The Carnivore Entrepreneur Show

Ep 6 – One & Done Savage Set Framework, Inspired by Mike Mentzer: Efficient Strength Training for True Wealth

• Grant Hutchby • Season 1 • Episode 6

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Unlocking a generation of Carnivore Entrepreneurs who live life on their terms,  with strength, energy, and purpose.

The Carnivore Entrepreneur Show is the cheat code for unlimited performance, productivity, and power.

Stop wasting hours in the gym. In this episode, Grant unveils the One & Done Savage Set Framework. A time-efficient, Mike Mentzer-inspired “one set to absolute failure” method that delivers serious gains in under 30 minutes, three days a week (or less). Discover how to stimulate maximum muscle growth, minimise joint stress, and keep your body injury-free so you can focus on building True Wealth across Body, Mind, and Bank Account.

In this episode you’ll learn:

  • Why more sets doesn't equal more muscle, and how over-training sabotages progress
  • The science behind taking each exercise to concentric, static, and slow-negative failure
  • Exact session structures for 2-day full-body vs. 3-day split routines (72-hour recovery built in)
  • How Grant conquered chronic shoulder and back pain. Plus got stronger than ever, with One & Done
  • Tracking tactics to see weekly strength increases and safeguard long-term longevity
  • How efficient strength training unlocks time and mental bandwidth to pursue True Wealth in business

📝 Bonus: Download the free PDF guide to the One & Done Savage Set Framework—plus three other cheat sheets—here: https://bit.ly/437qEfW

🌐 Connect & Level-Up

🎁 Free Resource Vault

  • 🥩 Performance Plate Framework — Click Here
  • 🏋️‍♂️ One-&-Done Savage Set + 3 Cheat Sheets — Click Here
  • 🧠 Focus & Flow Journal — Click Here
  • 📈 12-Week Results Sprint Plan — Click Here
  • 📆 Weekly PowerSprint Planner — Click Here

Plug these tools into your routine, share the wins with a fellow Carnivore Entrepreneur, and keep building true wealth on your terms, with strength, energy & purpose.

