How to Get Ripped, QUICK – A Story From My 10 Day Meditation Retreat

How to Get Ripped, QUICK – A Story From My 10 Day Meditation Retreat

I recently spent 10 days doing a solitary meditation retreat. I had a little hut to live in, brought plenty of food, some simple workout equipment (homemade pullup bar, training sandbag, and some dumbells), a couple good meditation books, and plenty of determination.

I would be doing simple sitting meditation, basically paying attention to my breathing, for over 8 hours a day, every day for the next 10 days.

[The yurt (hut) I was staying in was much like this one, with an ocean view. photo: emdot]

Meditation is great, and I recommend it regardless of your religious background. Believe it or not, there are forms of meditation from the Christian, Muslim, and of course, Hindu and Buddhist traditions that have been around for centuries. And if you’re an athiest or agnostic, you don’t have to believe anything to practice meditation. You just do it. It’s helped me to relax and enjoy my life more.

At this point, you might think that I am some sort of freak! Maybe I lost my mind somewhere during those 10 days and am now going to turn this simple little workout blog into some sort of meditation cult recruiting platform. HA! I’m not, don’t worry…

• All mystical mumbo-jumbo aside, something interesting happened to my body during those 10 days: I got RIPPED!

I lost around 5 pounds on the scale, cut most of my stomach fat, and felt like I actually gained some muscle.

Here’s what I did:

Diet

I made a conscious effort to eat smaller portions:

eating until I was no longer hungry, rather than eating until I was full.

Read that again. Being ‘full‘ is different than ‘not being hungry.’

I think this was the key to losing fat – I just ate less.

Here’s a look at my typical daily diet during these 10 days:

• Breakfast – I usually had 1 1/2 cups (cooked) oatmeal, with a scoop of protein powder, 1/2 tablespoon of peanut butter, and some rice milk.
• Lunch – Palm sized portion of protein, steamed veggies with olive oil, 1/2 palm size of baked beets, carrots, & yams. A couple tangerines for dessert.
• Dinner – Same as lunch.
• All Day – LOTS of water

I cooked in big batches every 3-4 days, which made preparing meals MUCH simpler.

But diet was only one ingredient. Exercise, as you know, is key to getting into great shape…

[Of course, what would a post at homeworkoutblog.com be without a gratuitous bikini shot? Here is a mermaid. photo: AlaskanDude]

Workouts

I made sure to schedule around 45 minutes in the afternoon for some exercise. I thought this 10 day retreat would be a good time to get super disciplined with my workout regimen.

I got Ross Enamait’s “Never Gymless” book a while back, and decided to follow the sample program (with a few of my own modifications, which I’ll get into)  in the book during this 10 day period. I don’t get any sort of compensation for recommending this book, so keep that in mind when I say that “Never Gymless” is, hands down, the best ‘home workout’ guide I have ever seen. Not to mention, it is a bargain at around $20.

I do plan on releasing/selling some of my own programs and books in the future, but I will have you know that you would probably be better off just buying Ross’ book and following that! Ha!

Anyways, let’s get into the program I was following. It’s a pretty simple 5 day split:

Day 1: Integrated Circuit training

These routines combine strength and conditioning. Aim for variety in conditioning workouts. It keeps your body guessing and adapting to limit ‘plateaus.’ So here are a couple options:  check out the bodyweight conditioning circuit I posted about earlier. Also, here is a slightly modified integrated circuit training workout from ‘Never Gymless’:

10 minutes, with no rest:

Round 1:

• Burpees x 60 seconds
• Pull ups x 60 seconds
• Squats x 60 seconds
• Dive Bomber Pushups x 60 seconds

Round 2:

• Burpees x 45 seconds
• Pull ups x 45 seconds
• Squats x 45 seconds
• Dive Bomber Pushups x 45 seconds

Round 3:

• Burpees x 30 seconds
• Pull ups x 30 seconds
• Squats x 30 seconds
• Dive Bomber Pushups x 30 seconds

Round 4:

• Burpees x 15 seconds
• Pull ups x 15 seconds
• Squats x 15 seconds
• Dive Bomber Pushups x 15 seconds

There’s no rest between exercises OR circuits, ideally. I used the countdown timer on my watch to time each exercise.

