What Is MI40X C.E.P. Training Program?

Does MI40 Xtreme work? Is it really a good muscle program for building incredible muscle mass like it promises? Is the Cell Expansion Protocol and effective method? Here is a quick summary of what we found:
What We Liked
  • Effective and straightforward C.E.P. mass building foundation
  • Highly regarded top bodybuilding IFBB pro author with engaging and motivational style
  • Multimedia format with PDF manuals and tons of exercise videos
  • Step by step blueprint – no guesswork involved
  • Builds muscle mass while burning fat at the same time
  • If followed to the letter results are guaranteed
  • Competitively priced
  • 60 day money back guarantee
What We Did Not Like
  • Not for the faint of heart (not a problem if you are willing, though)
  • Beginners need a "break in" period to master the high intensity techniques (ditto as above)
  • Workout cycles and routines requires strict discipline and schedule (ditto as above)

MI40X Ben Pakulski _ Big Chest Workout (C.E.P... by mi40x-workout-program

Who is the author? Ben Pakulski is the creator of MI40X, the new Xtreme muscle building program successor of the already popular MI40, (you can read the review here). He is a very successful top bodybuilding champion with an engaging and motivational style who takes pleasure in helping all guys and gals from all walks of life build muscle, burn fat and drastically rearrange their body composition, aside from competing in top contests. Just Google him, his name is all over the place. (Ben Pakulski - Wikipedia)
The new program takes over from the previous MI40 and onto the next level, taking Mass Intention into a new dimension called Cell Expansion Protocol. The idea behind the cell expansion as the key for extraordinary and relentless increase in muscle mass in a fraction of time is the result of a scientific study, for which he provides documentation, showing how the a "guinea pigs" group involved, made up of ten 20 to 30 year old males, obtained superior increases in muscle mass, strength and reduction of fat tissue comparing to a traditional style training group.
Click Here To Visit The MI40X Official Website





CEP - Cell Expansion Protocol And Training Principle – What Is It?

The idea is that muscle cells are like little balloons, so if you increase the balloon size of the cells your muscles will also grow in size and strength while also helping burn fat, a win win situation. The problem is that anyone has a preset, certain certain amount of nuclei within his/her cells that prevents cell expansion under normal, standard stimulation, unless a particular stress is applied in order to increase this amount of nuclei.
What happens in these circumstances is that when an appropriate and specific stimulus is applied to your muscles, your body starts producing myo-satellite cells to repair muscle damage, leading to rapid and constant muscle mass gains.
Satellite cells are particular muscle helper cells that kick in only when highly stressed beyond regular failure of traditional weight training. Ben Pakulski likens the effect as your muscle being pumped and growing all the time, specifically at rest after your workouts, rather just being temporarily gorged.
This particular, welcome effect, is the result of a specific kind of hard core training designed to achieve the greatest Time Under Tension stress in the shortest possible time, allegedly leading to unprecedented and fast muscle gains.
Ben Pakulski - C.E.P. training for Biceps

