Paul Levesque, also known as Triple H-the, is one of the most charismatic and beloved faces in WWE. He may have traded the ring for the boardroom by taking on the position of Executive Vice President of Talent, Live Events and Creative, but his passion for bodybuilding and general fitness hasn’t waned over the years. Still, being a family man living a hectic life of relentless travel, pressing business meetings, mentoring new talent and training for the occasional pay-per-view wrestling event; At the age of 47, Triple H shows no signs of slowing down or giving up his physical condition. If anything, his training principles have evolved over the years, to get him in the best shape of his life. Recently appointed Editorial Advisor ofMuscle and Fitness Paul Levesque’s exemplary lifestyle teaches us the following lessons in good training ethics. Use them to stay up to date.

What worked for you once may not always work for you. Review exercise style and patterns to update with appropriate progress that matches your age, fitness goals, and lifestyle.

Okay, not all of us are fitness experts. How do you know when it’s time for a change? Most of us are creatures of habit and prefer to stick to predictable workouts that feel “comfortable”. Sticking to your comfort zone with the same exercises often aggravates physical imbalances in the long run. A frequent feeling of disharmony with your usual exercise routine or jiggling pains every now and then throughout the day are usually the first signs that your body is craving a change.

If you’re feeling lost, don’t be afraid to seek help to figure out what needs to change.

In an interview, Triple H confessed that for two decades he always trained like a bodybuilder and was never keen on warm-ups. Since his character needed large muscles to bolster his image, the main goal of all workouts was to increase and maintain muscle size. Training every body part to failure weekly fried his central nervous system over the years. Along with multiple injuries in the ring, Levesque felt physically defeated at the age of 40.

He turned to renowned strength coach JoeDefranco to help him make the appropriate radical changes. After Triple H began training for better “function” instead of training for “height,” he stated that he “went from a man who took 15 minutes to get out of bed and straight to a man to go with a 40 inch box jump”.

Think about how tall or slim you want to be. Focus on performing different movements that increase the variety of your physical abilities.

Since modern lifestyles tend to involve a sedentary lifestyle, you should use your exercise to relieve the tightness that comes with sedentary lifestyle. Practice with objectivity, intention, and purpose without relying on repetitive training of a body part, movement, or working on a machine.

Mastering the basic exercises with dumbbells, smaller dumbbells and lower body weight are extremely important to build a solid foundation and take your fitness to the next level. It gives you the ability to ensure a total body workout, even if you’re only going with your own body weight or, at most, a dumbbell. With a strong foundation for lifting heavy loads for more than two decades, Triple H began his physical improvement process by correcting imbalances that had developed over the years due to injuries and weakened stabilizer muscles.

Joe Defranco’s new practices were as follows:

• Daily foam rolling to improve soft tissue quality throughout the body
• Thorough dynamic warm-up before every training session and every appearance in the ring
• The structure of the training plans shifted from body-part-specific divisions to movement-specific workouts. Since then, the average person has a weaker posterior chain; As with weaker back, glutes, and hamstrings compared to the front of the body, it’s better to do twice as many pull movements as push movements.
• Linear periodization of the cutting pad switched to conjugate periodization method. Triple H simultaneously began training for maximum strength, power and hypertrophy with specific workouts targeting each goal. However, the volume and intensity were changed throughout the year, taking into account regular unloading weeks to prevent burnout.
• Box squats make squatting pain free.
• Making the workout fail: Triple H still lifts heavy, but Defranco made sure he never strained on every exercise and always stuck to a few reps he might have performed. This saved his central nervous system from complete burnout and enabled sustained strength gains over two years.
• Grip strength is more important than you think! A strong grip makes it easier to perform manual activities in real life. Therefore, lifting straps had no place for his new workouts. Many exercises are regularly performed with thick barbells and dumbbells, which his trainer says always ensure at least a 10 percent increase in strength when Triple H resorts to regular-grip barbells and dumbbells.
• In closing, Defranco quotes regarding core strengthening: “The most functional way to strengthen your core is to learn how to use braces when lifting without a harness. This will do more for your “gut strength” than all the crises in the world! Reserve the weightlifting belt for maximum effort squats and deadlifts only.

Nourish your ride

In an interview, Levesque revealed that when he was in high school, he didn’t hang out with his friends, he hung out with the guys from his gym. His friends wanted to go to parties, but he didn’t, just because he had to get up at seven the next morning to spend a day with heavy legs. He’s always been like that. He claims to have fallen in love with the process of going to the gym and pushing himself. The harder he trained, the better results he got.

Learning to find some semblance of joy in a physical activity that you might love releases pent-up, stressful, negative energy that builds up in your head throughout the day, leaving you calmer to face the rest of your life . The discipline that comes with being consistent in the gym will help you thrive outside of the gym in a way that doesn’t let your circumstances send you into a downward mental or emotional spiral.

Master the present

As for those who claim they don’t have time, Triple H agrees that sometimes it’s hard to keep track. However, it is possible if you are willing to put in a hard day’s work. He insists that as much as most people want to be successful, they don’t want it so much that they miss the latest movie or just hang out with friends. 

He claims to have trained in a grass hut in Africa before, where he had to use cinder blocks for weights. “It’s not about having a million-dollar gym. It’s anything you want to put into it.” Leave no room for what-ifs.

His advice for people with a hectic schedule is to keep it simple. Perform a pre-planned bodyweight routine, or always wear a resistance band rated for 15 to 20 minutes of intense exercise. This is good enough to greatly improve the quality of life.

After all, there is no substitute for consistency and commitment.

As Levesque’s trainer says, he could be the person planning Triple H’s workout routines, but “a good workout” on paper doesn’t mean it’s nothing more than the person doing the workout believes in it and consistently there are 100%! Triple H underwent quadriceps, shoulder and knee surgery. At 45, he still makes time to work out from 10 p.m. to midnight, despite getting no more than a few hours of sleep most nights. 

No matter how successful or wealthy you are, if you want real results that bring you long-lasting health benefits, you need to put in the work. Sure, anabolic steroids can help you get big in a short amount of time, but to combat the pain of a deteriorating physique, you must learn to enjoy the pain that comes with building a stronger physique.