When the 75-year-old retired ten years ago, the former award-winning bodybuilder was determined to restore his body to its physical peak.
Hours of training in the gym have turned back the clock and given Max back the muscles that won him more than a few admirers.
The pensioner, from Swindon, Wiltshire, was a physical training instructor in the RAF, putting military hopefuls through gruelling sessions in the gym.
In 1952, he was crowned Mr South-West Britain bodybuilding champion and the following year saw him come third in the Mr Britain championship.
Max, who has four children and five grandchildren, said: "I went into the RAF to do my national service in 1952 but the job of an airman wasn't for me so I asked what other roles were available.
"I trained as an instructor and it was basically my job to keep in good shape and put the recruits through their paces.
"My six-month training course was the hardest and most gruelling of my life but I had to be fit to train the troops day in, day out.
"The competitions were just a bit of fun for me but I won the regional one in 1952 and came close to winning the national one the next year."
But when, after four years, Max left the RAF, his training regime stumbled and it would be half a century before he regained the body that won over his teenage sweetheart and future wife Thelma, now 71.
Max recalls it was a trip to the swimming baths with his RAF recruits in 1952 where he first met Thelma and impressed her with his body.
He said: "I remember meeting Thelma as if it was yesterday.
"I had taken a group of recruits to the swimming baths and one of them bet me half a crown that I wouldn't have the nerve to go and talk to her.
"I walked right over to her and whipped off my top to show her my pecs. Thelma was suitably impressed and we married in 1956."
After leaving the RAF, Max worked as a salesman selling to the construction industry as well as being director of a building merchants company.
With a full-time job and a wife and four children to support, spare time for training fell by the wayside.
It wasn't until he retired in 1997 that Max had the time to get back in the gym and get back the body he craved.
He said: "I had always wanted to get back into training but never seemed to have the time.
"When I was in the RAF, it was my job to exercise but my jobs after that weren't very physical at all.
"The trigger for me to get back in the gym came in the 1990s when I saw the actor John Mills on Parkinson.
"He was in his 80s then but Michael Parkinson said that he looked 20 years younger.
"It made me think that if he could do it, so could I."
So after his retirement, aged 65, Max signed up to the JJB gym in Swindon and set about resurrecting his award-winning body of old.
Max visits the gym three times a week lifting weights and using the rowing machine.
He said: "My biggest shock when I stepped back into the gym was that all the weights had gone metric.
"Back in the 1950s, they were all in pounds so the kilograms took a bit of working out.
"I do a lot of rowing and can row 2,000m in ten minutes.
"Matthew Pinsent can do that in six-and-a-half minutes but he is 40 years my junior and a professional athlete so he has a bit of an edge on me.
"I get a lot of comments from people down the gym saying they can't believe I am 75 and in such good shape.
"It took many months to get back my body but I am now 12 stone, the same as I weighed when I was in the RAF.
"I don't think my body is any different now to what it was except I have shrunk a bit.
"I was never very tall, but I used to be 5ft 7in and I'm now only 5ft 6in.
"I think Thelma is pleased as well - I like to think it reminds her of the man she fell for all those years ago."
Max cites other fit pensioners such as Clint Eastwood and Bruce Forsyth as his inspiration to stay in shape but says the secret of his success is that he hasn't abused his body.
He added: "I never smoked and I never drank and have always had a good diet.
"They say you reap what you sow so I suppose by not abusing my body over the years, I am getting the benefit in old age.
"I have muesli for breakfast and try to eat two portions of fruit every day.
"Fish is good for you so I usually eat that three times a week too.
"I think a lot of people think once you get to my age, there is not much point of challenging yourself to do something.
"But I'm living proof of what you can do, even if you are 75."
