How to Get Jake Gyllenhaal’s Road House Body

How Jake Gyllenhaal Got Ripped

In this article we are going to discuss Jack Gyllenhaal’s physique in his new movie Road House, how he trained, what he ate and his mindset. We will create a workout for you that is similar to how he trained.

The internet is abuzz about Jake Gyllenhaal’s physique in his new movie Road House. He is being called “Jacked” Gyllenhaal across the social media platforms. If you know what we’re talking about then you probably asked yourself “how did he do it?”

Well, we’re here to break that down for you.

Jake Gyllenhaal the Person

Before you try and copy what Gyllenhaal did to get shredded, you have to know who he is and how he ticks. Success leaves clues. First off, he likes fitness and works out on his own time. Gyllenhaal is a master of his craft. When he takes on a role as an actor, he goes 110%. He believes it’s his responsibility to become the best version of the character he plays. Gyllenhaal has incredible discipline. If he sets his mind and commits to something, he follows through. He won’t stop. He prides himself on that. He doesn’t believe he is sharp enough to just show up. He needs to work hard to prove each role to himself. He puts 110% into his character and this includes training for his roles.  

Gyllenhaal’s Body Transformations

As an actor, Gyllenhaal has been through several different body transformation for his roles. In 2010, Gyllenhaal packed on some muscle for his movie Prince of Persia. In 2014 he lost nearly 30lbs to play Lou Bloom in Nightcrawler, a movie where he wanted his character to look like a coyote – always looking hungry and being hungry. He ate very little and ran a lot. The result: a very skinny news stringer.

In 2015, for the movie Southpaw, Gyllenhaal got jacked. Because his body has been through this before, he was able to rediscover his physique by training regularly in the gym, over a period of 5 months. To train for his role as Billy Hope is Southpaw, Gyllenhaal had to look and move like a boxer, so he trained like a boxer.

He trained twice a day for five months. He started out running three miles every morning, working up to eight miles as he progressed through is training. He would also train in the gym to add muscle through squats, bench, deadlifts and pull-ups. He would do a lot of sit-ups and other ab exercises to increase his core strength, and he would train for two hours doing mitt work, heavy bag and speed bags.

How to Get Gyllenhaal’s Road House Physique

Now that you know the kind of effort Gyllenhaal puts into playing his role as an actor, let’s roll out his routine as we see it. His routine for Road House looked something like this…

In Southpaw, Gyllenhaal trained to BECOME a boxer. I think it’s safe to say, for his role in Road House, he also trained to BECOME an MMA fighter. This means Gyllenhaal trained the way MMA fighters do so that he could look and move like an MMA fighter.

Let’s be honest, most of you don’t care to ever train like an MMA fighter. It’s way more than you bargained for. You DO NOT have to train like Gyllenhaal to look like Gyllenhaal. Unless you really want to be an MMA fighter. Instead, we are going to take elements of his training and apply them to your routine.

Your Road House Training

Strength Training: 3 days a week

If you want to look like Gyllenhaal, you’ll have to lift weights. You need a really strong back, really strong abs, really strong shoulders and really good endurance. For this workout we are going to focus on three primary lifts: deadlifts, squats, bench press. In addition, you will have to do plenty of abdominal work to strengthen your core and accessory work to build your shoulders, back and legs.

Cardio: 3-5 days a week

For cardio you can pick your poison. Gyllenhaal put in copious amounts of time into cardio for the purpose of conditioning. Fighters need to be well conditioned to last through the demands of the fight, so long bouts of cardio are important. Gyllenhaal prefers running as his choice of cardio. You can copy him or choose your own type of cardio. The only rule is that it has to be steady state, over a period of 15 minutes per session to start and progressing to upwards of 45 minutes to an hour in later stages of your training (over the course of weeks and months). If you need ideas, jogging, stair climber and elliptical are all great options.

Diet

Without diet you will go nowhere. You need to have your diet aligned with your goals if you want to make any serious progress.

Jacked Gyllenhaal’s Diet

Gyllenhaal stated that when he got jacked for Southpaw his diet consisted of lots of eggs, chicken, fish, protein shakes, bananas, apples, almonds, cacao beans, raisins, goji berries, rye bread, pasta, couscous and potatoes, and lots of steamed vegetables and salad: avocado, tomatoes, broccoli, and other dark, leafy greens. In other words, he ate a variety of lean protein to build muscle, lots of carbs for fuel and tons of veggies for nutrients. You will have to do something similar.

He ate six or seven meals per day, every three hours or so, focusing on carbs for fuel in the morning and post workout for repair, while eating protein throughout the day to feed his body for recovery and rebuilding of new muscle.

Gyllenhaal also avoided fried foods and kept his meals as natural as possible to get as much nutrients per calorie as he could. In addition, he also drank plenty of water throughout the day to stay hydrated during his long workouts.

Your Diet

You do not need to eat like Gyllenhaal unless you plan to train exactly like an MMA fighter. He ate loads of carbs to fuel is long workout days, lots of protein for recovery and repair. You need to eat to your goal and how you train.

Find out how many calories your body uses a day to survive. This is called your maintenance calories or your daily energy expenditure. You can get a rough idea of your calories with a quick Google search. Let’s assume your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) is 2,000 calories. Once you have determined your daily calories and factored in your lifestyle demands, you need to fit your macro nutrients (protein, carbs, fats) into that calorie total every day.

Example: 185lb adult

TDEE: 2,000 calories

Protein: 185g (1g per pound of your body weight). 185 x 4 = 740 calories per day from protein.

Carbs: 185g (1g per pound for active people, because you will be working out). 185 x 4 = 740 calories per day from carbs.

Fats: 58g of fat per day (540 remaining calories from your 2,000 TDEE will go to fat).

Macronutrients refer to the three main energy sources required in large amounts by the body: protein, carbohydrates, fats. Macros are the bread and butter (figuratively) of your diet. They are one of the main catalysts for changing your body composition. Each one performs a job within the body that helps reshape and rebuild the body that you desire.

Your meals throughout the day are very important. When training, muscle growth and repair is a continuous process that happens over a span of days and not hours. When you train, your diet will help build and repair the muscle following that session for up to 72 hours. Therefore, a good approach to meal timing would be to take your diet plan (whatever plan works best for you) and spread them throughout the day to keep feeding your body from the workout.

Below you will find a 21-page blueprint in PDF form for FREE. Use it or don’t use it. Either way, now you have the answer to how Jake Gyllenhaal got jacked.