Since Pavel Tsatsouline’s ground breaking Enter The Kettlebell hit the streets a few years back these wonderfully simple devices have taken the strength and fitness world by storm. They’re dramatically effective at building pure strength, increasing flexibility, improving general conditioning – and they will also provide you with the fastest possible route to “getting ripped”.

The Best Get Ripped Workout

Click Here to see the exact steps that “ordinary guy” Alex Miller used to lose 36 pounds of body fat and FINALLY get six-pack abs.
Check out Alex’s inspirational pictures and also the Q&A we put together on how he achieved these results (very informative and inspirational!)

Obviously if your aim is to get a really lean muscular physique then you need to be burning fat at the same time as you build muscle. Brute strength can of course be acquired through heavy training but this in itself will probably not be enough to get your body fat percentages down to the levels you want, particularly if your aim is to see that elusive six pack.

Now, hard core strength trainers, powerlifters, field athletes and the contact sport guys may not be too concerned about this; maximising their functional strength and power being more important to them than a magazine cover look, but those who are aiming more to lose a few pounds, “tone up”, or “get in shape” are going to want a workout that really cranks up the body’s fat burning systems.The key to this is to maintain the intensity of your workout so that your heart and lungs are working hard throughout. The difficulty many find in doing this is that when sets of heavy exercises are pursued to muscular failure, the necessary rest between exercises allows the heart and lungs to rest and the intensity to fall away.

Try Supersets and Circuits

But fortunately the solution to this problem is fairly simple and it’s to switch rapidly between different exercises, before failure is reached, so keeping the heart and lungs working hard throughout. This type of training works very well with kettlebells, but there’s nothing new about it – it is in fact a kind of circuit training, and with suitably weighted kettlebells provides perhaps the most effective fat burning workouts available. For the best and fastest results the key is to set your reps at a level which allow your muscles to keep working for two or three complete circuits. If your muscles are giving out before this then you need to reduce reps or weight.

Kettlebell circuits allow for great flexibility and variety in the exercises you choose, and the aim is to make it fun, but the snatch, swing, clean & jerk, deadlift and one-arm overhead squat are often found to be particularly effective.

If you’re particularly short of time, but still stuck with idea that fat burning or cardio training must involve countless hours on treadmills, bikes or rowing machines, here’s a very quick and easy routine to try. Select just one exercise; it should be a “compound” – that’s to say multi-joint – movement, and the swing or clean and jerk would be ideal. Now simply perform 5 – 7 reps followed by 30 seconds rest, and repeat. Keep going for as long as you can, having chosen a weight which will allow you to continue for 10 – 15 minutes. You can go for longer if you have time, but realise that this is a tougher workout than it sounds.

A couple of final points

Remember that one of the most important keys to getting the best results from a get ripped workout is the same as applies to any other workout; and that’s to observe strict form in all your exercises. Using relatively light weights and moving swiftly between different exercises make it all too tempting to dispense with correct form, but these “cheat” reps will rob you of the benefits of your training just as they will when you’re aiming for increased strength and power.

Finally, be aware that cardio or fat burning training exposes you to the risk of overtraining just as much as heavy duty strength work. If you’ve seen those marathon runners without a spare ounce of flesh on them and concluded that their kind of high volume training is the way to go, then think again. You’ll get better results on the whole with briefer, more intensive training. This way, too, you’re more likely to maintain your interest and motivation and better able to avoid the fatigue that will slow your progress and expose you to the risk of an injury which might set you back weeks or even months.

If you want to get a lean, toned and shapely stomach in the shortest time then click here for access to these great free downloads
Mike Geary’s – Insider Secrets For A Lean Body (e-book)
Tom Venuto’s – Six Pack Abs Revealed (e-book)
David Grisaffi’s – Posture & Core Conditioning (e-book)
Mike Geary and Jeff “Muscle Nerd” Anderson (90 minute MP3 audio)

Enjoy
Steve Smith

© 2011 Effective Ab Workouts