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Stop wasting hours in the gym over training, wasting time causing unnecessary stress on the body, potential injuries that you might get more time in the gym doesn't always equal more gains. If that was the case, you could do set after set after set after set do more and more and more, and your gains would get better and better. But actually training a lot more in the gym and spending extra time in the gym isn't actually going to get you any more gains. It's not an endurance exercise. Strength Training is going in and stimulating the muscle to grow. The muscle doesn't know how much weight, how many reps, how many sets you've done. All it knows is whether you have done something that it's not used to before. Have you taken it past a point of failure? This is my one to set to failure framework, and you can exercise in the gym and get massive gains in under 30 minutes, no more than three times per week. And I want to tell you a story about how I discovered this. I used to train back when I qualified as a personal trainer. I was taught if you wanted to gain or hypertrophy or strength in the gym, you would need to do, you know, there's sort of a criteria, do you want strength? Do you want to grow your muscles? So, you know, usually you do three to four sets per exercise, and you do between eight and 15 reps to failure, and you'd warm up, and you'd adjust the weight and the reps depending on whether you were going for hypertrophy or whether you were just going for pure strength. When I qualified as personal trainer, I did, I got gains from from doing that type of training, because I was training to failure, and that's the point. If you train to failure and you stimulate the muscle, you're going to get growth. But it doesn't matter how many sets or reps or weight that you do, really I did this. I got some gains. I was really strong. I was looking great. Was a personal trainer and sports injury therapist at the time, and I actually massively injured my shoulder. It started off really minor, and I ignored it, and I continued, and I pushed through did my normal training session with the weight and the reps and the sets, and it just progressively got worse and worse and worse. And eventually I just couldn't I couldn't train. I couldn't use my shoulder, I couldn't use that side. And eventually, wasn't just bench press that I couldn't do. It was other exercises that I couldn't do as well. So I stopped, I stopped lifting heavy because I was scared of injuring my shoulder. And since that point, until I learned this framework, I was again scared of ever going heavy, ever pushing myself past a certain point, and therefore I wasn't going to failure. So my injuries scared me, and as well with my back, you know, I injured my back in 2017 and again, that scared me to train things like my legs or anything that put pressure on my back. So there were certain areas of my body that I wasn't training because, again, I was scared of getting an injury. I lost my way. I wasn't getting the strength gains that I wanted to get. I wasn't building the muscles that I wanted. I could never get back to the muscles and the strength that I had in my 20s. But then I found a guy called Mike mentor. You know, I've always looked into strength. Always kept trying to keep up to date with how to build muscle, how to train, how to be fit and healthy. And I came across a guy called Mike mentor. I always followed Arnold Schwarzenegger because it was sort of like, you know, I really like the way that he approaches things. He's a great entrepreneur as well. I've read his book called Total Recall, and that's a fantastic book to read, if you if you haven't read it, because, you know, he's, he's an entrepreneur, you know, he invests in property, and he became an amazing actor, and obviously, you know, the governor of California. So he's done amazing things since bodybuilding, but I always followed him in terms of his bodybuilding and the way that he used to train. But again, I was always scared of getting those injuries back, because, you know, his way of training is, do loads of sets, do heavy weights and do between certain amount of reps. And yeah, again, with Jay Cutler, you know, I looked into Jay Cutler, and he promotes the eight to 12 reps and all that sort of stuff. And they've got absolute gains from it. And I get that. However, found this guy called Mike Mensa, and Mike Mensa talked about this one set to failure method. The whole point of it was and it made a lot of sense, and I think he's not alive now, but I think the reason why it came out over the last couple years and I found him, is because it started to be scientifically proven that. The whole point of growing muscle is to put yourself into a state of failure. So to take your muscles past that point of failure, and it doesn't matter sort of how you do it, just the one set to failure. Method actually talks about taking it just doing one set, and putting all your effort into that one set, because you're not doing multiple sets with loads of weight and all the rest of it, you're much, much less risk of injury because you're putting your joints under much less stress. You're putting your muscles under enough stress to stimulate it, but you're not putting your joints under too much stress so that you get an injury. So I started trying this one set to failure method, and looked at Mike Mensa in the way that he did things. And surprisingly, when I started doing it, I wasn't just getting gains every few weeks. At first, I noticed gains like every different session that I did. So I've always personally done a split routine that works well for me, because I can train three times a week, I was getting gains almost every time I came back to that muscle group. Even now, I'm noticing gains at least every other session that I do. And before that, because I was scared of getting injury and actually reflecting back on when I didn't have those injuries, and I was pushing myself hard, I probably wasn't getting as much gains as what I'm getting now through the one set to failure method. And on top of that, another thing happened, which was amazing was I explained about my problem with my back and the sciatica and how much, how painful it was. I actually thought because the one set to failure method, I've got less risk of injury and I'm putting less stress on my body and my joints and my and my bones. I started doing squats and leg exercises as well, because I was scared of the leg exercises, because of my sciatica. And then something amazing happened. Not only was I getting stronger, but because I was focusing on the technique, I was focusing on how I was doing the exercise, rather than the amount of reps, rather