Who was Mike Mentzer? Mike Mentzer was a legendary bodybuilder who won the 1978 Mr. Universe, becoming the first bodybuilder ever to get a perfect score from the judges. Considering the lack of science-based knowledge, supplements and the variety of elaborate training techniques we have today, that win was a huge accomplishment that launched Mike’s future career.
During the next two decades, Mike Mentzer created a lot of fuss with the unconventional training philosophy he wrote about in his Heavy Duty articles and which emphasized brief, intensive and infrequent workouts. His popularity waned after the infamous Mr. Olympia contest in 1980, when he lost the title to Arnold Schwarzenegger and had the crowds shout “Fix!” at him.
Mike Mentzer ‘once a week’ training philosophy
Mentzer believed that almost all bodybuilders were overtraining and that this slowed down their progress. At that time, most top-level bodybuilders had long training sessions that included more than 20 sets per body part, 5-6 days a week, and Mike thought they were doing it completely wrong. He himself typically trained three times a week and his 30-minute workouts incorporated no more than 5 sets per body part.
Mentzer preached high-intensity exercise once a week or once every five to seven days and stressed that 20-30 minutes were ideal for achieving maximum muscle stimulation. But as his shape and health deteriorated throughout the 90’s, Mike lost a big part of his followers.
Mike Mentzer’s once a week training philosophy was so unconventional that, to this very day, different bodybuilders hold radically different views on his approach. While some truly believe he was a genius, others think he was completely crazy.
The study on “once a week” Training
However, some new scientific studies proved that there is some truth in Mike Mentzer’s “once a week” training claims. One team of researchers tried to examine how muscle mass and strength were influenced by reducing the number of training sessions per week to one. For this purpose, 70 healthy adults were divided into two groups according to their age.
The first group consisted of young adults between ages 20 and 35, while the other consisted of older adults, aged 60-75. During the first phase of the study, which lasted 16 weeks, both groups performed three sets of three resistance-training exercises three times a week.
Then, they were divided into three groups for the second, de-training phase: one group completely stopped training, the second group reduced the training days from three to one but kept the same number of sets, and the third group also reduced the training days from three to one but reduced the training sets from three to one as well.
The conclusion
The results from this elaborate study showed that when it comes to Mentzer’s once a week training method, age makes a big difference. In other words, in the group of older adults, nobody maintained their muscle size after cutting down to one session per week, even though they managed to maintain their strength.
On the other hand, the younger bodybuilders who reduced both the number of sessions per week (from 3 to 1) and the exercise volume (from 3 sets to 1) maintained their muscle size, while those who cut down to exercising once a week but maintained the exercise volume (3 sets) managed to increase their muscle size.
The researchers concluded that once a week training with an adequate exercise volume can successfully stimulate muscle growth in younger adults, but older gym goers who want to maintain their muscle mass should stick to longer and more frequent training sessions.
You haven’t mentioned Intensity. Train with less intensity and you will need more volume. Train with more intensity and you will need less volume. Mentzers training was based around intensity. Training to failure, otherwise low volume doesn’t work as well.
Your conclusion for the older group of 60 to 75 year old trainees makes no sense at all. If trainees in this group with less volume and loss muscle mass than how in the hell is increasing the volume of training going to increase muscle mass. Once again just like Mentzer stated you are falling into the trap that many body builders are confused in that the more is better like more money is better, more women are better, taking more s******s is better! Increasing the volume also increases the amount of recovery time need to make the gains needed. The body has a limited amount chemical reserves and when used up only rest can restore those reserves. Unless one is on drugs (s******s) can one get away with insane high volume workouts. It is possible to not make gains using a once a week workout with only 3 sets if the intensity is not there you will not make gains. You can train long or hard but you can’t do both. Another point I would like to make is muscle size and strength are inter related meaning a muscle can not increase in size with out an increase in strength and an increase in strength can not occur unless the weight used is increased. Muscle size increase is a result of the body fighting the stress put upon it by increased muscle mass. Muscles will not shrink unless their is a loss of strength so your statement that the trainees in the 65 to 70 age group lost strength but not mass again makes no sense. It is physical and biologically impossible! This kind of research is the kind of mindless dribble that has lead to the confusion still common in body building today! Please to anyone reading this, Read up on Mike Mentzer on his training methods and learn what true productive weight training is really about. Youtube is a great place to start and also check out John Littles youtube channel. He was a close friend of Mike’s and is and has been great writer for many years on productive bodybuilding.
