When it comes to the most effective ways to lose weight and boost your health, nothing beats the combination of proper workout and healthy diet. Physical exercise is mandatory for all those who want to get a lean figure, build some muscles, stay in shape, and enhance their physical and mental health as well. Today we will discuss the Shin Ohtake’s Max Workouts program of lean and toned bodies and see if it is good for you!

Who is Shin Ohtake?

Shin Ohtake is a former athlete who made a reputation as a fitness trainer and strength coach. Besides a passion for sports, Ohtake also has a passion for anatomy, physiology, and biochemistry. His experience and academic training allowed him to create the Max Workouts program, used now by people all over the world. The program is quite unconventional and we will see what it is all about as follows.

What do You Have to Know about Max Workouts?

You can look at the Max Workouts – Half Hour Workout program as a mix of efficient fat loss training and health boosting training. To be more specific, Shin Ohtake’s program aims to help your body get some muscles, but the main goal is to help you lose weight and improve your overall health. The thing for which Ohtake became famous is the Afterburn Effect.

The Afterburn Effect – namely Excess post-exercise oxygen consumption – is a physical and physiological phenomenon. In other words, some types of high-intensity exercises have the ability to help you burn calories long after you finished working out.

Ohtake’s program represents, therefore, a full-body training guide spanning on a 90 days interval. If you follow the program, you will train for about 20-30 minutes each week, while engaging in interval cardio workouts on alternating days. The principle guiding the entire program is “high-intensity workouts” and by “high-intensity,” Ohtake means “very high.”

The Exercises

Ohtake’s exercises are simple, straightforward, and hard if you are a beginner. He focuses on compound movements you can categorize into four main types: press-ups, pull-ups, squats, and deadlifts. The training program emphasizes on the use of barbell exercises with dumbbells. In other words, you can follow the program in the comfort of your home, without having to go to a gym.

The program follows a levels system from level one to level four, each lasting for three weeks. No matter the level, however, each training session includes up to four different exercises.

Before you begin the actual Max Workout training, you need some warming up. Ohtake recommends at least five exercises, each repeated 2-3 times, with one optional core strengthening routine component. You should perform this type of dynamic warmup at least three times a week, before you engage in the actual Max Workout program.

The cardio training needs one day of rest per week. You should engage in the cardio workout in the alternating days, when you do not follow the Max Workout program. The main reason being that Ohtake’s cardio exercises are also of high-intensity, mainly because a session of high-intensity cardio is better than a long, moderate-intensity workout.

The Intensity

We insisted on the unusual approach to fat loss and health boosting promoted by Ohtake and it is time to explain what we meant. Each Max Workout exercise takes a few seconds – as you perform them sequentially – with no rest in between them. One round of exercises comprises of all three-four bursts. After one round, you take a one-minute break if you are in your first week of training.

Starting with the second week, you increase the weights and decrease the resting time from 45 seconds in week 2 to 30 seconds in week 3. After the third week, you move to the next level, which is even more intense.

As a word of advice, you need to start with weights that are challenging, but not impossible. You need to feel comfortable with them to do 8-10 reps in the first week of workout.

Pros and Cons to the Max Workout Program

As we said before, the Max Workout program does not fit the profile of beginner fitness enthusiasts or the elders. The exercises are hard, very intense, and put a lot of strain on the body.

As pros are concerned, Ohtake’s program comes with clear instructions, effective exercises, minimal gear requirement, very good timing, and positive effects for both men and women.

The cons include the fact that the program does not address beginners, elders, the unmotivated, or the undisciplined. People who tried it admitted the entire program needs your full commitment and patience, resilience, and a good understanding of what you can and cannot do.