Hello there everyone, today we are going to talk about Jake Gyllenhaal and his body transformation mainly because his transformation for the movie Southpaw (which is a great movie, by the way, which I recommend to watch for those who still haven’t) has been hailed as one of the most impressive Hollywood’s ever seen. It is obvious that it may not have been quite as good and dramatic as it was for Christian Bale’s transformation from The Machinist to Batman Begins, however there’s absolutely no doubt in the fact that Jake did got ripped to smithereens and he was looking amazing in that movie. In fact, I think that the best body we’ve ever seen for Jake was in his movie Southpaw which he both looked great and act great!
I did have seen movie Southpaw and I can’t say that it is in the top 10 movies that I have ever seen of all time, nonetheless, I still think that it is a very good movie that should be watched. Especially if you like boxing. Here’s the trailer for that movie where you can decide if you would like it and where you can see Jake Gyllenhaal’s great body transformation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh2ebPxhoLs
anyway, we’re here today not to talk about the movie but about the transformation the main actor had to his body and try to determine, using pieces of evidences, if he used any gears to get in that amazing shape or not. Before continuing any further, I need to share few facts about Jake’s transformation.
He has lost 30 lbs previously for the movie Nightcrawler where he definitely shouldn’t look as ripped as he did for Southpaw. He has regained that 30 lbs in weight and has gained other 15 lbs for Southpaw with a total difference of 45 lbs between one movie to another. His transformation took him around half a year (6 months) and he was training up to 6 hours per day and obviously, with a proper diet.
I managed to find out that his training consisted of 3 hours of boxing in the morning and then followed by 3 hours of cardio, strengthening exercises (weights) and conditioning at night. At the end of the article I am going to share the link where I found this information where you can read a bit more as well, if you are interested. My point in sharing this is that all of this is pretty impressive to my opinion and as much as we can see, this guy does have a big dedication and that’s super important when it comes to sculpting your body and transforming it to a good shape.
Contents
Legal Disclaimer
Before I am going to continue, I will firstly get the legal part out of the way. By doing so, we need to mention that we are in absolutely no way, form or shape associated with Jake Gyllenhaal. While I do think that he should be a great guy and we would like to hang out with him, we don’t know him personally, we never knew him and we have big doubts that we ever will be. We also don’t know anybody close to him, therefore, we just can’t find any personal information about him. We don’t know any personal information, we are no associated and we definitely don’t have his medical history. With all of this being said, the content that you are about to read here is purely speculative. All the information, content, data, facts, photos, videos etc. etc. you are about to see here is public information that we found while doing this research.
The verdict of either he did used steroids or he’s all natural is based purely on speculation on our part based on public information shared about Jake, knowledge about steroids and their side effects as well as analyzing his body or other pieces of evidences which may prove him natural or using steroids. Although we do believe that our verdict is, more often than not, true and close to reality, there’s still a good chance that we might make a mistake so the verdict (conclusion) should be taken as speculative rather than factual.
In the end, regardless what verdict he gets, we won’t judge and won’t recommend anything. While we do know very well that steroids can be dangerous and are dangerous, especially if not used properly, we won’t judge anybody who uses them because one way or another, we do know that there are still people all over the world using them. That’s why we are not here to judge anybody who uses them. But in the same time, we are not going to recommend the use of anabolic steroids either. They can be helpful, but they can be dangerous as well. Everything we will recommend is: if you do use anabolic steroids, please do it carefully and wisely, do not expose your health to risk in attempt to get a better body/ performance.
So, I guess we can continue further.
Who is Jake Gyllenhaal?
His full name is Jacob Benjamin Gyllenhaal and he was born in the 12th month of the year 1980 and he is an American actor. He is known for many different movies, some of which are better known than others but some of his best known movies are: Nightcrawler (2014); Southpaw (2015); Prince of Persia (2010); and many other movies which I am pretty sure that you may have heard of as Jake was seen in many different blockbusters.
He was born in Los Angeles, California and since he was the son of a film producer and screenwriter and a film director; it was nearly a sure fact that he’s going to be in the movie industry. He firstly started to act in 1991 and he’s still a great actor nowadays with the upcoming role in the Spider-Man: Far From Home, another blockbuster that is waited on the big screen.
Jake Gyllenhaal has been named one of People magazine’s “50 most beautiful people” in 2006. He got many other different awards later. While he is not as huge as Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, he’s still in a very good shape, especially as he was often found in the most “handsome males all over the world” in many different sources. With all of this being said, there’s no wonder that he’s in a great shape.
