There are three factors that contribute to a high metabolism. These factors are:

1. lean muscle mass, which requires more energy to maintain than fat
2. exercise
3. calorie consumption

That’s right, eating more raises your metabolism. Reducing your calorie intake reduces your metabolism over the long run. This is why frequent dieters can’t keep weight off. When they reduce their calorie consumption, their metabolic rate lowers, they lose muscle mass, and when they’ve reached their weight goal they begin to relax and eat normally again. The problem is their metabolism is lower because in addition to a bit of fat, they’ve also lost muscle, so eating at their previous pre-diet calorie level is now excessive and encourages rapid weight gain. In order to get ripped fast you must prevent this at all costs.

So, because of the facts above, we want to make sure your lifestyle supports your metabolic rate in order to get ripped fast. The notion of diet was more extensively covered in the previous post, so here I’ll elaborate on the 1st and 2nd factor, maintaining muscle mass and exercise needed to raise your metabolic rate. Studies have shown that those people who diet are less likely to lose muscle mass if they are performing resistance training exercises three days per week. So a regime of intense resistance training that incorporates the whole body ought to be the foundation of a ‘get ripped fast’ program.

But most people who hit the gym hard spend most of their time at the office, in school, or sitting on the couch. Your body requires no energy to do these things, and so expends relatively few calories. Adding mini workouts throughout the day can cause metabolic spikes that force your body to regularly burn fat, as well as maintain muscle mass. Combining very basic bodyweight exercises in a short intense circuit can be another secret weapon to get ripped fast. And the best part is this can be done in 5 minutes or less. This can be done at home, in your office, at a park, anywhere.

The concept is simple; work your entire body to temporary exhaustion as quickly as possible. Getting ripped fast requires massive calorie expenditure, and this is an easy, very fast way to do it:

Perform these three exercises back to back without rest until you cannot perform another repetition:

• Bodyweight squats
• Pushups
• Crunches or sit-ups

This circuit can be performed one to three times, resting for a minute or two between sets, 3 to 6 days per week. They can be used as your primary training or to supplement more intensive resistance training programs you’re doing three days per week.

You may want to do this ‘get ripped fast’ circuit first thing in the morning to jumpstart your metabolism, around lunch time to get your body using daytime calories for energy instead of storing them as fat, and in the evening to burn off any extra carbs you’ve consumed during the afternoon. Don’t be afraid to feed yourself in order to have the energy to perform these exercises, but as we all know, stick to complex carbs found in vegetables, grains and beans, and simple sugars found in fruit, to get ripped abs fast.

Muscle is your strongest metabolic advocate. Muscle requires a great deal of energy to maintain. And when you train and eat to maintain this mass, your body will be required to make up the calorie difference with body fat. Furthermore, after getting ripped you don’t have to fear putting weight back on because muscle mass ensures a high metabolic rate. Getting ripped too quickly however will jeopardize this and force your body to break down some of your muscle to fuel your caloric deficit. This is called catabolism, and should be avoided as best as possible. So how do we avoid catabolism on the path to getting ripped fast? We need to train and eat properly.

Getting Ripped Quickly Defined

We all know what that sleek ripped look is. Muscles are well defined and the opposite sex can’t stop staring. It’s important that people realize that getting ripped and having a body with great definition is a product of one thing…low body fat. So in order to get ripped we need to design a training program and diet that maintain muscle while reducing fat.

Training for Getting Ripped Fast

Training to get ripped abs fast is not about doing crunches until you puke. In fact, abdominal exercises are the least effective exercises for getting ripped. This may sound strange to those struggling to get a six pack, but its true. We cannot isolate areas of the body to remove body fat from. Our genetics determine when and from which locations fat comes off first. So if you have a trouble region, do not isolate that region with exercises, focus on the best exercises for burning fat, period.

The best exercises for getting ripped fast are none other than the same compound movements that get you bigger and stronger the fastest. They are exercises which require the greatest amount of energy to perform, and the greatest number of muscle groups to execute. They are exercises which mimic the body’s most natural movements, pushing, pulling, lifting, squatting, and pressing over head. If using weights, these would be the bench press, the lat row or bent row, the dead lift, the squat, and the shoulder press. If doing bodyweight exercises, you could use pushups, pull-ups, squats, lunges, and handstand pushups with your feet against the wall.

Now that’s it for the exercises themselves. Not too complicated. Performing them properly is the next key to getting ripped fast. Do not be a gym rat. Don’t lift weights for 2 hours while chatting up hotties at the gym. Go with focus, kill your workout, and chat after. The best way to perform these is in a circuit, flowing from one exercise to the next with no rest in between. Lift weights heavy enough that you cannot perform more than 15 reps of any exercise, and light enough that you can perform at least 6 reps. Do the circuit in a way that allows you to maintain your strength the longest, as this will be taxing. When you finish the circuit, rest as short as possible, and repeat again. Do this 3 or 4 times per session, 3 or 4 sessions per week. The workout should take less than 40 minutes to complete, including warm-up, and it will leave you completely exhausted.

But you’re not getting off that easy. Getting ripped fast requires more than 4 days of training a week. You should shoot for 6. On your non circuit days you should include interval training, either on a treadmill or kickboxing. For more details on interval running check out  How to Get Rid of Belly Fat Quickly with Interval Training.

