Maxalding, Muscle Control And Ray Peat

[Zachs]

Forgive me if this is in the wrong subforum..

Maxalding, or muscle control, delevoped by old time strongman maxick (Max Sick) is a way of developing muscles through control of muscle contraction. In simple terms you squeeze the heck out of your muscles which forces blood and nutrients in and allows them to grow. You get the benefits of weight training with non of the negatives of muscle breakdown, fatigue, lactic acid buildup, etc. The actual routine is a lot more complicated then that but you get the jist.

Anyway, i first got turned onto this way of training when reading Maxicks biography and then his book. I have read many old time strongman books, arthur Saxon, Edward Aston, Hack, Groener, etc, etc. It has always intrigued me but to be honest, always thought it was nonsense and much preferred the methods of daily training with heavy iron and gymnastics. That is until i got a severe injury, a crushed joint in my sternum which made it impossible to train.

Since i have been into Ray Peat now for a few years and always thought about his stance on weight training and the negatives of lactic acid, i thought that this methodology might be just the ticket.

Part 2, ill go into my personal journey with Maxalding if there is any interest here. I am very excited to see if anyone else here would be interested in trying it with me in earnest and recording the adventure. Im also hesitant because so far everyone i have talked to about it has blown it off.

 

[Bruv]

I remember there used to be a lot of talk about it on message boards a few years ago but little in the way of any evidence to show that it does anything more than cause a temporary pump in the muscles being worked.
Maxick trained with heavy weights (No matter what people may try to tell you). His muscle tensing was mainly for show.

 

[Ben]

It works. I've done it for a while but didn't know someone already coined a term for it. Still, I'll call it whatever I want because it's an idea I got independently and people should know that.

 

[Zachs]

I never saw responses to this thread!

Bruv, i can tell you first hand that it works! And yes i know that Maxick used heavy weights but only to supplement his physique and for practice as a showman. I have read all his work and a lot of others of that era.

Ben, lol. Yes he thought of it over 100 years ago.

 

[dd99]

Zachs, this is interesting. Any particular books or sites you'd recommend?

 

[Zachs]

Muscle Control by Maxick is the best place to start. You can get it free from Scribd.com. It is VERY thorough and gets pretty overwhelming at times and i think the writer made it a bit over complicated especially for beginners. If one spent an entire year just practicing the basics and then read that book it would make a lot more sense.

Also DavidGentile.com has a full library of his other work. Look for Maxicks page. If oldschool stronmen interest you the. I also reccomend reading Arthur Saxons work, he is by far my favorite. Edward Aston, George Hackenshmidt and Hermon Groener as well.

When i have time i will go more in depth in my experience with MC.

 

[dd99]

Thanks - I look forward to hearing about your experience with it.

 

[Bruv]

People like David Gentle, Terry Todd etc do not believe that the old time strong men got their strength from muscle tensing and that the weight lifting was just for show. They believe it was the other way around.

 

[Jez]

Hi @Zachs I'm real keen to hear about maxicks techniques and how you applied them routines etc, I'm recovering from years of undereating and overtraining on low carb keto etc so I think this kind of stuff would be great. Please post some more mate, I'll start reading his book. Cheers buddy

 

[Sunrise]

@Zachs

Forgive me if this is in the wrong subforum..

Maxalding, or muscle control, delevoped by old time strongman maxick (Max Sick) is a way of developing muscles through control of muscle contraction. In simple terms you squeeze the heck out of your muscles which forces blood and nutrients in and allows them to grow. You get the benefits of weight training with non of the negatives of muscle breakdown, fatigue, lactic acid buildup, etc. The actual routine is a lot more complicated then that but you get the jist.

Anyway, i first got turned onto this way of training when reading Maxicks biography and then his book. I have read many old time strongman books, arthur Saxon, Edward Aston, Hack, Groener, etc, etc. It has always intrigued me but to be honest, always thought it was nonsense and much preferred the methods of daily training with heavy iron and gymnastics. That is until i got a severe injury, a crushed joint in my sternum which made it impossible to train.

Since i have been into Ray Peat now for a few years and always thought about his stance on weight training and the negatives of lactic acid, i thought that this methodology might be just the ticket.

Part 2, ill go into my personal journey with Maxalding if there is any interest here. I am very excited to see if anyone else here would be interested in trying it with me in earnest and recording the adventure. Im also hesitant because so far everyone i have talked to about it has blown it off.

