Here’s another impressive shot of Mike Mentzer taken by Wayne Gallasch in Australia back in the 1970s, a pic we don’t recall every seeing…
It shows Mike’s herculean mass but with an aesthetic twist. Mike was 5’8” and competed at around 220 pounds. He never won the Mr. Olympia; however, he did place second to Frank Zane in his first attempt in 1979, only to place fourth the next year when Arnold made his comeback in Australia…
Mentzer died in 2001 of a heart condition at the age of 49, his bodybuilding potential was never realized because he was so pissed at that 1980 Mr. Olympia outcome that he retired way too early. His training methods live on, however…
Mentzer considered himself a student of scientific protocols for hypertrophy, and his workouts actually attacked multiple muscle-fiber types. When he was training for the ’80 Mr. Olympia, IFBB judge and Pennsylvania gym owner Roger Schwab put him through many of his workouts.
Roger said Mike used a full-body routine three days a week, and he used the modified Pre-Ex method. For example, for chest he did a higher-rep set of Nautilus flyes (isolation), rested only briefly, then did a heavy lower-rep set of Nautilus decline presses. Yes, one set of each exercise only–higher-rep isolation followed by lower-rep compound, both with slower, controlled repetitions. (For more on Mentzer and how he built crazy mass with Pre-Ex, see The Pre-Ex 3X Mass Workout e-book.)
Mentzer’s modified Pre-Ex with a higher-rep slow-twitch set followed by a lower-rep fast-twitch one is a version of our STX method, slow-twitch exhaustion, which we outline in our newly expanded Quick-Start Muscle Building ebook.
The new STX workouts in that ebook are two different full-body workouts (similar to Mentzer’s). You can alternate them Monday, Wednesday, and Friday or attack them on only two nonconsecutive days a week—we like Monday and Thursday. You could also customize them into a split routine, upper body one day, lower the next.
Each workout is tailored to build muscle with the anabolic STX method in a bare-bones home gym with only moderate poundages—all you need is an adjustable bench and dumbbells (we have the 50-pound PowerBlock set, and it’s working great for us, which is why we updated this ebook)…
You can add this newly updated ebook to your mass-building library by clicking HERE.
Till next time, train hard—and smart—for BIG results.
—Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson
www.X-Rep.com
ELIMINATE SHOULDER PAIN
Shoulder pain can affect your workouts forever. That’s not good!
That’s why we’re recommending advice from injury specialist Rick Kaselj, MS. His tips can help make your shoulders nearly bullet-proof.
Here are a few general tips from Rick (he goes into more detail in his program)…
Top 5 Tips To Bullet-Proof Your Shoulders
- Build Tension in Your Lats. When doing shoulder exercises, activate your lats and keep your shoulders happy.
- Prime Up Your Muscles. Most people do a warm-up that just lubricates the joint, but you need to activate and turn on all the muscles in your upper body.
- Technique, Technique, Technique. This is the number one reason why people injure their shoulders. You can’t go to the gym every day and work on your max lift.
- Watch Out for Fatigue. Cooking your smaller muscles in your shoulder complex, and that increases the risk of shoulder injury and pain.
- Work on Your Shoulder Blade Muscles. Many strength coaches will say you’re wasting your time on this, but if you want to have bullet-proof shoulders, you need to work on them.
Get all of Rick’s tips and tricks for pain-free workouts below: