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In 1996 Arthur Jones wrote My First Half-Century In The Iron Game. Here are a few exerpts regarding frequency and volume.

"Now, ten years later, in 1996, I know that only one weekly workout is required by most subjects, and that some people do better with a schedule of only one workout every two weeks, and that a few people do best on a schedule of one workout every three weeks."

"Apart from a rather limited number of hardcore bodybuilders who are misguided enough to believe that they have a chance to compete against the outright genetic freaks that now dominate bodybuilding competition, just about anybody else in this country can produce nearly all of the potential benefits of proper exercise without spending much if anything in excess of about twenty dollars. You can build both a chinning bar and a pair of parallel dip bars for a total cost of only a few dollars, and those two exercises, chins and dips, if properly performed, will stimulate muscular growth in your upper body and arms that will eventually lead to muscular size and strength that is very close to your potential.
Adding full squats, eventually leading up to one-legged full squats, and one-legged calf raises, will do much the same thing for your legs and hips. Using this very simple routine, when you get strong enough to perform about ten repetitions of one-armed chins with each arm, your arms will leave very little to be desired. Or, instead, you can do what many thousands of others are now doing and piss away thousands of dollars and years of largely wasted effort while producing far less results. The choice is yours. One of the best pair of arms that I ever saw on a man belonged to a guy that I knew about fifty years ago in New York, and he never performed any sort of exercise apart from chins and dips, and damned few of them."

So, that′s four exercises, done for one set to failure, once per week.

While I think Mike was absolutely brilliant and while I was also one of his phone clients for years, there is absolutely no doubt that what he recommended was not original. What Mike did was just give a more logical explanation as to why this kind of routine is better suited to the average individual. Mike′s routine has been recommended or different variations of it for many years going as far back as Peary Radars routine of twent-rep squats and a couple of upper-body exercises included.

I′ve always thought that this article is incredible considering the fact that Aurthur invented Millions of dollars worth of sophisticated machines.And as far as I know,this was perhaps one of if not Aurthur′s last article and final recommendation of training.Brilliant!.

And no.What Mike recommended as the consolidation routine wasn′t anything new.But after working with thousands of people,He came to this final conclusion.Which only goes to show that he never stopped learning.And that Guys like Peary Radar and Aurthur were way ahed of their time.

Arthurs articles My first half century in the iron game are a great read, and many of the things Mike Mentzer were a rehash of this.

Arthur wrote…
You can build both a chinning bar and a pair of parallel dip bars for a total cost of only a few dollars, and those two exercises, chins and dips, if properly performed, will stimulate muscular growth in your upper body and arms that will eventually lead to muscular size and strength that is very close to your potential……

I got a Dip belt and about 200lbs in free weights, went to the public park where they have Chinning bars, Dip dars and monkey bars and did Negative Only style Dips and Chins, and built my upper body and arms bigger than I ever thought possible, with one workout every 7 – 14 days. I did only one set per workout, no gym membership, just me and my Dip Belt, some free weights, and the bars 1 mile up the street at a public park. It is totally true. Arthur was the founder of Nautilus and Medx and when all is said and done this was one of his final conclusions.

I have used Medx and Nautilus machines many times, and it has been my experience that NO Dips and Chins done at the park on some Monkey Bars work just as well as the complicated machines.

If it wasnt for Mike Mentzer I would have never been led on to any of this in the first place.

One of the best threads I′ve ever read – especially the going to the park bit 🙂

I can′t add much more to this, as it′s perfect. Unfortunately, there will be people who wont believe such a simple approach will work. There isn′t enough exercises, volume frequency, stimulus blah,blah and blah.

I salute you gentleman