There has been a lot of talk in the High Intensity Training community and on HIT forums about abbreviated training; perform a one or two set workout. Hearing this for the first time, the layman who has not been trained in HIT fashion would scoff at this as a ridiculous claim. I guarantee that this type of training is nothing to shirk, if you understand the limited resources of the body and what it takes to stimulate strength and muscles.
In the past two days, I have had the pleasure of speaking with two people, one from my past as a bodybuilder, a close friend, and one I recently met through a friend of a friend, who brought me back to remember the days of yesteryear. , when I started with bodybuilding.
Alex, who is a high-energy presence at Nautilus Exercise Equipment and I, remembered the old hard-core gyms, where extremely strong men even by today’s standards, would do crazy things before a set, because their psyche was so into it. your set. Alex talked about a gym called BG gym … BG stands for Blood and Guts … where there are still holes in the wall next to the squat rack where one of these extremely strong men, after taking chalk and smelling good A capsule of ammonia, stuck his head through the wall, hit a bolt and with his head bleeding proceeded to squat hundreds of kilos to exhaustion. How many outfits like that do you think could be made? (Without bleeding of course!)
I have memories of a photo floating somewhere (maybe still) in upstate New York of a guy named Bill, on a power rack, wearing a military helmet and no shirt, with a thousand pounds on his shoulders after do half squats with him. . There were no hundred-pound plates in the gym, so the guards tied 45-pound plates to the closed necks to bring them up to a thousand pounds. The bar bent over his shoulders. Alright … only one set could be made, that’s all she wrote!
You can tell what I mean. After doing sets like this, how many more sets to failure do you think the body is capable of doing without using all the resources necessary not only to compensate but to overcompensate for the exhaustive effects of training? Let me put it another way … how many 10-second exposures, three feet from the sun, can you take before your body disintegrates? Remember that exercise is just the stimulus; We build muscle outside of the gym!
As I spoke to my close friend Jimmy, who I grew up with last night, it was apparent that even today, many of those who train in gyms these days do not have a complete understanding of how muscle gains are achieved. However, Jimmy and I do, and I’ll share!
JIMMY’S SUCCESS
Jimmy was an incredible athlete and still is. Years ago, when we were in our twenties, Jimmy and I would train together in the same dungeon. I call it a dungeon because that’s what it looked like. There was no flashy equipment unless you called a loaded plate leg extension machine and a side pull machine flashy. For us it was about strength because we knew that strength was always followed by size. The stronger you get, the more muscular you will become.
Jimmy was 6’3 “and weighed 310-320 naturally, without drugs. Although what I’m about to tell you was not his normal routine, he sometimes enjoyed the change working up to 400 pounds to press behind the neck, 315 pounds for curls with barbell, 500 or 600 pounds to shrug, but this wasn’t his core workout, it wasn’t how he got to his incredible size and strength.
THE MAIN ROUTINE
His main routine was the bench press, squat, row, and deadlift … just three exercises. Usually, he didn’t waste time on little exercises that didn’t matter. At that time, we didn’t use wrist bumps either, we used chalk! You know, hand chalk? Or do you do it? It would always be, “Jimmy, pass the chalk!” before a heavy lift as it was all about gripping force and you are only as strong as your weakest ink.
As we talked last night, Jimmy shared a story. While deadlifting at his regular gym, another younger boy was deadlifting next to him, in his early twenties. Jimmy, the gentleman that he is, offered his chalk to this young man before doing his set of deadlifts. The young man replied … “What is that?”
Back in the days of wristbands and shiny gear, the music from the elevators in corporate gyms, and the little noise or screaming or grunting from the gym before a set, I ponder a lot about what laid the foundation for our success. It was the basics! It was the desire and it was the mentality, that “no matter what” mentality! What we did worked. We train with abbreviated routines, we train for strength and our physics showed it. We ate well and weren’t worried about a little belly fat. Our motto was: “Don’t make your waist smaller, widen your shoulders.” Because it’s the illusion in bodybuilding that makes the difference, which is why a man with the right symmetry and body type seems pounds heavier than he normally is. Remember Dorian, the tales are told that his waist was almost 40 years old, but you would never know!
MIKE MENTZER, THE MANUFACTURER OF THE THINKING MAN
Mike Mentzer, still my bodybuilding hero to this day, years later, validated what we already knew worked. Not because we thought of it like Mike did, but because that’s how Jimmy and I train as bodybuilders in a weight lifting gym! It was all about strength. We never work downstairs; only up to our “working set” did we call it. We hardly did anything but great exercises and we didn’t want to waste energy. When we were still feeling tired when our next workout was scheduled, we would eat without worrying about it. We would come back stronger the next day.
Mike showed us why it worked so well. Mike established the true theory of High Intensity Training and with that theory he reasoned and experimented to the point of no doubt that an abbreviated routine is the most productive step in reaching his muscle goals. I am very grateful for his work and his contribution to bodybuilding. I don’t think anyone so far has had such a profound effect on the bodybuilding community.
WHAT EXERCISES COUNT
The next question is which exercises are the best. Well, with strength in mind, Paul Anderson, who is my strength hero, knew and understood that strength really comes from the legs and back. So this is where the focus should be. The basics … squats, deadlifts, rowing or high pull and to round it out, a pushing movement in the order of press, bench or dip. Where is the arm, shoulder and calf work, you ask? There is no need. Trust me, if you get it right, you don’t have to. Both Jimmy and I, without doing any direct arm or shoulder work for months, experienced huge arms even by today’s standards. Jimmy is over 50 inches and mine is 18 18 inches. Without curling for months, you could do a barbell curl 225 or more for reps! My calves responded similarly, as did my shoulders with 275 pressure behind the neck without doing it!
I am currently experimenting with such a program and, once honed in the gym, I will post it on my website, but in the meantime, I stick with the basics for the best results.
Jimmy, pass the chalk. And the ammonia capsules! π