I trained like Rocky Balboa for 45 days: The eye of the Tiger transformation

Train like ‘Sly,’ box like Rocky! The Ultimate Hybrid Workout for Strength and Agility

Sylvester Stallone openly admitted his Rocky workouts were grueling. Back when he was filming Rocky III (1982), Stallone said he wanted to skip the bulk and get his muscles strong and defined, reportedly reaching a body fat percentage below three percent.

While he may not have hit the three percent body fat mark, he was in stellar shape. Inspired by this, I wanted to see if we could achieve similar results in 45 days.

So, I researched his Rocky workout split, and I have to say, calling his training regimen “grueling” is putting it mildly. The intensity and frequency of this regime had me on the verge of quitting more times than I’m comfortable admitting, and you’re about to find out why.

The Rocky III Workout

To get in the best shape of his life, Sylvester Stallone hired Franco Columbu, a two-time Mr. Olympia winner, to be his coach during the filming of Rocky III. His goal was to get as lean and athletic-looking as possible (in probably as little time as possible), so these two were in the gym six times a week, twice a day.

According to some reports, his six-day workout split looked something like this:

Now, training twice a day isn’t uncommon. Many bodybuilders train twice a day when prepping for a show, but those workouts are usually 45 minutes long, and this cycle rarely lasts more than two to three weeks.

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On the other hand, Sly apparently did 12 exercises per session, usually performing three to five sets per exercise, totaling about 80 sets daily. That’s excessive and wildly unsustainable, even if his goal was to look “sleek, tight, almost catlike.”

Spoiler alert — I did not do 80 daily sets for 45 days.

One thing I noticed while researching his Rocky workout regime is that there’s not a lot of information on his boxing training. We know he trained with Columbu, who was also a boxer in his time, and Roberto Duran, a four-time world champion, but that is about it. That said, since he was training with Duran, a man with zero losses over his entire career, Sly was probably picking up some gems.

That said, I don’t have access to world-class boxers, so our boxing training will have to be a bit different but still Rocky-inspired.

My Rocky Workout: What I Did For 45 Days?

Attempting the original Stallone Rocky workout was not only extremely demanding but probably outright impossible. Performing 80 sets per day for six days straight requires a superhuman recovery ability I do not possess, so I scaled down the workouts, keeping the core approach intact.

I trained two times a day for six days a week, Monday through Saturday, starting my day with strength and bodybuilding training and ending with a boxing session.

I discarded his delts-traps-abs workout session because training abs three times per week didn’t make much sense to me. Also, we’re already hitting the delts and traps twice through other workouts, so it was pretty obvious which session had to go so that we could get six strength and bodybuilding workouts in.

With that said, here’s what I did:

Monday & Thursday: Chest, Back, and Abs

• Bench Press
• Dumbell Flys
• Incline Dumbell Press
• Pull-Ups
• Bent-over Rows
• Cable Rows
• Cable Crunches
• Russian Twists
• Hanging Leg Raises

I did four sets of eight to 12 reps for each exercise.

Tuesday & Friday: Calves and Thighs

• Standing Calf Raises
• Squats
• Leg Extensions
• Hamstring Curls
• Lunges
• Stairmill Jog

Once again, I did four sets of eight to 12 reps for each exercise, except calf raises. I did six sets of calf raises for 30 reps. I would finish each workout with a stairmill jog to replicate Rocky’s iconic run up the Philadelphia Museum of Art steps.

Wednesday & Saturday: Shoulders, Arms, and Abs

• Lateral Raises
• Military Press
• Face Pulls
• Bicep Curls
• Skullcrushers
• Cable Triceps Pushdowns
• Cable Crunches
• Hanging Leg Raises
• Front Plank

Like the previous days, this one also featured four sets of eight to 12 reps for every exercise except the plank. The plank was a finisher, performed to failure.

Boxing Workouts

For boxing workouts, I bought a chicken to chase and went to a local butcher shop to see if they’d let me punch some meat. I’m joking, of course.

I joined a boxing gym. and kept my boxing workouts quite simple. I did 45 minutes of training, mostly focusing on boxing drills, which usually went like this:

• Warm Up: Jump rope, dynamic stretching
• Shadow Boxing: Three 3-minute rounds, practicing punches, footwork, and combinations. One-minute rest between rounds
• Bag Work: Three 3-minute rounds, alternating between speed and power punches, mostly throwing combinations. One-minute rest between rounds
• Sparring: Three 3-minute rounds of light sparring with a partner

After that, I’d be done for the day. I would have dinner around and go to bed at about 11 p.m.

My Results and Impressions After 45 Days Of Rocky Training

Now that the 45 days of Rocky training are officially over, I have to say I’m more than pleased with the results. But this was definitely the hardest thing I have ever done. The combination of strength training and boxing drills with barely any rest for six days straight pushed me to my limit.

Here’s a breakdown of how that went:

Weeks One & Two

The first two weeks of Rocky’s training shook me to my core. My body wasn’t accustomed to his level of activity, even though I’ve spent the last 10 years in the gym and have been playing tennis twice a week for several years now. So, if you aren’t super active, expect massive systemic fatigue and a ton of muscle soreness. (1)

Another thing I noticed during the first two weeks was that my energy levels fluctuated a lot. Sure, I would be fatigued after training, but some days, I just felt completely drained. On the other hand, there were a few days when I thought I could break my PRs on various exercises. I was smart and didn’t try to do that because I would probably injure myself due to lack of recovery, but nevertheless, I felt strong.

