From Antoine Fuqua's Southpaw to Amazon's Roadhouse remake, Jake Gyllenhaal's diet and training plan has proven effective time and time again. In fact, at this stage, it's pretty much a formula for achieving a toned physique on screen.
Sure, not everyone is blessed with a job that allows them to basically make a living off of working out (i.e. making millions of dollars per project), so keep your expectations in check, but who's to say that the right combination of nutrition and exercise can't get you closer to Hollywood stardom?
Although he looked impressive for his role as Elwood Dalton, having slimmed down from a weight of 205 pounds to a muscular 184 pounds (5% body fat), as his trainer explained, Gyllenhaal's physique did not consistently resemble that of a current UFC middleweight title contender, even though the character himself was well past his prime.
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“You see the expressions he has throughout the film, there are peaks, you know? People don't see the valleys,” Jason Walsh said.
“They don't look at the time between peaks so it just looks like one continuous thing. It doesn't work that way.”
The other thing that's remarkable is how big an undertaking this was: Hollywood studio money aside, if you want to look like Jake Gyllenhaal in Roadhouse, you've got to put in the effort to get it.
Added Walsh: “You can have a great trainer, a great program and a great team, but it doesn't mean anything if you don't have the right people to do it all. Jake's done the job. He's earned it.”
Here is Jake Gyllenhaal's diet and workout plan used in Roadhouse.
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Jake Gyllenhaal's Workout Plan (Roadhouse)
According to Men's Health, Jake Gyllenhaal's fitness program for Roadhouse was split into several phases, starting with a conditioning “baseline phase,” moving on to a muscle-building “hypertrophy phase,” before moving on to sport-specific phases to “strengthen the movement patterns needed to perform on camera.”
After that, it was just a matter of maintaining that muscle throughout production, which concluded with UFC 285: Jon Jones vs. Ciril Gane, in which the actor of Donnie Darko and Brokeback Mountain fame “fought” retired welterweight stuntman Jay Hieron inside the Octagon for a flashback scene from the film.
This was in contrast to his grueling southpaw training, which involved doing at least 2,000 sit-ups a day, and aimed at building 35 pounds of muscle to become a light heavyweight boxing champion like Billy “The Great” Hope (we've included this workout at the bottom, too, in case you're interested).
The main pillars of Jake Gyllenhaal's training are:
Mobile training
To prepare Gyllenhaal for the workouts, Walsh used tools like a mobility stick to increase his range of motion.
Proteus Motion Machine
The next tool Walsh used on Gyllenhaal's performance was the high-tech Proteus Motion Machine, which allowed him to warm up the actor's joints and establish proper movement patterns to practice on set.
Isometrics
Walsh had Gyllenhaal do moves like isometric reverse row holds to “build strength and stamina at different joint angles.” Try doing three sets of the row holds Gyllenhaal does in the video, 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off.
Heavy sledding
Walsh used a sled to keep Gyllenhaal moving with intense stimulation, challenging the actor to push and pull the load.
Safety Bar Squat
Walsh says he's always included heavy weight training as part of his routine — squats here. “You want to keep your coordination high,” he says.
Forearm Drills
Walsh says that in the gym, grip strength can be a “limiting factor” — in other words, it can weaken before other muscles weaken when lifting heavy weights. To prevent this problem, trainers programmed grip work throughout the workout.
Offset Load Bag Drill
Walsh had Gyllenhaal train with offset weights, which helped prepare him for the MMA-specific moves he would mimic on screen.
Floor Press
Walsh kept his routine fresh by sprinkling in variations on classic strength exercises, like doing floor presses instead of the standard bench press. “It's important to keep the stimulus broad with variations in repetitions, sets, loads and different tempos,” he says.
Chain Push Up
Like the floor press, the chain push-up offered another variation that Walsh could use to spice up Gyllenhaal's chest workout.
Suspension Trainer Push Pull
“Cross-lateral loading is super important for all sports, but especially in MMA training,” says Walsh, and this move, which uses TRX band rows and dumbbell presses, is one of his favorite variations.
Push-pull lip
Walsh said the exercise helps “keep you balanced,” and the move mimics a punching motion Gyllenhaal used on set.
Climber Sprint
Walsh rounded out his training with a conditioning session called the VersaClimber Sprint, a low-impact, total-body exercise machine that gets your heart rate up quickly.
MMA Training
Of course, all of the above is complemented with basic boxing, kickboxing/Muay Thai, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and wrestling training (all of which are cardio-intensive), not only to make Roadhouse's choreography and stunts believable to a general audience, but also to prevent any potential injuries.
