Countdown to Strength Challenge Week 2 Live Tutorial Transcript

Note: This tutorial video was recorded as a live Facebook event. The text below is an edited transcript of the tutorial intended to provide members with a convenient means of referring to and further researching the topics and content detailed in the video.

Transcript

Happy Sunday, JYM Army. I'll let a few more people join in. Sorry, running a little late today—getting set up here at the new JYM, but today's live tutorial I'm going to be covering Week 2 of my Countdown to Strength Challenge.

There's Still Time to Sign Up!

I've completed Week 1. Now, don't be confused: Just because I've completed Week 1 doesn't mean you're too late. You can start this program, at least the Countdown to Strength Challenge part—you can do the challenge up until the 15th of this month. 

You have until the 15th to sign up, enter the challenge for not only a chance to completely change your body—get stronger, get leaner—but for a chance to win the grand prize, which is hanging out with me, coming out—all-expense-paid trip here—to Hollywood, hang out with me, train with me in the new JYM, eat donuts, have some fun, plenty of JYM swag and JYM supplements as well. 

But, if you don't want to participate in the challenge part of this program, it's still an awesome 5-week program no matter when—you could do this next year if you want, it'll always be available at JimStoppani.com. 

Breaking Down Week 2

You can see Workout 1 from Week 1 and 2—which is what we're going to be comparing today—switch the transition going from Week 1 where we're doing 5x5 reps on our three moves—our bench press, our squat, and our deadlift—and that's 5x5 heavy; we also do 5x5 fast and explosive; and we do 5x5 super-slow, 5 seconds on the positive, 5 seconds on the negative. 

So you do squat, bench, and deadlift three times each week, one time going heavy, one time going fast/explosive reps with light weight, and one time doing super-slow reps. Then, once you've completed all five workouts—there are five workouts per week—once you've completed all the five workouts you're going to then start Week 2 where now we go down to 4x4 and 40 reps.

Now, the 4x4s are referring to the three lifts—again, the bench press, the squat, and the deadlift—and yes it's going to be 4x4 with the heaviest weight you can do for 4 sets of 4, 4x4 with about half of that weight for fast, explosive reps, and then 4x4 again with half the heavy weight that you used to do the super-slow reps. 

Countdown to Strength—and Power, and Fat Loss

What that's going to do is the heavy weight is obviously building strength. The fast, explosive reps are building power, which is going to carry over to more strength—particularly what we call "starting strength", like when you get out of the hole on the bench press as you start to provide that power; same thing with the squat, coming out of the hole. Same thing with the dead, that starting power is critical, and that's what those fast reps will help you increase—that starting power which is going to carry over to more strength on your 1RM on the bench, your squat, and your deadlift, which is the main goal of this program. 

Now, even though it's a strength challenge, with the full-body training and the programming that I have in here with the different rep and set schemes it's also building muscle and shedding body fat like you wouldn't believe. As a matter of fact, I know there are a few participants right now who just jumped into the program, gone through the first week, and they're dumbfounded by how much fat they're already starting to shed. 

Assistance Exercises

So, with the 4x4s now, meaning we're now going heavier on all those sets. Each week, the weight gets heavier—not just on the bench press, squat, and the deadlift, but also on your assistance exercises. In Week 1, we were doing a total of 50 reps per exercise for the assistance—this isn't counting the bench press, squat, or the deadlift, these are all your assistance exercises: Your barbell row, your lateral raise, your shrugs, calf raises, your dumbbell overhead triceps extensions, barbell curls for biceps, barbell wrist curl for forearms, the crunch for the abs. 

This is just Workout 1. There are five different workouts so that you're getting a variety of exercises to target a variety of those muscle fibers. As you'll notice here in Workout 1 of Week 1, you're doing 50 reps for all these assistance exercises, right? But the set and rep scheme is completely different. For barbell rowing, you're doing 5 sets of 10—that equals 50 reps. 

For dumbbell lateral raise, you're doing 2 sets of 25—also 50 reps, but you see a huge difference here in the weight that would allow you to do 5 sets of 10 versus 2 sets of 25. Still 50 reps. Dumbbell shrug, 10 sets of 5—again, 50 reps. But look at the total difference in the volume: 5 sets, 2 sets, 10 sets, all equaling 50 reps because it's really about the workload, the total reps that we're doing. 

