First Mike now Ray is dead?

heytey225 and Jeremey

First off as far as us never metting Mentzer and therefore not being able to call him an asshole in life or death is off the mark because for one thing HE CHOSE to be in the public eye through bodybuilding, books, articles, the net etc. I am sure there may be some of you who question me as insensitive because I never met Mentzer yet you were probably the first to think the Late Dan Duchaine was a nut or kamakaze whenever he would bring up an idea or supplement that was questionable. Why? Becasue he was in the public eye too.


Heres a good example. We don’t know 99% of the child molesters, murderers in jail or out of jail personally nor do we know 99% of the politicians out there either but we have no problem liking, hating or judging them. Why again? Because of how they present themselves publicly.

I really don’t care whether someone thinks heavy duty works or not, and yes I have tried it and it does have some application here and there for me. And if it works for you I am not going to slag you and tell you that you are wrong which brings me to my point about Mentzer.

Unlike the rest of us, Mike always spouted off to the the world that anyone who didn't do his training philosophy was wrong even if we make gains.There is no "one" valid training theory out there period, whther you like it or not because for example "one set training" may give you size/strength but on another person give them injury, no strength or size gains etc.

Basically speaking one kid can eat peanut butter till it comes out his ears while another kid will die from the scent of nuts.

When it comes to people and anything they try,do injest etc there is no such thing as “one” valid theory.

As far as my comments about Mentzer, again he chose to be in the public eye so I have every right to my opinion as you do.

Other than that I have no bad feelings toward anyone who does not like what I wrote.

Andrew, first my only comment about what people were saying is honesty is not an excuse to be cruel. Now to your “there is no one true way…” I got a shock for you, even though I’m sure you would not have believed it at the time, its been proven that the earth is round! no, I’n not kidding it realy is!! We are not all sooooooo special, granted there are minor differences (hair color, skin tones, weight, ect) but in general we are ALL the same(if not then again why not 200000000 different ways to perform heart surgery, treat lung cancer, pull a tooth,ect…). Don’t compare chemical reactions to weight training 'cause there is NO comparison. Sure some people can handle a little more in terms of volume but the key word is little! To the people who say HIT doesn’t work for then and I must be gifted for it to work for me what they are realy saying is that THEY are the gifted ones, that they can recover from 10-20 sets per bodypart and work out 6 days a week, but if thats true than why am I ALWAYS putting on more muscle in a shorter period of time? Andrew please read the end of my last post in this forum, what no explanation for that, did I tell you already that the earth is round?
NOBODY LIKES REALITY, 'CAUSE IT HURTS

Go to the L.A.Times and search for Mentzer for a small informative article.

hey, question for those who know. in the LA times article it has a quote from mentzer:
“We may be able to send a man to the moon,” he said later, “but when it comes to recognizing the rightful winner of the 1980 Olympiad, mankind is surely arrested in its development.”

the only place i had ever read that quote was here in that mock interview with Mike. i thought you all made it up. did t-mag make it up?

Hows this for proof about his methods. Everything you do will work for a few weeks. Your body adapts. After it adapts you have to do something different for it to adapt again. There is no way that HIT can exaust every type of muscle fiber. Thats a scientific fact. Do you really think you can train your nervous system on one set to failure especially when a lot of the gains you make are due to motor learning? Dont be stupid. Take a couple of exercise phys classes and educate yourself. Dont just listen to what some nut said.

hetyey225

What the fuck does the world being round have to do with how people react differently to different methods of exercise?

That being said your points about surgery and how there is only one way to do heart surgery and treat lug cancer is totally off.

Heart surgery. First off there are several types of heart surgery for different heart ailments whether it be clogged arteries, hole in the heart, etc.
Some people get a bypass and some people get angioplasty.

Cancer is trested in different ways too. There is radiation treatment, chemotherapy and surgery as well to remove cancerous tissue.

If your going to argue how there is only one training system then just say what you are doing works for you, thats it thats all.

I know farmers when I was growing up who were huge as hell and those guys work 16-18 hours a day year round. I guess they must be overtraining too huh?

There’s more to weight training than sets and reps my man. There is speed and type of movement, weight used, low volume training,med volume training, high volume training, high reps med reps low reps. Then you have nutrition, people respond/react differently to high protein, low protein, high carb, low carb, high fat, low fat, low sugar, no sugar, lots of sugar etc and so on.