I wonder about irradiation and nervous system reinvigoration for better co2 tc flow .please share your experience in depth.

 

[Sapien]

My current training style is very similar to Maxalding, I agree that it is a very effective and peaty way to exercise. However, to reach failure in this manner (which has been shown to be essential in building muscle) , one would have to create a good deal of lactic acid build up. Incorperating isometrics in the contractions is my current approach, as it provides stimulus whilst still avoiding eccentric movement. Below I am posting my resposne to a thread titled "exercise the ray peat way?" that you may find of interest

This is a topic I have been pondering as of late, as a peaty young male looking to build muscle safely and effectively. Ray mentions that muscle mass is beneficial as it increases RMB, and also cited studies that show bodybuilders live longer. However, he has concerns with the eccentric stuff and lactic acid production.

So in summary- a good training routine is one that builds muscle, avoids eccentric movements, and minimizes muscle oxygen debt (i.e, "the pump) as it increases lactic acid.

He once said something along the lines of "brief, infrequent use of muscle is good" (probably butchered the quote but something along those line)

His advice reminded me of a famous bodybuilder in the 80's, Mike Mentzer, who postulated that all bodybuilders are overtraining, and the principals of muscle growth only required a brief and infrequent session to momentary muscular failure. Interestingly, in Synchronicity fashion, I discovered Ray's work just weeks after discovering Mentzer. I noticed great crossover between the two. Mentzer actually cited Hans Selyes "the stress of life" in one of his books about the harms of overtraining, which blew me away. Even Mikes nutritional advice was peaty, emphasizing the importance of (simple) carbohydrates and sugar, and dispelling the myth of the whey(ste product) protein industry that you needed to overload the body with protein to build muscle.

He has some great lectures on youtube on the topic of HIT, specifically, his audio tapes: The logical path to successful bodybuilding are a MUST watch for anyone interested in the topic of building muscle. He was a very intelligent man, many regarded him as a philosopher, and after watching these tapes you will realize why. His articulate speaking manner and use of logic is extremely impressive. He dispels much of the authoritarian dogma in the fitness industry, and like Peat, attempts to teach one about the science behind the topic rather than just giving a protocol. In other words, he was a proponent of "Perceive, Think, Act".

In my opinion, the theory of High Intensity Training is the most logical, science backed theory of effective exercise, and is the antithesis of the current state of bodybuilding- high volume "pump" style workouts popularized by Arnold (Mentzer's arch nemesis).

His training was based on the work of a man named Arthur jones, the inventor of Nautilus equipment proved that brief exercise to failure is the optimal way to build muscle

There is a book titled "body by science" that goes into this in more detail for anyone interested. Mentzer also has serval books of his own

As peaty as all of this sounds, minimizing the amount of stress to the organism and only doing the bare minimum required, there is still the concern of both eccentric movements and lactic acid, albeit to a DRASTICALLY lower degree.

Coauthor of body by science, John Little (a friend and disciple of Mentzer), has a program that implements these principals of brief, infrequent maximal effort training, AND eliminates these two issues. I present to you: Max contraction training (link). He talks about how a scientist in the 50s proved great results simply by a maximal muscular contraction of just 1-6 seconds.

I have applied this routine to a degree, simply contracting a muscle as hard as possible either on its own or against an immovable object (isometric), briefly and infrequently, and I honestly have had better results doing this the past 2 months than in years of traditional bodybuilding. Each day I wake up in amazement of my progress. I will see muscles that I never knew I had; a couple days after a single pull up I noticed new muscles in my upper back that I had never seen before; after a single rep of a chest contraction I grew my stubborn upper chest more in one workout that I never seemed to build with years of bench press (
"Why I never bench press and you shouldn't either" ) .

Some examples of exercises I will do are: flexing bicep in maximal contracted position as hard as possible by using a doorknob, doing the concentric part of a pull up and maximally contracting for a few seconds at the top then dropping, contracting hamstring by lying down placing heel against the ground, holding the contracted portion of a "mountain climber" pose or sit up for abs, simply contracting my rhomboids or rear delts super hard, doing a "lateral raise" against the bottom of my work desk to provide an immovable resistance, placing my forearm against the back of my (opposite) hamstring and contracting my chest across my body, etc etc. Pretty much anything that you feel a contraction will be effective, you can play around yourself. Using weights in a manner shown in the max contraction video is probably just as if not more viable, but I have seen great results even without going to the gym. The many forms of Isometrics I mentioned, contracting against an immovable object, will provide great stimulation as it will recruit ALL of the possible muscle fibers MAXIMALLY. This is a key principal of HIT (henemens size principal), fatiguing the fast twitch muscle fibers. It can be achieved in any rep range by simply training to failure, but isometrics allow you to do so with minimal/no lactic acid as only one contraction is required.

