Odysseus was sort of lucky, if you think about it. Tossed out, wandering at sea for a decade, he was forced to eat the now-trendy Mediterranean diet—when he had food at all or wasn’t being fed lotus flower from a lonely nymph!—plus he got plenty of cardio by fighting off monsters or countless warriors. It all gave him a chiseled body worthy of being memorialized as Greek statuary for eons to come. Matt Damon, on the other hand, doesn’t have it so easy. At 55, the Academy Award-winning actor has to train hard and eat right to maintain the body of a hero worthy of a generation-spanning epic tale.
Throughout Christopher Nolan’s three-hour film adaptation of Homer’s The Odyssey, Damon’s world-weary fighter goes mostly sleeveless thanks to the costume design’s anti-swords-and-sandals approach. This means we’re getting plenty of arm and shoulder action, and guys of any age would be impressed by Damon’s lean, toned physique (even more so by his six-pack). It was Dr. Gabe Stump, DPT, who helped the actor get into fighting shape (pun intended) for the role. Well, “get into” is maybe an overreach, as Dr. Stump notes that Damon had the wind in his sails and started from a great foundation; to get him ready for the grueling 91-day shoot, it was more about fine-tuning and modulation.
Matt Damon is Odysseus in THE ODYSSEY, written, produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan.Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures
In fact, the goal wasn’t to just get jacked or ripped, but to build a credible body that served the character. “[Odysseus] is not this buff super soldier—he’s more of a tactician,” said Dr. Stump, who has been working with Damon since 2022. A Marvel movie, this is not. “He’s got this grizzly beard, and he looks really lean. You can see he’s still strong. He’s got good definition everywhere, but he’s not packed on.” Yes, even Odysseus’s body was a topic broached with director Nolan, before being brought back to Dr. Stump. From there, a plan was put in place.
In the five months leading up to the shoot, Dr. Stump and Damon had a goal of dropping 10 pounds of fat while retaining muscle, with the actor starting around 180 pounds and ending around 165 pounds. They worked together four to five days a week at a modest home gym in the actor’s basement. “You’d be shocked at how crappy it is,” Dr. Stump said, noting it consists of just the essentials: dumbbells, a cable pull-down machine, and a barbell. Together, they focused intensely on strength training in a traditional upper-lower split—using Mondays and Thursdays for upper body, Tuesdays and Fridays for legs, and Wednesdays for cardio and/or metabolic work like incline walking in a weighted vest. All of which allows them to hit each muscle group twice per week while giving time for adequate recovery.
Overall, Dr. Stump programmed for eight to 10 sets per muscle group per week, and particularly focused on the chest (he adds that the chest was a slightly harder muscle to build for the actor compared to his shoulders and arms). Specifically, that meant bench presses in a horizontal and incline position, plus chest flies to target the muscle from all angles.
