I have been hanging around sports and fitness websites and forums for a few years now, and Arnold Schwarzenegger definitely has his fans.
Especially around bodybuilding forums, but for the majority of guys that are more interested in sports other then bodybuilding (basketball, boxing, MMA even a lot of football players) Bruce Lee is someone to look up to.
Bruce wasn't big and husky.
If you see pictures of him with a long sleeve shirt on he looks rather insignificant, but if see Bruce without a shirt on he is clearly ripped, and that's the look that a lot of guys want.
There are guys that are big muscled and still have a ripped vein popping muscles defined six pack ab look.
But usually these are bodybuilders who have dieted and then cut all their water weight out.
During most of the year bodybuilders aren't so cut up.
You just can't put on that much mass and still maintain such low bodyfat.
Not to mention you can only go a very short time when dehydrated.
Fact is it's not always easy to get ripped when you don't have a lot of muscle mass.
But many people just don't want to carry as much mass as a bodybuilder.
And further more it's not easy to be ripped at any muscle mass.
But it is easier to have muscle definition at a lower weight then it is to do it at a very high weight.
For example it's a whole lot easier for me to have six pack abs, muscle definition everywhere and veins showing in my arm at 150 pounds then it would for me to do that at 230 pounds.
I could eat a lot and get my weight up to 230 pounds, and if I watched my diet and tried to gain that weight well eating clean food.
And if I worked out right, I could have a lot of that weight gain be muscle.
I could be a pretty decent 230 and not just a fat 230.
But I still couldn't keep my bodyfat percentage as low as I can at 150.
So understand when I talk about being "smaller" or "skinny" and ripped, I am not talking about being puny I am just talking about caring a little less weight.
Because weight gain is almost always going to include extra fat no matter how clean you eat.
If you do want to gain mass your probably going to have to deal with a rise in your bodyfat percentage.
Then after you have gained the muscle that you want you can then try to cut most of that extra fat.
But for those of you that want to burn fat without losing muscle (or more likely well still gaining muscle) I say this; you can gain a little muscle and burn a little fat at the same time.
But if you want to do significant amounts of either then you are going to have to pick one of those goals and work on it exclusively.
However probably some of you are going to fall into the group of "I need to cut just a little bit of fat and gain just a little bit of muscle" and to you I say; eat clean! You need to consume the products that will fuel muscle without putting on excess amounts of fat.
I want to state that all calories can be turned to fat! Protein, carbs or fat they can all turn to bodyfat.
But there are certain foods that are less likely to turn into huge rolls of fat.
No I am not going to give you a whole diet plan here; there are plenty of other articles out there on that which could be beneficial to you but I am going to state real quick that Soft drinks, candy, doughnuts etc...
aren't going to fuel muscle, those things mostly just turn to fat! This day in age a lot of people think that eating fat will make them fat, and everyone is afraid of fast food.
This is good, fast food and too much fat consumption can lead to excess bodyfat.
But the thing that I see people doing more often, that's even less beneficial to having a good ripped physique, is all these simple carbs (sugar).
These sugars have very little benefit when it comes to making muscle and yet are a great fuel for fat increase.
So cut these out and you are already a long way towards cutting bodyfat.