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Mike Mentzer Mindset

The Mind: Check Your Premises

By Mike Mentzer

Since the publication of my last book "Heavy Duty II: Mind and Body," I have been quite gratified by the response. It has resulted in an ever-increasing number of bright bodybuilders and athletes embracing the principles - and the validity! - of Heavy Duty, high-intensity training; and, very important, it has shocked many of the top high-intensity theorists and advocates to think twice about their own understanding of high-intensity training.

However, every day of the year, I receive numerous phone calls, faxes, and letters from bodybuilders all over the globe who still haven't the slightest clue as how to proceed with their training, the achievement of their goals still profoundly elusive after years of devouring muscle magazines. This excerpt, from Chapter One of my book, is intended for those thousands of bodybuilders who still remain confused on the subject of productive bodybuilding exercise. And for those who have read it: I suggest that you re- read it and re-re-read it until you have fully grasped it.

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The first chapter of my last book, HEAVY DUTY I, is entitled Bodybuilders Are Confused. Are they confused? As the scores of individual bodybuilders who read that book - and informed me that they identified with that statement - indicate, the answer is an unreserved, unqualified YES! Almost without exception, the individuals that I've spoken with or observed first-hand are impotently bewildered, literally almost paralyzed by self-doubt; which, in this context, is characterized by an ongoing inability to arrive at a firm conclusion as how to best proceed with their training. This is the direct result of their ignorance of the nature and value of fundamental principles - and the role they play in guiding one's thinking as well as his training.

As gratifying as one may imagine the actualization of his muscular potential to be, many bodybuilders are apparently missing a more crucial, fundamental issue: the importance of achieving one's full human stature by learning how to think and judge independently. There is nothing wrong with having a muscular physique, but it is by no means a viable substitute for a mature, rational mind. (The likelihood that an individual will achieve his goals increases as his knowledge and ability to reason increase.) As a member of the species Man, your biologically distinguishable trait - your means of survival - is your mind; therefore, nothing can be more rewarding than "knowing," i.e., having a conceptual grasp of reality (including your own inner life) appropriate to an adult human being.

As is true of most others in our culture, bodybuilders have not been taught to be intellectually self-sufficient, i.e., to think rationally and to judge critically for themselves.

Instead they were instructed to have "faith," which is the antithesis of reason; it is the blind acceptance of ideas for which there is no sensory evidence or rational proof. They were also taught to "judge not," or the secular version, to keep an "open mind." The idea that one should not judge, or that he should keep an open mind, is very dangerous; it is used to keep people confused by suggesting that it is a virtue to grant plausibility to anything. Obviously not everything can be true. Instead one should cultivate an "active mind" - one that treats ideas critically, seeking to distinguish truth from falsehood. The inevitable result of uncritically accepting false notions is the shrinking of one's intellectual range and ability to deal successfully with reality.

In talks with my phone consultation clients and in-the-gym clients, as well as with others (nonbodybuilders), I've observed that many have achieved considerable particularized efficacy, i.e., a vast corpus of knowledge and a keen ability to use reason in his chosen field of endeavor, be it medicine, law, plumbing, etc. Yet few have achieved much in the way of metaphysical, or generalized efficacy - which is the ability to deal successfully with the rest of reality, be it in the area of relationships, the critical analysis of ideas in other fields or the proper judgment of others. (Most remarkable was a neurosurgeon who rejected the theory of high-intensity training, which is based on medical principles of human physiology, because his personal trainer didn't like it!)

Literally awash in the oceanic proliferation of new theories on exercise, the average bodybuilder cannot even begin to properly judge, or evaluate, the flood of conflicting, contradictory information. His thinking is severely hampered, limited to interminable quibbling over relatively unimportant details, such as whether to turn the little pinky up or down when doing Dumbell Laterals; is a wide grip better than a close grip; is four sets of five exercises better than five sets of four exercises; is two days on and one day off better than three days on and one day off; or are partial reps better than full-range ones?

Not only are these people missing the forest for the trees, their narrow intellectual focus has them mesmerized by a tiny flea on the bark of a single tree. The details mentioned above are not completely without import; they are actually derivatives, which only assume relevance within the context of having first understood and properly applied the fundamentals. What's the difference, for instance, whether a bodybuilder performs five sets of four exercises or four sets of five exercises, if he hasn't grasped the cardinal fundamental of bodybuilding science - the fact that a high-intensity training stress, i.e., training to a point of momentary muscular failure, is an absolute, objective requirement for inducing growth stimulation and, therefore, none of his sets is triggering the growth mechanism into motion? Or, not cognizant of the crucial importance of precisely regulating the volume and frequency of his workouts because of the body's limited capacity for tolerating the "wear and tear" of high-intensity training stresses, he unwittingly becomes so grossly overtrained that, even if he were stimulating any growth, the excessive inroad into his recovery ability would prevent the possibility of his body producing any growth.

