Chest & Back

The first workout in 'High-Intensity Training the Mike Mentzer Way' is Chest and Back.

Arthur Jones, who Mentzer credits with introducing him to HIT, advocated training larger muscles first. However, Mentzer felt that training this way would fatigue one too much and therefore not allow a full workout of the smaller area (chest in this case).

Chest is worked out in this manner:
Warm-up - Incline Press. Do 2 relatively light sets, then 1 with a fairly decent load.
Flyes or Pec Deck - 1 set to failure, 6 - 8 reps.
Incline Press - 1 set to failure, 1 - 3 reps.

Back is worked out in this manner:
Warm-up - Reverse Grip Pull-downs. Do 2 relatively light sets, then 1 with a fairly decent load.
Nautilus Pullover or Straight Arm Pullovers - 1 set to failure, 6 - 8 reps.
Reverse Grip Pull-downs, 1 set to failure, 6 - 8 reps.
Dead Lifts - 1 set to failure, 6 - 8 reps. Take extra time warming up with this one!
As an alternative to dead lifts, 1 set of Shoulder Shrugs to failure.