MIKE MENTZER: A MAN OF SELF-MADE SOUL

In the 1930s, Pulitzer Prize winning philosopher and historian Will Durant made the comment that:

Of the many ideals which in youth gave life a meaning and radiance missing from the chilly perspectives of middle age, one at least has remained with me as bright and satisfying as ever before -- the shameless worship of heroes. In an age that would level everything and reverence nothing, I take my stand with Victorian Carlyle, and light my candles, like Mirandola before Plato's image, at the shrines of great men….For why should we stand reverent before waterfalls and mountain tops, or a summer moon on a quiet sea, and not before the highest miracle of all -- a man who is both great and good?

Apart from being a close friend, I have long considered Mike Mentzer to be a genuine hero; a man who, indeed, was both “great and good.” For Mentzer was a man who summated the very pinnacle of physical perfection in the world of bodybuilding, becoming in many a mind’s eye one of the greatest bodybuilders of all time (thus fulfilling part one of Dr. Durant’s definition); and a man who constantly sought honesty rather than reputation, integrity rather than commercialism and truth above all. That this is evidence of the “good” (the second part of Dr. Durant’s definition) should not need further elaboration. Sadly, the world of bodybuilding has never possessed the same love for the heroic as Dr. Durant. To wit, for possessing the three virtues cited above, Mentzer was sorely punished: for the first he was condemned by the bodybuilding orthodoxy; for the second he was excommunicated from its power base; and for the third he would be denied the greatest title in bodybuilding along with the opportunity to earn a living from his passion. These were hurdles that would have broken a less heroic spirit than the one inhabiting the Herculean physique of Mike Mentzer. Nevertheless, Mentzer would persevere and, in time, earn prestigious titles of a different sort (and of far greater worth in the arena of life); he would become known as “a fully-actualized human being;” “a man of self-made soul;” “a pioneer in exercise science” and (perhaps the one of which he was most proud) “a philosopher of mind and body.”

Anytime a man stands up for the sake of principle (or principles, in the case of Mentzer, for he proved himself a very principled man), he is worthy of respect. When doing so comes at great personal cost and in the teeth of great adversity, he is rightly considered a hero. In the mid 1970s, when bodybuilding was just starting to become fashionable, Mentzer, like a breath – no, a cyclone – of fresh air, whistled through its murky and pungent halls, decimating myths and exploding falsehoods. In time, he built quite a following among seekers of truth within the bodybuilding community. Mentzer’s well-reasoned conclusions, based for the first time upon logical thinking and scientific evidence, rather than sales of supplements and equipment, brought bodybuilding out of its self-imposed dark ages and into the world of modern technology. Attending this renaissance was a revolution in the way bodybuilding was performed and bodybuilders were perceived. His articles (at that time – they would subsequently undergo further refinement in the years that followed) stated that one should never train more than 45 minutes per workout nor exercise more than four days per week. This at a time when Arnold Schwarzenegger and most other bodybuilders were training twice a day for up to two hours per workout and heading to the gym six days per week. Such a proposition would have been laughed out of consideration had it been advanced by anyone other than Mike Mentzer – whose string of contest victories (including the first-ever perfect score in the entire history of the Mr. Universe contest), was living testimony to the efficacy of his new training approach. In addition to his phenomenal physique was the fact that Mentzer was strikingly handsome and – a first for a professional bodybuilder – an intellectual. Here, finally, was the embodiment of the ancient Greek and Roman ideal of mens sana in corpore sano – “a healthy mind in a healthy body.”

Madison avenue was quick to take advantage of this anomaly; by 1979 Mentzer had a best-selling poster; an agent; three best-selling books and had appeared on numerous television shows, such as Merv Griffin and the ABC Superstars competition, where he competed successfully against the greatest athletes in the world, thereby revealing that not all bodybuilders were “muscle-bound” and ineffective athletically. The gods – or, rather, the petty powers that controlled bodybuilding – now became jealous and conspired to plot his downfall. And so it came to pass that in Sydney Australia, at the 1980 Mr. Olympia competition, Mentzer, who was the odds-on favorite to win (and with good reason; he had come in ten pounds of muscle heavier, more defined and with a posing routine that those in attendance still talk about for its breathtaking impact and poignancy), would be relegated to fifth place. After all, he had to be taught a lesson; he was becoming bigger than the sport itself and his articles questioning the need for nutritional supplements – which were the very lifeblood of the commercial bodybuilding establishment – along with his refusal to endorse fraudulent training practices for the sake of “going along to get along,” necessitated that he be brought down a peg or two -- or five (It is interesting to note, lest the reader think I’m being subjective here, that after CBS Sports had gone to the expense of sending a camera crew half way around the world to videotape the event for broadcast on television, after Mentzer’s incongruous placing, they decided not to broadcast the event).

