Muscle
Explosion - 28 Days
to Maximum Mass
By Nick Nilsson - Review
Review by Rahul Alvares
When I first
started bodybuilding , like everyone else I was a very
impressionable lad. At a height of 5ft 10 inches I was
also only about a 135 pounds so you can imagine just how
skinny I was! In the first two years of training, my arms
grew bigger but I hardly increased much in weight and
like every other hard gainer I spent long hours in the
gym, and searched high and low for that secret to massive
muscle growth. In the end what worked for me was increasing
my caloric intake and in two months of serious eating
I had put on 22 pounds of weight. The following year I
added another 22.
I was so pleased I overlooked
the fact that because I wasnt all that strict with
my diet much of what I was gaining was fat. Then I struggled
for a long time to lose all that fat and I made the big
fat mistake of losing too much too fast. The end result
was that I lost most of that fat but ended up more or
less where Id started!
The moral of the story for
me was clear: slow and steady wins the race. I realized
that most of the books that endorsed extreme diets for
massive gains in muscle or huge amounts of fat lost in
a short time were either bogus or worked only on physiques
with great genetics or those spiked up on steroids. There
were no secrets to bodybuilding. Getting a good physique
was hard work and training smart. So I stuck to making
small and steady but sure gains. And Im highly skeptical
of anyone who tells me I can make massive gains now.
But if I had to pick
two books that I honestly believe just might have the
right to make such a claim they would be Metabolic Surge
(see
my review on this fatloss book) and Massive Explosion.
In fact, I intend to try
out Muscle Explosion very soon and judging by the awesome
program Nick Nilsson has put together, Im sure Im
gonna make some pretty decent gains. How massivethey are
that remains to be seen!
The reason I believe Muscle
Explosion has a chance at surging muscle growth even for
a hard gainer is because it uses some of the most effective
training techniques ever;
- Stretch-Pause Training
and Fascia expantion to create room for muscle to grow.
- Tissue remodelling for
building connective tissue
- Core combo for a strong
mid section
- Lactic acid training
to pump up those levels of growth hormone in the body
- Fat loss circuit training
for time saving and effective cardio
- Capillarization training
for better circulation
- Hyperplasia training
for splitting those muscles fibers
And this book is truly unconventional
because as Nick Nilsson himself says
- you're going to REDUCE
your caloric intake to well below maintenance levels
- you'll eliminate protein
from your diet completely (in a very specific way)
- you're going to do VERY
high rep sets (30+ reps per set)
- you'll also be doing
very LOW rep sets (3 reps per set) and with very little
rest in between those sets
- you're going to train
the same bodypart 5 days in a row
- you're going to train
the same EXERCISE 5 days in a row
- you'll going to learn
how to train with heavy weight AND for high reps
- you're going to stretch
your muscles without doing any stretching
- you're going to do a
LOT of cardio then you're going to do NONE
- you're NOT going to
stuff yourself full of food constantly...just strategically
- you're going to stay
away from muscular failure then go FAR beyond it
But put all these "wrong"
things together in the RIGHT way, and you've got a tremendous
program that will get you EXPLOSIVE results.
The diet routine that goes
with the program is also fantastic. The carbohydrate cycling
sets you up for a clear hormonal advantage ensuring the
best gains possible. Because of this you are able to make
gains with just a moderate increase in caloric intake.
I really like this part since most other massive muscle
gain diets are huge on caloric intake and as a consequence
theres always that chance that youll gain
some amount of fat as well.
What I really like about
Muscle Explosion is that while being a truly unconventional
program it is still a very sensible program. It takes
you to the limits of overtraining and then just at the
right moment pulls back for your body to catch up.
I mentioned at the start
that most massive programs are only suited to bodybuilders
with great genetics or those juiced up on steroids. But
while I cant say that Muscle Explosion is "one
size that fits all"...it is probably the closest
an unconventional routine ever came to being one.
This is a must have for
every serious bodybuilder.
The book also has a great
reference section listing all the papers Nick Nilsson
has consulted to put together in this program.
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