Blast from The Past-the 2017 Achilles Program

The Original Looksmaxxing Program

Has it really been 9 years? Yes it has.

It feels like a lifetime ago now. I was in my first year of working online and establishing my brand.

I was 28 at the time, single, and my only goal was to make enough money for a studio apartment and my car payment.

My audience was younger then, predominantly young men in their 20s like myself.

Now Im married with children, have a house and land, and 100x more responsibility.

And it was all catalyzed by the success of Achilles.

The original Achilles program was a hit, selling over 300 copies the first month. Over the years I would update it multiple times, and now all the guys who grew up idolizing Brad Pitt in Fight Club or Troy are at least 35-50 years old.

Were “Uncs” as the kids say.

The OG program is still fantastic. There are lots of edits I would make, but hey, it was my first time writing a program for the mass.

Its high volume, trains the hell out of upper body, and you cant do it for more than 12 weeks, otherwise you’ll overtrain chest and shoulder and your elbow joints. Regardless, guys loved it and produced numerous transformations.

Ironically, it somewhat predicted the rise of “Looksmaxxing” today, as I emphasized Pitts innate genetics, proportions, hair, and the whole program orientation was aesthetic improvement.

The OG Achilles Program

This program was inspired by my many interactions and conversations with young men who have inquired how to look like Brad Pitt when he played Achilles in the film “Troy”.

While this program origin may seem gimmicky, I assure you it is not.

Brad Pitt’s physique and general athleticism shown in the film is actually an excellent example of functional athletic strength, real world aesthetic sex appeal, and masculine confidence that appeals to men and is very attractive to women.

While Brad Pitt certainly has won the genetic lottery in having almost universally appealing good looks, his actual bodytype is nothing exceptional in regards to muscle building potential or strength.

He is a “skinny white boy” of average height, and would probably be considered to have “hardgainer” genetics.

He has over many years built up his physique, and as a fitness professional, his “results” do not look to be the outcome of anabolics, but simply the product of consistent training.

He has trained hard and his physique shows this.

The “Ideal” Male Body

While muscleheads will argue that Pitt is a twerp and is skinny, the reality is that his body has almost universal appeal.

I’ve been training clients for 8 years, and to this day, men still comment that they wish they could look like Brad Pitt in Fight Club or Troy, or Snatch, or Fury (most recently).

I believe Pitt’s physique is so appealing specifically because it is the attainable “ideal” body of an average sized man.

Pitt is 5’10, looks to weigh between 155-175 lbs, and while his abdominal definition is largely genetic, he does not look “freaky” or outsized to an extent that your average guy could not look at his body and believe “I could look like that”.

What makes his bodytype so appealing?

And what does an “Ideal” Male body actually look like?

A few key factors

1. Adonis Index Ratio

This a mathematical proportion between your waist and your shoulders. This proportion IDEALLY should follow the “Golden Ratio” of 1.618.

What this means is that your shoulder circumference (measured from around he medial deltoid and across the nipple line and upper back) should be 1.618 times larger than your waist.

This roughly equates to a 20 inch difference between your shoulders and your waist. While Pitt does not have humongous shoulders, he has a very small waist, and his shoulders well defined, which makes him look bigger than he is.

2. Chest, Arms, Abs

Guess which body parts women rank as sexiest on a man? Chest, arms, abs, in that order.

Trust my research on this one. There are 1,001 articles on what women physically want, and chest/arms/abs comes up on ALL of them.

What stands out on Pitt?

Chest (well defined looking, but again, not huge), arms (cut, but not massive bis or tris), and abs (obviously).

I would include shoulders in this (most women know ZERO about anatomy and probably were thinking of both) and group them together with chest.

If your abs, chest/shoulders, and arms are “muscular” and lean, you will look sexually appealing to literally 99% of women.

3. Height, and Hair

Alright, so there is nothing that can be done about making you truly physically taller, but you can make yourself APPEAR taller by changing your body.

How so?

Big shoulders, small waist.

Have a V-Taper physique will streamline your body and will lead people to assume you are taller than you are.

And what about hair?

