how many of you train HIT

[ANABOLICK1]

Mentzer really was just wrong on a few fundamental things. Here's one: He believed that the body had some limit of "recuperative abilities" that needed to be regenerated before growth could occur. That's just physiologically wrong. It's been demonstrated time and time again that further training doesn't interrupt the repair process even if performed before repair is complete.

Also, with his "genetically challenged" individuals, those who weren't making strength or size gains on once a week, he would do as infrequently as once a month! That's ridiculous! Since thealready ultra-low frequency isn't working, he decided to try and make it even lower. He never really considered that perhaps the low frequency itself was the reason for lack of progress.

Let me change gears for a sec. Of course HIT and HD work. Everything works to some extent. There isn't a program that won't grow SOME muscle and gain SOME strength. I really think, though, that science can point to a quicker way to achieve both.

-casualbb

Mentzer trained many individuals, all having various recuperative abilities. Yes, for some it took a month to recover after a workout (though very rare). He's proven that. They come back stronger after that time, and that's how you gauge progress.

And yes, you will short-circuit the growth process if you train the same bodypart before you give it a chance to recover form the previous workout. That's exercise physiology 101 .

 

[casualbb]

How about this: I train all bodyparts 3.5 times a week. I know I'm not recovered because I had to take three days off recently to help avoid burnout. Yet in 3-4 weeks I've gained 4 or 5 pounds of mass. How can that be explained?

-casualbb

 

[ANABOLICK1]

How about this: I train all bodyparts 3.5 times a week. I know I'm not recovered because I had to take three days off recently to help avoid burnout. Yet in 3-4 weeks I've gained 4 or 5 pounds of mass. How can that be explained?

-casualbb

I don't think you understand what overtraining actually is. It's usually not something you feel. You don't necessarily have to feel burnt out. If that weight you put on was lbm and you're getting stronger you DID recover.
As you know roids enhances rocovery.

 

[Rich_S]

Do yourself a favor. Go buy Mike Mentzer's 'Heavy DutyII : Mind and Body' and save your breath. Seriously, you'll learn a lot.
Check out pg. 87. Great pic of Mentzer training Yates !

I think I'll pass. I prefer reading books and articles by Charles Poliquin, Fred Hatfield, Dave Tate, Louie Simmons, Ian King, etc. You know, guys who are big and strong, actually have degrees in exercise science related fields, and get paid to train professional and olympic athletes.

And do yourself another favor and stop reading bs articles.

Here's where you're wrong. You compare yourself to genetic freaks that the pros are. They will get huge no matter how they train ! because they have super recuperative abilities, and are genetically predisposed. In all likelihood, you are no freak. So don't compare your training to their's.

Reprint in a current issue? The man's been dead for a few years now ! Who's talking for him now? It's no secret that before he died he had a fallout with Ironman magazine, as he use to write columns for them, and the editors did not like him because he was speaking the truth about every facet of BBing...

Mentzer devoted many years to the science of BBing after retiring from the sport, and his training principles apply to EVERYONE. No matter what your genetics are. The only difference between you and everybody else is the time it takes to recover from a workout..

http://www.t-mag.com/nation_articles/156yates.html

"T: Earlier in your career Mike Mentzer was taking a great deal of credit for putting you on the road to "Heavy Duty" training. Did you ever train with Mentzer, and was he ever really associated with you in any way?"

"Dorian: When I first started training, I read as much as possible; it was trial and error in the gym. I read a lot of stuff by Arthur Jones [Nautilus inventor], and Mentzer was in the magazines at the time. Through trial and error I noticed that if I went over a certain amount of volume in the gym, my progress would come to a stop. I'd become overtrained. I was always training with a lot of volume, high intensity, along those lines.

I met Mike Mentzer after I won my first Olympia in '92. I was at Gold's Gym in Venice doing photo shoots and met Mike. Of course he was someone I'd admired when I started training, and we were talking about training principles and so on. He had a personal training business and felt that when he was still competing he still overtrained, even though he was doing a lot less than everybody else. He felt it was possible to do even less, in terms of volume, and get even better results.

So yes, I did a few workouts with Mike and we exchanged ideas. He did have some input in my training at that time. I tried to reduce the volume a little bit more, but it was a minor adjustment because I was already training like that. So it's not correct to say Mike trained me. We did maybe three workouts together in Gold's Gym."

 

[guldukat]

There was an interview with Dorian Yates in Ironman a couple of years ago where he said that he was NEVER trained by Mentzer and that he NEVER followed the HD/HIT program. He basically said that he always used lower volume than most bodybuilders but that he didn't belive one set to failure was enough.

That isn't what you quoted later.

Yates: "So yes, I did a few workouts with Mike and we exchanged ideas."

I've seen the photos of Mike training Yates. I talked to Mike at length about how strong Dorian was, and what he had Dorian do in the gym.

And you are correct, Mentzer himself never followed the 1 set protocol while he was competing.

That's right.

