Michael Jai White is a modernΒ Jack of All Trades. Heβs been able to make a name for himself by keeping a lot of irons in several fires.
Heβs a proficient actor, a master of several martial arts, and a paragon of personal health. One look at Micheal Jai White is enough to make any lifter jealous because heβs narrowed his workouts down to a science.
If youβve ever caught yourself wondering how he does it, then youβre in luck, today weβre diving deep into the Micheal Jai White lifestyle.
Early on in Micheal Jai Whiteβs career, he was picked up for his physique. His big breakout role was playing Mike Tyson in the 1995 HBO movie Tyson.Β From there he went on to play some similar roles like Spawn (making him the first black superhero in a major motion picture) and even more action-packed movies like Kill Bill: Volume 2 and Universal Soldier: The Return where he played a major role across from Jean-Claude Van Damme.Β
He wasnβt just a solid wall of meat when he showed up in movies though, he also starred in more heartfelt films like Why Did I Get Married? His other crowning achievements are far from the world of movies. He doesnβt just dabble in martial arts, heβs a master of a plethora of arts. He holds a black belt in seven different martial arts.
Right now he holds the black belt in Shotokan, Kyokushin, and Goju-Ryu karate as well as taekwondo, Kobudo, tang soo do, and wushu. If thereβs a martial art out there, heβs probably got a hand in it in some fashion. His approach to life is to find something heβs passionate about and pull everything he possibly can out of it.
If thereβs someone to model your workouts after, you could do a lot worse than Micheal Jai White. Heβs built his career on having a perfectly sculpted physique, heβs a hardworking man that exemplifies the kind of effort it takes to build that much muscle andΒ burn that much fat.
Micheal Jai White doesnβt shy away from a good supplement. Often when folks ask him about how often heβll reach for a workout supplement, heβs adamant and open about their effectiveness. Heβs a huge fan of creatine supplements, especially. When he has to bulk up or put on a little bit of weight for a role, then creatine is one of the best supplements out there for achieving that goal.
Creatine supplements are great for getting your muscles to hold on to more nutrients and water, making them look a little more beefed up than they normally would, and if youβre looking for results as extreme as Micheal Jai Whiteβs then you shouldnβt be shy about reaching for the supplements either.
Theyβre great for when you need to look good for a photo shoot or a date, and theyβre not going to keep you from reaching your goals in any way. You should also look for things like branched amino acids and vitamin supplements to make sure youβre not missing anything key in your diet.
He also liberally employs the use of protein shakes. Protein shakes are an amazing tool when youβre working out as much and as often as someone like Micheal Jai White. Your body is going to be hungry often when youβre beating your muscles down this much and this often. Getting a ton of protein into your diet is going to solve that problem for you pretty easily.
Protein is one of the best ways to get your body to tamp down your hunger response, making it easy to keep your overall intake down. Micheal Jai White would have about two shakes a day, which makes sense when you consider how much heβs in the gym.
His workout routine has him in the gym twice a day five days a week, thatβs ten workouts a week, so itβs safe to say heβs earned his shakes.
The tentpole of his diet is his focus on clean eating. As a child, Micheal Jai White was around a lot of processed and fast foods. These are fine in moderation, but the high carb count, high sodium, and low amounts of nutrients make them abysmal for a diet thatβs focused on building muscle and slimming down.
When youβre trying to eat clean, youβre naturally going to start feeding your body the kinds of nutrients it's in search of when youβre working out. Clean eating for Micheal Jai White meant that he would be keeping his food local, unprocessed and organic whenever he could make it work. That naturally cuts out a lot of foods that are well known for ruining a good diet.
Micheal Jai Whiteβs daily consumption would reach well into five or six meals a day. If youβre not used to eating like this then that might come as a shock, but itβs broken down into pretty manageable chunks. Heβd still eat his three bigger meals at breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
This would be when heβs breaking out the farm-fresh grilled chicken for a protein-rich meal that will give him his key nutrients and keep him from going crazy with hunger. The other three meals are like throwing smaller sticks on a smoldering fire. Theyβre the meals that are much smaller, but they follow the same basic principle.
These smaller in-between meals are where he would throw back a little bit of fresh fruit and vegetables for a small boost in energy throughout the day. When youβre eating clean you want to find sources of carbohydrates that arenβt going to sit in your stomach and slow you down.
This means trading out bread and bowls of pasta for fruits and vegetables. Your body likes to have carbs to pull from when itβs looking for energy. Sugars in food like apples or starches like potatoes make it easy for your boy to give yourself a little bit of a kick when you need it the most.
The real trick to this diet is just trying to narrow down your options from day to day to foods that are grown with care and intention. Organic foods arenβt a magical cure-all, but they are generally foods you can depend on when youβre looking to cut down on calories and fat.
Your diet is going to include a lot more lean meat and leafy green vegetables because thatβs what people tend to grow organically. Youβre also going to want to keep an eye on the amount of protein youβre taking in. Your body is going to need a lot of it.
Protein shakes can only get you so far, so make sure that your main three meals are full enough of the protein to rebuild your torn muscles each week. The Micheal Jai White diet doesnβt just cut out all of the simple pleasures in life, though. White has a sweet tooth and he loves taking on a whole sleeve of Town House crackers whenever he gets the chance.
Eating well doesnβt have to mean that you have to totally deprive yourself of your favorite treats. Eating well means cutting out the excess. Some sweets here and there arenβt going to totally destroy all of your hard work, just be smart about how much and how often and youβll leave the dining room table feeling fulfilled.
