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Massive
Growth
By Rob Maraby - Review
Review by Rahul Alvares
"Massive
Growth" is one of the most amazing muscle gain books
I have ever read. Before I got a copy of the book, I had
seen the advertisement page to it and actually, I wasn’t
very impressed. The advertisement page had the usual one
liners carved in bold – "Gain rock hard pounds
of muscle", "Steroid like gains in six weeks"–
and so on. There was however one mention that caught my
attention. That was something about an "African Bodybuilding
Secret." I was quite curious to know what this "African
muscle secret" might hold especially as the author
claimed that the African bodybuilders have the best bodies
in the world and that they build them without ever touching
steroids or supplements.
I read through
this book like a racy thriller novel! What makes the book
so interesting is Rob Maraby’s excellent knowledge
of bodybuilding coupled with a most straight–in–your-face
style of writing. No beating around the bush, just hard
facts and they make perfect sense.
"Massive
Growth" isn’t just a very good bodybuilding
book, it is a very different bodybuilding book. The program
essentially consists of training extremely hard and intensely
for a set period and then alternating this with a layoff
period before overtraining sets in.
Much before
I got myself a copy of "Massive Growth," I had
unconsciously used this style of training regularly with
much success. The lay off period called the "Drag
effect" is the time when your body could gain over
five pound of muscle as it repairs itself and grows stronger.
To construct
a brutal program that is capable of stimulating massive
muscle growth is not very difficult. Pick any program
from a muscle magazine for one. The problem with all such
high intensity programs and the reason why most of them
fail is because not one of them can tell you when to pull
back before overtraining sets in. Overtraining is probably
the number one cause for most trainees remaining at a
stagnant level.
"Massive
Growth" avoids overtraining completely. The program
is designed such that you take training to the edge and
cut back just before overtraining can set in.
Other aspects
of muscle growth such as a "Holistic" training
approach for the complete development of all the muscle
components (muscle myofibrils, mitochondria, etc.) are
all included to ensure maximum muscle development. Central
Nervous System training, an issue altogether ignored by
99% of the training programs I have read, is dealt with
effectively.
Strong and
weak range training, different rep ranges, partials, pre-exhausts
and all other training techniques have been tackled and
incorporated to stimulate all the muscles in a very "Holistic"
way for ensuring maximum development. I particularly liked
the sections on positive and negative failure.
Another big
difference between "Massive Growth" and most
other books is that it requires massive quantities of
food – sometimes as much as twice the normal BMR!
This does sound
like a lot but from my personal experience, one often
requires much more than just five hundred calories above
BMR, especially when training for big gains.
Maraby has
a style of writing that is very motivating. While reading
the book, I had a good many adrenaline rushes which made
me want to close the book halfway through and rush to
the gym right away!
The diet plan
to compliment the training program is also very good.
Food combinations have been included as Maraby firmly
believes that proteins and carbohydrates don’t mix
very well because they require different mediums for digestion.
Maraby has gone into a bit extra detail while explaining
the topic of nutrition, but then one cannot exactly accuse
anyone of writing too much! This actually betrays how
desperate Maraby is to get his point across to his readers,
which is a good thing.
One of the
biggest limitations of the program, however, is the workout
timing. Though for most of the time you would be training
once a day, there are certain weeks where you would be
required to train twice a day with a gap of twelve hours.
This isn’t the worst; the final workout program,
which lasts a few days, requires that you train six times
a day! I don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t
have access to a gym that often.
But even for
this, the book is essential reading for every serious
bodybuilder and "hardgainer" who is interested
in building big muscles as fast as possible.
Click here to learn more about
"Massive Growth"
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