11 Celebrities Who Unlocked Beast Mode After Turning 40
Why are we so obsessed with fit celebrities? Whether it’s a ripped action hero or a cut rom-com stud, it’s hard not to envy their physiques.
True, they might have personal trainers and enough money to shop at the crème de la crème of organic grocery stores. But even with help, these celebrities put in work so those healthy fitness and nutrition habits stick. And their tips can keep you fit well in your 40s, too.
Want to know how Joe Manganiello pushes through his workouts? Or how Jason Momoa stays fit outside the gym? Here’s our list of over-40 celebrities who are only getting fitter with age.
Joe Manganiello
It might seem like fitness comes easy for the 45-year-old Magic Mike star, but even Manganiello has to talk himself into not quitting on workouts.
“There’s a moment when there’s going to be 10 sets. And I’m on set five or even set four, and I’m done. My body is starting to quit, I’m having a minor league panic attack in my brain because I can’t visualize doing the next rep, let alone the next set, and I want to quit,” he told Muscle and Fitness.
“And that’s where you’re going to grow. That’s the spot. And you just put your head down, and you focus on the next rep,” he said.
Aside from a no-quit attitude, Manganiello follows an 80/20 plan put forth by his trainer, Ron Mathews, to get those washboard abs.
“We never do less than 80 percent of full capacity with the diet and the workouts,” Mathews told Men’s Health. “But that means he can still have a cheat meal and enjoy life the other 20 percent.”
Ryan Reynolds
At 45, Reynolds stays in camera-ready shape at all times, according to his trainer Don Saladino.
“When you’ve been training with someone for 10, 11 years it’s not like you have to rewrite the book, you just have to tighten up and not allow yourselves to deviate off the plan,” Saladino told Men’s Health. “I think that’s something that most people overlook. They think they have to reinvent the wheel. If you’re training all year long, just start avoiding cheat meals and get rid of the little bit of alcohol you might be having.”
And that’s what Reynolds does. The pair focuses on full-body workouts which consist of, “an upper push, upper pull, a squat, a hinge, and a core work,” Saladino says.
As for fuel, Reynolds prioritizes six small meals, eating every two to three hours, with a focus on protein and no junk food, Saladino told Men’s Health.
Reynolds’ mental health also plays a major role in his physical fitness. His goal is to be present and to fully embrace every day, he told The Wall Street Journal.
Tom Brady
The seven-time Super Bowl champ has redefined fitness over 40.
Friend and trainer Alex Guerrero told Men’s Health the 45-year-old quarterback uses resistance bands instead of heavy weight, because it’s a helluva lot more friendly on his joints.
And while Guerrero points out that you can’t make athletes faster, “you can make them quicker,” through drills that challenge Brady to react and change direction quickly.
His plant-based lifestyle also includes meat, but “not that much,” according to TB12.
“If anything, I subscribe to balance,” he said, which is minimal meat and maximum veggies and grains.
FIT GOALS
David Beckham
Beckham’s professional days might be over, but the 47-year-old former footie gives shredded a new meaning as he nears 50. And all he does is walk and bike, he told Men’s Health.
“Three or four times a week I walk my daughter to school instead of driving her, or she bikes home with me,” Beckham said. “It’s the little things that make a difference.”
Sleep is also a priority for Beckham and he tries to get as much as possible, because, “an extra hour of sleep is one more hour and makes a huge difference,” he said in an interview.
Kevin Hart
Hollywood’s leading funny man hits the weights 60 to 90 minutes per day and runs, “anywhere from two to three miles,” he told People.
At 43, physical fitness is his anchor and he and trainer Ross Everline work a lot with unilateral exercises to improve balance, Everline told Men’s Journal.
He also loves the Hydrow rowing machine because, “pound for pound, there’s no better workout out there than rowing,” Hart said in a Hydrow press release.
And the dude loves protein. His diet is packed with it, along with brown rice, vegetables, and salads, he told People.
To cap off recovery and alleviate muscle soreness, he’s always in an ice bath—mainly because of his sports talk show Cold as Balls. He’s getting that icy recovery no matter what.
