WHAT IS MAX CONTRACTION TRAINING?

Excerpted from the forthcoming book, Max Contraction Training: The Scientifically Proven Program For Building Muscle Mass In Minimum Time.

Why is bodybuilding no longer loved today? Why have organizations such as the International Olympics Committee repeatedly denied her request to become a legitimate sport and why are her champions never given endorsements on par with the champions of tennis, football or baseball?

Part of the reason for bodybuilding’s fall from grace can be attributed to the influx of anabolic steroids and other growth drugs that have created ultra-ripped, freaky physiques that have turned off more members of the general public than they have attracted. Apart from the grotesque form steroid-induced muscle mass assumes, there is also the very real danger of health issues. Many champion bodybuilders from the 1970s and 80s have suffered serious heart trouble, others have had kidney failure and still others have died – and all of this can be attributed (directly and indirectly) to their use of anabolic steroids.

No, bodybuilding has lost the affection of the general public because what was once a bona fide pursuit of health and well-being (physical culture) has given way to illegal drugs, questionable lifestyles and chronic maladies. It wasn’t always this way, however. And this book – and its training protocol – is an attempt to salvage what’s left of its original ethos.

Anytime a man or woman seeks to “tone up” or “lose weight” they are engaged in physical culture. In fact, one cannot tone up without “building” something – lest what’s to “tone?” It must be remembered that muscle is what gives either sex their distinctive and mutually appealing shape – fat is formless. Everyone would like to get in better shape and do so without resorting to nightmarish quantities of illegal growth drugs. Can it be done? Absolutely – more great physiques have been built throughout human history without these substances than have ever been built since they arrived on the scene (some would say that no “great” physiques have been built since their arrival; only bloated, freakish ones). But who has the time? “Time” is truly one of the buzzwords of our modern era. More specifically, our perception is that we have a distinct lack of it. What couldn’t we accomplish if we had but more time?

The hectic pace of our modern world sees some of us working two jobs just to keep afloat. In such an environment, all frills and luxuries must be reduced to an almost Buddhist minimum in order to ease the burden of journey through life. And one of the first causalities in any war on time management is, alas, exercise. What with aerobic sessions requiring (at least) 45-minutes three times a week, strength training requiring three 20 to 40 minute sessions four days a week and flexibility training (such as yoga classes) taking up another day or two, physical culture has become the luxury of the idle rich or an enterprise fit solely for personal trainers – no one else can afford the time for it.

This is a tragedy; not only because fitness is crucial (without health, your performance at work and home suffers), but because it really doesn’t require that much time to become physically fit. In fact, it takes approximately 30 seconds a week to start; after which it takes 12 seconds a week and then 12 seconds every two weeks and, ultimately, 3 seconds every two weeks.

I realize that this sounds far-fetched, if not downright impossible. How can one build their body’s strength and fitness levels with only 30-seconds a week? The answer is by training with a revolutionary new protocol called “Max Contraction.” The Max Contraction system is the result of over 20 years of research and experimentation into the science of what actually causes muscle tissue to grow stronger and bodies to become leaner.

I also realize that “revolutionary” is a potent word – a term usually employed to describe someone or something that defies the status quo and overthrows an established tradition or institution. The concept is usually applied to political/social issues, but, occasionally, revolutionary ideas disrupt the physical sciences as well. Such is the case with Max Contraction Training.

What would you think about a workout lasting less than a minute (total training time) performed once a week that would stimulate a maximum increase in muscle mass and (at least) double your present level of strength? Moreover, what would you think of a 10-second workout performed but once every two weeks that would maintain whatever size and strength increases you made indefinitely? These are not simply rhetorical questions; for over 15 years I have personally trained individuals on this protocol and have witnessed muscle mass gains of 20 pounds in 10 weeks (which parlays into 10 workouts lasting 10 second each – or 100 seconds of exercise – in two and a half months); others have lost upwards of 40 pounds in the same span of time. Everyone who has used it – not matter what the equipment (free weights, Bowflex, home gym machines, Nautilus) has become substantially stronger and substantially more muscular – and has done so with workouts that take less time than the average gym rat to change into their workout attire.

OVERVIEW

If you’ve tried pumping, pulling pressing supersetting, if you’ve done every exercise in the book and, when you still didn’t get the results you wanted, you got another book and did all the exercises in that one, too, if when you add it all up you’ve invested thousands of hours lifting millions of pounds during thousands of sets of dozens of exercises – and still not been satisfied with your results – I have some good news.

What would you think if I sad you can get better results doing one-rep sets of a handful of exercises for a maximum of 10-seconds a day, three days a week? I’ve spent the past 15 years researching a method of bodybuilding training I call the Max Contraction System, and I think it’s the safest and most productive way you’ll ever find to build bigger, stronger muscles without spending the rest of your life in a weight room.

What’s In A Name?

The Max Contraction System is based on a simple premise: the longer you can keep a muscle in a fully contracted position, the more muscle fibers you’ll stimulate and the more muscle growth you’ll promote. With this method, you make a supreme effort to maintain the peak contraction for as long as possible. You do just one rep of each exercise, holding a weight while your muscle’s fully contracted for a minimum of 1 second and a maximum of 6 seconds. This produces almost six times the stimulation of a typical lift.

Why does this work? Let’s look at the way one usually trains with weights. Let’s say you do a set of 10 reps in 20 seconds. Although it seems you’re working hard, you’re actually only working your muscle at its peak contraction for about 2.5 seconds out of 20. With Max Contractions, the muscle is working its hardest for the entire duration of the movement, thus providing (in this example) well over five times the training stimulation to your muscles.

