In How To Get Ripped Fast: The Blueprint Part I we covered the work that needs to be done before you get started on your plan to burn belly fat fast and build lean muscle.
We also covered some simple nutrition tips that will go a long way toward burning fat and helping you lose weight quickly. Be sure to check out How To Get Ripped Fast: A Blueprint Part I for all this information.
Let’s take a look at some of the important things you need to do with your workouts to make sure you put your body in the best state for burning fat.
The best way to burn fat, when it comes to training, is to incorporate program techniques that take advantage of two ways to burn calories: calories burned during your training session and post-workout calories burned.
Burning calories during your workout is pretty simple. The more intense your workout, the more calories you will burn during the workout.
With weight training, multiple sets of very low reps with long rest periods between sets won’t burn many calories during your workout (although you’ll see below how this can help with post-workout fat burning).
Packing in a lot of intense sets and reps and utilizing short rest periods will burn more calories during the workout. Let’s look at it in really simple terms.
If you run for 20 minutes and complete 2.5 miles in one workout and in another workout you run for 20 minutes and complete 4 miles, you’ll burn more calories in workout number two.
Even more important than calories burned during the workout for getting ripped fast, is the calories you burn post-workout. And this is where certain training variables come into play to maximize your body’s metabolic rate after your workout.
Some of the important variables for boosting your metabolism includes:
- muscle trauma
- growth hormone release
- testosterone release
- lactic acid release
- blood flow (pumping oxygen into the muscles)
Let’s take a look at muscle trauma first. The damaged muscle fibers (muscle trauma) from an intense weight training session (or high intensity cardio intervals like sprinting) take energy for the body to repair them.
This energy comes in the form of calories (a higher resting metabolic rate), allowing you to burn calories for a day or two AFTER the workout is over. You don’t get this from low intensity steady state cardio.
This is why properly designed work out routines are so powerful. Not only is resistance training the key to building muscle (which also boosts your metabolic rate), it’s extremely effective for burning fat as well.
When it comes to your weight training routines, this fiber damage comes from heavier sets in the 6 to 10 rep range on the big compound exercises like:
- Squats
- Deadlifts
- Dips
- Chins
- Bench presses
- Standing presses
But muscle fiber damage isn’t the whole story when it comes to exercises to lose belly fat.
According to long time scientific researcher, Jerry Brainium,
“Subjects doing interval cardio showed heightened activity in the portion of the cells where fat is burned and oxygen is used, the mitochondria.”
In plain English, that means you need to get oxygen to your muscles, which comes from blood flow. This means sets with longer tension times than the typical heavy, low rep sets. It also means continuous tension on the muscle.
I’ve talked about time under tension before and how this is a big flaw in most people’s routines, ie, they don’t get nearly enough. Most people’s sets last 10 to 15 seconds and you should be getting a good 30 to 40 seconds of time under tension.
As far as continuous tension, you aren’t doing heavy squats where you pause at the top for a few seconds to gather yourself and crank out another rep. You have to keep the weight moving. No rest during the set.
This also signals your body to release growth hormone (also known as the anit-aging hormone). GH is also a powerful fat burning hormone that will help you get ripped fast, burn belly fat and turn your before body into an after, giving you the body transformation you’ve always wanted..
The other hormone you want to amp up is testosterone, which helps build muscle and burn belly fat. And GH with testosterone has a synergistic effect on your muscle building and fat burning efforts.
What type of exercise helps release testosterone?
The same exercise we mentioned initially, relatively heavy weights on compound exercises, with high intensity. But studies have also shown that higher rep sets with lighter weights can ramp up testosterone production (such as 5 sets of 15 reps with 50% of your max).
However, intense work out routines that last too long, have too much volume, and are done too frequently, will kill your testosterone and growth hormone production, which can help give you the exact opposite results you’re looking for from your program.
As you can see, intense weight training, and interval training cardio plays a big role if you want to get ripped fast.
You also need to perform you resistance training in a certain way to make sure you maximize the fat burning potential (muscle damage, blood flow, testosterone, growth hormone, etc.)… WITHOUT OVERTRAINING!
As I said, performing such workouts also runs the very real risk of over training, which will give you the opposite results (you’ll get weaker, lose muscle, have less energy and pile on body fat).
Let’s look at an arm routine I’ve used that takes all these things into consideration.
First, I’ll perform barbell curls. After the appropriate warm up, I’ll do one all out heavy set of 6 to 10 reps.
I’ll rest for two minutes and do the same for either close grip bench presses or decline lying tricep extensions.
After another two minute rest I perform the following non-stop. I pick a weight that will have me failing around 15 reps on the first set of each exercise. I then perform 4 non stop supersets using the same weights on each set, taking each set to failure.
Here’s an example:
- Incline Dumbbell Curls – 16 reps
- Tricep Pressdowns – 16 reps
- Incline Dumbbell Curls – 12 reps
- Tricep Pressdowns – 12 reps
- Incline Dumbbell Curls – 9 reps
- Tricep Pressdowns – 9 reps
- Incline Dumbbell Curls – 6 reps
- Tricep Pressdowns – 6 reps
If you haven’t read my article on high intensity interval training, check it out ==>> HIIT Training
And don’t forget to check out How To Get Ripped Fast: A Blueprint Part I if you haven’t done so already.
And don’t forget to comment below.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Another great article, Gregg! Thanks! That arm example looks tough! Do you do the same thing with other muscle groups, too?
Thanks, Gregg! I agree with Angela about that arm routine! Seems like it would be really tough for bigger body parts like chest, back and legs. Sort of like that leg routine you wrote about in your newsletter awhile back. That was tough, too! But I guess tough means results!
Very informative – yet again, thanks so much!
I like this: “knowledge isn’t power, applied knowledge is power.”
@ Angela – Absolutely, you can do the same with other muscle groups. It’s great for chest and back as well. I’ve also done it unilaterally for legs, which is a great workout. Instead of two different exercises like the curls and pressdowns I’ll just do the leg press but it will be only one leg at a time, switching legs for four sets each.
@ Steven – lol! Yep, that’s the leg routine I was just writing about to Angela right about this. Angela, read your newsletters!
@ Tara – Thanks! I love that quote as well. It’s quite true. A lot of people know a lot of stuff but they never do anything with that information. It doesn’t really matter much if you know everything about nutrition if you sit on the couch and eat junk food all the time.
Very nice post! I’ve always felt that interval training was better for the body than just the endless time on the treadmill that so many people end up doing, but it’s good to read exactly how this works. I was already convinced, but now I’m thoroughly convinced. Thanks for the article!