Now, as we go over into Week 2, not only are we getting heavier here on our bench press, our squat, and our deadlifts, because now we're doing fewer sets with fewer reps, which means we can now increase the weight—and remember to use your rep max table that I provided for you, because here what we're going to—I'm recommending somewhere around 80% of your 4RM to complete all 4 sets of 4. 

So you're going to take your 1RM that you tested, you're going to use the table that I provided—and remember, that's in the overview of the program—you're going to go to the table, find your 1RM, go over to 4RM, drop it down you'll find your 4-rep max, and then you're going to take 80% of that. 

Don't Be Afraid to Up the Weight

I'm going to warn you that, even though it's only been a week, you guys are probably already starting to increase muscle strength thanks to all the different 5x5s that you've been doing, so when you get to Week 2 this 80% of your 4RM might be too light. Good chance that it's going to be too light for you, so use this—and again, these are just guidelines, but really now, as you're going through the program each week, you're getting stronger. 

Instead of going back and retesting your 1-rep max in each of those exercises to get a new 4RM, you're going to use the old 4RM but knowing it's probably old news—you're probably already stronger than that old 4RM. You may find that you need to bump this up to like 90% of that 4RM. As a matter of fact, as we get into Week 3 and 4 where we do 3 sets of 3 and 2 sets of 2, you'll probably be able to do 100% of your 3-rep max based on that old 1RM. 

Remember, we tested our 1RM at the very beginning of the program. By Week 3, you've been training for 3 weeks—you're already getting stronger, and so like I said that old 1-rep max is old news. You're already stronger. But instead of retesting—you don't want to test your 1-rep max every week, we'll test it at the end—just know that you're probably going to have to go a bit heavier with each week as you go. 

Again, don't worry, you can adjust as you go. If you start off and you find those first 4 are too light, still counts—that's Set 1—then increase the weight on Set 2 and make sure you'll be able to get all—remember, you've got to get all 4 sets of 4 reps. It's not about just doing as many as you can and hoping to hit 4, you have to get all 16 reps. That's what's critical about this program. 

Varying Set and Rep Schemes

Same with the assistance exercises, those 40 reps are critical to the results you're going to get: Strength, muscle mass, fat loss. So, like I said, we're going from 50 reps to 40 reps in Week 2. Now, to most people, dropping from 50 reps per exercise to 40 reps seems like it's getting easier, right? "Well we have to do fewer reps, and Jim you said this is all about workload, so this week must be easier, right?" No, far from it. Remember, there's intensity. 

So let's look at—the best example is probably on the dumbbell lateral raise here where we're doing 2 sets of 25. Week 2, I have dumbbell lateral raise, we're doing 2 sets of 20 which equals 40 reps. Now, is 2 sets of 20 easier than doing 2 sets of 25? No. You're still doing 2 sets, but now you're doing fewer reps in Week 2, meaning the weight you used in Week 1, you're going to have to increase. So even though you're doing fewer reps you're using heavier weight, which means it's essentially harder.

So, even though we're dropping down in reps each week, we're increasing the weight. That's the one thing I want to make sure that you get. Make sure—whatever you do, when you're going from Week 1 to Week 2—that each one of these exercises, you're increasing the weight somewhat, by the smallest increment that you can, whether that's 5 lbs, 2.5 lbs, or 10 lbs. 

The weight that you're using—remember, the exercises stay the same—not each workout, but each week, right? Five different workouts with five different exercises, but Workout 1 of Week 1 is the same as Workout 1 of Week 2, right? And Workout 2 is a different one, but Workout 2 would be the same in Week 2, right? So the exercises stay the same, it's the rep and set scheme that I'm changing up. 

And remember, this is a classic linear periodized program, which means each week—well it doesn't have to be a week, but since I'm using microcycles here—but as the program progresses—that's what linear periodization involves, is you get heavier as you go, as you progress. Each week we want to be getting heavier, not just on the bench press, the squat, and the deadlift, but all our assistance exercises as well. 