“We're fighting on the floor, we're fighting around tables, we're fighting around breaking glass, we're fighting around glass. I put my hands on the bar, straight glass,” Jake Gyllenhaal said on the Armchair Expert with Ducks podcast.
“I was teaching professional fighters how to really beat me so people would really believe me. Their ability to judge distance is something nobody else has. It's also safer to work with someone who can do that.”
With enough consistency, he could potentially take on a crazed villain like the drug-addled Knox (played by a drug-addled Conor McGregor), or at the very least, serve as a viable replacement for the iconic Patrick Swayze character.
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Jake Gyllenhaal's Southpaw Training Plan
“I trained twice a day for five months,” Jake Gyllenhaal revealed on The Howard Stern Show.
“I started off with three miles and eventually I was doing eight miles. I was doing two-hour workouts with padding, heavy bag and speed bag.”
“I started learning technique twice a day for five months. It took me two months to get a speed bag and feel confident on the speed bag.”
Elsewhere, he outlined what an “average day” was like at the gym during this grueling process.
Summary
1,000 sit-ups 8 mile run 1-2 hours of boxing/sparring 1 hour of core training 1-2 hours of additional boxing/cardio 1 hour of weightlifting (shrugs, bench press, tire flips, etc.) 1,000 additional sit-ups before bed
core
Pull-ups (1 set/10 reps) Arm walkouts (1 set/10 reps) Bicycle crunches (1 set/20 reps) One-leg/one-arm plank (1 set/10 reps) Dips (1 set/10 reps) Push-ups (1 set/10 reps) Deadlifts (1 set/10 reps)
Weightlifting (2-3 rounds)
Dips (1 set/8-12 reps) Crunches (1 set/25 reps) Weighted pull-ups (1 set/8-12 reps) Barbell squats (1 set/8-12 reps) Barbell deadlifts (1 set/8-12 reps) DB shoulder press (1 set/8-12 reps) Walking lunges (1 set/8-12 reps) Dumbbell shrugs (1 set/8-12 reps) Bench press (1 set/8-12 reps)
Jake Gyllenhaal's Diet Plan (Roadhouse)
As the old fitness adage goes, abs aren't just made in the gym – they're made in the kitchen, which means you need a proper meal plan that includes cutting out unnecessary sugary treats, high protein and select carbs, even if you're just for the occasion.
“If you look closely, you'll see I'm not eating tacos,” Jake Gyllenhaal told Sian Welby during an appearance on This Morning (via NME ).
“They cut out the scene of me receiving the plate and saying 'thank you,' but I never actually take a bite. I was on a strict diet… I ate the whole thing with one chip.”
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The Golden Rule
The only thing Jake Gyllenhaal didn't do was skip meals. In fact, he did the opposite. The term “clean bulk” comes to mind.
“In this case, some things were taken away, but there were far more calories available,” he said.
But for Nightcrawler, the famously dedicated cinematographer lost more than 30 pounds for the thriller, eating chewing gum and eating kale salads (and running about 15 miles a day), apparently just to resemble the human coyote that is Lou Bloom.
“When I'm running, I don't eat a lot of food, so I get really hungry,” Gyllenhaal explained.
“It's lonely when you don't meet up with your friends for dinner. They'll say, 'Do you want to have dinner with me after work?' and I'll say, 'I'm filming tonight.' And they'll say, 'Well, do you want to have lunch with me?' and I'll say, 'No way!' So I'll rush off.”
He continued, “When the sun goes down, the animals come out. After running ten miles, I had this strange fantasy where I felt like I was one with the animals. They were hungry and they were going to get what they wanted. And that was Lou.”
The essence of nutrition
In an interview with Bodybuilding.com, Jake Gyllenhaal said, “My diet is centered around eggs, chicken, fish, bananas, apples, almonds, cocoa beans, raisins, goji berries, rye bread, pasta, couscous, potatoes, and steamed vegetables and salads such as avocado, tomatoes, broccoli, and other dark leafy greens.”
“I tried to avoid fried foods and everything was as natural as possible. I also drank lots of water throughout the day. In terms of supplements, I also took vitamin D3 and vitamin C, as well as protein shakes.”
When people had issues digesting whey protein supplements, Jason Walsh and his team developed an entirely new drinkable, plant-based formula (which was subsequently released to the consumer market as Rise311).
“At this point, we knew it was going to take a village,” Gyllenhaal said.
Genre: Action
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Daniella Melchior, Billy Magnussen, Jessica Williams, Joaquin de Almeida, Conor McGregor
Director: Doug Liman
Former UFC fighter Dalton Elwood takes a job as a bouncer at a roadhouse in the Florida Keys, but discovers that paradise isn't what it seems.
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