Jake Gyllenhaal in Southpaw
There are some people out there who can say that the training that he did for the movie Southpaw would have only been possible exclusively with steroid use as otherwise he would have been over trained and he couldn’t achieve it all. Sure thing is that he might have burned out if he under ate or has been deprived of the very much important sleep; however that type of volume is still perfectly possible for anybody who is natural. It is obvious that it depends on many different factors, but we do know that it wasn’t the first time when Jake was training hard so he wasn’t a newbie, he most likely had experts watching his diet and workout schedule and we do know that he’s a really motivated/ dedicated guy. With all of this being said, that type of volume is definitely possible and even without steroids. I am not trying to say that being possible to achieve it naturally automatically means that he’s natural, but I also do not agree with the claiming that the training he did for Southpaw cannot be possible without the use of steroids.
How do I know that this is possible for a natural? That’s because there have been periods in my life where I would have spent like 5 hours in the gym per day (2 x 2.5 hour sessions) and I was feeling alright. It is obviously extremely hard or maybe even impossible for a newbie or for a guy who is overweight. But with time your body is going to adapt and your recovery levels are going to become a lot much faster than what they were in the past, therefore this is allowing you to train for longer periods. If you are training only 45 minutes per day, 3 days a week, then this may be a really tough task for you. But increasing the volume your body is soon going to adapt to it, you just can’t do it, of course, if you’re the average dude in the gym who is going to get DOMS after training a muscle group once per week.
Another thing is that you just can’t simply jump into that type of training out of a sudden, completely cold turkey. That’s obviously going to be a big problem. Instead, you are going to progressively build up to it, this is the way how your body is going to have the time to gradually adapt to it and to the increased overload. This is the way how you are going to avoid overtraining. And definitely do not forget about eating and sleeping. Regardless what’s your current level of training, trying to do so without watching your sleep and food intake will definitely have a bad outcome. But we are in a huge doubt that Jake wasn’t watching it all. and as I earlier said, we can see that he’s definitely not a newbie.
Is it possible to look like Jake Gyllenhaal looked in Southpaw without the use of steroids?
The most short answer to that question is: definitely yes. He has a great body in that movie, but as said, he’s no Dwayne Johnson. With this being said, nearly anybody can look like that if they watch their work rate and would, obviously, work their ass off, both in the gym and OUT of it too. It requires a lot of hard work in the gym but many people forget about the hard work in the kitchen. He is not having a lot of muscle mass and that’s the most important factor which makes me say that nearly anybody can look like him for that movie. Nonetheless, we still can notice that he is looking muscular and that’s because of him having such a low body fat percentage. Most often, that’s the key to look muscular. I have seen muscular guys with rather big body fat percentages and they weren’t looking good or as muscular while other guys might have nearly twice less muscular mass but look better and more muscular only thanks to low body fat percentages.
Also, if there is someone who may be wondering what body fat Jake Gyllenhaal was having for the movie Southpaw, my guess is going to be 5 % or so. I doubt that it is more than 6%.
But please don’t get me wrong. Even though it is definitely possible to look like Jake Gyllenhaal in the movie Southpaw without taking steroids and even though such a body and physique is indeed possible to attain naturally, it doesn’t mean that he did not used steroids in order to get in such an amazing shape. There are huge dudes out there who are all natural, and there are much smaller dudes who are taking steroids. There are indeed some physiques out there, for example Phil Heath’s, who screams steroids. That’s because I just don’t see how a natural guy can reach that muscular and such a body size. Jake Gyllenhaal and others definitely don’t seem like that, that’s why we need to check it all closely. So let’s see if there’s anything which might suggest if he used any steroids in order to reach such a body which greatly helped him to get such famous.
Gains Timeline
If Jake had to lose a lot of weight for the movie Nightcrawler (as I said, where he had to lose 30 lbs), we can very safely assume that he has not been lifting weights during that time, otherwise he would reach the other effect that he needed. Lifting weights would be counter productive for him to gain muscle as he had to lose it. If he was going to gym (which I am quite sure that he did) it was for cardio and losing weight. Plus, he was most likely undereating for that movie.
Therefore, I can bet that he started to overeat again after the Nightcrawler movie in order to regain back the muscles that he lost (keep in mind the very important factor – muscle memory). As it was said, he lost 30 lbs and that’s pretty similar to what Christian Bale has done after the movie The Machinist. And then again, he has started to lift weights once again and to over eat. This would have inevitably make him gain weight and gain muscles. He gained another 20 lbs or so of muscle. Usually, those are the typical newbie gains that anybody can expect to experience as soon as they start lifting weights.
Those newbie gains can account for the “15 lbs” of weight that he supposedly gained while he was training for the Southpaw movie. Nonetheless, as he didn’t gain 20 lbs or even more like a newbie usually would experience; the number is pretty likely to be lower than that and that’s because of the considerable amount of the fat loss that he experienced in the past.
