training and bodybuilding as much as the figure of Mike Mentzer. Mentzer was a professional bodybuilder who won the Mr Universe title in the 70s and the heavyweight category at the Olympia. He last competed in the 1980 Olympia and was favoured by many to win. This was the year of Arnold's comeback as part of his preparation for "Conan the Barbarian" and the Austrian Oak won amidst controversy. Mike Mentzer came fifth, despite being in the most awesome shape of his life. He retired from professional bodybuilding in disgust.

Mentzer continued to write his "Heavy Duty" column in "Ironman" magazine and produced books and other media promoting his "Heavy Duty" training system - high intensity training in which the volume of training is reduced, rest periods are increased, and heavy weights are favoured, often using intensity increasers like pre-exhaust, negatives, and forced reps.

Mentzer likened the training stimulus to other stressors on the body, including exposure to the sun. Too much sun exposure results in sunburn and the destruction of skin rather than the desired tanning effect. Too much volume in weight training, coupled with insufficient rest, leads to over-training and muscle atrophy.

Mentzer recommended training infrequently and he advised cutting down the volume, often as low as one all-out effort working set for a particular body part. Some of Mentzer's protocols were adopted successfully by seven-time Mr Olympia Dorian Yates.

Mentzer has come in for a lot of criticism, however. Charles Poliquin, for one, says that it is impossible to completely exhaust all available motor units with just one working set. Another problem is Mentzer's insistence on taking every set to failure and beyond - something which has been shown to reduce testosterone levels and thus decrease the anabolic environment needed for muscle growth.

Mentzer was right, however, to reduce training time (anything above 45-60 minutes generally results in an increase in cortisol levels which results in catabolism and gluconeogenesis). He was right to indicate that many bodybuilders trained too frequently and were thus prone to over-training syndrome.

During his professional career, Mentzer initially followed the high volume training associated with Arnold et al. He later identified the need for less frequent training but seem, in his later writings, to have reduced training frequency ad absurdum.

If Mentzer's insights are married with the high volume approach and a middle ground is sought his ideas start to bear fruit. Ideally, training protocols need to be varied, periodised, so that high intensity, low volume (in terms of total reps performed) work gives way to periods of lower intensity (load) higher volume work. Rest intervals between sets, number of sets and reps, and number of training days are all factors that need to be manipulated in order to ensure maximal training effects.

In general I like to change training protocols every 6 weeks or so (for example, six week periods of accumulation, increasing volume; strength work at higher intensity, lower over-all volume, and longer rest intervals; fat stripping periods of high volume, higher reps and incomplete rest between sets etc).

It is best to avoid the polemic on either side of the high intensity vs high volume debate. We need aspects of both, and more, for continuous progress. Mentzer was a thoughtful, intelligent, trainer who may have had personal and political reasons to wage war against the protocols promoted by the bodybuilding "authorities". He offers insights into some of the pitfalls that have always plagued bodybuilding - such as the psychological reasons for too frequent training, but his own views often need tempering.

The key is to understand how each stage of training relates to specific goals. Understand what you are trying to do and how to get those results safely and effectively. There is no perfect programme that can continue to reap rewards indefinitely. One of the most interesting things about training (and a real pain to those who are mentally lazy) is that it has to keep evolving if the body is going to continue adapting.