If you're a skinny guy, to build a ripped muscular body may be a dream that you have had since you were a kid. This is the kind of dream that never really goes away, no matter how many time you look in the mirror and see your pencil arms looking back. What if I told you there were 5 basic thing to building a ripped muscular body that you may be doing wrong right now.

Well you would probably ask me what those 5 things are, am I right. I am going to share these with you below but you have to promise me one thing. You need to actually really put some effort into doing this. I can share all the secrets in the world with you, but if you don't put the effort in the results will lack. So here they are the 5 things you may be not be doing now.

Compound Exercises are essential in your quest for a ripped powerful body. You have to get this right before you can ever think of building real muscle. There are basically 7 different movements that you are going to have to fall in love with. Now, these movements all have variations so please feel free to mix it up, but you have to focus on these movements to really build solid muscle.

They are squats and deadlifts for lower body and bench press, over head press, dips, chinups and rows for your upper body. Like I said, there are plenty of variation on all these workouts so please do mix up your grips, stances etc.

10 Rep Max. If you are doing more than 10 reps you are not using a heavy enough weight. If you are really wanting to build muscle you need to stimulate your muscle fibers and to do this you need to make sure you are maxing out between 6-10 reps per set. Which brings us to out next point.

Short and intense workouts. No longer do you need to be putting in two hours at the gym. You don't need to be doing 15 sets of bench press. I know this sounds a little counterintuitive but really you if you are doing this many sets of something chances are you're overtraining and stunting your muscle development.

Keep putting on more plates. You should never stop getting stronger, you need to constantly be pushing your self. As a rule of thumb every two weeks try increasing 5% of the weight. Now be safe with this, I see a bunch of people everyday at the gym trying to lift to much and sacrificing form. Don't worry about where you start, just make sure you are doing the exercises correctly and keep adding more weight as you go.

Your kitchen is your new best friend. You need to be eating healthy quality foods 6 times a day. Eat smaller meals but eat more often. Ensure that these are high quality proteins and carbs and fats that are going to help your body. No joke, nutrition is more than half the battle in your case. Make sure you drink a protein shake immediately after you workout as well, you will never find a better time to feed your muscles.

Following the instructions above will really get you well on your way from being a skinny guy to being a former skinny guy who has a huge gain 40lbs of ripped muscle on that frame. Making you much stronger than the majority of the people out there, and the person that others look up to at the gym.