You’ve probably watched the high-flying blockbuster Top Gun: Maverick by now and thus already said to yourself during its shirtless beach scene: “Damn, Miles Teller must work out!” Indeed, the actor picked up a truly intense fitness regimen in preparation for the role of naval flight officer Bradley ‘Rooster’ Bradshaw, son of Goose from the original film. Between the sequel’s built-in mythology, audience expectations, flight training, and his appearance alongside some guy by the name of Tom Cruise (perhaps you’ve heard of him?), let’s just say Teller had both some big shoes to fill and some big muscles to fill out. Oh, and a big Miles Teller moustache to grow, naturally. We can’t help you grow the moustache (or can we?), but we can definitely help you achieve a worthy shirtless beach bod of your own. Enter the Miles Teller Top Gun workout and diet plan. Here’s everything you need to know.
Miles Teller Diet and Nutrition Plan
Standing tall at just over six feet in height, Miles Teller normally weighs around 185 pounds. For the occasionally shirtless role in Top Gun: Maverick, he was tasked with bringing that weight up to about 210 pounds with just 9 per cent body fat. He enlisted the help of trainer Jason Walsh and nutritionist Ornella Sofitchouk of the fitness company Rise Nation for an effective bulk-up-shred-down nutrition plan.
Extreme fitness was the name of the game from the get-go and it applied to Teller’s diet as much as it did his workout. In an interview with JOE UK, Teller explained that to coincide with an intense exercise routine, he took in lots of protein along with curated selections of carbs, fats, and veggies. Sugar was more or less off the table and so too were excessive amounts of salt. Once the actor was properly bulked up, he reduced his intake so as to turn the excess weight into pure muscle. Interestingly, Teller revealed that his inspiration for the cut was Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine.
“Everything Hugh Jackman was doing in The Wolverine, you try and figure out what that stuff is,” Teller said. “And then oddly enough, when you’re on set that day when your body’s been deprived of sugar and sodium and all these things, you drink a can of Coke and your body gets all that sugar, everything tightens up. And so you get this certain kind of vascular look that looks good on screen.”
While there is no set diet structure available, the basic outline for Miles Teller’s diet is relatively straightforward. Here’s a meal plan provided by Men’s Journal, which offers a sample day in Teller’s life at the height of his bulking-up phase:
- Breakfast: 1 egg, 5 egg whites, 1.5 cups spinach, and half an avocado
- Post-workout: protein shake
- Lunch #1: 5oz chicken breast, half a sweet potato, kale, lemon, and olive oil
- Lunch #2: 5oz chicken breast, half a sweet potato, kale, lemon, and olive oil
- Dinner: 20oz fish or steak, brown rice, and grilled bell peppers
Miles Teller ‘Top Gun’ Workout Routine
Eating was the fun part and now it’s time to get down to business. You’ve got an important game of shirtless beach football coming up, after all, and only a Miles Teller workout is going to get you there. Thankfully, aforementioned personal trainer Jason Walsh was willing to share some of his secrets.
“Miles told me he was going to be put through overwater survival training and pulling lots of Gs while filming,” Walsh explained to Men’s Journal. In other words, Teller’s character needed to withstand various forces, including gravity. For Walsh, that meant implementing an extreme fitness regimen that went heavy on weightlifting and core strengthening.
So went a rigorous 10-week program, which sent Teller through boot camp-style survival training in addition to various strength-based routines. The goal was to achieve “total-body mobility” and a muscle-packed body that would practically leap off the screen. While the end result wasn’t quite as rippling as say Chris Hemsworth in Thor or The Rock in Black Adam, what Teller left with was a seriously functional and lean physique. With an extremely low body fat percentage, Teller was able to capture a look that echoed the mobile, hyper-athletic nature of Rooster.
Walsh was kind enough to share an example of Teller’s daily strength training regimen from when the actor was preserving muscle mass while trimming the fat. We’ll follow that with an example of Teller’s Top Gun bodyweight workout. Here we go.
Daily Strength Training
After 20 minutes of warm-up cardio (on a VersaClimber or analogous machine), Teller performed an EMOM (every minute on the minute) superset workout. This is where you alternate between two exercises at the top of every minute and use any leftover time to rest before moving on to the next set of reps.
Specifically, Teller performed 4 reps of the 1A exercise at the top of one minute and then 4 reps of the 1B exercise at the top of the next minute. He continued to alternate until completing 10 sets over the course of 20 minutes.
EMOM can be quite extreme so consider starting small before working your way up to any of the following routines. Teller was using 95-pound dumbbells for one exercise but Walsh suggests choosing weights that are approximately 75 per cent of your maximum capacity. Here are the exercises Teller performed:
Superset 1: 10 x 4 reps
- 1A – Trap Bar Deadlift: Load the proper weight onto the trap bar, then position yourself in the middle of the bar with your feet hip-width apart. Grip the handles and hinge at your hips and keep your eyes forward, chest up, and back flat as you push through to a stand. Tighten your glutes at the top, pause briefly, then return to the starting position.
