Simply Shredded – 12 Week Shred

Simply Shredded Workout Guide Review

This is a 12 week program which can be purchased from simplyshredded.com and comes in the form of a PDF. There are additional items in the download – a spreadsheet.

It aims not just to be a program, but to be a tool which empowers the reader – educating them on points of fitness and nutrition, enabling them to make their own informed decisions.

Indeed this is a running theme throughout the PDF. To their credit, they have focused on the realistic and achievable – with an understanding that if they make things so difficult that it’s a struggle to do it then you just won’t do it.

So … is it any good?

Summary

Yep – I decided to do a summary at the start. I enjoyed this. It was informative, I enjoyed the writing, the writing style, and I learned from it.

Do I think it’s a great workout program? No, I don’t.

I think it’s OK, but it’s not great.

Is it worth the money? That depends on you.

If $30 is a lot of money to you then it’s not worth the money. If you wouldn’t think twice about $30 then it is. It’s a short read and a skeleton guide based on 3rd part apps and websites. There’s just not that much to it.

If you are going to fork out, you might as well fork out a bit more on a proper in-depth program that’s more than just a PDF and a spreadsheet.

Ultimately if I look over my list of positive and negatives that I noted down as I went through it, the telling sign is that the negatives outweigh the positives.

Anatomy of the Guide

– Overview (4 Pages). Goals, motivation, principles and general tone setting
– Mythbusting (4 Pages).
– Fat loss technical explanation (1 Page)
– Performance Nutrition Detail (9 Pages)
– Nutritional Strategies (13 pages)
– Training Intro (2 Pages)
– Training Guide & Program (7 Pages – the 3 phases of the program get a page each)
– Cardio (3 Pages)
– Supplements (5 Pages)
– Adjusting the Plan (3 Pages)
– FAQ (4 Pages)
– Inspirational Quotes (1 Page)
– References (2 Pages)

Audience

This assumes a fair bit of prior knowledge. It is assumed you are already acquainted with much of the terminology. Not recommended for complete beginners.

By ‘terminology’ we are not just talking about what carbohydrates are. You already know about your mitochondria, epiphysis, hypertrophy, catabolic processes, lactate threshold, trimeric proteins … right?

Positives

1. Looks. They’ve produced it well and it looks professional. They have found a good balance between text and graphics.
2. Takeaway. Chapters with very technical or difficult to understand subject matter have some ‘Take Home’ bullet points which give you something easily digestible, even when the text has been tough.
3. Good explanation of Macros, and the macronutrient breakdown (and what it’s designed to do and prevent) on both High Carb and Low Carb days
4. It’s not just a PDF, they include a spreadsheet in the downloadable pack to help you calculate your macros.
5. They might recommend third party websites to handle aspects like meal plans but they at least run you through how to set that up based on their own Hi Carb / Low Carb days. Although presumably as soon as those websites update their interfaces these instructions will become obsolete.
6. They have also created a step-by-step instructional video on how to create a meal plan, however it’s a bit.ly link to a publicly available Vimeo video showing how to create a meal plan on a third party website. As before, this will become obsolete over time.
7. A good section on what to do if you hit plateaus, and how to adjust your macros to get progress kickstarted again.
8. There has been no attempt to dumb this down. I can’t remember ever seeing the word ‘behooves’ used in anger before 😉

Negatives

1. Readability. They have taken the decision to format the text in two columns. This makes it really difficult to read, especially on a phone. You have to continuously pinch and zoom to read it, and even on a notebook you are scrolling up and down all the time. This is exacerbated by the fact that sometimes text is full width so you’ve got to zoom in and out too.
2. Calorie calculators, macro calculators, basal metabolic rate, daily calorie requirement. You need to calculate these and as you can’t include any tools or calorie counters in a PDF, therefore you’ll be obliged to go Googling to help you work them out.
3. No dedicated app so you are recommended to use a third party app instead. As it isn’t designed to run along with this program they then have to explain what you can’t use it for, namely logging workouts as that skews your DCR calculations.
4. They do include some sample foods and their Fat/Carb/Protein breakdown for both Low Carb and High Carb days. But there is a lot of repetition in these and they are very limited. If you stick to this for 12 weeks and you’ll be bored with your diet. By week 2. They could have put a lot more effort into this and included an additional pdf of meal plans and the breakdown on many more food stuffs rather than offload it all onto third party websites.
5. Font.
   The chunky, futuristic font used is not terribly readable.
6. I get the impression at times that the author is barely keeping themselves from descending into rant when they cover alternative regimes to their own. You feel that they are counter-arguing throughout. A very defensive tone.
7. Lots of references to ‘plenty of research’ that supports their approach. Without actually referencing any of it. There is a big list of references at the end, but none of it is linked up to the relevant part of the text it applies to.
8. There is no description, images or support on how to perform any of the exercises mentioned in the workout plans. Not even a reference to a third party site which would explain then, you are expected to either know how to do them already or do the research on it yourself.
9. Hardly any of it – 10% – is dedicated to actual exercises.

Observations

Carb cycling is quite a big part of this plan so be prepared to learn about it and employee it. Which takes quite a bit of effort and discipline. They do take the time to explain it in detail in the Performance Nutrition section.

Be prepared to do a lot of weighing of things you are going to eat. And a lot of reading of the back of packets. And logging everything. Tracking your macros and calorie intake is a big part of this program, if you are going to do it properly it is going to take over your life.

For me having only 7 pages of a 70 page workout guide dedicated to the actual training schedule is far too low a ratio. Having a mere three pages dedicated to the actual exercises performed isn’t really acceptable. More effort required here!