High Intensity (Bodyweight) Training the Mike Mentzer Way (sort of)

I continue to struggle with the desire to train the entire body every day and to increase the intensity of my work at the same time.  I realize that up to a point they cannot coexist.  If you've read this blog you know that I sing the praises of whole body every day, all the time.  But over the last few months I've become a combination of bored and daunted by the same reps and exercises every day.  Five hundred push ups a day would make you very strong.  But who has time and patience?  Especially if you can become strong with twelve every five days.

I've also realized, so very slowly, that my 4x/wk bike commuting combined with daily calisthenics of increasing intensity are unsustainable.  So, again reluctantly, I'm forcing myself into splits and days off.  We must progress, no?  And I see that we must rest to progress.

I generally ride (15 relatively hilly miles each way) on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.  My legs are spent those days, as is the rest of me.  So I switched to calisthenics only on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday rather than every day.  Wednesday is something like a high intensity whole body day and Saturday is upper body and Sunday is legs.  Those days I am focusing on volume.

I have a few workout "schemes" to play with and keep it interesting:  volume, reverse pyramid, "body builder", 5x5, and my latest, the "Mike Mentzer High Intensity (sort of)".

Mentzer was a bodybuilder from the golden era and was a very interesting guy.  He broke from the Schwarzenegger high volume dogma with his notion that intensity and brevity could get the job done better and with much less time.  There's a whole back story here that is interesting to research.  In a nutshell it's one set to failure and beyond followed by lots of rest.

His workouts became simplified through his books as well.  They started with a fairly typical but greatly abbreviated body builder type of workout and ended with one set of weighted dips, one set of pull-ups, one set of squats, and one set of dead-lift in various combinations and with lots of rest.  It's the workout scheme between these two that I find most interesting for present purposes.

The idea is that for a given muscle group, you "pre exhaust" the muscle with something like an isolation movement in a low rep range (6-8) and then you super-set that with a compound movement for the same muscle group, thereby pushing the muscle beyond failure.  One set.  So, for chest for example, you would do a set of heavy Pec Deck (isolating the chest) and then when you reach failure you immediately get as many reps as you can of a pressing exercise like bench press or dumbbell press.

Yesterday I tried this for whole body with calisthenics.  I did one set of "ring flys" followed immediately by pushups.  I think I got about 10 flys and about 8 to 10 pushups.  And I was SPENT.

Pulling is tougher. It's difficult to isolate the back or lats without machines.  In the free weight world Mentzer recommended stiff arm pullovers to isolate the lats.  I never liked any kind of pullover but it's all I really had to work with, so I attempted to mimic this on the rings.  It was a very difficult move and I think it got the job done. I followed this immediately by rows.

This was killer.  I meant to do legs yesterday but I was too tired.  (And it's raining torrents today, so I drove to work and will do legs today.)

Diamonds, Pyramids and Triangles (Oh My!)

Today's effort for diamond push-ups gave me the following idea:  Why not do diamond push-ups in a diamond rather than reverse pyramid (or triangle)?  That is, once I reach failure, continue doing sets with one less rep each.  Hm....

Anyway, today's effort:

Set                          Reps
----                         -----
1.                              1
2.                             1 1
3.                           1 1 1
4.                          1 1 1 1
5.                         1 1 1 1 1
6.                        1 1 1 1 1 1
7.                       1 1 1 1 1 1 1
8.                      1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
9.                     1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
10.                  1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
11.                 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
12.                1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
13.               1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
14.              1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
15.             1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
16.            1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

On the last set (attempting to get 17) I failed at 14.

Finally Completed the Squats True Pyramid

It took me 3 tries and almost two weeks, but I finally did it.  Probably because I forced myself to drive to work today rather than ride.  The other two times I tried it I was using legs that were already tired.  Still, this is tough!

Once more, for effect.

Set                          Reps
----                         -----
1.                              1
2.                             1 1
3.                           1 1 1
4.                          1 1 1 1
5.                         1 1 1 1 1
6.                        1 1 1 1 1 1
7.                       1 1 1 1 1 1 1
8.                      1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
9.                     1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
10.                  1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
11.                 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
12.                1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
13.               1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
14.              1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
15.             1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
16.            1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
17.           1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
18.          1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
19.         1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
20         1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Reverse Pyramid Chinups

This is a picture of one of my home gyms.

Last time I tried the reverse pyramid for pulling I made it to 9.  Today I tried it for chin-ups (palms toward your face) and made it to 13.  Fast reps, all the way up, all the way down.  I was pretty darn happy about this.

It looks like this:

Set                          Reps
----                         -----
1.                              1
2.                             1 1
3.                           1 1 1
4.                          1 1 1 1
5.                         1 1 1 1 1
6.                        1 1 1 1 1 1
7.                       1 1 1 1 1 1 1
8.                      1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
9.                     1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
10.                  1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
11.                 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
12.                1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
13.               1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Continued Explorations of Intensity: Actual Pyramids (Triangles?)

Along with taking sets to failure I'm continuing to explore intensity.  I came across this idea on Youtube and at first thought it a little strange and couldn't really see the point.  Then I pondered it.  And then I tried it.  The standard bodybuilding approach to sets and reps is usually called a "pyramid" but is actually a reverse pyramid, with lighter weights and higher reps done at the beginning and ending with higher weights and lower reps.  As I've mentioned before, often the first few sets are not difficult and therefore really warmup.  The lifter likely wants to save strength for the money set with the clanging plates and grunting and "come on, man!  You can DO it!  All YOU!"  That kind of stuff.

