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The author of Optimum Anabolics, Jeff Anderson, is commonly referred to as the “muscle nerd.” This was a nickname he picked up from being the guy at the gym that dutifully wrote down the details of everything he was doing.

Jeff is definitely into the details of mass building.

The question becomes…

“Can this muscle nerd, this guy who has dedicated an extraordinary amount of time to studying every conceivable way to pack muscle mass on the human body, can he help me achieve my goals?”

Reading through the Optimum Anabolics program, the answer to this question becomes a resounding “YES.”

Jeff knows the subject of muscle gain inside and out. Not only that, he is a very effective teacher (a good writer) and the program is extremely well thought out. He manages to sneak in the details that will key your success without putting you to sleep.

The Optimum Anabolics ebook starts out with Jeff introducing you to a not-so fictional character by the name of Joe Hardgainer. Who is Joe Hardgainer? Well, I’m willing to wager that you are going to recognize yourself in Joe.

Joe is a guy who desperately wants to gain muscle weight and has been trying for some time. He has followed the “usual” route that most people take when they set out to bulk up - He has done what everyone else at the gym is doing, he’s gotten advice from the gym’s biggest guy, he’s donated his fair share of money to the pushers of hyped-up but ineffective supplements and he’s turned to the muscle mags and the pro bodybuilders for help.

Along the way, Joe has learned a little and he’s had some limited success. He’s put on a few pounds of muscle here and there but the majority of Joe’s time has been spent fighting plateaus and figuring out that a lot of the advice he’s gotten is just plain wrong. In other words, a lot of his time has been wasted.

Joe has never been able to put together a complete and effective mass gain program, a program that will allow him to continuously make gains and breeze by the plateaus that commonly stall the programs of even the most determined.

Through Joe’s story, Anderson effectively demonstrates that he knows exactly who is (or should be) reading his book. He knows who you are. And if you’re willing to listen and change your ways, he can help you change your results.

Make no mistake about it, however, this isn’t a program for anyone but the most dedicated. The prescribed diets aren’t just about eating everything in sight, they require discipline. The training has you in the gym five days a week for one-hour workouts. You must be paying attention to all aspects of your program (you must adopt a certain measure of Anderson’s detail-orientation) in order for it to produce the maximum muscle gains.

Not trying to scare you here, just letting you know that this is an intense program. It isn’t anything that is going to prevent you from enjoying life but it isn’t something you can do without an absolute commitment.

If you do possess the desire and discipline, however, Optimum Anabolics can definitely help you quickly move into a very big neighborhood.

You’re first introduced to the 8 anabolic factors Anderson identifies as the keys to maximum muscle gain. These factors are the core of the program and fully understanding them is a must. To help make sure you get the full picture, Jeff includes MP3 downloads for each of the factors so you can actually listen to them at your convenience. (No excuses.)

Among those factors are things you are probably familiar with, things like tempo, training frequency and diet. One of the factors listed, however, is likely to furrow your brow…

That factor is what Anderson calls Hyper-Adaptive Cycling. This is the “meat” of the program. It is how Anderson backs up his claims that his program is unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. This is interesting stuff.

Cycling your diet and/or weight training routines in an effort to break past plateaus isn’t a new concept to the bodybuilding world. Hardcore bodybuilders have been experimenting with these methods for decades.

But never before have I seen such a workable, reasoned and detailed plan that focuses these techniques not only on breaking through plateaus but at preventing plateaus from ever happening in the first place.

Once you understand how and why the body builds muscle (and Anderson gives a thorough explanation of this process), you begin to see how and why Hyper-Adaptive Cycling can be an extremely effective.

As a beginning weight trainer, you find out after about 8 weeks of training that putting on muscle mass isn’t as easy as it at first seemed. You hit your first plateau or wall and the body stops responding to your training with muscle growth.

This plateau occurs because, in effect, the body has figured out what you are doing and that it doesn’t need to add muscle in order to be able to endure the workouts you are doing. It knows your workouts and has become quite accustomed to them (you’ve essentially programmed it to stop building muscle).

In order to get the body to react and add new muscle, bodybuilders have learned that they must continuously introduce changes into their training. They must keep the body guessing and never able to enter a comfort zone.

But Hyper-Adaptive Cycling isn’t about introducing the typical changes that trainers use to keep the body guessing and growing. It goes beyond things like changing splits and exercises…

Hyper-Adaptive Cycling is about affecting radical change.

Jeff teaches you all about the way the body works, how it is naturally programmed to work against you building the extra muscle mass you desire. And then he teaches you how you can actually re-program it, how you can use the same natural defense mechanisms that can prevent you from growing and, through specific techniques, actually use those mechanisms to produce extraordinary muscle gains.

Hyper-Adaptive Cycling not only keeps the body from entering the comfort zone that kills muscle growth, it puts the body into a “never-ending anabolic guessing game where it’s only option is to grow.”

Again, THIS IS INTERESTING STUFF.

After getting right to the point and presenting the Hyper-Adaptive process to you, Anderson proceeds to go through the other 7 anabolic factors.

As you may have guessed, he goes through these factors thoroughly (the exercise section is complete with bar graphs indicating the effectiveness of each exercise). He tells you exactly how to apply the hyper-adaptive process to these factors in order to create and sustain an optimum anabolic environment.

As mentioned previously, you may be familiar with these factors. But don’t make the mistake of thinking you know everything there is to know about them. Jeff challenges some of your beliefs, reprogramming your mind as he teaches you how to reprogram your body.

I’d guess that Jeff has spent more time researching, testing and just plain thinking about these factors then you, me and all card-carrying IFBB members combined. He’s got a lot for you to learn.

The dieting section is very detailed. It is an important part of this program. Jeff helps you design your diet and your program based on the specific primary goals you may have, whether those are to gain mass, lose fat or maintain and improve on all accounts.

Of note in the exercise section is that Jeff allows for a lot of variety in the workouts. If you are someone who gets bored easily doing the same exercise week after week, you will find plenty of opportunity to keep yourself interested with these workouts.

When you get to the end of the book, you are ready to get going. You can sense that those dreadfully frustrating plateaus are now only a bad memory.

So, where do you start? Jeff is prepared for that question…

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I’d still like to see a private message board for members and think it would prove valuable for a program such as this which is comprised of so many unique training concepts.

The overall program, however, just doesn’t leave much room for criticism. It is very well-organized, well-written and makes what could be a confusing program very simple.

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