Get ripped; Part 3 | Diet and Exercise | Real Life Fitness | PhitZone

This is the third installment in our series on getting ripped. In Part I we covered some diet essentials of getting ripped, and in Part II we looked at the cardio component in order to burn the fat off. Now it’s time to talk about my favorite part; resistance training.

I’ve read it a thousand times in various forums if I’ve read it once, “Won’t I burn more calories by just doing cardio?” As always, the answer is a big, fat NO. The fact of the matter is that intense weight training is way too important to skip. The muscles require the intensity in order to maintain their size.

Muscle training through lifting weights is what builds muscle. It doesn’t get any simpler than that. Guess what. When in a cutting cycle, such as we are discussing in this series, we are going to assume that the muscle has already been maximized up to this point. It would be a waste to try and make muscle gains while attempting to strip those last ounces of fat towards the final goal. The calorie demands are counter productive.

Don’t bring a knife to a gun fight.

We want to maintain as much muscle as possible. With this in mind, continue to train with heavy weight and intensity. Maybe try some kettlebells. Back off on the reps, perhaps the number of sets, and slightly on the amount of weight used. I’m not talking about much. Maybe a 10% reduction. Don‘t forget, you are working to maintain what you have already built.



You will experience some muscle loss during a cutting phase. The body will cannibalize the muscle tissue as a fuel source. That is just a fact that you can not avoid. This is a primary reason for packing on the muscle prior to the cutting phase. Once under way, we address this through diet, and maintaining high intensity in our training.

Eat right. Do your cardio. Whatever you do, keep on lifting those weights, and take the BIG guns to the gun show.