From the creator of Kinobody Greek God and Movie Star comes the highly anticipated Kino Athlete program, designed to build a remarkably aesthetic physique with an athletic edge.
Noob Gains brings you a first look at the newest Kinobody program, set to launch in May 2022.
Real talk: Will you end this four-month program faster, stronger, leaner, and more powerful than you started it? Check out our review of the Kino Athlete Program below!
About the Creator – Greg O’Gallagher
The son of real estate mogul Michael O’Gallagher (who died with a net worth of $800 million), Greg O’Gallagher dropped out of college at age 18 to pursue his lifelong passion for fitness.
By age 24, the younger O’Gallagher was a millionaire, becoming a YouTube sensation after portraying a shirtless version of himself in “The Real Bruce Wayne Revealed.”
His fitness website — Kinobody — thrives on the minimalistic approach to an aesthetic build: three workouts per week, 4–5 exercises per workout, and intermittent fasting.
O’Gallagher’s other hit programs include Kinobody Movie Star, Kinobooty (I can’t believe I actually had to type that out), Kinobody Greek God, and Warrior Shedding.
What Is the Kino Athlete Program?
The Kino Athlete Program is only the latest Kinobody routine created by fitness influencer Greg O’Gallagher. (This is the BETA version; the official Kino Athlete will launch in May 2022.)
This four-month aesthetic program is a mix of strength, power, and speed training to improve your performance both on and off the playing field — jump higher, lift heavier, and sprint faster.
The secret to becoming a superhuman athlete — according to O’Gallagher — is maximizing your pound-for-pound (or relative) strength.
The 16-lesson Kino Athlete Program includes:
- Three phases (four, technically)
- Three intense strength workouts per week plus once-weekly sprint training
- Four “key lifts” to gauge your relative strength progress over 16 weeks
- Three unique types of sets — rest-pause, reverse pyramid training, & build-up
- An intermittent fasting (IF) nutritional guide
Keep reading to learn more about Kinobody’s highly anticipated program!
Kino Athlete Program Details & Features
Like other Kinobody programs, Kino Athlete is available on a teaching platform called Kajabi. O’Gallagher divides the complete four-month “course” into 16 lessons or chapters.
Here’s a sneak peek of the Kinobody’s Kino Athlete Program (BETA):
Welcome to the Kino Athlete Program
Kino Athlete’s Welcome module has four extremely short chapters. But basically, they reaffirm the program’s long-term goal — maximizing pound-for-pound relative strength in four months.
Here, O’Gallagher also explains his logic behind Kino Athlete’s four “key lifts.”
Key Lifts
Greg O’Gallagher built Kino Athlete around the four key lifts: bench press (push), weighted chin-up (pull), Bulgarian split squat (lower body), and hang power clean (explosive power).
This is where Kino Athlete takes an unexpected non-traditional detour. For one, O’Gallagher insists that you don’t need to bench weekly to improve your bench press 1RM (solid point).
He also prefers weighted chin-ups over rows, Bulgarian split squats over squats (less reliance on lower back strength), and hang power cleans to tweak lower-body explosiveness.
In phases one and four, you’ll rate your performance for each of these lifts as “good,” “great,” or “Godlike” according to the benchmarks below:
(The numbers seem a bit arbitrary and ignore factors like height and training experience. If you can’t even bench your bodyweight, you’re not even “good” by these standards!)
The Kino Athlete Routine
The routine has three intense strength workouts (A, B, & C) and one sprinting session per week. Any more than that, and you’re neglecting central nervous system recovery, says O’Gallagher.
For the first two phases (at least), your schedule will be:
- Workout A – Monday: Upper-body, particularly the chest, arms, & shoulders
- Workout B – Wednesday: Lower body strength & traps
- Workout C – Friday: Upper-body, mainly the shoulders & back
- Sprints – Saturday
(If it seems a little light, that’s the point. O’Gallagher is hell-bent on maximizing results through the “less is more” approach to training.)
In the Routine module of Kajabi, you’ll find:
Phase One
Phase one of Kino Athlete kicks off with a bang. Really, once you see the rest of the program, you’ll understand why I say that.