David Harbour
The 47-year-old Stranger Things star shocked fans with his incredible 75-pound weight loss transformation.
Now that he’s settled at a comfortable weight, Harbour continues to stay fit by tapping into the same tools he used to lose the weight. This includes steady-state running, kettlebell training, and Pilates.
In an Instagram live post, Harbour also noted that his body responds best to intermittent fasting, with an 18-hour fasting window being his favorite.
FIT CELEBRITIES
Jason Momoa
You’d be hard-pressed to find Momoa in a gym. According to Men’s Health, the 43-year-old Aquaman star relies on outdoor activities to stay fit, including paddleboarding, yoga, and rock climbing. Although Momoa’s friend and stunt double, Kim Fardy, says Momoa can “train anywhere” with bodyweight exercises.
These everyday activities work in tandem with his diet to give him that superhero physique.
“Jason couldn’t do something like a ketogenic diet, because he needs readily charged energy from carbs to be explosive,” Momoa’s trainer Damian Viera told Men’s Journal. “And when I say carbs, I’m not talking about breads and pastas—those are long gone. I’m talking about cruciferous vegetables and fruits.”
And Momoa knows that as he gets older, the rewards of hard work only come after the work’s been done, according to Men’s Health.
Ian Somerhalder
Based on his Instagram, you might think the Vampire Diaries alum only drinks his Brother’s Bond Bourbon, but he’s careful about his diet and fitness routines.
The 43-year-old actor told GQ that his diet is largely veggies, soups, broths, dense fats, and protein.
“You can eat clean and healthy on a budget,” Somerhalder said. “You can make it even less expensive. It just takes time and you need to be willing to change what makes you feel comfort.”
Somerhalder hits the gym a couple of days per week, mixing in fasted cardio with higher-intensity workouts—with help from an Olympic trainer, he told GQ.
OVER 40 TRANSFORMATIONS
Sam Heughan
Heughan previously spoke out about his “low-level eating disorder” while training for his starring Outlander role. “I went through a period where I was not eating right, not doing the right exercises, and just trying to slim down,” he told Good Morning America.
Since then, the 42-year-old actor focused on training and eating right, telling Men’s Health that most days he trains with a circuit strength-building workout. After a warm-up of the rowing machine and band work, he does a descending rep ladder starting at 10 and moving down to one with deadlifts, push-ups, leg raises, and kettlebell front cycle squats.
Heughan’s careful about what he puts in his body and his go-to food is porridge with, “a flavored protein powder,” topped with fruits or almond butter, he told GQ. He also takes krill oil, omegas, vitamin D, and glutathione—an antioxidant that reduces oxidative stress, boosts energy, improves immunity, and combats age-related disease.
Jake Gyllenhaal
Gyllenhaal is no stranger to changing his body for roles. His most impressive transformation—packing on almost 30 pounds of muscle to play boxer Billy Hope in Southpaw—“We literally turned him into a beast,” director Antoine Fuqua told Deadline.
At 41, Gyllenhaal’s work ethic hasn’t changed. Actor Tom Holland told The Late Show with Stephen Colbert that he and Gyllenhaal, “start working out, we’re doing ab exercises and leg exercises, and he then turns to me and goes ‘Tom, do you want to hop on the treadmill and warm up?’” Then they ran two miles.
While he isn’t 100 percent plant-based, he told TODAY, “I find when I’m eating right, and particularly when I eat more plant-based, I always have more energy.”
John Krasinski
While training for the action movie 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, Krasinski got insanely shredded, putting the lanky (and let’s face it, not shredded) Jim Halpert in the past.
Krasinski told Jimmy Kimmel on Jimmy Kimmel Live that he was “basically eating salads and chicken and water,” with two workouts a day five to six days a week, and dropped from 25 percent body fat down to nine percent.
But now at 42, Krasinki’s approach to fitness isn’t to live in a gym.
“I did it for the role, and then I definitely got addicted to it,” he told Men’s Health. “I take periods off.” With the goal of shifting back and forth, Krasinski is comfortable sitting right where he’s at.
