E-book review:"12 Week Shred" by Simplyshredded.com

Title: 12 Week Shred
eBook rating: 7/10
Author: simplyshredded.com
Published:2016
Pages: 72

12 Week shred is simplyshredded.com’s eBook for fat loss, the first chapter is on nutrition and it’s covering all the basics such as flexible dieting, goal setting, macronutrients and carb cycling. The eBook also includes an excel sheet to calculate your calorie intake for the different days of the week.

The second part is about training, starting with the most important factor when trying to retain muscle mass while cutting (progressive tension overload), the program is a 12-week block divided in three mesocycles as follows:

• Phase 1 week (1-2) (58 sets)
• Phase 2 week (3-6) (87 sets)
• Phase 3 week (7-12) (102 sets)

Concerning the split, it’s a 5 day per week program with 2 times/body part/week built in this format:

Day 1: Upper body power
Day 2: Rest
Day 3: Quads/hamstrings/calves hypertrophy
Day 4: Chest/Shoulders/triceps hypertrophy
Day5: back/biceps/Abs hypertrophy
Day 6: Rest
Day 7: Lower body power

The next chapter is giving recommendations concerning cardio (LISS, HIIT) based on the different phases of the training and an approximation of how many calories are burned during LISS and HIIT.
The supplements listed in the eBook are Whey protein, caffeine, creatine and multi-vitamins with their benefits, possible side effects, timing and dose intake.
The last chapter is about how to adjust the plan or what to do when you stop losing weight and your measurements stay the same from week to week.

Pros:

The book is not the typical bro science cutting plan, the focus is put on flexible dieting and macronutrients, the training protocol concentrates on progressive tension overload and the supplement list is composed of effective and scientifically proven ones.
By purchasing the eBook, you also receive an exercise glossary to show the right exercise execution and two excel sheets one for calories /macros calculations and one for accountability, it’s important to remind the users that if you go over your calories for one day, it’s ok and that they shouldn’t give up on their diet.

Cons:

It’s a surprisingly good eBook, the negative comments on the internet are coming from people who didn’t buy the book and read it, probably stuck with the title “12 weeks to shred”, of course not everybody is going to be shredded after running this program for 12 weeks but with running this program you can expect to lose fat and keep as much muscle mass as possible for 12 weeks.
Concerning the nutritional strategy, it’s good to make people aware that macronutrients are the most important component when it comes to body composition, but an emphasis should be put on micronutrients too, to prevent anybody from running the program while micronutrient deficient.
The training protocol is built in such a way, that the volume is increasing with the time, the problem with this approach is that people tend to accumulate fatigue when they are in a period of calorie restriction and putting the block with the most volume in the end is not optimal, for anyone who has already been training,there is no need to put this much volume, concentrating on progressive tension overload as written in the beginning of the book is enough.
Finally, I will talk about the part on how to adjust the diet, taking measurements in two body parts is not enough, plus most of the people who may follow this program will make it wrong in the first time, the author should precise that muscles should be flexed for each measurement and measurements should be taken at least three times to ensure that they are precise and enable more consistent results.

For WHOM:

Intermediate and advanced athletes who want to lose fat and retain muscle mass.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/read.eat.compete/

Aaron Curtis