Last week, we doubled our sets – you should have felt a BIG change from Week 1 to Week 2! By now, you should really be feeling much stronger, have more endurance, and start beginning to see some significant changes in your body!

Everything you've done up to now should be transforming your body from its undeveloped and perhaps over-fat condition into a true lean, mean fighting machine!

This week, we're going to pick up the pace A LOT! You are going to increase your intensity by drastically reducing your rest intervals between sets. You're going to pound your muscles with a time-tested bodybuilding and strength-building technique known as "super setting."

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Super sets are one of the best muscle-builders of all time. Remember that there are 3 ways to increase your workout intensity?

1. Add weight
2. Add volume
3. Decrease rest time?

You've done the first two. Every workout, you've made it your goal to add weight to each exercise, if only by 5-10 pounds at a time. Last week, you literally doubled your training intensity by doubling the number of sets you did.

This week, you begin using the super set principle, where you take no rest between sets. Let me explain. You will still be performing the same exercises for the same number of reps. Only now, you will alternate doing one set of an exercise with one set of another exercise, taking no rest between exercises!

This week, you'll be doing your exercises in a slightly different order:

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

You will perform one set of the Bench Press, followed by one set of the Pull up. Then, switch back to the Bench Press and do another set. Then do your last set of Pull ups.

Alternate the Overhead Press with the Squat in the same fashion.

Do the Deadlifts by themselves.

To kick up the intensity just a little bit more (okay, a lot more), perform 12 reps for each set rather than 10 reps. Use the same weight for the first workout this week that you used for the last workout last week. On the second and third workouts this week, try to add 5-10 pounds to each exercise.

Cool?

Here is Week 3's training routine.

You can jump to Eat or Recover at any time.

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

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 minutes.

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 3 Workout

Go to Eat, Recover

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

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

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

As you may know, there are 3 pillars to any bodybuilding program: Exercise, diet, and recovery. They are all important. You cannot skimp on one. If you think you can train hard, eat junk, and party all night long and still build muscle, you better think again. Oh, you may gain some muscle, but just think how much muscle you would have gained had you eaten right and gotten enough rest!

Rest is super important. If you don't rest enough, you won't give your muscles enough time to rebuild.

Let's talk about that for a moment.

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When you train, you're actually tearing down your muscles. You are inflicting damage. It's this damage that is the spark to make your muscles grow: Your brain instructs your body to produce more testosterone and growth hormone, which lead to building bigger muscles.

When you eat, especially right after your workout, you are supplying your body with the nutrients it needs – predominantly protein – to not only repair the muscle tissue but also to grow your muscles bigger and stronger than they were before you worked out.

Food supplies the raw materials and time supplies the "labor."

Think of building a house. You can have the best lumber and building supplies delivered, but if there aren't expert carpenters there to cut the wood and hammer the nails, no matter what you do, you won't get a house built.

Same goes for your muscles. You can supply the stimulus (hard training) and the building supplies (nutrition), but if you don't give your body the time and rest it needs, you simply will not grow.

End of story.

Fortunately, recovering properly is pretty simple. Here's the prescription for Week 1:

• Get at least 8 hours of sound, restful sleep.
• Try to take a nap after your workout and post-workout meal. If you cannot nap, try to rest as much as possible for 30 minutes.

That's really all there is to it. The key is to relax as much as possible when you're not working out. If you nervously tap your toes when you're sitting down watching television, stop. You will have to consciously think about relaxing.

If you have a really hard time relaxing, you may want to consider yoga and/or meditation. Either (or both) of these practices can help you relax.

Some things to keep in mind if you have trouble sleeping:

• First, make sure you don't have a medical condition by conferring with your physician. Get any medical issues ironed out before you take on any new exercise system.
• Refrain from watching television before going to sleep. There's something about TV that actually heightens anxiety and keeps you from relaxing properly.
• Drink some warm milk right before bed.
• Do not drink caffeine after about 3pm.

If you follow these guidelines, you are very likely to experience 8 hours of restful sleep. We'll talk more about rest, relaxation, and recovery in the following weeks.

Back to Train, Eat

A well-known trainer of champion physiques, the late Vince Gironda, proclaimed that bodybuilding success was 85 percent nutrition. While I'm not positive about the percentage, I can assure you that your eating habits will make or break your success in the training room.

