Michael B Jordan has consistently been one of my favorite actors. As a preteen Marylander I still had to sneak past my parents to watch “The Wire”, but his portrayal of his character resonated with me, and I was quick to watch anything he would go on to star in. As a fan of “Akira” I couldn’t wait to see the loose adaptation “Chronicle”. And while the movie doesn’t hold up to the high school hype, it didn’t help to launch Michael B Jordan into the action and sci fi genres. And ever since starring in Creed, Jordan is known for his impressive and natural physique. In this article, we’ll analyze what we’ve seen of his training, reverse engineer his physique, and create a template that can be used at home or in the gym to receive similar results.
Michael B. Jordan's Fitness
Like most other celebrity workout’s you’d be hard pressed to find the actual truth of what MBJ did to achieve his physique for Killmonger or Creed. These trainers just made tens of thousands of dollars to train a given celebrity. They’re not about to put anything worth a damn out for free to five dollar publication and their website. That being said, it’s really not that hard to design these programs. And once you understand what it takes, it’s not hard to create a similar program based on scientific principles. MBJ’s initial transformation was for the first Creed movie. He actually had to bulk and then cut in order reach that physique. And like most celebrities who are only fit at first, his body responded incredibly to actual heavy lifting. It seems that during the cut he and his trainers focused more and more on conditioning. This is understandable because of his role as a burgeoning pro boxer in the Rocky universe. In Black Panther MBJ appears to be even bigger. He’s jacked. Swole even. But not that lean at all. Realistically he was probably sitting between 12-15% body fat. He’s a great example of what is achievable naturally. When you bulk you gain muscle mass but you naturally gain fat as well. Its this yin and yang that helps you to fill out shirts in the neck and arms. This is contrary to being lean. Getting into and coming out of a cut, those same shirts don’t hug your arms like they once did. Your chest may not seem as wide. But with the perfect lighting and angles – you look like Hollywood’s next leading man. The untrained eye can’t tell the difference. So don’t worry about how conditioned or yoked you are through these phases. You’re in the process of living your best life.
Michael B. Jordan's Training
As far as the training goes. From the filming of Creed, through Black Panther, and into Creed 2 we see a few different variables. One of the constants, though, is that he’s constantly lifting heavy weight. And he was constantly pushing himself to go further, as was his trainer. In fact, what’s seen on his Instagram his very little accessory work compared to strength work and compound movements. And the timing of the posts showing accessory work lead me to believe that such training may have been limited to training for Creed. Where he is leaner and may need to improve the finer parts of the V Taper. This may have gone together with movie magic to really make his physique imposing. With such consistency in the training throughout his posts when he has shared training, I believe he may not have changed too much, if any, of his training program or split. Only adjusted it to better suit his goals for a given role. And it is for this reason that we’ll be using an Upper/Lower split. I love Upper/Lower because of the versatility. You can program it for power, hypertrophy, or both. You can use it for linear progress or program DUP. And you can program the rest days and frequency however you see fit. This one, for instance, can be done A/B/A every other day – with two days rest. Or A/B/Rest/A/B/. If you choose the latter, you may need to scale the volume and run it in the way of a PHUL. The template you see here will be A/B/A. And the reason for that is because we’ll be using active recovery days for conditioning as well. There will also be a considerable amount of volume for each day, including the Lower body day. We’ll be using reverse pyramid training. So this will be a double linear progression. Not just linear. You can also follow just a general linear model by aiming for a certain number of reps. Beginning the training cycle only capable of 5-6 reps at a given weight for a given movement, and ending up at 10-12. This has worked exceptionally for many intermediate lifters and even some advance lifters have training cycles where they employ this model. As the name suggests, Reverse Pyramid training turns the original model on its head. You’ll be starting with your heaviest set and then working down to lighter weights at higher reps. Taking all of that into consideration, though, it is important that you have the right training implements. PrymaFit is known for making functional and Prymal fitness something that can be executed for the home and garage gym athlete with no exception. And as I’ve stated before you need to have considerable weight and versatility at home. In this instance, you will definitely need a heavy dumbbell set or adjustable dumbbells. Or stackable resistance bands. Thirty pound dumbbells and resistance bands from yesteryear will not work. I’ve chosen the most “bang for your buck” movements. It’s up to you to provide yourself with the heavy resistance. And finally, a word on the active recovery days. These celebrities who perform their own stunts and fighting have to train regularly to do so. So this template is intended to have active recovery days that include conditioning, mobility work, and some type of martial arts training. Michael B. Jordan trains like a boxer for the Creed films. But for the Black Panther movie he trained in reality based mixed martial arts. You can train however you see fit. Whether it’s boxing, traditional martial arts, MMA, Krav Maga, etc. It’s never too late to learn something new. And with that out of the way – let’s take a look at the template.
Upper Body
Lower Body
As always this template is open ended. You can make whatever adjustments you see fit. And there’s always sources and additional reading for the science and methods mentioned herein. Comment below with any thoughts or suggestions for new workouts. Let’s hope Creed 2 is just as good as the original if no better. The training definitely seems to suggest it might be.
Stay Prymal, King Kalos Further Reading Upper/Lower Training Reverse Pyramid Training Lean Bulking
2 Comments
ERIC
3/2/2023 01:33:33 am
ALL MY CHILDREN ONE LIFE TO LIVE EPISODES 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2017 208 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 WILL BE IN ABC NETWORK
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ERIC
3/2/2023 01:36:26 am
ALL MY CHILDREN ONE LIFE TO LIVE EPISODES 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 WILL BE IN ABC NETWORK
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Shredded ShamanLifelong athlete and martial artist. I'm on a mission to bring back the good old days of Physical Culture and make this fit lifestyle a lot more enjoyable. Archives
October 2022
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