It’s been a week of hard pills to swallow for the team at DMARGE — who have spent years covering all aspects of wellness, helping blokes work on their fitness, mental health, relationships and much more — and always boasted a particular soft spot for the ancient art of bodybuilding and building muscle.
Following hot on the heels of yesterday’s news that weightlifting officially shortens your life, leading man Joel Kinnaman has hopped on the brilliant Rich Roll Podcast to talk about upcoming projects, his journey from wayward youth to the world of acting and — most interestingly for us – the little-known secrets of how Hollywood hunks get so ridiculously jacked for their roles.
Listen To Joel Kinnaman Talk About Hollywood’s Training Secrets Below (Starts @ 17 Minutes)
Posing a simple question that burns on the minds of many mere-mortal men around the world who dream of having a body good enough for a topless Hollywood reveal — “What was that like, getting ready to be able to show up with your shirt off like that?” — Kinnaman responded with a refreshing frankness and sense of humour.
As is clearly the actor’s playful nature, Kinnaman responded with (what we can only assume is) an offhand joke:
“The key is you take all the steroids and then do three push-ups every morning”
Joel Kinnaman
After a good laugh, Rich Roll was keen to push him on the topic and get a slightly more serious answer out of the actor, who couldn’t help but admit that he finds all the industry and audience hype around “the whole shirtless scene kind of silly”.
“What’s the reality of Hollywood trainer culture?”, asks Rich. Saying straight away that “in reality, nobody could look like that from just training in your garage”, Kinnaman undermines much of what we think we know about gym culture — that training hard, hitting the right workouts, and lifting heavy weights is the key to building muscle — in the following, brutally true sentence:
“It’s mostly diet and ‘Vitamin T'”
Joel Kinnaman
What exactly is the fabled ‘Vitamin T’? Well, anyone who follows fitness culture even remotely closely will probably guess correctly that Kinnaman is talking about testosterone.
The Rise Of ‘Vitamin T’
A DMARGE article from 2021 taps into the testosterone phenomenon, with the supplement becoming commonplace among those with the money and dedication to seek it out:
For some high-profile celebrities, testosterone supplements are also taken to keep energy levels on the up, which they claim assists them in remaining successful in life. Joe Rogan, for example, has previously admitted on an episode of his podcast (start at 34:30) that he takes testosterone supplements, citing age as the primary reason.
Though he claims not to be taking anything crazy, but rather just raising his testosterone to what it used to be naturally when he was 27, others are still not convinced. In any case: masculine icons like Rogan are helping testosterone supplements are being seen as less of a taboo and more something that more men are considering integrating into their daily lives.
Indeed, Greg Young, co-founder of Body Science told DMARGE that:
“The last decade has seen much better education about testosterone supplements, which has resulted in opening the conversation around them and drawing attention to their widespread benefits.”
Greg Young
“Their benefits expand far beyond the commonly known ones, such as increased muscle strength, physical endurance and sexual function, but to longevity, mood, mental acuity benefits and many more.”
Do you think the meteoric rise of Vitamin T is something of a slap in the face for those of us who dreamed of getting a clearly unattainable A-list body just by throwing weights around and pounding tarmac? Or do you see this as a brave new world where looking good has never been easier?