Josh Rivera | Train Like | Men's Health

Men'sHealth

17/09/2024

Transcript

00:00Hey, what's going on?

00:10My name is Josh Rivera, and this is what my workout looks like.

00:14Historically, I've been really into strength training basically the end of my college years,

00:21but I had to stop for a little while for some other projects because it's a little bit more

00:25versatile to keep kind of a leaner sort of physique.

00:29I think before it was much more aesthetic, and now it's a little bit more about the health

00:35component just to keep the mobility, flexibility, and being as active for as long as possible.

00:42When I was in high school, I was really into sports.

00:45I did track.

00:46I did wrestling.

00:47I did football.

00:48I tried basketball.

00:49I'm very bad at basketball.

00:51That one never came to me, so I got really excited when I got this project where I got

00:55to be an NFL player because they were just like, gain as much weight as you can.

00:58I was really excited about that.

01:01It was a wild ride.

01:02I had a whole new body in like five months.

01:05It was pretty crazy.

01:06When I got hired, I was 187 pounds.

01:09When we started shooting, I think I was 218 pounds, so I gained 30 pounds, right?

01:16Yes.

01:17Right?

01:18Yeah.

01:19Working out when I have a busy work schedule or when I'm in the swing of filming, it is

01:25really tough.

01:26I'm not really a morning person, but I had to work out.

01:30I can't say ass crack, but I had to work out at the crack of dawn.

01:35Oh gosh, it was really hard, but you find time in the environment that you have in between

01:41setups where you can do a set of pushups or a set of curls or something here and there.

01:48That's just kind of the way that it has to go.

01:51It's always really helpful when you have fitness goals to have somebody to help keep you accountable,

01:55and for that, I had my trainer, Brian Kane, here.

01:59Come on in.

02:00Good to see you.

02:01Welcome.

02:02He did an awesome job.

02:03Working with Josh was a really great opportunity because he showed up to work.

02:05We had to put a whole lot of muscle on him and make him look like an NFL football player.

02:09It was a journey, to say the least.

02:12He had some existing injuries that we had to work around a little bit.

02:15We had to take that all into account during his training, making sure we're getting big

02:18bang moves to actually create the results and gaining the mass that we needed to make

02:22him look like Aaron.

02:23Look at that.

02:24Absolute wordsmith, this guy.

02:25That's what I was going to say, but it didn't come to me.

02:32Foam rolling's great.

02:33I got some issues with my knees, so it's really nice for keeping the elasticity so nothing's

02:38getting pulled that shouldn't be in my legs.

02:42In general, for regular maintenance for basically anybody, it's just really, really good for

02:47you, and it's very, very good for kind of preventative purposes.

02:52Before a workout, after a workout, foam rolling is...

02:57For his core, we did a lot of dynamic stability.

03:02Him having to maintain his posture while also performing external load.

03:06I mean, he's got to wear shoulder pads throughout the entire filming, so we need to make sure

03:11that his trunk is able to maintain that strength and endurance throughout the entire filming

03:15process.

03:16But the core movements, we basically hit all planes of movement, so a lot of his stuff

03:21is, like I said, it's dynamic stability, so you've got to maintain his trunk stability

03:24while creating an external load or creating a direction change in his load.

03:31Bench press is my favorite.

03:33Surprise, surprise.

03:37We're trying to recreate Aaron Hernandez, who is just a massive upper body, but it's

03:42all about volume, really, so creating enough volume to create the muscle mass.

03:47He was always pretty good at it, so it was something that we built into his program on

03:52a regular basis because we know it helped him feel good and also gave us the results

03:56we were trying to attain.

03:58You know, we did a lot of injury preventative work and foundational kind of establishing

04:02a really healthy base work.

04:04For me, it's always really nice to just get back to my meathead basics here that I'm really

04:10familiar with, so I love a bench press, man.

04:13So lat pulldowns, again, for him, he's going to be doing a lot of gripping and pulling.

04:17So just the size of Aaron Hernandez, he had massive lats, he had massive traps in neck

04:21and shoulders, and that's one of our best moves to create that mass, so the wide grips

04:26are really key.

04:27Also, the pulldowns are great for just arm development, too.

04:29You see biceps and the brachialis develop as well.

04:33Pulldowns are really nice, versatile exercises.

04:35It's like Brian said, it's a really good arm developer and lat developer and just overall

04:39kind of like width, yeah.

04:44Man, I used to hate reverse flys, but now they're one of my favorite exercises.

04:48That was one of the ones that I was really, really struggling on in the beginning just

04:52because of, I think because just the shoulder mobility aspects of it, like it took a while

04:56to build that up.

04:57That was the first one that I could really actually feel myself getting stronger with.

05:01I think that's what made me be able to like see the lines on my back for the first time,

05:04which was super cool.

05:06You know, a lot of people these days spend the time on video games or their cell phones.

05:10They have a tendency to get this rounded posture, which football players just don't have.

05:14They have that big, broad chest and square posture.

05:17So the reverse flys are really to get the shoulder development in the right place, open

05:21up his chest a little bit more, and also develop that structure in the back that really looked

05:26good in film.

05:27You just caught me.

05:28When you were talking about that, I'm like...

05:31Again, because he was going to be doing a lot of catching, a lot of gripping and pulling,

05:37and we could not afford a shoulder injury at any point in time.

05:41We wanted to make sure his rotator cuff is really strong.

05:45Developing that rotator cuff is really important for his gripping, his catching, overall, just

05:49to maintain that bulk.

05:52So also one of the exercises we incorporated was the seated shrug.

05:55That exercise is really important for Josh to build his upper trapezius and also his

06:00neck diameter, create that appearance of that upper body mass that Aaron Hernandez had.

06:06Alright, well thanks for watching.

06:08Again, my name is Josh Rivera.

06:10Don't forget to check out American Sports Story, Aaron Hernandez on FX.

Josh Rivera | Train Like | Men's Health

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