Justin James Watt, who was originally from Wisconsin, was always involved in a sport. He played hockey from the age of 4 to 13 and started playing football in 5th grade. All four years of high school, he was a football star. He also excelled in basketball, baseball, and track and field. Watt played for Central Michigan University for one year before transferring to Wisconsin for two years. Then he decided not to return to school for his senior year, but to enter the NFL draft instead. In addition to being a Pro Bowl selection five times, he's been named Sporting News' Defensive Player of the Year three times, Sports Illustrated's Sportsperson of the Year in 2017, and has been ranked in the top 100 six times, including being ranked #1 in 2015. The social media accounts of Watt have millions of followers. It's estimated that he weighs about 290 pounds and is 6'5" tall.
In this article, we will talk about Justin James Watt and his fitness routine which consists of his diet plan and his workouts. We have compiled a comprehensive article that involves a detailed analysis of what he does to nail his workouts every single time. So read this with content.
J.J. Watt Body Statistics
- Birth Year: 1989
- Birth Date: March 22
- Height: 6 ft 5 in or 196 cm
- Weight: 131 kg or 289 pounds
- Chest: 49.5 in or 126 cm
- Arms / Biceps: 18 in or 46 cm
- Waist: 38 in or 96.5 cm
- Shoe Size: 16 (US)
J.J. Watt Awards and Achievements
NFL
- 3× NFL Defensive Player of the Year (2012, 2014, 2015)
- Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year (2017)
- 5× First-team All-Pro (2012–2015, 2018)
- 5× Pro Bowl (2012–2015, 2018)
- 2× NFL sacks leader (2012, 2015)
- 100 Sacks Club
- NFL 2010s All-Decade Team
- Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year (2017)
- Bert Bell Award (2014)
College
- Lott Trophy (2010)
- First-team All-American (2010)
- First-team All-Big Ten (2010)
J.J. Watt Workout Routine
Watt starts his day very early in the morning, usually between 5 and 6 a.m. Regardless of the specific focus of the workout, Watt spends a considerable amount of time warming up and loosening up. The exercise lasts 30 to 40 minutes and is done without shoes for the purpose of promoting ankle stability and balance.
A great deal of emphasis is placed on the core in this warmup session. Watt does this every single training session to make sure everything is engaged and stable when he picks up a bar. A combination of glute and low ab work, along with a focus on the groin and pelvic floor strength and stability, make up this exercise. This warmup consists of the following exercises:
- Planks
- Glute extensions
- Side planks with leg raise
- Lateral leg walks with bands
- Bird-dogs
- Dead-bugs
Watt must do a great deal of work around his core if he's going to stop a 300+ pound offensive lineman. Watt is also regarded as a special defensive end since he plays every down and is a pass-rusher as well as a run-stopper. Additionally, he must possess plenty of speed and explosive energy to get him where he needs to be while defending against that 300+ pound lineman.We can see this in our previous example when we discussed his 61-inch box jump. But he doesn't just practice his vertical jumps, he also practices his long jumps. Man is essentially some sort of cross between a kangaroo and a bear. Just imagine that coming out of the woods to get you.The majority of his main workout involves free weights, but he also engages in functional training and conditioning in order to stay fit. Here's a typical Watt workout circuit:Tire flips. Watt uses a 1000lb tractor tire, but you might want to go for a lighter one unless you're already an expert. You will work your core and your posterior chain with this exercise. As you squat near the tire while it's lying on the ground, you should begin in a deep squat position. You'll be able to grab onto it (the treads are good for grip) and explode upwards like you're deadlifting.Your hips should serve as a hinge, and your legs should drive the movement. When the tire is lifted high enough and fast enough to tip forward, the movement reaches its peak. Just remember to keep your back in a neutral position to avoid any injuries. Repeat for the desired number of reps.
