Mike Mentzer’s Heavy Obligation Exercise: The Final Information

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

Possibly 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 today. Or maybe the algorithm thinks I would respect Mentzer’s superior mustache since its majesty rivals my very own. 

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

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

First, there’s the attraction of Mike Mentzer himself. He had a tremendous physique (he was the primary and solely man to earn an ideal rating within the Mr. Universe competitors), and his Seventies hair and stache gave him numerous cool cache. On high of that, he introduced a uncommon philosophical bent to bodybuilding. His tear-drop spectacles evinced his bookish character, and he cherished learning and discussing totally different faculties of thought (significantly Ayn Rand’s Objectivism), artwork, and listening to good music. For lots of fellows, this mixture of brains and brawn actually represents the perfect of manhood.

However Mentzer’s Heavy Obligation program is getting quite a lot of hype today 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 may get hypertrophic development with rare and quick exercises flew within the face of the bodybuilding orthodoxy of the Seventies and 80s. Throughout that point, excessive quantity was king. Bodybuilders again then, like Arnold Schwarzenegger, educated for 2 hours, twice a day, each day. The purpose was to slam your muscle groups 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 Obligation, 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 Ideas of Heavy Obligation

The very first thing to level out is that Heavy Obligation isn’t an entirely distinctive coaching philosophy. It’s a variation of high-intensity coaching through which athletes are prescribed to coach their muscle groups 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 Obligation philosophy advanced through the years. Most bodybuilders (and lots of sports activities scientists) assume Mentzer’s early model of Heavy Obligation received quite a lot of issues proper. Nevertheless, Mentzer turned extra excessive along with his views as he received nearer to his loss of life, significantly concerning quantity and frequency. 

It ought to be identified that Mentzer had genetics that made him well-suited to bodybuilding, and he achieved his physique partly by way of using anabolic steroids. However he thought his beneficial 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 Obligation. 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 potential momentary muscular effort being exerted.” 

Mentzer (and different high-intensity coaching proponents) believed you wanted to get reps as near 100% exertion as potential to stimulate muscle development. And also you solely know should 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 nearly not possible 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 totally 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 elevate, your muscle fibers begin experiencing extra mechanical stress. You recognize once you’re reaching mechanical stress if the motion of the elevate begins slowing down and feeling laborious. These reps are the “stimulating reps.” They’re those that start a cascade of alerts in your physique to begin rising extra muscle tissue.

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

To extend depth, Mentzer advocated issues like “pre-exhausting” a muscle group, utilizing assisted lifting (the place you might have somebody make it easier to with the ultimate reps), and holding the burden regular at totally different factors within the elevate. All of those strategies had 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 received to be Heavy Obligation, child.

Low Period (or Low Quantity)

The large draw of the Heavy Obligation methodology 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 crucial for mechanical stress with the latter.

In the event you’re utilizing lighter weight, you’ll must do extra reps earlier than your muscle groups begin moving into mechanical stress. Because of this, you’ll expertise extra fatigue, making it tougher 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: should 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 may use that saved time for learning philosophy or artwork. 

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

So what does that appear to be?

Let’s say you’re coaching your quads; a Mentzer-style Heavy Obligation program may appear to be this:

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

That’s 4 complete units for the quads. 

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

4 units in comparison with 12 units. You may see why Heavy Obligation is taken into account a low-volume program.

Within the Nineties, Mentzer developed Heavy Obligation II, which proposed exercises the place you solely did a single set for a whole muscle group. One prompt program regarded like this:

Exercise 1

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

Exercise 2

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

That’s it. 

As talked about above, most bodybuilders assume Mentzer received issues proper in his earlier model of Heavy Obligation. The scientific analysis appears to substantiate Mentzer’s authentic quantity suggestions. 

In accordance with Paul Carter, analysis means that, generally, 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 probably not sufficient for optimum hypertrophy. In accordance with Paul, the analysis means that 3 units every week per muscle group appears to be the ground for hypertrophic positive factors.

Nevertheless, 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 had 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 at this time. They’ll in all probability have flame wars about quantity on some 3D digital actuality platform 20 years from now. 

So long as you elevate 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 like. The large benefit of going the low quantity route is which you could get swole in much less time. 

Low Frequency

Restoration was a vital a part of Mentzer’s Heavy Obligation philosophy as a result of restoration is when our muscle groups 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 Obligation, he prescribed doing 1 to 2 units for a muscle group simply as soon as every week. The opposite six days could 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 every week, it doesn’t matter should you prepare a couple of times every week.

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

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

It might appear to be this:

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

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

You may additionally cut up up these 6 units over 2 exercises, like so:

Exercise 1

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

Exercise 2

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

In accordance with the meta-analysis referenced above, both breakdown could be nice.

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

I couldn’t discover any sturdy settlement on frequency amongst bodybuilders. It typically got here down to non-public desire. So long as you’re getting your quantity between 3 to eight units every week for a given muscle group, how ceaselessly you prepare will depend on what you need to do.

Progressive Overload

For Mentzer, progressive overload is how you recognize 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 diversifications in your muscle groups that may assist drive hypertrophy are occurring.  

One factor Mentzer identified is that in relation to muscle development, energy comes first. You’ll discover your self getting stronger earlier than you discover your self getting greater. That’s as a result of we purchase neural diversifications that enable us to elevate 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 Obligation Ideas in My Coaching

I’ve integrated a number of the massive rules from Mentzer’s Heavy Obligation philosophy into my coaching. I’m coaching to failure utilizing a weight that permits me to finish round 8 reps earlier than failure. That’s been essentially the most vital Mentzer affect on my coaching. 

By way of quantity, I purpose to get 6 to eight units per muscle group per week. It’s not the tremendous low quantity of Mentzer’s Heavy Obligation II, however extra in keeping with his authentic Heavy Obligation methodology.

Relating to frequency, I do an higher/decrease cut up the place I prepare 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 every 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 assume Mentzer received the whole lot proper, he’s served as a gateway for me into the attention-grabbing world of high-intensity coaching. I’ve actually been having fun with it and am wanting ahead to experimenting and studying extra. 

To be taught extra about hypertrophy and how one can develop your muscle groups, hearken to our podcast with Paul Carter: