It was a Sunday afternoon.
Or maybe it was a Saturday.
Those are the days the I walk to my local supermarket and
pick up some reading material.
I browse through some fitness magazines. Skim the celebrity
magazines as well.
As soon as I looked through the first magazine it stood out
again.
These guys were ripped and had physiques that most of us
only dream about.
Super chiseled.
Ripped. Little fat. All muscles.
It’s almost like they were sculpted out of rock or marble.
It looked impossible for a regular guy like me.
To get a body like that I was sure it required something
crazy like dieting hard, lifting for hours and running on the treadmill
forever.
I was wrong.
I was going to find out how these guys do it.
What I basically described above is what is known as the
shrink wrap effect.
It is the effect of skin wrapping tightly on the muscle
showing high definition and all the muscle fibers in their glory.
Any time you see a guy, usually in fitness magazines, or a
ripped actor on the movie screen, that is super lean and with muscle definition
you are seeing this in action.
Some think it’s genetics that is creating this effect.
Others will quickly dismiss it as the effects of taking
steroids.
But most guys simply think it requires a lot of time and
dedication.
Well, it does take dedication but it is a method that is
easy to follow.
The process of achieving this super lean body is broken down
into 3 phases.
Phase 1
So let’s get one thing
straight. Having a lot of bodyfat on you
won’t get you to look lean no matter how hard you try.
So the best thing to do is to drop
bodyfat to a level that is low enough for definition to show.
For some it is just a matter of
losing a couple of percentage points.
For others it will take a bit
more.
Either way aim for a body fat
percentage preferably below 10 percent.
The way you’re going to lose that
bodyfat is by creating a calorie deficit.
A simple way of creating this deficit is by burning more
than calories than what you consume.
You can either less calories than what you usually eat or
you can exercise more and at a higher intensity to burn more calories off.
At this point you want to do cardio, preferably interval
training in order to torch the fat.
Don’t forget to lift weights and start developing some muscle.
Phase 2
The next step in the process will take a bit longer but this
is where so many make mistakes.
After having lost weight the skin on your body will be
slightly loose.
Remember that skin is flexible and it stretches and comes
back down in size.
Once you have reduced your bodyfat the skin will not be
tight around your muscle.
Here is where you have to be patient and allow the skin to
start shrinking.
So phase 2 is basically a maintenance phase where you try to
build muscle without gaining fat.
It is in this phase where you can go ahead and work with
lower reps.
Don’t worry about getting a pump. In fact, forget about getting a good
pump. Just go heavier than usual,
stay
in the 3 to 5 rep range and do 5 sets per exercise and keep your muscles
working.
Phase 3
Now that you have given your skin time to catch up, your
muscles are solid and you haven’t put on fat it’s time for you to make the skin
look tight.
For the next 3 weeks you will do high rep workouts.
This is the time to do workouts of 8 to 12 reps per set.
By doing high rep workouts you will begin to see sarcoplasmic growth.
Sarcoplasmic growth will lead the muscles to fill up with
fluid which is what makes your muscles look nice and full.
As you create this pump and your muscles look full you will
begin to see your skin tighten up.
At this time the shrink wrap effect will be in its glory.
So that’s basically the way you create high definition that
will have you looking like those guys in magazines.
Next time you open a fitness magazine you’ll know the tricks
and hopefully you’ll be looking like a fitness model too.
