Volume training vs. heavy-duty training has been a debate spanning across ages and various generations of bodybuilders. Which one works better than the other? A question many experts have been quick to answer. However, according to the late legend Mike Mentzer, volume training is not what seems to be the right answer.
In a recently resurfaced video, Mentzer spoke about how volume training for bodybuilders worked. Subjecting one’s body to a higher number of sets for a significant amount of time can only lead to more harm than good. Then how does one find time to rest and recover their muscles?
As he had previously established in many lectures and interviews, Mentzer theorized that muscles gained mass not during active workouts but during the recovery phase. This meant that to grow, the body needed spurts of high-intensity training along with extended periods of rest. But that wasn’t the case with high-volume training.
So how did a jacked-up bodybuilder stick to high-volume training? Mentzer believed the answer was steroids. Steroids enhance one’s ability to recover, thereby enabling fitness freaks to go ham.
“Were those same bodybuilders to train for 2 hours a day, 6 days a week without steroids, they would begin to lose muscle mass almost immediately.”
On the other hand, high-intensity heavy-duty training, something that Mentzer championed and pioneered, was catered towards bodybuilders who wanted to maintain that balance between intensity and recovery. These bodybuilders could go in natural and still increase their size and muscle mass with Mentzer’s technique.
“Heavy-duty high-intensity training is tailor-made for the non-steroid, natural bodybuilder because of the painstaking precaution to properly regulate the volume and frequency of exercise.”
Throughout his career as a bodybuilder and trainer, Mentzer backed every single theory of his with logic and science. He had done a lot of research to back his claims, which made him more confident about the results he guaranteed.
Mike Mentzer claimed he found the only scientifically significant workout method
In the end, building muscles and gaining mass is a scientific process that requires tracing the root cause and applying effective methods to it. According to Mentzer, high-intensity training was the key to increasing both muscle mass and strength since it enabled growth in various ways.
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Having trained bodybuilding veterans like Dorian Yates, Mentzer knew his theories had a lot of backing. He once declared his confidence in presenting his techniques to scientists and was even ready to convince them of their effectiveness. Thus, Mentzer has been a pioneer in the field of bodybuilding, whose ideas and principles have outlived him far and beyond ages.