For example, take one of the easiest exercises around, the leg extension. You place your legs under the pads of a leg-extension machine, lift your legs up until you contract your quads (upper thigh muscles) to full contraction and then slowly return to the starting position.

Now, at the beginning of the movement you’re using only the barest-minimum number of muscle fibers. At the halfway point, a few more muscle fibers get called into play. Then, at the position of full muscular contraction, you’ve finally done what you set out to do: You’re actually forcing a large number of your muscle fibers to get in on the act.

But this is still not ideal. If you’re like most people, just as you reach the point of full contraction – and long before the fibers have had time to be fully stressed – you lower the weight, giving the momentarily stressed quadriceps a chance to disengage and recover. Had you held it longer in the contracted position, more muscle fibers would have been recruited to help hold that weight against gravity.

How Should I Train?

Ever since the public became seriously interested in physical fitness during the fitness boon of the 1980s, hundreds of theories have been advanced on how best to proceed with the prospect of getting into peak shape. Unfortunately, one and all of these approaches made the cardinal error of assuming that muscle building and strength training must be performed with an eye toward conditioning the body to tolerate longer and longer exercise sessions. However, science has revealed that it is not the duration but the intensity of the exercise that is solely responsible for stimulating changes in muscle strength and size (and hence, personal appearance). As such, the higher the intensity, the briefer the workout must be. Moreover, to induce maximum levels of growth stimulation, as many as possible of the available fibers must be made to contract. As muscle fibers work, or contract, by becoming shorter and reducing their length, it is obvious that a muscle must be in a position of maximum contraction if all the fibers are to be contracted at the same time.

With an understanding of these fundamental tenets of exercise physiology in mind, I created a training system in 1984, The Max Contraction System, so-called because that is the one position in a muscle’s given range of movement where maximum fiber stimulation can take place (i.e., the maximally contracted position). Moving the muscle through a full-range of motion is neither desirable nor necessary. In fact, over four times the muscle stimulation can be imparted by placing the muscle group into a position of full contraction and exposing it to the maximum resistance it is capable of holding statically in that position. The results of training hundreds of individuals on this method has resulted in some astounding data:

1. Only one 1-second set is required to stimulate maximum increases in muscle size and strength (i.e., you do not need multiple “sets” of an exercise for any given bodypart).

2. Time (1-6 seconds per set) is more important than repetitions.

3. Movement through a full-range of motion is less valuable for size and strength increases than is a full or maximal contraction that is sustained for the time frame indicated.

4. Only one workout per week is required to make optimal (not minimal) progress – and even less training is required as you become stronger.

5. A well-balanced diet provides all the nutrition your body needs to allow you to lose fat, build muscle and have more energy (i.e., you do not need supplements; supplements have been overemphasized for commercial reasons and do nothing to stimulate muscle growth, nor will they allow the body to build muscle or strength faster).

6. A productive workout requires no more than 50 seconds (maximum) and 10 seconds (minimum) of total training time to complete.

7. You can build maximum muscle size and strength on virtually any type of progressive resistance equipment (from Bowflex to free weights) – if you utilize the correct training protocol and principles.

8. You only need to perform a one-second maximum contraction once every two weeks to maintain your size and strength increases indefinitely

9. You do not need to spend hours a day and multiple days per week in the gym to build a muscular body and to dramatically increase the strength of your muscles.

In addition to these revolutionary conclusions, there is also strong evidence that there are a host of ancillary benefits that attend training with the Max Contraction System, apart from the huge savings in time. Many working people and parents simply haven’t the luxury of time to spend going to the gym for hours every week – and now they don’t have to. In fact, they will make spectacular progress if they train for 10 to 50 second periods once a week. And, as they get stronger, even less training time will be required. Imagine what you could accomplish—or suddenly find the time for—if you were given another six hours a week of free time! You could now have time to enroll in a certain college course you’ve been thinking about, start building financial independence, or, perhaps most significantly, if you’re a parent, you will have “found the time” to spend with your family. And all of these “extra” activities could be accomplished while still doing all that is required to maximally improve the way you look, feel and perform.

Despite the fact that exercise is subject to the laws of physiology, never before has a concerted effort been made to determine just how little exercise is precisely required to effect positive change in one’s health and physique. That has all changed now with the Max Contraction System. Over two decades of research and refinement, along with thousands of individual case studies, has resulted in the first legitimate 21st Century approach to exercise. Few people have a lot of time to devote to the maintenance of health and fitness. The good news is that “a lot of time” is no longer needed.

OVERVIEW

Max Contraction Training reveals how you can reach your full muscular potential in the shortest time possible. Imagine a 10-second workout performed but once a week that can stimulate up to 30 pounds of muscle growth! Max Contraction Training proves not only why you do not need to spend hours each week in the gym to build an incredibly fit and muscular body, but why such approaches are doomed to fail. Inside the pages of this revolutionary new book you will learn:

• The groundbreaking technique (fully supported by science) that MAXimizes muscle fiber stimulation and that has proven to be FOUR TIMES more efficient than conventional training for building muscle!
• How to optimally space your workouts apart and how to structure your workouts year-round for continuous gains!
• The crucial role of “off days” -- and why you need more of them!
• How to dramatically increase your strength from one session of exercise lasting a mere 1-6 seconds!
• The best bodypart specialization routines and exercises to pack inches of muscle on your arms, chest, back, shoulders and legs -- and how to chisel your abdominal muscles in the shortest time possible!

Over two decades of research and refinement has resulted in this, the first legitimate 21st Century approach to strength training and bodybuilding exercise. Few people in our modern society have much if any time to devote to building strength and a more muscular body -- the good news is that with Max Contraction Training “much time” is no longer necessary.