90 Days to Ripped

Here are some bodybuilding tips to gain muscle fast and work on bringing out those elusive abs!

• Up your intensitity! If you are doing 3x try for a 4th. Last weekend I was deadlifting and I used a superset after deadlifting by doing 12 reps of low cable rows. I was extremely exhausted afterwards and was sweating a ton - great system shocker!
• Aim for faster cardio - I’ve been changing up my cardio from walking 1.5-2 miles on an inclined treadmill at about 4 mph to sprinting 1 mile at 7 min/mile. Try to vary things and keep your body guessing! I’ve also included 10 minutes of light bag workouts at the start of my cardio session.
• Get your bodyfat tested and take pictures in the mirror once every 2 weeks - this will allow you to see changes and progression and keep you motivated in the gym (Knowing you have a bathroom photo shoot coming up will curve your binges and keep you motivated)
• Consider a personal trainer - even for you advanced guys who even  may be trainers; there’s always a tip or exercise or routine you could pick up from employing others. It’s always nice to get a 2nd pair of educated eyes on your routine as well.
• Get some new workout clothes that flatter your body - I’m not one for vanity ever, but I don’t wear a XXL shirt to the gym when I workout. I like to wear shirts that just skim over my body so that when I’m 25 minutes into my workout I feel my shirt getting tighter due to my muscles swelling and filling with blood - that’s an amazing feeling and an awesome picture (If only it could be like that all the time, right?). I’m all about the positive imagery. Try hitting the thrift store for some cheap $1.00 tee-shirts if your on a budget.
• Up your protein - I’m sick to death about people talking about protein and as bodybuilders, bombarded with information about it. I suggest sliding in an extra meal that’s nothing but protein mid-morning and that can consist of a few slices of turkey and fat free cheese just wrapped up (30-40g with very low fat) without any carbs. I did such and it increased my fat burning.
• Join a new gym + get a training partner - by joining a new gym your putting yourself in a new environment. I recently joined a more ‘hard core’ gym and such my motivation has increased to perform an extra rep/set. By getting a new training partner your less likely to flake on a workout.
• Print out a picture of what you want to look like and carry it around in your wallet, right over your drivers license. This is good because when you have your wallet open at Wendy’s you’ll notice your motivation looking right back at you, and opt for the Chili/Salad combo instead of the fries/frosty. Also good in bars!
• Focus on progress, not perfection. You will not look like a male model or get abs over night, so why criticize yourself over things you can’t immediately change? Keep telling yourself that each day your burning fat and building muscle, and you ARE making progress.
• Be true to yourself - if your keeping an exercise journal or diet plan, are you following it? Are you perfectly honest in recording what you do and what you eat? Are you “benching” 275 lbs by just dropping it on your chest and having your spotter do all the work to lift it off of you or are you really the one doing it?

Your body adapts quickly to routines and to continue to build muscle and get lean, you need to shock your system with outlines or routines that will challenge your body and force new growth.

For example I lifted 3 days in a row without a rest and each day I hit a different body part at a different angle, for example my day 1 and day 2 looked something like this:

Incline 3x of 10
Squat 3x of 10
Military Press 3x of 10

Then the next day I went in the gym and did something like this:

Flat Bench 3x of 10
Lunges 3x of 10
Shoulder Laterals 3x of 10

Lastly, my third day looked like this:

3x Deadlift
3x Pulldown
3x Dumbell Flies
3x Leg Extension & Calf Raise

This is very unorthodox and not something I recommend doing everyday or every week - but in my opinion, once every 6 or so months, try something you’d NEVER do or try, as it’s a good system shock. I took the 3rd day completely off and ate a ton of calories (95% “good” calories mind you) and I woke up the next day extremely lean and full of energy.

I’m going to rest another day (But do an hour of cardio) then I’ll go back into a normal, formalized bodybuilding routine starting with back, then I’ll transition into either chest or legs and repeat the cycle.

If you don’t want to come up with your own, try doing the 300 workout for a good sweat:
http://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/features/the-300-workout-can-you-handle-it

“The Iron never lies to you. You can walk outside and listen to all kinds of talk, get told that you’re a god or a total bastard. The Iron will always kick you the real deal. The Iron is the great reference point, the all-knowing perspective giver.

Always there like a beacon in the pitch black. I have found the Iron to be my greatest friend. It never freaks out on me, never runs. Friends may come and go. But two hundred pounds is always two hundred pounds.”

-Henry Rollins

Since I’ve been deadlifting, all my lifts have gone up. I’m now deadlifting 325+ lbs for 6 reps without too much discontent and my form is still on par with “good.” 2-3 months ago I was maxing out at 225 and this has been a great jump forward. One of the biggest factors that lead me to jump up this high in weight has been scheduling in rest days.

I just started a new job and prior to that, I was working from home so I had the luxury of training hard almost every day because I could schedule work around my gym time (How nice, right?). I may have been overtraining slightly too come to think of it. Now, I’m in the cube from 9:30-6:30 M-F and sometimes when I get home, it’s almost 7 and I hate lifting past 8 pm because I’ll never get to sleep.

What I do now is I schedule my heavy lifts for Sat/Sun (Back on Sat and Legs on Sunday) and then I take Monday-Tuesday off from lifting and just do light cardio which includes walking a mile or biking for 20 minutes. I get a lift or two in during the week of smaller muscles and this seems to be working out just fine as I don’t quite need as much energy to shoulder press as I do when I squat or DL. Since I’m able to sleep in and get a few solid meals in before the gym on the weekend, my lifts have all gone up steadily as I’m never really lifting tired or with a lot on my mind.