than the amount of sets, rather than the amount of weight, I was focusing much, much more on how I was doing the exercise, and you'd get more of a stretch, I would push my technique a heck of a lot better. So my technique just got so much better because I was focusing on how I was doing the exercise rather than how much I was doing, and that enabled me to stretch more into the exercise. So when you're on the PEC deck and when you're doing dumbbell press, when you're doing flies, when you're doing squats, you would stretch into it much further. Because what you're looking for is a big range of movement, the biggest range of movement that you can get, and the more you focus on your range of movement, the more you stretch into the muscle. And therefore, not only does the muscle get stronger, but it gets more flexible as well. And part of longevity and having a life where you can do loads of different things, you need to have a flexible body. And yes, flexibility comes through stretching, and there's other ways of getting your body flexible, but actually doing strength training correctly can not only get you stronger, but get you more flexible. These are the key things that I learn, and I can only tell you from my own personal experience, but I've been through a lot. I've been doing health and fitness training for 20 years now, and I've trained as a personal trainer. I've been a sports injury therapist. I've kept up to date. I've been through injuries, not just injuries on my back, but injuries on my legs, injuries on my ankle. I actually ruptured three ligaments in my right ankle when I was running as well. So I've had injuries in my ankle, in my leg, in my back, in my shoulder. So I know what it's like to get through an injury and to be scared of getting that injury again. I've been through all of that. I've learned a lot of things along the way with regards to training, and this is by far through all the experiments that I've done and all the injuries that I've been through, and I'm actually been totally injury free and pain free for the last 12 months. I can tell you that this is by far the best method that I've found since starting training 20 years ago. Is when I qualified as a personal trainer, but I was training a couple years before that as well, so over 20 years, and this is the method. So this is the framework. Get your pen out, write it down however. You know, I'm gonna have a PDF that you can download as well. But take note and try this the next time that you that you go into the gym. So the framework is this, what you need to decide on, first is, you need to decide on how much time you've got, and also whether you're going to do it in a gym, or whether you're going to do it at home, you don't need loads of equipment to do this at home. All you need at home is maybe some bands, some dumbbells and a bench. That's all you need. And everyone should be able to have space in their house, because you can put it all. Off to the side. Get a bench that folds up or stand it on its side, put it in a cupboard, whatever it doesn't need to take up much space, and just get it out when you need it. So you can use a bench at home with dumbbells and bands if, if you don't want to go to a gym, or you don't have a gym close by, so it's not a problem. And I will have future videos to tell you how you can do these exercises at home as well what different types of exercises you can do. So that's first off is decide how much time you've got. Can you go? Can you do it two times a week, or can you do it three times a week? The difference is, if you're doing it two times a week, you're going to do a full body workout, and if you're doing it three times a week, you'd do more of a split routine, where you're splitting your muscle groups up. The point is, the reason why it's only two to three times a week and not anymore, is because you need to leave at least 72 hours between each muscle exercise. So if you're doing a split routine, it's fine. You can leave less than 72 hours between each gym session, but that's why you need to do a totally different and opposite muscle group. So if you're doing let's say what I'll just say what I do. So on one day, I will do chest, triceps and shoulders, because that's hitting all of that. And then a couple days later I'll do back, biceps, and that will be the opposite muscle groups to doing chest and triceps. And then obviously the other session for me is lower body and doing legs. The key thing is you need to cover all muscles within your body, all the major, major muscle groups. So if you're doing the whole body, you need to pick a number of exercises to do, and you can get this done within 30 minutes. The one set to failure framework, the carnival entrepreneur. One set to failure framework is you always need to warm up. So pick a lightweight warm up all of your muscles. Pick a compound exercise that's going to hit most of the muscles, and then maybe one other exercise to warm up, and you're doing that on a light weight, 1520, reps, not to failure, just getting the muscles warmed up and priming it ready for exercise. And then the weight that you're going to pick is a weight that you can do five to seven really slow reps. And I'm going to talk to you know exactly how you need to do the one set to failure, because once you've warmed up, you're going to do each exercise one set to failure. And this is absolute 100% failure, so it's just one set. So you know that you just got to get the mindset of, I'm going to put absolutely everything into this one set when you're doing the exercise, the whole point is, is to be full range of movement and nice and slow. What I mean by nice and slow is you're going to push the weight up, or pull the weight up, depending on which type of muscle it is, and you're going to do that nice and controlled. And then when you let it down or release the weight, you're going to pause at the top, or pause after you've done the pushing or the pulling the first bit, and you're going to hold it for two to three seconds. So you're just going to pause two to three seconds at the top, which gives you your static and then you're going to lower it for at least six seconds. So it's a very, very slow, negative movement. And once you've done the maximum amount you can do of those reps, full and slow, pausing at the top, letting down really, really slow. The important thing is to be nice and controlled up and then pausing at the top, letting down really slow, and then what's going to happen is, once you've done your five to seven reps, and you've done as much as you possibly can, you're then going to take a 10 second rest, no more than 10 seconds. So it's about seven to 10 seconds just for your body to quickly reset, but not for