When we talk about the golden era of bodybuilding, we mostly remember Arnold Schwarzenegger. However, there was another name whose heavy-duty workout technique was famous among the bodybuilding community.

The 225 lbs pro, who gave a tough fight to Arnold in the Mr. Olympia 1980, is none other than Mike Mentzer.

His bodybuilding journey began at just 11 years old. At that time, Mentzer’s father gave him some weights with manual instructions.

He used weights and consulted Arthur Jones to shape his bodybuilding journey. His heavy-duty program mainly centered around doing 2 to 3 workouts per week. Jones recommended a “single-set exercise”.

And that technique gave him results. Back in 1978, he won the Mr. Universe contest with a perfect score, a feat never seen before in bodybuilding history. In the next year, he came second to Frank Zane at Mr. Olympia.

He could have even won at the 1980 edition of Mr. Olympia had Arnold not made the decision to make a surprise return.

But if that's not enough, Mentzer's fitness ideas get new support

That technique is also supported by research done by Tom Hermann and his colleagues and published on SportRxiv.

His “heavy-duty workout program” has recently come into the spotlight, with modern research by Joshua C. supporting his technique.

The research by Joshua C, which focused on 2058 participants, found that each week, if you perform a minimum of 4 sets per muscle group, your muscles will grow.

Not only that, but if you perform only 1 set per week, that also will help build your strength. However, if you dedicate yourself to performing more than 12 to 20 sets per week, then it can stall your strength and muscle building.

Written by

Supradeep Dutta

Edited by

Siddharth Shirwadkar