Yet his ideas have been debunked decades ago and have a very poor success record.
The person you are responding to is not the author of the article. Why are you answering him as though he is?
Also, you wrote this:
“…so your statement that the trainees in the 65 to 70 age group lost strength but not mass again makes no sense.”
The article says the complete e opposite.
Hi John, You are right as I doubt that the training intensity part of this study probably never even crossed their minds.
Read the rest of my comments below!
If this was a true test of Mike Mentzer’s HIT training than why did this study start out with training 3 days a week instead of one. The study was suppose to be training one day a week not 3. The study did not mention what exercises were being done. Were the same ones being done each workout for 3 times in a week. That right there is over training. A muscle does not need to be trained more than once in a 7 day period. The conclusion was that age does make a difference. Dam, it took 16 weeks for you to figure that one out. Gosh, how stupid can one be. You changed the rules if there really were any in this study to your own to fit your narrative that one workout per week was not effective in gaining both size and strength. A proper training protocol should have been about 3 different exercise of one set each in a high intensity method of taking each set to failure once every 7 days.
Mike trained about 500 clients using this method and the gains were not just good but dramatic with clients gaining 20 to 30 pounds in a 3 month period. All drug free and of all different ages.
Good point. It seems like many people claim to understand the principles and speak for Mentzer, but most have no real understanding of the HIT system. Intensity is the real factor. It is probably the case that performing one se to less than failure once a week will not produce much in the way of strength or muscle gains. In that case we’re just not following Mentzer’s program. No mention of intensity in the study.
I have to agree with you Jon. As I age, my recovery ability lessens. Why would I train more and deplete my recovery resources even more?? Mentzer always pushed one set to “muscular failure”. If you are not “pushing yourself”, then No, you will not gain. I think this “test” was another way to further Mike’s training programs in favor of the more is better camp.
Remember, when Mentzer did a curl, it was not just the external resistance of the weight he was lifting, that caused the tension, but in addition, he was also “isometrically” tensing the muscle from inside the bicep, adding to the external resistance of the weight. That’s why he advocated only one day per week. It was so that his nervous system could repair itself. Like Eugene Sandow and his “light weight” Method both men were doing isometric contractions (all the way up/out and all the down/back) as part of every exercise. Sandow’s method uses weights to build the mind/nervous system/muscle-connection contraction feed back loop so that, if your lifting a 10lb dumbbell, with the isometric contraction added, inside your arm, it feels like your lifting a much heavier weight. Especially if you lift slowly, instead of quickly pumping out 12-15 mindless curls. Try doing that with to a count of five going up and down with the added aforementioned added isometric contraction. One set may gas you out.
You get weaker training with slow reps and light weight. This is why hit sucks.
You say that, but Ken Waller reported that Serge Nubret (hardly weak or small) would do arm curls with 15lb dumbbells in exactly that way. Do you have arms like Serge Nubret?
Your training with slows reps BUT HEAVY weights NOT LIGHT and also to failure, with a slower rep you have more constant stress on the muscle aswell. so your NOT using a light weight DO YOU UNDERSTAND ?
Yes Robert you are right on the money. As we age we should be training less but not more. As men and even women for that matter age our hormone levels drop as we age making it harder and harder to do the things we once did say in our 20’s as compared to my age now which is 64.
I hope that anyone reading this article does not take is seriously. Mike Mentzer’s workouts are perfect for any age. Meaning that your routine should be setup for what gives you the best gains like he once said ” not more or less but what is exact”
Actually no. You should be training more as you age, not less, due to the aging process which makes it easier for the body to lose mass and conditioning.
Complete utter BS
Im in my 50s
I have not trained for yrs and I had barely to not lost any mass at all.
As a matter of fact trained only 1 hard set to failure 1 exercise per body part once a week and am gaining everything back ive had since I was a teenager. Tell me why its working. Its because ive trained this way for decades.
Flaw #1: intensity of effort per set is not specified, as others have pointed out. Flaw #2: Not even % of max or rep range is mentioned. Flaw #3: The study is not sited so we can’t look for ourselves. I’m guessing the author only referenced the abstract b/c seeing the study would have cost $$. The only thing that might be gleaned from this article is that perhaps a lot of young gym bros are wasting their time in the gym. The comments also point out that Mentzer/HIT can apparently be akin to a religion to some. Geesh, lighten up. More flies with honey than vinegar and all that.
HIT, despite all the bogus hype, has a very poor sucess record since the 1970’s
HVT has a proven success record for many decades.
Conclusion = Hit sucks.
