From Labourer To Sofia Vergara's Fiance

“If I could tell that 13-year-old kid what I know now, I’d tell him not to quit before the miracle happens," says Manganiello. Photography by Patrik Giardino

Actors alter their body shape all the time. It’s industry standard.

From De Niro’s double efforts in Raging Bull, to Christian Bale’s Machinist-Batman-The Fighter roller coaster, and the physical spark that lit the Matthew McConaissance, dramatic bodily overhaul is, without doubt, a box-office banker.

But the vast majority of these physical makeovers are but temporary. Most of the abs featured by the stars of summer blockbusters are on loan from the studio; part of the contract and guaranteed for the duration of the shoot by an on-set personal trainer and round-the-clock nutritionist. Their transformations are inspiring but they commit to the process because it’s their job. Then, when they’re no longer contractually obliged, they tend to let go. (We’re looking at you, Leo.)

Joe Manganiello is a very different beast. The scrawny 13-year-old from Pittsburgh pictured drowning in a high school basketball vest has made being in supreme shape his regular 9-5.

November marked Manganiello’s third appearance on the Men’s Health cover and for a good reason – he has become bigger, stronger, more athletic and better defined with each passing year. He doesn’t deal in temporary change or last-minute tricks like many of his peers. His business revolves around constant evolution.

“A lot of the actors who are on the cover of lifestyle magazines look like they’ve had their waistline airbrushed or they’re wearing winter clothes or whatever,” says Manganiello. “I see them and think: ‘That guy doesn’t work out. I know that guy and he smokes two packs of cigarettes a day and is a complete drunk on the weekends. Now he’s putting out an illusion on the cover of a glossy magazine.’ It’s absurd to me. I’m athletic and I’m healthy. I’m like a unicorn in the world of actors.”

AWAKENING THE EXERCISE BEAST

Yet Manganiello’s transformation story has something of a conventional beginning. In 2002, he was cast as Flash Thompson in the re-boot of Spider-Man. It was a huge role for the then 26-year-old actor, but drinking too much, smoking too much and generally behaving like he’d won the lifetime lottery meant that he didn’t land another part for four years. His big break had broken him.

To pay the bills, Manganiello took a job in construction, shovelling sand and gravel from 7am to 4pm every day in the Los Angeles heat. It hurt, but within a few weeks his body started to fill out and he woke up every morning needing his fix of exercise. Soon he started to visit the gym on his way home after nine hours of shifting earth. He says: “I didn’t just train after work: I hit the gym like an animal. I pushed myself to the point where people around me were borderline frightened.”

The reward was an intensely trained foot firmly back in the career door, with parts in series like ER and a couple of CSI incarnations, to name two. Then, in 2010, he auditioned for the role of Alcide, a werewolf featuring in the second season of the irrepressibly popular vampire series True Blood. He was offered the job and then did what actors do: he trained impossibly hard for five months with his coach Ron Mathews to embody the part. He even grew a beard in his efforts to become the wolf the producers wanted. And it worked – Manganiello was an instant female fan favourite and his highly trained physique in his many shirtless scenes (as with any cinematic werewolf, clothes have a short shelf life) made male gym goers take note.

He was signed on for the next handful of seasons and landed on our cover. To us he heralded the new shape of the larger leading man now regularly filling our cinema and TV screens. He had made it again and this time he’d made it much bigger.

TURNING WORK INTO WORKOUTS

When MH first spoke to Manganiello back in 2011, he requested that we go for sushi, then proceeded to devour huge plates of sashimi without a single grain of rice and happily sipped on water while wine was ordered around him. He wasn’t on any studio-prescribed diet; it was just who he was. And it wasn’t a chore. “If you’re waiting for those three hours a day to magically appear, it’s never going to happen. Whatever you’re doing, wherever you are, you have to make it work for you,” he says. “Once I started getting significant pay cheques from True Blood, the first major purchases I made were a cross-trainer, treadmill and TV on the wall, so I could watch ESPN while I trained. I did whatever I had to do to make sure I was doing my job.”

