Uploaded December 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Recently, Kevin followed my diet plan and lost an impressive 12 pounds. But now, we're taking it up a notch: what happens if he takes on the fitness challenge of copying my intense training program for the next 30 days? Could this 30 day fitness challenge work for a beginner with a completely different body type? Or will the training be too much for him, both physically… and mentally? How much muscle can Kevin gain in 30 days? Here’s Kevin’s 30 day body transformation.
Click below for a step by step plan training plan that reveals all the best exercises you should do for each and every muscle group:
quiz.builtwithscience.com
Click below to subscribe for more videos:
youtube.com/jeremyethier/?sub_confirmation=1
So before today, Kevin's workout plan consisted of 3 full body workouts per week, each being about 45 minutes long. During the 30 day fitness challenge, however, his workouts will jump to 5 workouts per week. Each workout lasts at least an hour. It also utilizes reverse pyramid training to increase my strength while maximizing growth. Reverse pyramid training involves doing your first set with the heaviest weight, aiming for lower reps (anywhere between 4 to 6 reps). After that, you drop the weight by about 10% for the rest of your sets just to get the training volume. I also like to superset my training. It’s a proven approach that can help you do more in less time. But it can be exhausting, especially for beginners.
Kevin’s starting weight is just over 216 lbs. Over the next 30 days of this fitness challenge, I hope his training can accelerate his fat loss journey and help him shed off at least a few pounds. But I also want to see just how much strength Kevin can build on his push-ups, presses, and chin-ups and how his muscles will respond and grow to all the training. And lastly, I’m not gonna lie, Kevin’s conditioning needs work. He not only gets easily gassed between hard sets, but any sort of cardio totally wipes him out. I’m gonna see if we can not only get him stronger and leaner but fitter as well.
Something I quickly was that just because one exercise is a great fit for me, doesn’t always mean it’s a great fit for Kevin. For example, when I tried running Kevin through dips, the exercise was too challenging. So we had to swap them for an easier exercise that still hits the lower chest: incline push-ups. Now, most people associate “rest days” with doing absolutely nothing. At least, that’s what Kevin had in mind when going into this 30-day body transformation journey. But doing the right amount of movement can actually help speed up Kevin’s muscle recovery. Not only was Kevin’s poor conditioning holding him back from his workouts in the gym, but there’s some new research suggesting that improving your cardiovascular fitness may provide benefits in blood flow inside your muscles and lead to faster muscle growth. So we’ll get Kevin moving and doing a few higher-intensity workouts to get his heart pumping even on rest days.
The only problem ... Kevin is struggling with the time commitment. At first, I tried using rest-pause sets to condense his workouts. With rest-pause sets, you use the exact same weight and try to do as many reps as you can on your first set, rest just 15-30 seconds, then again try to do as many reps as you can, and repeat that until you get to 30 reps total. But Kevin wasn’t thrilled with it. Thankfully, a recent study from my good friend Dr. Brad Schoenfeld’s lab found that even doing just 1 set per exercise can still lead to significant gains, as long as you’re pushing hard enough. So, while Kevin might not “maximize” his gains with this approach, he’d happily trade a little muscle for cutting his workouts down by a third.
A quick check-in on Kevin’s progress in week 3 found that he’s improved on his sprinting and various exercises, including push-ups, chin-ups, chest press, and Romanian deadlifts. As for his weight, it’s stayed more or less the same at 215 lbs. But I wasn’t overly concerned. With every single lift in the gym going up, and Kevin training with a lot more intensity and volume than before, there’s a strong chance he’s experiencing muscle gain as he’s losing fat through the 30 day fitness challenge. Also known as body composition.
Results time on day 30: Kevin’s chin-ups jumped from 2 on day 1 all the way to 5 chin-ups by day 30 of our 30 day fitness plan. A 150% improvement. As for his weight loss ...
Kevin dropped 3 lbs on the scale, but at the same time, he lost 2.5 cm off his waistline, which is a really good indication that Kevin was losing fat through this process while gaining muscle. And you can really see the difference in his photos even though he only dropped 3 lbs through the 30 day fitness plan.
