For the next 30 days, I’ve challenged myself to follow the same eating and training routine as Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. The details are here, but in short, this means 7 meals a day (~5000 calories), and 50 minutes of cardio followed by 60-90 minutes of weight training 6 days a week.
Is this physically possible for a normal person?
The short answer is, we’ll see. The longer answer is it depends on what you consider normal. I’m a husband and dad, and sit at a desk all day. But before starting this, I already worked out several times a week. You couldn’t go from being a couch potato to doing this training program. It won’t be easy, but I feel confident about being able to handle the fitness part.
Oddly enough, the eating seems like a bigger challenge. Seven daily meals is a fair amount of food (about 10lbs a day). This diet was designed to fuel The Rock, who is 6’5″ and 260 lbs. That’s impressively huge. But I’m 6’3″ and, starting out, 206lbs. So I’m not a small guy. I definitely have never eaten this much on a regular basis. We’ll see how my body adjusts to eating like this.
Why do this at all?
In December, I read Jesse Itzler’s Living with a Seal, where he invited a Navy Seal to come live and train with him for 31 days. In his words, this is why he decided to do it:
I felt like I was drifting on autopilot in my life. Wake up, go to work, go to the gym — repeat. I wanted to shake things up. I wanted to get better.
That resonated with me. I’m a creature of habit and find myself easily falling into the same routines. I entered 2016 knowing I wanted to find a 30 day challenge to push myself and change things up.
In mid-2015, when I had read about The Rock’s eating and training schedule, I was in awe. Here is a guy who has a packed schedule and works intensely hard. Yet he maintains the discipline to make the time to stick to this program. It’s easy to write it off to being a rich movie star and having the personal trainers and private chefs. While a chef might make the food prep easier, there is no shortcut to doing the work. The Rock famously wakes up at 4am every day to get his training done before his day even starts. Unlike other actors, who might spend a few months bulking up for a role, for The Rock his physique and success are inextricably linked. There is no slacking off or taking breaks. He has had to stick to this plan as he builds his career.
I admire that level of discipline. And want to see if I can do it myself, if only for a month. This isn’t about the physical results a schedule like this might deliver. I have no grand plans to become huge or bulk up like The Rock. This is about testing whether I have the will and discipline to spend a month walking in the shoes of “the hardest worker in the room.”
Follow Me As I Succeed or Fail
I’ll be blogging throughout this 30 Day Challenge, sharing details of the experience and some of the hard data along the way (I’ll be wearing a Fitbit the whole time). If you want to follow my progress or see it break me, keep an eye on this blog.