Sheamus on Finding the Drive to Train Again, How You Train Smarter When You Get Older

– Men’s Health recently interviewed WWE Supersar Sheamus, who discussed being burnt out by training and finding the drive to get back in the gym, along with how he trains smarter now that he’s older, and what he does to avoid his neck issues. Below are some highlights:

Sheamus on how he started getting burned out from training: “I was dreading going into the gym to the same boring stuff, the same workouts, the same thing over and over again. I lost my motivation. I started doing these kind of cool, outside workouts with sleds, battling ropes, and wall balls—that sort of stuff, you know? And I was like, this is fun. This is how workouts should be.”

On his physical trainer: “I have a trainer. It’s actually John Cena’s trainer, and also he does a lot of work with other guys. His name is Rob MacIntyre. It’s a four day split: legs, back and bis, shoulders, chest and tris.”

On training smarter as he gets older: “The older you get, the smarter you get. You have to know your limitations. So what do I want to do? Do I want to throw big, heavy weights around the gym? Do I want to start sumo squatting, like 600 pounds? Squat like 400 to 500 pounds? No, I don’t. I want my longevity. I want my workouts to compliment my ringwork. So I need to be smarter. So I don’t have any ego throwing weights around. I don’t need to do that anymore. To me, it’s how I look in there, how I move. I also want to look aesthetically good. So a lot of it is diet as well. So, you know, no sugar, cut back on alcohol—which obviously hasn’t gone well this last wedding week—got to get back on track with that because alcohol causes a lot of inflammation. So does sugar.”