Men's Muscle Building Resources

You will probably be surprised that the best way to get ripped abs is by not concentrating on your abs at all. Let me explain.

Most of us that are a few pounds overweight decide we want a ripped set of abs and go about doing sit ups and crunches until the cows come home. However, these exercises do not actually burn enough calories to make a difference and, when you want to get ripped abs, it is all about burning calories. That is because to get ripped abs you have got to get down to under 10% body fat for men and 16% body fat for women. It is really that simple, it is all about burning calories.

But, this becomes quite an undertaking when you consider that, to lose a single pound of fat, you must burn 3,500 calories and the average person only burns 2,000 calories in the course of a day. Even if you run a few miles you are only going to burn a few hundred calories which only leaves a few more thousand to go, for a single pound. Now, you start to realize why so few people have a nice set of ripped abs.

To burn fat effectively and consistently you need to turn your body into a fat burning furnace. The best way to do this is by lifting weights. Yes, I know that you can burn more calories in a half hour of running than you can in a half hour of lifting weights. But, by lifting weights you will build muscle and the more muscle you have the more fat you will burn throughout the day. Lifting weights effectively increases your resting metabolism rate and this is the one thing that people with ripped abs have that separates them from the rest of the pack.

But, not just any old exercises will achieve the ripped abs you so desire, you need to do the right ones.
Compound exercises such as the clean and jerk, dead lift, dips, pull ups, one armed dumb bell snatches and others cause your body to exert such force that it goes into a metabolic shock for days on end. This is because you are using multiple muscle groups and moving weight a further distance. Think about it, do you think you would exert more effort doing bicep curls moving a weight from your hips to your chest or do you think you would exert more effort doing a clean and jerk moving a weight from the floor to well over your head?

Another benefit of these exercises is that you are working your abs indirectly so that when you do burn enough fat to see them you will have a nice set of ripped abs without having to do sit ups or crunches.

Now, you can do these ripped ab exercises with a bar bell or a dumb bell but, if you use a kettle bell it will be easier for you to do these exercises in a high intensity interval training format and add even more fat burning fuel to the fire. HIIT is simply moving from one exercise to another with only a short period of rest in between. This will also help to increase your resting metabolism rate and allow you to burn more calories throughout the day which is the best way to get ripped abs.

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