And again, it looks more confusing to you than it probably is, but we're getting heavier. So for barbell row, we did 5 sets of 10 in Week 1—50 reps. Now we're doing 4 sets of 10—40 reps—in Week 2. 5 sets of 10, 4 sets of 10. 4 sets of 10 sounds easier than 5 sets of 10—it's fewer sets, right? No, because remember, with this program, you have to complete all 50 reps. 

So if you're doing 5 sets of 10 to complete 50 reps, when you get to 4 sets of 10 to get 40 reps, you're going to be able to use much heavier weight to only do 4 sets of 10 than you did 5 sets of 10, right? Because you've got an extra set here. You're going heavier. Even though it's fewer sets, you're using a heavier weight which increases the intensity. It's actually getting harder—fewer reps, more weight. It's actually getting harder.

Now there are some trickier ones here like dumbbell shrug where I did 10 sets of 5 equals 50. Instead of 10 sets of 4 here, I switched up the sets into 8 sets of 5. You're still doing the same reps, right? Same total reps, but again like the 4 sets of 10 versus the 5 sets of 10 we're doing fewer total sets meaning we're going to use heavier weight on the dumbbell shrug to do 8 sets of 5 versus 10 sets of 5. But 8 times 5 is 40. So make sure, like I said, that each week you're increasing the weight. 

Now, what about the crunch? What do you do for crunch, increasing the weight from 2 sets of 25 to 2 sets of 20? Anything—you can hold a weight plate, you can hold a dumbbell, you can hold a kettlebell, medicine ball, you can do the Smith machine—my Smith machine crunch, check it out—you could use bands for your resistance here on crunches, you could use a crunch machine if you want. 

Just be sure that whatever resistance you use on each exercise, you're using slightly more in Week 2, and then from Week 2 when you get to Week 3—and, again, I'll do another tutorial next week—you're going to increase the weight once again. 

Don't Be Afraid to Change Up the Exercises, Either!

Now, a couple things I'll say about the exercises is do not get stuck on the exercises. These are just the exercises that I'm suggesting, okay? It's going to be different depending on what you have access to. The actual exercises aren't critical. 

Yes, if you're a competitive powerlifter and you're trying to use this program to increase your bench press, your squat, and your deadlift, then you damn well better be doing the actual bench press, the squat, and the deadlift—not a Smith machine, not a machine version, not a dumbbell version—you want to be doing what you're competing with. 

For the rest of us, doesn't really matter. So if you want to increase your squat strength, great—increase your squat strength. If you don't have access to a squat set-up where you can do it easily and you only have a leg press? Then make this exercise the leg press instead, do leg press. 

You can say all you want to say about the difference between the leg press and the squat. The squat is far better than the leg press, but if you don't have access to anything else the leg press is far better than nothing, just skipping the program. Don't get hung up on these exercises. Use what you have available. 

Just Keep it Consistent

If you're doing the leg press or squat machine, or whatever you want to do—Smith machine squat, here—whatever it is—same for the bench press, if you're using the Smith machine or bench press machine, or dumbbells—just make sure that when you do the different 5x5 and even 4x4s—fast, slow—you're doing the same exercise, whether it's the leg press—you're not going to jump around. Just do the exercise for those 5x5s, the 4x4s.

Same for the assistance exercises—if you don't have dumbbells and you can't do dumbbell lateral raises you can use bands, you could use a machine. If you don't have anything—you don't have dumbbells period, or you don't have anything you can do single—do upright rows. Do shoulder presses. You could adjust the exercises.

I tried to use a variety of exercises here so that you get a variety of pressing for shoulders, raises for shoulders, but if you don't have the access to all those tools it's okay. The point of this program is not the actual exercises, it's the changing of the reps and the sets and the weight, so no matter what exercises you're doing here this scheme will produce the same results: Strength, muscle mass, and fat loss. Adjust those exercises as you need to. 

Have a Question? Ask!

And again, if you have questions just ask me. I'll tell you on Twitter, Instagram; go to the JYM Army Facebook group page, they'll help you out as well. Don't be shy. Ask questions. I want you guys to get the results, that's why I'm so active on social media. The more answers I can get you guys the better the results you get from my programs and my products. What's the point of doing this if you guys aren't getting the best results? I'd be wasting my time. So ask—please, ask. 

