How celebrities cheat their super intense movie fitness regimes

A celebrity trainer outlines the work that goes into those bodies

Esquire.com: Actors crank through extreme fitness regimens to prepare for roles, and they do it in a shockingly short amount of time. Hugh Jackman crashed through a dehydration routine for Logan. Gal Gadot dedicated six hours a day for six months training for Wonder Woman. Jonah Hill just dropped a bunch of weight, looking the fittest he ever has, and he still smokes cigarettes.

Trainer Patrick Murphy recently came off the shoot of one of the biggest movies of the summer: Baywatch (out August 29 on Blu-ray). Baywatch wasn’t “big” as in a huge critical success—it was at best a “69 (nice) million-dollar dick joke”—but the muscles it featured on its stars were enormous. 

Murphy trained Zac Efron for the film in just two months, right after he trained Keanu Reeves for the action intensive John Wick 2. He talked about the difference between their workouts, their motivation, and how important cheat days are to anyone getting in shape.

How Zac Efron trained for Baywatch

Zac’s goal: The goal was to create on-screen the leanest, most-ripped actor in Hollywood history. For the movie, an over-the-top comedy, why not create the ultimate lifeguard? We were extreme with it. He doesn’t walk around like that year round, but for the moment in time to shoot that film, we got him as lean and ripped as possible.

His workout: I could write a book about his program. We covered stabilisation training, balance training, hypertrophy—which is muscle gaining—body building, power training, quick-twitch power training, high muscular endurance training, agility training. 

He did a lot of two-a-days: Him weight-training with me, and then in the same day, he would do another workout, either the lifeguard training and/or road biking. So no matter what, he was accomplishing about two full workouts a day, about two to three hours a day. He had this grit and motivation to create what we created. It made my job that much easier, because he was ready to rock and just follow any instruction I threw his way.

How he cheated while he did it: He had one big cheat meal for the whole week. Sometimes he wouldn’t do one of those indulging meals or pro-inflammation meals for two or three weeks straight. But once in a while, he deserved it. 

For Zac to be so lean and ripped, do I really care that he had a hamburger and fries for one of his meals that week? Look at what the end result is, right? The only way I pay attention to cheat meals is if I start seeing the inflammation, the bloated face, watery tension where they look puffy or they don’t feel that great, or their shoulder hurts. We figure it out, troubleshoot it.

How Keanu Reeves trained for John Wick 2

Keanu’s goal: Through his years Keanu has had some injuries to work through. To be able to train someone with some injuries is very rewarding, because you have to adapt and create a great program for someone who can’t sit there and do CrossFit. I’m anti-CrossFit, I have to be honest with you.

His workout: There’s a lot of stunt and fight training in the John Wick movies, so I had to create ultimate joint stability and tightness. When someone is wielding a knife or doing all these body throws or stunts for fighting, it’s more creating a super strong body to prevent injury. Keanu Reeves, he’s in his fifties and his body’s been through a lot with all the Matrix movies, it was just a different program. It was more about staying away from injuries.

How he cheated while he did it: Honestly, Keanu is an adult, if he wants to cheat more times than I want him to, he’s going to do it. If he wants to have a really nice whiskey, he’s going to have a whiskey. I’m not sitting there with the ultimate control of my clients. When they do indulge and have a meal, it’s not going to be this huge dent into what we’re trying to do, especially when it’s once a week. I’m not going to say exactly, but maybe Keanu indulged more than once a week, more than Zac.

Why cigarettes and alcohol should never be your cheat

You take a smoker and look at them, they can look thin. Let’s say you look at a supermodel and she’s a smoker and she’s thin—it doesn’t mean she’s healthy and fit. Losing weight does not equate to healthy and fit. You can lose muscle, too—losing muscle is not a good thing. Muscle is directly related to your metabolism, muscle stabilises your joints, muscle is active fat burning tissue. You take someone 150 pounds, they can be obese 150 or they can be lean 150.

I have a cigarette whisperer, a professional that helps people quit smoking, not even for my clients, but for anybody I know. Smoking can be tough, so when I train someone and they’re smoking, yes I smell the nicotine, I smell the toxins coming out of their body. Smoking is horrible for your cardiovascular system, pure toxin in your blood. 

Same with alcohol—alcohol may be legal, but it’s not good for you. I ignore those articles that say wine’s good for you, tequila’s good for you. I try to create a shift and have clients that drink alcohol drink the least alcohol as possible if they want to optimise body fat loss.