Meaning & use
getting shredded
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Meanings
phraseidiominformal
Training and eating in a strict way so that your body loses fat and your muscles become clearly visible.
Grammar: Used as a phrase after 'be' or 'get': he is getting shredded this summer.
Patterns
- be getting shredded
- get shredded for something
- spend months getting shredded
He started lifting weights and counting calories, and now he is getting shredded.
She spent the whole spring getting shredded for the beach holiday.
If you want to get shredded, you have to watch what you eat as well as how you train.
phraseidiominformal
Being cut into thin strips or torn into small pieces, especially of paper or food.
Grammar: The literal sense follows the normal grammar of 'get' plus an adjective: the old files are getting shredded today.
Patterns
- be getting shredded
- get shredded by something
All the private papers are getting shredded before we move offices.
The cabbage is getting shredded for the salad.
Common combinations
- getting shredded for summer
- He is getting shredded for summer with a strict diet and daily gym sessions.
- getting shredded fast
- You cannot expect to be getting shredded fast without a lot of discipline.
- a getting-shredded plan
- Her coach wrote a getting-shredded plan with weights, cardio and meals.
- getting shredded in the gym
- They spend every evening getting shredded in the gym.
Synonyms and how they differ
- getting ripped
- Very close in meaning, but it often suggests more visible muscle size, while 'getting shredded' stresses low body fat.
- getting lean
- A gentler, less slangy choice that focuses on losing fat rather than on showing muscle.
- getting toned
- Used more by general fitness writers; it suggests slight firming rather than the extreme look of being shredded.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: getting shredded or getting ripped?
getting shredded vs getting ripped
Both are gym slang for a muscular, low-fat body, but 'ripped' is the more common everyday term and can also mean drunk in older slang.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'getting shredded' correctly about fitness?
Choose one answer.
'Getting shredded' in the fitness sense means training to lose fat and show muscle, so the gym-and-beach sentence fits. Option 0 is wrong because marathon training is about endurance, not a low-fat muscular look; option 2 uses the literal paper sense; option 3 wrongly uses 'about', which does not go with this phrase.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “getting shredded”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.