There are no stupid questions, guys. Don't feel that it's a dumb question. "Oh, you get this question a million times." Yeah, I do. There are millions of you who all have the same questions. I want to make sure you get the answers, so ask as you go. You want to know what's a good alternative if you can't do the bench press, ask me, or ask the JYM Army members. We'll help you.

How to Handle a Missed Workout

Another thing I want to mention here is what happens if you miss a workout and you just can't make it up. It happens, okay? This is five days—I train seven, so on the weekends I do extra workouts. I typically do a lot of tabata stuff, especially here at the new JYM. I've got so much room now. I've been doing tabatas or I'll be doing 50 reps on the weekend as well, but different varieties of those 50 reps. 

If, however, you miss a workout and there are three days of the week you literally can't get to the gym—maybe you're traveling; I'm going to FIBO on Wednesday, so Wednesday I will try to squeeze in a workout before I fly. However, I will be on the road a good 24 hours to get to Germany, at least, so there's going to be a 24-hour period where I'm not going to have access to the gym. So there's going to be one day I'm going to miss the gym. What do you do if you can't make that up? 

I'll make it up—as a matter of fact, as soon as we're done here, 4 o'clock rolls around—is it almost 4 yet? I'm going to get my Pro JYM, my Pre JYM—I'm actually sipping on my Pre JYM a little early already, it's okay. You can do that from time to time. But I'm going to train today, Monday's Workout 1 today, so that I'm ahead, and that way if I miss 24 hours I won't have to make it up, I'll just be able to jump into Workout 4 or 5 when I get to Germany.

If you can't get the workout in, what I suggest you do is—at the very least—each and every week, if you're following this program and you're one of these people who have a crazy schedule—trust me, I understand, I have a crazy schedule, but this is my life so I make sure I get this in—however, if you're the Jim Stoppani of the legal world and you're a lawyer and you're running around, you've got to do lawyer stuff, right? Well, guess what? The weightlifting takes a backseat. 

It's first for me, because it's my—I get it. So, if you can't get a workout, what you want to do—the bare minimum each week—is to make sure you do those three exercises, right? Our squat or whatever ones you're going to be focusing on, and remember, the squat—let's talk about these three moves, as well: The bench press, if you guys can even see this—sorry, I get it, with the glare and the size, and I can't see the camera so I don't know what you're able to see—and the deadlift. Those are our three main lifts that we're working with in this program—squat, bench press, and the deadlift. 

Why the Big Three Lifts Are So Important

Why are we using—well, these are obviously what's used in powerlifting, but do you guys realize why these lifts are used? It's not just, "Oh, the bench press is the bench press." The squat is basically the ultimate lower-body strength test, right? Makes sense. The bench press is the ultimate upper-body strength test, at least upper-body pushing strength test. 

The deadlift is not a back strength test, okay? Sure, there's back involved—and remember, the bench was, I said, pushing; the squat is leg, again a lot of pushing—well, the deadlift...what is the deadlift? Is it a push or a pull? It's both, actually, because the legs are pushing and the back is pulling. The deadlift is what we consider the ultimate overall body strength test because it's involving pulling from the upper body, pushing from the lower body, and so these three make up powerlifting—the ultimate sort of overall body strength test—lower, upper, and then overall body. 

For those of you who don't realize the difference between the squat and the deadlift, even though they're both very leg-heavy, and you're lifting weight, the main difference with the deadlift is you don't get the negative, meaning you don't get that lowering. In the deadlift, it just starts from a dead stop, and that's why it's called the deadlift. 

What people who don't have an exercise science degree don't realize—and you'll realize this if you compare the world record in the deadlift and the squat, the squat is a much bigger lift than the deadlift, which is surprising to a lot of newbies and a lot of people who don't have a lot of training experience because their deadlift tends to be more than the squat. Why is that?

Well, the squat is a bit of a—it's a difficult exercise to master, versus just picking a weight up off the floor. It's easier for a beginner to come in and pick up—clearly it's not that easy, and there are ways to do it properly, but you get the point. It's easier to pick up a weight than to put a barbell on your back, squat down, and come back up with it.

However, what advantage you have with the squat is the lowering before you're raising. When you lower it, those muscles gain energy—it's elastic energy. You're stretching the muscle, it's like a rubber band. When you let it go, it's going to snap back up, so as you're coming down to the squat you're building up power to help you back up just by the elastic property of the muscles. They're going to help you come back up. 

