January 2026

Optimism is often high in January. A new year has begun, and we have many ideas about what we want to accomplish over the next twelve months. Ideas are the fertile soil of creativity, but without structure, discipline, and a plan of action, great ideas can remain in the theoretical rather than the practical realm. If your desire is to become stronger, fitter, and have more energy so that you can maximize your life, you are not alone. Millions of Americans begin a new calendar year with a vision of losing twenty pounds, improving their eating habits, and starting a regular workout regimen. Unfortunately, a large percentage of those folks fail to sustain their initial enthusiasm and fall back into old habits before spring. In order to succeed and take your mind and body to a new level, it's going to require something different. Are you finally ready to make that commitment to yourself?

I am not a big proponent of New Year's resolutions; as I said earlier, most people fail because they don't have a plan of action and they don't create habits that are sustainable. You don't need to wait for the start of a calendar year to get serious about improving yourself. Procrastination is a mistake; it's time to develop a sense of urgency! I am much more of a believer in creating a vision board. You can design it any way you like; some people like to draw or cut out pictures of things that they want to achieve and put them on poster boards. Others draw squares on poster boards to make them look like bingo cards, and write things that they want to accomplish into each square (I did this for 2026). Most importantly, your vision board should be displayed somewhere that it can be seen every day. Why put forth that effort if you aren't going to see on a daily basis what you want to achieve? Statistics show that people are far more likely to achieve their goals if they are written down and frequently viewed.

A commitment to yourself does not need to take up a lot of your time; it simply requires a willingness to do what needs to be done. Total Results exercise fits that description to a T. However, before you commit to something (particularly our exercise program), you must understand what this entails. Our workouts will be brief, but they will be hard. Most people who come through our doors for the first time have likely never experienced training in this fashion. You will experience fatigue and exertional discomfort - this is simply par for the course. There may be times when you want to quit, but you must press on. People often ask, "When does it get easier?" The answer is that it doesn't. Your easiest workout is your first session. While we do not expect you to exercise intensely in the first few sessions, once you reach a certain level of proficiency and conditioning, each successive session will be demanding. This is necessary in order to stimulate continued physical improvements, and it also explains why the workouts must be both brief and infrequent.

Total Results exercise requires a significant physical and mental commitment, but not a large time commitment. Our sessions will last no longer than twenty minutes, and clients exercise once or twice per week. That's it. Less than one hour per week. You can exercise at any time of day; physiologically, there is no "best time" of day to workout. You can come first thing in the morning, during your workday, or after work. If you can't make it during the week, we also take appointments on Saturdays. A highly educated instructor will supervise every session, keep detailed records of every workout, and provide a level of professionalism, knowledge, and accountability that you cannot find in the gym. Remember, it doesn't happen by itself!

So what is stopping you? None of us knows when our number is up, so don't take a day for granted. As I said earlier, successful habits are those that are easy to follow. One or two twenty minute sessions can fit into anyone's week if they want it badly enough. You have tried other methods, now experience a method that has proven to be effective for more than 40 years. There is no sense in waiting until tomorrow or next month. Make a commitment to yourself today.

John Little is a fitness writer and author of several books, including the Bruce Lee biography "Wrath of the Dragon." He co-authored "Body by Science" with Dr. Doug McGuff in 2009, which in my opinion is the single greatest book ever written for the layperson about high-intensity exercise. In 2025, Little published "Mike Mentzer - American Odysseus", which is a detailed biography of former bodybuilder, philosopher, instructor, and writer Mike Mentzer. The author brings a unique perspective to this project, having been friends with Mentzer for over 20 years before his untimely death in 2001 at the age of 49.

Mike Mentzer grew up in Ephrata, Pennsylvania in a complicated family dynamic; he had older half-siblings from his mother's previous marriage in addition to his younger brother Ray. At the age of 11 he saw his first bodybuilding magazine, and soon thereafter he began weight training. As he grew large and strong throughout his teenage years, it was clear that he had the genetic potential to pursue competitive bodybuilding. Upon graduation from high school, Mentzer did a stint in the Air Force at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. It was during this time that he first started using steroids to prepare for bodybuilding contests (amazingly, they were not illegal until 1990). The story takes a most interesting turn when Mike learns about Nautilus training principles in the early 1970s from a fellow competitor, and he even spent several months in 1974 living in Florida and training with Nautilus founder Arthur Jones at Nautilus headquarters.

In the 1970s (and probably still today) bodybuilders utilized a high volume approach to their training, often doing split routines four to six days per week with as much as twenty sets per muscle group. This was the way that Arnold Schwarzenegger trained, and most bodybuilders followed his lead. Mentzer's methodology (heavily influenced by Jones) involved three full-body workouts per week, taking each exercise to muscular failure, and totalling about an hour per workout. Based on what we know now this was still very high volume, but much less than what other bodybuilders were doing. Mentzer's high-intensity strategy propelled him to a win in the Mr. America competition and a second place finish in the 1979 Mr. Olympia contest. If not for corrupt judging and the heavy-handed influence of Schwarzenegger (returning to competition after a five year retirement), Mike likely would have been victorious in the 1980 Mr. Olympia. It was at this point that he walked away from bodybuilding, never to compete again.

Mentzer never officially retired from bodybuilding, he simply stepped out of the limelight and retreated to a more quiet life. There was a family history of mental illness, and Mike struggled with depression for much of his life. He began self-medicating during the 1980s, acquired other bad habits that would lead to trouble down the road, and was in a dark place for several years. John Little proved to be a trusted friend during this time and helped him get back on his feet. It was during the late 1980s and early 1990s that Mentzer started a thriving personal training and consultation business, working with bodybuilders as well as the general population. An intellectual at heart, Mike began studying his clients' data and realized that there was an inverse relationship between intensity of effort and volume/frequency of exercise. He renamed his approach "Heavy Duty", and began reducing the duration and frequency of his clients' workouts. As a result, they made much more sustained progress over time.