CONCLUSION: OSB knows it all!
your quick to oppose people why
well i guess some of you none believers need to have a convo with Dorian yates and tell him to his face that HIT doesnt work and is utter BS, his 6 olympias will prove different. if it didnt work then he would not have used it his whole professional life. its just obvious some people simply doesnt have much to fulfill their lives so need to spend 5 – 6 days a wk at the gym. and it gives them this sense that they really are scarificing for their results when there is a truth that you dont need to live in the gym, to get amazing results, some people have a life, HIT is all about intensity, your muscle grows when you shock it. when you tear the tissues. why spend 4 sets of 12 reps tearing a muscle when with max intensity to failure you have completely torn that muscle tissue and while its resting it is growing. its pure science. even sylvester stallone said in his book sly moves, thay one of his regrets in life was OVERTRAINING. HE stressed that he was doing FAR MORE REPS AND SETS and wasting far to many days on working out that was neccessary, he said he would work out in the morning, go to a party, but leave early because he felt he had to have yet another big workout before bed. he said but he said nobody could tell him any different back then, he totally regretted wasting so manny hours of his life at the gym when now he knows you can get the same results with just 1 – 2 days a wk working out. its about training smarter.
Training is specific. If a swimmer keeps swimming longer distances but keeps a consistent pace, the swimmer isn’t training to go faster, the swimmer is training to swim longer. The same holds true for weight training. Lifting weights using the HIT’s one-all out set to failure with 80-90% of a 1RM will enable the lifter to become more competent at performing an exercise in that method. A lifter performing a higher volume workout is training to perform an exercise for a longer duration (more sets, more reps). Regardless of whether the weights are increased the method employed is what is actually being trained. Both methods can cause a physiological stimulus but muscle growth and potential size is determined by genetics, diet and lifestyle. Exercise is punishment. Rest is required for the body to make adaptations. All the famous bodybuilders from the 70’s were juiced to the gills regardless of what the magazines and talking heads say.
Hi,
All very interesting indeed. I am now 76 and have been training in the gym most of my life and am in good shape and a good weight for my size but I am having a hard time growing my biceps. I am 5f 5 inches and about 158 lb. I can’t seem to go over 15 1/2 inches in my bicep. I am presently trying out the HIT method, working close to failure with a max of 6 reps for 3 sets full body workout twice a week . anyone of a similar age have any good advice! Regards Russ.
Hi Russ, I am sorry to say this, but at your age I would stay away from HIT. It is not just too demanding on your muscle system but also on the cardiovascular system. I would try doing higher reps (12-15) for a few sets and not go to complete failure but rather leave 1-2 reps in the tank and chase that pump in the biceps. Also you can increase the frequency of your biceps workouts to 2 times a week and see how you respond. If you can handle 2 workouts a week for the same muscle group and you are not feeling fatigued, go for it.
Russ,
65 here and have been doing HIT for about a year. The first thing i will say is that there are multiple ways of getting fitter and bigger. A few points that I have learnt from following Dr Doug McGuff and Drew Baye. Just to add first of all this is based on my own experiences and I would ask anyone to read up as I do not pretend to be an authority.
1. You will never outgrow (with using chemical assistance) your bodies DNA. Two people doing exactly the same exercise may have different results. For me the key is what is the most efficient form of exercise.
2. One of the biggest advantages of HIT is that it is safer than using heavy weights. As others have said it is all about intensity/effort that you put in. I am not advocating to use light weights. i used to do preacher curls with 24kg ( and can do more if i do 2 up 2 down) but moving to super slow ( 10s up 10s down for a minimum of 60 s – that will be hard) or doing static holds mean that i could barely do 18kg. The key is do perform an exercise with sufficient intensity that will result in failure in a min of 60s ( 60s as a baseline for engaging and failing both your fast and slow twitch muscles.
3. The point of exercise is not to move the weights. It is to use the exercise to evoke a whole of body response by stressing your skeletal muscular system
4. You do not grow muscles when working out in the gym, you grow in the days when the body is recovering. Doing additional exercises can in fact be detrimental to your objectives. Recovery is key and it is not just the recovery of a particular muscle.
5. Going to MMF (Momentary Muscle Failure) is essential to evoke a response. I find it difficult to understand who to define when I have 1 or 2 movements left within an exercise, at least MMF is a measure that is constant for each exercise.
I would suggest for anyone to look at Dr Doug McGuffs book “Body by Science: if you want to get a good understand of why MMF is key for people of all ages.