Sled pushes. It is a good idea to begin by pushing the sled at a slower pace-either at a walk or at a light jog, depending on the load. Then turn around and pull the sled in the same direction. Finish the sled workout with an explosive sprint as you push it. Prepare yourself properly for use of the equipment by warming up properly and ensuring there is enough space.Box Jumps. Box jumps are great for strengthening your lower-body muscles, including your glutes, quads, calves, and hamstrings. These exercises are extremely versatile as well. If you want to train explosive power like Watt, then get a higher box. In order to build endurance and footwork, a box with a lower number of jumps will be sufficient.Standing with your feet shoulder-width apart, bend into a quarter squat by facing the box. Swing your arms back, then jump off the ground and swing your arms forward. Land lightly on top of the box with your knees slightly bent and your feet flat on the ground. It might be a good idea to lower the height of your knees are more than slightly bent and you're just getting started with box jumps, so you don't bang your shins on the edge.Agility work. Among the Watt agility circuit's components are sprints, backpedals, bear crawls over ten meters and over-under. To increase the difficulty and really challenge your endurance, try doing these in a superset, where you don't pause between sets. With regular strength training, some agility work can do wonders not only when it comes to preventing injuries, but also for expending energy efficiently and quickly.
WATT IN THE IRON TEMPLE
Of course, there are free weights and all the traditional lifts as well. The trainer provided Watt with the following numbers:
- Power cleans at 380 to 400 pounds
- Back squats at 700 pounds
- Bench press at 400 to 500 pounds
Watt's maximums aren't higher than this, either; rather, these lifts are part of his general training. Despite Watts being able to go heavier, the focus is on the repetitions and the variation.Variation increases range of motion, especially beneficial for someone in a contact sport like football, where injuries are common. It's well complemented by the functional workouts we looked at above, and it helps to train all of the muscles we don't usually think about, which are very crucial when working at the level Watt is.
When it comes to muscular endurance, lower-than-max-weight and higher rep counts are beneficial. Watt not only has to expend that explosive energy at a moment's notice, but he has to do it over and over again throughout the match.Then, at least 15 minutes of cool-down follow, where he stretches and ensures that he recovers quickly. For someone who regularly has two of these 90-minute training sessions a day, cooldowns and recovery periods are crucial for a well-functioning body.
A ROUTINE FIT FOR WATT
Watt usually divides his workout sessions into upper- and lower-body sessions. Furthermore, he'll try to have days for training strength and other days for training endurance. Therefore, one leg day might see him doing lighter loads and more repetitions to build up his muscular endurance, whereas the next leg day he might do heavier loads and fewer repetitions and sets.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ov5IyIbkCW8
Stretch and warm-up before you begin. Using a foam roller, Watt works on releasing adhesions and softening muscles.UPPER BODY WORKOUTSWeighted Shoulder Roll: 10 reps x 2 setsAs a mobility exercise that warms up the shoulder, scapula, and upper back, the shoulder roll (with kettlebells or dumbbells) is a great way to start your workout.Incline Bench Press: 6 reps x 2 setsIt's the classic bench press, but with a twist. By working on an incline, you are better able to focus on your upper pecs.Dumbbell Floor Press: 8 reps x 8 setsFloor presses are more primitive versions of bench presses, which require you to feel the movement in the chest and triceps. In addition, floor presses help you improve the stability of your shoulders and core. The use of dumbbells instead of barbells supplements this benefit and strengthens your weaker side.Fat-bar Pull-up: 10 reps x 3 setsThe benefits of a classic pull-up include a strong upper back, triceps, and core, but using a fat bar will also engage your forearms because it'll be more difficult to grip. Watt, however, doesn't seem to have much trouble with his giant hands.
