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For the previous a number of months, the Instagram algorithm has been blitzing me with content material about legendary bodybuilder Mike Mentzer.
Perhaps it’s as a result of the algorithm has picked up on the truth that I’ve transitioned away from powerlifting and am doing extra bodybuilding-type exercises lately. Or maybe the algorithm thinks I’d admire Mentzer’s superior mustache since its majesty rivals my very own.
Regardless of the purpose, because of Instagram, I’ve been studying so much about Mike Mentzer and his iconoclastic coaching philosophy that he known as “Heavy Obligation.”
The younger bros on social media are completely bonkers about Heavy Obligation. And I can perceive why.
First, there’s the attraction of Mike Mentzer himself. He had an incredible physique (he was the primary and solely man to earn an ideal rating within the Mr. Universe competitors), and his Nineteen Seventies hair and stache gave him a lot of cool cache. On prime of that, he introduced a uncommon philosophical bent to bodybuilding. His tear-drop spectacles evinced his bookish persona, and he liked finding out and discussing completely different colleges of thought (significantly Ayn Rand’s Objectivism), taking a look at artwork, and listening to good music. For lots of men, this mix of brains and brawn actually represents the perfect of manhood.
However Mentzer’s Heavy Obligation program is getting a whole lot of hype lately on social media as a result of it guarantees distinctive muscle progress by probably solely doing a single set of workout routines per physique half per week.
Mentzer’s concept that you can get hypertrophic progress with rare and brief exercises flew within the face of the bodybuilding orthodoxy of the Nineteen Seventies and 80s. Throughout that point, excessive quantity was king. Bodybuilders again then, like Arnold Schwarzenegger, skilled for 2 hours, twice a day, day-after-day. The aim was to slam your muscle tissues with double-digit units to stimulate progress.
Influenced by Nautilus inventor Arthur Jones’ philosophy of high-intensity coaching, Mentzer thought doing a lot coaching was a waste of time and led to suboptimal outcomes.
Intrigued by the hoopla and claims of Heavy Obligation, I made a decision to take a deep dive into this system and its claims. Right here’s what I came upon about the way it works, and whether or not it really works.
The Ideas of Heavy Obligation
The very first thing to level out is that Heavy Obligation isn’t an entirely distinctive coaching philosophy. It’s a variation of high-intensity coaching by which athletes are prescribed to coach their muscle tissues to failure. As talked about above, Arthur Jones pioneered high-intensity coaching. Mentzer most likely did essentially the most to popularize high-intensity coaching because of his work with Dorian Yates.
Mentzer’s Heavy Obligation philosophy advanced over time. Most bodybuilders (and plenty of sports activities scientists) assume Mentzer’s early model of Heavy Obligation acquired a whole lot of issues proper. Nonetheless, Mentzer turned extra excessive along with his views as he acquired nearer to his dying, significantly concerning quantity and frequency.
It ought to be identified that Mentzer had genetics that made him well-suited to bodybuilding, and he achieved his physique partly by way of the usage of anabolic steroids. However he thought his advisable lifting regimens equally utilized to common, drug-free people who wished to realize their pure muscular potential.
Excessive Depth
Depth is the important thing to Heavy Obligation. For Mentzer, the depth of the train is what drove muscle hypertrophy, not quantity. So, what did Mentzer imply by depth?
He outlined it as “the share of potential momentary muscular effort being exerted.”
Mentzer (and different high-intensity coaching proponents) believed you wanted to get reps as near 100% exertion as potential to stimulate muscle progress. And also you solely know should you’re attending to 100% exertion by lifting till failure.
Mentzer on depth:
That final rep the place you’re making an attempt as laborious as you possibly can, and also you barely make it! That’s what activates the expansion mechanism in your physique. That final virtually not possible rep the place you’re bearing your tooth, you’re shaking throughout, you want help! That rep could be very particular, that rep could be very completely different. There’s one thing particular occurring inside your physique when that occurs.
