Yummy Fitness

His name was Mike Mentzer (picture included below courtesy of Amazon), and he was probably one of the most controversial, and revolutionary professional bodybuilders to ever enter the sport.

Mike challenged almost every element of conventional wisdom regarding how to build muscle like the pros. And his results spoke for themselves, he held many professional titles including Mr. America in 1976, and Mr. Olympia (HeavyWeight Over 200 Pounds) in 1979.

But what made Mike so controversial?

Mike believed in that “a calorie is a calorie” and many stories have been told of Mike being backstage during bodybuilding competitions eating danishes just to torment the other bodybuilders who were on very strict diets before their shows.

Mike also did not believe that you needed to eat 2x-3x your bodyweight in protein every day to get great results.
In addition, Mike strongly believed in the “less is more” principal and his entire training philosophy revolved around training one set “to failure” (when you can’t pick up the weight any longer in good form) instead of many sets back to back resulting in hours in the gym.

Mike would only spend 3 days in the gym a week and only train 7-9 sets per workout total. This is completely backwards from many other workout programs, professional and non-professional. Most exercise programs would tell you to workout at least 3 sets per exercise and 5 exercises per day which would result in 15 sets per day.

Many professional bodybuilders would train many more than just 5 exercises and would also train 6 days a week, sometimes twice a day. This could total in 180 sets or more a week where Mike’s training only called for around 24.

Mike’s principals were deeply rooted in a training philosophy called High Intensity Training otherwise known as just HIT. But he had modified the program a bit and called it “Heavy Duty Training.”

Throughout Mike’s career he was ridiculed quite a bit for his unconventional diet and exercise practices, but no one could argue with his results. Except in 1980 during the Mr. Olympia contest, some say the judges turned against Mike to rekindle the spirit of the bodybuilding sport, after Mike lost to Arnold Schwarzenegger when Arnold suddenly came back into the sport one time again after a 5 year break.

Many people feel that Arnold was not in shape for the contest but won regardless. Mike maintained that the show was rigged up until the day he died in 2001.

Mike was definitely a controversial character, he had many counter-culture ideas, and took the elements of bodybuilding and distilled them into some of the core elements that worked well for him and others. He did not take the strict approach that many people trying to build muscle take, instead he ate the foods he wanted to eat, and he only exercised as much as he needed to get great results.

Personally, in the past I’ve followed the principals behind High Intensity Training and I’ve experienced great results. It gives results and gives you back time.

In addition, my strength really shot up very quickly by using the HIT principals.

I don’t think that everything Mike did was correct, but in the end no one is ever 100% right, and I respect Mike for speaking his mind and for being real and true to himself.

I think Mike is living proof that you can still have the life you want to live, eat the foods you want to eat, spend little time in the gym, and still get great results.

Rest in peace Mike.