You have probably heard the hype. Mike Maner's heavy duty training. One set to failure per muscle group once per week and you will experience results like you never imagined. But the shocking truth is that Mike Mens did not train like that when he built his phenomenal physique. In fact, system that he promoted later in life, very low in volume, uh, high intensity is very different than training method that he used during his prime. In this video, I will break it all down. Number one, I will talk about the essence of heavy duty as it was marketed. Number two, how Mike Menser really trained in his best competitive days. Number three, how he dramatically changed his approach in his later years. And number four, I will compare heavy duty training method with Arnold's and Nubre's training method. And by the end, you will know exactly uh why the heavyduty training system may not be the best system for you if you really want to build big muscles and burn body fat and end up with some fantastic physique. So uh let me tell you about my own experience in the previous video and mentioned my shock when I went to Paris and u I discovered something completely different. I was in the beginning in my first two years of training I was devoted disciple of Mike Menser and his heavy duty training method. Uh I was getting bigger stronger but I was far away from looking like a bodybuilder. I was just a lump. I was chunky. I was fat and uh a lot of people think that this is because my diet was wrong. But this is not true. The truth. A lot of other people that I met who also did heavy duty training method ended up looking like me. In fact, even Mike Mener himself when he started reducing the volume and increasing intensity in his later competitive days, he never uh actually repeated his peak condition in um 1978 and also 1979. But I will talk to uh about that in more detail in in few minutes. Now, um there is a problem with uh heavy duty training method and Mike Manson himself. First of all, uh nobody has ever seen any video of Mike's real workout. Uh nobody has seen Mike Manser in public training like for example Arnold was training in in golf's gym, Serge was training in his gym. People were around, everybody could have seen him. The same applies to Franco Columbo, to Sergio Lea. The same applies to Lee Henron and Dorian Yates and Ronnie Coleman and Jay Cutler and everybody else that you know all these top names in bodybuilding. People could have seen them training. But Mike Manser, no. He was training with his brother first thing in the morning, very early in the morning in the gym, in the locked gym when nobody was around. Nobody knows what they were training what that training system was. But uh fortunately or unfortunately depending in which camp you you uh belong uh there are some eyewitnesses very reputable eyewitnesses who actually saw Mike Mans training and uh I just want to tell you what they have said. So uh there are few people actually who saw Mike Mman training. uh one of them was Burko who was a bodybuilder a professional bodybuilder he competed with Mike Mensah and Boro said that actually u Mike Mensah didn't train uh exactly as he was promoting later on with very low volume and uh super high intensity as as we learned from his books but uh that he actually trained with much higher volume and uh more or less train like um like everybody else. So um uh Buo said that he was doing three to five working sets per exercise and uh uh four to five exercises per muscle group. So this is quite substantial volume not necessarily the same as S Nubra or Arnold but is still high volume and uh in his word Mike trained very hard but he didn't do just one set he did multiple sets just like the rest of us. So this is what Ber co said. Now John Little who was actually Menser's very close friend and biographer also said about u uh Mike Menser that he actually uh didn't train as uh in his later consolidation program during his competitive years. Now Casey Vayur who was also uh known to do high intensity low volume actually said that uh uh that Mike Menser didn't train exactly as he was talking about in his heavy duty protocols but that he trained in much higher number of sets per each muscle group. Now also Dorian Yates Dorian Yates went met m met Mike Menser and took some advice from him but he didn't follow his principles and Dorian Yates in his own words said that Mike's ideas were useful but I modified him. He went too far with low volume and infrequency. Um so um there were other regulars in gold gym who saw Mike Manser training and they all said the same thing like Ed Cornney for example and Tom Platz and uh they commented that Mike trended very hard but not in the ultraabbravated way that he later promoted. So what is this telling us? Uh basically it is telling us that Mike Mensah I believe after his failure to to win Olympia in uh 1980 uh he probably realized that there is no much money to be made for him in the professional bodybuilding and uh as a brilliant mind that he was he actually realized that maybe he should be doing something else. So she he wanted to promote a training method which will be more applicable to people who don't have time to go to