There was a wrestler named the great gama, who is famous for going 5000-0 in his bouts (yes you read that right) , who touted the benefits of maximal isometric contractions that inspired me to use immovable objects instead of the weights shown in the max contraction video. (that and I don't have a training partner crazy enough to train this way with me lol) Essentially it is the same concept, providing maximal resistance, stimulating the fast twitch muscle fibers ( henemens size principal).

'One day after defeating an opponent much larger than he, someone asked him how he was able to get so strong.' "
“It’s really quite simple,” the Indian said good-naturedly. “In the Punjab, where I lived there was a large tree behind my house. Each morning I would rise up early, tie my belt around it, and try to throw it down.” “A tree?” the boy marveled. “For twenty years.” “And you did it?” “No, little one,” Gama smiled, “but after a tree…a man is easy.” Great gama (link) .

^ This may sound like "bro science", but it actually is an example of "Heneman's size principal" in action. When contracting against an immovable object, you are using ALL of your possible effort, thus stimulating fast twitch muscle fibers.

This all may sound unbelievable, too good to be true; is it really not only possible but OPTIMAL to train this brief and infrequently?; but when one considers the biochemistry of the subject, it makes sense. Muscles are ANEROBIC, the opposite of AEROBIC exercise. This is why sprinters have very muscular legs, while a marathon runner is almost always frail. High intensity, short duration exercise such as sprinting uses predominantly fast twitch, carbohydrate burning fibers, while jogging uses slow twitch fibers that rely on fat. It is the fast twitch muscle fibers that are a lot more prone to growth

While the principals of HIT have been demonstrated scientifically ( View: https://youtu.be/ag5YMTcAudw, View: https://youtu.be/NndeNFVf9eU , View: https://youtu.be/wVYEjFZAERw ), and shown to work in practice by the success of Mentzer and Dorian Yates, these principals have been all but forgotten. It was only through an unrelenting, thorough search for a logical approach to building muscle that I discovered HIT. I have always been unconvinced of the science of traditional bodybuilding; I would follow routines and wonder WHY 3 sets of 10 ( View: https://youtu.be/hddsfYdaZ1k ), why 2 minutes of rest, why not 53 seconds of rest? All of these arbitrary decrees never sat right with me. In science, there is no room for the arbitrary, The principals of HIT initially defined by Arthur Jones and popularized by Mike Mentzer and Dorian Yates use science and logic, rather than the arbitrary tradition based programs that are popular today.

As to why it's unknown and forgotten, I don't really have a good answer other than the fact that we live in a "dark age" to some degree, with sheeple believing whatever the popular opinion is, rather than using the logical principals created by Aristotle to cultivate knowledge. It is through the use of logic and reason that I was able to discover ray peat and the community, rather than believing whatever info the dietary guidelines told me, and these same principals of logic led me to discover HIT. As a group of logic based people who Perceive, Think, Act; rather than cultivating information simply because an authority figure told you something, I know you all will really appreciate the science based approach of HIT.

The implications of this are staggering. The entire fitness industry is following the high volume approach simply out of tradition, not logic or science. I wonder how many people's lives would be changed with a proper approach to building muscle, how many more people would take up the sport if only minutes a week were necessary. Hell, a gym membership isn't even required! If anyone decided to try these principals out for themselves (after thorough evaluation of the logic of the theory, not per my advice , {Perceive Think Act!}), please update us with your results!

(P.S , I probably did a poor job explaining the exact science behind HIT, Henemens size principal, fast twitch muscles etc., I recommend reading the works of Dr Doug mcguff, Mike mentzer, Arthur jones and the content of Jay Vincent. This post was a spur of the moment thing after seeing this forum on the home page, I just did my best based on my knowledge of the topic)

(this is a copy of the post i made on the thread "exercise the ray peat way", I am posting it in other forums that seem related )