Few things in life are perfect.
(The obvious exceptions being the second Terminator movie, Jon Bon Jovi’s hair, and women who know how to operate power tools.)
And if I can add one more thing to the list, it would be The Undertaker in 2009.
Seriously, go back and look; he’s chiselled, he’s conditioned, he’s ROCK FUCKING SOLID!
It’s no coincidence that he was also enjoying the brightest years of his WWE tenure at this time, so in this article I’ll show you exactly how The Undertaker trained to get into the best shape of his life at 42 years old. As an extra bonus, at the end I’ll reveal how he trains nowadays (it’s way different).
How The Undertaker Got Into The Best Shape Of His Life At 42
There are three important things to consider in The Undertaker’s excellent transformation.
Let’s look at those now.
- The biker was never in bad shape.
Problems in his personal life, a gimmick change, and recurring injuries led to ‘Taker gaining a considerable amount of weight during the early 2000s.
That being said, he was never in what I would consider to be “bad shape”. After all, he still had massive arms, a decent amount of muscle mass, and was incredibly strong (his day job did involve throwing 300lb giants!).
This meant he was already starting from a pretty good base.
However, if you had asked most fans at the time they would have said that his best years were behind him, so it’s full credit the The Undertaker that he entered his 40s with what many now consider to be his greatest moments still ahead of him (his epic feud with Edge, two WrestleMania masterpieces with Shawn Michaels, and a ground-breaking boneyard match with AJ Styles).
- His (now ex) wife Sara.
Undertaker has made no secret of the fact that Sara was the driving force behing his decision to clean up his diet in the mid-2000s.
Sara was a big believer in healthy eating and rigorous cardio training, so following her advice gave him a way of transitioning out of the biker character and back to his classic Deadman gimmick for one last run in WWE.
By the time the couple divorced in 2007 the nutritional strategies which enabled “the second coming” of The Undertaker were locked in place – so well, in fact, that his final run didn’t arrive until 2020!
- His rivalry with Batista.
Nowadays he’s best-known as Dave Bautista from the movies, but if you were a wrestling fan in the late 2000s you’ll know him as Batista; a 290lb behemoth who powerbombed his way to the top of the WWE roster!
From a marketing perspective he was perfect, because he had the looks, the attitude, and the work ethic.
His rise was in stark contrast to what The Undertaker was experiencing at the time.
You see, despite re-introducing his classic gimmick and showing signs of a physical resurgence, ‘Taker was going through a bit of a career slump. The head honchos in WWE had decided that his star power was enough to attract viewers to Friday Night Smackdown! (the company’s “B show”), so he was stationed there and thrust into repetitive feuds against ‘monster’ opponents (often for no other reason that “Well, he’s The Undertaker”), which kept him away from the WWE title picture and out of reach for company’s top stars. in the company.
Quite frankly, he looked bored as fuck.
That all changed in 2007, though, when Batista was drafted to Smackdown.
Their storyline was initially intended to be a passing of the torch moment, but this was nixed after a few weeks when WWE noticed that The Undertaker was thriving in the role of the old gun trying not to be outdone by his younger rival. Competing against one of the WWE’s top stars seemed to give him fresh motivation, and he added levels to his game which we hadn’t seen in years. He was jumping over the top ropes again, cutting some great promo work, and taking staggering risks.
The duo were able to guide Smackdown! to the remarkable feat of overcoming Monday Night Raw (the WWE’s flagship show) in the television viewing figures.
They also struck up an off-screen friendship, with Batista’s love for bodybuilding starting to rub off on The Phenom. Suddenly “The Deadman” was rocking a Hollywood tan (!), and both men appeared more chiselled and more muscular week by week.
Their feud ended after a whole year of back-and-forth battles, and this new super jacked version of The Undertaker continued to dominate the WWE landscape throughout 2008 and 2009, stealing the show at every PLE he appeared.
The culmination of his “second coming” was an absolute masterclass with Shawn Michaels which many consider to be among the greatest WWE matches of all time.
As a fan I thoroughly enjoyed seeing of The Deadman rise to the pinnacle of the wrestling business once again… but isn’t this crazy considering most people thought he was “finished” just five years earlier?!
