In the early days of muscling up for Spiderman, Tobey Maguire used to plead with Joujon-Roche to put a sock in it.

Can you handle the truth?

You may not be ready for this story. That’s to say, you may not be ready to act on it. Fitness-wise, if all you want right now is to lose some lard from your middle, feel more energised or look passable in a T-shirt, then keep clicking through the site. What follows is a manifesto for a different beast. This is for the guy who’s in fine shape, yet is still dissatisfied with what he’s seeing in the mirror. The guy who’s frustrated because, despite his best efforts, he’s looking merely good rather than get-the-hell-outtahere. There’s you – and then there’s Ryan Gosling in Crazy Stupid Love. Or Hugh Jackman in the latest X-Men. Or, going back a while, Daniel Craig in Casino Royale. The question is, are you prepared to do what’s necessary to make the leap?

To help you match these guys, we recruited The Specialist. No, not Sly Stallone. Someone closer to home. Nowadays, you’ll find Greg Joujon-Roche exhorting clients at Holistic Fitness, the gym he owns in Sydney’s Fox Studios. But until last year he was fitness royalty in California, where from the mid-Nineties he whipped a cast of Hollywood A-listers, including Brad Pitt, Demi Moore, Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire, into camera-ready nick. He also played his part in sculpting Gisele Bündchen into the supermodel package she is today – a job somewhat more appealing than a spell down a Mongolian coalmine.

MORE: Greg's Hollywood-tested nutrition tips

To get a sense of what Joujon-Roche can do, check out Pitt in 2004’s Troy. Some months out from filming, the actor showed up for his first session with Joujon-Roche looking lean and brandishing shredded biceps, but with legs like pipe cleaners – not ideal when you’re going to be Achilles in a warrior’s kilt.

With the clock ticking, Joujon-Roche helped Pitt build wheels of steel, while above the waist the star who, five years earlier, had played the sinewy Tyler Durden in Fight Club took on the proportions of a, well, mythological Greek hero.

Both Leo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt have benefitted Joujon-Roche's training methods.

Forty-seven years old and fairly bursting with positivity, Joujon-Roche blends a superlative grasp of the science of body overhaul with a linguistic flair that make him a trainer you wouldn’t argue with – not that he’d give you the chance. Warmed up, he is a passionate, stream-of-consciousness force of nature.

Do this right and, eight weeks from now, you will weigh roughly the same as you do now, but your body composition will have transformed.

“My niche is what I call the ‘final 10 per cent’,” he explains between mouthfuls of chicken and broccoli. If you’re prepared to shoot for that on his terms, then it’s safe to say you’re going to train harder – and smarter – than ever before. Here’s another prediction: Do this right and, eight weeks from now, you will weigh roughly the same as you do now, but your body composition will have transformed. You will have gone from a commendable 11-14 per cent body fat to around seven per cent – the level at which abs pop and every muscle is defined. In short, you’ll be ripped.

Be clear: what you’re about to embark on is not a lifestyle. It is not sustainable in the long term. It is a brutal, exhausting, get-in-and-get-out strategy for finding out exactly what you’re capable of, and for delivering that shock-and-awe moment when you casually remove your shirt at the beach. You will look sensational for a while, and then you will come down off your peak as you resume life as an interesting, well-rounded, unselfish guy. Think of the final 10 per cent as something you might do once a year.
Ready?
Action!

First, get your head right

You may figure that most red-carpet regulars are hyper-motivated to train because their bodies are about to be immortalised on film. “A lot of actors require the final 10 per cent, but they don’t really have the heart and soul to go there,” counters Joujon-Roche. On the other hand, plenty of regular guys do have the heart and soul – would eat bricks if they thought it would help. All they lack is the knowhow and guidance.

“When it comes to the final 10 per cent, you’ve got to be committed,” says Joujon-Roche. “You’ve got to get super specific. You’ve got to focus on your eating, your sleeping, your training, your breathing and your body awareness. Leave the world alone! This needs to be a selfish time. If you truly want to go there, that’s the commitment it takes. If you’re genetically gifted, good for you. The rest of us, we’ve got to fucking work!”

There may be times reading this story when you think this final 10 per cent stuff seems a tad extreme, and this Joujon-Roche dude a little nuts. He’s used to that. In the early days of muscling up for Spiderman, Tobey Maguire used to plead with Joujon-Roche to put a sock in it. But Maguire gradually came aboard and by the end was thrilled with what he’d achieved. His transformation mirrored Peter Parker’s. It was the perfect prep for a role that had been freaking him out.