Let's face it: Most of our daily diets is crap. We eat a preponderance of processed, salt- and transfat-laden food, sodas filled with high fructose corn syrup, and breads, pastries, and other sugary snacks that just are downright unforgiving on the waistline and endocrine systems. It is my belief that the unprecedented rates of heart disease, diabetes, and cancer all stem from our crummy diets.

So let's get one thing out of the way: You really ARE what you EAT.

The first thing you have to do if you want to build a lean, muscular body is to throw away all junk food. There is no place for it. Your body is a temple; it's not Disneyland. Cotton candy doesn't belong here! Nor does soda pop, greasy pizza, or deep-fried anything.

It's very tempting to give in to rampant commercialism and buy "convenience foods." However, they won't seem so convenient when you're in the ER with a heart that barely pumps, you're short of breath, and you're about to die.

It may seem like eating right is really complicated. You have to get the precise intake of protein, carbohydrates, and fat, right? Not really. Here's a simple guide to eating right and eating smart.

It really boils down to eating natural food in as unprocessed a state as is safe. This means that you can eat lots of the following:

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• Lean cuts of beef, chicken, pork, and fish. This includes lean hamburger cooked medium to medium-well (slight to no pink)
• Raw vegetables and fruits
• Raw nuts
• Whole wheat and whole oats
• Eggs
• Milk (raw from a trusted source is best but pasteurized is good, too)
• Pasta and starches like potatoes in moderation
• Juice sparingly
• All the water you want (and there's no reason to buy bottled water)

There are, of course, differences between how much you should eat depending on your goals. However, what you eat really doesn't change much. It's all about how much you eat, as long as you're eating the right things (or, put another way, NOT eating the wrong things).

Keep it simple: Whole, raw, and natural whenever possible

How to Get Started

Click on the right hand side to find your basal metabolic rate (BMR). This is a starting point! This calculation will get you in the ball park for determining a starting point for your baseline daily caloric intake.

Once you have your BMR, you can begin planning your meals accordingly. Remember, your BMR is an estimate of how many calories on a daily basis you need just to continue breathing. It does not include any activity whatsoever.

Conservatively add 500 calories to this figure to get an estimate of your daily caloric needs, given the fact that you're going to be moving about. This is your true starting point.

Here's an example – a 6 foot, 200 pound, 30-year old male has a BMR of 2,028 calories.

2,028 + 500 = 2,528

This is the daily caloric intake that our example man should strive for to maintain his weight.

Your caloric breakdown will be as follows:

• 50 percent carbohydrates
• 30 percent protein
• 20 percent fat

These percentages are in terms of calories.

Some facts: Protein and carbohydrates each contain 4 calories per gram. Fat contains 9 calories per gram. What we want to derive is grams of each macronutrient. Here's how:

Carbs
Daily caloric intake goal * 50% = 1,264
1,264/4 = 316 grams of carbohydrate

Protein
Daily caloric intake goal * 30% = 758
758/4 = 190 grams of protein

Fat
Daily caloric intake goal * 20% = 506
506/9 = 56 grams of fat

See the basic calculations?

NOTE that the percentages will not change whether you're trying to gain, maintain, or lose weight.

BOTTOM LINE – The only thing you change when your weight goals change is your portion sizes. Could it be any simpler?

A few other general notes. Buy a quality multi-vitamin multi-mineral. GNC and Bodybuilding.com sell them in 30-day packs. Consider this nutritional insurance. Even when you eat whole, natural, and raw or lightly cooked foods, you may still not get all the micronutrients your body needs.
 

Gain Weight

Many people take up bodybuilding to gain weight by building greater muscle mass. Again, start with your BMR, add 500 for a baseline, and then add another 500 for your daily intake goal .
 

Maintain Weight

Simply stick with your calculated BMR + 500 calories
 

Lose Weight

Simply use your BMR for your daily caloric intake goal. That's it.

Those are the basics. Your meals should be comprised of the foods listed above (meat, fish, chicken, pork, fresh fruits and vegetables, plenty of water, and moderate starches, pastas and juice).

Guidelines for every body

Split your calories evenly over 6 meals on days you don't work out. On days you do work out, add a pre-workout meal and a post-workout meal. We'll talk about these workout meals in the next section. This is one of the few areas where what you eat changes depending on your weight goals.