The Undertaker’s 2009 Workout Program
The Undertaker used a bodybuilding-style training program to build the muscular physique we saw on screen in 2009.
His goal was to look lean and ripped (in his own words, “Like a big man who can move!”).
This meant his body recomp would require him to lose a significant amount of weight, and he achieved this by gradually shrinking his daily calorie intake over the course of several months.
It also meant a fuck-tonne of cardio!
Upon arriving in a new city, ‘Taker would quickly find a local spit and sawdust gym where he could start each day with one hour of fasted cardio, then he’d return in the evening to hit the weights. Those weights workouts followed a traditional “bro split” (a popular approach among bodybuilders where each large muscle group is trained once per week, e.g. chest day, leg day, etc). He spent most of his time training within the hypertrophy range (8-12 reps per set) and focused on building muscle via a combination of two classic bodybuilding principles:
- Progressive overload: gradually increasing the weighgts over time.
- Dropsets: create metabolic stress by pushing the target muscle beyond failure after the final set.
The Undertaker’s full 2009 workout program is below.
Day 1 (PM): Chest & Abs
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
|---|---|---|---|
| Push Ups (As many sets as needed) | – | 100 | 60 sec |
| Dumbbell Bench Press | 4 | 8-12 | 90 sec |
| Incline Dumbbell Bench Press | 4 | 8-12 | 60 sec |
| Pec Deck Machine (Dropset to failure after final set) | 3 | 8-12 | 60 sec |
| High-to-low Cable Flye (Dropset to failure after final set) | 3 | 8-12 | 60 sec |
| Crunches (As many sets as needed) | – | 200 | 60 sec |
Day 2 (AM): Cardio
| Exercise | Time |
|---|---|
| Steady State Cardio Training (Performed on an incline treadmill, elliptical, or stationary bike) | 60 mins |
Day 2 (PM): Back & Abs
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inverted Row (As many sets as needed) | – | 50 | 60 sec |
| Barbell Deadlift | 4 | 8-12 | 90 sec |
| Weighted Pull Ups | 3 | 8-12 | 60 sec |
| Seated Cable Row (Dropset to failure after final set) | 3 | 8-12 | 60 sec |
| Lying Leg Raises (As many sets as needed) | – | 100 | 60 sec |
Day 3 (AM): Cardio
| Exercise | Time |
|---|---|
| Steady State Cardio Training (Performed on an incline treadmill, elliptical, or stationary bike) | 60 mins |
Day 3 (PM): Shoulders & Abs
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
|---|---|---|---|
| Around The World (As many sets as needed) | – | 50 | 60 sec |
| Barbell Push Press | 4 | 8-12 | 90 sec |
| Seated Dumbbell Shoulder Press (Dropset to failure after final set) | 3 | 8-12 | 60 sec |
| Tri-set: Dumbbell Lateral Raise Dumbbell Front Raise Heavy Dumbbell Shrugs | 3 | 12 12 12 | 0 sec 0 sec 60 sec |
| Crunches (As many sets as needed) | – | 200 | 60 sec |
Day 4 (AM): Cardio
| Exercise | Time |
|---|---|
| Steady State Cardio Training (Performed on an incline treadmill, elliptical, or stationary bike) | 60 mins |
Day 4 (PM): Legs
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bodyweight Squat (As many sets as needed) | – | 100 | 60 sec |
| Barbell Squat | 4 | 8-12 | 90 sec |
| Barbell Stiff-leg Deadlift | 4 | 8-12 | 60 sec |
| Leg Press (Dropset to failure after final set) | 3 | 8-12 | 60 sec |
| Leg Extension (Dropset to failure after final set) | 3 | 8-12 | 60 sec |
| Leg Curl (Dropset to failure after final set) | 3 | 8-120 | 60 sec |
Day 5 (PM): Biceps, Triceps & Abs
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
|---|---|---|---|
| Underhand-grip Inverted Row (As many sets as needed) | – | 50 | 60 sec |
| Close-grip Push Ups | – | 50 | 60 sec |
| Seated Dumbbell Hammer Curl | 4 | 8-12 | 60 sec |
| Close-grip Barbell Bench Press | 4 | 8-12 | 60 sec |
| Heavy Barbell Curl (Dropset to failure after final set) | 3 | 8-12 | 60 sec |
| Weighted Triceps Dips (Dropset to failure after final set) | 3 | 8-12 | 60 sec |
| Lying Leg Raises (As many sets as needed) | – | 100 | 60 sec |
Why The Undertaker Changed His Training Methods In 2013
The Undertaker’s body had already been through the ringer by the time he achieved his awesome 2009 transformation.