But rather than cultivate a supple spine and bow to grease the wheels of bodybuilding industry, Mentzer instead stood tall. If this was how their premiere “competition” was to be judged, he would have no part of their competitions; if this was their reward for intellectual integrity and commitment to discovering a better, more efficient way to train, then it was no reward at all. And, as Mentzer would agree, since the real reward is in the achievement in health and physical conditioning for the individual practitioner rather than rewards from external authority sources, perhaps he had been heading down the wrong path to begin with.

There is a saying that the problem inherent in “climbing the ladder of success” is that most would-be climbers discover too late in life that the ladder they’ve been climbing is up against the wrong wall. Fortunately for Mentzer he would recognize that his ladder had been placed against the wrong wall early in his career. He resigned from the public eye and from the bodybuilding magazines – leaving behind a six-figure income and unprecedented popularity and exposure -- to continue his search for truth and the ideal training method, now unencumbered by the demands and expectations of others. Not that he was passively studying; rather he was testing new applications of his theory of high-intensity training upon thousands of personal clients that he had taken under his wing – and his discoveries would astound not only Mentzer but the entire world of exercise science. Maximum muscle size and strength increases, Mentzer revealed, were now possible from workouts lasting only 12 minutes in length and performed but once every four to seven days! Again, such a proposition would have been laughable – had it not been for the results that Mentzer revealed, not only in himself but now in thousands of clients. Suddenly “high-intensity training” was a legitimate way to workout and a slew of new “authorities” wrote books revealing the secrets of “their” research into this revolutionary method of training – seldom was Mentzer mentioned, let alone acknowledged for his pioneering efforts.

In time, the magazines implored him to write again; to share his wisdom with their readers. Imagine what he was offering! -- twelve minutes a week to realize your full genetic potential in terms of muscle mass and strength! In bodybuilding imagery this was the resurrection of Christ; a death to the old orthodoxy of the bodybuilding establishment and a complete rebirth to an entirely new perspective – a true science of exercise. Bodybuilding had found its renaissance, which has continued unabated until present day, and its fountainhead was Michael John Mentzer.

Soon luminaries such as Tony Robbins, CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, competitive bodybuilders and men and women seeking to get into their best possible shape in the shortest possible time, sought out Mentzer’s advice. By the humor of history, none of them asked whether or not he ever won the 1980 Mr. Olympia (few of them even knew what it was), yet all of them knew who Mike Mentzer was and it was his knowledge and his principles they now sought – how ironic, for these were the very qualities for which he was cast out of Bodybuilding’s Eden lo those many years ago.

Always an individualist, Mentzer preferred to work on his own terms; he spoke to the public through his own web site (www.mikementzer.com), published his own books, produced his own audio tapes and forever cultivated his own garden. He never expected anyone to accept what he had to say because he was a former champion bodybuilder, nor did he ask them to follow what he recommends without question. He challenged his students (and now the reader) not so much to agree or disagree with him, but to think for themselves and grow from the experience.

As a writer who is considered an “authority” by many people, by virtue of having co-created and innovated two training systems (Static Contraction Training and Power Factor Training) and innovating Max Contraction Training, I have to acknowledge the influence that Mentzer has had on my own thinking in regards to both exercise science and, on a somewhat higher plane, philosophy. Were it not for Mentzer’s influence (and, at times, mentorship), I would not have had the mindset to question bodybuilding tradition and to seek a better way. I have Mentzer to thank for this lesson -- and for the lesson that bodybuilding is but an adjunct to a better life and not the reason for one’s life. My contribution (if you’d care to call it that), then, to the creation of his final book (High Intensity Training The Mike Mentzer Way) was to its structure – not its content, as this was entirely Mike’s achievement. While we worked together on the manuscript for several months, (with the help of Objectivist philosophy and our own knowledge of exercise physiology) we determined that the fundamental principles of the science of bodybuilding were not three; i.e., intensity, duration and frequency, as had long been asserted, but actually seven, and that only by fully understanding these seven principles could one then be said to have a grasp of bodybuilding science. Mike’s authority was final in all matters in regard to this book.

My work on the book was also a way of an official “tip of the hat” to the life, career, beliefs and example of Mike Mentzer; to my mind, one of the greatest bodybuilders who ever lived. I say “greatest” not because he won the most titles or sold the most supplements for the business heads of bodybuilding, but because he built one of the greatest physiques of all-time without once selling out; without once ever wavering from his belief in what is true and good and in refusing to sell the public anything but his own integrity.

Each decade brings with it a new crop of “champions,” but they are quickly forgotten when the next crop of champions are harvested. Mentzer endures because he stood for something more, revealing that there are some principles worth espousing even when great personal cost is at stake. And in so doing, Mentzer revealed the potential inherent in all of us to actualize ourselves as human beings, and to live fuller, more purposeful lives. One can’t ask much more than this from one’s heroes.

-- John Little

(Adapted from The Foreword to High Intensity Training The Mike Mentzer Way, Contemporary Books, Chicago © 2003 John Little and Joanne Sharkey)

To order your copy of High Intensity Training The Mike Mentzer Way, please visit Mike Mentzer’s official website at www.mikementzer.com