The Intra-Set Stretching – Static Holds Taken To The Next Level

This high intensity technique revolves around extending your regular set into a 4 minute agonizing struggle against fatigue and pain by adding a static stretching posture while you keeping hold of the weight and contracting the antagonist muscle, instead of dropping it and resting as normal. After a certain amount of seconds (that feels very long) in the stretched position, you drop the start up weight for a lighter one and repeat the process, then drop again and repeat for up to a total of 4 minutes. Basically it is a sort of drop set with the addition of isometric static holds in between drops, intra-set stretching so to speak, and very, very taxing. You only need to do this ONCE.
Ben Pakulsky showcases a handy demonstration video for one particular muscle group, but it stresses that each muscle group is different and requires specific, ancillary and targeted techniques for best effect. No muscle group is the same and results will be skewed if the very same technique for one specific muscle is applied exactly for all muscle groups. The net result is a pump that lasts forever and more importantly that causes an increase in cell size, hence a fast increase in mass.
This highly targeted techniques causes your muscles to go in hyper recovery, that is to compensate with growth at a faster rate caused by the production of myo-satellite helper cells. An added benefits and a welcome side effect of this particular method of training is that because your body muscles are forced to expand and grow in overdrive, they also start using body fat as fuel rather than just your meals, allegedly burning 90% of fat while resting.
Basically, the impressive growth rate causes such a metabolic boost that you actually burn fat while building muscle at the same time, making you ripped as well as big at the same time. This is a bit of a holy grail in bodybuilding literature, most fitness programs are more inclined to split fat loss from muscle gain, especially if you have more fat to lose because the common assumption is that you need to be in anabolic state while building muscle and in catabolic state for burning fat, so it should be done in 2 separate stages, as in the traditional bulking and cutting.
However, by all accounts and testimonials, the MI40 Xtreme protocol is so taxing, demanding and effective that completely reshuffles the standard expectations of bulking and cutting that work more or less well with regular training, albeit temporarily.
The Cell Expansion Protocol and the 4 minute CEP Training Principle are not regular training methods, they are in fact extraordinarily hard, if brief, so it is not so surprising to witness out of the ordinary results, like dropping fat while building mass at the same time, all done without cardio.
Cardio is not a fat burning method on Ben Pakuski's agenda, neither is a complicated diet plan, the CEP protocol and Intra-Set Stretching are apparently so effective that alone are responsible for your high metabolic rate and fat burning capabilities. As consequence, the nutritional plan is a real life, simple blueprint that is easy to follow.
This is a point that impressed us even more than just the muscle building focus of the program, it is like the discovery of rapid and sustained mass gains also led to the discovery of fat loss, like shooting 2 pigeons with one shot.
Click Here To Visit The MI40X Official Website


How Does MI40X Differ From The Original MI40?

The original MI40 program, already very successful, employed for the first time the concept of Mass Intentions coupled with the "magical" number 40 intended as a the structural key to the program settings and permeating all aspects of training, which meant 40 second set duration, 40 second rests, 40 minute workouts sets, 4 weight drops on the last set and so on, hence the name MI40.
Also, in the original program the Mass Intentions indicated a voluntary technique to increase the stress on muscles which consisted of exerting a torque force on the bar while pushing or pulling. This meant pushing inward with your hand on the bar while pushing up in a bench press at the same time, for example, or pushing outward on the bar while pulling down on a lat machine.
The extra torque generated would generate an incredible stress and pump, leading to greater and faster muscle gains even though all of your typical resistance for a given exercise would have to be drastically reduced. This is in short the old MI40 Mass Intention principle.
The new MI40X (xtreme) takes on a different route. As we have seen above, here the Mass Intentions are achieved by stretching and holding the weight after a regular set failure (while contracting the opposing muscle) before dropping down into the next lighter weight and keep repeating the process in drop fashion for up to 4 minutes non-stop, therefore dramatically increasing TUT (time under maximum tension), stimulating myo-cells production and exploding muscle mass gains. So the number 4 is still a key factor of the program, but the way Mass Intentions are implemented is different, and dare we say, even harder and more effective.
Delt Training for Boulder Shoulders | MI40 University - Ben Pakulski
Delt Training for Boulder Shoulders - Learn how to train your delts to build massive shoulders...


Mi40X Muscle Building Structure – The Layout

While results are expected, they do not come without commitment, effort and discipline, particularly in a program as demanding as this one. This means its implementation must be dedicated and meticulous, with a 6 day a week workouts and a rest day regimen.
The blueprint comes in multimedia format, ranging from PDF manuals to video libraries, each revolving on 1 hour workout session, utilizing up to 8 different techniques. Upon purchase, you are redirected to a members' page with a welcome video by Ben Pakulsky called:
  • The Rapid Start Action Plan - this is a very important 5 minute video to set you up properly for the training waiting for you in order to avoid poor results and injury and get the most out of the program.

