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I have run across a number of exercise routines which claim individuals can lose weight and build muscle with very little exercise.

So, the question: Can an average person become ripped in three months using any exercise routine limited to an hour or less a week? TUT, or max-weight, or max-reps, or any other method?

For the purposes of my question and to reduce ambiguity:

  • Our "average person" here will be Joe. Joe is male, between the ages of 20-40, living in America, with a middle-class lifestyle. Our Average Joe does not exercise regularly, does not use steroids or supplements, is 5'10" tall, 175 lbs, with a BMI of 25. He has a desk job, where he works maybe 3 hours a day and wastes the other 5. He is white, speaks only English, has difficulty matching paint colors, can't dance, is single with no children, and attends a Christian denomination of your choice- but only on holidays. He is fully vaccinated including covid-19, but doesn't remember which vaccine he took because he doesn't care about the differences. He has no drug addictions, does not drink to excess, pays little attention to politics, has never been out of the country, and owns at least two tools he doesn't know how to use. He lives in a dingy apartment in some city somewhere, spends too much money on eating out, and likes to wear nostalgic t-shirts featuring the exact same characters you love (what a coincidence!) Also, he has one sock in his drawer without a match, and it has been that way for at least six years.
  • Diet changes are fine. No steroids, supplements, or drugs. Vitamin pills, protein bars, and even disgusting green smoothies are fine. A gaggle of professional nutritionists, dieticians, and trainers are not allowed
  • "Ripped" will mean visible muscle tone in the chest and abs, bicep bulge, and no large fatty deposits (for example, no love handles). Body builder veins not necessary, tearing belts with one's neck not necessary, leaping tall buildings not necessary
Taejang
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    This is perilously close to spam, I don't think that was your intention though. Could you Identify a specific quote or claim? "Significant muscle" - what does that mean? If there's no clear claim then all we have left is a link to a commercial company, thus my concern about how this might be seen as spam. – Jiminy Cricket. Jul 27 '21 at 21:14
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    There's also [SE.PhysicalFitness](https://fitness.stackexchange.com/) if you're more interested in a discussion of the issue. – Nat Jul 28 '21 at 05:52
  • Assuming good faith, surely any exercise is better than none, so it comes down to your definition of significant muscle. – Jerome Viveiros Jul 28 '21 at 10:37
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    I realize this is the internet and skepticism here is a virtue, but this seems a bit harsh. I'm new to Skeptics, not new to SE, as anyone can see from my profile. I've edited the question, though I don't know how to quote a specific claim without linking to a product or commercial methodology, since books are products. – Taejang Jul 28 '21 at 13:22
  • Does the picture link sufficiently define what I meant by "significant muscle"? Is the product name in the corner of the picture out of line? – Taejang Jul 28 '21 at 13:37
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    To be honest, I thought your question was fine. I've seen plenty of questions here along the lines of "I've come across product X. X's website says that it can do Y. I'm skeptical of this because Z. Can X do Y?" This is the first time I've seen such a question get accused of being spam or "an attempt to build backlinks" or such. – F1Krazy Jul 28 '21 at 14:23
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    I planned to tidy up my answer below and add some references, but the question has changed significantly. I'll delete my answer for now and add a new one when I get a chance. – ewanc Jul 30 '21 at 10:36
  • @ewanc Sorry for the changes. Trying to make it acceptable seems to be a moving target – Taejang Jul 30 '21 at 13:28
  • @Taejang Not at all, the changes are good (and gave me a good laugh!). I upvoted based on the new version. There's just a lot to unpack to get to the ultimate answer of "don't trust miracle diets/workouts, there are no shortcuts". – ewanc Jul 30 '21 at 13:51
  • "Average Joe" is a middle-aged American, and 175lbs? An [_average_ American male](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/body-measurements.htm) 20 years or older, weighs 199.8 pounds.... – CGCampbell Jul 30 '21 at 13:53
  • @CGCampbell I picked the height based on averages, and the weight was picked to keep BMI to a reasonable enough level that muscle definition could be visible without massive weight loss first. I didn't want to be so specific in my definition of average, since it is not really material to the real question, but it should nonetheless limit the scope of answers. Even if 175lbs is not a statistical average weight for an American man – Taejang Jul 30 '21 at 13:59
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    Hopefully nobody gets mad that I picked "white American man" as 'average'; the answers really shouldn't differ between races, nationalities, or genders, but I picked something very specific in case someone was concerned with living conditions/diets/genetic disposition for muscle gain/etc – Taejang Jul 30 '21 at 14:03

2 Answers2

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Getting "ripped" (or synonym of your choice) is an effort in body recomposition. This usually involves building lean muscle mass and losing excess body fat, although not necessarily at the same time.