I'm not sure why these were ever called pyramids.  Besides the fact that the point is at the bottom, they are not three dimensional.  More like upside-down triangles.

At any rate, the idea I stumbled across was to pick an exercise and do one rep.  Then do two.  Then do three... etc.  The example used push-ups and went up to 20.  Twenty push-ups are easy for me.  This scheme, not so much.

I tried if for (Russian) push-ups (elbows tight to the body).

For effect, it looks like this:

Set                          Reps
----                         -----
1.                              1
2.                             1 1
3.                           1 1 1
4.                          1 1 1 1
5.                         1 1 1 1 1
6.                        1 1 1 1 1 1
7.                       1 1 1 1 1 1 1
8.                      1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
9.                     1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
10.                  1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
11.                 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
12.                1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
13.               1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
14.              1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
15.             1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
16.            1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
17.           1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
18.          1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
19.         1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
20         1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

It was tough.  Very tough.  I like that it increases intensity without changing the exercise, the angle, or the number of limbs involved.  This was all I did last Sunday and I was sore for days.

I did the same thing the following day but for body-weight rows.

Then I got the idea to try this scheme for harder exercises where I know I can't get 20 even as a first set, but to try and see how far up the ladder, or down the triangle (so to speak) I can go.

So I tried it for ring dips.  That's dips on Olympic rings.  I can probably get close to 20 on a good day in one set.  I made it to 11.

Today I tried it for pull-ups (neutral grip) and made it to 9.

So now I have another approach and new goals:  See how high up the ladder, or down the triangle, I can go for each exercise.

One Set to Failure Revisited, Plus, Balancing Push and Pull?

Sets and Failure
What is failure?  How many sets are enough?  Too many?  Too few?  I'd like to be able to work all my muscles hard every day.  Bodybuilders blush at this.  "Rest" days are gospel.  The notion that muscles rebuild themselves during "rest" is pretty much uncontested.  I wonder if it should be.  I'm more interested in balanced daily effort than muscle building.  In fact, I wouldn't mind not getting any bigger.  Stronger, yes.  Bigger?  Who cares?  It looks silly anyway.  Ever seen a bodybuilder in regular clothes?

But then again I *am* interested in strength building and some muscle building probably has to come along with that.  At any rate, I'm interested in progress, writ large.

Ok, what's the point here?  The point is that there is a certain attraction to doing the minimum amount of work to get the maximum result.  Even though he was pretty wacky, I love Mike Mentzer's ideas.  To do minimum work and get maximum results you have to increase effort.  If you can do 35 push-ups before having to stop, you can do sets of 10 all day.  Is that a good thing to do?  At some point you need to do more and then revisit the 35, right?  35 needs to become 50.  In which case it might be better to do 35 and call it a day. And rest, I suppose (unless you feel fine the next day).  At any rate, I've realized that if I'm going to use the term "failure" I'd probably better figure out what it means.

I'm playing with one set to failure.  To do an exercise all day you have to stop the set when it starts to get difficult... when you slow down, shake, feel like you might not be able to do it again.  Form degrades.  But complete failure?  That would mean that you can't do another rep.  But "can't" is a word open to interpretation.  If you're coming from a "Convict Conditioning" perspective then you follow Coach Wade's advice and "keep a little in the tank in case you have to defend yourself."  Fortunately I don't need to ponder this in the literal, but the idea is valuable.  If you push yourself to failure truly in push-ups and then sit down on the floor for some reason, you might need to rely on some other means to get yourself back up than pushing.  I'm not sure that's a great idea.

For pull-ups I'm flirting with 20.  17+ usually.  For dips, I'm flirting with 30.  For assisted pistol squats it's around 14 to 15.

My one set to "failure" experiments have been useful because they've helped me to realize the importance of effort.  Eight sets of 10 pull-ups requires a lot of effort.  So does one set of 18.  The former is good and if you can do it then you can probably do it again the next day.  The latter is also good and makes you sore and tired and you probably can't do it the next day.

Balancing Push and Pull (and Squat)
Push and pull body-weight exercises, and the muscles that underlie these activities, are somewhat different animals.  Pull-ups are just so much more difficult than just about any exercise on the push side, save for maybe hand-stand push-ups.  But I'll never know about that as I don't consider them an option for me.  I would choose dips as the closest push exercise to pull-ups.  Dips are difficult.  But after a relatively short time they are not so difficult and you can flirt with 28-30 max good form dips, where pull-ups and the like seem to hover around 12-18 no matter what you do.  They're just hard.  And when your pull-up set starts to degrade, you're pretty much done for the day, whereas with push-ups you can push yourself to failure more than once and come back again and do it tomorrow, or even later today.  So it doesn't make sense to do too much pulling.  That said, I realized that keeping your "big four" to pull-ups, push-ups, dips and squats seems to short-change the pulling side a bit as you only have one exercise, granted a difficult one, whereas with pushing you have a difficult one with full body-weight (dips) and an easier one with a lever (push-ups).  I think I want to balance the pulling side with this and add a row.  The row is pretty much the pulling counterpart to the push-up.  That gives me a big five:  Dips, Squats, Pull-ups, Push-Ups, Rows.  I'm curious to see if maxing rows negatively or positively affects pull-ups.  (NOTE:  It's a subject for another post, but legs need a new friend too, no?  I think the big five becomes a big six with a one-leg movement and a two-leg movement.)