Chest-supported T-bar Rows: 12 reps x 3 setsYour back is the focus here, which includes the lats, teres major, traps, and erector spinae. Furthermore, you will also engage your biceps, abs, glutes, and hamstrings.Straight-arm Lat Pulldown: 10 reps x 3 setsThe straight-arm pulldown, as its name suggests, is one in which the elbows are kept locked the entire time. With this exercise, the lats are emphasized more than in a regular lat pulldown since the range of motion is greater.TRX Arm Curl: 12 reps x 3 setsUsing a suspension cable to perform a bicep curl forces your stabilizers to work harder, especially your core. These adjustable bands can be easily tailored to different experience levels, and they're sure to give you a great compound workout.Band External Rotation: 10 reps x 3 setsAn excellent way to finish off your workout while hitting your delts and improving your range of motion at the same time.Tempo Run: 40 yds at 75% max speed x 8 timesYou should run a tempo run at a pace that's 25 to 30 seconds slower than your quickest 5k time. As a result, your body can expel as much lactate as it produces, allowing you to keep a steady pace for a longer period of time.
LOWER BODY WORKOUTS
Safety Bar Box Squats: 3 reps x 6 setsWhen using the safety bar, more weight is placed forward on the body, so the whole back, glutes, and hamstrings are put under more tension. As you sit on a box between phases of a squat, you're forced to develop explosive "upward" strength rather than relying on the elastic bounce effect at the bottom of a squat.Safety Bar Chaos Reverse Lunges: 6-8/leg x 3 setsBecause of the inability of the knees to extend past the toes, the reverse lunge is less strenuous on the knees. The kettlebells will be attached to the bar (the "chaos"), so more of your stabilizers will be engaged throughout the movement.Partner-assisted Dynamic Kettlebell Swings: 10-12 x 4 setsExercises that emphasize hip motion and legs can also be done with a partner pushing the weight toward you in order to add some tension and train your stabilizers at the same time.Litvinov Prowler Sprints: 20 yards x 6There are two parts to this exercise. The first part involves holding onto a kettlebell and jumping five times.
Once you have completed that, push the 20-yard sled as fast as you can. In addition to burning your legs during this exercise, it is also an excellent way to condition your body. The length of Watt's rest between sets is 40 seconds, corresponding to the NFL's play clock. This is done in order to simulate the environment of a real NFL game.He finishes each of his workouts with a 15-minute cool-down. Don't forget that he works out twice a day, so you need to double everything. Wishing you the best!Those were the workouts that J.J. Watt does in his daily life. He is quite consistent about it too. But how? He shares some of his favorite tips down below which will help you understand how he manages to have the best of his workouts every single time!
J.J. Watt Workout Tips and Tricks
In this section, we will learn about some of the tips that J.J. Watt has given out to his fans and family. He shares the following tips so that he could be on the top of his league.
Can’t Get Enough
Watt is passionate about working out. Whether it is foam rolling or muscle stimulation drills, he is enthusiastic about everything. The majority of Watt's routines are the same as they have been since he graduated high school. He's also still working out with Brad Arnett.In an interview about JJ Watt's workout he explained, “As a fitness writer for the past 23 years, I have told many people about their workouts. I have never heard anyone speak so passionately about the most mundane parts of his program – from foam rolling (he uses his battery-powered Hyperis vapor at the beginning and end of the exercise) to consciousness and muscle.”I have exercises for you to activate. Men's Health always shows them in the right place so you can leave your past behind. Their mundane lifestyle is largely due to what they do. “It’s boring, that’s why a lot of people don’t want to do it,” JJ Watt added. Here is all about JJ Watt's workout.
Be A Role Model
During Watt's workouts, novices are right next to him. Even though it's been years, he hasn't forgotten that he was once one of them.
Finely Tuned to Feedback
Watt is incredibly tuned in to what his body is telling him, and he makes constant adjustments in order to keep things running smoothly. Among Watt's feats are flipping a 1000-lb tractor tire, benching 225 pounds 34 times, and squatting 700 pounds. Additionally, he has a vertical jump of 61 inches.“I’m like a racecar driver,” he exclaimed. Similarly, a driver can immediately tell whether something is wrong with his brakes or tires, or if some parts of his frame are air-resistant, so he can tell if a muscle is stiffer than normal, or if it is less balanced or not as efficient as it should be.“If I think everyone has more work to do, it’s mobility,” Arnett said. “Athletes who are tight will always fight on their own. They will weaken, their body will become fat, and eventually, they will get hurt.” Read this article to learn about JJ Watt's exercises.