“And now I ask the readers, please take it seriously,” says Joujon-Roche. “For what it’s worth, really go there and listen to all the things I’m saying. When you’re dealing with your sleep, when you’re dealing with your pre-training flexibility and mindset, your body responds and says thank-you very much for doing that. It really does.”

With Joujon-Roche on a roll, MH’s photographer has a question: “What if you need the final 90 per cent?”

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Get primed for action

When do your weights sessions start? When your fingers first clasp the iron? Not good enough. Weights workouts – final 10 per cent-style – start much earlier, with a norm of eight hours’ solid sack time per night.

And think fuel. Whatever time of day you train, the imperatives are the same. Be hydrated. Sink a litre of water in the hour before a session. Have oil in your system via fatty-acid supplements. And protein. “Don’t do some crazy workout when you’re hungry,” says Joujon-Roche. “Of course you’ll hurt yourself.”

Be toasty. That hot shower you take post-workout? Have one pre-workout, too. Soak yourself good. Are you sore anywhere? Niggles in your forearm or shoulder? “No brainer,” says Joujon-Roche. “How about a little heat cream? What about a 20-second massage so you push some blood through the tendons? It is the simplest thing on planet Earth and we don’t do it! We go in there and try to bang it out. Oh, dude, it will get better, will it? It won’t get better! Unless you’re 21, it won’t get better. And you’re going to have this nagging pain that will take you out of the final 10 per cent.”

Lifting time? Nope. Now you need to work a treadmill or exercise bike until sweat forms on your brow. And while you’re running or pedalling, and simultaneously rotating your shoulders and opening up your chest cavity, tune your attitude. “It’s check-in time,” says Joujon-Roche. “I want you to put your game face on. You need clarity! And if it’s not there then go away and come back in 45 minutes! Say this: ‘I’m better for the world if I take care of myself first’. Leave your shit outside. Don’t bring your dramas into this workout.”

Watch your back

As you’ll have gathered, part of executing the final 10 per cent is bypassing the injuries that will prevent you training with all-out effort. That means being in the moment every instant that you’re holding something heavy.

Instead of ripping dumbbells off the floor and tossing them once you’re done, make like a gymnast, advises Joujon-Roche. “It’s all of it! Walk up, mount, do your stuff, dismount, walk off. You can’t check out at any stage while there’s a load involved. You’ve got to be in control. You’ve got to be graceful.”

Without two light sets that get blood pumping through the target muscle, your tendons absorb colossal strain

For your first set – let’s say it’s a bench press – go light for 15 reps. Joujon-Roche can’t bear watching guys going heavy from the get-go. Without two light sets that get blood pumping through the target muscle, your tendons absorb colossal strain.

“It feels so good to go strong once you have blood in your chest,” he says. “It feels so bad to go strong when you’ve got nothing in your chest. You’re cold, it hurts, you’re like, ‘This workout sucks!’ But if you’re a little sweaty from the warm-up, you’re warm, you’re flexible, your head’s clear, you’re nutritionally sound . . . by your third set you’re like, ‘I’m ready to go!’”

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Move serious iron

So far this all seems straightforward, yeah? A shower, a warm-up, a couple of light sets. When’s this going to get hard? The answer is now.

For your third set, it’s time to load the bar so you fail after 10 reps. But these are no ordinary reps. They’re slow and deliberate, and while you’re doing them you’re focused on the body part you’re hitting. You’re seeing and feeling it working.

“And for your fourth, fifth and sixth sets, you need a spot,” says Joujon-Roche. “Your buddy’s here! Hey, he better be ready because he can’t let you get away with shit. You could do one or two reps on that fourth set, but together you’re doing eight. For three sets in a row. Are you ready? Game is on! And those three sets feel fantastic. They’re coming from the right place, the right fuel, the right headspace. And that is the definition of the final 10 per cent.”

Take aim, annihilate

It’s a Thursday morning and Joujon-Roche is guiding a new client – a former athlete – through some heavy benching at the no-frills, no-mirrors workout space that is Holistic Fitness.

“Hey, you can’t pause at the top! You can’t give yourself that break,” he instructs. Joujon-Roche pumps out a set of his own. As well as demonstrating the fluidity of movement that he demands of his clients, he holds the barbell in a fingerless grip that catches the eye. It’s another trick for focusing the tension onto the muscles you’re targeting.

Your final 10 per cent program will see you smashing one body part per session, and then leaving it alone until it’s repaired. Because time is short, you’ll be pursuing both muscle growth and muscle densification in the same workouts by operating in the higher and lower rep ranges.

Key point: choice of exercises is far less important than how hard you work. While you can find numerous moves for every body part that do more or less the same thing, there is no substitute for, as Joujon-Roche puts it, “dipping into darkness”.

