Brad Pitt "Troy" Workout

Brad Pitt had seven months before Troy started filming to get into shape. During the shoot he maintained his physical appearance because the scenes weren’t shot chronologically. Pitt maintains that his workout for Troy was the most aggressive he had ever done. Through interviews and rumors on set we get some hints of Pitt’s workout. The rest we can reverse engineer.

To start, Brad’s character for Troy, Achilles, was well built but not overly muscular. He is not built like a bodybuilder. The key here is proportion. Many amateur bodybuilders and weightlifters have big arms and chests and small shoulders and backs. The problem exists because everyone feels the need to be a big shot on the bench press or impress the ladies with bicep curls. Look at some stills from Troy; Brad has very developed shoulders and an excellent back. His chest is built, but is in proportion. Also, you can notice that his upper chest is especially built, rather than the lower part that bench pressing emphasizes. Also, his legs are not overly muscular at all. In addition to his muscular development, Brad has very low body fat. Without low body fat, all his added muscle would look make him look bulky and slow.

Since Brad had seven month to get into shape for Troy, our workout will be over a seven month period. We will have a two step approach, as trying to get your body fat levels low to quickly would make it difficult to put on muscle. (note that if you have a lot of muscle you could skip to the second phase) The first step of our approach is a four month bulking phase but not in the traditional sense. We will completely avoid things like squats, deadlifts, and bench press. These will add mass in all the wrong places if you are going for Pitt’s look. Instead, we will focus on bulking up the upper and middle back, the shoulders (especially the read deltoid, because it is necessary for superlative shoulders and because it is underdeveloped in most people), and the upper chest. Only moderate amounts of cardio will be performed in step one, and this is only to get you ready for step 2.

The second step will be a three month cutting phase with an emphasis on getting a “hard� physique. I say “hard� rather than ripped because there is a difference. We are not necessarily concerned with how ripped you can get, or how many striations (or cuts) your chest can have. Instead, we want your muscle to simply be hard. The problem with many bodybuilding approaches is that, while size is indeed added quickly, muscular density actually decreases. This is because the number of muscle fibers stays relatively the same while there is more “fluid� in the muscle. Thus, as the muscle gets larger the resting tension or firmness decreases. We want to actually add density in the second step, and to do this we will choose exercises that will build the muscle fibers themselves and not the fluid around them, and we will also choose exercises that will increase capillary density. Capillary density is achieved through high rep bodyweight exercises. Think sets of pushups not endless curls with 5 pound dumbbells. Workouts with successive bodyweight exercises with little rest in between will also help you lose bodyfat, as they are similar to interval training workouts in the effect on your body. In addition to these pseudo interval workouts, you will also be doing pure running interval workouts. (While we usually don’t care what type of exercise you do for intervals, here you have to do running because the associated muscular development will give you the lower body similar to Pitt’s) Don’t fear losing muscle mass with all these intervals; Olympic sprinters do tons of interval training (otherwise known as a series of sprints) and their physiques aren’t exactly weak. Just one last point: the mechanics behind the second step might be confusing at first, but really what we are doing is avoiding the middle range of reps. We use low reps to work out the muscle fiber itself to gain strength and hardness, and we use high reps to gain the capillary density. The midrange of reps is ignored because we don’t want useless bulk or a pumped up look.

Enough said; let’s get to the workout, which we have broken down into two phases:

Phase 1: Bulking

Day 1: Upper Chest/ Shoulders, Triceps, Abs

3 sets x 10 reps Inclined Dumbbell Press

2 sets x 10 reps Military Press

2 sets x 12 reps Arnold Press

2 sets x 12 reps dumbbell flys (make sure your arms are bent slightly)

2 sets x 12 reps bent over dumbbell flys (these will work your rear delts; bend over as much as possible so you stress the rear of your shoulder as much as you can)

2 sets x 8 reps skull crushers



Day 2: Back/Traps/Biceps

3 sets x 12 reps Pullups

3 sets x 10 reps seated rows

3 sets x 10 reps upright rows

2 sets x 15 reps dumbbell shrugs

3 sets x 10 reps preacher curls

Day 3: Cardio

30 minutes running at moderate pace

Day 4: Shoulders/ Upper Chest

2 sets x 10 reps Military Press

2 sets x 12 reps Arnold Press

2 sets x 12 reps dumbbell flys (make sure your arms are bent slightly)

2 sets x 12 reps bent over dumbbell flys (these will work your rear delts; bend over as much as possible so you stress the rear of your shoulder as much as you can)

3 sets x 10 reps Inclined Dumbbell Press

Day 5: Back/Cardio

3 sets x 12 reps Pullups

3 sets x 10 reps seated rows

3 sets x 10 reps upright rows

2 sets x 15 reps dumbbell shrugs

30 minutes running at moderate pace

Day 6: Cardio (note if you want the weekend off do this cardio on day 2)

30 minutes running at moderate pace.

Day 7: Rest



Phase 2: Cutting (“hardening�)

Day 1: Shoulders/Upper Chest

2 sets x 6 reps Military Press

2 sets x 8 reps Arnold Press

2 sets x 8 reps dumbbell flys (make sure your arms are bent slightly)

2 sets x 10 reps bent over dumbbell flys (these will work your rear delts; bend over as much as possible so you stress the rear of your shoulder as much as you can)

3 sets x 10 reps Inclined Dumbbell Press

Day 2:

Part 1:

Perform these exercises in succession, then rest for 30 seconds. Repeat this until you can’t anymore. Note that I say ½ max for each exercise. This means that before you start this phase you need to find out the maximum number of each exercise you can do, and then do half as many in this routine. Eventually you will need to increase the amount because your endurance will improve.

½ max Pushups

½ max Pull ups

½ max Sit ups

½ max Triangular pushups

30 seconds rest

Part 2:

20 Minutes of intervals. Do the cycle of sprint and rest for 20 minutes. Make sure to warm up and warm down for at least 5 minutes.

30 seconds sprint (run as fast as you can for 30 seconds)

1 minute rest

Day 3:

Part 1:

30 minutes running at a moderate pace.

Part 2:

20 Minutes of intervals. Do the cycle of sprint and rest for 20 minutes. Make sure to warm up and warm down for at least 5 minutes.

30 seconds sprint (run as fast as you can for 30 seconds)

1 minute rest

Day 4: Back/Traps/Biceps

3 sets x 12 reps Pullups

3 sets x 10 reps seated rows

3 sets x 10 reps upright rows

2 sets x 15 reps dumbbell shrugs

3 sets x 10 reps preacher curls

Day 5: Cardio

1 hour of running at a moderate pace

Day 6: Perform the same workout as Day 2. Don’t do the sprints if you feel very worn out.

Day 7: Rest

Note for this workout if you start to feel burned out cut out Day 4 or Day 5 until you feel better.