Train Like A Beast
It takes Watt 90 minutes to complete a training session. During his first stretching session he uses a foam roller, and then he moves on to footwork and resistance bands.Strengthen The CoreDuring his recovery from back surgery, Watt took up exercises that strengthened his core instead of heavy lifting. The stronger and more stable your core is, the more ability it has to transmit power.
Recover
Watt makes sure he gives himself time for stretching and recovery so that he is in tip-top shape at all times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdzvvwxpjUsThat was all about the workout and the tips that he has to give out to his fans and people who follow him. In the next section, we will also talk about the diet plan that he follows so that he could stay fit and active in the gym. So take a read in the section below.
J.J. Watt Diet Plan
The amount of food Watt consumes each day is staggering. Because of this, Watt refers to eating as a chore. Throughout the day, he eats two breakfasts, two lunches, and two dinners that are all enormous. He eats oatmeal, eggs, chicken breasts, and a variety of veggies, all of which are whole, natural, and clean. He now eats around 5,000 calories daily, but he used to eat more after his trainer noticed there was something missing from his workouts. That something was an extra 4,000 calories. As part of his 9,000-calorie diet, he followed a semi-keto, semi-Paleo diet, consuming lots of fats in the form of avocados, olive oil, and bacon, and consuming few carbs, eating only natural, whole ones, like sweet potatoes.
What to Eat
- Oatmeal
- Eggs
- Fruit
- Wheat Bread
- Peanut Butter
- Honey
- Chicken Breast
- Vegetables
- Sweet Potatoes
- Lamb
- Steak
- Whole Wheat Pasta
What to Avoid
- Processed Foods
- Refined Sugar
- Junk Food
- Starchy ‘White’ Carbs
- Hydrogenated Oils
- Dairy
As a defensive end who weighs 288 pounds and stands 6 feet 5 inches tall, it's no surprise he burns 9,000 calories a day. With his speed, strength, and size Watt needs just the right amount of fuel to work hard and perform well. The trainer, Brad Arnett, noticed Watt's performance slipping back in February, and Watt picked this up.Watt explains, “My body was grabbing for something that wasn’t there. It was trying to fuel itself with no fuel.” There is only one solution to this problem: cheat days and more calories. Arnett explained to Watt that he had to wrap several chicken breasts with bacon each day in order to eat several breasts at one meal. In addition to doubling the fat content, the portion sizes for sweet potatoes, pasta, fish, and avocados were also doubled. Matt ate avocados like they were his job.
From that day back in February, Watt's calorie intake increased drastically by 6,000 to 9,000 calories per day, depending on his activity level. The 9,000 calories Watt had consumed came from fifty slices of bacon, 20 chicken breasts, and 13 whole avocados. It wasn't long before cheat days returned, and brunch was reinstituted as a weekly dietary requirement. “Brunch is my favorite meal, had a massive potato pancake omelet. Then I had stuffed French toast with berries and stuff. The omelet is still pretty darn healthy. The stuffed French toast was the cheat meal, but that was delicious,” adds Watt.A new favorite has been added to his list: barbecue. During his time working for the Food Network, Watt became close to chef Ronnie Killen, owner of Killen's Barbecue, voted one of America's top five barbecue restaurants. Killen sends Watt smoked turkey and lean beef brisket. It is Watt's preference to keep meat simple without sauces.Besides Watt, there are other athletes who indulge in calories. Swimming star Michael Phelps ate up to 12,000 calories each day during his training for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. Yet Watt finds eating 9,000 calories challenging, “If I’m not working out, I eat the whole time I’m not working out. It’s exhausting. You have to force-feed.”Watt saw food only as fuel when he was a player in the NFL, spending most of his time following a low-carb diet. The diet had helped him become a two-time defensive player of the year and candidate for the league MVP, but now it doesn't work for him. With the help of his trainer, Watt made some changes: he increased the caloric count and included cheat meals. He soon had more energy, and the extra fat content gave him a better ability to absorb nutrients from other meals - such that he could now smash workouts and training camps.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4G5YF2cszM
Breakfast
- Oatmeal with blueberry and strawberry.
