May 19, 2004
HIT Me
The time was 7:15. I drank down my 1% Milk/Soy Milk/Whey Protein/Creatine shake and did 20 minutes of yoga. Then I grabbed my water bottle, kissed Brittany goodbye and walked out the door.
The time was 7:50. I walked into L.A. Fitness and gave the receptionist my membership card to scan and he looked at me surprised. "You know we close in 10 minutes, right?"
While I was caught off-guard by his statement, the surprise was fairly ephemeral. "That's OK, " I said confidently, "That's all I need." He smiled, shrugged his shoulders and said "Go right ahead, then."
I walked out of the gym 5 minutes later after having completed my workout. I did one set on the leg extension, one on the leg press, one on the calf raise and one on the ab machine, all in a high-intensity training (HIT) fashion. That was it.
Why so brief? I purchased a copy of Mike Mentzer's newest book, High-Intensity Training the Mike Mentzer Way and spent a large part of the day reading it, and that's one of the three workout routines he advocates for bodybuilders. Three routines, all consisting of performing one set of 4 or 5 exercises, every 4-7 days. This is a huge departure from traditional strength training advice, but then again Mike Mentzer was a huge departure from the traditional bodybuilder or exercise guru.
Mike Mentzer was a hero. He was the first person ever to receive a perfect score in a Mr. Universe contest by training for 45 minutes a day, 4 days a week when the other bodybuilders at the time, including Arnold Schwarzenegger, were training twice a day, for 2 hours each workout, 6 days a week. While Mentzer made huge contributions to the field of bodybuilding, above all else, he stood for rationality, honesty and integrity. Being an Objectivist, Mentzer began all explanations of bodybuilding principles with a sound philosophical foundation composed of logic and reason, and emphasized that strength training was a purely scientific endeavor. As John Little, the co-author, says in this book, Mentzer was something that was "a first for a professional bodybuilder -- an intellectual." I highly recommend you read an online essay by Little, A Question of Character: The Objectivist Versus The Machiavellian to learn more about Mentzer's amazing character, and how it parallels with Schwarzenegger's conniving ways.
He expounded on the law of identity, and its application to exercise science. In fact, Identity is the first principle of exercise he teaches: A is A, man is man and a muscle is a muscle, which has a specific nature and requires specific stimulus, universal to all muscle, in order to produce the desired result. The other fundamental principles are intensity, duration, frequency, specificity, adaptation and progression. If you have any interest in bodybuilding, or giving yourself a harder body, or just want to know more about strength training in general, I highly recommend you get yourself a copy of this book. Unfortunately, Mike Mentzer passed away in 2001 at the young age of 49 from a heart attack while he slept.
I purchased this book because, as some of you may know, I have taken to sculpting my physique as a new hobby. In my sculpting toolkit, I have the South Beach Diet which I've used to burn off nearly 30 pounds of fat, as well as various books on strength-training which I apply to make my muscles larger and more clearly defined. I also started taking creatine today for the additional workout energy, as well as the increased muscle volumization.
I didn't start working out for this purpose, however. I initially began because I had been finding an overwhelming amount of reasons to take it up. First off, I naturally wanted to lose fat and build muscle, just for the purpose having a leaner and more attractive body. I also found that regular exercise improves focus and mental sharpness, as well as staves off brain aging, helps you sleep better, and is just as effective in treating mild depression as antidepressants. In addition to exercise's brain-boosting and mood-enhancing qualities, it also produces a whole slew of health benefits.
After learning all of this, what reason can you possibly have NOT to start an exercise program now? (If you live in the Orlando area and are interested in joining a gym, contact Drew Baye.)
Posted by Marshall at May 19, 2004 11:03 PMSee Yourself Well