Did the "1980 Mr. Olympia" kill Mike Mentzer?

[hypo_glycemic]

^ the Lancaster Health Spa in Lancaster CA?? Those guys were on a lot of stems, but none-the-less, trained balls to the wall!! Freaking incredible intensity! You had to be there to grasp them doing that much volume on 2 hours of sleep. I admire the "heavy duty" philosophy of training.

 

[WINSTON]

mike once said that the oak was a big prussian son of a . b... one of thfew to hate arnie at one time . most people agree that arnold schwarzenegger is bodybuilding. in fact too much . such a big personality in a small sport is what is the problem

 

[WINSTON]

arnold once said i am bodybuilding and bodybuilding is me mdestry was not his thing he came in 1980 with 6 olympias behind him . a big palmares

 

[strongrunbox]

mike once said that the oak was a big prussian son of a . b... one of thfew to hate arnie at one time . most people agree that arnold schwarzenegger is bodybuilding. in fact too much . such a big personality in a small sport is what is the problem

Maybe he was right about something

 

[MDR]

I think ultimately his death was due to suffering from substance abuse issues and mental illness. I'm sure each made the other worse. Very sad that he wasn't able to get help before it was too late.

 

[Curt James]

arnold once said "i am bodybuilding and bodybuilding is me." modesty was not his thing. He came in 1980 with 6 olympias behind him . a big palmares

A big what?

 

[Curt James]

I think ultimately his death was due to suffering from substance abuse issues and mental illness. I'm sure each made the other worse. Very sad that he wasn't able to get help before it was too late.

Agreed 100%.

 

[Little Wing]

some of my favorite boxers seem to have had a very rough time deciding they were done boxing. that last fight turns into several last fights chasing victory. i like the lower weight boxers because so often you see them display so much heart. they try and keep boxing when they are still 2/3s knocked out. heart is just something not every athlete has enough of... sometimes figuratively sometimes literally. Mike may have died from heart disease young even if he never got into bb. and maybe mike's "heart" was for his family not trophies and titles. he lost it when his dad died and i don't think his brother dying two days after he found Mike dead was purely coincidental. Both brothers had issues with blood clots but i wonder if Ray stopped dialysis altogether when Mike died. My mom chose to stop a few days before her death.

On June 10, 2001, at approximately 9:00 AM, Mike Mentzer's heart stopped beating while he was asleep. Earlier that year, a blood clot broke loose from his leg and went to his lung. During this hospitalization, tests revealed that Mike had suffered two silent heart attacks that he never even knew he experienced. There was a history of heart disease in the Mentzer family.

 

[Bowden]

arnold once said i am bodybuilding and bodybuilding is me mdestry was not his thing he came in 1980 with 6 olympias behind him . a big palmares

A big what?

Palmares = Record of achievement.

 

[WINSTON]

palmares is all the big things that arnold achieved . curt. . arnold had a great road sheet . before 1980. palmares is french. i would say

 

[WINSTON]

mike developed arthur jones ideas and was ditched for this . was beaten by a top heavy skalak in 1977 and out of shape arnold inm 1980 . yates proved hit has some real truth .

 

[WINSTON]

arnold said in interview . that his comeback in 1980 was not his wisest decision . untypical humility .

 

[ak1951]

I believe that Mike was a threat to the status-quo. One short work out a week and conventional diet was not a money maker for the industry. Over training is HUGE business. Just like Doc's and the AMA are not interested in curing any disease. Mike had a true personal interest in helping people. This does not fit into the money machine. An O win would have threatened the entire industry had Mike won. As in ALL things...it is about economics.

 

[Curt James]

I believe that Mike was a threat to the status-quo. One short work out a week and conventional diet was not a money maker for the industry. Over training is HUGE business. Just like Doc's and the AMA are not interested in curing any disease. Mike had a true personal interest in helping people. This does not fit into the money machine. An O win would have threatened the entire industry had Mike won. As in ALL things...it is about economics.

He was also a threat to Arnold's pride, I believe. High volume was what the Oak was preaching and to have some n00b show up and say that Arnold didn't have it right...

 

[KILLEROFSAINTS]

how did mike develop jones ideas for him?

 

[WINSTON]

well get back to what mike wrote himself . he advocated nautilus too . . and so on . but who train this way now among the pros . seems few .

 

[l69lou]

I was around the situation in a very small way . Mike trained with Ray at my gym in MD before he went to Cali when he used to go to the U of MD . When he came back after the Olympia that Arnold won he was obsessed . He had put together a movement to boycott the next MR OLYMPIA due to it being fixed and corrupt in his eyes. He went about having meetings at auditoriums and I went to one of these to further this movement . He was very bitter . The failure of this boycott effort only intensified his bitterness. Also after this he came back from Cali another time after to visit the guys and he was found wondering about the gym's parking lot bouncing a rubber ball and mumbling incoherently . It was VERY sad for all of us to see . I idiolized Mike in my start in BBing . I went to his seminars as often as possible and I was broken hearted . Bitterness can eat you up like a cancer . It is such a sad story .

 

[WINSTON]

problem is that some people injured themselves trying heavy duty . it was so new that it needed more explanations . is science could answer everything why not more experts in physiology and strentgh coaches dont have mr olympia bodies . high intensity and jones ideas . were radically different . in those years when mike promoted it . he was kind of loose cannon . .

 

[WINSTON]

thanks curt and english is my second language . i met mike . and i knew . he wanted to add science to bodybuilding .

 

[KILLEROFSAINTS]

if people get hurt doing heavy duty they arent doing it correctly

 

[ak1951]

...well, I'd hate to bust my balls in the gym for years, and do everything else necessary to win this title, to have someone with "charisma" win the title.
Arnold was a Weider ass-kisser...with placings based on physique and condition Arnold should not have even taken second place.
Arnold may get the award for the "world's most self-absorbed man". I cannot tolerate to even look at him.

Man do we have a quorum of old guys here? Cool.

I was going to post this reply. I did love Ahhhnold though. But he was a horses ass no doubt. But his charisma was a Joe W. demand for his commercialization of BB. Mike rowed against the flow big time. He was not a JW game player and pushed his own agenda. Actually I follow his HIT program and it is brutal. I can't do it full time and most I know will not get involved with it. I am torn as to what truly is the secret after 40 years. I will leave the chemistry out of it...but I do remember one Arnold quote when asked about roids. "I wou't eat a cooowww pie if I tho't it wou't make me beegaaaa."

Mike was a mentor for me. Why he died is a puzzle still. I have to lean toward the suicide theory even though I don't want to. RIP Mike. You were an inspiration to many.

 

[WINSTON]

. yes by the way the 1980 olympia killed mentzer a bit . telling people that his was the only way to go meaning everybody was just in the hit and miss . category was not to made friends . but its to strentgh coaches now to clear up . this thing . volume or intensity . and rest pause training . and eccentric and negative training too .

 

[WINSTON]

arnold in his memoirs admit that mr o 1980 was controversial . he says this thing made some harm to bodybuilding . he had chest arms and calves in 190 bad timing for him and bad grooming too . look his hair in this contest compare to others

 

[WINSTON]

yes 1980 in a way did kill mentzer . . whats next today with heavy duty