Jake Gyllenhaal’s “Road House” Workout Revealed

If you wanted to know all about Jake Gyllenhaal’s workout for his new movie “Road House”, then you’ve come to the right place. In this video, I am going to break down what Jake’s workout looks like and what he did in pursuit of the body that he achieved for this movie. Just like I’ve done for every

Now, before we get started, can I address  the inevitable question; Is Jake Gyllenhaal on steroids for this movie? I got to give  you my opinion here, knowing that, yes, a lot of times these guys will indulge in order to  get into their best shape ever for whatever role they’re playing, I gotta say, I don’t really  see it here. If you look at the evolution of Jake Gyllenhaal’s body over the course of many,  many years, this doesn’t look very unattainable, especially when you realize that he’s been  committed to his body and training for a long period of time. And specifically for this role he  actually didn’t bulk up or put on a lot of muscle, he actually cut down, supposedly from 205 down  to 184 to play this role. 184 pounds of muscle and again, when you look at his body here  doesn’t really look very enhanced to me.

So, reviewing celebrity workouts is something  that I’ve done for quite a while, whether it be Zac Efron or way back to Taylor Lautner or even  Amir Khan. I like to look into what’s being done, but I like to do it from a different standpoint  as actually someone who’s been in the trenches and done exactly this. And I have a high level  of respect for the trainer who’s doing these workouts. Because, let’s face it, whenever  we review any workout, you have to understand you might not be getting the full picture. As a  matter of fact, in the case of Jake Gyllenhaal, this transformation for this movie took  place over the course of an entire year.

We’re looking at one single workout they  did for Men’s Health magazine, probably not encapsulating everything that was done. But again, who cares what they’re doing if it has no application to you? So, what I want to do  in these videos is make sure that you know what they’re doing, why they might be doing it, but  more importantly, can you benefit from it? And if not exactly this, what can you do instead  to get something for your own training? That being said, the role he’s playing here  actually required him to be more athletic, which you’ll see showed up in a lot of his  training.

So, let’s start going through piece by piece to see what we’re talking about. And here  we start off with some mobility work. And again, his trainer Jason Walsh is actually utilizing some  sticks to do the mobility. Now is this a gimmick? No.

These sticks are actually helpful because  they allow you to get into deeper stretches. Now you don’t have to have sticks. I talked about  many times how you could just utilize the things in your own space. If you want to do a good  thoracic extension stretch, you could utilize a bench. If you want to get a deeper pec minor  stretch, utilize a squat rack.

If you want to get a better thoracic stretch, you take a pole  or a broomstick and you put it on your back. Utilizing implements to deepen stretches is a very  common practice, not just for actors and athletes, but just everyone, really. And I think you should  be leaning into that literally if you want to get more benefits in your stretching. Okay. The  next part is the use of this machine here, the Proteus.

Now, I can tell you I’ve used this  machine firsthand, and it is pretty damn badass. Now, is it necessary for the average trainer? No. But I’m going to give you something you can do instead. But what this Proteus does is it has  three-dimensional resistance.

So, as he’s pulling, it’s resisting him through the pole. As he’s  pushing, it’s resisting him on the push. The bar itself is being resisted through space. What does that sound like if you don’t have access to something like this? A landmine setup  where all you have to do is stick a barbell on a corner and you’ve got some of the major benefits  here carrying over to you in your training.

Now, again, you’re not resisting the push and  the pull, but you do get that resistance on rotation and that eccentric control of  rotation like we get through an exercise like this. I do think that for this specific role,  is this something that he needs to do? Look it, the point is he wants to train like a fighter  and feel like a fighter. He’s up on his feet, he’s moving around laterally. He’s got this  explosive movement component.

I wouldn’t critique this because again, these character  actors a lot of times like to be and exist as the character that they’re playing. If you want to be a fighter, train like a fighter. This is certainly something that a  fighter or an athlete with a high rotational demand would do, and therefore I don’t  have any problem with it at all. Next up, he showcases these isometrics. Right?

And  here he’s doing one of my favorite exercises, the Inverted Row. Now what’s the point here? He’s  got a protocol 30 seconds on rest for 30 seconds, do three sets. I do think that there’s another  option that you might find more interesting, but Isometrics as a whole do belong in some portion  of your training. From a strength standpoint, they find that the strength gains usually happen  only about 10 degrees above and below the portion of the range of motion that you’re training that  isometric in.

So, you wouldn’t want to train it in just one spot, you d want to do it at different  points along the way. That being said, if you opt for something like an overcoming isometric, where  the goal is not to prevent yourself from falling out of a position, but to try to overcome a  position that you’re in. And usually with a weight that does not allow you to move it at all, now you  have the ability to build recruitment capacity, more of an ability to recruit more type two  muscle fibers into the exercise that I’m doing, which does tend to carry over better to  strength in the long run to size gains. And again, don’t get hung up on the  sequence that they’re being done in, who knows what order they were shot in. And then  edited back into these videos.

I think people get far too critical of what they’re exactly seeing  here, and trying to hold it as the Holy Grail, realizing that again, one Year of training is  here. And this is just one representative example that they shot on one single day. Probably trying  to give them a glimpse of the different types of things they’ve done in their entire workout. Which  brings us to something like this sled work. Again, training athletically is a sled, a great tool  for athletic training?

100%. It’s eccentric free training, which means that when you’re doing these  exercises, you can see here, there’s very little eccentric stress on the muscle. So, while they  have a big force demand and require that you’re able to overcome this, again, weight that’s being  dragged behind you, building good leg strength, you don’t have that eccentric component that  can leave you sore. So, this type of activity could be done on a regular basis, certainly  more than two or three times a week, which would allow you to get a conditioning benefit,  but again, still tend a little bit towards the strength component for your lower body. So,  I have no problem with this at all either.

You know, so far all things that I like. And for those people now that want to say, well, he should be squatting. Well guess what, he’s  squatting. All right. And we see him squatting here three to four sets of six to eight reps.

So, he’s going heavy. And what I like here is he’s using the safety squat bar which we have here  in the gym. Look it any variation of a squat is better than no variation of the squat. And the  idea here is that he finds it more comfortable, he says, for his shoulder limitations range of  motion. So, if he can’t really get back into this position because he’s got limited range of  motion i