Recently, Kevin followed my diet plan and lost an impressive 12 pounds. But now, we're taking it up a notch: what happens if he takes on the fitness challenge of copying my intense training program for the next 30 days? Could this 30 day fitness challenge work for a beginner with a completely different body type? Or will the training be too much for him, both physically… and mentally? How much muscle can Kevin gain in 30 days? Here’s Kevin’s 30 day body transformation.
Click below for a step by step plan training plan that reveals all the best exercises you should do for each and every muscle group:
quiz.builtwithscience.com
Click below to subscribe for more videos:
youtube.com/jeremyethier/?sub_confirmation=1
So before today, Kevin's workout plan consisted of 3 full body workouts per week, each being about 45 minutes long. During the 30 day fitness challenge, however, his workouts will jump to 5 workouts per week. Each workout lasts at least an hour. It also utilizes reverse pyramid training to increase my strength while maximizing growth. Reverse pyramid training involves doing your first set with the heaviest weight, aiming for lower reps (anywhere between 4 to 6 reps). After that, you drop the weight by about 10% for the rest of your sets just to get the training volume. I also like to superset my training. It’s a proven approach that can help you do more in less time. But it can be exhausting, especially for beginners.
Kevin’s starting weight is just over 216 lbs. Over the next 30 days of this fitness challenge, I hope his training can accelerate his fat loss journey and help him shed off at least a few pounds. But I also want to see just how much strength Kevin can build on his push-ups, presses, and chin-ups and how his muscles will respond and grow to all the training. And lastly, I’m not gonna lie, Kevin’s conditioning needs work. He not only gets easily gassed between hard sets, but any sort of cardio totally wipes him out. I’m gonna see if we can not only get him stronger and leaner but fitter as well.
Something I quickly was that just because one exercise is a great fit for me, doesn’t always mean it’s a great fit for Kevin. For example, when I tried running Kevin through dips, the exercise was too challenging. So we had to swap them for an easier exercise that still hits the lower chest: incline push-ups. Now, most people associate “rest days” with doing absolutely nothing. At least, that’s what Kevin had in mind when going into this 30-day body transformation journey. But doing the right amount of movement can actually help speed up Kevin’s muscle recovery. Not only was Kevin’s poor conditioning holding him back from his workouts in the gym, but there’s some new research suggesting that improving your cardiovascular fitness may provide benefits in blood flow inside your muscles and lead to faster muscle growth. So we’ll get Kevin moving and doing a few higher-intensity workouts to get his heart pumping even on rest days.
The only problem ... Kevin is struggling with the time commitment. At first, I tried using rest-pause sets to condense his workouts. With rest-pause sets, you use the exact same weight and try to do as many reps as you can on your first set, rest just 15-30 seconds, then again try to do as many reps as you can, and repeat that until you get to 30 reps total. But Kevin wasn’t thrilled with it. Thankfully, a recent study from my good friend Dr. Brad Schoenfeld’s lab found that even doing just 1 set per exercise can still lead to significant gains, as long as you’re pushing hard enough. So, while Kevin might not “maximize” his gains with this approach, he’d happily trade a little muscle for cutting his workouts down by a third.
A quick check-in on Kevin’s progress in week 3 found that he’s improved on his sprinting and various exercises, including push-ups, chin-ups, chest press, and Romanian deadlifts. As for his weight, it’s stayed more or less the same at 215 lbs. But I wasn’t overly concerned. With every single lift in the gym going up, and Kevin training with a lot more intensity and volume than before, there’s a strong chance he’s experiencing muscle gain as he’s losing fat through the 30 day fitness challenge. Also known as body composition.
Results time on day 30: Kevin’s chin-ups jumped from 2 on day 1 all the way to 5 chin-ups by day 30 of our 30 day fitness plan. A 150% improvement. As for his weight loss ...
Kevin dropped 3 lbs on the scale, but at the same time, he lost 2.5 cm off his waistline, which is a really good indication that Kevin was losing fat through this process while gaining muscle. And you can really see the difference in his photos even though he only dropped 3 lbs through the 30 day fitness plan.
