Get Ripped 1000

I love this workout. I haven’t done it in years, but I always think of it fondly. One of my all time favorite workouts. I remember when I discovered Jari Love with Get Ripped Slim & Lean, then Get Ripped to the Core. They were so very challenging for me at the time and I loved them. But then Get Ripped 1000 came out and I was in love. This was the kind of workout I was (and still am) always searching for. It took fitness to a whole new level for me. Jari Love has introduced many more much more advanced and tough workouts than Get Ripped 1000 (See Extremely Ripped 1000 Hardcore and Extremely Ripped Bootcamp) but the original Get Ripped 1000 will always hold a special place in my heart.

It has been so long since I’ve done it but I was thinking with nostalgia of the days when I shaped my rotations around Jari Love’s workouts that I decided to pull out Get Ripped 1000 and give it a whirl, see how it stood the test of time. And it holds up beautifully! I still love this workout. No, it is not as hard for me as it used to be, but still a challenging and solid workout. In fact, I really enjoyed doing it again. I remember when I first started doing it how it wore me out. I still felt like I got an excellent workout, but it doesn’t destroy me anymore. I would put the level of this workout at intermediate if you use the same weights as Jari and high intermediate if you use heavier weights (which I did). When I first did this workout, the idea of HIITs was new to me and I had never heard of metabolic weight training, or knew how to categorize workouts as endurance, hypertrophy or strength. All I knew is this workout challenged me like no other at the time and I was in love.

This workout is a great place to be introduced to the concept of interval training. For one, even though the intervals are high intensity, they are lower in intensity than most HIIT workouts out there today. Though it is not a low impact workout, there are no plyometrics. And trust me, some days, even though I want an intense workout, I do not feel like doing tuck jumps or air jacks. This fills that ticket perfectly. This workout alternates endurance level strength work with HIITs–so metabolic weight training. The strength work is primarily compound exercises with tons of reps, so you cannot go super heavy. The exercises are all fast-paced so your heart is pumping even during the strength work. However, you do get brief rest periods between each exercise, which is one of the things that is different from her later metabolic weight training workouts. With newer workouts you don’t get much “real” rest. Again, this is one of the things that makes this a more intermediate level workout. During your brief recoveries she stretches you out. I gotta tell you, some days this is just the kind of workout I need. It is not recovery level–it is a tough solid workout, but it is not pushing me to the limit like most of the workouts I do now (as well as Jari’s more current offerings), and sometimes that is just what I need. Today was one of those days!

This also contains a lot of the things I love about Jari’s older workouts. Before each strength move she briefly shows someone doing the exercise, so you have an idea of whats coming. Then, as you start the exercise you see how many reps you will be doing (always a lot) and the weight of the dumbbells everyone is using. However, it gives you total weight. So if Jari is using 8 pound dumbbells (which is what she used for most exercises) it said “16 pounds.” There are 3 other exercisers; two females and an enormously muscled man. One of the females, Laurie, is in every one of Jari’s workouts. Jari is her usual demure but friendly self. This is one of the many things I love about her workouts. She is not perky or over-talkative. She is calm, never takes breaks to show form in the other exercisers–she does every single exercise from beginning to end and in some of her later workouts that are very advanced that is impressive. And, as always, she is very lean and very ripped.

The equipment needed for this workout is a variety of dumbbells and a 6 inch step. The male uses the step at 8 inches for many of the exercises and for one of the exercises Jari uses her step at 8 inches. But for everything else Jari uses the step at 6 inches. One of the exercisers always does the move without a step. This lowers the intensity (so this is great for someone looking for something low intermediate) and also makes the workout accessible to people who don’t have a step. It’s been so long since I did this workout, I just went with the 6 inch step, but in the future when I revisit it I will probably use it at 8 inches to increase intensity. BTW–there is no complex choreography. It is all basic, athletic stepping. The workout is chaptered so you can go in and just do the strength or just the cardio if you chose, or pick and choose for a shorter workout. But there are no premixes.

Before we get into the breakdown there are two things I want to note about this workout. The first is that, though this is a total body workout, some body parts are hit better than others: lower body, biceps, shoulders and chest. The back and triceps don’t get worked as hard. And that could be a problem if this were the only strength workout you were using, but in my case it is not, so it doesn’t bother me. In any given week my back and triceps are hit hard by other strength workouts, so the fact this workout doesn’t give them adequate attention isn’t a big deal. And even if you are doing primarily Get Ripped workouts, most of her other workouts hit those body parts harder, so again, no big deal. The other thing I wanted to note is the push up party. Yes, that is what Jari calls it–a push up party. It is 70 push ups done as drop sets. This is very challenging and one of the things I loved about this workout. When I first came to it years ago I could not do push ups on my toes, but thanks to doing this workout so many times, I got to the point where I was doing all 70 push ups on my toes. So it definitely gives you something to work toward.

Get Ripped 1000 is a 58 minute cardio + strength metabolic weight training workout; 4 minute warm up, 50 minute training time and 4 minute stretch. For the warm up Jari starts with a light set of dumbbells (she is using 5 pound dumbbells) and does strength moves. Then you set those aside and do some fast stepping for a cardio warm up. For all of the cardios you will need the step. However, you only need the step for a few of the strength moves.

Cardio 1: step overs with jacks

Strength 1: side squats/lunge back w/ front raise (step and dumbbells) Jari uses 5 pound dumbbells

Cardio 2: pulsing side squats into skiers

Strength 2: stiff legged deadlifts + reverse flies (dumbbells) Jari uses 12 pound dumbbells for the deadlifts and 5 pounds for the reverse flies

Cardio 3: front toe taps (you are tapping the top of the step–fast)

Strength 3: pulse squats and lunges (step); for this move some of the exercisers are using dumbbells, Jari doesn’t but has her step raised to 8 inches

Cardio 4: up-up-down-down on step–and done very fast

Strength 4: 70 drop set push ups (16/14/12/10/8/6)

Cardio 5: up-up-down-down on step–and done very fast (other leg)

Strength 5: clean and press + wide squat with overhead press (dumbbells) Jari uses 8 pounds for both exercises, but I changed mine going heavier for the clean and press and lighter for wide squat with overhead press.

Cardio 6: fast skier lunges

Strength 6: wide squats with biceps curls (dumbbells) Jari uses 8 pound dumbbells

Cardio 7: down jack/up jack

Strength 7: tricep extensions with leg abductions (step and dumbbell) Jari uses a 5 pound dumbbell

Cardio 8: football runs

Strength 8: chest press and chest flies (step and dumbbells) Jari uses 8 pound dumbbells

Cardio 9: football runs, other leg

Ab work: for the ab work you will need the step and a dumbbell. Jari uses a 6 pound dumbbell. I really liked the core work, but it was too short and each individual exercise was not done long enough so I didn’t feel like my abs were hit nearly as hard as the rest of my body. While laying on the step with one dumbbell in both hands, go from laying to standing, using only leg and core muscles to propel you. Hip raises while still laying on step. In and out legs, still on step. Now move to floor. Crunch while grabbing knee at top of move. Raise and lower legs. Then extremely brief bicycle move.

Stretch

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