Unfortunately, Mike's lifestyle, genetic factors, and the years of steroid use created significant health problems that ultimately led to his death in 2001 at the age of 49. However, his influence in the high-intensity exercise community continues to this day, in no small part due to John Little keeping the flame going. Mentzer was very different from his contemporary bodybuilders; he was bright, articulate, well-read, studied philosophy in his spare time, and even had aspirations of becoming a psychiatrist. He took the time to ask questions and learn about physiology so that he could maximize his own workouts as well as those whom he trained. His Heavy Duty approach was quite similar to what we do at Total Results, at least in terms of volume and frequency, and I believe he even had conversations with Ken Hutchins in the late 1990s and early 2000s (Hutchins mentions Mentzer in his writings). Mentzer had a significant influence on me, not just in terms of his training approach and cerebral mindset, but he also inspired me to read the works of Ayn Rand. I owe an eternal debt of gratitude to him.

John Little does an outstanding job of telling Mike Mentzer's story. He shares personal anecdotes and experiences based upon his friendship with Mentzer, but is also critical of some of his life choices. Mike's death is a cautionary tale of steroid use, and sadly, he recognized the role they played in his demise once it was far too late. Bodybuilding is a niche sport filled with drug abuse and corruption, and while this book is about far more than just bodybuilding I recognize that probably will not incentivize most folks to read it. However, in my opinion this book is worth reading in order to shine a light on Mike Mentzer and his contributions to the science of high-intensity weight training.

Most people are probably familiar with the phrase, "Think globally, act locally." This has been used in numerous contexts, including education, community empowerment, the environment, and even mathematics. My interpretation of this phrase is that while it is important to realize that so much in life is interconnected, there are things that you can do on a smaller level that will have a greater impact. You can also take a local versus systemic (global) viewpoint when it comes to exercise. The human body is more than just the sum of its parts, and it's important to realize that we want to stimulate the entire organism, not simply improve certain areas.

The bodybuilding world and commercial gym enthusiasts typically endorse split training routines; this is where one trains three or more days per week while concentrating on specific muscle groups in a workout (ex - back/biceps, chest/triceps, etc.). Multiple sets of each exercise are performed, usually for an arbitrary number of repetitions per set, and several exercises are completed for each muscle group. In the case of bodybuilders, this could add up to as many as twenty sets per muscle group; this is known as a volume approach to training. When you factor in that these trainees often take several minutes between sets to sip water, chit chat with other gymgoers, and pose in the mirror, workouts that are structured in this fashion can last a couple of hours. Is this the right approach? From a biological perspective, the answer is no. Sure, a volume training methodology ensures that cumulative fatigue will occur in those muscle groups that have been trained, but not taken into account is the fact that human recovery ability is quite finite. Overtraining happens much more easily than most people realize, especially when training this frequently and with this much volume. Genetically gifted individuals (a very small percentage of the population) may be able to get away with this for a while, especially if they are using performance-enhancing drugs, but sooner or later the end result will be a cessation of progress, illness, and/or injury. There is a much better way.

The Total Results exercise philosophy entails whole body workouts. That may sound like a lot of volume, but it is not. Many of the exercises that make up our workouts are compound movements; this means that you are involving more than one muscle group and multiple joints in that particular exercise. An example of this concept is the Leg Press exercise. Here, we are training the glutes, quadriceps, and hamstrings, as well as the calves, so we are involving the knee, hip, and ankle joints in one exercise. This is the largest movement that we utilize, and the Leg Press will have the greatest overall (read - systemic/global) impact on your muscular development and metabolism. Because we use these compound movements, we are able to train the entire body in much less time and with fewer exercises than with a conventional approach. The key to stimulating muscular and metabolic improvements is not the volume of exercise, but rather its intensity. Intensity can be simply defined as inroad (fatigue)/time. While much still remains to be learned, we do know that exercise must be intense enough to stimulate a growth mechanism, which is why we take each exercise to the point of and beyond muscular failure. Since there is an inverse relationship between intensity of effort and recovery time, it is imperative that we regulate the frequency, intensity, and volume of exercise. This is why Total Results clients exercise for no longer than 20 minutes (five to seven exercises per workout) and train no more than twice per week.

We also use simple movements during our workouts; these are exercises that involve only one joint or muscle group. These exercises have less of a systemic impact, but are much more concentrated and are important for other reasons. The Cervical Extension exercise is wonderful from a postural and injury prevention point of view - everyone should have strong neck muscles. The Calf Raise movement that we perform on the Leg Press machine helps to improve blood flow to the lower extremities, strengthens and stabilizes the ankle joint, and helps to prevent the onset of varicose veins and phlebitis. Our knowledge of human anatomy, understanding of volume, frequency, and the dangers of excessive force combined with precise record-keeping are why we are a better option for injury prevention and rehabilitation than traditional therapy.

When it comes to exercise, the role of genetics cannot be overstated. Much like your eye color or your height, there are certain factors that are largely predetermined by birth, such as your neurological efficiency (the percentage of muscle fibers that can be contracted in an all-out effort) and your muscle fiber type (slow twitch, fast twitch, and intermediate). Greater neurological efficiency and a larger percentage of fast twitch muscle fibers (which have a larger propensity for growth) really only matter if you have bodybuilding aspirations or want to be an Olympic sprinter. I believe that trainable factors, such as effort, desire, ability to focus, exercise form, and tolerance for exertional discomfort will have a larger impact on your level of success. Again, think globally rather than locally.

Begin 2026 by taking a global approach to your life. Schedule a Total Results initial consultation to learn how you can safely make significant physical improvements in less than one hour per week!