Mike Mentzer - High Quality Scans You May Not Have Seen Before!!!

[Curt James]

John did you ever know or meet him? What do you think of his Heavy Duty program?

I know you didn't ask me, but as an awestruck teenager I saw Mentzer train triceps at the Lancaster Health Spa. He was facing away from me doing pushdowns. At first glance I thought it was some really big fat guy as there's no way arms that size could be solid muscle. But they were.

Then I saw who it was. Must have been '79 or '80.

[John Hansen]

John did you ever know or meet him? What do you think of his Heavy Duty program?

No, I never met him but I did see him a few times in person. When I went to my first Mr. Olympia in 1977, I saw him standing on a street corner in Columbus and he was wearing a sweatshirt cut off at the elbows and I was blown away by the size of his forearms. I got to see him compete in the 1979 Olympia where he was in fantastic shape.

I thought his Heavy Duty system was a little too extreme. He would have articles in Muscle Builder each month back in the late '70's and it seemed like he was always reducing his volume all the time ("Now I'm down to only doing 2 sets for an entire bodypart") but he was backing it up by improving his physique each year and doing better in competitions. A lot of the guys who were around back then and watched him train said he was doing more sets than he said he was doing. He would train like a lot of us train now, a few warm-up sets and then maybe 2 heavy, working sets with maybe 3 or even 4 exercises per bodypart.

[GDavis]

John, do you have interest or ever talk to Dave about bringing back Natural bodybuilding radio on RX Muscle?

[GDavis]

If Mentzer had been as tall as Arnold and with some broader shoulders he would have put a lot bigger sweat on Schwarzenegger.

Always like Mentzer's Herculean physique. He graduated from the same high school I did, about 10 years prior. They had a picture of him (in a Sunday suit) in the school's lobby for a time. Ephrata also boasts a Miss America winner. It might be the only town with both Mr. America (Mike held the IFBB's version and Ray was an AAU Mr. America) and Miss America winners.


L-R: Evelyn Ay, 1954 Miss America; Mike Mentzer, 1976 IFBB Mr. America

Curt any stories passed down from teachers or kids. I am sure the English teacher would be proud with his dedication to Ayn Rand.

[John Hansen]

John, do you have interest or ever talk to Dave about bringing back Natural bodybuilding radio on RX Muscle?

I never talked to him about it. I think it's all about lining up sponsors to pay for it before anything can happen.

[GDavis]

So you are interested in doing something along those lines if you could line up a few sponsors?

[John Hansen]

So you are interested in doing something along those lines if you could line up a few sponsors?

Sure!

[Curt James]

Curt any stories passed down from teachers or kids. I am sure the English teacher would be proud with his dedication to Ayn Rand.

No stories about Mike, unfortunately.

Ray Mentzer was a member of the high school wrestling team's 30 Pin Club.

Sure!

That would be awesome!

[ypmm5]

This is one of my favorite pics of Mentzer.

Legendary shot.
The man was ahead of time.