The New Tyranny: Truth By Consensus

Bodybuilders whose thinking is thusly restricted often resort to a type of "Russian roulette," where they move anxiously and uncertainly from one training theory to the next, hoping or wishing that one day they'll luckily happen upon something that works. Or, having sacrificed individual judgment and personal sovereignty entirely, fearing that he - and he alone - suffers from a nameless deficiency, many opt to conform to the "herd," and blindly follow the other sheep by adopting the training program which has the most adherents in their gym. Little does he suspect that the others are doing precisely the same thing. Like him, they think the others must know what they're doing; after all, how can the majority be wrong. In logic, this is known as the fallacy ad verecundum, or the "appeal to reverence," specifically, reverence for the opinion of others. In neither case does the individual logically understand why he is doing what he is doing. (No matter how big the muscles, an inner life dominated by chronic doubt and uncertainty is incompatible with confidence, happiness and self-esteem.) This phenomenon is very common in today's anti-rational culture. It is seen in the wide-spread reliance on opinion polls as a means of establishing the truth, especially in politics.

Whereas men at one time sacrificed their intellectual independence by turning to Sacred Texts for the "truth" as revealed by the supernatural omniscience and infallibility of God, many today are "secular supernaturalists" who have substituted others for God as a means to the truth. In bodybuilding, the muscle magazine has assumed the status of a modern day Sacred Text, which many rely on uncritically for the revealed, unquestionable truth as told by others.

There were better eras in man's history, as Dr. Leonard Peikoff explained in his introductory tape for his series, Logic. There were periods when men had a profound reverence for and looked to logic as the "court of final appeal" in resolving arguments and settling disagreements, i.e., establishing the truth. While having a profound reverence for the power of reason and logic, they had to possess considerable pride and self-esteem, as reason is an attribute of the individual.

Thinking is a complex process of logical identification and integration of the facts of reality, and can be performed only by the individual mind. As such, thinking is a profoundly personal and intensely private, selfish activity. Those who evade the responsibility and effort required to learn the laws of logic, the principles of thought, forfeit the possibility of achieving full, rational independent adulthood; and inevitably become dependent, selfless, namby-pamby schmoos at the mercy of any chance intellectual current or loudmouth that comes along.

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The man largely responsible for establishing the educational policy of the American school system was John Dewey, best known as the father of progressive education. The goal of education, according to Dewey, was not to teach children how to conceptualize, or think, and to use theoretical knowledge, but to teach conformity. Like the intellectual architects of the Nazi takeover, Dewey understood that when a person's capacity to think and judge independently is destroyed, the inevitable result - of course! - is that he becomes dependent, and will passively conform to any Fuhrer brazenly loud enough to get his attention. In effect, the result is, "Who am I to think or judge? If it's good enough for the Fuhrer, it's good enough for me."

What's the value in possessing muscles that would do credit to an adult gorilla if the individual is arrested intellectually on the level of a dependent child. Just a few months ago, in Flex magazine, a very young bodybuilder, whose rapid, stellar ascent to the pinnacle of professional development has garnered him considerable attention in the bodybuilding press, was quoted in bold print, "If 20 sets was good enough for Arnold, it's good enough for me.

When someone asks, "Who am I to judge?" you really have to wonder. Your "self, " your "I," is your mind, i.e.., your concepts, ideas, beliefs - in short, your philosophy - which determines the extent of your ability to think and to judge. When a person has relinquished his judgment, deferring that responsibility to others, he has, in effect, sacrificed his self, and ends up literally "selfless," suffering an identity crisis.

Think Twice

Arthur Jones once described a very heavily muscled acquaintance of mine as "a child in a gorilla suit." The motive of Mr. Jones' statement was not to maliciously derogate the character of the bodybuilder, but to underscore the glaring disparity between the size of his muscles and his intellectual development. And his sub-standard intellect was not the result of a malfunctioning or deficient brain. No, he was intellectually self- arrested. The result was manifest in his inarticulate emotionalism, an inability to explain anything at all about the principles of scientific exercise and a profound lack of confidence outside the gym.

Of course, not all bodybuilders choose to arrest their mental growth by refusing to integrate knowledge, acquire conscious convictions and gain intellectual certainty. Those who do will inevitably suffer the consequences. Having rejected their means of survival, they will live as cowed, abject physical hulks tortured by chronic, unremitting self-doubt - "as strangers and afraid in a world they never made." Those of you who have not abandoned your mind, who are struggling heroically to achieve intellectual efficacy and a rational philosophy of life, will find encouragement in what you are about to read.

The struggle is not yours alone - nor is it limited to bodybuilders. The trouble you are having with your emotions, and in gaining full independent control of your thought processes, is not due to some Shakespearean "fatal flaw," or an idiosyncratic deficit in the makeup of your brain. You are, in part, a victim of a culture that is intellectually-morally bankrupt; a culture that has rejected reason, logic, science, morality, justice and freedom. Our culture has been undermined and sold out by those whose job is to provide rational guidance: professional intellectuals, i.e., our teachers and university professors.

(The above is a partial excerpt from chapter one of Mike Mentzer's book entitled Heavy Duty II: Mind and Body.

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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