- 1B – Dumbbell Bench Press: Sit at the end of a flat bench and place a dumbbell on each knee. Thrust your knees up to empower movement as you lie on your back and bring the dumbbells over your chest with your palms facing out. Lower the dumbbells to your chest while rotating your palms toward one another. Press the dumbbells up as you extend your arms until they’re straight, rotate the palms outward, and keep the core tight.
EMOM Superset 2: 10 x 4 reps
- 2A – Romanian Deadlift: Stand with your feet hip-width apart and your lower back arched as you hold a barbell with your hands shoulder-width apart. Hinge your hips back as far as possible and bend your knees as necessary while lowering the bar along the shin line until you feel a stretch in the hamstrings.
- 2B – Dumbbell Shoulder Press: Keep your feet shoulder-width apart and hold the dumbells next to your shoulders with your palms facing forward and your elbows bent at a 90-degree angle. Press the dumbbells upward, extending through your elbows as you straighten your arms. Take the dumbbells as far as you can upward without having them touch, then slowly return to the starting position.
EMOM Superset 3: 10 x 4 reps
- 3A – Rear-Foot-Elevated Split Squat: Face away from a flat bench with a dumbbell in each hand. Assume the forward lunge position while putting one foot on the bench behind you (laces downward) and your hands on either side of your torso. Keep your core tight and torso straight as you lower your body until your forward leg is more or less parallel to the floor. Pause and then drive upward through the front foot heel. Finish half the reps on one side before alternating to the other side.
- 3B – Bentover Barbell Row: Keep your lower back in a natural arch as you grab a barbell, with your hands slightly wider than shoulder-width apart. Extend your hips and knees to stand and assume a deadlift position. Bend at the knees until your torso is approximately 45 degrees to the floor. Hang your arms straight down on either side, keep your eyes fixed on the floor, and squeeze your shoulder blades together as you bring the barbell up to your sternum. Lower and repeat.
Bodyweight Circuit
In addition to his general strength training, Teller reportedly also employed a fairly intense bodyweight regime, focusing on endurance performance and hypertrophy. After a 600-800 metre warm-up run, Teller performed the following bodyweight circuit.
- Flutter Kicks – 40 reps
- Bench Dips – 20 reps
- Bodyweight Squats – 20 reps
- Feet-Elevated Pushups – 25 reps
- Alternating Reverse Lunge – 25 reps
Who is Miles Teller?
Height: 6 foot 1 inch
Weight: typically 185 pounds
Age: 35 years old
Occupation: actor
Before diving into the ridiculous training regime of the Top Gun actor, it’s worth revisiting how Miles Teller came to be Rooster. Born in Pennsylvania, Teller moved to Florida at the age of 12 with his family. A teen of many talents, he tackled everything from theatre to music to athletics while still in high school. He further pursued acting at NYU’s prestigious Tisch School of the Arts and made his major film debut just one year after graduation, in the 2010 drama Rabbit Hole.
In 2014, Teller called upon both his acting chops and musical skills to deliver a breakout performance in the sensational drama Whiplash. It kicked off a somewhat uneven career trajectory that seemed like it could go either way. Appearances in the successful Divergent trilogy certainly bolstered his bank account but didn’t necessarily empower his star momentum. And the less said about 2015’s The Fantastic Four, the better.
Miles Teller’s movie career continued down the road of uncertainty with a series of positively reviewed, but relatively underseen biopics. One of them was 2017’s Bleed Like This, which found him playing a muscular boxer and may have provided an early foundation for the Top Gun workout covered in this very article. According to legend, he spent five months training for the role of comeback kid Vinny Pazienza. A terrific performance perhaps, but it didn’t generate the kind of buzz among audiences that it arguably deserved.
With a notable role in the recent mini-series The Offer and his starring turn in Top Gun: Maverick, Miles Teller appears to be back on the upswing. One might say he’s now in the best shape of his life both figuratively and literally. Miles Teller’s wife—the lovely Keleigh Sperry—is yet one more thing that’s surely putting a smile on his face. Things are looking pretty, pretty good for the actor right now.
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The Rock’s Diet and Workout Plan
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Brad Pitt’s ‘Fight Club’ Diet & Workout Plan
Chris Hemsworth’s Thor Diet & Workout Plan
General FAQs
Miles Teller is approximately 6 foot 1 inch tall and 185 pounds.
Actor Miles Teller was reportedly paid $3.5 million for his role in Top Gun: Maverick.
