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Hi there,

I just finished reading Mike Mentzers Heavy Duty II Mind and Body. And I was blown away by Mike Mentzers Method on working out.

I have been working out for about 10 yrs on and off. Im 5′10 210 Pounds semi muscular and have always tried to be in good shape.

But after reading Heavy Duty II it seems I have been doing everything wrong to get massive gains. ( I would usually follow steps in Muscle Magazine work outs) Seems my body has been overtrained for years. I have taken a month of to let my body recoparate all its natural reasorces and cant wait to get started on Mike′s Routines. But I have a couple of questions?? Can someone please help me understand what is a superset??? and if I read the book corectly just one set per body part??? And If im doing the workouts correctly how long should my work outs be?? (time wise) Also on shoulders should one go heavy when doing latterals, since the rotator cuff is and can be very delicate. Im a littel confused and I hope someone can give me some clarity.

thanks

Carlos

I am giving you Mike Mentzers routine that he recommended later in his life because it will get you the best results.

First, however, I will explain the key aspects of the workout:
– one set to failure on every exercise. That means, you dont terminate the set until you literally cant move the weight any longer. The last rep that you perform, the one where you are struggling with everything ounce of energy in you, is the most important part of the workout and causes the greatest growth.
– two warmup sets on each exercise before the set to failure. The first warmup set(4-6 reps) is light, just to get blood into the muscles. The second set(3-6 reps) will be medium weight, to set you up neuromuscularly and warm up the joints,etc. If you desire, a third warmup set can be performed which would be heavier than the second. The thing to remember when doing your warmups is to do the least amount that you feel has warmed the body up enough. Then after those two(or 3) warmup sets are completed, you do the set to failure.
– a cadence of 3-4 seconds up, 3-4 seconds down should be used, except on deadlifts. When keeping track of rep speed, you mostly just want to make sure the weight is always under control. For pulldowns, there is resistance in the static part of the movement and you should the weight there for about two seconds. For pulldowns, the static point is when the bar is near the chest.
– Frequency of workouts: rest 7-10 days inbetween each workout to allow the body to fully recover. The recovery process is complete when you have all your energy back, and then you wait one or possibly two more days after that to let the muscles grow(overcompensate). Because the muscles dont grow until the energy reserve is recovered- it wont spend much needed energy on muscle growth before the energy reserve is filled back up. If rested long enough, you should have increased in strength and muscle size.
– If you have been training on a high volume routine, take at least two weeks off before starting this one. On a high volume workout, you grossly overtrain and the body severely needs to recover.
– Each exercise should take about 5 minutes to perform- thats including warmups and the working set. Then it depends how long inbetween exercises you choose to wait which will determine the entire workout length.

Workout 1: Incline Bench, Deadlift
Workout 2: Squats, Pulldowns

I highly recommend buying High Intensity Training the Mike Mentzer Way book. He explains in detail all his principles and it will give you a clearer understanding of the workout.

I use almost that exact workout as well, about every 7-10 days but with a few tweeks because right now i am training at home and all alone.
i have no squat rack, just some DB′s, a barbell and a bow flex that i have on loan.

day one i do low incline DB flyes supersetted with Db presses and then deadlifts

day two i do pulldowns on the bow flex then leg extensions on the bow flex super setted with sissy squats.

sometimes i switch out and do DB pullovers instead of pulldowns.

every 5th workout i take a break from the heavy demanding compound stuff and do one set of side lateral raises superset with seated DB presses and one set of standing bent concetration curls, so as to address 2 of my weak points. i feel the front and rear delts get all the stimulation they need with the chest and back work but the side head seems to get left out a bit. i have naturally narrow shoulders and feel i need to address that with some focus.
and the standing conc. curls hit the biceps peak like no other.

i do the pre-exhaust set for chest because the DB′s for flyes are substantially lighter than for presses and i can actually get them in place by myself. for presses alone i would have to have someone help me get them started.
ditto for legs simply because i have no squat rack. Forget about using a bow flex for leg presses, in 3 workouts i had gotten to using all the resistance the machine could give me and did over 20 reps after the leg extensions and it is very awkward as well. the sissy squats are working well because although i have to hold the barbell behind my back, its a short set because it follows the extensions.

every once in a while i will add a static contrction hold at the end of the set of pulldowns or extensions. never both in the same workout though.

my employer is putting a gym in above their new storage shop so i am looking forward to getting into some serious squatting and benching when the place is all done!

that being said i have made more progress since starting this routine at home than i ever did with any other routine in any commercial gym, including Mikes "Ideal principaled routine".
since jan 06 i′ve trained a total of about 7 hours and added about 7 pounds to my frame. i′ve gone up 80 lbs in my deadlift, added a half inch to my bi′s, thighs and calves and FINALLY my shoulders are starting to catch up to the rest of me.
not bad for 7 hours effort i think.

i dont know of any other system with a better "training-time-to-gains" ratio

anyway, enough of my heroic endevors, lol!
the whole point of this diatribe was to point out that the super consolidated routine is plenty flexible so dont be afraid to change things up to suit your workout environment and goals. the thing to remember is to apply the fundamental principals of HD and you′ll make progress!

and i also highly recommend you read Mikes final book, as well as Jonh Little′s new book "The Wisdom of Mike Mentzer". Both are invaluable for a truly thorough understanding of Heavy Duty.

regards,
B&G;