timeline of Jeff Bezos over the years
Lifestyle

Here’s What Jeff Bezos’s Workout Routine Looks Like

At 58 years old, Jeff Bezos is as yoked as his bank account, which stands at $142 billion.

Over the past few years, the founder and former CEO of Amazon evolved from meek geek to movie star chic. Now in the best shape of his life, his transformation has delighted the Internet, first agog when he unleashed these pythons of biceps in 2017 at billionaire sleepaway camp in Sun Valley, Idaho. While a plethora of apt memes flowed, Bezos doubled down, growing leaner and more swole with each subsequent year.

His newfound interest in achieving peak health isn’t surprising. Those in the triple comma club are obsessed with longevity and anti-aging—after all, the ideal way to enjoy enormous bank accounts is to live longer. (Recently, Bezos has invested in several “rejuvenation” clinics, aimed at staving off death.)

While the entrepreneur-cum-occasional-astronaut has endless capital to enlist celebrity personal trainers, nutritionists, and chefs, you don’t achieve a body like his by sitting around, particularly after 40.

It takes dedication and willpower to go from hoovering up whole cans of Pillsbury biscuits soaked in butter to hammering the gym multiple times a week.

Here, everything we know about how Bezos exercises, eats, sleeps, approaches mental health, longevity, and anti-aging.

He Exercises More Frequently Than a Hamster on a Wheel

Snaps of Bezos and his girlfriend, Lauren Sanchez, in St. Barts in 2021 show off his shirtless build, revealing loaded arms, a chiseled six-pack, and enviable, massive pecs.

The architect behind the guns? Celebrity trainer, Wes Okerson. Okerson’s roster boasts A-lister’s Tom Cruise and Gerard Butler, among others.

Known for his diverse approach to training, Okerson told The Week he believes mixing up your training regimen is key. He has clients like Bezos mix it up with outdoor sports with paddle boarding and rowing, along with regular strength sessions.

Before Bezos could launch into the full-scale strength training regimen, Okerson would have had him nail down his bodyweight squat, lunge, and pushup form. “I reduce things to a simple level until they get those moves right,” Okerson told The Week.

Once Bezos perfected his technique, Okerson added in weights and encourages him to progressively lift heavier over time. A routine combining heavy resistance and metabolic stress maximizes hypertrophy (or muscle size) (1)—the exact method Okerson harnessed to build Bezos’ physique. 


The secret behind Bezos’ stacked upper body: pull-ups. “The pulling action on a bar is the very best thing you can do for your abs and core,” Okerson says. A practice we can tell Bezos employs proved via his defined abs.

He Has a Passion for Extreme Adventures

When he isn’t tied up at work, Bezos can be found on a wild-goose chase of unusual adventures. He traveled to the bottom of the ocean to retrieve pieces of Apollo 13, climbed an Amazon wind turbine, went dog sledding, and been to space on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket

Sometimes, his adventures take days—like his 50-mile horseback ride through West Texas. “Three days, super fun, my butt hurt,” Bezos recounted to his brother, Mark Bezos, at the 2017 Summit Series.  

Mark also shared photos of Bezos rappelling hundreds of feet down into a cave of stalagmites. “That was a great trip,” Bezos said. “You don’t have to worry about checking your phone there. No radio signals down there.” 

He also enjoys more conventional activities, like kayaking, and tennis. The billionaire was spotted competing in a celebrity tennis match against Bill Gates in 2001.

He Eats a Lot of Protein

After three months of watching Bezos go to town on Pillsbury, his former wife, Mackenzie Scott, asked the Blue Origin founder if he knew what was in those biscuits. “I had never read a nutrition label in my life; I ate what tasted good to me,” Bezos admitted at the 2017 Summit Series.

He still indulges in less-than-healthy grub, from time to time. He’s posted a picture of his Cheeto-dusted fingers, loves to cook risotto, and enjoyed a McDonald’s hamburger in September 2022.“My first job. Still the same great burger,” he wrote.

Even Bezos has his limits. Apparently, he draws the line at fine art—failing to act on a petition started in 2021 for Bezos to buy and eat the Mona Lisa—to the disappointment of fans and haters alike.  

The billionaire hasn’t shared a breakdown of his daily diet, but his ripped physique suggests fast food isn’t the norm. He’s spotted with girlfriend Lauren Sanchez at Nobu—a star-studded sushi spot in Malibu, CA—nearly three times a week, where he’s packing down plates of fish.

A high fish intake jives with the lean protein, and healthy fat intake necessary to build the muscle we see on Bezos today. Fish like tuna, salmon, and trout are high in protein and omega-3 fatty acids.

