Classic Bodybuilding: The "Mini-Max Arm Blasts" of Gene Mozee

Three "Rapid Fire"* Routines for Mind-Blowing Arm Growth

Garrett Sloan builds his muscular arms with various programs

When I started bodybuilding—as I may have mentioned elsewhere on this blog—the first programs that I followed were ones in the "briefer-is-better for massive growth" vein of '80s and '90s training articles.  This sort of training was personified by the Mentzer brothers in the '70s and early '80s, and before that was brought to the world primarily through Arthur Jones (who was the person the Mentzer brothers, Mike and Ray, received their inspiration from in the first place).  And if, like me, you read a lot of Ironman magazine in the '80s and '90s, then you know that the Mentzers and Jones were influential with other Ironman writers such as Steve Holman, John Little, Stuart Robert, and Richard Winett.  (Not to mention Bradley Steiner, even though Steiner wasn't really interested in "HIT" training, but was just a believer in a solid, basics-forward approach to training using full-body workouts.)

At some point, once I had built a little muscle and was feeling a bit more "exploratory", I made the switch to what Steiner would have probably considered the "dark side": volume workouts with a lot of sets and reps, and multi-bodypart splits.  My main inspiration in this regard were two well-known writers from this era: Greg Zulak and Gene Mozee.  Zulak ended up having the most influence on me, but it was Mozee who could regale his reader with tales from the Golden Days of bodybuilding when everyone trained with at least 20 sets per bodypart and, on top of that, trained each muscle group multiple days per week.  I was interested in seeing if such workouts really could produce the results that Mozee seemed to promise, and, in fact, were not the bane and dearth of muscle growth everywhere (as Mentzer, loony as he eventually became, would have had you believe).

I made my best gains on volume-oriented routines in the mid '90s, albeit training with far less frequency than what was recommended by Mozee.  But the workouts themselves were very much an amalgam of Mozee and Zulak, with whatever other tricks and tips I picked up from other workout writers thrown in for good measure.

I was particularly fond of an article that Mozee wrote for Ironman that appeared in the September '92 issue.  Porter Cottrell appeared on the cover (I met Cottrell in person once, and he was very nice), and the issue had several other fantastic articles, including a re-printing of Steiner's article on his "size and strength split", which was worth the price of the issue alone.  The Mozee article was entitled, you guessed it, "Mini-Max Arm Blasts".  The article was based on performing a lot of sets for both the biceps and triceps in one short workout, using 3 workout programs: "descending sets", "10 blast supersets", and "power-mass supersets".

Program 1: Descending Sets

"This program was given to me by Dan Pace, a bodybuilder/powerlifter and gym owner who used it to produce new arm growth on pupils who had hit a wall," Mozee said.  "This program allowed his students to pump up their arms larger than they ever had before."

The program works similar to other descending sets programs that you have probably used before, with a couple of caveats.  One, you are going to superset a biceps and a tricep exercise, and two, you are going to do each descending set for 3 sets of 7 reps, for a total of 21 reps on each exercise.  (Classic bodybuilders from the '70s and before seem to like "21 reps" for some reason.)

Use dumbbells for the workout, simply because its easy to move from one dumbbell to another without having to "strip weight" on a barbell.  Mozee recommended lying triceps extensions supersetted with incline dumbbell curls.

Begin the program by selecting 3 pairs of dumbbells that you can do 7 reps with, say 30s, 25s, and 20s.  Do 7 reps with the 30s, immediately followed by 7 reps with the 25s, and then 7 with the 20s.  And as soon as you finish the last set of 7 move immediately to a descending set of incline dumbbell curls.

Perform 3 more "cycles" of supersets to finish the workout.

Program 2: 10 Blast Supersets

"This procedure has many variations because you pick your favorite biceps and triceps exercises and blast out 10 sets of each in superset fashion without resting," says Mozee.  "As with all exercises in this article, you must use strict form and work as hard as possible.  Complete the 10 supersets as fast as possible—no resting until you finish the routine."

In the article, here are the 2 routines that Mozee recommended:

Seated dumbbell curls: 10x8-10
Lying barbell triceps extensions: 10x8-10

Lying lat machine curls: 10x8-10
Standing pushdowns: 10x8-10

Program 3: Power-Mass Supersets

This is the hardest of the 3 programs in the article.  Below are Mozee's words verbatim:

"This is a very rugged routine that produces both size and strength and the same time.  It works best for the advanced bodybuilder.  The exercises are preacher bench curls and parallel bar dips

"Begin with preacher curls with a weight that you can handle for 8 to 10 reps.   Without resting, hustle to the dip bars and do 8 to 10 reps with weight, carefully concentrating all the force of the exercise on your triceps.  Perform 3 sets of each exercise as fast as you can in superset fashion.  Add more weight for the 4th and 5th supersets and do 5 to 7 reps.  Add still more weight and do 2 sets of 3 to 5 reps.  On the final superset, drop the poundage and blast out 15 to 20 reps on the curls, and do as many reps as you can on the dips without weight.  Your arms will be blown up beyond recognition."




*This, and all other quotes, are from the article "Mini-Max Arm Blasts" that appeared in the September 1992 issue of Ironman.