Following is a Q&A Interview with Dan Moore, creator of Max-Stimulation.

For an extensive overview of Max-Stim, the details of the routine, and discussions about Max Stimulation here at Clutch Fitness, click this link here.

Alternatively, you can visit Dan's site at Hypertrophy-Research.com.


Hi Dan,

Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to discuss your Max Stimulation training concept. Our members will certainly benefit from your insight and experience.


FP: I guess we better get the obligatory credentials question out of the way. Tell us a little about yourself, your experience and what led you to researching hypertrophy specifically.

[Dan] Credentials? My passion is my main credential; this is what has driven me for the last several years and what drives many in any field they truly love. Do I have a formal Exercise Science Degree, nope sure don’t? Do I have accreditation through any of the myriad of certification bodies, Nope sure don’t? With that said let’s expand this obligatory question list to include How big are you? I’m not, I’m 43 years old, grey headed 5’10” and 165#. At my heaviest I weighed well over 220 and at my lightest I weighed 147#. After hitting 147 I gained about 20 lbs through lifting. I do not desire to be any larger I desire to make you larger and stronger. “Then why should anyone listen to you?” Well perhaps they should, perhaps they shouldn’t but before anyone dismisses what I do say as folly I would hope at the least they read what I’ve written or talk to me directly. But most importantly I’m not going to BS anyone just to sell a product.

With that out of the way my interests in hypertrophy came out of my need and desire to build up a little muscle after many years of abusing my body and then some dramatic weight loss. As we all know with large amounts of weight loss one also generally loses large amounts of lean mass as well. This event is what drove me to research how muscles grow. I needed too.


FP: I know you've learned a lot from Bryan Haycock who is well known for developing HST. What other "gurus" in the industry do you follow?

[Dan] None, I prefer to use academic sources instead. This isn’t to say I don’t admire anyone else for what they have achieved or through their efforts have helped others achieve their goals but I don’t really “follow” anyone. If I were to make a list of those who I think are talented writers the list would be quite long. Comparatively if I were to make a list of those who actually “said” something in their writings the list would be quite short. So for the sake of brevity I’ll only mention the later.


Bryan Haycock, as you mention, for not only his development of HST but also his approach.


Lyle McDonald, for his in depth knowledge in metabolism.


Borge Fagerli, for his practical understanding and implementation of the science.


I’m sure there are others, but none have influenced my thought processes as much as the ones mentioned above.


FP: Okay, now for those that may not have completely read through your site or your eBook, can you give a very brief overview of Max Stimulation?

[Dan]Sure, in a nutshell it is what I call “fatigue management” a means to allow enough work to be completed with a heavy enough load. This is one of the largest drawbacks in conventional training when using continuous reps. After each rep the weight is actually taken out of your hands for a very brief period before picking it up again and doing another rep. Intuitively this makes sense but after releasing Max-Stimulation 2 years ago you’d be surprised how this was met with cynicism and skepticism. Think of dead lifts for a moment, how do most people perform them? They do a rep, set it down, do another, set it down and so on, why would such an effective method not be effective in other exercises as well. Also think of Olympic lifting; let’s use the clean and jerk. How many OLs have you seen lift the weight and then slowly and in a controlled manner put the weight down on the floor while still keeping the grip on the barbell and then do another lift without resting for a brief period first? So this isn’t new or radical but I think what has perplexed so many is the constant barrage of “high fatigue” training methods that have been proposed in the past, present and possibly future and how this fatigue in itself has been touted as not only indicative of a growth response but, is actually also necessary to elicit a growth response. I simply don’t buy it.

As a good quick experiment, take two dumbbells, load one with your known and correct 10RM, take the other and add 5% to that. With your strong arm do some consecutive concentration DB curls to failure with the 10 RM DB and note how many reps you were able to achieve (if correct you should have hit failure at or about 10). Now with the DB that is 10RM + 5% do the same but after each rep set the DB down on the floor and let go of it completely. Wait for 5 seconds then do another, repeat this process until you notice that the speed of the concentric portion begins to slow, after that instead of resting 5 secs, rest 10 secs, continue again until the rep speed slows, add another 10 secs rest between reps. When you’re finally using 30 secs rest between each rep and your concentric speed begins to fade again, stop. How many reps did you achieve? Believe it or not during the experimental phase I actually had a guy do 42 reps with his 8 RM and he still could have done more (he quit because of boredom). When I asked him how many sets it would have taken to complete that many reps in the continuous reps arm, he told me more than 5, because after each set he would have had to reduce the load in order to get 8 reps in. So to match the total work it would have taken a lot of sets of 8.

That same exact thing was noticed by a researcher named James Denton in his paper “Kinematic, kinetic, and blood lactate profiles of continuous and intraset rest loading schemes.” J Strength Cond Res. 2006 Aug;20(3):528-34. In which he saw that one group out of three was able to do much greater amounts of work when rest was inserted with increased frequency but still matched for total rest between two other groups.


