The Biggest Loser

Introducing Our 2012-2013 Losing Big Winners: MaxQ Fitness Owner/Founder Bob Kissel and his client Noel Fasterstein

Listening to Bob Kissel talk about MaxQ Fitness, the revolutionary workout program he created just a year ago, it’s hard to believe that the results are possible. Just two days a week at 15 minutes a session? So what’s the catch? For many people, it sounds like a late-night infomercial pitch or a hoax.

Noel Fasterstein admits he was once one of those people. Fasterstein says he was overweight when he first met Kissel, but didn’t think these kinds of results were possible on such a reduced scale. Fasterstein was an active guy who had tried Crossfit, biked regularly and even practiced martial arts, but to lose 60 pounds in 90 days would be impossible, he thought.

Kissel liked the idea of a challenge and the skepticism only seemed to fuel his desire to prove Fasterstein wrong. Boy did he ever. In our third annual Losing Big competition, Fasterstein lost 64.5 pounds in a little over three months, dropping his weight from a staggering 263 to 198.5. That equates to 24.5-percent of his total body weight.

So how does it work?

Kissel’s state-of-the-art system is specially designed with adaptive resistance technology (ART) that automatically adjusts to your current strength levels so that you will maximize every repetition to your body’s current ability. Unlike most stacked weight machines that push you to go as far as your strength allows on the last rep, with MaxQ Fitness you start at the maximum level and work your way down as your body’s strength decreases.

The idea is to trigger the anaerobic energy system or that 90-second window where the phosphagen and glycogen-lactic acid systems are operating at optimum performance, Kissel says. With only five machines and a maximum of 10-12 reps per machine, he’s able to give a complete, full-body workout in just 15 minutes.

Here’s the even crazier part: Kissel only wants you in his studio for strength training twice a week. He forces his clients to wait 72 hours before hitting the weights again.

“These machines force micro tears in the muscles and it takes three days for them to start building back,” Kissel says.

To supplement the forming and repairing of new muscle tissue, Kissel has his clients consume a customized amount of protein every two hours, six times throughout the day. Fasterstein was required to eat at a higher frequency, but better foods like lean turkey and chicken and fresh vegetables.

“For a busy professional like me, this is awesome,” he said. “It doesn’t disrupt your day.”

Fasterstein sees South Tampa Magazine’s Losing Big competition as a starting line for even further weight-loss and fitness goals. He hopes to get his weight down to 180 this year. For Kissel, the competition is just a stepping-stone toward what he envisions as the solution to the country’s (and possibly the world’s) obesity epidemic. He knows that it will be a challenge converting the skeptics. But he’ll take his time with them. About 15 minutes should do it.

MaxQ Fitness is located at 2120 S. MacDill Ave., Ste. C, Tampa, FL. For more information, call 813.251.6297 or visit www.MaxQFitness.com.