That said, you want to hit a large muscle group like the chest from multiple angles (flat, incline, decline). For every exercise, know exactly what your aim is. If you’re benching on an angle to build your upper pecs, then focus on your upper pecs. Don’t heave and strain with any muscle you can recruit.

Squats? Same deal. “When someone does squats I have them spread their toes apart in their shoes,” says Joujon-Roche. “I have them squat with their pinky toes. Feel your feet. Feel your hamstrings opening up. Absorb that down motion. Big breath. Take your time. Pause at the bottom. Suck in your belly. Chin up. Get ready legs and let’s go! Slow. Squeeeeeeeeeze People go, ‘C’mon Greg, shut up! I just wanna do a set and go home’. No! That’s not the final 10 per cent! I guarantee if you do it my way and adopt my Gregisms, you could drop half the weight and be twice as sore. The more specific you get, the more results you get. You could pen a circle around the area you’re hitting.”

"Brad was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll do legs tomorrow’, and it was, ‘No, you need to do legs yesterday’".

Make friends with suffering

There’s a time to be gentle with yourself.

And a time to be brutal.

“Perfect example: Brad Pitt,” recalls Joujon-Roche. Those twiggy legs Pitt turned up with pre-Troy were an emergency. While other directors might have exploited the wonders of CGI, that’s not Wolfgang Petersen’s style.

“Brad was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll do legs tomorrow’, and it was, ‘No, you need to do legs yesterday’. Legs take a long time to build. They’re not biceps. They’re huge. So we trained his legs soooo hard, to the point where he had problems walking out of the gym, and we wouldn’t let him drive a car. And he was just whooooa, tippy-toeing out!”

For Pitt, Joujon-Roche eschewed high-risk squats for the leg-press machine. But he had him pushing big loads. “Because, I’m sorry, at the end of the day, it’s about that. It’s about being careful but going for it.”

Pitt would manage a couple of reps on his own, and then Joujon-Roche and sometimes his assistant too would join in, the three of them pushing like Triton in Jason and the Argonauts. Warns Joujon-Roche: “You are going to want to fart and pee and scream at about rep 11, but we are going to get to 25 and if I don’t kill you, your legs are going to be amazing. That intensity is really intense. It redefines the line in the sand of your own limits. You’ve got to let go of your past and suck it up and deal with it. That’s the 10 per cent! You have to be in that space, that confidence, that over-the-top energy, and your body will follow. It’s that state people get into when they break bricks. It’s kind of the same – it’s called micro-focus and it is ROOOAAAAR! It’s then that you unveil the extra line of your biceps, that third hamstring muscle comes out, and you see that lower outside pec go completely around with no squish.”

Unlike the film world’s finest, you may not have at your disposal a team of trainers to help you through forced reps or to yell at you when you’re picturing white flags.

Sure, concedes Joujon-Roche. But we all have an imagination. We all have a capacity to ride things out. What you’ve been regarding as the point of failure is probably no such thing. It could just be the point at which things get uncomfortable, the point at which you’d rather call time and eat a muffin. Or it could be fear.

“I guarantee if you’re creative enough and you want it badly enough, you can create a support system and an environment that mimics what I’m talking about.” Pushing past the point in a set where you’d normally quit is at the beating heart of the final 10 per cent. “Visualise so much blood going through your chest right now. We’re there. We’re in the red zone where your downtown muscle fibres are getting ripped apart. It’s happening. They’re nervous. So while we’re here, let’s stay for a while and capitalise.”

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Blast your weak points

Take a clear-eyed look at yourself and identify what areas need the most work, advises Joujon-Roche. Hint: they’re probably behind you. Hamstrings. Calves. Triceps. Training them to exhaustion twice a week could feel thankless, but the result will be a more balanced physique that gets attention.

“I’m 47, getting a little squishy,” says Joujon-Roche. “I go to the gym and what do I do? I pick up weights and start doing chest and bis, because that’s what we do as guys. But you know what? I’m going to work on my lower back today. What! How fucking boring! That’s no fun! But, unfortunately, that’s what needs to be done.”

Even if your abs are pretty good, they’ll need to be better if you’re to enter the final 10 per cent. Joujon-Roche made Pitt bang away at a punching bag with a pole, bracing and rotating his midsection until he was curled up on the floor. “But that’s what the final 10 per cent is: going crazy, doing crazy stuff without hurting yourself,” says Joujon-Roche. “Do this for a month, combined with proper sleep and nutrition, and you will truly make dramatic change.”

Over to you. Go hard. And when it’s done, while you might not be up for the lead in a Hollywood blockbuster, you will have redrawn the boundaries of what you know to be possible. Cut!