Creed III / MGM
Michael B. Jordan transformed his body via weight-training, cardio, and diet. The actor sported an athletic physique on TV’s Friday Night Lights in his early 20s, but he had to muscle-up considerably to play the boxer Donnie Creed in Creed (2015), gaining 24 lean pounds for the role. He grow even more, another 20 pounds, for Black Panther and Creed II (both 2018). Now, 36-year-old Jordan is starring in and directing Creed III, pitting him against the equally diesel Jonathan Majors. Through it all, trainer and dietician Corey Calliet, a former competitive bodybuilder, has been guiding Jordan’s every set, step, and bite.
The Barbell looks at the training, eating, and motivation that turned Michael B. Jordan into “the sexiest man alive” and one of the world’s best-built actors.
MICHAEL B. JORDAN WORKOUT
“He used to hate all this,” Corey Calliet told Men’s Journal of Michael B. Jordan’s earliest Creed workouts. “Used to?” Micahel B. Jordan joked, but then got serious. “No, he’s right, I did. I hated it. You know, at first you feel like s**t, you’re hurting. When things start getting a little easier, when you start lifting weight you never lifted before, when you start bench-pressing 225 pounds 10 times and it ain’t nothing, and then you start giving hugs to girls and they’re, like, feeling you up a little, and you think, ‘What’s this?’—then it’s, ‘This is all right.’ So I learned to love it when I started seeing results.”
“He had to look better than Rocky’s Apollo Creed [played by Carl Weathers], who was ripped,” said Calliet, whom Jordan chose after a series of failed trainer pairings. “Everybody’s trainer has their own little key, but none of those keys worked for me until I met this guy,” Jordan said. “We just clicked and got along, just like a barber who knows you and knows how you like your hair cut. [For Creed it was] all day, every day for four or five months, sunup to sundown. He had the key to my apartment and would be, like, ‘Hey, Mike. Get up, it’s time to do it.’ Now he’s family.”
“The focus for Creed was to create an elite-functioning athlete, which meant boxing training, skill development in the ring, and strength and conditioning sessions. Black Panther on the other hand had me implementing a bodybuilding training approach with focus on muscle development, with strategic cardio to support his lean mass gain,” Calliet told Men’s Health.
And for Jordan to play a Navy SEAL in Without Remorse (2021), it was more CrossFit. “I had to figure out what was the hardest thing that I ever did to get in shape,” Calliet said. “I think CrossFit is one of the hardest conditioning and weight training—I call it hybrid training—workouts that you could possibly do, and if you think about it, a lot of those guys [the military] that are out in the field, you have to be mentally and physically strong, and you need endurance to be able to do what they do, and that’s what CrossFit does. I do those workouts, and it’s not just building the body, it’s building the mind as well.”
For Creed III, it was back to the bodybuilding, conditioning, and boxing. “The training was pulled from the fundamentals of athletic conditioning, as well as from bodybuilding,” says Calliet told Muscle & Fitness regarding the Donnie Creed workouts.
MICHAEL B. JORDAN CREED WORKOUT
The following 4-day-per week Creed workout originally appeared in Muscle & Fitness. It emphasizes chest, arms, and abs, hitting those areas twice weekly and other body parts once weekly. Sets are performed with minimal rest, especially the progressions to lower reps (such as pushups and squats) and the ab/core giant sets.
DAY 1: CHEST, TRICEPS
One-mile Jog Warm-up
Incline Dumbbell Press – 3 sets x 12 reps
Dumbbell Flye – 3 sets x 12 reps
Push-up – 10 sets with brief rests x 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 reps
Dumbbell Kickback – 3 sets x 15 reps
Pushdown – 2 sets x 20 reps
Bench Dip – 10 sets with brief rests x 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 reps
DAY 2: BACK, BICEPS
One-mile Jog Warm-up
One-arm Dumbbell Row – 3 sets x 12 reps
Neutral-grip Pulldown – 3 sets x 12 reps
Barbell Row – 3 sets x 12 reps
Alternate Dumbbell Curl – 3 sets x 12 reps
Barbell Curl – 3 sets x 12 reps
Hammer Curl – 3 sets x 12 reps
DAY 3: LEGS & CORE CIRCUIT
One-mile Jog Warm-up
Dumbbell Lunge – 3 sets x 30 seconds per leg
Single-leg Hip Extension – 3 sets x 15 reps per leg
Lying Leg Curl – 3 sets x 12 reps
Romanian Deadlift – 3 sets x 12 reps
Squat – 10 sets with brief rests x 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 reps
Jordan did the following five core exercises as giant sets, going from a set of one exercise to the next with only brief rests between exercises. He did three such giant sets.
Crunch with Swiss Ball – 3 sets x 25 reps
Leg Raise – 3 sets x 25 reps
Reverse Crunch with Resistance Band – 3 sets x 25 reps
Toe Touch with Medicine Ball – 3 sets of 25 reps
Sprinter Sit-up – 3 sets x 25 reps
DAY 4: CHEST, BICEPS, TRICEPS, & CORE CIRCUIT
One-mile Jog Warm-up
Dumbbell Bench Press – 5 sets with brief rests x 10, 9, 8, 7, 6 reps
Push-up – 5 sets x 15 reps
Dumbbell Flye – 5 sets with brief rests x 10, 9, 8, 7, 6 reps
Push-up – 5 sets x 10 reps
Dumbbell Curl – 4 sets x 12 reps
Dumbbell Kickback – 4 sets x 15 reps
Bench Dip – 4 sets x 20 reps
The following five exercises are performed as giant sets.
