Max-OT for contest prep

[BigRig]

Has anyone here ever used the Max-OT training principles while training for a contest? If so, what were the results as far as maintaining or gaining muscle and losing fat?

[freaker]

I'm not a big fan of Max-OT for anything. I think constantly training in such a low rep range will lead to stagnation and possibly cause injuries. The HIT principles are great, but I believe in changing my rep range every week. I did Superbody this summer and I changed my reps up every week. I was able to bench 315 for 5 reps 6 week out, and I was able to bench press 315 for 5 reps the week before after losing a good 10+ pounds of fat using this rep range progression. Week 1: 18-30 reps, week 2: 13-17 reps, week 3: 8-12 reps, week 4: 3-7 reps, then right back to week 1. Following a week of a 3-7 rep range up with a week of an 18-30 rep range will help with recovery, you also end up training all of your different fiber types. I posted on other threads why it's better to follow this kind of rep range, so I'm not going to repeat myself, I'll just say following this rep progression has worked far better for me than the traditional overload progression method where you always go heavy in a lower rep range. By the time I come back to my heavy week a month later I'm alway stronger, more so than if I would've gone heavy throughout the whole month. By the way, by the time I came back to my 3-7 rep range after the Superbody, I could probably bench 315 for 10 reps.

[BigRig]

Freaker,
How was your strength when using the higher rep ranges such as 15-30 reps? Whenever I do more than 4-8 reps, my strength on the sets after the first one is ridiculously low. For example, if I benched 225 for a set of 10, I would probably only get 4-5 on the next set.

[freaker]

I rarely do more than one all-out set per exercise since I use HIT. I also lose strength from the first set on so I can't even use my 2nd exercise as a gauge to my overall strength. There's really no point in doing multiple sets IMO since if you go all out on that one set there's no way your next set will be as intense.