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Mike Mentzer Legacy

How Mike Mentzer Changed Bodybuilding Forever

Welcome to a journey through the annals of bodybuilding history, where we celebrate the indelible mark left by a legend. Have you ever considered how one person's philosophy can redefine an entire sport? This is the story of the Mike Mentzer legacy, a narrative that encapsulates how Mike Mentzer changed bodybuilding forever with his revolutionary wortkout and diet methods.

Bodybuilding In The 1970s

Back in the mid 1970s, when Arnold Schwarzenegger was the king of bodybuilding, volume training was all the rage. Bodybuilders trained twice a day, two hour morning workouts, and two hour evening workouts, they did 20 sets for each muscle group and trained each body part 3 times a week.

A few bodybuilders such as Serge Nubret and Steve Michalik, took volume training to the extreme doing up to 70 sets per body part.

High volume training was the only accepted training method at the time and the idea that "more is better" ruled the day.

Also the standard 1970's bodybuilding pre-contest diet was a high protein low carbohydrate eating plan. How they had the energy to train hours a day while eating no carbohydrates I don't know, but I think there was some type of stimulants being used.

Enter Mike Mentzer

Then suddenly Mike Mentzer hit the bodybuilding scene, doing everything almost the complete opposite that everyone else was doing at the time.

Joe Weider was so impressed with Mentzer's physique that he asked him to do a photo shoot and interview for Muscle Builder/Power Magazine, the photos showcased Mike's herculean physique and the interview proved to be shocking to say the least.

Mike Mentzer told the bodybuilding world about high intensity training, rather than training for hours a day, 6 days a week, Mike was only doing 45 minute workouts, 4 times a week - a total of 3 hours training a week.

Mike said the difference was the intensity or the amount of effort he put into each set he did, after 1 or 2 warm up sets, he would only do 3 to 5 all out sets to failure for each body part. He said that training too long or too often, was in fact over training and was inefficient and counter productive. He urged bodybuilders to train as hard as possible, but to keep the workouts short and to allow enough time resting for recovery and overcompensation of muscle strength and size to occur.

If that wasn't enough, Mentzer also challenged the accepted bodybuilding diet of the day, rather than eating high protein, high fat and low to no carbohydrates, he ate a diet that was higher in carbohydrates, moderate in protein and low in fat. He said that carbohydrates are needed to fuel high intensity weight training and also to keep the muscles from going flat, as well as for brain function. And that protein had been overemphasized by the magazines in order to sell protein supplements.

Mike Mentzer said that getting ripped was all a matter of calorie control and that you will lose body fat if your calorie intake is below your maintenance need of calories, even some of those calories come from candy, ice cream, etc.

Mike continued to refine his Heavy Duty training advice, as he discovered that some people require even less sets and weekly workouts than anyone had previously thought before, and for extreme hard gainers he would have them do as little as 10 minute workouts twice or even once a week.

Mike Mentzer passed away in June of 2001, and now almost 50 years after Mike first started opening the eyes of the bodybuilding public, let's look at how his legacy changed bodybuilding forever.

Bodybuilding Today

Gone are the days of super high volume, high frequency workouts. Most bodybuilders these days, do not train for two hours twice a day, 6 days a week. Most workouts are kept to an hour or less, and usually only 4 days a week, to allow enough time for recovery and growth.

Rather than training each muscle group 3 times a week, most bodybuilders today will work a muscle hard and then wait a full week before hitting it again.

Also, gone as the days of the zero carbohydrate diet, most bodybuilder eat a more balanced diet with at least enough carbohydrates to keep up their energy for their workouts and to help them think straight.

And, inspired by Mike Mentzer saying "a calorie it a calorie" bodybuilders today use flexible dieting and the idea that you can occasionally eat anything if it fits your macros.

The Legacy Of Mike Mentzer

So you can see how much the entire bodybuilding has shifted away from the old non scientific bodybuilding methods, and more towards the science based training and diet methods, that Mike was talking about almost 5 decades ago, and that is how Mike Mentzer changed bodybuilding forever.

And today more and more people are discovering Mike Mentzer's bodybuilding philosophy and applying his Heavy Duty training and nutrition principles, so his impact on bodybuilding continues to grow!

If you have any questions about Mike Mentzer, Heavy Duty, High Intensity Training, Diet, etc. email us and we'll get back to you with an answer as soon as we can.

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