In addition to that, I must mention that we have seen him having quite a very similar amount of muscle mass in Southpaw as he did in the movie Prince of Persia which appeared 5 years ago compared to Southpaw. The only difference, to my notice, is that he has been a lot much leaner in Southpaw and this means that his muscles are much more defined. This is the key difference and the thing which gave his body the “wow factor” which shocked many of his fans. This is what he did not had in Price of Persia because in that movie we can still see him being muscular and in a very good shape. But with lower body fat percentage.
Analyzing his body in 2010 (for Prince of Persia) and comparing his body in 2015 (for Southpaw) we can see that he has the same amount of muscles with the only difference – lower body fat. That’s something that any natural can achieve. We can also conclude that he already got past the newbie gains in 2010. With all of this being said, it is quite obvious that he has not used any steroids since Prince of Persia in order to bulk up for Southpaw, as he hasn’t gained any more size, he only lost muscles. If he did used anything since Prince of Persia to Southpaw then that’s only fat burning steroids. I am almost sure he didn’t used bulking steroids since 2010 up to nowadays because otherwise he would have gained a lot much more muscles. A typical steroid muscle gain is approximately 40 lbs. If Jake would have added at least 30 lbs of pure muscles since Prince of Persia (2010) up to nowadays, then that would have definitely raised some questions. But he didn’t.
We would later check if he used any fat burning steroids because we can find it out only by checking his body and carefully analyzing it, searching for steroid signs. But after all of this being said, some of you might wonder – maybe Jake Gyllenhaal used some gears in order to gain muscle mass and look the way he did in Price of Persia movie? Well, that’s a good question, but I also have big doubts that he used any bulking steroids for that movie either. How do I know it?
Well, below I am going to share a picture of him and what he looks like normally. In the picture below, you can see Jake Gyllenhaal before he ever started to go to gym and preparing for a movie. We can see that he still has a decent amount of muscles. Obviously, he got the number of muscle mass higher as soon as he started to go to gym.
I am quite sure that you can notice that for a guy who is not lifting weights, he is still in a pretty good shape. To my opinion, he is looking approximately 20 lbs or so short of muscles here, compared to what he looked like in the movie Southpaw. Again, if there’s anybody who thinks that I am crazy by thinking that there’s only such a little difference between his body in the photo from above compared to his body in Southpaw then think that I am talking about muscle mass. The 20 lbs I am mentioning is pure muscle mass. Plus, the huge difference, as I previously said, makes his much lower body fat percentage.
In addition to that, as I previously mentioned it, the 20 lbs I am talking about, it is what pretty much anybody is going to gain just from going to the gym and lifting some weights for at least a couple of months. If he were to have taken steroids then I am pretty sure that he would have gained at least twice as much of muscle amount that he has done.
With all of that being said, his gains timeline does seem to be all natural to my opinion. Such gains timeline definitely doesn’t indicate any steroid use, definitely no bulking steroid use. They do sound to be natural as anybody who doesn’t use steroids would go through pretty much similar gains timeline. Taking in consideration his body type before he ever started to go to gym and comparing it to the way he looks nowadays or in his prime (in movie Southpaw).
Does he have any Signs of Steroids?
As I earlier said, there are some people out there who have bodies that scream they used steroids. that’s because of the usual steroid signs. And usually, if you use steroids, it is very hard not to get any of such signs. That’s why, someone who is using steroids usually does have at least several steroid symptoms that you can see with naked eye on their bodies. Usually, such steroid signs include: acne; gyno; flushed skin; extremely dry; extreme vascularity; pregnant look; 3D delts and shoulders and there are other side effects as well. As I earlier said, his gains timeline doesn’t indicate any bulking steroid use, otherwise he would have gained at least twice as much. But he doesn’t have any fat burning steroid signs which may indicate he used some of them. Jake Gyllenhaal is not having absolutely any of the common steroid symptoms and this would have been super strange if he would be on juice.
We all noticed that he is having strong deltoids in Southpaw and this sometimes can be attributed to steroid use; however we can see that they still do not seem to indicate any steroid signs because they are not as huge and secondly, we should not forget that he has done 3 hours of boxing per day and so, this makes sense that they would be well developed, but in the same time, they are not overly developed which can indicate the steroid use. We should not forget that boxers are very known for having strong shoulders. We don’t see overly developed shoulder for natural athletes, but we can see them being strong for boxers. Both these factors apply to Jake Gyllenhaal.
The only other sign that could be attributed to the steroid use is the fact that Jake is having some very thick abs. You can find on our website a post about Kris Gethin (quite a famous bodybuilder); which I have discussed about how the steroid users are more prone to have some thicker abs and a blockier core (also seen on John Cena and other guys). As we can notice, Jake Gyllenhaal’s abs are pretty thick in the movie Southpaw. They could be said to be thicker compared to other people and therefore, this could lead to some people out there asking questions – is it due to the fact that he used some steroids?
