Joe Rogan’s Workout Is Just As Intense As You’d Think

When talking to Bryan Callen about weightlifting a few years back, Rogan mentioned that he never deadlifted his max. He talked about believing in doing less often and never going all out, a philosophy that he credited Pavel Tsatsouline with. Tsatsouline preaches that you should never work your muscles to the point of failure but that shorter sets of workouts are more efficient and optimal.

“Say if I can do ten reps of something, I never do ten. I do five,” he told Bryan. “If I’m doing 90lb clean press squats, I can probably do ten of those, but I only do four, maybe five… I don’t believe in going to failure. What I think is, you’re (better) off doing fewer repetitions more often.”

When Joe had Firas Zahabi on the Joe Rogan Experience a little while later, Firas talked about flow training, and if you ever feel sore after a workout, you’ve done too much. Joe was receptive to the idea.

However, Joe does do some things that seem insane to the normal person. He talked about deadlifting 450lbs with a hex bar. He said, “it’s not that much weight,” and attributed it to deadlifting for a long time. “I started out deadlifting 225, and then I went up to three plates, and now I do four plates and a little bit more.” He acknowledged that he got to a solid proficiency in lifting before he got heavy and that he only does two or three reps at a time.

Joe wears many hats in his career, and the same goes for his workout regimen. On his show with Henry Rollins in the summer of 2018, Joe spoke to the diversity of his exercise schedule. “There are some things that I really have to do. I think I need at least one day of hard cardio a week, and I think I need at least one day of hard lifting weights a week, but I also think I need at least one day of yoga a week, at least.”

Yoga is perhaps one of the more surprising things on the list, but Joe says it’s one of the most important things that he does, speaking to the peace and meditation aspect of it.

He does hot yoga for 90 minutes at 104 degrees and has talked about how it’s incredibly hard to go through, but once it’s done, you feel better. “I just feel like, for a guy like you or I who used to do a lot of heavy lifting, deadlifts, and squats, this is the antidote for all that stuff. It’s decompression, and for your body maintenance, it’s just phenomenal.”

If you’re reading this and are skeptical about how intense and/or rewarding hot yoga could really be, the following quote from Joe should shatter that perception. “It fucking sucks. While you’re doing it, the internal dialogue is crazy. You wanna bolt, but you also start going over your life and your mind and dealing with all your bullshit and your to-do list and all the things you’re doing wrong… There’s something about really struggling in these static positions… Sweat is literally pouring off your arms and your head. There’s something about it that’s really cleansing.”

Back in April, Joe had Greg Fitzsimmons on the podcast, and the pair talked about working out during the pandemic. Joe said that his workout had barely changed because he’s lucky enough to have a home gym, but he did have some advice for training with few resources for those who don't.

He recommended press-ups with variations (like Hindu press-ups, diamond press-ups, and wall press-ups), lunges, and Hindu squats for cardio. He also spoke to the significance of a kettlebell and a good chin-up bar and has previously said that that’s all you really need for a good workout.

In terms of his own schedule, Rogan still runs the hills with his dog and trains Jiu-Jitsu whenever he can. He also talked about doing one hundred Hindu squats and how hard it is. We got tired just hearing about it. “It’s pretty easy for the first ten… thirty, ‘ooh this is some work’… you get to a hundred Hindu squats, and your thighs are fucking burning.”

For as much as Joe Rogan believes in and talks about training, his schedule certainly backs it up.