I’ve been a fan of The Rock for a long time, and his physique has gone through real phases over the years. As a WWE wrestler he carried more body fat than he does now. When Hollywood came calling, he leaned out for movie roles — and then somewhere around 2011–2013, for films like Fast Five, Faster, and Pain and Gain, he got just plain massive.

How He Trained Back Then

His earlier routines were classic high-volume bodybuilding splits — 5-6 days a week, body-part focused, often supersetted with cardio. A typical cutting-phase split looked like chest/back/biceps one day, legs/shoulders/triceps the next, repeated through the week, 30 seconds rest between sets, capped off with 12 minutes of high-intensity cardio.

How He Trains Now

Johnson is over 50 now, and his approach has clearly matured with him — which honestly makes it more useful as a model than his 2013 routine. For his recent role as MMA fighter Mark Kerr in The Smashing Machine, his training shifted toward something built for longevity, not just size:

  • Fasted cardio first thing — 40-50 minutes on the StairMaster with high-intensity intervals, often starting around 3:30-4:00am.
  • Joint-conscious lifting — more time-under-tension work, isometric holds, and pre-exhaustion techniques to build muscle while protecting joints that have taken a beating (he’s had multiple knee surgeries, a torn quad, and an Achilles rupture over the years).
  • Evening conditioning work — for fight-specific roles, that’s meant added MMA training: striking, grappling, and conditioning drills layered on top of his lifting.
  • More deliberate recovery — contrast water therapy, foam rolling, stretching, and mindfulness practices are now a stated part of his routine, not an afterthought.

The throughline across both eras: heavy, high-effort compound lifts, serious daily cardio, and relentless consistency. What’s changed is the added emphasis on injury prevention and recovery — which makes sense for anyone training hard well into their 40s and 50s, not just a movie star.

How He Eats

His nutritional approach has stayed fairly consistent in principle: high protein (roughly 1g per pound of bodyweight as a rough target), reduced carbs later in the day, and serious daily water intake. He’s historically eaten in the range of 5,000+ calories a day to support his training volume and size — which is a reflection of his extreme training load, not a general recommendation for the rest of us.

He’s also stayed famous for his cheat days — pizza, doughnuts, and (allegedly) diet Coke — with his own tequila brand, Teremana, as a more recent addition to the “cheat day” rotation.

The Honest Takeaway

Johnson’s physique is the product of elite genetics, a demanding schedule with resources most people don’t have (a personal gym, a full team of trainers and nutritionists), and decades of consistent, hard training. His current approach — more joint-conscious, more recovery-focused — is actually a better template for the average lifter over 40 than his 2013 “grind until failure” era ever was. Use it as inspiration, not a blueprint to copy exactly.