One study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that having higher levels of certain omega-3 fatty acids in the blood—as a result of regularly including fatty fish in the diet—can boost life expectancy by almost five years (2).

He’s Invested in Anti-Aging

While fellow billionaire, Elon Musk, isn’t keen on pushing the limits of the human lifespan, Bezos has poured $3 billion in start capital into his biotechnology venture, Altos Labs, which launched January 2022.

Altos Labs is dedicated to harnessing cellular reprogramming, a way to rejuvenate cells in the lab that some scientists think could revitalize entire animal bodies and ultimately prolong human life.

The science is promising but new. “It’s far away from translation into human therapy,” researcher Alejandro Ocampo told Technology Review.

In his final letter to Amazon shareholders, Bezos included a quote from biologist Richard Dawkins, “Staving off death is a thing that you have to work at…If living things don’t actively work to prevent it, they would eventually merge with their surroundings and cease to exist as autonomous beings. That is what happens when they die.”

He Gets a Full Eight Hours of Sleep

“I get eight hours of sleep unless I’m traveling in different time zones,” Bezos told the Economic Club in 2018. Bezos believes that getting eight hours of sleep is the key to boosting productivity and making high-quality decisions. Based on his business track record, it works.

Sleep requirements can vary among people, experts recommend seven to nine hours of sleep for optimal health. Research suggests that after a good night’s sleep you may feel less anxious and more confident (3).

Bezos goes to bed early, because he likes to wake up naturally without an alarm clock, and typically rises around 6:30 a.m. A recent study from Australia found that the “harsh tones” of an alarm clock can exacerbate sleep inertia, or grogginess (4).

He Makes Time to Do Nothing

“I like to putter in the mornings,” Bezos told Thrive Global in 2016. He likes to read the newspaper, have coffee, enjoy breakfast with his kids, and wash the dishes before he starts his work day at 10 a.m.

Puttering time is vital to Bezos because it helps him establish a healthy balance between work and rest. “I prefer the word “harmony” to the word “balance” because balance tends to imply a strict tradeoff,” said Bezos. “If I’m happy at work, I’m better at home…If I’m happy at home, I come to work more energized.”

He might be onto something. According to one study, taking the time to let your mind wander is directly related to a boost in creativity (5).

There’s Speculation He’s on TRT

Clearly Bezos has put significant work into building the body he has today. The guy looks great. No amount of testosterone can pack on that kind of muscle without a solid training regimen to back it up.

However, given his age, and previous body composition, many doubt Bezos’ ability to achieve said pump without a little help. 

Testosterone lowers body fat and is the most essential anabolic (muscle-building) hormone. Men typically experience a drop in 1% of testosterone per year after age 30 (6).

We’re not speculating about Bezos’ T levels, but we can say that men approaching the age of 60 definitely experience a drop in natural testosterone levels, which is tied to the ability to maintain and build muscle.

Still, given his recent interest in bettering healthspans and lifespans, testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) would make sense. Maintaining optimal T levels can prevent cardiovascular disease and improve heart health (7). Men on TRT can experience improved energy, mood, libido, and better mental acuity and focus (8).

Checking your T levels is easy with Hone’s at-home assessment. You can knock it out before your AM coffee. 

If you have low T, our physicians can help you find your “after.”

1. Krzysztofik, M. et al (2019). Maximizing Muscle Hypertrophy: A Systematic Review of Advanced Resistance Training Techniques and Methods. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6950543/
2. McBurney, M. et al (2021). Using an erythrocyte fatty acid fingerprint to predict risk of all-cause mortality: the Framingham Offspring Cohort. https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/114/4/1447/6301120?login=false
3. Simon, E. et al (2019). Overanxious and undeslept. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-019-0754-8
4. McFarlane, S. et al (2020). Alarm tones, music and their elements: Analysis of reported waking sounds to counteract sleep inertia. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0215788
5. Agnoli, S. et al (2018). Exploring the Link Between Mind Wandering, Mindfulness, and Creativity: A Multidimensional Approach. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10400419.2018.1411423 https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1003889
6. Travison, T. et al (2007). A Population-Level Decline in Serum Testosterone Levels in American Men. https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/92/1/196/2598434?login=false 
7. Sharma, R. et al (2015). Normalization of testosterone level is associated with reduced incidence of myocardial infarction and mortality in men. https://academic.oup.com/eurheartj/article/36/40/2706/2293361
8. Saad, F. et al (2011). Onset of effects of testosterone treatment and time span until maximum effects are achieved. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3188848/

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