How would you like to look like a lean, muscular fitness model?
For a lot of people (including myself) that’s their number one goal and the reason we submit ourselves to all this annoying diet and exercise.
It’s to finally look in the mirror and see a smoking, hot muscle-packed set of guns and some cut abs staring back at you.
Now, I know as a humble college student, it can seem intimidating to get ripped with all the other things you have going on:
- Studying
- Class
- Exams
- Drinking yourself into oblivion
That’s why I asked personal trainer and professional fitness model Kevin Kreider to suggest a couple fitness programs that would be a good fit for college students.
One of his suggestions was The Body Shred course.
So I looked it over and did a full review of the program, and I was very impressed with what I saw.
As a full disclaimer, if you decide to sign up for the program through any of the links on Campus Gains, I will earn a commission.
That doesn’t mean I’m bullshitting you on my opinion or trying to push something on you that you may not need because I don’t roll like that.
To simply put it, this is a very valuable tool for getting in shape and I want you to know what you’re signing up for (including the good and bad things) before you commit to anything.
So let’s get on with the review…
Major Sections of the Course
First I’ll just give you an overview of what the course contains.
Nutrition
This is where Kevin explains how and what you should eat in order to lose body fat while building muscle at the same time.
He starts with some personal stories of bad dieting tactics, moves on to a video on how to actually calculate calories and macros, and finishes with explanations on more progressive dieting concepts.
Mindset Strategies
Included in the mindset area are three smaller sections, but it basically explains how to get yourself into a more positive mindset with a few rituals and exercises.
For example, one of the things he recommends is a 30-minute morning ritual to set your mood for the day and give you the motivation to stick to your diet and continue with your training.
There are a couple additional written sections on staying positive and removing negative thoughts to improve your self-esteem.
Training Principles and Tools
This is a quick section that talks about the core training concepts of the workouts including:
- Types of hypertrophy
- Training to failure
- Progressive overload
- Reverse pyramid training
It gives a few paragraphs on each section so you understand what you’re in for before you actually begin training.
The Body Shred Workout Routine
This is where Kevin actually walks you through the training program.
First, there’s a subsection that just shows you what you’ll be doing day to day with exercises, reps, sets, and even suggestions of things to do on your rest days.
Then, the rest of the section is actually a breakdown of everything you need to do.
For example, you go to day one, there are individual videos for every single exercise you’re going to do even explaining the warm-up sets and then going through each set.
All the other days in the entire week are covered in the same detail with the same media resources too.
Bonus Material
The bonus material section contains some tracking PDFs, an FAQ section, and then some very detailed meal plans and food guides.
In addition, there are some grocery shopping and meal suggestions from Kevin including a write-up of some of his personal favorite muscle-building recipes.
What I Like About the Course
Now I’ll talk about the things in the course that I’m really impressed with…
Use of Progressive Fitness Concepts
There are some very common fitness concepts to losing body fat and building muscle and most courses are built on these concepts (which they should be).
But recently, a lot of progressive concepts for training and dieting have gained popularity and these newer concepts have made fat loss and muscle-gaining not only more efficient, but more enjoyable too.
Well, Kevin’s course does a good job of including some of the really effective ones.
For example, the course includes intermittent fasting which will improve your fat loss results and make adhering to your diet more effective.
Plus, intermittent fasting simplifies your diet so you’re not even eating AS OFTEN which is really good for you if you’re having trouble making time for this kind of stuff.
Personally, I’ve been intermittent fasting for the last 5 years and I don’t think I’ll ever turn back.
Reverse pyramid training (RPT) is another progressive concept used for the workout’s reps and sets and is a powerful method for training efficiently when in a caloric deficit.
Also, micro-loading is encouraged for making small, incremental steps in weight from one workout to the next for easier muscle adaptation.
Not as progressive, but it’s still very effective.
Very Step-By-Step Approach
Another great thing about the course is how it’s organized.
I know a lot of the credit goes to Thinkific for allowing course authors to split everything into concise modules, but inside each of those, the course is laid out in a very step-by-step way that makes it stupid easy to follow.
There are other strength training and dieting programs out there like Ripped Body’s The Muscle and Strength Pyramids and Omar Isuf’s The Science and Art of Lifting…
…but those get so deep into the science and evidence behind the concepts that only intermediates or advanced gym junkies can really understand them well enough on a quick read.
Plus, Kevin has a way of explaining everything as if he’s talking to you one on one (which he’s very good at… being a personal trainer and all).
I Can’t Believe How Much Stuff is Included
When I first started looking at his course, I was expecting maybe a basic nutrition guide and a workout program with the reps and sets and that would be about it.
Granted, that’s definitely enough information to help you build muscle and lose body fat.
For example, those are the main pieces of Kinobody’s Greek God Program which is another very popular muscle-building course.
That program has a couple video tutorials, a main program PDF, and a few audio FAQs to follow.
However… Kevin Kreider’s Body Shred over delivers on the content compared to most programs.
Not only do you get the basics of nutrition and training, but there are video tutorials, presentations, downloadable cheat sheets, meal plans, shopping lists, and a ton of other great bonuses.
It’s really like Kevin didn’t want to leave anything up for interpretation, which is great because being in college makes you think way too much and it’s nice to know you can dumb yourself down in this course.
What I Don’t Like About the Course
Now even though I like the course, it’s not all rainbows and ponies, so let me tell you what I’m talking about…
The Mindset Strategies are Not Relevant for College Students (In My Opinion)
One of the modules in the course is about mindset strategies and I’m not really crazy about them.
First of all, and this is my opinion, but I don’t think what’s included is all that relevant to the diet or training program.
I understand that having a positive outlook on life is good for your well-being.
I mean, no one wants to party with you if you’re constantly talking about negative shit.
…but asking you to start your day with a 30 minute (or more) morning ritual of a positive mantra and then force some positive phrases and word replacements into your common language is a little… unrealistic.
Especially when you’re running on 6 hours of sleep and have 3 exams today and you forgot there’s a 6 page report due that you haven’t started yet…
It’s difficult to think positive.
Some of the Explanations Don’t Always Line Up
While Kevin does a great job of including detailed, written explanations of everything you need to do in each module, sometimes the explanations are a little rushed.
For example, in the workout section he recommends you do between 8 and 15 reps for dips, but in the explanation of reverse pyramid training and progressive overload, he gives an example of you doing 4 reps for dips.
At first I was like…
“Wait, didn’t you just say to do 8-10 reps over here? Why are you using 4 as an example?”
Bear with me though… these sort of conflicting statements are minor and rare in the entire course, but I went over the whole thing with a fine-toothed comb and noticed that.
My Official Rating
I give this program a 9 out of 10 rating.
While it does have a couple shortcomings like the
- Optional positive mindset modules not practical for college students
- Minor conflicting information throughout
I think the course is absolute gold and I definitely recommend it to any college or university student who’s ready to start building some serious muscle and lean down to a shredded and impressive state.
You can check out the program here.
I Have a Bonus For You
Now if you decide to sign up for The Body Shred program through any of the links on Campus Gains, I’d like to send you a link to a calculator that I made to calculate all your diet setup.
What I’m talking about is in the course Kevin explains how you can calculate the amount of calories and macros that you need for your body based on body type and gender and other stuff.
I took the time to create a calculator that will do that for you (you’re welcome).
All you have to do is send me an email and forward me your receipt and then I’ll send you a link to the calculator.