For older bodybuilders, haphazard training is more of a threat than ever—if they’re not on anabolic steroids that is…
The older you get, the more precise and efficient your training should be to avoid over-stressing your recovery ability and creating excess muscle damage.
Both of those can have you spinning your wheels with little to no growth. That’s what most bodybuilders get due to training too long and/or working out again before growth has occurred…
And for older bodybuilders, overtraining can damage your immune system. No thanks.
It’s one reason I give Mentzer’s approach the thumbs up now that I’m 64; however,I recommend more of a semi-high-intensity approach, especially for the older bodybuilder, not the balls-to-the wall beyond-failure method Mentzer used in his heyday (which I described in Part 1)…
You should still use only a few sets per muscle. But one of the biggest keys is emphasizing the ideal exercise—beginning with one high-rep set to failure…
That does everything from warming up the target muscle to activating the nervous system to pre-exhausting slow-twitch fibers for more fast-twitch activation on the sets that follow…
Your other two or three sets should come after short rests between each. And you should stop one rep short of total failure to avoid excessive damage and nervous-system overload….
What’s interesting is that Arnold’s training now mirrors that at age 75.
I’ve also found that Speed Sets, with 1.5-second reps, help mitigate growth-leeching damage by reducing the trauma of garbage negatives—the slow lowering on standard sets. I like half of my sets in that Speed style to reduce damage. (Arnold also uses this faster-rep style on many sets)…
I’ve come to these realizations after doing my share of haphazard training over my 50 years of lifting (wait, a half century? WTF?). Luckily, a lot of it was in my younger years when I could tolerate it—although my growth was slower than it should’ve been because of those imprecise, traumatizing workouts…
I wish I knew then what I knew now. Not sure if I would’ve had the open mindedness to accept it though. I could be a headstrong a-hole at times.
The biggest game-changer for me has been discovering the ideal exercises thanks to Drug-Free Mr. Universe and biomechanics expert Doug Brignole, who passed away in December of 2022 (miss you, Doug)…
After many discussions with him, I followed his lead and began emphasizing the ideal exercises. My gains were amazing, which led me to write Old Man, Young Muscle, with workouts that incorporate all of the above factors…
Doug followed my lead by reducing his volume. After all, he was my age, so it only made sense.
He could not believe the difference the volume reduction had on his hypertrophy. He went from seven sets per muscle down to three or four. He said it was like mass-building magic…
Efficiency in the gym without a lot of volume as well as taking each set close to failure made the difference—and, of course, emphasizing the ideal exercise for each muscle.
Mike Mentzer was right in many of his rants on training intensity and recovery ability. I think the ideal exercises would’ve made his training style even more effective, along with the application of some of the latest research…
If he were still alive, I may have been able to convince him to embrace the ideal exercises. Nah. He was pretty much a headstrong a-hole too.
Arnold did many good things—obviously—like Speed Sets and stretch emphasis. His volume almost killed me in my younger days, however, and no doubt would kill me now since I’m not on ‘roids—and entering geezer-hood.
We’re not done. I’ll have more on all of this in a future newsletter. Stay tuned.
Your Efficient Mass-Building Handbook: For complete mass workouts that include Speed Sets, the ideal exercise for each muscle, and the best stretch and contracted add-on moves, get your copy of Old Man, Young Muscle.
And you still get The Muscle-On, Belly-Gone “Diet” ebook FREE for a limited time when you add Old Man, Young Muscle to your mass-building library. Go HERE.
Till next time, train hard—and smart—for BIG results.
—Steve Holman
Former Editor in Chief, Iron Man Magazine
www.X-Rep.com