Mike Mentzer Glaze/Flame Post

LipidKing

New member
Just wondering what people think of Mike Mentzer's Heavy Duty workout philosophy. Low volume, intense training workouts, long resting periods. I have my own opinions about it but wanted to see if others have tried it and what they think.
 
Tried it way back in the day and made ok gains with it but I respond better to more volume. Now, being older, I keep the weights a bit lower and go for higher rep ranges around 10 -12 with 2 or 3 sets . A lot of folks made good gains with Mentzer's style but a lot of folks made good gains with high volume training as well. I go with higher volume because it's what I enjoy doing.
 
What works for Mentzer doesn’t always work for other ppl, plus ppl misunderstand his program as well. I wouldn’t recommend his training to anybody.
 
BBiceps said:
What works for Mentzer doesn’t always work for other ppl, plus ppl misunderstand his program as well. I wouldn’t recommend his training to anybody.
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It's definitely misunderstood. Him and Dorian did tons of warm ups that would be considered more work than most people's whole workouts. Plus for mentzers, I don't think you can reach mentzers intensity levels without the meth and 3 grams of deca to recover. His routine was far from the simple idea of one set to failure like people seem to think it is
 
Smont said:
It's definitely misunderstood. Him and Dorian did tons of warm ups that would be considered more work than most people's whole workouts. Plus for mentzers, I don't think you can reach mentzers intensity levels without the meth and 3 grams of deca to recover. His routine was far from the simple idea of one set to failure like people seem to think it is
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That’s right, plus Mentzer’s “going to failure” equals death (or wanting to die) for most ppl… 🤷🏻‍♂️
 
I've been hitting muscle groups once every 10 days with minimal sets and almost always come back stronger. The question is to what extent "stronger" = hypertrophy but I'll take the strength gains for now and hope the muscle follows.
 
R1187 said:
I've been hitting muscle groups once every 10 days with minimal sets and almost always come back stronger. The question is to what extent "stronger" = hypertrophy but I'll take the strength gains for now and hope the muscle follows.
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How experienced are you?
 
For me I experienced the best growth with compound exercises being higher volume (3 or more sets) and isolation exercises lower volume(1 or 2 sets) but super high intensity.

What also worked well for me is 10 sets per muscle group per week with zero or one rep in reserve, that’s what I’m doing rn. On legs I do increase volume because I’m an athlete on top of lifting.

The worst split / training method I have ever done in terms of my progress vs the amount of time and effort it takes is 5x5 powerlifting training, that’s why I stopped it.
 
BBiceps said:
How experienced are you?
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I've been lifting on an off for 15 years. I'm coming back from a long hiatus, so yes I'm getting those quasi "beginner" gains I would assume.

Here's an example of my chest/shoulder/tri day:

1 set flat bench
1 set incline bench
1 set overhead press
1 set dumbbell press
1 set dips
1 set cable pulldown
1 set bench press machine

All sets in the 10 rep range to failure or near failure.

No idea if this is enough or ideal. Not a whole lot of shoulder work there. I'm a pretty casual lifter though and just do what I feel like doing.
 
R1187 said:
I've been lifting on an off for 15 years. I'm coming back from a long hiatus, so yes I'm getting those quasi "beginner" gains I would assume.

Here's an example of my chest/shoulder/tri day:

1 set flat bench
1 set incline bench
1 set overhead press
1 set dumbbell press
1 set dips
1 set cable pulldown
1 set bench press machine

All sets in the 10 rep range to failure or near failure.

No idea if this is enough or ideal. Not a whole lot of shoulder work there. I'm a pretty casual lifter though and just do what I feel like doing.
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Yeah you most likely are getting back to where once was, so not really “beginner gains” but when you getting closer to what you once was you will stall.
Definitely not an optimal training program but in the end it depends on what you want, do you go to the gym just to burn a few cals to maintain or do you want to gain solid muscles?

If the first, have fun and do whatever you like but if it’s the second, get on a real training program.
 
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