Day 2:  Strength Workout

Since I was eating less than normal, good strength workouts were essential to maintain lean muscle mass while losing fat.

I like to keep things simple for strength workouts. I like to do a heavy lift, a heavy pushing motion, and a heavy pulling motion. I try to maintain balance by working pulling and pressing motions in the same plane during the same workout.

Here’s an example: on Day 2, I worked a vertical pushing motion (overhead press) along with a vertical pulling motion (weighted pullup). I feel like this keeps my body from getting overuse injuries that could come from focusing too much on one type of movement, like shoulder injuries that happen to people who train the bench press without working their upper back as well.

I always do some brief rotator cuff exercises, and then warm up with a couple easy sets of pushups, pullups, and squats.

Then, the workout:

• Sandbag Shouldering
• Rest 60 seconds
• Overhead Press (use Sandbag, dumbells, or whatever you’ve got)
• Rest 60 seconds
• Weighted Pullups on homemade chin up bar
• Rest 60 seconds

Repeat for a total of 5 circuits.

For each exercise, I used a weight that was heavy, but that I could comfortably lift 5-8 times. I would stop each set 1 repetition before failure, leaving one rep left ‘in the tank.’

(In case you were wondering what Sandbag Shouldering looks like, here’s a great video tutorial:)

Day 3: Enhanced Interval Training

If you ever played sports, you probably remember doing wind sprints – running hard for a little bit, then resting for an even smaller amount of time, and repeating this torture until your coach got bored or someone started puking.

Nothing will get you in shape like wind sprints! But what if you added some OTHER exercises into the mix along with the sprints and short (or nonexistent) rest periods?

Then, my friends, you would have Enhanced Interval Training.

Here is one enhanced interval training workout that I adapted from Ross’ book:

Warmup with some rotator cuff exercises and calisthenics, as with the other workouts. Then,

• 10 Burpees
• Sprint 50 meters
• 10 Bodyweight Rows (use a sturdy table, ledge, or use a DIY suspension trainer)
• Sprint 50 meters

Continue moving through this circuit for 15 minutes. That’s right, don’t rest, just keep going! It’s pretty brutal.

Day 4: Strength Workout

For this workout, I would warm up as described above, then do a strength workout similar to Day 2. Except for this workout, I would focus on horizontal pulling and pushing motions, and maybe mix in some one leg squat work:

• Weighted close grip pushups with feet elevated
• Rest 60 seconds
• Sandbag Cleans
• Rest 60 seconds
• Weighted body rows on DIY suspension trainer
• Rest 60 seconds
• One Legged Squats

Repeat this circuit 5 times, using the weights and rep ranges as described on Day 2.

Day 5: Rest!

After 4 days of hard workouts, I went for a long walk on the 5th day of each cycle. Walking is great for recovery, AND health in general. (Here is a great post from fitnessblackbook.com on why walking is an ESSENTIAL part of working out, no matter HOW fit you are).

Post-Workout – Yoga

Yoga has been great to my body, helping me to heal, preventing injuries, and improving my athletic performance. I try to do around 30 minutes after each workout. Here is a great video from my friend Ray’s site, zenmyfitness.com, showing how to do a great yoga sequence, the sun salutation:

“How to Get Ripped Quick” – Summing it all up…

I didn’t intend to get ripped during my meditation retreat, it just happened!

To summarize, here’s what I did:

• Ate until I was ‘no longer hungry’, NOT until I was ‘full.’
• Drank a lot of water
• Did 2 conditioning workouts and 2 strength workouts every 5 days
• Took the 5th day off and went for a walk.

Try it out and see how it works for you.

Anyways, take care and have a great week!

-Ian