Fire and Blood
PREFACE MIKE MENTZER(1951-2001) Within 36 hours of signing the agreement for this book, Mike Mentzer died in his sleep of a heart attack. There had been a congenital predisposition to heart troubles in the Mentzer family. Mike’s father, Harry Mentzer, had also died prematurely from cardiac problems, and in what would seem like something out of a Greek tragedy, Mike’s younger brother, Ray, would die from the same cause a mere two days after Mike’s passing. Both his life and his death speak to the issue of genetics that Mike had stressed so often and so resolutely in his writings and seminars, for genes, as he often said, are the prime determinant of not only muscular success, but overall health and longevity. Mike received the genes to achieve muscular (and I dare say philosophical) greatness, but he was shortchanged, genetically speaking, in the department of overall health and longevity. We were lucky to have him as long as we did, and I believe that were it not for his traini...