I’m beginning to start the Brad Pitt workout that he did for the movie Fight Club and was just wondering if there are any specific abdominal exercises he did that I should include in the overall workout routine. There is nothing in the Fight Club workout that specifies these exercises. His abs were crazy in that movie, so he must have done something. Let me know if you can help me out, but so far the workout has been extremely challenging!
There is no doubt that Brad Pitt’s body was absolutely shredded and ripped in Fight Club. The interesting thing about Brad’s physique is that he was only 155 pounds but he was around 5% body fat during the filming, so you can really see how having an extremely low level of body fat with that “shrink wrapped” tight skin look will actually make you look much bigger than you really are. If I had to guess Brad’s weight, I would have thought he was at least 175 pounds since he is 6 feet tall.
Brad trained one main muscle group per day on a 4 day weight training split and then did 2 straight days of cardio work to burn any additional fat off his already ripped physique. He also added abdominal training 2 days per week. He focused more on higher repetition training with about 15-25 reps per set. Below is a sample Fight Club workout routine to follow:
Monday (Chest and Abs):
- Barbell Bench Press – 3 sets of 15 reps
- Incline Dumbbell Press – 3 sets of 15 reps
- Pushups – 3 sets to failure
- Hanging Leg Raises – 3 sets of 25 reps
- Medicine Ball Crunches – 3 sets of 25 reps
Tuesday (Back):
- Bent Over Barbell Rows – 3 sets of 15 reps
- Seated Cable Rows – 3 sets of 15 reps
- Wide Grip Pulldowns – 3 sets of 15 reps
Wednesday (Biceps and Triceps):
- Barbell Curls – 3 sets of 15 reps
- Preacher Curls – 3 sets of 15 reps
- Skull Crushers – 3 sets of 15 reps
- V-Bar Pushdowns – 3 sets of 15 reps
Thursday (Shoulders and Abs):
- Dumbbell Press – 3 sets of 15 reps
- Side Laterals – 3 sets of 20 reps
- Upright Rows – 3 sets of 20 reps
- Lying Leg Raises – 3 sets of 25 reps
- Reverse Crunches – 3 sets of 25 reps
Friday:
- Jumping Rope – 45 minutes in the morning on empty stomach
Saturday:
- Jumping Rope – 45 minutes in the morning on empty stomach
Sunday: Rest day!
Along with an intense workout plan, you really need to realize how important your diet plays in getting that ultra lean and shredded look. Unless you have incredible genetics and an extremely fast metabolism like Brad, you are probably going to need to eat a very clean diet with a lot of protein to build muscle. Eating the right nutrient dense foods to stimulate fat burning is really the only way to remove that last little fold of fat from around the abdominal area in order to have your abs show through. Even though you will be doing abdominal exercises with this Fight Club workout, you need to understand that stomach exercises alone will never give you the results you’re looking for if you eat junk food all day. So, if your ultimate goal is to look like Brad Pitt then start hitting the gym hard to build lean muscle, do your cardio to burn additional calories and really watch the foods you eat in order to get that ripped Fight Club physique!
2 Comments
Thanks for this article! What kind of weight would you recommend lifting for these exercises? 75% of max 1 rep weight for example? Or, could you incorporate some kind of pyramid structure to it?
Hi Andrew – We recommend mixing it up and try using both of those training styles along with other techniques also. Try using 75% of max 1 rep weight for 1-2 weeks and then switch to the pyramid structure for the next 1-2 weeks. After that, mix things up again and do drop sets. It’s important to keep shocking your muscles with new and different stimuli.