FP: I noticed on your site quite a few success stories, experiments, and training logs. Can you give our readers a couple examples of what has been acheived with Max Stim?

[Dan] I wish there were more results posted by those who have used it but overall there are some really nice strength increases, both relative and absolute. Some good size increases but also and maybe most importantly. They aren’t fatigued, worn out and dragging their asses out of the gym when they’re done. Lastly two other observances I would like to mention 1. Those using Max-Stim while cutting haven’t noticed a huge decrease in strength, in fact, many have seen strength increase. 2. Be prepared for a lot of sweating, so take a towel with you. I haven’t truly identified the cause of this yet but it may be attributed to the increased force the muscle is exerting and the brief rest allows reperfusion of blood flow. The increased frequency of blood flow may aid the lymphatic system in heat transfer but I’m not quite sure on this aspect yet.


FP: So is Max Stimulation appropriate for everyone? Or do you suggest one have a certain amount of training experience under their belt before trying Max Stim?

[Dan] That’s a great question and yes I believe so. The obvious advantage is one can do a lot more “work” and this work is generally accomplished via the increased loads that are achieved. Does it take some getting used too? Absolutely we have been trained for so many years to do reps in a consecutive manner that the feeling is quite awkward at first. Also there are some exercises that do not lend themselves to this method, such as squats, the racking and re-racking make this exercise a real chore. So for the experienced trainee, they shouldn’t have a problem using this method even though they may not like it at first. For the newb, I would probably recommend do a month or two of some basic lifting first but that’s not saying they can’t experiment with it at the same time.


FP: Many of our members are familiar with Hypertrophy Specific Training (HST). But I've seen a lot of critiques along the lines that while the principles are solid, the application of those principles may not be ideal. Specifically, many people have suggested that HST spends too much time training at "sub-maximal" levels. How does Max Stim compare to HST - and how is it better?

[Dan] Comparatively the principles are the same, progressive overload in an undulating periodized format. This has been proven work both anecdotally and in scientific research. Now I don’t make as big of a deal about the progression as HST ala 10’s, 15’s, 5’s or such but the initial workloads are submax. Now what I have tried to make clear in several posts on my forum is that although the cookie cutter program denotes specific ranges of relative loading, this is and should be dependant on the trainee. In no case do I believe that someone who has been training for years should be using 65% of his 1RM, unless he is specifically working on power increases. So where each trainee starts is up to their current training level and many who have used MS have done just that, tweaked it to fit their need.

Other divergences from HST is that I do not mandate SD, not that I feel the theory is incorrect but honestly I am not sold on the time length that is necessary to make any significant change in the muscle tissue responsiveness to loading. In essence I do not see where the 9-14 day SD that is advocated by HST long enough to truly revert the sensitivity to loading so I prefer to leave up to the trainee, if they see SD as useful? Then do it. If not, don’t.


FP: A similar question - many of my readers really like DC Training. How would you compare and contrast Max Stim with DC Training?

[Dan] Honestly, I wouldn’t. DC is DC and MS is MS. I do believe DC uses rest/pause but more so in the conventional R/P set up i.e. Work up to failure then beyond utilizing R/P techniques. If some of your readers have found it beneficial, then again; do it.


FP: Do you have any particular tips or advice for those wishing to get started with Max Stim?

[Dan] Do the experiment I outlined above first. If this intrigues them come by my forum and read the Max-Stimulation forums.


FP: Clearly you have done tons of research about hypertrophy and have attempted to incorporate that knowledge into Max Stim. Your reference list is quite impressive. Since I it'll take me forever to read them all, do you have an recommendations for a few studies I should start with? (If this is a dumb question, just tell me to go to pubmed.com and have fun, LOL)

[Dan] I won’t list studies but there are several researchers who either they themselves or their groups have some very interesting studies and are starting to puts the pieces together.

Michael Rennie and his group
Kennith Baldwin
Kevin Tipton and his research group at UTMB
Trent Lawton, James Denton and John Cronin from down under

If I were to point out one recent study that all should read it would have to be Mathias Wernbom’s 2007 Review “The Influence of Frequency, Intensity, Volume and Mode of Strength Training on Whole Muscle Cross-Sectional Area in Humans “ Sports Medicine. 37(3):225-264, 2007.


FP: Any closing comments or thoughts before we wrap up?

[Dan] I fully understand that wading through all the methods, ideas, and theories out there is a royal pain so I wish to thank anyone ahead of time who took their time to read this interview and hopefully will take their time to read up on Max-Stim and maybe even try it, whether they stick with it or not.

And thank you for the opportunity to reach out to your members here at Clutch Fitness.

Dan Moore
www.hypertrophy-research.com


FP: Thanks again for taking the time, Dan. It's much appreciated and I know everyone who is after optimal muscle growth will benefit. Hope to see you around Clutch!

Fireproof
Clutchfitness.com