Scientific analysis has verified this declare. In my interview with bodybuilding coach Paul Carter, he defined the idea of “mechanical rigidity” as what stimulates muscle progress. As you get nearer to failure with a elevate, your muscle fibers begin experiencing extra mechanical rigidity. You realize while you’re reaching mechanical rigidity if the motion of the elevate begins slowing down and feeling laborious. These reps are the “stimulating reps.” They’re those that start a cascade of indicators in your physique to start out rising extra muscle tissue.
To make sure you obtain ample depth, the actions in your lifts must be managed. Elevate and decrease the load easily and slowly, with out jerks or sudden actions. You don’t need to add any momentum to the elevate, making it simpler. A typical cadence of high-intensity practitioners is 2-2-4. Two seconds on the concentric a part of the elevate, a two-second pause, and 4 seconds on the eccentric a part of the elevate.
To extend depth, Mentzer advocated issues like “pre-exhausting” a muscle group, utilizing assisted lifting (the place you could have somebody enable you with the ultimate reps), and holding the load regular at completely different factors within the elevate. All of those strategies had been designed to assist a bodybuilder get nearer to failure quicker.
The massive takeaway from this precept is that to stimulate muscle progress, it’s essential to do every train till failure. It’s acquired to be Heavy Obligation, child.
Low Length (or Low Quantity)
The massive draw of the Heavy Obligation methodology is the low quantity you do.
Whilst you can obtain mechanical rigidity with a excessive or a low variety of reps, it’s simpler to realize the depth obligatory for mechanical rigidity with the latter.
In the event you’re utilizing lighter weight, you’ll should do extra reps earlier than your muscle tissues begin stepping into mechanical rigidity. Because of this, you’ll expertise extra fatigue, making it more durable to maintain up the muscle-building depth of your lifts.
In the event you’re utilizing heavier weight, you are able to do fewer reps whereas leaping into the depth wanted to create mechanical rigidity sooner.
Consider it like this: should you’re doing bicep curls with 10-pound dumbbells, it may take you 50 reps to realize the depth wanted for muscle-building mechanical rigidity, and also you may get fatigued earlier than you even attain that time. In the event you’re curling 50-pound dumbbells, you may obtain mechanical rigidity in simply 3 reps, saving you fatigue and time.
Mentzer figured you can use that saved time for finding out philosophy or artwork.
As talked about above, Mentzer’s philosophy in direction of quantity advanced because the years handed. When he first offered Heavy Obligation, he prescribed 1 to 2 units of 6 to eight reps for every train, executed to failure. In the event you may get to 12 reps in a set, you wanted to extend the load by 10%, drop your reps again down to six, and begin working your manner again up with the reps at that new weight.
So what does that appear like?
Let’s say you’re coaching your quads; a Mentzer-style Heavy Obligation program may appear like this:
Leg extensions: 2 units, executed to failure Squats: 1 set, executed to failure Leg press: 1 set, executed to failure
That’s 4 whole units for the quads.
A high-volume exercise might need you doing 4 units of every train, providing you with 12 whole units in your quads.
4 units in comparison with 12 units. You may see why Heavy Obligation is taken into account a low-volume program.
Within the Nineteen Nineties, Mentzer developed Heavy Obligation II, which proposed exercises the place you solely did a single set for a whole muscle group. One advised program seemed like this:
Exercise 1
Squats: 1 set, executed to failureShut-grip, palms-up pulldowns: 1 set, executed to failureDips: 1 set, executed to failure
Exercise 2
Deadlift: 1 set, executed to failurePresses behind neck: 1 set, executed to failureStanding calf raises: 1 set, executed to failure
That’s it.
As talked about above, most bodybuilders assume Mentzer acquired issues proper in his earlier model of Heavy Obligation. The scientific analysis appears to verify Mentzer’s unique quantity suggestions.
Based on Paul Carter, analysis means that, usually, past doing 8 units to failure per week per muscle group, there’s little to no profit to including quantity. In the event you’re doing greater than that, you’re simply needlessly fatiguing your self. Whereas one set to failure per week will present stimulus for muscle progress, it’s doubtless not sufficient for max hypertrophy. Based on Paul, the analysis means that 3 units every week per muscle group appears to be the ground for hypertrophic positive factors.
Nonetheless, some bodybuilders and a few analysis suggests that you just get extra hypertrophic progress with extra quantity. Like within the 12-20 units per muscle group per week vary.