Every thing above works for some and not for others.If heavy duty was the only scientific way to go then how come there are so many people and out in the world who gain 10lbs of muscle on 10 sets of training? How do explain people who lots lots of fat and sometimes put on muscle doing things like German Body Comp or circuit training? How do you get people raving about the gains they made on training routines put out by Poliquin, King, Staley, Strossen and all considering most of these guys address all the variables of training?

In your mind the gains were probably not real and all in our minds because we weren’t doing the supposedly “only scientific training method” out there.
And before you spout off something about Doctors endorsing this “only Scientific training method” remember that 99% of doctors don’t even work out or have a fucking clue when it comes to health, sports training, nutrtion. They study to treat ailments thats it.


The pharmamceuticals companies and researchers out there (some with medical degrees in all fairness but most are biologists and chemists etc) are the ones who come up with the medicines to cure and treat, not your local doctor surgeon, they just study the material and write out the script when the symptoms and diagnosis is there.

And finally someone mentioned the reasons why magazines won’t admit to the fact that “High intensity or heavy duty training” or whatever its called this week because they won’t sell magaxines or have something to sell you.

Well as far as selling you something DUH? It’s a business. Do you not think the high intensity people are trying to sell you something like a book or personal training certificate or whatever? Of course they are.
Or maybe they just provide the info out of the kindness of thier hearts. Oh and the magzine part, funny how Mike wrote articles for all the mags up until his demise if they didn’t want him to give his opinion.
And he was entitiled to his opinion just like you and I are.

Anyways I am sure you are the biggest guy on the net at 7'6 and 600lbs of solid muscle so I better not argue with you so you don't pick up my puny 200lbs body and throw me across the room.

I wonder how Ray did it. Pills, gun, hanging? Anyone hear anything?

first the earth being round point is that at the time even though it was a FACT nobody believed it. In these “german,bulgarian, or what ever else is the fad this week” training programs the foundation of these systems is in Olympic lifting which is a SKILL so the volume is a necisary evil to perfect the skill. And all this stuff about exausting ALL the muscle fibers is impossible. About different rep speeds your muscle fibers contract at ONE speed and they either fully contract or don’t contract at all, they don’t contract faster if you lift faster and they don’t contract slower if you move slower, they fire with all they have or not at all. there are valid reasons to use training methods other than HIT its just that all of them are sports related and are NOT about building muscle.I also do believe there is a benefit to a newbie useing more volume (learning the exercises, they lack the abillity to recruite enough muscle fibers, they don’t have much muscle so recovery is quicker,ect…)Volume has NEVER been proven to be more productive than HIT for size gains in exp. trainers, yet HIT has been proven to be atleast as or more productive than volume training!as far as takeing a class maybe I’ll take another one with The American College of Sports Medicine (if you did not know they now recomend 1 set to failure because they understand science, I don’t know anyone who does not consider them the premier org. in their field) and sure if you want to look like a farmer keep the volume up( chicks dig farmers bodies)It is just ashame that training has become the new church for some people, they dedicate themselves to something that does not exist(in wt. training its something that does not work) they have no basis for what they believe they were just told to believe it.

I just heard on the radio that their deaths are under investigation. Mike’s casue of death will not be released until after an autopsy.

I think there are quite a few people who would disagree that the ACSM is the premier organization in the exercise field. The NSCA is by far the premier organization. I have the ACSM handbook and 99% of it has to do with aerobic exercise. I have no idea what your were talking about with the rate of contraction. I think everyone knows that muscles contract on the all or none principle. But changing the time under tension is beneficial. I am mainly a type IIb guy. I dont get shit out of doing anything over 7 reps. So how is doing one set of whatever going to help me get bigger and stronger. I have to use a weight that is a high percentage of my 1RM. so your saying that i can do one set of 3 or 4 and go home. What about the fact that i could probably repeat that same set in ten minutes? So twenty seconds under tension is all i need to get stronger and bigger. Your crazy. Maybe Mentzer left his body and got into yours. Dont you think if Ian King or Charles Poliquin thought that HIT was the way to go, they would train their athletes that way. Dont you think they would want to get the best results if that was the way? Wouldnt they recommend it so they could sell more books and videos?

hetyey225…You seem as stubborn as Mentzer. HIT does not address all aspects of strength and does an even worse job at improving the strength curve. Furthermore, it does not address the variances in ratios of fast and slow twitch fibers within the population. There is absolutely no periodization.