Nonetheless, it is a known fact that Jake has competed 2,000 of sits up per day during his training which he was doing for the movie Southpaw (and that’s an extremely high volume). With this being said, it does makes sense that his abdominals are looking thicker than the average natty bodybuilder and that’s because it is pretty much unheard of for a bodybuilder to replicate such a high volume during their ab workouts. So, the only 2 signs which may indicate Jake Gyllenhaal may be on steroids is the strong shoulders and thick abs. But we can see his strong shoulders are not overly developed but they are looking like that thanks to 3 hours of boxing per day and his thick abs are thanks to the fact that he had a high volume of training. plus, none of them scream steroids and he is not having any other steroid side effects seen on his body (such as red skin; vascularity; gyno; acne or any others).
With all of this being said, Jake Gyllenhaal doesn’t seem to have any steroid signs.
What’s the conclusion?
Based on all the evidences that I have managed to find, it does looks like Jake Gyllenhaal didn’t used / doesn’t use steroids and so, my verdict is that he is natural. My verdict is based on the fact that I could not find any factors/ evidences which could indicate that he did used some steroids and the lack of evidences proving he used steroids is often making me say the person is natty. Usually, I am searching for evidences which prove the person uses steroids, but the evidences in Jake Gyllenhaal’s case prove him being natural. That’s because his gains timeline and no signs of steroid use indicate he’s natural.
The conclusion is: people are very quick in accusing Hollywood stars (or bodybuilders; often – anybody who looks better than an average person) of taking steroids, and that’s because they are looking better but in Hollywood stars’ case because they are getting paid millions and they are having easy access to them. However, we are currently having some strong evidences to not only believe that Jake Gyllenhaal is natural, but there are other very famous names which I can mention here such as Christian Bale; Chris Hemsworth; Chris Evans and Henry Cavill as well as others.
Being a Hollywood star and actor doesn’t automatically mean that they are natural either because we determined that Dwayne The Rock Johnson is most likely using steroids; something that’s not a huge shock for many fans.
However, in case there is still someone who doubt that Jake is natural, then I dare you to start training 6 hours a day, every day for half a year. Do 3 hours of intense boxing in the morning and then followed by 3 hours of cardio and straight training in the evening. In addition to all of that, watch your diet too!
If you are going to do that for half a year then check if you are going to get ripped to shreds and look like Jake. Again, you won’t be Dwayne Johnson doing it for half a year, but you are most likely going to look very similar to Jake. If you want to put Jake Gyllenhaal up on a pedestal because you do not want to work hard (and trust me, Jake Gyllenhaal did worked extremely hard with intense workout), then one thing you COULD say he has it is time.
What I am trying to say is that he has the time in the day to work out for 6 hours as his job allows him to do so. I think that time it is pretty much the only difference. I do understand that there are a lot of people out there who simply do not have that luxury in order to replicate the hours spent in the gym. That’s the only excuse that I MIGHT accept, depending on everybody’s needs and lifestyle. But then again, even if many people did it, let’s face it, 99% of people still would not spend like 6 hours in the gym and that’s simply because they are not as disciplined as Jake.
Some may say that ok – he is getting paid for looking like that so he has motivation. If you have the time spending 6 hours a day in the gym then do it, and most likely you are going to get paid out of this too. The way you are going to look is most likely going to open you a lot much more possibilities and alternatives. That’s why, in the end, we still get to one simple thing – excuses. Jake doesn’t make them, unlike most other people who go to gym one hour a day, 3 days a week, barely do anything there, come home and comment that Jake is on steroids.
In the end, what I am trying to say is that I am having absolutely no evidence or reason to think that Jake Gyllenhaal has taken steroids for Southpaw. There’s nothing proving it. and plus, the more I have learned about his training and the insane volume that he put him through, then the easier it was for me to give him a natty verdict and plus to that – to respect him more. I am tired of people accusing of using steroids anybody looking better than an average person and that’s a huge mistake. In the end, Jake Gyllenhaal it is the perfect example of how somebody can get into an awesome shape and have a great body, and that’s even if they are not having the world class genetics as I’ve often found bodybuilders to have. I do respect this guy.
Tell us in the comments below what do you think about Jake Gyllenhaal. Is he among your favorite actors? Were you impressed by his body transformation? Generally, do you love or hate him? Write down in the comments below anything regarding to Jake Gyllenhaal. If you found some other evidences which we have missed proving him taking steroids write them in the comments section below too.
A lot of thanks to all the sources which greatly helped me in writing this article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jake_Gyllenhaal
https://www.instagram.com/jakegyllenhaal/?hl=en
https://www.facebook.com/JakeGyllenhaal/
https://aretheyonsteroids.com/category/celebrities/