Dieting for Getting Ripped Fast

If you are under 35 years old and have the time and energy to train hard 6 days a week, getting ripped fast without dieting is possible, so long as you don’t have a crazy sweet tooth and train properly. But dieting will definitely get you ripped faster than you can through training alone. And for most of us, it’s the essential component of getting ripped fast.

First of all, do not be afraid of food, and do not be afraid to eat. Eating well is essential. Eating carbs is essential to maintain energy and fuel your workouts. Eating fat is essential to signal to your body that you’re not starving, and that burning your body fat for energy is ok. And protein is essential to repair and maintain muscle. Eliminating any one of these will slow your results. Eating regularly, 6 times a day, in well balanced portions of natural and healthy foods is the key to getting ripped fast.

Eliminating carbohydrates that offer little in the way of sustained energy, and fats that your body cannot metabolize well, is the first step. You should opt for whole grain bread instead of white bread, whole grain or wheat pasta instead of white pasta, brown rice instead of white, and oatmeal instead of cereal. Eat vegetables and fruits as much as possible in place of processed foods. And enjoy lean meats like chicken or turkey instead of beef. Eat fish when you can, and have salmon at least once a week. You should calculate your basal metabolic rate, which can be done for you easily online if you google it. Once you know how much energy your body needs each day, reduce your caloric intake by about 4 or 500 calories. This reduction should come primarily from simple sugars and carbs like the ones just mentioned, and from fattening foods. Protein intake, unless it’s excessive, should not be curtailed much.

Supplements for Getting Ripped Fast

Sometimes it’s difficult to consume sufficient quantities of macronutrients when dieting, either because you don’t have time to cook all the time, or because it’s difficult to eat so frequently. In either case, consuming whey protein shakes or casein protein can help you maintain lean weight while you’re cutting calories. Most people will not need this, and if you have the option, natural foods are better options, but for those who cannot eat so frequently or don’t enjoy eating so much, protein shakes and juices can make things easier. Whey protein, milk, a banana, and a bit of peanut butter is an excellent meal replacement that will keep your energy high on the path to getting ripped fast.

Getting ripped is a product of two things; a proper diet which lowers body fat and fuels muscle growth, and strength training which results in muscular hypertrophy. It’s one thing to be thin, but it’s another to be ripped. Most of us want something to show off when our body fat is low, rather than simply looking thin and unhealthy. This is where strength training comes in.

Weight training to get ripped is very different from weight training to build muscle mass or build strength, as it requires that you not only work your system an-aerobically through short intense lifts, but that you also work your body aerobically at the same time, forcing your body to increase its circulation of blood and oxygen in order to fuel your lifts. This is what causes blood to fill up your muscles, creating ‘the pump’, and giving you that temporary ripped look in the gym. After some time your body will reroute veins so they’re closer to the surface of your skin for increased blood circulation as well as burn off body fat. And this is that ripped look we’re all after.

The best ways to condition our bodies for this look, that is, to get ripped, is to train using supersets or small circuits, rather than individual lifts with long rest times. Condensing your workout in to as short a time as possible, while placing lifts immediately back to back will vastly increase the intensity of your sessions, resulting in more muscle stimulation, and it will create this all around ripped look in the muscles…assuming your body fat is low enough. And that leads us to the second challenge.

Eating to get ripped is also essential. Unless you’re gifted with a strong metabolism and a genetic predisposition to carry and keep muscle, then it’ll be tough for you to get ripped while maintaining muscle mass. It’s essential that you eat enough complex carbs, fruits, and vegetables to fuel your intense workouts, eat enough unsaturated fats, and eat enough protein to keep your system in a constant muscle building, fat burning state. This is beyond the scope of this site, but I give a specific recommendation below for those who are ready to take diet and getting ripped seriously.

How to Get Ripped Abs

Abs and the midsection are generally the last part of the body to get ripped. This is because we are genetically predisposed to put fat on first, and take it off last from our midsection. Getting ripped abs requires extremely low body fat and developed abdominals. The abs can be trained frequently through high rep exercises like crunches or situps, or they can be trained less frequently and at a higher intensity through exercises like leg raises, planks, and v-sits.

The key is to remember that the higher the intensity of training, the more rest is require for your body to recover. While you can do crunches 3 to 5 days a week, you can only do higher resistance exercises like weighted crunches or leg raises 1 to 2 days per week. Both of these methods can allow you to get ripped abs, it’s just a matter of personal training preference and as always, sound diet.

How to Get Ripped Fast

How to get ripped fast is the question that plagues the fitness industry. Getting ripped slowly is the safest and smartest method of training, as your body will not be forced to extreme measures, and you’re more likely to maintain the results. Getting ripped quickly is indeed possible, but it requires intense and frequent training and a diet that cuts calories and includes calorie shifting or cheat days.

One should train 5 to 6 days a week, including three to four days of resistance training, performed in superset or circuit fashion, and then 3 to 5 days of interval training, to be done on a treadmill or kickboxing. On days where you do both, resistance training and weight lifting should precede interval training so as not to break down muscle to fuel intense resistance sessions.

I am a personal trainer and I use the facts above to produce great results for my clients and friends.  For those who are simply curious how to get ripped abs fast, there you have it.  But if you’re one of the few who is finally ready to make the changes necessary for a toned body and ripped six pack abs, then you’ll need more than just theory, you’ll need a practical and structured workout plan with sound diet advice.  If this is you Click Here.