A deadlift, you have none of that. You lose all that stretch because you're just down in a dead spot and now you have to lift the weight up without that negative, so it's a much harder lift—the deadlift—than the squat, and that's why the world records in the squat are well over 1,000 lbs, but for somebody to deadlift 1,000 lbs is absolutely remarkable. There are only a few people who've been able to get even close to that mark. 

So that's really sort of the little bit of history, background about the three lifts. Now, as I was saying—back to my original point—is if you have a crazy schedule and you can't—you know you're not going to be able to hit all these workouts—bare minimum is what you want to do. Squat—you want to make sure you get in all your 5x5s for the week, or whatever week you're on. You want to make sure you get all three for all three exercises. You want to do the heavy, the fast, and the slow each week. 

If you can't make up a workout, just try to make sure that during that week you work in heavy, fast, and slow on all three of these lifts, even if you have to do fast and slow in the same workout. I would recommend trying to keep your heavy workout separate if you have to double up, like say the bench press with the squat, if you have to do the 5x5s for fast day and heavy day, the only time I would double up is if you're doing the slow and the fast. I wouldn't do one exercise for twice if it's your heavy day. Try to save your heavy day to be separate. 

Using Staggered Sets to Save Time

So, that's really Week 2 in a nutshell, guys. I'm going to go crush it right now. As soon as I sign off I am jumping into 4x4s, fast squats. Again, if you watched my video on supersetting, what I will be doing is I'm going to superset these two—squat and the bench press, 4x4s—but then what I'll do is when I get to barbell row here I will superset with dumbbell lateral raise. You're going to say, "Wait, you're going to do rows and lateral—but there are four sets of rows, only two sets of lateral raises."

It's really called "staggered set training". It's a Weider Principle. It's not a true superset, it's just instead of resting I'm going to use my rest time to get a set done of dumbbell lateral raises. So what'll happen here is I'll do a set of rows, then a set of lateral rows. Then I move back to a set of rows and my second set of lateral raises. 

Now, I'll be done with the dumbbell lateral raise, right? That's done. But I still have two sets left of the barbell row. So I'll go back to the row, and then I'll be supersetting my rows with my shrugs. So I'll get into two sets, but then I'll still have six sets left of shrugs, so as I'm doing my shrugs I'll then move from staggering shrugs with the rows to shrugs with the calf raises. That's all, just staggering sets so you're not sitting there waiting. 

Now, obviously, you want to be careful. You don't want to superset barbell curl with wrist curl, because your forearms are needed to assist the biceps on curls, so you don't want to fatigue them. So be careful that you're not stagger-setting or staggering exercises that might cause fatigue in the other exercise. Just be cognizant of that, but you can bounce around. That way you're not in the gym quite as long. Use your rest time to train another muscle group—at least that's the way I prefer to do it. 

Adding Cardioacceleration to the Challenge

The other thing I will say is I keep moving. I can't do much cardioacceleration—although I've been starting to jump rope, I've got my sled here in the JYM as my cardioacceleration as well—because of my knee. But for those of you who want to do cardioacceleration, feel free to do it in between your sets. You can do a minute of cardioacceleration or however long you want in between any of these sets, you can do between exercises—even if you're supersetting, you could do it in between supersets.

So yes, you definitely can do cardioacceleration during the program, or you can save your cardio for a completely separate day, or at the end—or, like me, you don't even have to do it, because the full-body training is essentially acting as your cardio. 

Make the Program Your Own

Many options, guys. That's why questions are critical. There's no one-size-fits-all for anyone. You guys are individuals. So, even though this program is going to produce results for pretty much everyone, you need to adjust this for your schedule, for your needs, for your goals, etc. Same with the diet and supplement plan. Even though the overall advice is there and works for the majority of people you want to tweak it for yourself. 

Use this as you can, but ask questions. You have to ask questions. The only way you're going to get the right answer is to ask the right questions. So don't be shy, guys. I hope you guys have a great weekend. For those of you who crushed Workout 1 with me, I'm watching you guys. I see you posting your photos. I'm looking forward to the results, Week 2 progress photos. I'll have mine posted up as well, soon. As always, guys, have a great weekend. Stay JYM Army Strong. 

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