The bottom line is that a lot of what Mentzer said was just plain WRONG. Now, it may be true that for some people at certain times in their training programs, that 1 set to failure is optimal. But to say that it is always optimal for all people during every workout during all phases of the training program is simply incorrect, it's so absurd as to not even be worth debating.

Tell that to Doggcrapp.

Michael's most problematic idea was NOT doing a single set to failure. It was his solution to avoid overtraining; i.e., adding more and more rest days until one was only training a bodypart once every couple of weeks (or whatever).

Furthermore, as an example of Mentzer's complete lack of knowledge regarding physiology and exercise science, in a reprint of one of his articles in the current issue of Ironman he states that there's really no difference between fast twitch and slow twitch fibers and that even if there were a difference that it is widely known that individual fibers can change from fast twitch to slow twitch and back and vice versa within hours. He then went on to say that stretching and aerobics should never be part of a serious bodybuilding program because they deplete energy that could be otherwise used for taking sets to failure.

Give the guy a fucking break. He's DEAD, and he was not himself in the last 15 years or so of life.

 

[guldukat]

I think I'll pass. I prefer reading books and articles by Charles Poliquin, Fred Hatfield, Dave Tate, Louie Simmons, Ian King, etc. You know, guys who are big and strong, actually have degrees in exercise science related fields, and get paid to train professional and olympic athletes.

That's funny. Mentzer was way more muscular than all of those guys...what he looks like is a red herring anyway. Either his ideas have merit, or they don't; what he looks like has spit to do with the point.

While I agree that most of his ideas post '93 or so were...off the wall, please don't make that crummy appeal to authority of, "Well, so and so has a degree." Too often that simply means they're so indoctrinated that they're unwilling to think outside the box.

As far as the glamour of your clients, who cares? That sounds like something that would float at MFW. It's not a great path for those of anti-HIT persuasion to follow anyhow; check into the training programs of any ten pro football clubs and you'll see at least 30% exclusively train their professional athletes with methods very much unlike Charles "Stabilizers" Poliquin or Ian "side press" King.

http://www.t-mag.com/nation_articles/156yates.html

T-Mag?! LOL. You want to talk about untrustworthy people...

"T: Earlier in your career Mike Mentzer was taking a great deal of credit for putting you on the road to "Heavy Duty" training. Did you ever train with Mentzer, and was he ever really associated with you in any way?"

"Dorian: When I first started training...I met Mike Mentzer after I won my first Olympia in '92. I was at Gold's Gym in Venice...yes, I did a few workouts with Mike and we exchanged ideas. He did have some input in my training at that time. I tried to reduce the volume a little bit more, but it was a minor adjustment because I was already training like that. So it's not correct to say Mike trained me. We did maybe three workouts together in Gold's Gym."

Maybe big D was hit on the head or that was edited...how could Mike NOT train the guy if he "had some input in [his] training at that time"?

Even THREE WORKOUTS qualifies as "training," and yeah, Mike was telling him what to do. Only a Martian would think that's not "training" someone. After all, Mentzer wasn't just wandering around after Dorian, wondering, "What'cha gonna do next big man?"

Bunch of semantic bullshit. Disappointing too, coming from Dorian, who knows better.

Why is this thread not locked, anyway? NC666 is just trolling. He was conspicuously silent about "pussy one set guys" in the DC thread.

 

[louden_swain]

Everyone is entitled to their opinion.

 

[Rich_S]

Everyone is entitled to their opinion.

Indeed. And in my opinion, the HIT guys would get more respect if they didn't insult every other training method in every single article they write. I don't think I've ever read a HIT article that didn't waste half the page by talking about how every other training system is worthless, dangerous, and stupid, how there is only one right way to train and that right way is HIT, how everyone who disagrees is an indoctrinated moron, and then go on to talk about Ayn Rand and objectivist philosophy and how it proves that HIT is the only sound way to train.

 

[louden_swain]

Indeed. And in my opinion, the HIT guys would get more respect if they didn't insult every other training method in every single article they write. I don't think I've ever read a HIT article that didn't waste half the page by talking about how every other training system is worthless, dangerous, and stupid, how there is only one right way to train and that right way is HIT, how everyone who disagrees is an indoctrinated moron, and then go on to talk about Ayn Rand and objectivist philosophy and how it proves that HIT is the only sound way to train.

Chill out man. . .you are getting a little worked up .

 

[vinylgroover]

Anabolik,

Does it not stand to reason that someone who is on steroids has a far greater ability to recover from a given workout volume than a natural trainee, and hence, the natural trainee would be the one most likely to benefit from the HIT approach.

If the main premise of HIT is to minimise the risk of overtraining while maximising muscle gain, then it stands to reason that those who juice will have a better capacity to lift their 'overtraining threshold' as defined by the volume of work or number of sets performed.

Say you use 2 sets by 2 exercises as the minimum requirement to stimulate muscle growth......then that minimum requirement should be say 4 sets by 2 exercises for a bodybuilder who uses steroids to pick an arbitrary number of sets.

This is where the strict interpretation of HIT doesn't seem to make sense to me. Personally, i adhere to the low volume approach, but i couldn't imagine going as low as 2 x 2.