John travelled the world to learn the best training and nutrition principles and trained alongside top pro bodybuilders at Gold's Gym California. He was a student of Arthur Jones, inventor of Nautilus and Medx Fitness machines, and the pioneer of hi-intensity training. John developed the HIT3 Training System, which transformed his physique to win countless bodybuilding competitions at just 18 years of age! He was also the first bodybuilder to utilize Faradic Electric Muscle Stimulation in his training and intermittent fasting during his competition prep. John’s SHREDDED Nutrition Diet helped him build one of the most shredded physiques of all time. His diet program incorporates fasting and nutrient timing to help athletes build lean muscle while losing body fat.
Nicole Rakowski is a 28-year-old woman who has been physically active since her youth. She was always a competitive athlete, pushing herself past her limits in practice and training. Achieving levels of discomfort as a challenge to her physical capacity was, and still is, a motivator for Nicole.
Introducing Nicole to the HIT3 Training Program
First introduced to my program through IFBB Pro bodybuilder Zane Watson, Nicole was originally working out regularly, performing high-volume training four to six times a week. She was on a high-protein diet, often consuming over 4000 calories a day. Nicole is 5'8" and weighed 165 pounds when she started my program.
After conducting my four-appointment HIT3 assessment, I initially determined that Nicole needed to lose 40 pounds to get down to her baseline body fat percentage. Her percentage of body fat measured in at 32 percent. I set a goal of getting her down to 12 percent. Nicole wanted to reshape her lower body by increasing leg muscularity and building her glute muscles. I set up a two-phase program for her to achieve her Ultimate Goal. The first phase would take 20 weeks for her to lose two pounds of fat per week. The second phase would take 10 weeks for her to normalize her new lean body weight while at the same time adding muscular detail to each body part.
I decided to set her up on the advanced HIT3 workout program training three times a week, working her whole body once a week along with one HIT3 cardio workout per week. She increased her strength each week while decreasing body fat.
Diet
I put Nicole on my Shredded Nutrition Diet. She followed the 22/2 (22 hours fasting/two hours eating) guidelines. At first, she found it very challenging and at times doubted her ability to stay on track. However, within a week, she had more energy than ever. In the two-hour eating window, she ate one large meal and one snack.
Having achieved her Ultimate Goal and baseline body fat percentage, I then switched her to my Phase 2 Shredded Nutrition Diet, which includes two additional protein meals per day. Each meal consists of 25 grams of protein with 10 to 20 grams of complex carbs or 10 grams of fats. Calories were not to exceed 200 per meal.
Recovery Time
The recovery process is just as important as training itself. Your muscles and neuromuscular system need time to recover and recuperate from the stress of HIT3 training sessions. Without adequate recuperation, you can’t improve your strength. Without strength increases, muscular size increase is impossible. To learn more about this, refer to a previous article titled “Rotation for Recuperation.”
Phase 1 Results
Nicole started my program weighing 165 pounds. She trained three times per week. Each HIT3 training session lasted 40 minutes, and one cardio session per week lasted less than 30 minutes. Her total workout time was 2.5 hours per week. She weighed in every Monday, and body fat measurements were taken on an InBody body fat scale. Her weight and body fat decreased by more than two pounds weekly.
Nicole's weight dropped to 125 pounds 18 weeks into the program, a loss of 40 pounds. Her body fat also reduced from 32 percent to 15 percent. Some of her initial weight loss can be attributed to water loss as she was eating excessive amounts of carbohydrates, including salt. This resulted in her body holding onto approximately five to seven pounds of water. These results were accomplished by Nicole training a total of 45 hours over the 18-week period. It’s obvious that each HIT3 training session was result-producing with no time wasted.
Phase 2 Goal
Losing body fat and getting to a “base lean body weight” was the goal of the first phase of my HIT3 training program. The second goal was to slowly increase her muscular size while not gaining more than two pounds of weight per month.
Over the next 12 weeks, Nicole continued to weight train three days per week (plus one cardio workout) with the specific aim of increasing her strength. When the photographs accompanying this article were taken, she weighed 129 pounds and her body fat had further reduced to 12 percent. This means that she had replaced the 3 percent body fat loss with a muscle gain of 3.6 pounds and also gained an additional 4 pounds of muscle, for a total muscle gain of 7.6 pounds. This was accomplished by her training a total of 30 hours over the 12 weeks.
Conclusion
This case study demonstrates that HIT3 training and the Shredded Nutrition Diet produce extraordinary results in a minimal amount of time. As you can see from the “before and after” pictures, with only 75 hours of total training over a 30-week period, Nicole has totally transformed her body by losing her excess body fat and increasing her lean muscle size. This was accomplished while still maintaining a feminine look.
For more info on John Cardillo, check out his website at johnrobertcardillo.com or right here at Muscle Insider at John Cardillo.
