Getting ripped!

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Is it true you need to lift heavy weights at the gym with low reps to get ripped?

No, it is not.

All you need to do is buy some dumbells and maybe a barbell and you can do all that at home. This period with the Covid-9 and staying indoors would be a great opportunity for those who want to get in better shape.

Depends what you mean by 'get ripped' I suppose

I lift weights at the gym 5-6 days a week and would thoroughly recommend it as a great part of healthy living and a positive routine.

ripped like a soccer player for exanple

One would imagine soccer players get most of their ripped-ness from all the running they do. I'd personally prefer lifting weights and martial arts, but if that's what you're going for it seems a good start.

Football (soccer) players do a lot of weight training and are generally pretty muscular though need to be agile and quick so most have not bulked up loads. They have low body fat and have it monitored so it never goes over a certain %.

A general rule of thumb (though there is much more to it) is that heavy weights with low reps = bulking up, whereas lighter weights with many reps = toned.

The reason being the latter will burn more calories and damage muscle fibres less than the former.

But if you dont currently lift weights and are looking to start you shouldn't be thinking of either of these in particular, it would be a while until you reach the point of focussing on any specific weightlifting and should instead just go with an all over workout to get you and your body used to lifting weights.

Weightlifting is not a quick fix, whatever results you want will take time and it needs to be just part of your weekly routine (along with eating the right things)

Before my recent run-in with the flu, I was doing stronglifts 5x5; excellent weightlifting program. Start from an empty bar and 5 core excercises, and increase by miniscule increments. Very sensible approach, and much more effective than one might think, assuming you keep the schedule of three sessions a week up.

It's for developing strong but slow muscles - not quick ones. But you can retrain them afterwards. Martial arts training is good for develop quick ones. Endurance is a different thing. Running and any kind of endurance training helps for this. May be gymnasts have the best overall trained bodies. But I guess the best training would be a healthy mix of all of this. All kind of training burns fat but best just for fat burning for men is lifting weights because you'll develop muscles which burn energy even if you are doing nothing.

I've also heard that there is a difference between strength training and body building. Pure strength training seems to result in a smoother, less showy musculature all geared to actually doing work. Bodybuilders have a lot of wierd extra excercises that increase the visibility of muscles. They end up with the classic hypertrophied bulges, which look spectacular but don't really do anything extra for your lifting ability.

I guess the rest of us can mix and match according to whether we want to show off a 6-pack or heave large objects around at work... Not really at the level where you make that decision myself, I'm more "surprisingly strong tub of lard." Been doing some free weights at home, mainly to keep my activity levels up while I'm not at my cleaning job. While the amount I can do is steadily creeping up, there has been zero visible change, which implies "getting ripped" is not a quick process.

Lockdown has my muscles seriously deflated. Just picked up a bench and dumbbells this morning though.

Back in the game!!

I'm back at work next week. Never thought I'd say this, but I'll miss being able to work out 5 days a week! A couple of years ago I learned the hard way that combining a workout with my normal working day is a bad idea- it left me too wiped out to do anything properly, and with wierd tension pains in my neck and shoulders. Hoping to keep up the exercise at weekends at least.

Yes it's true