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Mike Mentzer Tribute

I did not know the man Mike Mentzer, in the way I could say I know my friends and family. I did not know him personally in the way I could say I have known my neighbors and my brother. So, everything I am about to say comes from what I know of Mike Mentzer, through his articles, audio lectures, books, website, the one phone consultation that I had with him, and the e-mails that we traded over the last several years. However, I know enough about Mike Mentzer to back up the statements that I will make, because this is the way that I perceived him to be. This is not a biography of Mike Mentzer. I am not concerned with his bodybuilding achievements. His biography is being worked on by his longtime friend John Little, and will likely be available through his website www.mikementzer.com when it is finished. I intend on purchasing it and suggest that those reading this do the same.

That was the question I asked. Sure, I had just read the article. I knew this was a picture of the author. But come on! This guy was too perfect. He was big, but not monstrously so like the other professional bodybuilders in the magazine. This physique actually looked attainable. Ok, not by me, but still, if you ever saw a physique that could be considered "The Total Package" this was the physique. And the article, while I don't recall the title, or what it was directly about, if you've read Mentzer, you know that his writing didn't involve diatribes on women's panties and how much this new Weider supplement helped him. There were two names that stuck out in my head Arthur Jones and Ayn Rand. I had never heard of them before. But they sounded important to this man. I knew they were names I would remember.

This was the first time that I saw a bodybuilder who looked like a man made of muscle and bone, not obviously borne of drugs. He was not a collection of veins thrown onto bodyparts that seemed sewn together. This was a picture of a man carved of stone. And reading the article again showed me that his head was not hollow. This I knew, was the start of something important for me. This, was a turning point in my physical and emotional development. I was 13. I had just been introduced to a real life hero. And that was just the first of many improvements in my life.

Initially, I did not respond well to Mike's training advice. I enjoyed his philosophical statements, but did not believe in the idea of such limited volume. It was not that I had a good argument against it. I was just so caught up in the ideas espoused in magazines, and so new to everything that I did not consider the possibility of using logic in order to determine whether or not what I was doing had any validity. When I was 14, I purchased The Virtue of Selfishness and For The New Intellectual, which appeared to be the best Ayn Rand books at my local Barnes & Noble. I continued listening to the tapes I had of Mentzer, and continued reading Ayn Rand's works. Eventually, I ordered Heavy Duty 2. While reading this I began to come to many of the conclusions Mentzer had, drawing out the concepts of each paragraph before getting to the point where he explained it in the next paragraph. This was perhaps the first time that I used logical deduction.

While I did not believe in the idea of consolidated training (using it only for 3 cycles of his prescribed workouts), I was sold on lower volume training, and the desire to never again not know why I used a certain volume. I was similarly sold on the philosophical principles of Objectivism. Through Mike Mentzer's influence, not only as a bodybuilding figure, but also as a man who came across as really "having his shit together", I became exposed to a time saving and result producing method of exercise, as well as starting on the path to realize my intellectual potential through philosophy. For this, I owe Mike Mentzer a great debt. Mike Mentzer was also responsible for introducing me to the International Association of Resistance Trainers (The IART). There I have found more people that value logic in training.

In September of last year Mike sent me an email where he told me that he was giving a kidney to his brother Ray, and prior to that he would be receiving spinal surgery. He left his number and asked me to call him. He said that he missed hearing from me. The email included an article on Objectivism and its effects on dot com businesses. I was thrilled that someone who was a hero to me had taken the time to send me something that was important to him, because he believed it would be important to me. It was. Unfortunately, I do not recall whether or not I called him. I believe I did, but it is possible that the idea of speaking to someone who had been such a great influence on my life left me hesitant, and I may have failed to call. I do not remember.

For these benefits I will always be in debt to Mike's memory. While I did not know him personally, I still feel that I have lost a friend. His influence on me extends far beyond my interest in exercise, as he has helped in my intellectual and emotional development more than he could ever know. He was like a walking hero. Mike Mentzer was a real life Howard Roark, who stood by the courage of his convictions against all odds. In my eyes, he won.

If you go to Mike Mentzer'sWebsite: www.mikementzer.com, and read the welcome page, you will find Mike telling the tale of the numerous individuals whose lives he has benefited not only through logical exercise instruction, but through the introduction to philosophy, namely Objectivism.

This to me, may have been Mike Mentzer's greatest contribution of all. And in a way, it proves his own influence and efficacy as a writer. After all, if his manner was that of some of the juvenile writers in the industry, he never would have had the impact that he had. Mr. Mentzer's work has never gone without scrutiny, and has never gone without being noticed. Even in refutation, Brian Johnston (President and Founder of the IART) was able to fine tune his reasoning skills in order to debate the validity of optimizing one's physique using Heavy Duty Consolidation training (the PDF document is available for download at www.exercisecertification.com).

There can be no doubt that Mike Mentzer's influence extended far beyond weight training. While many in the exercise community did not agree with him, they were forced to "put-up-or-shut-up" when Mike called them out. No one chose to respond. Most resorted to personal attacks (which continue on the MFW newsgroup), never attempting to reason out their response (save for Brian Johnston who has responded with the above mentioned 72 page critical analysis of Mentzer's system).

Mr. Mentzer was not afraid to stand alone against the people who claimed that he was wrong, and for that he will always have my respect. As he himself stated several times in his audio tapes, books, and magazine articles: "I was not put on this earth to win a damned popularity contest." I believe that he has won much more than that.