For certain muscles, it seems as though the author did decide to go with higher reps- Perhaps because low reps with heavier weight is a lot harder to do with those exercises, or perhaps he just prefers it- I don't think that was clarified. I'm talking about abs and forearms here, and my best guess is that these two muscle groups are heavily depended on in a whole bunch of other movements all week long, so perhaps the author thought it best to go with a lighter workload for them.
When it comes to how Max OT works, I believe it IS explained within the manual- I haven't read it in some time, but you should probably re-read pages 22, 25 and 26- I just got done skimming through and found a decent amount of explanation there- And there's more throughout the manual. The basic theory behind lifting heavier weight with lower reps than a lot of programs out there is this- The body tries its best to adapt to what it's confronted with. If you don't lift weights, you won't get bigger, right? So lifting weight is the trigger to get the body to build muscle- Lifting heavier amounts of weight will push the body to try to adapt to heavier weights- The more weight the body needs to move, the more muscle it needs to build. Overloading the muscle with four to six rep sets is an excellent way to get the body to build more muscle because of the way the body tries to adapt.
When it comes to the big sales pitch for supps- Ignore it if you're not interested. The manual is free, given to you for nothing, and yes, the author is affiliated with AST and I see nothing wrong with him throwing in some detailed ads. Hell, he sat down and wrote the whole thing. Let him push his brand.
When it comes to stiff leg deadlifts, they actually ARE an excellent hamstring exercise- Believe it or not, the hamstrings play a vital role in straightening the body to a standing position. The movement you said was missing is the movement at your waist- Yes, the lower back is involved, but the hams take a pounding also- A lot of beginners think the hams basically curl the lower leg up towards the glutes, because this is the movement you do on a leg curl attatchment- Sure, this does work the hams, but you generally can't use as much weight with that exercise as you can with stiff leg deads. Different movement, but it does work the same muscle. Good mornings are a pretty dangerous exercise because of the placement of the weight- You can use a lot more weight when you're doing stiff leg deads, which means better results according to the principles of Max OT. The fact that it hits the lower back as well as the hamstrings makes it an excellent compound exercise.
Why is it that he needs to learn how to bench?
This is fine for the average person who isn't very smart, and that's who he's after
I think you've just managed to insult a large portion of our membership there- Nice work. I, for one, thought that his explanation of how the program works was clear and well written- I would copy and paste examples here, but I'm not sure about the copyright issues- I'll just ask that you re-read the pages I listed above, and maybe re-read the whole manual. Others have done the same and have not had the same complaints- Perhaps some questions here and there when it comes to clarification, but I've never heard someone say the whole thing was targeted towards stupid people. I do remember some other people complaining about HOW it was written- Sort of repetitive, etc. etc- I can agree with that, but anyone looking for literary masterpieces on bodybuilding websites are looking in the wrong place.