For the previous a number of months, the Instagram algorithm has been blitzing me with content material about legendary bodybuilder Mike Mentzer. 

Perhaps it’s as a result of the algorithm has picked up on the truth that I’ve transitioned away from powerlifting and am doing extra bodybuilding-type exercises lately. Or maybe the algorithm thinks I would recognize Mentzer’s superior mustache since its majesty rivals my very own. 

Regardless of the purpose, due to Instagram, I’ve been studying loads about Mike Mentzer and his iconoclastic coaching philosophy that he known as “Heavy Responsibility.” 

The younger bros on social media are completely bonkers about Heavy Responsibility. And I can perceive why.

First, there’s the enchantment of Mike Mentzer himself. He had an incredible physique (he was the primary and solely man to earn an ideal rating within the Mr. Universe competitors), and his Nineteen Seventies hair and stache gave him a lot of cool cache. On prime of that, he introduced a uncommon philosophical bent to bodybuilding. His tear-drop spectacles evinced his bookish character, and he liked finding out and discussing completely different faculties of thought (significantly Ayn Rand’s Objectivism), artwork, and listening to good music. For lots of men, this mixture of brains and brawn actually represents the best of manhood.

However Mentzer’s Heavy Responsibility program is getting plenty of hype lately on social media as a result of it guarantees distinctive muscle development by probably solely doing a single set of workouts per physique half per week. 

Mentzer’s concept that you might get hypertrophic development with rare and quick exercises flew within the face of the bodybuilding orthodoxy of the Nineteen Seventies and 80s. Throughout that point, excessive quantity was king. Bodybuilders again then, like Arnold Schwarzenegger, educated for 2 hours, twice a day, every single day. The aim was to slam your muscle tissues with double-digit units to stimulate development. 

Influenced by Nautilus inventor Arthur Jones’ philosophy of high-intensity coaching, Mentzer thought doing a lot coaching was a waste of time and led to suboptimal outcomes. 

Intrigued by the hoopla and claims of Heavy Responsibility, I made a decision to take a deep dive into this system and its claims. Right here’s what I came upon about the way it works, and whether or not it really works. 

The Rules of Heavy Responsibility

The very first thing to level out is that Heavy Responsibility isn’t an entirely distinctive coaching philosophy. It’s a variation of high-intensity coaching through which athletes are prescribed to coach their muscle tissues to failure. As talked about above, Arthur Jones pioneered high-intensity coaching. Mentzer in all probability did essentially the most to popularize high-intensity coaching due to his work with Dorian Yates. 

Mentzer’s Heavy Responsibility philosophy advanced over time. Most bodybuilders (and plenty of sports activities scientists) suppose Mentzer’s early model of Heavy Responsibility acquired plenty of issues proper. Nonetheless, Mentzer turned extra excessive along with his views as he acquired nearer to his demise, significantly concerning quantity and frequency. 

It needs to be identified that Mentzer had genetics that made him well-suited to bodybuilding, and he achieved his physique partly via using anabolic steroids. However he thought his advisable lifting regimens equally utilized to common, drug-free people who wished to realize their pure muscular potential. 

Excessive Depth

Depth is the important thing to Heavy Responsibility. For Mentzer, the depth of the train is what drove muscle hypertrophy, not quantity. So, what did Mentzer imply by depth?

He outlined it as “the proportion of doable momentary muscular effort being exerted.” 

Mentzer (and different high-intensity coaching proponents) believed you wanted to get reps as near 100% exertion as doable to stimulate muscle development. And also you solely know in the event you’re attending to 100% exertion by lifting till failure. 

Mentzer on depth: 

That final rep the place you’re attempting as laborious as you possibly can, and also you barely make it! That’s what activates the expansion mechanism in your physique. That final virtually unattainable rep the place you’re bearing your enamel, you’re shaking throughout, you want help! That rep may be very particular, that rep may be very completely different. There’s one thing particular happening inside your physique when that occurs.

Scientific analysis has verified this declare. In my interview with bodybuilding coach Paul Carter, he defined the idea of “mechanical stress” as what stimulates muscle development. As you get nearer to failure with a carry, your muscle fibers begin experiencing extra mechanical stress. You understand whenever you’re attaining mechanical stress if the motion of the carry begins slowing down and feeling laborious. These reps are the “stimulating reps.” They’re those that start a cascade of indicators in your physique to begin rising extra muscle tissue.