Manganiello’s next job was in the cult Steven Soderbergh smash Magic Mike, a male-stripper movie inspired by Channing Tatum’s young adult life and starring a slew of the most six-packed stars in Hollywood. It’s fair to say his workouts went up yet another gear. “When you’re shirtless one or two days a week – which is how it works with True Blood – you can ramp the intensity of training up and down,” he says. “When you’re shirtless every day there’s no let up. So we spent a fortnight doing thousands of push-ups, thousands of curls, thousands of lat raises. We basically spent every day working out for two weeks in a row.”

Of course, the finely honed definition he showed off on screen next to Tatum and McConaughey was built on more than push-ups. Manganiello was now applying the same intensity to his diet as he already did in the gym. Although his eating plan isn’t complicated, it’s no less easy to sustain. For Manganiello, sustenance means a lot of protein, carbs from sweet potatoes and yams, no sugar, no alcohol – and absolutely no excuses.

“I don’t shy away from fat – that was a fad that came and went,” he says. “Almonds are fantastic. I found out that animal fat actually raises your levels of testosterone, which is as good a reason as any to get more of it into your diet. It tastes pretty good too.” It was this animalistic eating which saw him pack on almost 10 kilograms of muscle while remaining leaner than ever. The transformation was complete – but his evolution was one meeting away.

BECOMING THE NEXT ARNIE

The following year, MH caught up with Manganiello again in the Californian desert. He brought sledgehammers, tyres, barbells and even more energy. The catalyst for his final conversion was the former Governor of that crop of rocks – Arnold Schwarzenegger. Manganiello had been cast in Arnie’s upcoming high-octane action film Sabotage and they bonded over their shared love of fitness and a background in construction. It was the impetus he needed to finally match his career to his physique. “Arnold has built an empire and he didn’t build it by being lazy. I thought I was always busy, say an eight out of 10. He made me realise I was really at a two. Hang out with Arnold and you really find out what an eight is.”

In the last year, on top of shooting Sabotage and the final season of True Blood he wrote a book, directed his first film and bought a house. His next project is the eagerly awaited Terrence Malick film Knight of Cups, starring opposite Oscar-winners Christian Bale and Natalie Portman. The skinny boy who became a mountain of a man is now poised to become even bigger than his body.

And here at Men’s Health, we’d like to think we’ve played a small part in his metamorphosis. “A few years ago, I was clearing out some boxes and I found an old Men’s Health I’d bought in 2003,” says Manganiello. “I remember seeing it on the rack and thinking, ‘I want to be built like that guy on the cover.’” Three covers later you could say he’s over-achieved. “If I could tell that 13-year-old kid what I know now, I’d tell him not to quit before the miracle happens.”

The key principles of Manganiello’s training and the moves you need to make your own miracle happen can be found on this page. Get it right and he might just have some competition for the MH cover next year. Good luck.

MANGANIELLO’S EXCUSE-FREE CARDIO PLAN

Cardio burns fat. Simple. Aim for 3-6 sessions a week, tailored to how you feel on the day

YOU’RE TIRED
You need: slow cardio
Time: 45 minutes
Machine: Cross-trainer
Get your body moving first thing in the morning by going at a pace that builds a sweat without leaving you breathless.

YOU’RE BUSY
You need: intense intervals
Time: 30 minutes
Machine: treadmill
A short but sharp hit. Warm up at 12km/h for five minutes. Raise to 16km/h and a 7.5 per cent incline. Do 10 rounds of 15 seconds on, 45 seconds off. Now ramp it up to 19km/h and a 10 per cent incline. Do 10 more.

YOU’RE CRAZY
You need: slow pace, steep incline
Time: 30-45 minutes
Machine: treadmill
Hammer some serious kilojoules. Set the speed to 6km/h and the incline to 12 per cent. Manganiello says: “Make it past 20min and you’ll feel like you can go on forever.”