51 of 55 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Must Buy, November 20, 2003
Turn off the home shopping channel and put down your new low carb diet book. In a sea of crash diets and fitness fads Ori Hofmekler offers an intelligent well researched and functional blueprint for healthy living. In his new book "Maximum Muscle Minimum Fat" Ori's passion for the beauty and complexity of the human body comes through on every page.
Those of you familiar with "The Warrior Diet" will find new information and further depth in Ori's latest offering. For readers new to Ori's research you will find a detailed exploration into how we can fuel and train our bodies to reach our full potential. A far cry from the usual diet/fitness books that line bookstore shelves, Maximum Muscle Minimum Fat offers an unprecedented exploration into the science human performance and in doing so sets a new standard.
Maximum Muscle Minimum Fat is not an easy read. This book is for people who aren't merely satisfied with diet and training tips but rather this is for people with the drive and capacity to ask why and how things work. Ori takes great care in laying out the science behind training the human body and it is his attention to detail that sets his work apart from the masses. This extremely well written book is packed with technical information along with carefully crafted summaries that help turn the science of training into the art of personal excellence.
Maximum Muscle Minimum Fat goes beyond training for the sake of vanity and explores the science behind functional strength. With this work Ori invites his readers to get off the sofa and go to the extreme in their training. By trumpeting the virtues of such training methods as; supersets, under and over eating the author artfully lays out a plan for healthy living that shows readers how to create "super muscles", and a fat burning metabolism.
As a martial arts coach and personal training I have encountered countless athletes and weekend warriors who will suffer and sacrifice in the gym only to fail to reach their goals for lack of proper planning in the gym and at the dinner table. Such people go through their training and their life with a kind of handbrake on, never reaching their full potential. For a practical method of pushing the limits of human performance and to create a functionally strong and fit body I highly recommend Maximum Muscle Minimum Fat.
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25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Theory is great, but in practice it doesn't seem to work., February 21, 2009
This review is from: Maximum Muscle, Minimum Fat: The Secret Science Behind Physical Transformation (Paperback)
Hmmm... I was initially very happy with the scientific information contained in this book, about the interplay of hormones within our bodies and how those hormones affected the building of muscle and the use of body fat for energy.
I was looking for natural technics in which to manipulate those hormonal cycles to more efficiently enhance muscle growth, while minimising body fat accumulation, but was sadly disappointed by this book. In theory the book's information sounded great, but in practice it didn't work for me.
I have for the last year and half meticulously tracked my body's weight, body fat %, water %, muscle %, as well as calorie intake each day, whereby I have gained a solid understanding of the hormonal cycles within my body in terms of peaks and troughs affecting those metrics, based upon the effects of diet, weights, cardio exercise and sleep.
Despite the book advocating an eating strategy which flys in the face of established body building and/or cutting technics, especially around ideas for boosting one's metabolism for fat loss, I decide to give it a go and reserve judgement till later. Basically my body metrics were disastrous in terms of the effect of eating 4-5 very small calorie meals, with a very large calorie meal each day. Without changing any of the other factors in my program (weights, cardio and sleep), what I notice was a slowing of my body's metabolism, an increase in body fat and a loss of lean muscle.
In my opinion, the author, if he really believes his strategy works, needs to give his readers a sample framework, a specific eating plan, based upon grams per pound/kg of body weight, etc. Otherwise the readers have no really reference point for properly implementing his proposed strategy. I feel if the author added a few more chapters around the actual implementation in practice, taking into account differing body types (ectomorph, mesomorph and endomorph), his work would be more promising.
My recommendations are:
Buy the book if you want a very good understanding of the hormones in our bodies and how they affect each other to maintain the "status quo" for survival.
Don't buy this book if you are looking for a better strategy towards the building of muscle and the reducing of body fat - as the book's title seems to suggest.
A more promising book, based upon reviews in Amazon is:
The Fat Burning Diet: Accessing Unlimited Energy for a Lifetime"
Jay Robb; Paperback
Shane
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