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Ian Somerhalder Shares The Training and Diet Plan Behind His V Wars Rig

His workout routine was a little unorthodox to say the least - by Alex Pierotti
  • 10 Jan 2020

You might know him as the character Damon Salvatore from the hit show The Vampire Diaries, but actor Ian Somerhalder has switched sides, this time taking on vampires in the new Netflix series V Wars. And with a stunning role reversal, came a brutal change in preparation.

Watch Somerhalder chat to Men's Health exclusively below:

Somerhalder explains that he and the team wanted to make his character physically stand out by the end of the season. 

"We really wanted to find a dynamic end for Swann, push him to physical excessive lengths and put him through hell. We needed to send him down a path that would not just have audiences wanting more of but us, as producers, wanting more," he tells Men's Health. 

However, time wasn't on the 41-year-old's side. Somerhalder admits late nights spent editing scenes took up most of his time and ultimately a toll on his body.

"I had spent the last four plus months of my life up until 3 and 4AM every single night, pushing myself to the limit to edit the show with our amazing team.

"The workload and timeline of producing V Wars was something that I have never experienced in my professional life and I thought I had experienced a great deal. It is incredibly taxing on the body so I was about 10 pounds underweight. I was a tired skinny mess."

His first point of contact? Olympic strength trainer and close friend Jance Footit. Jance has been responsible for all of Somerhalder's eating plans over the last decade as well as getting him in shape for The Vampire Diaries' in Atlanta. "I trust him implicitly, he’s always right," Somerhalder tells us.

iansomerhalder View Profile
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@5ringsbarbell pushing me to the limit to be the strongest and best version of me-thanks brother this partnership means the world to me. Time to kick some major ass. Only some months of post production left on #vwars as @drlutherswannofficial then I'll get it out the door and onto @netflix for you to see. Hopefully you like it. Lots to do in the ocean space. Too much plastic and degradation. Plastics stand to wipe us out. BUT with DRAWDOWN in agriculture and enough consumer, legislative and corporate behavioral changes we can do this. There are no problems, only solutions. Going to continue talking with amazing game-changing people on our podcast @gregstoneocean . I feel like to get all of this done and be a strong good dad I needed to become a warrior. So, that's what I'm doing. Time is slipping and we haven't got much before the tipping point tips the wrong way. Just remember, especially if you have kids you're leaving this world to... Nature doesn't need us: WE NEED NATURE. I ask. I beg for ALL of us to... Be strong. Be smart. Be good to the world that is good to you. Love, Ian

Jance's philosophy was simple. "Jance immediately reminded me: food is medicine. Focus. Training. Food. Rest. These are the key ingredients for success," the actor continues.

Somerhalder switched to a clean, strict diet rich in protein, fats, vegetables, good carbs and plenty of the water. He needed to grow quick, so he upped his meals to five or six day while ditching the alcohol, nearly. "Alcohol is not your friend when training this hard, so I only snuck in two light beers over the course of two weeks. They were glorious," he jokes.

Somerhalder set himself the challenge of making his character a very different man come season's end, "a formidable adversary." But with just 10 days to go, he resorted to unorthodox measures.

"It is simple: train 4 days hard. Rest 4 days and shoot or compete. Only 4 days of training BUT 3 - 4 times per day," he explains.

"How was I going to do this while prepping, production meetings, location scouting, costume fittings, camera tests and rewrites? All of the things you need to go into production. The other kicker was we needed 10 days of actual shooting but only had the money for six days so it was going to be intense."

Ian Somerhalder V Wars
V Wars

Here's what Somerhalder's crash workout looked like:

- 4 days of hard training, 3 - 4 Sessions per day

- 4 days of rest - only light fasted cardio first in the AM 

- Night before shooting: eat a stack of pancakes and sleep. 

Pro Tip: The goal is to train with so much frequency in those first few days to produce so much damage to the muscle they have only one thing to do: grow. Rapidly. As you take those few days off your body is just in repair mode building muscle fibres.

By the end, Somerhalder was burnt out, (he) "would be in the gym for 30 minutes, grab my script pages, protein/carb shake and get into the infrared sauna to help move the blood around while rolling calls. Then run back into the meetings, scouts and back into the gym screaming and grunting as Jance coached me through it all. I would then collapse after hours and hours with our writing into bed and think - 'oh shit I’ve got to do it all again in 6 hours.'"

But Jance's plan worked: Somerhalder had put on nearly five kilos in two weeks, his arm almost 2 inches bigger. "Swann looked like someone had temporarily inflated him with a bicycle pump. And that’s how Swann will stay for a good while."

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Alex Pierotti
Alex Pierotti
Alex Pierotti is the Digital Content Editor for Men's Health Australia, with experience reporting on health, fitness and sport. With a Journalism degree from UNSW under his belt, he got his start working in TV, working on the live broadcast of the Intrust Super Shute Shield on 7TWO before making the switch to print and digital at Pacific Magazines.

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