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Weeks Three & Four

By the third week, I was slowly getting accustomed to this grueling training schedule. I still hadn’t fully recovered the day after, but it wasn’t as bad as a week ago. Soreness was mostly gone, and I wasn’t dreading my life decisions mid-workout.

My biggest improvement during this time was my cardio fitness during bag work. For the first two weeks, I would get absolutely gassed after just two minutes of bag work, and it would take me more than a minute to recover. That was no longer the case. I still couldn’t punch the bag like a maniac for three rounds straight, but a minute-long rest was starting to feel good enough, and I wouldn’t be gasping for air after three rounds.

Finally, I started noticing some muscular endurance improvements, mostly in my legs. While my legs would rarely feel weak after a two-hour tennis match, and I felt like the Rocky training would be a breeze in that regard, that wasn’t the case early on. Constant footwork and two leg days each week were really taking their toll. However, sometime during week four, I started to feel a bit better. My legs wouldn’t feel heavy during sparring, I could move better (mostly faster), and they would feel solid in the morning.

Weeks Five to Seven

By the end of the fifth week — I felt super weak. My body was just completely drained from constantly working out, and granted, I was expecting this to happen sooner. After the third workout that week, I just took a break. I didn’t touch the weights or do any boxing drills for four whole days.

In hindsight, that was a great decision.

My Monday workout was my best yet. I was flying. I added 10 pounds to my usual working weight on both the bench and incline bench and crushed both. Rows? I felt like I could pull a truck. It was so good. And I had the same energy and vigor when I started boxing later that day.

This continued for the remainder of the Rocky training. I crushed every single workout and decided to continue with six-times-a-week training.

Overall Impressions and Results

The most significant improvements I noticed were:

• Cardiovascular endurance
• Muscular endurance
• Weight and fat loss

Due to years of active lifestyle and a lot of tennis, basketball, and gym workouts, my cardiovascular fitness was always good, even excellent. I would play three hours of tennis and feel pretty good afterward. However, after these 45 days, my cardiovascular fitness went through the roof. If I had to put it in numbers, I’d say I saw an easy 20% increase across the board. I noticed this during the stairmill and sparring, and I can’t wait to see how my endurance on the tennis court has improved.

I can’t forget about muscular endurance, either. Initially, my arms would feel heavy and tired after the morning workout, as everyone’s arms do, especially if you go really hard. Now, after 45 days, I usually feel them getting a bit weaker during sparring, and even that depends on how hard I go on the bag before I get in the ring.

The same goes for my legs. I feel super easy and light on my feet now. I could easily go for six to seven rounds and still keep my stride.

Finally, I am pretty surprised with the fat loss, even though I shouldn’t be, because I haven’t made any significant changes to my diet despite working out a lot more. I still ate clean, but I didn’t up my calories, so I lost 2 pounds in 45 days.

That may not seem like a lot (and it isn’t), but I’ve been very lean my whole life, so it’s not like I had a ton of weight to shed. Training this hard has made my arms, legs, and abs super lean. With a good pump and the right light, I can see striations in my shoulders and forearms. Also, I have a six-pack once again.

That said, if you have a few extra pounds to shed, 45 days of training like Rocky will absolutely strip those pounds off you.

Is The Rocky Workout Sustainable Long-Term or Is It Too Much?

I’ve done a few of these challenges over the past year or two, and not a single one came close to the Rocky workout. This one is by far the hardest. That said, if you are willing to dedicate yourself to being a boxer, I’d say yes, the Rocky workout is sustainable long-term with a few modifications.

You would have to focus a lot more on boxing and less on bodybuilding (as the other way around probably isn’t doable), but working out six times a week, twice a day, is what most elite professional athletes do regularly, so you can do it, too.

Conversely, the alleged original Rocky workout is absolutely not sustainable if you’re lifting anything even remotely heavy. You can’t do 400–500 weekly sets and expect results other than rhabdo. (2)

So, if you want to train like Rocky, you must do what I did. Embrace the core principles and tailor the workouts to your preferences. Otherwise, you’ll quit in five days because your body won’t be able to handle it anymore.

Dr. Mike Israetel, a professional bodybuilder and a professor of sports science, has his opinion on how much training is too much training, and the gist of it all comes to this:

“For me, plenty of volume is eight sets per muscle group or above. For reference, Jeff Nippard’s analysis of scientific data shows that about six hard-working sets per muscle per session are basically optimum.” — Mike Israetel

In other words, Israetel would likely agree that performing about 30 weekly sets per muscle group is overdoing it.

Wrapping Up

Despite its obvious drawbacks in regard to volume and rest, I liked the Rocky workout. It was fun and challenging in more ways than one, and because it was a completely new approach for me, I saw some decent results.

As I said, I will continue training six times per week from now on, only in a slightly different format, and I probably wouldn’t have done that if not for Sylvester Stallone and his Rocky workout, so this challenge was a success.

If you want to give it a try, too, just scroll back and copy my split. It’ll be hard, but fun!