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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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