- Six eggs.
- Banana and apples.
This is a breakfast diet that is consumed by JJ Watt. Watt consumes breakfast twice a day. Let's see what it contains.
Second breakfast
- 4 eggs.
- Two slices of brown toast with peanut butter and banana and honey.
- Two slices of brown toast with jelly.
Those are JJ Watt's food choices for the second breakfast.
Lunch
- Whole wheat pasta and three chicken breasts with Italian dressing.
- On the side of broccoli. This is included in ‘JJ Watt diet plan for lunch’
The second meal
- More chicken breast with mashed potatoes
- Boiled carrots
- Feast
- Lamb chops with whole wheat pasta
- Roasted asparagus.
The second banquet
- Filter with whole wheat pasta
- Steam broccoli
A 6-foot-5, 289-pound defensive end's day begins with 900 calories of oatmeal and a half dozen eggs in the morning. Then he eats another breakfast with four or five more eggs, which means he consumes a carton of eggs every day. This is the kind of breakfast Gaston eats.
Watt must consume 5,000 calories a day to be effective since he is a defensive lineman. The problem is that he has been doing this for so long that he has stopped counting and is feeling overworked.JJ Watt stated, “I’m not strict on my calorie count. I’m only focusing on my body. Over the years I’ve learned a lot about nutrition and about myself, so it’s very much based on feeling”. “I stopped putting a number on it because people were doing a lot of analysis on it,” he concluded. Specifically, this is an overview of the JJ Watt Diet Plan. As we saw from the section above, J.J. Watt is not about having complicated meals. He has healthy and wholesome meals which keep him energetic and strong in the gym too. In the next section, however, we will talk about the diet tips that keep him at the top of his league.
J.J. Watt Diet Tips
This section consists of the diet tips that he gives out to his fans. For J.J. Watt, diet plays an important role because it helps him achieve his goals faster. So take a read ahead:
Beefy Breakfast
The first meal of the day for Watt is a half-dozen eggs and oatmeal, which provides him with 900 calories. For his second breakfast, Watt eats another 4-5 eggs.Load Up On LunchThe lunch menu includes 3 chicken breasts, whole wheat pasta, Italian dressing, and broccoli. During the second lunch, more chicken breasts are served with sweet potatoes and carrots.
Dive Into Dinner
A protein-packed dinner awaits Watt. He is serving lamb chops with whole wheat pasta and asparagus. Another dinner might include a steak filet, more pasta, and steamed broccoli.
No Need To Cheat
Because Watt needs to eat and fuel up all day long, cheating is not an issue, but he does his best to eat clean. However, Crunch Berries cereal is one of his favorite 'cheats.'These were all the tips that J.J. Watt has to share with his fans and people who look up to him for fitness. However, he also shares the last part of the article, which is his supplements. J.J. Watt is not too huge about them, but he likes to take the basics to amp up his nutrition!
J.J. Watt Nutrition and Supplements
However, even though JJ Watt tries to limit his supplement consumption, anyone trying to build muscle must take several supplements, including whey protein, creatine, and BCAAs.As well as helping muscles grow, these supplements repair muscle damage. By taking BCAAs, you prevent muscle breakdown while collagen keeps your joints healthy.If you want to gain weight quickly, I'd recommend taking a protein supplement to build some muscle mass.
BCAAS
Watt keeps his supplements under wraps, but anyone looking to build muscle will most likely want to take a protein supplement, which has creatine for muscle development, BCAAs for muscle preservation, and collagen for keeping joints healthy. Try a weight gainer if you need help gaining weight, but don't want to spend all your spare time eating.