(Image credit: Universal Pictures)
When I sat down with Matt Damon's personal trainer to talk about his workout routine for The Odyssey, I wasn't sure how much Gabe Stump, DPT, would reveal.After all, people would (and do) pay a lot of money to look as lean and jacked as Damon does right now. So I was pleasantly surprised when Stump took me through the details of his workout plan for the actor, whom he's been working with for the last four years.As a trainer, I'm very familiar with upper-body workouts. Like Damon, I try to get two upper sessions into my weekly routine. Armed with Stump's secrets, I tried Damon's workout plan for myself, and here's what happened.What is the upper-body workout?“In an ideal week...We’d do two upper and two lower days, then we’d have a cardio or metabolic day...If we couldn’t get five sessions in, we’d have two full-body days,” Stump reveals when I ask what a typical week looks like. Though, in Hollywood, that can change with a click of the fingers.On the uppers, they'd hit exercises like the dumbbell bench (press), supported rows, pull-ups, pull-downs, horizontal and vertical press. Lastly, they'd round out with isolation work, like biceps, triceps, flys, reverse flys."In a day, we’d be looking at eight movements, mostly staying in that 8-12 range, although sometimes we’d go up to 15. Sometimes we’d go as low as 5-6 (reps) for strength work," Stump tells me.When I ask how close to failure he had Damon lifting, he tells me they try to keep "two to three reps in reserve."Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips.“I didn’t really want to burn him out on any given workout," he says. Which makes sense, as Stump shares recovery as a key factor, ensuring Damon could get the most from each workout rather than start from a place of fatigue.After all, you essentially break down muscle fibers through exercise and build them up bigger and stronger through ample rest and protein."In a day, we’d be looking at eight movements, mostly staying in that 8-12 range, although sometimes we’d go up to 15. Sometimes we’d go as low as 5-6 (reps) for strength work."Stump also explains they had pretty basic equipment in Damon's home gym to work with, and on location, it could be even less. For that reason, he stuck to equipment like a trap bar, heavy dumbbells and even some calisthenics.Finally, I ask what piece of actionable advice any gym-goer should take forward when training toward a fitness goal, and I'm told that something should be repeatable and consistent, meaning 20 minutes three times a week is better than 60 minutes every two weeks. He also encourages those efforts to be close to failure so that you're lifting with maybe two or three reps in reserve.With this advice in mind, here's an upper-body workout I created for hypertrophy (muscle growth) based on his strength program:
