Recovery for Week 2

Last week, we went over the basics of how muscles grow and the importance of relaxation to muscle growth. It is vitally important that you learn how to relax and get plenty of sleep every night. Consider 8 hours to be a minimum.

This week, we're going to talk about a fundamental practice you should follow if you want to maximize your muscle growth.

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That practice is consistency.

Research has shown that people are more restful on any given day not only because they got a sound 8 hours' worth of sleep, but also because they fell asleep and woke up at the same time each day.

Schedule your sleep!

If you have children, you probably already follow this practice — for them! It's a well-known parenting principle that you put your kids to bed each night following the same exact routine every single night; you may read them books, give them some milk, brush their teeth, and then put them in bed.

This works best if you put them down at the same time each night.

You should be doing the same for yourself!

Research has also found that even more important than going to sleep at the same time each night is rising the next morning at the same time.

Whether – for whatever reason – you fall asleep earlier or later than plan, always try to wake up at the same time each morning. Now, if you got in at 4am and you normally get up at 5am, you may want to disregard this advice

(However, I will ask you this – why in the world were you out so late? You simply cannot live a playboy's life and expect to make rapid progress with this – or any – system!)

You will find that after several weeks of following a consistent sleep plan that you will fall asleep and awaken at nearly the same time every day. Your muscles will thank you for this by growing as fast as possible.

More importantly, your mind, which controls everything, thrives on this consistency. Your subconscious becomes quite comfortable with the routine and actually starts reinforcing the good behavior, such that every goal you set for yourself becomes ever easier to attain!

This is powerful stuff.

To recap:

• Follow the same pre-sleep routine every single night. You may read, meditate, or have a light snack before bed.
• Go to sleep at the same time each night.
• Wake up at the same time every day.
• Get at least 8 hours of sleep a night. The more restful, the better!

That's it for Week 2! See you next week!

Back to Train, Eat

Nutrition for Week 2

Hopefully, you learned something about your eating habits in Week 1, simply by being more aware of what good nutrition looks like. You threw out your junk food and started eating whole, natural, and as lightly-processed food as possible, right?

Right?

Note that you were not asked to record your weight last week. There is a good reason for that!

For many folks, this is their first stint on a regimented bodybuilding program. That first week can wreak all sorts of havoc on any attempt at establishing a baseline. In fact, we won't formally take a weight until next week because this second week is really just an extension of last week.

There is no need to cause undue stress because your goals and reality went opposite directions. Often, this very thing happens. The mind is a powerful force (the most powerful in existence), and if you get frustrated from the get-go, you are likely to either let down or quit altogether.

Know that this is natural. It is highly probable that if you're trying to gain weight, you will have lost weight the first couple of weeks. Conversely, if your goal is to lose weight, guess what? You probably gained weight.

But think about it. You're building muscle! You may not have built muscle for years. People who are above their target weight usually put on muscle quite fast.

On the other hand, very lean people may actually lose weight. While you may actually have gained a little muscle (it's not your strong suit and probably never will be), you probably were not as lean as you thought and all the extra activity and more frequent meals sent your metabolism on high.

Never fear. Don't fret.

This is normal during the first two weeks. For some, it's normal the first month!

Just remember to eat good food, take your vitamin and mineral supplements, and train as prescribed in this week's training module. Endeavor to add weight every workout, eat consistently, and get plenty of rest.

If in fact you lost weight and your goal is to gain weight, add 250 calories to your daily intake from last week. On the other hand, if you want to lose weight but you gained weight, then cut your daily intake down another 250 calories.

Notice that nothing drastic was suggested. First of all, the body likes the status quo and any shocks to it usually result in unintended consequences.

Like losing weight when you want to gain, and gaining weight when you want to do the exact opposite.

Eating is kind of opposite training. While you want to mildly shock the body with training in order to stimulate the adaptive response, you simply cannot do that with your diet. Cut too many calories and your body starts hoarding everything possible and conserves fat at all costs, burning carbs and protein first for energy. This can include using your very own muscle tissue for energy in the absence of too many calories.

In fact, you might find that if you cut out too many calories, you not only lose muscle but you gain fat, exactly the opposite of your goal!

Same goes with those who want to gain weight. Suffice it to say that adding a ton of calories to your diet too fast will only make you fat and could speed up your already too-fast metabolism.

With diet, drastic change is not good. Everything in moderation.

Vary your diet by just a little bit each day and if you're making progress, keep doing what you're doing. If you're not making progress, just change things ever so slightly.

That's it for nutrition in Week 2.

Go to Train, Recover

Training for Week 2

Last week was a nice introduction to our program. You should feel and look a lot better. This week, we're going to literally double our efforts!

We're going to continue to build a firm foundation on which to build our strength.

Remember Progressive Overload?

Each successive week of this 4-week strength-building phase will bring us heavier and heavier weights to lift. We want to add weight every single workout!

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This week, we're not only going to add weight to every workout, we're going to double your sets for each exercise from 1 set to 2.

There are several ways that you can elicit a strength response from a muscle:

1. Add weight
2. Add sets
3. Train in less time

For our purposes, you should be resting no more than 60 seconds between any set and it's not really practical to try to rest any less at this point in the program. Consequently, you will be using the first two methods, adding weight and sets, to build your strength.

Ready for Week 2's training routine?

Here we go. You can jump to Eat or Recover at any time.

Our core exercises will be the same as last week's:

• Squat
• Deadlift
• Bench Press
• Pull up
• Overhead Press

For Week 2, you will do 2 sets of 10 repetitions of each of these exercises in this exact order. You will work out 3 times in the week. It can be Monday-Wednesday-Friday or any other combination, as long as you get one full day of rest between each workout day.

Keep the weight for each of the two sets for each exercise constant. That is to say, if you use 100 pounds for the overhead press on Set 1, use 100 pounds again for Set 2.

Do your normal daily activities, whether it's school (and PE), work, or whatever else you do on a normal basis. This workout should take you no longer than 20-25 minutes, which is a good jump up from Week 1.

Note that there are no cardio exercises listed. If you're currently doing some aerobic workouts to burn calories because you're trying to lose weight, you can continue them. However, if you're a beginner to weight training and you want to gain weight, then I suggest you curtail any vigorous activities this week. In subsequent weeks, we will add in some heart-pounding exercise.

Week 2 Workout

Go to Eat, Recover

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