To make sure you obtain satisfactory depth, the actions in your lifts should be managed. Carry and decrease the load easily and slowly, with out jerks or sudden actions. You don’t wish to add any momentum to the carry, making it simpler. A standard cadence of high-intensity practitioners is 2-2-4. Two seconds on the concentric a part of the carry, a two-second pause, and 4 seconds on the eccentric a part of the carry. 

To extend depth, Mentzer advocated issues like “pre-exhausting” a muscle group, utilizing assisted lifting (the place you may have somebody aid you with the ultimate reps), and holding the load regular at completely different factors within the carry. All of those strategies have been designed to assist a bodybuilder get nearer to failure sooner. 

The large takeaway from this precept is that to stimulate muscle development, you will need to do every train till failure. It’s acquired to be Heavy Responsibility, child.

Low Length (or Low Quantity)

The large draw of the Heavy Responsibility technique is the low quantity you do. 

Whilst you can obtain mechanical stress with a excessive or a low variety of reps, it’s simpler to realize the depth obligatory for mechanical stress with the latter.

In the event you’re utilizing lighter weight, you’ll need to do extra reps earlier than your muscle tissues begin stepping into mechanical stress. Because of this, you’ll expertise extra fatigue, making it more durable to maintain up the muscle-building depth of your lifts.

In the event you’re utilizing heavier weight, you are able to do fewer reps whereas leaping into the depth wanted to create mechanical stress sooner. 

Consider it like this: in the event you’re doing bicep curls with 10-pound dumbbells, it might take you 50 reps to realize the depth wanted for muscle-building mechanical stress, and also you may get fatigued earlier than you even attain that time. In the event you’re curling 50-pound dumbbells, you may obtain mechanical stress in simply 3 reps, saving you fatigue and time.

Mentzer figured you might use that saved time for finding out philosophy or artwork. 

As talked about above, Mentzer’s philosophy in direction of quantity advanced because the years handed. When he first offered Heavy Responsibility, he prescribed 1 to 2 units of 6 to eight reps for every train, performed to failure. In the event you might get to 12 reps in a set, you wanted to extend the load by 10%, drop your reps again down to six, and begin working your manner again up with the reps at that new weight.

So what does that seem like?

Let’s say you’re coaching your quads; a Mentzer-style Heavy Responsibility program may seem like this:

• Leg extensions: 2 units, performed to failure 
• Squats: 1 set, performed to failure 
• Leg press: 1 set, performed to failure

That’s 4 complete units for the quads. 

A high-volume exercise may need you doing 4 units of every train, providing you with 12 complete units on your quads. 

4 units in comparison with 12 units. You’ll be able to see why Heavy Responsibility is taken into account a low-volume program.

Within the Nineties, Mentzer developed Heavy Responsibility II, which proposed exercises the place you solely did a single set for a complete muscle group. One steered program appeared like this:

Exercise 1

• Squats: 1 set, performed to failure
• Shut-grip, palms-up pulldowns: 1 set, performed to failure
• Dips: 1 set, performed to failure

Exercise 2

• Deadlift: 1 set, performed to failure
• Presses behind neck: 1 set, performed to failure
• Standing calf raises: 1 set, performed to failure

That’s it. 

As talked about above, most bodybuilders suppose Mentzer acquired issues proper in his earlier model of Heavy Responsibility. The scientific analysis appears to verify Mentzer’s authentic quantity suggestions. 

In response to Paul Carter, analysis means that, on the whole, past doing 8 units to failure per week per muscle group, there’s little to no profit to including quantity. In the event you’re doing greater than that, you’re simply needlessly fatiguing your self. Whereas one set to failure per week will present stimulus for muscle development, it’s doubtless not sufficient for max hypertrophy. In response to Paul, the analysis means that 3 units per week per muscle group appears to be the ground for hypertrophic positive aspects.

Nonetheless, some bodybuilders and a few analysis suggests that you just get extra hypertrophic development with extra quantity. Like within the 12-20 units per muscle group per week vary. 

