Sylvester Stallone Still Works Out Religiously – This Routine Keeps Him Strong at 79

Fifty years since the release of Rocky, it's still almost impossible to talk about Sylvester Stallone and, in the same breath, not mention the franchise's eponymous main character Rocky Balboa. Over the course of eight films and four decades, the Oscar-winning franchise would see the scrappy boxer go toe-to-toe with Carl Weathers, Mr. T, Dolph Lundgren and, in a slight tonal shift for the franchise, place Michael B. Jordan under his tutelage in the early stages of the Creed trilogy.

Highly athletic, muscular and gritty, Stallone's portrayal of the Italian pugilist would not only go down in cinema history, but place the now-79-year-old in a certain group of Golden Era Hollywood actors. Alongside the likes of his once-rival Arnold Schwarzenegger, this rare breed of actors could both talk the talk when it comes to training and walk the walk.

Over the years, Stallone would hold onto this physicality in roles seen in Rambo, The Expendables and Guardians of the Galaxy – providing cast-iron proof that with the right training, an unshakeable determination and a few challenges thrown in for good measure, maintaining longevity into a ninth decade may not seem like such a tall order. And, crucially, ageing doesn't need to hit you like an uppercut.

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Though Stallone was only 29-years-old during the production of Rocky, his experience playing an up-and-coming athlete is clearly one that's stuck with him over the subsequent decades, applying steely focus and grit – exactly what the lyrics of Eye of the Tiger entail, in fact – to his wellbeing at 79.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Stallone expanded on exactly how he trains and how he's had to adjust after countless on-set injuries and subsequent surgeries. 'I’ve had five back operations, two shoulders, three neck fusions, both knees—I’m bionic,' he said in the interview. 'I’ve gone from lifting regular weights to mostly bands, cables.'

'It’s kind of like physical therapy,' he continued. 'So, you’re using the bar, you’re using different motions and keeping those joints moving all the time.' The importance of keeping joints supple and working on mobility is something that Stallone doesn't take lightly — in fact, it anchors his day and is a routine that comes before any form of work.

'[Before writing], I have to start stretching,' he said to WSJ. 'I have to start moving, get the body going, because there’s nothing worse than sitting down like you’re all decrepit and crinkled up from laying in a fetal position all night long.'

Earlier this year, Stallone gave us a unique insight into his home gym set-up, presumably where he does the majority of his training. 'Every year it gets harder and harder, but that’s why you gotta push harder and harder. Blood, sweat and tears,' he wrote in a motivating Instagram post shot in his gym. 'It’s kind of like a sanctuary, a church, where you pray to get better, to feel better physically,' he wrote. 'So you have the strength to arrive at your goals really confident and ready to face any challenge.'

In a separate post, Stallone confirmed just how important he sees physical health and how it's helped him apply a laser focus to his goals, an attitude that doesn't seem to be easing up. 'It’s not about living in a gym,’ he said, ‘but just finding something that gets the blood flowing through the body. It will affect your brain, it’ll affect your confidence, it’ll affect your optimism.'

‘This all gets back to one thing: feeling good about your physical situation,' he said. 'Because, man, once that starts to falter, it’ll feel like you don't have breath.’

Stallone's approach to fitness puts one of Rocky's most famous quotes – 'going in one more round when you don't think you can, that's what makes all the difference in your life' – in a new perspective.

Devout fans of the Rocky franchise might remember that Stallone utilised an incredibly Spartan approach to dieting to get his physique ready for Rocky III. 'I used to drink about 10 cups [of coffee] a day,' he said in the WSJ interview. 'Actually, I used to drink about 25 cups a day when I was doing Rocky 3.'

Sly's breakfast would be 'maybe two [small] oatmeal cookies made with brown rice and 10 cups of coffee because I wanted to keep my body fat down to 2.8%,' he said, noting that the side effects included brain fog and 'all kinds of debilitating physical effects.'

'I was forgetting my phone number. I was eating just tuna fish,' he continued. 'My memory was shot, it was completely gone; but it was for the cause.' These days, thankfully, things are considerably more well-rounded (although, for Rocky IV, he went one further and used a diet in which 'all I ate was burnt toast'.)

In Stallone's fitness and workout book Sly Moves, he likens the demands of his body to those of an engine – fuel it right, and it'll go for miles. 'You don't put high-octane fuel in a car that's just sitting in the garage,' he wrote. 'In the days I’m pushing it, I eat. On the days I’m not, I dial it back. It’s about balance, not starvation.'

During the week, Stallone keeps 'it to about 60% protein, 20% carbs, and 20% fats', he goes on to explain. 'That’s my maintenance fuel, and if I have a movie role coming up, those carbs drop. If I’m just living life, they go up. But I never let the engine flood."

Refreshingly, with the days of burnt toast and endless cups of black coffee long in his rearview, Stallone's philosophy on nutrition is refreshingly straightforward. 'I've tried practically every complicated diet known to man,' he says, 'only to realise the best ways to stay fit and feel great also happen to be the simplest.'

For 1985's Rambo II, Stallone reportedly gained 10 pounds (4.5kg) of lean muscle in just eight weeks, training four hours a day with two-time Mr Olympia winner Franco Columbu.

To achieve one of Stallone's most physically impressive looks, Columbu utilised supersets — pairing two exercises together that build strength in opposing muscle groups — to maximise Stallone's muscle growth. He used similar movement patterns throughout training, helping to provide plenty of volume during their workouts while also keeping Stallone as lean as possible for filming.

You can find the workout here:

Edward Cooper

Ed Cooper is the former Deputy Digital Editor at Men’s Health UK, writing and editing about anything you want to know about — from tech to fitness, mental health to style, food and so much more. Ed has run the MH gauntlet, including transformations, marathons and er website re-designs. He’s awful at pub sports, though. Follow him: @EA_Cooper