MAKE NO MISTAKE, Jake Gyllenhaal is a serious actor with some complex and nuanced roles under his belt. He’s also a committed one, prepared to go to any length to fully inhabit the characters he portrays.
If a role calls for brutal physicality, a jacked physique with mountainous traps and a washboard stomach, Gyllenhaal will go all in, see Southpaw and this year’s Road House. If, on the other hand, the role calls for coat hanger physique with a haunted hollowed-out face, Gyllenhaal is happy to oblige, as he did so convincingly as Lou Bloom, in 2014’s Nightcrawler.
In terms of his ‘body of work’, the 43-year-old actor is building up a resume that rivals the yo-yoing body transformations of fellow Hollywood star Christian Bale, who went from buff master-of-the-universe in American Psycho to emaciated insomniac in The Machinist to puffy conman in American Hustle.
So, how does Gyllenhaal do it? The answer is he puts in work! For his role of Elwood Dalton in the remake of Road House, an ’80s action classic, Gyllenhaal reportedly spent over a year finessing his workouts and tinkering with his macros to ensure he was in peak physical condition once the cameras started rolling.
For Road House, Gyllenhaal managed to shred down to five per cent body fat, dropping 10kg to go from 93kg to 83kg. That’s a level usually only attained by elite athletes and is a mark that’s extremely difficult to maintain, as Gyllenhaal’s trainer Jason Walsh told US Men’s Health, earlier this year.
“The way he looked throughout the movie, there (are) peaks, right? People don’t see the valleys,” Walsh said. “They don’t see the time in between the peaks, it just looks like one continuous thing. It doesn’t work like that.”
Here, we look at the workout and diet plans that have helped Gyllenhaal achieve remarkable results across his storied career.
How did Jake Gyllenhaal train for Road House?
In order to play the role of Elwood Dalton made famous by the hulking Patrick Swayze back in the ’80s, Gyllenhaal needed to pile on muscle mass, something that can only be achieved by going into calorie surplus while training at maximum intensity. Walsh and Gyllenhaal worked for up to a year on ensuring he was eating the right amounts of protein, carbs and fats to promote muscle growth.
In terms of his workout, Walsh prioritised mobility and bilateral posterior work in order to prepare for the movie’s dynamic action scenes, which are heavy on the rough and tumble of MMA.
Essentially, Gyllenhaal trained the way a professional UFC fighter would, with heavy mobility and flexor work and a commitment to progressive overload.
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Jake Gyllenhaal’s Road House workout
1 Mobility stick stretching – 2-3 minutes
“Generally, we spend a few minutes each session moving, trying to get the core body temperature up before moving into some sort of mobility movement,” Walsh says. “The mobility stick is a great tool to help increase range of motion.”
2 Isometric Inverted hold: 30secs on, 30 secs off, x 3
By holding movements for extended periods, you increase muscular strength and endurance.
3 Shadow box for 30 secs on, 30 off for 3-4 rounds
Walsh had Gyllenhaal work out on a Proteus Motion Machine, a fancy bit of kit that measures strength and power for movements across different angles. “The Proteus is an amazing piece of equipment used mostly by performance centres to help train athletes in every plane of motion and help increase power production,” Walsh says. “We use it primarily for priming the nervous system, proprioception, learning movement patterns and a lot for warming up joints and metabolic training.” We assume you don’t have access to your own Proteus Motion Machine? No, then you can shadow box instead.
4 Sled pull x 2-3 sets
The sled is a powerhouse piece of equipment for building muscular endurance through the glutes, hamstrings and quads and improving leg drive. As Walsh explains, the aim is to go heavy on an AMRAP (As Many Reps As Possible) protocol.
“Most of the sets we do are tied sets,” Walsh says. “We try to keep his (Gyllenhaal’s) work capacity up, keeping him moving, keep him sweating, keep him burning fat. We still want the heavy stimulus so we do a lot of heavy sled work.”
5 Safety bar squats: 4 x 6-8
Gyllenhaal and Walsh used these to foundational compound moves to build up the actor’s posterior chain, creating a platform for explosive movements.
“We always keep the heavy primitive work, in one way, shape or form,” Walsh explains. “Whether it’s squats or deadlifts and the variations thereof, we want to keep the muscle coordination at a high.”
