Physique Metamorphosis
by John Little
n the six years since
Joanne Sharkey
asked me to do
phone consultations for her on
Mike Mentzer’s
Heavy Duty training
system, the most common
question we’ve received
is, What did Mike mean
when he said, “As the body
changes, training requirements change”? Does it
mean that everybody’s different? Does it mean that
there could be a time when
someone could (or should)
perform more volume—or
even high volume—in
one’s training? The answer
to the last two questions is
no. The answer to the first
is what we’re talking about
in this installment.
198 SEPTEMBER 2007 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com
To begin with, everybody is not
different. As Mike accurately pointed out years ago:
“We aren’t all that different physiologically. We’re all unique as
individuals, but when a young man
or a young woman goes to medical
school and studies muscle physiology, whose physiology is he or she
studying? Everybody’s.
“We all have the same muscle
physiology. The biochemical changes leading to muscle growth in Mike
Mentzer are the same as the ones
leading to muscle growth in you. It
follows that the specific stimulus
required to induce the biochemical
changes leading to muscle growth in
you and me is the same. What is that
stimulus? High-intensity muscular
contraction!”
That’s why nobody ever put an
inch on an arm as a result of washing dishes—the intensity of muscular contraction involved in that
activity is far too low. As Mike also
pointed out:
“We all grow at different rates of
speed. I might grow faster as a result of high-intensity training, but
we’ll all grow faster when each of
us trains more intensely. If you’re
not gaining fast now or if you’re not
gaining at all, you’ll gain faster when
you train more intensely. Anybody
will gain more rapidly when he
trains more intensely. He may not
gain as rapidly as me. Then again,
he might gain more rapidly than I
do because of innate adaptability.
We all have different innate adaptabilities to exercise—age, physical
condition, motivation, a lot of different factors. The underlying muscle
physiology, however, is the same.
“The people who say we all have
different training requirements are
entirely wrong. They’re ignorant
of the basic facts regarding muscle
physiology. If we all had different
physiologies, medical science could
not exist. A doctor would have to
study each individual as a separate
physiological entity and then learn
all the intricacies of that physiology
and devise medicine around them.
The very fact that the basic principles of physiology apply to the whole
human race is what makes medical
science a viable discipline.”
www.ironmanmagazine.com \ SEPTEMBER 2007 199
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Bigger, stronger
muscles expend
more energy, so
the larger you
become, the
more quickly
you become
exhausted.
The bigger and
stronger you
are, the more
stress you can
impose on your
body in any
given set.
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As an
individual’s
muscles grow
bigger, they also
grow stronger.
As for the issue of whether highvolume training makes sense, the
answer is that a high volume of training and a high intensity of training
are mutually exclusive. The body
requires high-intensity muscular
contractions to produce the biochemical reactions that result in muscle
growth. Low-intensity contractions,
which let you carry on a particular
activity for a longer period of time,
do very little to stimulate much, if
any, growth at all. Again, try washing dishes for a couple of hours and
let me know when you’ve put two
inches on your arm. Let’s hear from
Mike Mentzer on the issue:
“Does anybody here think that
growth comes easily? Has anybody
grown ‘too fast’ this year? No, we
all know that growth doesn’t come
easily. You literally have to force
growth. Now, tell me how you can
force growth with light weights, mild
exertion, easy workouts. You can’t.
The harder you train, the faster you
grow. The harder you train, the less
time you can spend training, just as
the faster you run, the less distance
you can run.”
Given the above facts, we are
brought back to square one. So what
did Mike mean when he said that as
the body changes, training requirements change? Simply this: That as
an individual’s muscles grow bigger,
they also grow stronger. Consequently, the energy expended in one’s
workout from a given muscle group
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increases dramatically.
That causes you to grow exhausted more quickly and to take
longer to recover from the workout.
That should be evident to anyone
who’s trained in a truly all-out
manner. The harder the effort,
the more quickly exhaustion intervenes; when your gas tank has
been emptied, in other words, the
workout is over. Your gas tank gets
emptied very quickly when you
are exerting yourself to the max. As
you expend more energy in lifting
heavier weights—300 pounds for
15 repetitions in the squat vs. only
120 pounds for 10 repetitions in the
squat—it takes the body longer to
replenish a greater energy debt than
it does a lesser one. Or, as Mike put
it:
“As you grow stronger—that is,
as the weights grow progressively
greater—the stress on your body
becomes progressively greater and
must be compensated for. Perhaps
the easiest way to understand that
phenomenon is to observe the
stresses on your body when performing a warmup set of squats compared to what happens during the
actual work set to failure. On the
heavier work set you immediately
recognize the much greater stress
on the bones than you get on the
warmup set. The same goes for the
much greater demands on the cardiorespiratory system and so forth.
