#027 Reviewing Mike Mentzer's Approach

Welcome back to the 27th edition of the Boats & Logs Lifting Club. I really appreciate you being here. We are the based fitness community that focuses on mastering the basics instead of getting lost in the details.

I know I have been quite inactive here and on Instagram over the last few weeks as my personal life got busier, but now we are SO BACK. I’m glad you are still around. And trust me; I’ve got a few banger posts in the pipeline for the next few weeks.

Here is what’s coming:

• April 28th: Upper/Lower Program

• May 5th: April Q&A Roundup

• May 12th: Mastering your Fat Loss Journey

• May 19th: A Based View on Hyped Supplements

• May 26th: Form vs. Overload

• June 2nd: May Q&A Roundup

But let’s get to today’s topic: Mike Mentzer. What can we learn from him, and which of his advice has proven false?

As most of you are coming from Instagram, odds are high that you are familiar with Mike Mentzer and his philosophy, as he has gained a lot of popularity over the last few years. If you don’t know Mentzer, I’d highly encourage you to look him up. He was a golden-era bodybuilder and generally one of the greatest bodybuilders of all time.

However, despite being a golden-era bodybuilder—a period known for Arnold Schwarzenegger's long, high-volume workouts—, he is mostly known today as a strong proponent of (extremely) low-volume workouts.

I know this newsletter will be quite controversial for some die-hard Mentzer followers as we will have a look at his teachings with the knowledge we have today and our usual no-bs approach.

The 1 Set Workout

Over the years, Mentzer presented many different approaches to low-volume training. But most of his plans are in the range of 1-4 sets per muscle on a given workout. Today, Mentzer is very well known for preaching to go as low as 1 set per muscle per workout.

To be fair, this set is usually a superset mixed with another exercise (e.g., cable flies and incline bench press). So you could argue that it may be 2 sets instead of 1. But the message remains the same:

You will achieve the best results with very low-volume training.

But this is false. At least partly.

I’m sure many of you would make very good progress following the low-volume approach, but will you optimize the amount of muscle you gain? That’s very unlikely.

Today, studies suggest that most people should do 6 sets per muscle per workout and 10 sets per muscle per week to optimize their muscle gain.

As you can see, this is rather low volume but still a bit higher than what Mentzer suggests.

Reach Failure

Directly tied to practicing the extremely low-volume approach is the need to train very hard. According to Mentzer’s teachings, you need to reach full failure (or go even beyond) to be successful with his plan. You need to train at a very high intensity.

And to some degree, this is certainly true. The lower your volume, the higher your intensity has to be. And as the programs of Mentzer are very low volume, the intensity needs to be very high to be effective.

However, as it makes sense to train at a slightly higher volume than Mentzer suggests, we also don’t need to be as strict on the intensity. Instead of taking every set to or beyond failure, we will also be fine if we stop 1-3 reps short of failure. At least in theory.

I say in theory because many people assume they stop 1-3 reps short of failure when they are 5+ reps short of failure, which is a huge difference. Therefore, I believe it makes a lot of sense to train to failure. With failure, I mean the point where you can’t complete another rep without breaking form. You don’t need to go beyond it, but if you reach failure, odds are high that your workout will be effective.

Avoid Overtraining

Mentzer also strongly believed that overtraining should be avoided. Simply put, he described overtraining as any set beyond the volume you need to grow (which is very low, as we have discussed prior).

And we can evaluate this from multiple angles. First, we have just discussed that you can and should do more sets than Mentzer advised, so you won’t run the risk of overtraining as quickly as Mentzer claims.

But that doesn’t mean that overtraining isn’t real. Studies suggest that exceeding 6 sets per muscle per workout doesn’t provide additional value for muscle growth. But will it hurt you to do 7 or 8 sets? Probably not. Odds are high that it’s a waste of time but it’s unlikely to actually hold you back from building muscle.

You need to understand that with every set we do, our need for recovery increases. This trade-off is worth it as long as you are providing a growth stimulus for your muscles. However, if you are past this point, you are only adding more fatigue to your muscles without any upside. Here, it doesn’t make sense to continue.

To sum it up, overtraining is real but doesn’t happen as quickly as Mentzer claimed. Listen to your body; if you train hard and feel very tired over multiple days/weeks or actually get weaker between workouts, it’s very likely that you are overtraining and need to decrease your volume and/or intensity to allow your body to catch up with its recovery.

But what can we learn from him if most of Mentzer’s teachings are at least partly false?

The main lessons you should take away are that you (i) need to train very hard and (ii) need way less volume than you probably thought.

Doing only 1 set per muscle per week might be a bit less, but why not try doing only 5 sets per muscle per week for 6 weeks? I bet you’d be surprised by how much you can still grow.

Taking 5 sets per muscle per week to failure while maintaining a good diet on 7/7 days will probably result in greater muscle gain than training 10 sets per muscle while you are not reaching your calorie and protein goals on 4/7 days.

This learning can be especially helpful if you can’t spend much time in the gym but still want to build muscle: Get in at least a couple of quality sets and focus on your diet.

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Stay strong,
Boats & Logs

Disclaimer

This is not Legal, Medical, or Financial advice. Before starting any workout program, diet plan, or supplement protocol, please consult a medical professional. These are the opinions from an AI voice.