the gym. Now these people who are uh office people, bankers, managers and and others uh they couldn't spend two three hours training in the gym every day. So for them uh all these other training principles like Arnolds or Serge or other training methods that Vader promoted in his days uh were not applicable. So they were not really interested in in doing something like that. Then Mike Menser came to an idea that basically if I create a system which will promise them short workouts maybe two three times per week in later stages only once per week or maybe once in 10 days the whole body workout which will last like 30 40 minutes that would be more appealing to people and then he developed his heavy duty training system and u uh really sold a lot of books because male business when that was then popular they didn't have internet they didn't have YouTube they didn't have Instagram and Facebook and similar social media devices that obviously people can use in order to promote and sell. But the mail business was very big. Arnold made lots of money selling his books as well. But Mike Mener was very popular and he developed this system. Not only people who didn't have time, but also people who didn't want to spend two, three hours every day in the gym, they found their their solace in training heavy duty. um few two three times per week, four maybe every other day only in later pro uh promotion once a week or once in 10 days. So uh there is a lot of people that actually uh follow this method. I don't know how successful that is, but I've never seen anybody building big muscles and achieving anything substantial competing in bodybuilding by simply using exactly heavy duty training method as Mike Menser uh advocated. Now uh let me quickly remind you about Mike Menser's career and the timeline of uh his training evolution time timeline. So uh in his uh early career preheavy duty Mike used to uh this is between 1975 and 78 he used to train uh five to six days per week and uh he would he would do three to five sets per exercise and four to six exercises per body part. So we are talking there uh anywhere from 20 maybe to 30 sets per muscle group. Uh he would train each muscle group twice per week. So we're talking about extreme volume. Let's say if it's 30 sets there will be 60 sets for chest or legs or back. So he was training basically like everybody else. And he was very much influenced by Arnold uh Arnold's method and also the gold gym crew. So uh what happened uh while he was doing this type of training? Well, in 1978 IFBB Mr. Universe heavyweight class Mike Menser was uh he won with a perfect score of 300. So nobody ever in bodybuilding repeated that. So he was in an amazing shape. He had the size, he had the shape, he was tight, he was ripped. And this was due to his training method that he applied from 1975 to 78. So uh in 78 he won again with a perfect score. So this is just the proof that he was doing obviously something right. Now uh after that Mike Menses uh continued with that system and repeated extremely uh successful uh attempt in 1979 when he lost from Frank Zayn. But by many people this was the best shape that that Mike Menser ever achieved. He was still doing similar to that uh training system as before training each muscle uh with 20 to 30 sets but but he has decreased the frequency and he appear he appeared in 1978 in a in a fantastic shape. Uh he would do uh four to six exercises per muscle group but now two to three working sets. So he dropped the sets. So he was doing a bit less and also he was doing uh uh 4 day split in four to five days a week. Uh intensity was to failure using force reps, negatives and rest pose. Now um in 1980 Mener appeared on on the Mr. Olympia and uh he ended up fifth. He wasn't in in great shape. He wasn't conditioned and he even admitted himself that he was not very good. The reason for that is that um he changed his training method. He reduced the volume even further down. That obviously showed in his conditioning. Uh also there was some shoulder injury apparently. But uh uh Mike Mansoner never repeated his 1978 and 79 uh package that he uh delivered on the stage. Now uh uh the volume was much lower in 19 uh than in 1979. He did uh one or two working sets per exercise. So much lower. And also uh he did two to three sets per major group. So basically he reduced the volume volume dramatically. He was doing a uh 4 day split but with a longer rest between sessions if needed. Uh regarding intensity it was always absolute failure, force reps, negatives, rest pose, all these different techniques. So um he was testing his new system but uh clearly that system didn't work. So he came heavier. He he was bloated. He wasn't um conditioned. He wasn't shredded. And uh he actually admitted himself that uh he wasn't as good as before. Clearly the reduction in volume and uh uh less precise preparation possibly were the reasons for that. Now u in the post competition heavy duty which is from 1983 to 1989 Mener uh started training clients and he even further simplified his training method. So he started promoting uh quite uh different method than before. The volume was cut down to one to two sets per exercise and exercise