Everyone on this board should understand the "all or none" contraction principle of muscle fibers, but I don't understand how you can say rep speed is irrelevant. When you perform the concentric portion of a lift faster you will recruit more fibers vs doing it slower. More power is required to do this because power is inversely related to time. To generate more power you must recruit more fibers. Saying HIT is just as much a fact as the world being round is just plain stupid. There are also many examples other than farmers who have used volume training build god-like physiques most notably the winner of the 80 Olympia. Take the Mentzer poster off the ceiling above you bed and try spending more than 5 mins in the gym or you may end up fat, balding and dieing a bitter death at 49.

I am in agreement concerning time under tension but WHY(please think)do you believe increasing rep speed increases involvement greater than increasing wt. used. I’m sure you will not dissagree in the importance of the negative portion of a rep and if that is true to increase speed you must decrease wt. in doing so you lessen the negative ressistance, how is this good? C.A.T. training has its place in training for SPORTS not for size.If all fibers fire at the same speed(all fast twich that is)than what is the point of performing your reps at an increased speed(please answer this). one more thing about time under tension, I’m still believe that one of the reasons some people respond to higher reps is due to rep speed ( people who train with higher reps tend to perform their reps at a much greater speed) I’m sure if you respond best to 3-5 reps you generally perform your reps slower than most. hey this is just a discusion why do people take a debate so personal? I know what works, if any of you realy tried it (correctly) you would see, all I’m getting back from you guys is “you can’t tell me thats enough”,“you can’t tell me that will work for me” well it is and it does!one last thing about fibers you CAN NOT max out fast and slow at the same time, you choose which one

Mike Mentzer had the guts to stand up for what he believed in. Science makes new strides all the time and, through trial and error, most of us will find what works for us and what does not.

There have been many dogmatic and opinionated bodybuilders and bodybuilding writers in the past. Names such as Vince Gironda and Dan Duchaine, as well as Mentzer, come immediately to mind. While they were all sometimes guilty of being stubborn (and, to some, rotten people) they were all INTERESTING and there was something to learn from all of them.

Mike Mentzer was a great admirer of Bruce Lee (another relatively opinionated person - to say the least!) Lee often said, "Take what is useful and discard the rest. This advice should be taken by all of us. If you find Mentzer's HIT system works - terrific! Go for it. If it doesn't, but you build a tremendous physique using Charles Atlas' "Dynamic Tension" then that's great too. Gironda was the one who said, "Results are what count." and he was right, wasn't he? HIT is certainly worth a try. However, if you never get around to it and build an impressive physique anyway, you'll be okay.

I just found out a few minutes ago, by clicking on his website, that Mike was also very interested in the philosophy of Ayn Rand. Whether you agree with her or not, it would be worth reading "Atlas Shrugged." Take what is useful and discard the rest.

Hey, maybe I can stir up tempers a little more. All that tempo (ex. 3-1-2-1) stuff, well I think that it’s a bunch of crap. To me it doesn’t seem to make any sense at all.

I saw an article in the paper today (The Japan Times) that had as its headline “Former Mr. Olympia Dies at 49”. Sigh. Can’t the newspapers get ANYTHING right?

Don’t try to change the world. Bill Phillips has more money and a better marketing strategy than you. If HIT works for you, use it, you cannot convince the rest of us that it is superior for us, especially those who have tried it.

Tried HIT, it didn’t do much for me. Lata!

Naturalman, what DOES work for you? Wait, let me guess. Moving the weight from point A to point B.

Jp, good catch on that quote in the LA Times. You’re right, it came from the mock interview I did “with Mike” from Testosterone #1.

The bozos at the Times thought the interview was legit!

Harpo, you have strong opinions on what Mike Mentzer stood for and what he wrote about, yet you just discovered he was an acolyte, a disciple, or should I say brainwashed, by Ayn Rand? How could you miss his references to her on and on for years in his columns and articles and rants? His endless quoting from her work was so tiresome.