Pre- and Post-workout Meals

I am a big fan of strategic meals around workouts. Contrary to conventional wisdom ("Breakfast is the most important meal"), it is the workout meals that matter the most. And remember, conventional wisdom gets you conventional results. We want more than that!

If your goal is to gain weight, you should ingest a calorie-laden, high protein shake before and after your weight workouts. If you are trying to lose weight, you're better off ingesting a lower-calorie, high protein shake before and after your weight workouts.

What's the difference? Carbs and fat! A person wanting to gain weight could use a weight gain powder or a pure protein powder mixed with whole milk and a fruit of choice. A person wanting to lose weight would use water or nonfat milk with a pure protein powder.

A person wishing to maintain weight would simply mix lowfat milk and protein powder. Optionally, add fruit to flavor the shake.

Here are some nutritious shake recipes. Remember, variety is the spice of life!

That's it for nutrition in Week 1. It's a lot, but you need a great nutrition foundation on which to build all the strength necessary to build the body you want in the coming weeks.

Go to Train, Recover

Our objective this week is to build a firm foundation on which to build our strength. After all, you cannot expect to build an awesome body without first doing some strength training that prepares you for some serious muscle hypertrophy.

All things considered, a stronger muscle has more potential for growth, and that's what this entire course is about.

So, how do you build strength?

Progressive Overload

Each successive week of this 4-week strength-building phase will bring us heavier and heavier weights to lift. The objective during the next 4 weeks is to add plates to the bar every single workout!

We will adhere to several strength-building principles, the first of which is the aforementioned Progressive Overload principle. We'll also be using straight sets of low to moderate repetitions, low volume, and complex exercises.

Ready?

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

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Our core exercises will be the following compound movements (compound movements are exercises that involve multiple large muscle groups like the quadriceps and glutes, as opposed to isolation movements that only involve singe and/or small muscle groups like the biceps):

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

For Week 1, you will do 1 set 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.

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 10-15 minutes, which is a good starting point.

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 1 Workout

Go to Eat, Recover

I'm going to guide you every step of the way. Let me show you how this program is going to work.

Each week, you'll get an Introduction to the week's plans. In the Intro, you will learn what you'll be doing for the week. Each week consists of the following modules:

• Train
  
• Eat
  
• Recover
  

These are the "3 Pillars" that comprise the Stair Step Training System. Every single week, we'll drill down into each of these critical components, plus we'll add in any supplementary materials along the way.

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For this first week, we'll begin laying the foundation for the rest of the course. Here's how it will break down over the next 4 months:

1. Weeks 1-4 — Strength
2. Weeks 5-8 — Size
3. Weeks 9-12 — Speed
4. Weeks 13-16 — Shred

In each of the 4 phases, we'll concentrate on one facet of building your body, while we maintain the progress we've made in the prior phases. The idea here is to build, maintain, build, maintain, over a total of 4 months.

Every week, we'll introduce any concepts you'll be using for that particular week. For example, you may be employing a new training technique that week; in that case, we'll go through a thorough explanation on the theory, why it's important, and how it will be used for the week.

For Week 1, we'll be talking about building strength: Why it is so important as well as how to develop strength as rapidly as possible.

When you want to build muscle, the most important first step is to build strength. Why? Muscles only grow when they have to. Like everything else in life, there is built-in inertia. The body simply likes the status quo. Your body wants to stay the same. It resists change. You literally have to force the body to adapt.

Muscles get stronger when you subject them to stresses they haven't experienced before. One way to do this is to lift heavier and heavier weights for a given number of repetitions. In order to adapt, your muscles grow stronger. This is called Progressive Resistance Weight Training.

When you move to the Size phase of the program, your muscles will be stronger, which means that you will be able to lift heavier weights throughout the size-building phase. This "overloading" of the muscles will make them get bigger as a response to the stresses you're placing on them with the heavier weights.

Strength training has other benefits, too. Not only will your muscles get stronger, but the mind-body connection will be fortified, such that you will find yourself getting stronger beyond your mere muscle strength gains – your mind is connecting with your muscles in a more effective and efficient manner.

It is so important in this initial stage to build muscle strength! A stronger muscle becomes a bigger muscle.

Let's move onto the specific training workout routine you will follow in Week 1.