Crunch with Swiss ball – 3 sets x 25 reps
Leg raise – 3 sets x 25 reps
Reverse Crunch with Resistance Band – 3 sets x 25 reps
Toe Touch with Medicine Ball – 3 sets x 25 reps
Sprinter Sit-up – 3 sets x 25 reps
MICHAEL B. JORDAN CREED II WORKOUT
Pectorals and deltoids are especially important to the look of Michael B. Jordan’s boxing character, Donnie Creed, so the following is a chest and shoulder workout for Creed II that originally appeared in Men’s Journal. It ends with a boxing-focused cardio session.
CHEST, SHOULDERS, AND BOXING CARDIO
Smith Machine Incline Press – 4 sets x 15-10 reps
Cable Crossover – 3 sets x 15-10 reps
Low Incline Dumbbell Press – 3 sets x 15-10 reps
↕️ Superset with:
Low Incline Dumbbell Fly – 3 sets x 15-10 reps
Standing Barbell Shoulder Press (alternating front and back-the-neck each rep) – 4 x 20-8 reps
Seated Dumbbell Lateral Raise – 3 sets x 15-12 reps
Dumbbell Rear Lateral – 3 sets x 15-12 reps
Smith Machine One-arm Shoulder Press – 3 sets x 15-10 reps
Perform the following exercises in a circuit without resting. Complete three circuits.
Shadow Box x 1 min. (use a 3-5 lb. dumbbells to increase intensity)
Jumping Jacks x 30 sec.
Shadow Box x 1 min.
Mountain Climbers x 30 seconds
Shadow Box x 1 min.
Burpees x 30 sec.
Shadow Box x 1 min.
Shoulder Taps x 30 sec.
MICHAEL B. JORDAN DIET
In 2015, before the release of Creed, Michael B. Jordan told Good Morning America the secret to his new boxer’s body: “Extreme diet change. I stripped down my diet completely: grilled chicken, brown rice, broccoli, a lot of water. I worked out two to three times a day, six days a week. And if you do that consistently for about 10 months, your body will change.” He also told E! Online in 2015: “Literally in the middle of takes, I would just be eating food. Chicken and rice and broccoli—a lot of it.”
In 2021, Jordan’s coach, Corey Calliet, spoke with Men’s Health about Jordan’s diet: “If he doesn’t eat right, he won’t look the way he needs to look. I have him on a diet six days a week, and on Sunday he can eat what he wants. It’s a reward, but it also helps your body. Having a cheat day ramps up your metabolism.”
Jordan is an avid cook and foodie, and for Creed, it was anything goes from sundown Saturday to sundown Sunday. “My cheat days were incredible,” Jordan remembered. “French toast in the morning, Philly cheesesteaks in the afternoon…pizza. I did cheat days right!”
Corey Calliet talked about meal timing:
“When he did Creed, dieting was very new, so my main thing was just to get him to eat every two and a half hours, and we saw his body change. When we did Black Panther, I needed to make him big. He was eating way more carbohydrates, and his food intake was higher, so it probably went from him eating six ounces of protein to maybe eight to 10 ounces of protein. He had to be a villain, so he had to be much bigger. When he went to Creed 2, we were kind of in a balance, because he was much bigger for that, he was eating more lean proteins and not so many carbohydrates. Sometimes we even carb cycle, doing two-days-low one-day-high. And then for Without Remorse, the diet was really different. I kept carbs in the whole time just because I know how much he was going to be moving around, and it was way more action than he’s ever done, consistent action.”
Calliet also knows some tricks from his competitive bodybuilding days that he applies to Jordan in the final weeks before filming: “If you eat all fish, fish is going to make you look really lean and get your skin looking really tight.” Calliet also spoke about carb-loading: “There are certain carbohydrates, so slower carbohydrates or fast, that have certain amounts of glycogen in them and that’s going to help you to produce more sugar in the muscle and make it bigger.”
Unless you’re entering a bodybuilding contest or leaning out for a shirtless movie role or swimsuit photoshoot, you probably won’t need to fret about fish to tighten your skin or carb-loading your muscles. The important thing is maximizing muscle and minimizing body fat, and that’s going to take time, discipline, and a careful diet. Calliet shared the following Michael B. Jordan’s meal plan with Men’s Journal.
MICHAEL B. JORDAN’S MEAL PLAN
MEAL 1
6 egg whites and 1 whole egg
steel-cut oats (45 g carbs)
MEAL 2
protein shake
steel-cut oats (35 g carbs)
MEAL 3
8 oz. chicken breast or ground turkey
sweet potato or rice (65 g carbs)
1 cup green vegetables
MEAL 4
8 oz. fish, chicken breast, or ground turkey
rice, sweet or red potato (35 g carbs)
MEAL 5
protein shake
steel-cut oats (35 g carbs)
MEAL 6
8 oz. chicken breast or ground turkey
1 cup green vegetables
1 tsp olive oil, coconut oil, or macadamia nut oil
MICHAEL B. JORDAN MOTIVATION
In a video for Vice, Michael B. Jordan spoke about his self-motivation and how that manifested in his diet and training:
“I told myself at a young age that I was going to sacrifice. I used to run myself into the ground till pure exhaustion just because then I would feel like I deserve it….How do you push past the not wanting to do something? You remember why you’re doing it, why you’re working hard, what’s at stake. For me, it’s my family, all the dreams that I have in my head, that I want to see manifest.”
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