Briefly put, Muscle Control is about the ability to flex a muscle in both the contracted and stretched position, and the ability to relax a muscle in both the contracted and stretched positions.
I had read on this topic a decade ago, and although I was impressed by the concept, I didn't get further than 1-2 practice sessions. At the time, my anatomical knowledge of muscles was lacking, and so it was harder at the time to visualize the muscles, and how to enter the contracted and stretched positions.
I separate the body in 15 muscle groups, starting from head to toe: traps, shoulders, biceps, triceps, forearms, mid-back, pecs, lats, abs, lower back, glutes, quads, hamstrings, calves, and tibilias anterior. There are more groups to work as well like face, neck, fingers, and intercoastals.
Above is Max Sick. I performed the entire routine of exercises in the pdf above, it's titled 'Short Table of Muscle Control Exercises'. I didn't really know what to expect with these exercises. Having learned 40+ yoga poses, and after studying human anatomy with its terms for limbs having certain orientation, I found it easy to read the descriptions and mimick the poses.
The body is split into the head, neck, shoulder, arm, thorax (chest), back, abdominals, and legs. Within those, there are subdivisions, like the tongue, eyes, teres, serratus, intercoastals, scapula, lats, spinae, traps, pelvis, biceps, crachialis, brachioradialis, fingers, forearm, triceps, gastrocnemius (calves), toes, glutes, hamstrings, quads, and tibilialis.
If you don't know where the muscle is located or how it is shaped, you should look it up and familiarize yourself with it, also how it contracts and stretches. I recommend not skipping any of the exercises, no matter the difficulty. Some examples of the advanced technique is asymmetrical control, like only one side of the abdominal, or one side of the traps, back. You also separate the trapezius into its three sections: low (which covers shoulders) and touches spinae, mid, and high. You can feel the blood rush into the targeted muscle groups when contracting and isolating the muscle.
I was very impressed with the Muscle Control exercises. I could feel strength and power in the poses. It's really just a list of ways to contract the muscles from the ideal angle. So although I find it very helpful, and I plan to use it for a long time, I also don't think that it's without flaw. Culturally, in the 19th century, the abdominals, intercoastal, and serratus were all highly prized over the pecs, back, or limbs. One of the main exercises back then was the bent press, which is a barbell lift with one-arm while bending at the waist, emphasizing the oblique and midsection. It's a beautiful move, but looks to be dangerous as is any one-limb feat.
Max Sick wasn't interested in weight lifting. He valued Muscle Control. Weight lifting was an outlet for him to show the results of his Muscle Control ability and power. He was also a gymnast, and he used chains to perform on in front of audiences, much like gymnasts with rings. His physical measurements were:
5ft 4½
145 pounds
neck 16"
chest 45"
thigh 23"
calf 16.75"
forearm 13"
biceps 16"
He ate in a caloric deficit, claiming he didn't require much food. Water was taken in small amounts. If you look further into Muscle Control, you'll see the stomach vacuums being recommending with warm water and cold water at times. It is possible to control digestion by means of isolating parts of the abdominal in a rhythm. Other techniques allow you to relax and slow your pulse and heart rate, forcing carbon dioxide out of the bloodstream, breathing at a very slow rate with long breaths. Lastly, Max Sick believed the brain could be controlled as well using the Muscle Control techniques, by being able to send neurons and thought impulses. He was a firm believer in resilient, unwavering, unstoppable willpower.
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