Each Kino Athlete workout includes 2–3 of the following types of sets:
- Reverse pyramid training (or RPT): Hit a rep goal with a heavy weight (typically 4–8), rest for 180 seconds, drop the load by 10–15% to perform +2 reps per set, repeat
- Build-up: Start with a moderate weight on set one, increase the weight while maintaining the rep range for set two, and bump the weight up again for two work sets
- Rest-pause sets: Reach the original set goal (typically 12–15), rest 10–15 seconds, then perform additional sets of 4–6 reps each at the same weight and rest periods.
While I’m at it, here’s a look at a sample workout from this phase:
- Bench Press — RPT — 4–5, 6–8
- Incline Dumbbell Press — RPT — 8–10, 10–12
- Hammer Curl — RPT — 4–6, 6–8, 6–8
- Skull Crusher — RPT — 6–8, 8–10, 8–10
- Dumbbell Upright Row — Rest-Pause — 12–15 + 4–6, 4–6, 4–6
If you can exceed the rep target on your final set, add more weight next week!
In phase one, O’Gallagher also includes detailed write-ups explaining how the sets work, the four key lifts to gauge how “godlike” you are, and video walkthroughs for each exercise.
(I was going to snark on the videos, but I’ll bite my tongue here. When you watch them, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about and ask yourself the same thing … “Why?”)
Overall, the weekly volume seems a bit low for a mass routine, but let’s keep moving.
The Sprinting Routine
O’Gallagher dubs sprinting the “best workout” for an aesthetic, muscular, and powerful physique, claiming that it builds muscle through increased testosterone and growth hormone.
Here’s what your Saturday sprint workouts will look like during:
- Phase one: 12-minute walk/jog warm-up (60 seconds each, alternating) & five 40-yard dashes (ranging from 40% to 90–95%) & two 60-yard dashes (90–95%)
and
- Phase two: 12-minute walk/jog warm-up (60 seconds each, alternating) & seven 40-yard hill sprints (ranging from 40% to 90–95%)
There’s no word on how long to rest between sprints. But non-Kinobody experts recommend a 1:3–5 work/rest ratio (i.e., 6-second 40-yard dash & 18–30-second rest periods).
Fighter Conditioning
OK, you’re probably wondering, “What’s Fighter Conditioning?” Beats me. There’s literally no mention of this phase one conditioning drill anywhere else in Kino Athlete’s 16 chapters.
But it’s basically an MMA or boxing-style HIIT workout featuring jumping rope, shadow boxing, and cobra bag. More specifically, 3–6 rounds of 60–120 seconds “on” and 30–60 seconds “off.”
Phase Two
Like phase one, the second phase of Kino Athlete includes RPT, standard, rest-pause, and build-up sets in a similar training structure — just with different exercises.
But that’s about all these two phases have in common (and not because phase two is so unique and life-changing that you’ll never need to buy another program again).
Prepare for disappointment. Phase two has:
- No exercise demos (even if they were cringy)
- A single chapter instead of four — introduction and workouts A, B, & C
- A visibly rushed “Notes” section with hastily put-together details and mention of exercises that aren’t even in the workout
- A delayed unlock date
I completely understand that Kino Athlete is a BETA program relying on user input to perfect it. But it looks like phase two was thrown together last-minute to hit some kind of deadline.
Phase Three
The momentum of Kino Athlete’s phase one is practically dead and gone by phase three.
With even less detail than phase two (if you can believe it), rushed write-ups, and an already-late release, it feels like O’Gallagher has completely given up by this point.
To quote one commenter: “First we get videos, then we get an email (at least it’s formatted), then phase 3 is typed out like you had to hurry because you had to take a shit.” Savage.
Honestly, after this, I can’t wait to see phase four.
Phase Four: Coming Soon
Sike, there is no phase four. In the introduction to phase three, O’Gallagher quietly reveals that phase four is actually just circling back to repeat phase one.
Intermittent Fasting & Nutrition for Athletes
(Disclaimer: Not a single detail in the Kino Athlete diet plan explains “intermittent fasting.”)