I also noticed that when I’m able to rest and I make myself take days off, I’m actually growing faster and getting leaner while doing passive cardio as my body has more time to repair and build.

In short:

• Schedule a rest day every other day if possible and consume enough food/protein to grow
• Do something active/light cardio on the day following a very heavy lift (Legs for example) , and avoid long, intense cardio sessions after a very hard workout the day prior

This is a very cool, motivational clip on how you should be training - with determination and intensity! Nobody got big and ripped up by doing isolation exercises and tricep kickbacks. Stick to basic, heavy lifts for mass and overall growth. Once you have a lean body mass established, then you can start to carve and etch in detail.

I see a lot of guys in my gym every single day lifting hard, but they look the exact same each and every time they come into the gym. If your wondering why that is - the key to bodybuilding and achieving your goals is really dialing in on your diet. You can only lift weights for an hour or so a day, but eating and dieting is basically a 24 hour process, 6-7 days per week.

In order to get lean fast and start building muscle, My friend and I have “invented” a good meal that we just refer to as “Fuel to get to the gun show” and it consists of:

1. 5 Egg whites

2. 1/2 cup oats (No sugar/unsweetened or as plain as you can get it)

3. 1-2 tablespoons of feta cheese

4. 1-2 squirts of Tabasco sauce (To taste)

What you do here is just toss all of the egg whites, cheese, and oats into the frying pan and cook it until the eggs have “glued” everything together. I know this isn’t the most appealing meal on paper, and it’s not one you want to serve to your sweetie over wine, but the sole purpose of this meal is just answering the question of “how to get great abs fast” and how to get lean!

The feta will add some fat (I always use reduced fat anyway so it’s not too much) and give it a little bit of taste and the hot sauce will make the foot editable. While I admit, this dish isn’t going to win any awards on top chef, but it will give you energy and is the best food to eat prior to a hard workout of squatting, deadlifting, or weighted dips.

Building muscle is very difficult, and you need to create the right environment within your body to fuel your muscles. A lot of times people who are new to bodybuilding/fitness create a terrible metabolic environment by starving themselves or not taking in enough protein to support and repair their muscles so feel burned out or tired at times as a result of not taking in enough nutrients.

The debate for protein absorption has been going on since the 1970’s and bodybuilding started to become more popular and more mainstream. Everyone seems to have a different opinion on protein intake, however the general rule of thumb is to consume 1.5 to 2 grams of protein per body weight for intense weight training, so for example if you weighed 175 pounds your “baseline” protein intake would be in the range of 262.5 g on the “low” end and 350 g or protein on the “high” end.

If you are looking for ways in how to get lean, one thing to watch out for is that when consuming 350g of protein in 1 day, it’s easy to go crazy on the calories and an excess of calories can create additional body fat, no matter how much you are lifting. Often times protein powders (And other muscle building supplements) contain simple carbs (Sugar) for weight gain and for flavor, so you want to look for a “clean” supplement to help you reach your goals without a lot of carbs. Simply put, read the labels and consume wisely. How can you get great abs fast if your supplying your body with an extra 200-400 calories a day? In short, you can’t.

The deadlift (Pictured below) is the absolute best exercise for building quality muscle. I like to refer Squatting, Bench Press, and Deadlifting as the “Holy Trinity” of bodybuilding as they are the 3 most powerful exercises in the business. Incorporate these 3 key exercises and you will find yourself making serious gains in the shortest amount of time and building muscle faster than you’ve been able to pile it on before. Another thing that the deadlift does is work secondary muscle groups, including your midsection so that you can get great abs fast and without spending hours crunching away on the ground.

A few tips when doing deadlifts are:

• Always warm up properly (2-5 minutes of light cardio to get the blood moving and follow that up with some brief stretching as to avoid injury)
• Check your ego at the door - Do you think that you can deadlift 350 pounds? Sounds great in theory, but always remember you can’t train at all if you are injured, so gradually work your way up to higher poundages. Practice makes perfect and form is KEY in bodybuilding.
• Keep an arch in your back - When deadlifting, form is very important because you don’t want to twist/pull or hurt yourself lifting heavy amounts of weight. Go slow, steady, and keep the proper form always. For reference, there are some quality videos on youtube found here: Youtube Deadlifting Videos
• Quality Muscle Building Supplements - It takes quality food to help you grow in both size and in strength. As an active participant in bodybuilding, it’s wise to look into additional supplements to ensure your getting the nutrients and vitamins you need to continue to function at the best level possible.

Today is my first post on my site, www.90daystoripped.com, and the reason behind the site is because I believe you can really make a substantial gain in your overall cardiovascular and physical fitness in just 3 short months. I want to talk about a lot of bodybuilding issues, such as: how to get lean, how to get great abs fast, and how to get ripped by fitness training. My model closely follows the “Body for Life” program made popular a number of years ago by nutirtion guru Bill Phillips. Bill promoted fast ways in how to get a lean body and everyone jumped on the bandwagon.

What his company at the time (EAS) did was they offered up a “Real” bodybuilding contest and put up something like $100,000 in cash and a brand new Lamborghini as a first place prize to the biggest transformation. The contest was basically just a clever marketing tool to get the brand mentioned, but it worked, and a lot of people fell in love with the concept of completely revamping and changing your life in just 3 months.

My website is about the same life changing issues;

1. A burning desire and strict adherence to change and better the quality of your life based around a fitness/diet plan

2. Not taking “No” for an answer, being persistant, and not giving up on yourself

3. Kick-ass weight lifting and cardio plan guaranteed to get you lean quickly, safely, and without any excuses