In an interview with Muscle and Performance, Micheal Jai White talks about his personal fitness philosophy. Looking at his body, you can tell that heβs onto something special, and itβs here where we find the core of what sets him apart from the rest.
He tells Muscle and Performance βFor me, itβs all about aesthetics and performance. I think itβs no coincidence that those who are aesthetically balanced are better athletes β your centerline can move much better when your front and back musculature are balanced. Thereβs something thatβs universally pleasing about a balanced aesthetic, and to achieve that balanced aesthetic is to achieve great physical ability, as well. Iβm always going for that.β
This single aspect of his fitness philosophy is what sets him so far apart from other folks that get up under the weights. He understands the importance of working out your body evenly and not just focusing on what you do well.
This balance-focused approach will give you much more impressive results much more quickly because youβre expanding your overall muscle mass in more than one direction. This is how pro bodybuilders get their massive arms, and itβs how Micheal Jai White creates his physique.Β
A day in Micheal Jai Whiteβs life looks pretty standard for a celebrity whose life revolves around keeping his body in shape. He starts things off with a pretty intense workout and maximizes his time by planning out the rest of his day.
He works on everything from his biceps to his list of errands. Itβs a great way to get some momentum going at the start of your day, and it ensures that youβve got your life laid out enough to keep up with your workout routine.
Since youβre going to want to keep your diet tight to make sure youβre getting the most out of your workout routine, this is also a good time to make sure youβre nailing down your meal prep and deciding on healthy meals that are high in protein and low in the kind of crap thatβs going to bog down your energy levels andΒ add fat cells in between your muscles and the world around you.
His morning workouts usuallyΒ start with a little bit of cardio. Cardio is going to be great for getting the Micheal Jai White body.Β His muscles are huge and well defined while his overall body fat is pretty low. Cardio is a great way to burn a lot of energy which is going to burn through your fat storage quickly and set you on the fast track to a great body.
His morning cardio usually lasts about 45 minutes and tends to be made up of either treadmill running, stair mills, or wailing on the heavy bag. His afternoons are just as intense, but the focus totally shifts. During the afternoon Micheal Jai White will put in a solid hour and a half of strength training and conditioning. This is when he breaks out the weights and practices his martial arts.
Heβs not usually trying to bulk up much more than he already is, so his workouts will focus more on lighter weights and high-rep exercises. The toning will also include bodyweight exercises like push-ups and sit-ups. Keeping this up five days a week is how Micheal Jai White gets his levels of fitness as high as they are.
The mid-week and Sundays would be dedicated to resting. Rest days arenβt just days that are dedicated Michael Jai White takes a similar approach to his workout routine and all of his martial arts. Variety and dedication are how he builds all of that muscle and carefully sculpts in a great deal of definition.
Heβs a huge proponent of avoiding βaccommodationβ. No, we donβt mean that his muscles are too welcoming to guests, we mean the biological phenomenon. When we talk about muscles getting used to the workouts youβre doing, that's what we call accommodation, they stop trying to keep up with the work that youβre doing.
Youβve probably noticed that it starts feeling easier and easier after a couple of weeks of work. This is why weightlifters like to focus on progressive overload and why everybodyβs workout advice involves switching things up. Even slightly altering the way you do your bicep curls is enough to give your muscles a wake-up call from week to week.
If you feel yourself starting to plateau, then this should be the first place you look to improve your personal best. Taking the time away from your favorite workouts might actually be the best way to get your body to push itself further.
Accommodation is what leads to plateaus, plateaus are what lead to stagnating muscle growth. If you can head that off at the pass, then youβre going to be setting yourself up for incredible levels of success.
Micheal Jai Whiteβs workout routine is pretty intense. Heβs spending well over two full hours out of almost every day of the week either on the treadmill or underneath some weights.
If youβre working a 9-5 or a similar schedule that has you out of the house for most of the day, then you canβt just wake up and run for 45 minutes and then treat yourself to an hour and a half of weightlifting for lunch. He has achieved his physique with hard work and dedication, but we have to be real with ourselves when weβreΒ examining a celebrityβs workout routine.
He has access to resources and a schedule that allows him to spend a lot of time and money on his workout equipment and it gives him the time to totally pour himself into his workouts. That doesnβt mean that heβs not able to teach us something about a workout and diet that will work,Β or open doors to building a better body.
When asked about how he approaches his weightlifting he says βI feel weights should be used primarily to balance the body nature didnβt give you. Most of us are not born with a totally balanced physique and our entire weight regimen should be prioritized to build where you are lacking. If you train your entire body the same, youβll just emphasize your flaws.β
Those are words to live by. If you want to make sure youβre building a body that you can be proud of, then you need to branch out and work on the parts of your body that you feel like youβre struggling with. By hitting your problem areas youβre going to be raising your overall fitness and better preparing yourself for the greater challenges ahead of you on your perfect body journey.
Eating well is simple, it just takes a level head and a little bit of forethought. If you can plan your meals out ahead of time or during your workouts, then youβre going to have a much easier time getting the results you want.
This diet and routine are going to eat up a lot of your time if you stick to them exactly the way Michael Jai White does, but a little bit of tweaking to fit into a normal dudeβs life is going to make this much more achievable.
If you want to carve out a body like Micheal Jai White then youβre going to have to work incredibly hard to get there. He spends upwards of two hours most days of the week in the gym every day.
Heβs really serious about this kind of work, and if youβre going to get even half as fit as him then youβre going to have to bring some serious dedication to the table as well.