I mention hair not because I am an expert on male style, but because of one Pitts key traits is his hair is always very well styled and distinct.

The man literally has never had a bad haircut.

At the same time, women rank “hair” very highly as an attractive trait. My suggestion to you then is to get your hair styled in such a way that is complementary to your facial features.

This could also even make you look taller, and even bigger. Having long hair myself (which I meticulously take care of), I can attest that people routinely estimate my height and weight to be 20-30lbs heavier and 1-2 inches taller than I actually am.

For the record, I am 6’1 and 205 lbs. Yet people often ask if I am 6’3 and 220lbs.

This is not by accident. I have trained in such a way as to look much bigger than I am, and this effect is amplified by my body language (I move very BIG) and making sure the mane always looks good.

Genetics and the Time It Takes To Build An Ideal Physique

I had to hunt through a lot of photos, but I found enough to create a timelines of Brad’s physique development.

I show this purposely so you can have realistic expectations about what YOUR body can look like.

This program, while effective, is not an overnight transformation.

Pitt does have good genetics, but he is also interesting because as you will see, he really didnt appear to start lifting till his mid 30s.

Here is Pitt in 1990, when he was 27 years old. What we see here is that he clearly has never carried much fat in his stomach at all, and probably always has some level abdominal definition.

His bodyfat% is probably no more than 11% at any given time.

This is notable, because many of you will have to diet to have abs.

We all also see though that he is NOT a “big guy” by any means, far from it.

He looks like he was incredibly skinny and would barely fill out a schmedium shirt. He has no real muscle to his physique at all.

He’s lean, but skinny guy lean, and he looks like maybe he runs and does pushups and situps once in awhile.

He was 27 years old when this film was made, so you young guys that feel like you are behind you really are not.

Moving forward to years, here is Pitt at age 29.

And age 34.

Again, no real muscle mass AT ALL

It is not until 1999 in fact that Brad Pitt has ANY muscle at all, and this was for Fight Club.

While I do think he “worked” out through his 20s and 30s with regular cardio, it’s quite likely he never really lifted weights till he was THIRTY SIX and had to be in “fighting shape” for Fight Club.

His look in this film become iconic; abs, chest, and shoulders, and leaner than he had ever been prior.

While this body might seem unattainable, Brad’s weight during the film was reported to be between 150-155 pounds, at 5-6% bodyfat.

Again, that is a SKINNY guy.

His training was at least 50% martial arts, so he definitely got a hell of alot of cardio in.

His lifting program is laughable at how “Bro” it is. He trained ONE muscle group per day, with 3 sets of 15 reps, one exercise at a time.

All the links to his original program no longer work. It was a 5-6 day a week bro split with 3 sets of 15 for every exercise, at about 12-15 sets per muscle

He put on some muscle mass, but it was probably no more than 10-15lbs from what he weighed prior. '

He likely “recomped” his weight, losing 3-5 lbs and gaining 8-10lbs of muscle.

He trained around 6 months before filming began, which is a reasonable estimate of time given his genetics and overall look he had in the film.

What stood out to me most prominently was how simple this routine was.

3 sets of 15, 4-5 exercises a workout.

For a beginner who has never really lifted, this is not a bad starting point.

Would I suggest you do this program?

Maybe, maybe not, there are a few factors that must be kept in mind

1. Pitt is naturally VERY lean, and he’s got good separation between muscles. A little muscle goes a long way on his physique, more so than most people.

2. While high reps DO work for muscle mass, a MIXED approach can produce superior strength and size results. Changing rep schemes periodically keeps the stimulus novel and effective

3. Training higher frequency (training a muscle twice a week) produces more results than once a week, especially for a novice.

So it is an effective program, but do not think it is the “ultimate” workout by any means.

Following Fight Club, Pitt appeared in Snatch, this time as an Irish Traveler bare knuckle fighting champion.

He was not as lean as Fight Club, but he had more “size” this time around (relatively speaking. We are talking about a 165lb man here).

What really stands out is his chest, shoulders, and traps.

Compared to his 20s, they are visibly thicker with muscle.

His arms also are larger overall, although his biceps and triceps are not particularly developed.