The PDF Manuals

  • The Cep Training Blueprint – this is the muscle bible of the program and the core of the workout methods, including what you must NOT do and the wrong training methods that stop your muscle gains and even promote fat storing.
The training layout is split in different stages and up to 18 weeks, and is flexible enough to be adjusted to beginners, intermediate and advanced. Here is a concise breakdown:
  • High Volume Phase – with an emphasis on sets volume and high and low reps movements alternated twice a week
  • Hypertrophy Phase – using heavier resistance with a lower volume
  • Strength Phase – increasing resistance even further up to 1 rep max
  • Deloading Phase – resting your muscles and giving your nervous system a break
  • Over Reaching Phase – training hard again after the deloading
  • Hyper Recovery phase – training with moderate intensity for optimal recovery
  • The 7 Day Primer Phase – this is a mandatory stage to get your body used to the kind of stress waiting for you and it should be used in conjunction with the videos to completely understand the techniques.
  • The 7 Day Detox Guide – this guide goes hand in hand with the Primer Phase, and is recommended by Ben to help your body get rid of all the junk toxins you have been eating before, preparing your body to absorb the nutrients it will need when under the high stress CEP training. It can last up to 3 weeks, but even just 1 is enough before starting.
  • CEP Practical Application Guide – this is a complementary extension of the Training Blueprint with extra tips and simple layman language to actually knows how to implement in real life all that the training Blueprint tells you.
  • The Exercise Execution Guide - detailing every body part, exercise and detail leaving all the guesswork out, basically telling you everything you need to do for your workouts.
  • Workout Sheets – printable sets of workout sheets in beginner, intermediate of advanced format to keep track of your regimen while at the gym and record progress.
  • The Nutrition Guide – this section of the program is simple and down to earth. The point is that the massive impact of the CEP protocol on muscle building and fat burning on your body force it to care of itself, eliminating complicated diet plans and keeping things simple, within limits.
  • Supplement Guide – we are not very fond on supplements in general, most are money flashed down the toilet, however Ben Pakulsky selectively gives only certain supplement recommendations that are the result of decades of expertize on what is genuine and useful.
  • FAQs Guide – all questions typically asked that are not included in the manuals, answered by Ben.

The Video Libraries

In the program are also included 2 different video libraries:
  • The CEP Training Video Library – a collection of all the CEP based exercises for each muscle demonstrated by the same Ben Pakulsky for all levels. We liked that the videos are very high quality and are demonstrated for all levels of fitness, leaving you free to choose whatever muscle group you need to focus on.

  1. The MI40X Total Training Video Library – this library differs from the one above in that it contains ALL the exercises you need for your workouts, not just the CEP exercises. This is because this technique can only be applied to certain exercises as demonstrated in the first Training library, not all of them, so in this second library you also get all the remaining regular exercises to complete your workouts. Ben Pakulsky advises not to apply the CEP technique for the wrong exercises as it could spell lack or results at best or disaster at worst.

What Are The Benefits Of The MI40X 2.0 Program?

Here is what we think are the main advantages in using this program:
  • It is time saving, the CEP principle takes only 4 minutes to implement at the end of the set, extending the TUT, time under tension, thus stressing the muscle to the limit in the shortest possible time.
  • It is very effective on building muscle fast – it goes hand in hand with the time saving that the CEP technique blasts mass growth to the roof.
  • No need for bulking and cutting - This high stress protocol causes your muscles not just to grow but also to use your fat storage as fuel. This means getting ripped and big at the same time, no need for bulking and cutting.
  • It is for everyone, man and women, young and older, and even though the full technique is for advanced, the program offers beginner and intermediate variations that are carefully described and demonstrated in the videos by Ben himself.
  • It has a back up of a scientific study with results to show for, plus the expertize of Ben Pakulski himself on his clients. The test was conducted on a random group of people.
  • It is safe as long as you strictly adhere to the blueprint and follow the very important Primer Phase that must not be skipped.

Program Pros

  • Very effective for building muscle mass fast
  • Very effective for burning fat at the same time
  • Time saving, short workouts
  • Thorough and accurate program in multimedia format
  • Instantly available, no need for shipping
  • Scientific study back up
  • Easy to use and implement as long as you stick to the manuals and videos to the letter
  • 60 day money back guarantee

Program Cons

  • Very demanding technique. For some it may be too much, though for others may be enjoyable
  • Not flexible – the workouts require a precise schedule through the week, even though they are very short.
  • You cannot jump into the full blueprint immediately, you need first to prime your body for at least a week to prepare it to the unusually demanding tasks ahead.
The Bottom Line – MI40X (Xtreme) 2.0 is a program designed to achieve the greatest and fastest possible muscle gains in the shortest possible time with a revolutionary, high stress technique called CEP that increases TUT up to 4 minutes at the end of the set.
The above average muscle gains also promote fat loss simultaneously, eliminating bulking and cutting, and resulting in top physical condition in less time. It is therefore suitable to anyone as long as the blueprint is followed to the letter, including the all important Primer Phase.