What is a classic Mike Mentzer hit routine?

Mike Mentzer is known for his intense training regimen, earning him the nickname 'Mr. Heavy Duty'. His workout included lifting heavy weights until failure.

According to Steel Supplements, Mike Mentzer met the creator of the high-intensity workout, Arthur Jones, in 1971, and five years later, in 1976, Mr. Heavy won the Mr. Amreica title.

Mike Mentzer highlighted that he revamped Jones's training program according to updated philosophies, which served the bodybuilder well. The former Mr. America's philosophy was to do one or two sets of 6 to 8 reps per set for all of the muscle groups. Mr. Heavy Duty wanted his last rep to destroy the muscle group before letting it recover.

Mike Mentzer always trained with one spotter, and generally, it was his brother Ray. After being unable to lift his weights himself, Mr. Heavy Duty had four types of reps with which the spotter helped.

• Forced Reps: The spotter helps you enough so that you can continue with the heavyweight for 3 to 4 more reps.
• Negative Reps: After reaching failure on the positive part, the spotter helps you to lower weight, slowly increasing the time under tension.
• Rest-Pause Reps: Mike Mentzer did the 4 to 6 reps he could do with the maximum weight, and then after each set took 15 seconds of rest.
• Pre-Exhaust Supersets: In this approach, Mike Mentzer did isolated sets without taking a rest before moving to the compound sets.

Mike Mentzer's two-day split high-intensity workout routine

According to Set for Set, Mr. Heavy Duty divided his split into two parts. On Day 1, he trained his legs, chest, and triceps. On Day 2, the former Mr. America trained his back, traps, shoulders, and biceps.

Day 1 routine:

Legs:

• 1 set of leg extensions superset with leg press
• 1 set of squats
• 2 sets of leg curls
• 2 sets of standing calf raises

Chest:

• 1 set of dumbbells fly
• 2 sets of incline presses
• 2 sets of bodyweight dips

Tricpes:

• 1 set of triceps pushdowns superset with dips
• 2 sets of lying tricep extensions

Day 2 workout routine

Back:

• 2 sets of machine pullover supersets with close-grip underhand lat pull-downs
• 2 sets of barbell rows

Traps/Shoulders:

• 2 supersets of machine shrug with upright rows
• 2 supersets of side lat raise with machine shoulder press
• 2 sets of rear dumbbell lat raises

Biceps:

• 1 set of stadning barbell curls
• 2 sets of dumbbell concentration curls

Do you follow this high-intensity workout? Let us know in the comments.