Which one is it? It’s been a subject of debate for a very long time.
Bros had been debating quantity on the bodybuilding.com boards 20 years in the past. They’re nonetheless yelling at one another about it on TikTok stitches at the moment. They’ll most likely have flame wars about quantity on some 3D digital actuality platform 20 years from now.
So long as you elevate to failure, doing both excessive or low quantity goes to work nice for rising muscle for the typical dude, so go along with whichever methodology you like. The massive benefit of going the low quantity route is that you may get swole in much less time.
Low Frequency
Restoration was a necessary a part of Mentzer’s Heavy Obligation philosophy as a result of restoration is when our muscle tissues develop from the stimulus of weight lifting. To maximise restoration, Mentzer advocated for considerably spacing out one’s exercises. In essentially the most excessive model of Heavy Obligation, he prescribed doing 1 to 2 units for a muscle group simply as soon as every week. The opposite six days could be used for restoration.
The analysis is combined on whether or not low frequency helps or hurts hypertrophy. One meta-analysis confirmed that so long as you get in sufficient done-to-failure units for a given muscle group throughout every week, it doesn’t matter should you prepare a few times every week.
So, let’s say you goal to do 6 units per week in your chest, once more making 6-8 reps per set the perfect vary, typically going as much as as many as 12 as you get stronger, earlier than growing the load by 10% and going again down to six reps per set.
You possibly can have a chest day the place you get all 6 units for the week in that single exercise.
It may appear like this:
Fly deck: 2 units, executed to failureIncline bench press: 2 units, executed to failureCable crossover: 2 units, executed to failure
You’d then do your chest day once more every week later.
You possibly can additionally cut up up these 6 units over 2 exercises, like so:
Exercise 1
Flydeck: 2 units, executed to failureIncline bench: 1 set, executed to failure
Exercise 2
Cable crossover: 2 units, executed to failureBench press: 1 set, executed to failure
Based on the meta-analysis referenced above, both breakdown could be nice.
However one other current examine means that coaching a muscle group greater than as soon as every week has extra advantages than simply coaching it as soon as every week, even when the whole units are the identical.
I couldn’t discover any robust settlement on frequency amongst bodybuilders. It usually got here down to private desire. So long as you’re getting your quantity between 3 to eight units every week for a given muscle group, how regularly you prepare depends upon what you need to do.
Progressive Overload
For Mentzer, progressive overload is how you already know if this system is working. In the event you can add reps to a set earlier than you hit failure or add weight every exercise, the variations in your muscle tissues that may assist drive hypertrophy are occurring.
One factor Mentzer identified is that on the subject of muscle progress, energy comes first. You’ll discover your self getting stronger earlier than you discover your self getting larger. That’s as a result of we purchase neural variations that permit us to elevate heavier quicker than we create muscle tissue. Count on it to take a number of months earlier than you begin seeing noticeable will increase in muscle measurement.
How I’m Utilizing Heavy Obligation Ideas in My Coaching
I’ve integrated a number of the huge rules from Mentzer’s Heavy Obligation philosophy into my coaching. I’m coaching to failure utilizing a weight that permits me to finish round 8 reps earlier than failure. That’s been essentially the most important Mentzer affect on my coaching.
When it comes to quantity, I goal to get 6 to eight units per muscle group per week. It’s not the tremendous low quantity of Mentzer’s Heavy Obligation II, however extra consistent with his unique Heavy Obligation methodology.
Relating to frequency, I do an higher/decrease cut up the place I prepare my higher physique on Monday and Thursday and my decrease physique on Tuesday and Friday. So I break up my units for every muscle group throughout two exercises every week.
And every exercise, I attempt to add reps or weight so I’m getting the progressive overload in.
It’s been enjoyable studying extra about hypertrophy and muscle progress. Whereas I don’t assume Mentzer acquired every thing proper, he’s served as a gateway for me into the fascinating world of high-intensity coaching. I’ve actually been having fun with it and am trying ahead to experimenting and studying extra.
To be taught extra about hypertrophy and develop your muscle tissues, hearken to our podcast with Paul Carter:
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