Building Muscle

Building significant amounts of muscle mass requires two main things:

Progressive overload in weight training means gradually increasing volume and/or intensity over time to keep challenging your muscles which will stimulate them to grow. This can be done by increasing weight, reps and/or frequency of training.

A calorie surplus means that your calorie intake should be greater than the calories required to maintain your current weight, plus the calories required to complete your workout. Weight training works by damaging the muscle fibre leading them to heal up stronger. So the additional calories are required to fuel the recovery and generation of muscle fibre.

Losing Body Fat

Losing excess body fat generally requires aerobic exercise and a calorie deficit. A calorie deficit means your calorie intake is less than the calories required to maintain your current weight, plus the calories required to complete your workout, which forces your body to burn fat for fuel.

Can You Build Muscle And Lose Fat At The Same Time?

Traditionally building muscle and losing fat are carried out in stages, e.g. a bulking stage where the focus is building as much muscle as quickly as possible, followed by a cutting stage where the focus is to lose fat as quickly as possible while maintaining as much muscle mass as possible. This is commonly known as a bulk and cut.

It can be possible to do both at the same time if you can monitor your diet very carefully, eating a high protein diet and hitting the sweet spot in total calorie intake such that your muscles can recover and grow without adding new body fat, and allowing your aerobic activity to burn existing fat. This is difficult to do and requires a high level of dedication, especially without the help of trainers and nutritionists. In fact it can be effectively a full time job to manage your nutrition and recovery, on top of your regular training time.

All of this takes time, both in terms of duration of exercise and in terms of length of time to achieve lasting results. There are no short cuts and you should be extremely wary of any diet/exercise program that promises that there are.

How Much Exercise Does It Take?

For a sedentary person with a low level of activity, if they start training they will experience "beginner gains" where for a short time they will achieve noticeable results as their body adjusts to the higher activity level. This will quickly decrease and the person will need to progressively overload to continue seeing results.

Outside of beginner gains, the nature of progressive overload means that in order to continue seeing results it takes more time and effort.

It has been found that it is possible to get some results with training a single day a week, but more frequency in training produces greater results, as long as adequate recovery time is allowed. So gaining a significant amount of muscle mass in a short space of time requires several training sessions per week.

Conclusion

It is certainly possible for someone with a low level of activity to see noticeable improvements in body composition in a relatively short amount of time when they start exercising, even a small amount of exercise per week. However this is relatively short lived and to get ripped requires dedication and consistent training, ideally several sessions per week, with a good diet for an extended period of time.

ewanc
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    Please [provide some references](http://meta.skeptics.stackexchange.com/q/5) to support your claims. – Oddthinking Aug 01 '21 at 19:10
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    Added some more references, more to come. Due to the amount of people trying to sell miracle workouts, diets and supplements it's difficult to find reliable sources. I've tried to only use sources that include scientific references, or the scientific references themselves. – ewanc Aug 03 '21 at 13:36
  • This answer doesn't really address the "three months" thing, which by my reading was the main point of the question. –  Aug 05 '21 at 19:06
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    @BenCrowell Agreed, but it answers it well enough that the three month part can be inferred, and I've completely given up on this question. Didn't want to leave it unanswered. Ewanc spent the time to put together a decent answer, so I didn't delete the question entirely – Taejang Aug 10 '21 at 17:46
  • @Taejang Thanks, yeah I should probably have been more explicit. I don't mind if you want to delete the q, this answer needed more time than I expected and I didn't get it quite where I wanted it. Maybe I'll turn it into a community wiki and people can flesh it out more – ewanc Aug 11 '21 at 08:26
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    @ewanc I'm going to just leave it as is; anyone who finds it later can read the question, comments, and of course your answer, then take it as they will – Taejang Aug 12 '21 at 13:14
  • In that case I'll turn this into a community wiki. Anyone who has trained for any length of time probably has a good understanding of this stuff and can add something valuable. – ewanc Aug 12 '21 at 14:53
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Novices are able to gain muscle quickly; 9lb in 8 weeks (1hr/day, 6 days/week, 12lbs in 10 weeks (4 days/week, 3 sets 90% 1RM, 15lbs in 12 weeks (5 days/week).

However, gaining muscle is only half the picture. To become "ripped" you need to lower your body fat too. This complicates things because you generally need to eat a surplus of calories to gain muscle, but you need a deficit of calories to lose weight.

The idea of losing fat while gaining muscle is somewhat controversial currently. There are plenty of proponents of these theories, however it is far from accepted or proven.

In your example picture, it's possible no weight was gained and instead only fat was burnt. However this does not represent the "average" person's experience as they are likely not muscular in the first place. Many studies have explored weight loss in the 1-2lb per week range eg; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/oby.21346

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