Now, his next iconic look would not be until Troy in 2004, a full 5 years after Fight Club.

What made such a difference? MUSCLE MASS.

Pitt finally had some “density” in his chest, shoulders, arms, and overall body. He actually has forearms muscles for the first time in this film.

How did he train for this role? He hired a trainer, a gentleman by the name of Gregory Joujon-Roche. Now, I honestly don’t know how truthful this routine is.

There are no direct sources, no direct interviews, and the trainer passed away from cancer some years back.

Still, after a lot of sleuthing, I found the supposed routine online.

Word of warning, the given routine is 2-3 hours a day, and I seriously question the accuracy.

Having been a trainer myself in Hollywood, there is a tradition of highly embellishing actors transformation programs.

And this program looks like semi bullshit, semi total fabrication.

“Roche, who charges $5,000 per week, also came with access to a masseuse, nutritionist, martial arts instructor, yoga instructor, and core trainer”

Maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not. The routine itself is wildly imbalanced, with no posterior chain or back work at all.

The lifting focuses entirely on shoulders/chest, has ONE arm day, abs, and shoulders/chest again.

He apparently also did nothing but circuits to failure, and no sets or reps or given. The leg training is entirely cardiovascular, and he never did ANY free weight exercises for legs other than leg extensions.

The weight workouts are all preceded by an hour of interval cardio.

What does stand out is the “boxing” workouts of doing weighted punches, and the sword fighting training.

I’ve had many boxers attest that this is an effective an arm and shoulder builder. Additionally, learning to handle a sword is very upper body intensive, so this may have been responsible for his muscular development more than anything else.

The whole thing looks absurdly difficult on paper, and it would be incredibly exhausting, not to mention highly catabolic and downright lousy for muscle growth.

Maybe he did do this, maybe not.

If I ever meet Brad Pitt, I’ll ask him.

What can we learn from this though

-Interval cardio works really really well for torching through calories and bodyfat

-When in doubt, high volume training works for making things happen faster

-Training 6 days weekly is likely to produce some kind of result if nothing else

Training To Be Achilles

Now that you have a thorough overview of the ideal male physique, Pitts physical history and training, and insight into what to emphasize in training, let us finally get to the program

The

-This program is upper body centric, that much should be obvious. Im designed this on the predication that

A) you don’t have bird legs and terrible lower body mobility

B) your lower body is not wildly disproportionate with your upper body

C) you know your way around a gym and are not a total novice that has never touched a weight in your life

This program is meant to emphasize chest, arms, shoulders, and abs, and you hopefully will look much improved with your shirt off at the end of it.

This is muscle gaining program, not a strength program.

While you can expect to get stronger, do not think this is any kind of “big 3” program for your squat, bench, and deadlift. It is not.

This program is 12 weeks long, and consists of three phases.

Each phase lasts for 4 weeks.

You will see that the same movements are done phase to phase, but different rep ranges.

Month 1 is all high reps, month 2 is moderate reps and higher volume sets, and month 3 is high volume sets but lower reps on all compound movements.

You will start with hypertrophy and end focusing more on strength.

Along with lifting, you are training abs. And train them A lot.

You are train abs 5 days a week, and you will alternate between upper abs, lower abs, and obliques.

This ends up being very simple, as you each time you go to the gym, you will pick an exercise, do 4 sets of it, and then be done.

Overall your abs will get 20 working sets a week.

For cardio, you have 3 days of assigned workouts.

This can be done with your lifting, or be done entirely separate.

You can conceivably train every day with this program, or group cardio and lifting together and keep it to 5 days.

Word of warning, I would not consider this an “easy” program by any means.

You will be in the gym A LOT.

You have the option of only doing the lifting, and disregarding the cardio entirely.

The training frequency changes through the program, with the first 2 months being major emphasis on upper body.

Weeks 1-4: You train lower body once a week, and upper body TWICE a week.

Weeks 5-8-You train Chest, Shoulders, and Arms, twice weekly, and back and legs ONCE weekly

Weeks 9-12: You train each muscle group once a week, Legs, Chest, Shoulders, Back,Arms

The Program