The Kino Athlete meal plan suggests three meals per day, all spaced out by 4–6 hours:
- 9:00 AM (“rising,” which is really a zen way of saying “waking up”)
- 12:30 PM (moderately sized lunch)
- 6:00 PM (feast-like dinner with meat, vegetables, and carbs)
- 10:00 PM (late-night meal)
- Optional (fruit & protein bars during the day)
O’Gallagher also divides this ridiculously short guide into two aesthetic goals: cutting and lean bulking. Check out Kino Athlete’s calorie & macro breakdown for each goal below!
* To calculate your maintenance calories, multiply your current body weight by 15.
Really, that’s the extent of the entire Kino nutrition guide. No meal suggestions. No recipes. No per-meal macro or calorie recommendations. Not even a shameless Kinobody supplement plug.
6 Kino Athlete Program Pros
- Once-a-week 40-yard dashes won’t suddenly dethrone Schwarzenegger or Winklaar as the most aesthetic physiques in history. But the research does support O’Gallagher’s claims that speed work improves lean physiques. A 2009 study concluded that short-distance sprinting (4 x 250m) at 80% maximum intensity significantly increased growth hormone and testosterone in the blood of elite athletes.
- The Kino Athlete diet plan is rail thin. However, the saving grace is that the calorie goals don’t require gorging or crash-dieting. 200–300 calories in either direction is sustainable.
- According to research, most of the rep ranges featured in Kino Athlete are ideal for strength and hypertrophy. In an eight-week study, athletic men significantly increased their strength and 1RM performance when training 8–12 reps per set versus 25–35 (+19.6% vs. +8.8% on the back squat). The ACSM also recommends 6–12 reps per set for intermediate athletes to build muscle.
- Kino Athlete is proof that you don’t have to keep a specific exercise in your routine to improve your performance. This program will tweak your performance with variety, whether it’s dips instead of benching or retiring back squats for Bulgarian split squats.
- The program has plenty of kinks that need unkinking. But if you crave something new each month and all-around athleticism, Kino Athlete’s hypertrophy, power, strength, and speed training will add excitement where many routines fail.
- Kino Athlete is, without a doubt, redeemable if O’Gallagher returns to the drawing board for phases two and three (and while he’s at it, phase four).
6 Cons of the Kino Athlete Program
- One Kinobody user said it best: “Come on, man. At least put a little effort into it.” Between the half-ass phase three and unanswered comments dating back several months, it’s becoming quite clear why O’Gallagher locked comments on most chapters. Phase one starts strong, but Kino Athlete fizzles out even more with each phase.
- When O’Gallagher said, “Now this section will be very brief and to the point” about the Kino Athlete meal plan, he wasn’t lying. He missed his golden opportunity to explain that study after study links intermittent fasting to weight loss and blood sugar control. Instead, he offers vague meal times and very little usable nutritional advice.
- Although it’s a steady theme throughout Kino Athlete, reverse pyramid sets aren’t necessarily better for muscle growth or strength. I hate to be a wet blanket, but 2017 research comparing RPT to traditional sets found similar increases in lower-body 1RM (within 0.0–0.2%) and muscle cross-sectional area (within 0.1%) after 12 weeks.
- The “athlete” piece of Kino Athlete is really light. There’s a random “Fighter Conditioning” drill for phase one, yet there’s literally no mention of this workout in any of the 15 other chapters. There are no “jumping drills” anywhere in this program. The Saturday sprint workouts also end abruptly after completing phase two (which might be a relief to you!).
- O’Gallagher must’ve completely given up after phase three because there is no phase four “coming soon.” The noticeably absent phase four is just phase one … again.
- I really doubt three sets of biceps and triceps exercises amounting to less than 30 reps per week will leave you looking like Greg O’Gallagher. A once-a-week frequency like Kino Athlete can build size … though this program’s volume is unusually low.
Wrapping Up This Kino Athlete Program Review
The Kino Athlete Program as a whole is actually wildly disappointing.
Despite the low-volume training and lack of jump training, Kino Athlete’s phase one still had tons of potential. But it basically crashed and burned as soon as phase two started.
The nutrition guide was concerningly thin, his obsession with RPT isn’t a bonus for aesthetics, and the workouts will leave you asking, “that’s it?!”
Overall, unless O’Gallagher completely redesigns the rest of the program, the BETA version of Kino Athlete is the best we’re going to get … and that’s not really saying a lot.
Rating: 5.0/10