Which one is it? It’s been a subject of debate for a very long time. 

Bros have been debating quantity on the bodybuilding.com boards 20 years in the past. They’re nonetheless yelling at one another about it on TikTok stitches in the present day. They’ll in all probability have flame wars about quantity on some 3D digital actuality platform 20 years from now. 

So long as you carry to failure, doing both excessive or low quantity goes to work nice for rising muscle for the common dude, so go together with whichever methodology you favor. The large benefit of going the low quantity route is you can get swole in much less time. 

Low Frequency

Restoration was an important a part of Mentzer’s Heavy Responsibility philosophy as a result of restoration is when our muscle tissues develop from the stimulus of weight lifting. To maximise restoration, Mentzer advocated for considerably spacing out one’s exercises. In essentially the most excessive model of Heavy Responsibility, he prescribed doing 1 to 2 units for a muscle group simply as soon as per week. The opposite six days can be used for restoration. 

The analysis is combined on whether or not low frequency helps or hurts hypertrophy. One meta-analysis confirmed that so long as you get in sufficient done-to-failure units for a given muscle group throughout per week, it doesn’t matter in the event you practice a couple of times per week.

So, let’s say you intention to do 6 units per week on your chest, once more making 6-8 reps per set the best vary, generally going as much as as many as 12 as you get stronger, earlier than rising the load by 10% and going again down to six reps per set.

You can have a chest day the place you get all 6 units for the week in that single exercise. 

It might seem like this:

• Fly deck: 2 units, performed to failure
• Incline bench press: 2 units, performed to failure
• Cable crossover: 2 units, performed to failure

You’d then do your chest day once more per week later. 

You can additionally break up up these 6 units over 2 exercises, like so:

Exercise 1

• Flydeck: 2 units, performed to failure
• Incline bench: 1 set, performed to failure

Exercise 2

• Cable crossover: 2 units, performed to failure
• Bench press: 1 set, performed to failure

In response to the meta-analysis referenced above, both breakdown can be nice.

However one other latest examine means that coaching a muscle group greater than as soon as per week has extra advantages than simply coaching it as soon as per week, even when the full units are the identical.

I couldn’t discover any robust settlement on frequency amongst bodybuilders. It typically got here down to non-public choice. So long as you’re getting your quantity between 3 to eight units per week for a given muscle group, how incessantly you practice will depend on what you wish to do.

Progressive Overload

For Mentzer, progressive overload is how you already know if this system is working. In the event you can add reps to a set earlier than you hit failure or add weight every exercise, the variations in your muscle tissues that can assist drive hypertrophy are occurring.  

One factor Mentzer identified is that in the case of muscle development, power comes first. You’ll discover your self getting stronger earlier than you discover your self getting larger. That’s as a result of we purchase neural variations that permit us to carry heavier sooner than we create muscle tissue. Count on it to take a number of months earlier than you begin seeing noticeable will increase in muscle measurement. 

How I’m Utilizing Heavy Responsibility Rules in My Coaching

I’ve included a number of the huge ideas from Mentzer’s Heavy Responsibility philosophy into my coaching. I’m coaching to failure utilizing a weight that enables me to finish round 8 reps earlier than failure. That’s been essentially the most important Mentzer affect on my coaching. 

By way of quantity, I intention to get 6 to eight units per muscle group per week. It’s not the tremendous low quantity of Mentzer’s Heavy Responsibility II, however extra according to his authentic Heavy Responsibility technique.

Concerning frequency, I do an higher/decrease break up the place I practice my higher physique on Monday and Thursday and my decrease physique on Tuesday and Friday. So I break up my units for every muscle group throughout two exercises per week. 

And every exercise, I attempt to add reps or weight so I’m getting the progressive overload in.

It’s been enjoyable studying extra about hypertrophy and muscle development. Whereas I don’t suppose Mentzer acquired all the pieces proper, he’s served as a gateway for me into the fascinating world of high-intensity coaching. I’ve actually been having fun with it and am trying ahead to experimenting and studying extra. 

To study extra about hypertrophy and learn how to develop your muscle tissues, take heed to our podcast with Paul Carter: