Heavy Duty Training Research Paper

While many people know the basics of Heavy Duty training, the advanced techniques are known by only a few. The advanced and super advanced techniques were fully researched and tested by Mike in the late 70's, but following the infamous 1980 Mr. Olympia, Mike retired from competition. After that he worked as a personal trainer and concentrated on what works best for beginners and intermediates. And so Heavy Duty for advanced and super advanced trainees became all but lost, even though Mike made the best gains of his life using these techniques.

Climbing The Ladder Of Intensity

Mike knew that as a bodybuilder grew bigger and stronger, he would eventually require an even more intense training stress if he hopes to continue progressing. If the stress is not more intense he will stagnate and stay at the same level of size and strength.

He had his training partner push down a little on the negative and he would fight to resist it, lowering it as slowly as possible. He then rested 15 seconds before his next maximum positive and negative rep.

The very highest level of Heavy Duty he called Omni-Contraction training, meaning all contraction. There are three ways a muscle can contract, that is lifting a weight (positive), lowering a weight (negative) and holding a weight (static).

In Omni-Contraction training Mike would make each a maximum effort. He would do his one all out maximum positive rep, followed by a maximum negative, but during the negative he would stop the weight and actually try to raise the weight again (which was impossible). He would do these static holds at three different points during the negative rep, the first was at the top, close to the fully contracted position, the second was halfway down and the third was close to the bottom position. Each position was held for a count of 3.

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