Max->Maya question

[Portent]

Hey, modeling newbie here, I'm trying to do do the Joan tutorial in Maya, but I can't figure out how a couple things convert. On the first page, he uses a couple max functions to make the leg look smoother, but he still retains the original vertices for editing. If I do polygons->smooth in Maya, it changes the vertices, and I don't know how I can get the original ones back. Please tell me what the equivalent in Maya is to the max stuff he's doing. Thanks.