Strode was a standout football player at UCLA and one of the first black NFL players. and a decathlete before becoming an actor. He met director John Ford and starred in four Ford films, making him a part of the Hollywood legend. Strode also portrayed the formidable gladiator in Spartacus (1960).
Strode had also experimented with professional wrestling for a few months in 1941. After his football career ended in 1949, he resumed wrestling part-time in between acting gigs until 1962.
In addition to becoming the first professional wrestler to marry Hawaiian royalty, Woody Strode was the first football player to transition from professional wrestling to acting and to dominate the big screen.
But what stood out about Woody, was his big muscular frame. He was arguably the most muscular actor in Hollywood of his era. Not only was Strode’s physique praised in Hollywood, but he was also recognized as one of the world’s best-built men in the 1930s and was a tag team partner of the guys with the biggest and best pre-steroid physiques, including Bearcat Wright, Bobo Brazil, and Sailor Art Thomas who had a huge 6’6″ 275lb frame.
Despite being lighter than his tag team teammates Woody Strode was incredibly strong. In order to accomplish this, he mostly engaged in bodyweight exercises when he wasn’t lifting large, swaying humans.
Woody Strode’s workout routine
Strode used a rigorous yet straightforward daily routine consisting of 1000 pushups, 1000 free squats, and 1000 situps to build his shredded, 6’3″, 205-pound physique.
Strode stated his football coach banned the squad from lifting weights, So he started performing pushups, bodyweight squats, and situps every day while he was in high school and junior college. Strode performed each exercise up to 1000 reps, and he stated that he used that technique to gain 20 pounds of muscle.
Every day, the pushups were performed in sets of 100 and the situps and squats were performed continuously; this required an extraordinary amount of focus and strength. He continued to train hard for the end of his life, but he tapered back his routines as he grew older. Instead of 1000 he would perform 500 reps of each exercise every day.
Later, Hollywood actors like the iron Charles Bronson adopted Strode’s routine (with minor modifications) as a way to stay muscular and lean during lengthy on-location productions with no gyms around.
“I’m an old man, but life will never make an old man out of me. As long as you look like you can run on Santa Anita’s race track, even if you take last, you’ve still made the field. People see that horse and wonder what it is doing out there. They don’t know its 100 years old. Well, this is how nature has left me, so it is good.” – Woody Strode
Related:
Charles Bronson’s Brutal Bodyweight Workout
8 Bodyweight Exercises That Will Help You Transform Your Body and Burn Fat
The Basics of Bodyweight Bodybuilding
