Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

Opps, just realized i put this in the wrong section lol...

mike left us far too soon! i like the bit when he is talking about the muscles mags and says "just because something is written down doesnt make it true". HIT is the way!

Great stuff, thanks for posting. Did you end up re-posting it in another section?

He did that MB. He said it like it was and did not apologize for the truth, a quality i loved about him. Indeed, the H.I.T theory is the only valid theory of bodybuilding. "As Arthur Jones put it, for exercise to be product, it must be Intense, brief and infrequent".

No mate, i thought i'd posted this in the bodybuilding/strength training section, but just left it.

That was a great listen. The way he described it made a lot of sense and makes me really think.

Indeed Kon, Mike was one of those guys who had a way with words, and a way putting things that just made sense. I recall telling Mike that i was getting a hard time at my gym about how i was training (despite the fact i was getting stronger every workout), Mike replied, "Robert, there are those who still believe the world is flat, do not allow these narcissists to deter you from your objective". lol

I watched a speech by Mike, and he seemed to advocate working the whole body at a time (maybe I'm wrong?). Is there anything he says about splitting it up to work only certain parts per day, or is the general idea of HIT to work the whole body?

Traditional H.I.T would have you perform full body workouts, and Back in the 70s, early 80s, Mike did advocate full body training himself, as well as a 2 way split (legs /chest / triceps one workout, back, shoulders, biceps the next) however when he become a trainer himself in the early 90s he began to advocate a 3 way split routine (push, pull, legs), by the mid 90s he advocated a 4 way, (chest & back, legs, shoulders & arms and then legs again) training only once every 4-7 days.

This video was filmed the before Mikes passing, but this was his 4 way heavy duty 2 routine.
Chest & Back
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcMOG0ECqDU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhYlg1ulqME
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrESOnAJj44

Legs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUi-1-u2rVg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Okdl-HK0Utw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22QQfUrLo-o

Shoulders & Arms
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rovfxzdC8s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3UAZ-p-MtA

This was Mikes latter thoughts, he also advocated switching to a "consolidation routine", this was to reduce overlapping, these CR workouts were full body workouts, he recommended...

His CR
w/o 1
1.squats or leg presses
2.Underhand Pulldowns
w/o 2
1.Deadlifts or Leg Presses
2. Dips or Incline Press

but In general, Mike found that a full body workout was in his words "too much in one sitting", especially for the advanced trainee who had become much stronger.

Kon,

Here is a interesting experiment from a couple of years ago, two individuals did a 60 day experiment using the advice of Mike Mentzers book (H.I.T the Mike Mentzer way), they used the four way split above, they followed Mikes Dietary advice and kept very detailed daily records. Interestingly these individuals found they made they're biggest improvements while training just once every 10-12 days, in the 60 days they only performed just 9 workouts, but the results speak for themselves.
http://boiseexperiment.com/HeavyDuty/ (hit the start here at the top of the page to view the 9 workouts)

hey Rob, just wondering what your perfect routine is, if you have found it.........is it the one you are doing now? ive kind of found mine exercise wise and i just play with the rep schemes really. such as starting to experiment with the 1 1/4 stuff we were talking about. do you think there is any need to change exercises or can you get away with just adding more intense ways of doing them? sorry about all the questions mate, but i can see your passionate about HIT

mike

Hey MB, no worries mate....

I don't believe there is such a thing as a perfect routine per se, but i do believe there are a guiding set of never changing principles that at universal, set by nature, ie Intense, brief and infrequent training (how infrequent depends on the individuals recovery ability/stress tolerance), that siad, YES, what i'm doing now is producing a better bodybuilding effect while staying with the principles of H.I.T theory, what i did in the past ( Mikes HD 1 & 2 routine & CR ) produce a better strength gain effect.

I've come to be a firm believer in variation based on what i've learned from Brain Johnston's work, however as you point out, i dont believe that necessarily means changing exercises every time you train a given bodypart, now and then maybe, but i do believe you should change how you perform the chosen movements as different techniques produce different effects, or the order in which their preformed, and the frequency in which you use them. This phenomena is backed up by the S.A.I.D principle and G.A.S.

On Leg Presses for example, one workout i might use 1 1/4 reps, the next i'll do them in cluster set style or using J-Reps, the next time i might pre exhaust my quads with Leg Extension's first. Currently i'm enjoying the effect this is having both physically and psychologically.

Some might argue that by simply adding more weight your making the exercise harder, and of course you are, however, as i mentioned in the other threads, if training for hypertrophy specifically, strength increases should not be your main focus, its a physiological fact that the body learns to cope with more and more weight, both intra-muscularly and nero-muscularly.

Hope this helps Mate
Rob

yeh that definately helps mate! its cool to talk to someone so knowledgeable about HIT, reading about it is good but being able to ask questions is better!

the varitation is good too, instead of just doing the same things over and over again you can completely change the way a workout feels just by using the intensity techniques, and barely have to change a exercise. im going to try and build myself a 4 week cycle using different techniques (1 1/4s, clusters and so on) each week on the same exercises and see what happens!

thanks again mate

Good stuff MB, before beginning any experiments though, i would always recommend (as would have Mike) taking a 7-14 day layoff, this is to allow the bodies bio-chemical resources re-group.