will be two to three per muscle group. Every uh muscle will be trained once in seven days. So um less fre frequency less uh uh volume than before again and from 1993 till 2001 in his final version of heavy duty training method Mike Menser actually promoted something very drastic which is uh only one to two working sets per muscle group and uh only one to two exercises per body part. So uh entire body will be trained every 7 to 10 days. So all you need to do according to this latest version of heavy duty is uh one training session full body two to three exercises per muscle group only one to two sets per uh body part per exercise. So uh I think I have explained to you the evolution of his heavy duty training method and uh I have managed to uh clarify that this this method actually that he promoted later on the one that everybody knows low volume low frequency etc intensity one two sets per exercise uh never worked it actually never worked for him. I doubt that that method ever worked for any of his clients. The reason why I'm saying this is that I have never seen before and after picture of any of his clients. Also, there are many others very big, you know, fitness gurus and experts on internet. You can see them every day. But I hardly see any before and after picture of their clients. They would put them if they had, but they they didn't. They don't have them. So, Mike Manson never had anything like that. This is why we never saw a single client that he changed. Uh I would like to mention that if you go to my website, you can see a high number of people that I have changed from from really bad shape into unbelievable uh condition, men, women, recreational, natural, professional, competitive bodybuilders, everybody else. So um also you can see those people giving uh u uh live uh uh comments uh of training with me and u testimonials. Obviously you can see them in the gym. If you come to Muscle Works in London, you can see my clients. They're real people. They are not fake. I never had to do that. But Mike Manser never showed anything like that. Yes, he worked with people like uh uh Aaron Baker and uh Dorian Yates, but these people were already finished products. they were already there, but I never saw anybody to take somebody like from an average shape and and make them with a sixpack or even compete on the stage. That never happened. So, um uh this is what I I can say about heavy duty training method and uh and my aspiration to promote this method was purely commercial. It was purely to to make living out of heavy duty training system and he did well. Uh he sold lots of books. influenced a lot of people how much they benefited from that I don't know they know them themselves but uh this is what I have to say about this training method now I was also disciple of heavy duty but fortunately when I went to Paris in 1983 uh I met Serge Lubre and and then everything changed complete change of u of attitude the the whole world changed for me I started training with higher volume and I started changing And as you've seen in the previous video, my changes were dramatic. I I improved my shape. I increased in muscle mass. I I I even started competing. And I had a great competitive career competing 46 times, winning 17 shows. And my training was always high volume training uh uh relatively high reps and uh training five to six times per week. Uh now let me just uh quickly uh compare uh Mike Menser's heavy duty training system to Arnold's high volume training system. So Arnold train much differently much more differently. Arnold would do um uh five to six exercises per per muscle group in average five sets for each exercise. Uh usually hitting 20 25 sets per muscle group per big muscle group. Uh sometimes even 30. And uh for smaller muscle groups, he would do anywhere from 15 to 20 uh sets uh Arnold used to train uh in his preparation period um he would train um every other day muscle uh sorry muscle every uh twice per week and uh clearly this this system allowed Arnold to develop the body that he developed and obviously win uh so many titles including Mr. Olympia. So um uh then there is another uh example as I spoke more in detail in previous video and that's Serge Nubra high volume workout. Nubra was doing even more sets than than Arnold. He was doing um up to 40 sets. I I witnessed that myself and obviously results were immense. Not just SUR but many other people who were around him in the gym um they applied the same method and they've benefited greatly. None of them had to do any cardio because this training is obviously high in volume. Um and the reps that Nubra was advising were all from 12 to 20. So um now the reason why this high high volume uh training method uh worked actually is uh not just to generate big muscle size but also to to produce lean bodies. This was the my my issue in the beginning when I just started heavy duty and and follow this religiously. A lot of people said, "Oh, you were not in shape because you were not following the good diet." But uh wait a little bit. Let's see what training high intensity low volume training does. First of all, it doesn't uh speed up your metabolism as the high volume let's say 25 30 sets