Mike Mentzer was said to be ahead of his time with his heavy-duty training techniques, which grew popular only now. His methods, even back then, had scientific backing and logical outcomes that made him extremely confident about the results he promised his clients. One of the unique approaches was leaning towards weight training as a mode of increasing muscle size, and Mentzer once talked about it in one of his interviews.
In a resurfaced footage posted by the YouTube channel Heavy Duty College, Mentzer spoke about the benefits of weight training. Apart from the usual increase in strength, he mentioned a positive effect that not many took into consideration.
Weight training, or resistance training, is primarily used to build endurance in an individual. The way Mentzer used to incorporate it into his routine was to perform high-intensity routines with weights to increase one’s strength. This approach, along with pushing to failure in one set, would act together to trigger the growth mechanism in muscles.
The principle of heavy-duty training lay primarily in the intensity with which one performed exercises, combined with the recovery period between each group of muscles worked on. This not only promoted the growth of muscles but also paved the path to getting stronger.
“Weight training, nautilus training, or barbell training per se is the only single activity that allows you to enhance…physical fitness…”
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Instead of resorting to various techniques and methods to ensure an optimum pump, Mentzer guaranteed that weight training could single-handedly improve various components of physical fitness. There were four components in total that he believed benefitted from weight training.
“The four components of course being muscular strength, cardiovascular fitness, flexibility, and one that’s not mentioned very often, stress reduction.”
Both muscle growth and strength went hand-in-hand, where one followed the other. In another resurfaced video, Mentzer talked about how he once almost got into a debate with a gym-goer about the phenomenon.
Mike Mentzer talks about how muscle growth depends on increasing strength
To get bigger muscles, one must get stronger according to Mentzer’s philosophy and study. He talked about how high-intensity training gave more room for recovery, and therefore, enabled muscles to heal properly and get stronger. This, compared to traditional volume training, was more beneficial since it also involved less time spent in the gym.
Recalling one of his heated conversations with a fitness enthusiast, Mentzer revealed how he had to cross-question them to explain that getting weaker wouldn’t help in the growth of muscles. He cited the example of Dorian Yates, revealing how the English bodybuilder grew to be a behemoth only because he got progressively stronger. High-intensity training holds its relevance even in the current times due to this unique feature.