Decades of heavy lifting and old injuries had worn him down, and he decided to adapt his training program in early 2013.
So what did he change?
To put it simply, he stopped training like a bodybuilder and started training like a professional wrestler.
“For much of my career I was too stubborn to change from what I knew. I didn’t like venturing into the unknown because my body was my business, you know?
The first time I did it was around 2004-ish with my nutrition plan, and I honestly wish I’d done that earlier. When the time came to make changes to my training program I faced a similar issue where I didn’t want to try new things, but when the trainers showed me to benefits it would offer in terms of helping my body to recover, I got it.”
– The Undertaker
This was a brave move to make.
After all, big muscles have always sold tickets in WWE, and this is why many wrestlers train in a way which doesn’t really help them in the ring but makes them look awesome on posters.
‘Taker decided to stop focusing on the external benefits and zoom in on the things which would help him get better at his job. Wrestling is built on a foundation of anaerobic fitness, basic compound lifts, and exercises which take place in the transverse plane (e.g. catches, twists, and quick side-to-side movements).
This is massively different to a traditional bodybuilding-style workout program, where the focus is mainly on aerobic fitness and exercises in the sagittal plane (up and down), and it goes a long way to explain why so many of the “golden era” wrestlers are riddled with injuries today.
Making this change ultimately extended his career by 7 years, and we can only imagine the possibilities if he had done it earlier.
His workouts now involve plenty of sprint-style bursts on the Concept 2 rowing machine (HIIT), basic heavy lifts which replicate what he does in the ring (e.g. military press), and circuits which involve momentum-based movements like kettlebell cleans and box jumps to improve his explosive power (you can see an example of this in Undertaker: The Last Ride).
Take a look below and you’ll see him performing a 500lb below-the-knee rack pull. The specificity of this movement is off the charts for a wrestler, and it’s worth mentioning that this is an insane amount of weight for a man who is 6’8 and 60 years old!
Due to the condition of his knees, The Phenom found himself in a position where even certain compound lifts were no longer an option.
One of those was barbell squats.
He adapted his training program to include the barbell box squat instead, as the force transfer makes it a much safer choice, and they still enable him to unlock most of the strength benefits offered by traditional squats.
Oh, and then there’s the small matter of learning how to stick a 40″ box jump from a standing start:
Honestly, you wouldn’t have seen any of this in the 1980s or 1990s, and it shows the lengths The Deadman went to in a bid to prolong his career.
Thankfully, it also seemed to have a knock-on effect on some of his wrestling buddies.
Top of that list was John Cena, who ditched his bodybuilding-style program in favour of a back-to-bascics strength program shortly after The Undertaker.
Hopefully this shift in mindset by two of the company’s top supersets ushers in a new way of thinking for the trainers at the WWE Development Centre, to ensure that the next generation of WWE Superstars can enjoy a high quality of life when they leave the squared circle.
Anyway, The Undertaker’s wrestling journey finally reached its conclusion at Wrestlemania 36 (2021), with a show-stealing performance in a ground-breaking “boneyard match” versus the enigmatic AJ Styles.
You’ll be pleased to know he is now happily retired, and still strong as fuck!
Well played, Undertaker, you truly are a phenom.
Further Reading:
If you enjoyed this blog, then you’ll probably also like reading these.
>> So You Wanna Train Legs Like The Rock?
>> John Cena’s Switch From Bodybuilding To Strength
>> How Sylvester Stallone Has Adapted His Training Over The Years
Dead correct (no pun intended), Undertaker in 2009 was absolutely perfect!
Kane, Braun Strowman workout routine please upload
Booom! Always wanted to know how he trained, thanks!
The way you have broken down each stage of his career makes it so much easier to read. Great article bro.