“Now simply extrapolate that
over time, as you lift progressively
more weight from workout to workout. As the stresses grow progressively greater, they’ll eventually add
up to overtraining. The first symptom will be a slowdown in progress,
and if you continue with the same
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200 SEPTEMBER 2007 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com
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Within two to
three weeks of
embarking on a
high-intensitytraining
program, you
should begin
inserting an
extra rest day
or even two into
your schedule.
volume and frequency, the stresses
will cause complete cessation of
progress. That’s typically referred to
as a ‘sticking point.’ You need never
experience a slowdown in progress,
let alone a sticking point, if you
bear in mind all the while that you
must compensate for them.”
Within two to three weeks
of embarking on a Heavy Duty,
high-intensity training program,
you should begin adding an extra
rest day or even two at random
so that you’re giving yourself sufficient time to recover from your
workouts. Do that with increasing
regularity until you’re training once
every seven days or so. According
to Mike:
“The implication here is that
if the individual trains again before the body’s growth production
process is completed, it will be
short-circuited and less than 100
202 SEPTEMBER 2007 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com
units of possible progress will be
realized. Once the individual is
training once every seven days, I
suggest a reduction in the volume
of training, as outlined in my
books, along the lines of the Consolidation Program. [Editor’s note:
Please see The Wisdom of Mike
Mentzer or High Intensity Training The Mike Mentzer Way for a
detailed presentation of Mentzer’s
Consolidation Program.]
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If you train
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short-circuit the
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“With a consolidation routine,
there’s a decided shift in emphasis
to predominately compound exercises—that is, ones that involve
multiple muscle groups, such as
squats, dips and deadlifts. A workout consisting of compound exercises still works all of the major
muscle groups but with fewer
total sets, making for minimum
inroads into recovery ability.
“Following the above advice,
204 SEPTEMBER 2007 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com
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206 SEPTEMBER 2007 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com
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HEAVY DUTY
TM
T R A I N I N G S YS T E M
NEW
THE GREATEST TRAINING SYSTEM THE WORLD HAS EVER KNOWN!
Model: Jose Raymond
the techniques, workouts, and
personal philosophy of bodybuilding
legend - Mike Mentzer
Whatever your level of fitness, you can kick your muscles—
and your mind—into high gear with the legendary training
philosophies and advanced bodybuilding techniques of Mike
Mentzer - the first bodybuilder to ever garner a perfect score of
300 in the 1978 Mr. Universe competition.
The thinking man’s bodybuilder, Mentzer revolutionized the
art of training with his Heavy Duty™ system, proving that “less
is more” when it comes to making great gains. But some of his
most advanced ideas have never been revealed—until now.
The Wisdom of Mike Mentzer provides readers with a unique
insight into the world of Mike Mentzer. It is truly a book that is
chock-full of wisdom and is the distillation of Mike Mentzer’s
exceptional insights and enduring legacy. This publication
provides readers with a unique passkey into the world of
Mike Mentzer – the man, the philosopher, and the legend.
The Wisdom of Mike Mentzer gives you an insider’s look at his
most intense and in-depth lessons. Inside these pages you will
learn all the fundamentals of:
• H.U.N.G.E.R. - the code of integrity for building character while
you build your body
• Consolidation Training - a lightning-quick workout of two sets
(total) performed just once a week
• Advanced Heavy Duty Techniques, such as:
• Omni-Contraction - for getting maximum effort on every
contraction
• Infitonic Training - to make the most of negative reps
• Rest-Pause - a high-intensity way to shred your muscles to
exhaustion
• PLUS: The workout that worked like magic for Mr. Universe
himself, including tips on how to fire up your guns for competition.
Visit the official Mike Mentzer web site at www.mikementzer.com
for additional information about this book and other authentic Mike Mentzer books and products.
More-isolated
finishing
exercises
should be used
infrequently.
208 SEPTEMBER 2007 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com
from the training.
Editor’s note: For a complete
presentation of Mike Mentzer’s
Heavy Duty training system, consult
his books Heavy Duty II, High
Intensity Training the Mike Mentzer
Way and the newest book, The
Wisdom of Mike Mentzer, all of which
are available from Mentzer’s official
Web site, www.MikeMentzer.com.
John Little is available for phone
consultation on Mike Mentzer’s
Heavy Duty training system. For
rates and information, contact
Joanne Sharkey at (310) 316-4519 or
at www.MikeMentzer.com, or see
the ad on the opposite page.
Article copyright © 2007, John
Little. All rights reserved. Mike
Mentzer quotations provided
courtesy of Joanne Sharkey and are
used with permission. IM
HIGH-INTENSITY TRAINING THE MIKE MENTZER WAY – In his final written
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HEAVY DUTY II -
Mike Mentzer’s “magnum opus,” his final evolution of the theory of highintensity training. New and ground-breaking insights into recovery ability, briefer workouts,
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MUSCLES IN MINUTES - No, this is not Heavy Duty III. Entitled “MUSCLES IN MINUTES”, this
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philosophy and technicalities of Mike’s previous works. Includes routines for the Beginner,
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extensive descriptions of all the recommended exercises and definitions will prove helpful. Also
beneficial to be used as a quick reference guide along with any other Mentzer book
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