How Matt Damon Got Ripped For Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey

Movie star Matt Damon is all rippling abs in behind-the-scenes photos of Christopher Nolan's massive new version of "The Odyssey," but how in the world did he get that way? You can guess from his appearance that a lot of hard work went into the role, but what exercises did he have to do — and what food did he have to sacrifice — to make his appearance a reality?

Wonder no more. While Damon's only hinted briefly about what he needed to do to prepare himself to play Odysseus, the film's central adventurer and legendary hero, his trainer previously spilled about the workout routines he used to get in shape for previous movies. With those factoids in mind, we can combine that knowledge with what Damon has mentioned about other workout routines. The end result is a fitness regime fit for a prince — or a king of Ithaca, as it were. Here's everything we currently know about how Matt Damon got so ripped for his role in "The Odyssey."

Matt Damon did reveal one specific dietary change he made ahead of playing Odysseus. "Just because of this other thing that I did with my doctor, I stopped eating gluten," he told Jason and Travis Kelce during an appearance on their podcast "New Heights." 

Going gluten-free allowed Damon to slim down to a weight he hadn't seen in decades. "I was in really good shape. I lost a lot of weight. [Christopher Nolan, director of "The Odyssey"] wanted me lean but strong," he explained. "I used to walk around at between 185 and 200, and I did that whole movie at 167. And I haven't been that light since high school."

Once the arduous shoot was over, Damon admitted that he hasn't added gluten back into his diet. "I'm done. I'm gluten-free everything. I found a gluten-free beer. It's been so long since I've had gluten, I can't tell if it's good or not. So that's a good sign."

Matt Damon added during his New Heights appearance that he also made several adjustments to his workout routine. "It was a lot of training and a really strict diet." Once again, Damon didn't go into further depth regarding what adjustments he made to his diet, nor did he explain what changed regarding his general training routine.

But he did compare it to something the Kelce brothers are all-too-familiar with: Preparing themselves for the big game. "I imagine what that feels like for you guys, where you're preparing. It's just part of your day, it's part of your job, and you get really routinized about it and kinda build your day around all that stuff," he told the Kelces. And it looks like Damon's hard work has fully paid off with a well-sculpted form that will add extra credence to his performance as Odysseus. 

How did Matt Damon get himself in shape for his other roles? His personal trainer, Jason Walsh, has explained what he did to help whip Damon into shape. One of Walsh's keys to help Damon build his strength up involved a whole lot of bodyweight movements.

"It's about understanding the basics. People always want to add more weight. We don't even touch a weight, it's all calisthenics work. It's about connecting to the body again and then maybe putting weight on, or starting to hold moves for longer periods of time," Walsh told Men's Health. Weighted pull-ups, push-ups, weighted single-leg squats, bear crawls, and planks were included among the exercises that Damon would perform for Walsh back in 2016. A decade later — and with both age and wear and tear having taken their toll on Damon's form — the routine has changed somewhat. But several injuries have hampered Damon's training process.

Matt Damon has two injuries that have kept him from going all-out during previous training sessions. Before beginning training for the sci-fi thriller "Elysium," Damon had nagging back and shoulder pain. Jason Walsh says he helped correct the issue.

"He had issues with this lower back and shoulder. He had heard that I'd corrected injuries with people who had been living with injuries and pain for a long time so in a couple of weeks I helped him out with his shoulder injury and soon after we got his back cleared up and he was 100-percent feeling great so we continued from there," he told Business Insider. While Walsh helped him heal from those nagging injuries, Damon also broke his collarbone in 2014. 

Walsh subsequently admitted he was concerned about keeping the star healthy. "You have to be smart with the type of people we work with. My biggest worry was him breaking. The star of a $100 million movie? That's a lot of pressure," Walsh confessed. Ultimately, Damon seems to have decided that lifting weights isn't the way for him, and he and Walsh haven't used such exercise techniques for the actor.

What else does Matt Damon do to stay in shape? He performs calisthenics instead of weightlifting exercises. That kind of fitness routine keeps him strong but lean, looking like a true action star.

Trainer Jason Walsh seems to keep the process interesting for his client by making a game of his workout routines. "He loves challenges. We got to the point where we were doing 100 pullups two or three times a week. We'd see how many sets it takes to get 100. Once you lose some of that excess weight, pullups get a lot easier. He was doing 30-some pullups per set," said Walsh to Men's Health.

What did Damon's routine look like? Walsh explained to the magazine that when he was training with the actor for his role in "Elysium," they would meet for four hours every day, at two in the morning and two in the afternoon, to maintain his condition. It's easy to imagine that Damon kept up such an intense routine to pack on some muscle for "The Odyssey." On top of that, it looks like Damon's a king when it comes to cardio.

Another way Matt Damon stays in shape is by running long distances — but not necessarily by jogging on a Los Angeles city street. Instead, he uses a VersaClimber machine. Trainer Jason Walsh, who runs the gym RiseMovement, posted footage of Damon using the VersaClimber during one of their sessions to his Instagram back in 2015. In the video clip, the actor can be seen frantically running on the stair climber in tandem with Walsh. From the way Walsh finally lets go and backs up during he session, it looks like Damon won their contest.

While the duo seem to do plenty of cardio indoors, Walsh and Damon did indeed take things outside at one point. When Damon was training to get in shape for a Jason Bourne film, he was shooting one of Damon's worst movies, "The Great Wall" in China, and they had little equipment to work with. Walsh took his client running on the streets of Dunhuang, near the Mongolian Border, to get his miles in. "People would look at us like, "What the hell is going on?'" Walsh told Men's Health.

Jason Walsh thinks the preparation Matt Damon did for one movie in particular contributed to previous injuries. "For The Informant! he put on a ton of really bad weight. That was the character. He was a middle-aged American white guy who eats at Burger King four or five times a week," Walsh told Men's Health. It was a 30 pound weight gain, but even that small amount of weight led to a core muscle imbalance in Damon's body, worsening his shoulder and back injuries.

In case you're wondering how Matt Damon feels about his time making "The Informant!", he definitely enjoyed taking a hiatus from healthy food and exercise. "Steven told me he wanted me to look doughy. Those were my marching orders. I didn't question it, I just started eating.[..] And I felt fantastic, I've never had that much fun making a movie. I just ate whatever I wanted and thought about nothing but the screenplay and the other actors," he told the The Patriot Ledger (via the Peoria Journal Star).  He also told NPR, "When your body changes, and you feel clothes hitting certain parts of your body they don't normally hit, and it just affects everything. It's like a kind of a way to immerse yourself into that other guy."

While Matt Damon seems to have a reliable roster of routines and exercises to pull from, he doesn't have one set routine that encompasses every part. Per Jason Walsh, it depends on what the role requires. For instance, Damon shot three action films back-to-back-to-back from 2014 to 2015, a challenging process for Walsh, because each part required Damon to have a slightly different physique. 

The first routine was developed for a movie like "The Martian." "He just needed to look like an astronaut who takes care of himself, He had to be in good physical shape, but he didn't need to look like a badass. So we focused on getting him back on track," Walsh told "Men's Health." Then came "The Great Wall," which at least in part required the actor to train in the Gobi desert. Finally, Damon had to train for the next piece of the "Jason Bourne" timeline. As noted above, that required him to pack on a bit of muscle in the streets of China. But in the end, Walsh considers something entirely different to be his biggest accomplishment during this period. "Keeping him injury free for two straight years, doing action films, was the biggest accomplishment," he said.