you to totally recover. Okay, that's the key, right? Is to pause for seven to 10 seconds, and then you're going to do two more reps on that weight, and then on the final rep, you're going to hold it so push it up as you were before. And you might need a spotter. You might need help. And if you can't get it up on the last one, lower the weight, get the weight lower so that you can actually get it to the top. Because if you can't do that final rep, and you can't push it up, then you either need a spotter, or you're going to need to lower the weight so that you can do it. This is the important bit. This is where you get to absolute failure. This is the bit that you have to do, is you get it to the top. You hold it in the static position that you have held it for the two to three seconds before, but you hold it for absolutely as long as you can, and then lower it or let the weight down in the negative movement as slowly as you possibly can, even sometimes pausing on the way down, but let it go as slowly as you. Possibly can. You may even find you get to a point when you start lowering it that you literally cannot hold onto the weight anymore, and you've got to release. But slower you go, the better, and then once you've done that, you have gone to absolute failure. Because failure is not just doing the concentric movement, the pushing or the pulling, failure is going to the static. And this is what Mike Mensa teaches, right? Mike Mensa teaches that you can go so far on the concentric movement, the pushing or the pulling, and then after that, once you've gone to failure on that, you can hold it. And then once you've gone to failure on that, you can lower it so you can hold more than you can push or pull, and you can lower more than you can hold. So that's the point is, once you've gone to failure on the static and the lowering or the negative movement, that's when you've gone to absolute failure. And that means you've done that exercise, you've gone to absolute failure, and you've stimulated that muscle enough to grow once you've done that exercise before you move on to the next exercise. That's when you have your rest. So you need to rest for at least two minutes. That's when you move on to the next one. I'm between two and three minutes. You might be a little bit more. It's all about listening to your body. Now I spoke about the 72 hours. So if you're doing it two times a week, you're going to be doing a full body exercise. So what you do is you leave 72 hours between each strength session do a steady state cardiovascular exercise. Or, you know, if you're looking to increase your cardiovascular you might do something a little bit more high intensity, but don't do any strength training between your strength exercises or strength sessions. However, if you're doing a split routine, the good thing is, you do need to leave a gap between strength exercises. So I recommend to leave 24 or 48 hours between strength sessions. However, because you're doing different muscle groups, you're going to go a whole week before you get back to that muscle group. Now, I've had better gains for doing a split routine. Some people have better gains for doing the whole body. So again, it's something for you to try, something for you to give a go, but have a look at what your body reacts to the most, and also listen to the amount of time that you got. Sometimes you might want to do full body one week because you can only do two sessions. Another week, you might want to do three and do a split routine. The most difficult thing, and this is the thing that I've had to learn over the last 18 months or so since, since I've learned this from Mike mentor, is to learn how to push yourself to failure. It's all in the mind. If your mind fails and your mind thinks you can't do anymore, you won't do anymore. So that's the key thing that you're going to have to learn. Is slow and controlled reps and learning, the ability, the mental capacity to push yourself to absolute failure. That's failure on the concentric movement, the static movement, and then the negative movement. So the whole point of this way of training the carnival entrepreneur, one set to failure framework, is it saves you time. So it saves the busy entrepreneur so much time, like you can get the strength training done within an hour and a half per week, sometimes even an hour. If you're doing the two times per week, you can get this done in under an hour, so less than an hour and a half you only need to do three times a week. As long as you're getting your steps in and you're eating right, you'll be able to lose your fat that you need to lose, because fat is not lost in the gym. Fat is lost in the kitchen. Okay? And the steady state cardiovascular exercise that you do there's, they call it zone two, and it's any exercise where you keep your body below 135 beats per minute. If you do that, that'll be in your fat burning zone. And that's why that again, they call it zone two, save time track your progress so that you can see the gains that you're getting every single session. Because I guarantee you to do this right. Every single session, you'll see a game, whether that's an extra rep or a tiny little bit of extra weight. You know you will start seeing the gains and test your strength every four weeks. Pick some strength exercises that you can do to test your strength. A good one is like how many pull ups you can do, or how many push ups you can do. They're really good strength tests. Or for your grip strength, how long you can dead hang for, because I guarantee you that this, if you do it right, you will see your strength improve week after week after week initially. Now, when you get to a level where your strength is really high, and I'm at the strongest I've ever been in my life right now, and I put it down to this framework, let me know in the comments how you get on. Give it a try and let me know also your struggles. That you've had in the gym as well, because I'd love to be able to help people with that. And if you've got any questions or anything around this framework and how it works, put it again in the comments, and I'll do my best to answer them in future episodes and take that on board. But again, we're gonna have a PDF that you can download and that'll talk to you about this, this framework, what you need to do, step by step, but make notes, because soon as the PDF comes out, I'll be putting it online so that you can download it. But thank you very much, and I'll speak to you also. If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who needs to hear it. You are a carnivore entrepreneur. Live life how it was supposed to be, lived on your terms with strength, energy and purpose. I'll see you on the next episode. Bye.