Thoughts on Triggering the Growth Mechanism

Hobbyist thinking they train as hard as professionals is certainly an interesting perspective.

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Thats the truth. Seems few people here have been into training long enough to remember that NOT training to failure was the way it was done way before Jones started pushing his ideas. Not training to failure was the criticism of all other methods by Jones / Nautilus system.

Training in an ‘all out’ manner, " … until the barbell falls out of your exhausted hands … " as Jones once described it , was new and exciting to most of us willing to learn another way to train.

But now even to the die-hard HIT advocates of 40-50 years dedication to that style, not to failure training comes full circle as the better way to do it .

But what a hard thing to re-learn … I still have a hard time stopping short of failure after doing so for 38 years.

It’s well known most of the professional bodybuilders past say… the 1950’s were on the juice. AAS were commercially available from the mid 40’s but didn’t gain widespread popularity until the 50’s. Mentzer wasn’t just on AAS, he was addicted to amphetamines (and methamphetamine depending on the source you read). Mike and his brother Ray both died two days apart from one another (10 and 12 June 2001)… eerie stuff

I think Sergio had better genetics than Arnold. “Unreal24278 quickly jumps, duck and rolls from the impending shots that are about to come his way over not calling Arnold the GOAT!”

:crossed_swords: en garde!

This is your assumption, not an implication from Arnold. Arnold would probably say that there are many factors to being a champion and your training in the gym is but one, that alone won’t make you a 7x Mr O.

Anyway, working hard to failure is going to build muscle. Working shy of failure will work as well.

For over a month I worked out next to Mike Mentzer and many times after the workout when in the locker room he’d open up this gym bag and show us all the types of steroids etc that he was using. He was very open and matter of fact about it just like we we’re talking about what he had for breakfast. There were some 30 different pill bottles. It was crazy. Unfortunately that was over 40 years ago so I can’t remember what the pills were but I’m sure they weren’t Flntstone vitamines, ha ha!
Scott

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He could be, back then AAS weren’t illegal to possess with/without a prescription. It was also rather easy to get a script

But if what you say is true, that’s insane.

I’m assuming these guys only had the best of the best, if only he had access to top notch medical supervision… Maybe he/his brother would still be alive today.

A good doctor would also look out for the signs of drug addiction, perhaps he would’ve gone to rehab (amphetamine dependence)

I think he was taking some medical classes in college and from the way he talked he fancied himself as knowing all about that stuff and like so many thousands of bodybuilders who’s goal is to get huge at any cost I doubt he would have listened to a real doctors warnings.
Scott

I still can’t get my head around the idea of getting my trainers on and geeing myself up for a workout and seeing Mike Mentzer there. I’d probably just take my trainers off or go for a run to convince myself I’m a natural endurance athlete.

Maybe I’m jaded as I’ve I learned from photographing many famous people, celebrities etc that if you treat them just like one of the guys they usually treat you back that way. When I saw someone like a Mentzer working out at a gym I had no trouble just walking up and talking shop with them. Non of this oh wow , you’re really Mike Mentzer stuff. What really helped though was him seeing me train with the dogged determination to push it to the limit like he did. At that time very few people trained that way. He’d come over and help me push a set to utter failure.
Scott

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That’s pretty cool man!

I am jealous, lol

I will say I did train with Ivan kolloff in the 80s…was strong as ox

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Yes, my own short stint in media taught me a lesson on meeting your heroes. But, when I looked at it objectively, it didn’t diminish the fact just how talented they were, even if they were less than personable to me.

It’s always been a dream of mine to train with The Ultimate Warrior. If you’ve ever seen him train, he works out with dogged Intensity and determination. That’s exactly how I like to do things. It would’ve been really motivational to be around someone with that kind of energy like he had.

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Mentzer was strong as an ox but what really stuck with me was how he would use the whole stack on a rowing torso machine and then I’d get on it and he’d stand there helping me through a set with only 3 piddling plates on it with out busting out laughing! He was a class act!
Scott

But you didn’t take the duffel bag full of vitamins either, lol

We could also look at the word champion as metaphorical. In fact, we could look at the entire statement from Arnold as a metaphor for success in any area. I don’t think he was implying if you aren’t a champion you didn’t work hard. But if you want to be a champion, or simply be your best, you need to work as hard as you can. Or rather, harder than you think you can.

I believe, when it comes to what separates the greatest athletes from everyone else, natural talent and mental strength (almost sociopathic in nature) are more important than hard work. Was Jordan, Jordan, because he worked harder than everyone else or because he was naturally gifted and was a fearless, stone cold killer?

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They are pretty sure they know what the ‘growth mechanism’ is now.
Effort is separate from growth stimulation.

Effort = increased activation (recruitment and firing rates of fibers)
Time with high activation (per fiber tension) is the growth stimulus.
Not to be confused with high (load on the bar) but high ‘tension per fiber’.
When a fiber contracts hard, it pulls in the protein ‘titan’ inside the fiber, this opens up an area that allows the signal for growth to be sent, while it’s open.

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