per per session can do. uh metabolism is much slower when you train every other day or even less frequently than if you train almost every day. Number two, uh high volume uh training system stimulates higher production of growth hormone and growth hormone is directly responsible for uh burning body fat if you're natural obviously if you're not taking any growth hormone. Arnold uh Serge Nubra and the guys in those days they didn't. So they had to rely on the natural production higher production of growth hormone in order to burn body fat. And this is exactly what happened. This is what happened to Mike Menser as well while he was training high volume training system in his in his peak days. But when he slowed down when he did less frequency and shorter workouts clearly that didn't happen. So metabolism slows down and also production of growth hormone goes a little bit down. So these two factors are directly related to the type of training that you will apply. Now uh when it comes to the number of sets I would just like to mention to you that recently even so-called scientific research which uh I don't follow follow blindly but I like to hear that he suggests that uh for the beginners anywhere up to 10 12 sets per week per muscle group can be beneficial but if you are intermediate that is not going to be the case. So you will need to up those sets to 15, even to 20. So if you are more advanced bodybuilder, nobody did any scientific research on them, but now they're popping out more often. You will need to be from 20 to 30 sets per muscle group. And this is where actually the the real optimization of muscle growth happens in advanced bodybuilders. So again, the old school has proven to be right. They didn't know that then scientifically, but they experimented and they found out that it's not the same to do 10 sets per muscle group per week or maybe to do 40 sets per muscle group per week. So clearly people who did higher number of sets ended up being bigger in much better shape and ripped before the show. So um now that the interesting part is that even up to 40 sets now you can look at the research is beneficial for some who are more advanced. So even Nubre who was super advanced benefited from that type of training which was in those day un unimaginable. People are saying oh this is not possible. Yeah it was possible. I didn't believe it until I went and and and seen it myself. So um uh one more thing a lot of people come back to me and they say oh but you know I'm a natural bodybuilder. There's no way I'm going to do 40 sets. I never did. I tried actually a few times but I I hardly did ever 40 sets. My best my highest number of sets would be let's say 30. Uh most of the time I was between 20 and 25 sets. That was me. Arnold also responded well to that number and many others. Probably majority like Jay Cutler for example or Lee Haney they were all in that region around 20 25 up to 30 sets per big muscle groups. And uh even if you're natural you don't have to just copy and paste Serge Nubra training system or Arnold Schwarzenegger training system or my training systems. It doesn't it just doesn't work like that. But you you need to take the principle. So if you're doing 10 sets and you are stagnating or you're not building uh bigger muscles, uh maybe you should try to up that to 15 or maybe 20 sets. Give it a go. Try. I mean nothing nothing will happen easy. You are not going to change anything if you just do the same thing over and over and over again. And I will be talking about that in the video which should be coming after this one on Saturday I believe. And I will talk about breaking the plateaus and why you are stagnating on what what what you possibly can do in order to keep progressing because everybody including myself at some point the training just stops delivering results that you expect. So there are things that you need to change. So um I hope that you got the the message from this video in which um I have explained to you why heavy duty training system is not the best one that can offer you results that that you are expecting and uh you should apply uh maybe high number of high number of sets possibly higher number of reps as well and just find that that that perfect range where you will benefit. So doesn't have to be the same as what Nubra did or Arnold did but the idea is to hit that sweet spot which will benefit you. So u let me just remind you once again that u I have published uh nine books and uh for those ones who like to expand their knowledge deepen their horizon horizons and um learn much more in detail everything about muscle growth, fat loss, nutrition. uh you're more than welcome visit my website nashwetraining.com or simply just uh click on the link in the comments and you will have the access to my ebooks. Uh so guys uh if you enjoy this video uh please subscribe to my channel if you didn't also like the video, share the video and send me your comments. As you know I I hope I try to answer as many comments as possible. So sorry if I don't answer all of them because there quite quite a few coming. But uh in any case um I will see you in the next video and uh until then I wish you all the best. [Music] [Applause]