When individuals start working out, they can get motivated. They can get REALLY motivated. So motivated that you see them beast-mode in the gym, day after day. But do you know what they are doing to their body? They are overloading it and doing it more harm than they are good. Sometimes in working out less is more, and more is less. You don’t need to be spending 3-4 hours in the gym everyday, killing all your muscles every time. In fact, that could actually cause some bad damage to your muscles. Getting ripped, strong, and lean can be easier than you think, or harder, depending on where you are at mentally.

The optimal amount to work out with weights is three days a week for an hour to an hour and fifteen minute session. When you have gotten a good workout routine, you may even bump this up to four, but the reason for staying at three we will discuss a little bit later in this article. Some train these three days in rotating workout like upper body, lower body, upper body, lower body and on and on. I personally do a full body workout on each of these three days, and when you do compound workouts on these days as well, you will see your body get shredded so fast! You do not need to be in the gym for hours and hours, chipping away at time. If you are going to be a professional body builder and do this as a career, then maybe you will be putting in a few more hours than a normal person, but even then it’s doubtful. Here is a saying regarding muscles to live by: “Stimulate don’t annihilate.”

Now, I told you to only lift weights for three days a week. Does that mean you’re off and free to be a couch potato for the other four days? No way! When you are really building and sculpting your body, I doubt you will even want to do that. You’re going to be motivated to go out and get the best results in the shortest amount of time. That is why for another three days you are going to be doing High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). HIIT is like extreme cardio, and it will do wonders to get you lean and muscular. HIIT is basically cardio, but it’s at intervals of giving your absolute 100%. Think of jogging and sprinting. Jogging would be normal cardio, and sprinting would be HIIT. HIIT is giving your absolute 100% of cardio for intervals. Say you can only sprint as hard as you can for 15 seconds – that’s good! That’s one set of HIIT Training. Set a timer and do this for at least 25-30 minutes on your cardio conditioning days. I would recommend setting it up so you lift weights one day, HIIT, light weights, HIIT, lift weights, HIIT.

But wait, that’s 6 days – there are 7 days in the week. Thought I forgot about that? On the 7th day, this is what you have to do – are you prepared? On the 7th day I want you to do… absolutely nothing. Yup, that’s right, having one complete rest day a week will give your body and muscles the proper time they need to fully recover for the next week of training. Having this rest day will actually build you more muscle than if you were to just train that day. That is because rest is so so important to the growth of your muscles. Remember, stimulate, don’t annihilate. I have even more good news – on this 7th day of rest, I recommend that you have a cheat day – that is, a day where you completely forget any diet rules, any fitness rules, and just eat whenever and whatever you want until your hearts content. This will help bring your body out of starvation mode and help you build up on glucose for next weeks workout.

So there you have it, a full 7-day routine right there. Do you want to get ripped and shredded? Stop just thinking about it and take action. There’s many programs out there and much you can learn, but the best thing you can do for yourself is take action and start.

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