The Heavy Duty Trainer
Like most kids pumping iron backed in the mid 70′s, I first ran across the notion of high intensity training from a Mike Mentzer article. Prior to that, I thought everything was high intensity.
As a back drop, by the then; I had already bought Larry Scott’s courses, along with the complete sets from Arnold Schwarzenegger, Frank Zane, Franco Columbu, and the Weider System. Being the original scrawny geek, whatever money I made washing dishes and selling magazines went to buying muscle building routines and protein powder (nasty stuff back then).
I was doing up to 5 exercises per bodypart at 4 to 5 sets each! My workouts lasted 2 hours. I was 15 years old – I was doing what Arnold was doing. Heck, one point; I wrote away to Larry Scott for a “personalized” workout routine. I was living in the basement.
Enter Mike Mentzer and High Intensity Training.
In a nutshell, Mike was telling me (yes, he was talking to me directly – not) that all I needed to do was 1 set per bodypart – specifically, I needed to do 1 pre-exhaust superset per bodypart. Hallelujah!!!!
I immediately bought his Heavy Duty Training Booklets. My workout time dropped from 2 hours to 20 minutes.
So, what is high intensity training or heavy duty training?
In a nutshell, it is completely fatiguing your muscles in the shortest span of time. Or at least that’s my definition.
And the shortest span is 1 set…
Not really…
For late Mike Mentzer, it was 1 superset…
His pre-exhaust superset principle was based on the notion that the smaller bodyparts fail before the larger muscles in a compound movement – making it impossible to achieve true failure. Therefore, pre-exhaust the big muscles; so that the bigger muscles are temporarily the weaker ones during a compound movement. Examples would be:
- Chest – Flyes followed by bench press: Flyes exhaust pecs, making it weaker than tris and shoulders during the bench. The stronger tris and shoulders would drive the pecs to complete exhaustion.
- Shoulders - Laterals followed by shoulder presses.
- Lats - Nautilus pullovers followed by Chin-ups
- Quadriceps – Leg extensions followed by squats
- Hamstrings – Leg curls followed by deadlifts
- Triceps – Lying tricep extensions followed by close grip bench
- Biceps - Barbell curls followed by close grip, underhand lat pulldowns
To further push the targeted bodypart to complete (more complete?) exhaustion, Mentzer recommended forced reps on the second exercise, followed by negatives.
Over the years, there have been many proponents of heavy duty training. Among the bodybuilding world, probably the most famous is Dorian Yates. I remember an article where Mike Francios quoted Yates telling him, “shoot one bullet through the heart” as a metaphor for doing one set versus the traditional multi-set approach.
But I find simplistic analogies misleading…
First, I would never question the validity of anything spoken by a warrior like Dorian Yates. He’s put his money where his mouth is countless times. Still, trying to capture “the training principle” in one pithy saying has always seemed to me to do injustice to that principle.
That said, I have never really thought that there was all that much daylight between the 1 set crowd and the multi-set group. The 1 set crowd tells us to warm-up with a couple of sets and go absolutely crazy on the ONE SET! Or…
Set 1 – 12 reps with moderate weight
Set 2 – 10 reps with 10% more
Set 3 – 8 reps with 20% more
Set 4 – 6 reps at 90% of max
Set 5 – 6 reps to failure – everything you got.
Is there really a difference?
Of course there is…
With Mentzer’s Heavy Duty program, a chest program might be:
- Flat Bench flyes – 2 sets of 12 reps, light weights to warm up
- Incline Barbell presses – 2 sets of 12 reps, light weights to warm up
- Pre-exhaust superset - 1 set of 6 to 8 reps flyes (maximum effort) followed by 1 set of 6 reps incline press (positive reps followed by 2 to 3 forced reps followed by 2 to 3 negatives)
contrast that with Rusty Moore’s chest program of:
- Bench press - 5 sets of 12, 10, 8, 6, 15
- Flyes – 4 sets of 12 (same weights – rest no more than 1 minute)
- Incline dumbbell presses - 4 sets of 12 (same weights – rest no more than 1 minute)
Mentzer believes in total annihilation in one maximum effort. Rusty believes in cumulative fatigue. Both have their “scientific” research to backup their reasoning.
I think neither are wrong. I think it is a mistake to discount one in favor of another. I think Mike Mentzer’s one flaw was in assuming what works for him and others must be the only way.
I think one path notion blurs the individualness too much. Most of us will never be Dorian Yates, so why copy his routines so exactly.
I spents months (years) copying Larry Scott’s routines, and Franco Columbu’s, and yet; I have not been able to replicate their success – go figure, right.
Still, for most of us ordinary guys; I think heavy duty training has more potential for harm than good. Benching pressing is so much more than just pecs, shoulders, and tris; it’s all the underlying ligaments, tendons, attachments, etc. that support the movement. A couple of warm-ups, and bang, right into a death set can’t be good.
But I’m no scientist, nor do I play one on TV. It’s all about my commonsense – which is obviously different than yours.
After many years, I’ve come to the conclusion that an approach like Rusty’s is better for most of us. The pyramiding really preps and sets the muscle up for maximum effort in the last set. The following exercises pumps more and more blood into the muscles.
And besides, a lot of us work out at home or by ourselves. Heavy duty requires a serious training partner who can properly spot forced reps and negatives.
That’s not to say that there is no place for heavy duty training. You can certainly cycle it in for a month or 2 to shock your muscles. But I wouldn’t do it unless you’ve been working out for at least a year and have a good training partner.
Finally, high intensity training isn’t a technique to me; rather it’s a mindset and effort level during a workout.
Related Articles -
HIT with a Hammer – By Dr. Fred Hatfield (a tongue-in-check critique of the High Intensity Training Believers; at the same, a thoughtful critique by the one called, “Dr. Squat.”)
The New HIT Revolution – By Dr. Ellington Darden