6 10 kg plate hold x 30 secs x 3
Not a beach muscle by any means but highly functional, sturdy forearms are critical in improving grip strength. Walsh incorporated grip work, such as plate holds in each session. Grip strength is often indicative of upper and total-body strength.
7 Suspension trainer push-pulls: 3 sets of 6-8
Cross lateral loading was a standout component in Gyllenhaal’s Road House prep, helping build a potent combination of strength and co-ordination, vital in MMA.
8 Swiss-bar floor press: 2 x 10-12
Gyllenhaal’s sculpted pecs in Road House are a product of floor press movements
“It’s important to keep the stimuli broad with variations of reps, sets, loads and different tempos,” Walsh explains.
9 Bag jump-over x 30 secs x 3
These mimic MM training, Walsh explains.
Gyllenhaal also did the following:
10 Chain push-up 2 x 10-12
11 Push-pull rips: 3 x 6-8
12 Climber sprints 20 secs on, 30 off x 6-8 rounds
Jake Gyllenhaal’s diet plan
Gyllenhaal’s Road House diet was a caloric pay load aimed at building bulk and giving him the energy to fuel his massive training loads. To achieve 5 per cent body fat, Gyllenhaal used a carbohydrate-cycling protocol and was strict eating regime, eschewing sweet treats and calorie dense options.
“In this case, there were things that were taken away, but I had a hell of a lot more calories that I could consume,” Gyllenhaal told US Men’s Health.
Walsh revealed that Gyllenhaal encountered problems digesting whey protein. As a result, the actor’s nutrition team created a new plant-based protein shake formula, which has since been publicly released under the brand name Rise311.
While specifics are scant it’s likely that Gyllenhaal followed a nutritional plan to the one that got him in such amazing shape for 2015 film Southpaw. There, Gyllenhaal ate mounds of protein in the form of fish, chicken, eggs, for his main meals, with supplements such protein shakes before and after workouts. Like all lean-muscle diets, you need a solid focus on natural whole foods, you must drink loads of water and consume salads, veggies, and lean meats on repeat.
How did Jake Gyllenhaal train for Southpaw?
Of course, Road House isn’t the first time Gyllenhaal has transformed his body into wrecking ball shape. In 2015, the actor played Billy “The Great” Hope in Antoine Fuqua’s boxing epic Southpaw. Once again, the actor achieved a powerhouse combination of muscle and power. Gyllenhaal appeared on The Howard Stern Show before the film’s release where he revealed the insane amount of exercise he was putting in.
“I trained twice a day for five months,” he told Stern. “I started at three miles and eventually, I was running eight miles. I would go and work out for two hours doing mitt work, heavy bag and speed bags.” Here’s a breakdown of his brutal workout regimen.
The Weinstein Company, Dreamworks Pictures
Jake Gyllenhaal’s Southpaw workout
- 1,000 sit-ups
- Run 8 miles
- Eat breakfast (mostly carbs)
- 1-2 hours of boxing and sparring
- 1-hour core workout routine
- Eat protein
- 1-2 hours of boxing and cardio
- 1-hour weightlifting workout
- 1,000 sit-ups
- Go to bed
Core Workout Routine
The following exercises make up 1 round. Gyllenhaal performed 2-3 rounds total, resting 1-2 minutes between each round.
- Pull-ups (1 set of 10 reps)
- Arm walk-outs (1 set of 10 reps)
- Bicycle crunches (1 set of 20 reps)
- One leg/arm plank (1 set of 10 reps)
- Dips (1 set of 10 reps)
- Push-ups (1 set of 10 reps)
- Deadlift (1 set of 10 reps, 1-2 minutes of rest)
Boxing Exercises
- Jump rope
- Footwork drills
- Shadow boxing
- Bag work
- Speedball
- Focus pads
- Sparring
- Flip a 110 kg tractor tire 20 times a day
- Hit a 110 kg tractor tyre with a sledgehammer for 3 minutes at a time
Related:
How Jake Gyllenhaal Achieved His Gym-Honed ‘Prince Of Persia’ Bod
Tom Holland Explains Why He’s Never Working Out With Jake Gyllenhaal Ever Again
