We may only be 15 years into the 2000s, but Muscle & Fitness magazine has decided to call it and declare Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson Man of the Century. This may seem like some pretty egregious gun-jumping (personally, I’m reserving Man of the Century for the guy who gives us safe, commercially available jet packs), but this is Muscle & Fitness we’re talking about. Based on the title of the magazine, I’m going to assume they mostly weighed Johnson’s muscles and fitness when making their decision, and based on those criteria, the guy just might be Man of the Century-worthy. He’s certainly off to a healthy head start so far.
So, here are a few muscle-bound, fit-as-hell reasons why The Rock deserves his latest epic accolade…
Dwayne Johnson’s busting ass hours before you’d even think about getting up.
The snooze button is no match for The Rock.
Most of us tend to ascribe to the “drag ourselves to the gym sometime in the evening when the self-loathing gets too strong” approach to working out. It’s okay, you can admit it. Well, not Dwayne goddamn Johnson. He typically gets up at around 3:30 in the morning and starts working out at around 4. That workout usually includes 40 or 50 minutes of hard cardio, followed by weightlifting. By 6 in the morning, The Rock has exercised harder than most of us will all week (or month).
He’s clangin’ and bangin’ six days a week.
Of course, working out hard doesn’t mean much if you don’t keep at it, and Johnson’s workout routine is as steady as his box-office receipts. The guy works out six days a week, focusing on a different body area each day. Here’s a couple of his typical workouts…
Shoulders: Cardio (40 to 50 minutes), dumbbell shoulder press (four sets of 12 reps), standing military press (four sets of 12 reps), dumbbell front raise (four sets of 12 reps), dumbbell side raise (four sets of 12 reps), reverse machine fly (four sets of 15 reps), bent-over side dumbbell lateral raise (four sets of 15 reps).
Arms/Abs: Cardio, dumbbell curl (four sets of 15 reps), hammer curl (four sets of 15 reps), spider curl (four sets to failure), triceps push-down (four sets of 15 reps), overhead triceps extension (three sets of 15 reps), dips (three sets to failure), hanging leg raise (four sets of 20 reps), rope crunch (four sets of 20 reps), Russian twist (four sets of 20 reps).
Of course, you can assume most of these exercises are being done with dumbbells and weights bigger than any you’ve ever seen before.
Leg day is The Rock’s favorite day.
As we’ve astutely pointed out in the past, it’s clear Johnson doesn’t skip leg day, because Jesus, just look at them gams. Well, it turns out the dude doesn’t just not skip leg day, he actually looks forward to it. He specifically saves leg day for Saturday so he has extra time to savor it. Okay, Rocky, you and your legs are better than me and my legs. I get it. Sheesh.
His diet is cod-laden madness.
Never forgetting to brush is important when you eat 2-plus pounds of cod a day.
We here at Uproxx have already covered Johnson’s ridiculous eating plan, but this article wouldn’t be complete unless we mentioned it again. According to Muscle & Fitness, The Rock downs seven meals a day while training, and those meals include more than 2 pounds of cod, a pound of other meats and a dozen eggs. Various websites did some number crunching and found that Rocky may be consuming as much as 8,000 calories a day, and if he stuck to this diet all the time, he’d consume 821 pounds of cod a year.
The guy’s cheat days are the stuff of legend.
How is this man still alive?
So, how does a guy who regularly wolfs down 8,000 calories per day treat himself? Dude can’t just sneak out for a burger or ice-cream sundae – he’d starve to death. No, Rock’s cheat days have to be every bit as over-the-top as his regular cod-devouring days. After wrapping up Hercules, Johnson posted the above picture to his Facebook, claiming his post-filming cheat day included 12 large pancakes, 21 brownies and four double-dough pizzas. Holy hell. I don’t want to know what The Rock’s intestines were cooking after that ludicrous binge.
Doing his own stunts is part of Johnson’s workout routine.
The stunts are real, even if the hair isn’t.
Johnson’s workout doesn’t end when he leaves the gym – he also gets his fair share of exercise on the movie set, as he does the majority of his own stunts. He’s really in there duking it out for most of his fight scenes, and for his recent movie San Andreas, he actually dangled from cables for a scene where he has to save a woman from a car hanging from a cliff, and had to master holding his breath for a lengthy underwater scene. Hey, after spending a decade as a full-time pro wrestler, nothing on a movie set could be too scary.
He benches a lot, bro.
Okay, so how much you lift isn’t the be-all end-all, but still, Dwayne Johnson can lift a hell of a lot. According to The Rock, his top bench press is 455 pounds, and his best squat is 610. Apropos of nothing, here’s Rocky’s two-time WrestleMania opponent John Cena squatting 611 pounds.
Gee, good thing the cameras happened to be around when Cena beat Rock’s record by a pound. Funny how things work out sometimes.
He works out in his own personal training compound.
A guy who’s as rich and into working out as Dwayne Johnson doesn’t pump iron at any old gym. Oh no, The Rock has his own personal warehouse-sized training compound he calls his Iron Paradise, and it’s kind of beautiful. Look at that exposed brick, that tasteful lighting. I might almost enjoy working out if I got to do it in The Rock’s Iron Paradise instead of my local homeless-dude-filled public gym.
Dude has a hell of a personal trainer.
Hard work and dedication is great, but sometimes it still doesn’t end up adding up to much unless you’ve got a good personal trailer, but thankfully Johnson has his French bulldog Hobbs to keep him in line (and maybe clean up any excess cod laying around). I have a feeling Rock won’t be slacking off any time soon.
So, what do you think? Does Dwayne Johnson deserve the prestigious(-ish) Muscle & Fitness Man of the Century title? Who else could possibly qualify? Smack down your comments, below.
(Via Muscle & Fitness here, here & here, Bodybuilding & Popsugar)
