Now for many of us, our fitness goals tend to revolve around eating less cheese and making it through a spin class without weeping inconsolably.
However, Mark Webster clearly isn’t a guy who does things by halves and decided to aim for the big guns; imitating the rock solid lifestyle of erm, The Rock – for an entire month.
Mark documented his experiences online, giving a little insight into exactly what it takes to maintain The Rock’s Herculean bod.
Now, as you can imagine, this is no easy feat and they don’t call Dwayne Johnson ‘The Rock’ for nothing.
Our plucky hero had to take on The Rock’s 5,000 calories a day diet; chowing down daily on 2.3 pounds of cod as well as eggs, steak, chicken, vegetables and potatoes.
This turned out to be a little pricier than your regular baked beans and pot noodles shop.
Mark toted up $1,262 (£873) on food alone, averaging out to about $42 (£30) per day, including $18 (£12) worth of cod. Seriously, a lot more cod than you’d think goes into being an action film hero.
Wallet injury aside – which I imagine is no real biggie for The Rock – a heck of a lot of time goes into his food prep and eating.
Mark found he was spending an hour and a half on his all important food prep, every two to three days.
Furthermore, each of his seven meals took around 20 minutes to munch down, which took a total of two hours and 20 minutes of chomping dedication a day. Yikes.
And then you get to the exercise which, oh boy, makes my half hearted attempts at Zumba look pretty shoddy.
To offset those calories, Mark copied The Rock’s gruelling, 3,550 calorie burning exercise routine which consists of 90 minutes weight training and one hour of cardio six days a week.
By the time his month of rocking out was up, Mark’s weight was the same, however, his muscle mass had improved as had his strength.
Speaking with Five Thirty Eight, Mark said:
I’m 37, I got little aches and pains all the time but I have none of those anymore. I feel better than I did before I was doing this.
My resting heart rate has dropped by like four beats per minute over the past month. I feel fantastic.
Mark also had a whole heap of new respect for the big guy himself after seeing the work which goes into just being him:
This is what this guy does – this is his livelihood. The fact that he looks like this and trains like this every day of his life while making his movies, being on set 14 hours?
That kind of discipline to me is absolutely amazing.
Incredibly, The Rock was also impressed by his fan’s dedication, tweeting:
Impressed by this discipline. Harder than one would think.
He also admitted he hates cod, which is a shuddering thought when you consider his daily menu…
Impressed by this discipline. Harder than one would think. #BringOnTheCheatMeals https://t.co/QLg5Q17OYv
— Dwayne Johnson (@TheRock) March 5, 2016
It ain't cheap or easy to do. But the results are ?. And I still hate cod. https://t.co/FmC79ZWGcW
— Dwayne Johnson (@TheRock) March 9, 2016
Tip my hat to this guy. "Didn't do this to look like The Rock, but wanted to see if I could work as hard as him" ✔️ https://t.co/qH6UX28V5R
— Dwayne Johnson (@TheRock) March 9, 2016
Mark, you are my new gym-spiration and I only wish I had your sense of drive and commitment.
Oh, and your apparent seal like aptitude to eat a bucket load of fish.
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Jules studied English Literature with Creative Writing at Lancaster University before earning her masters in International Relations at Leiden University in The Netherlands (Hoi!). She then trained as a journalist through News Associates in Manchester. Jules has previously worked as a mental health blogger, copywriter and freelancer for various publications.