RFK Jr Workout Routine, Morning Hike, TRT & Fasting

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was recently snapped working out shirtless at Gold’s Gym in Venice beach, California.

At 69 years old, RFK (this this pic from Twitter) looks off the charts:

Table of Contents

Workout Routine

Aubrey Marcus’s shared on Facebook how RFK stays in such great shape, saying that he drives 4x per week from his home (possibly in Malibu) to Gold’s Gym in Venice Beach to work out.

RFK explained during his Lex Fridman interview (link), that he splits his workouts into 4 body parts:

Back
Chest
Legs
Miscellaneous

And then his workout follows this pattern:

He keeps each workout 35 minutes of intense exercise. He says he find this duration sustainable, implying that if he worked out longer, he wouldn’t be able to do it as regularly.
During his first set of each exercise, he tries to reach failure at 12 reps
Then in his 4th set of an exercise, he uses “strip sets” – which involves lifting a weight you can handle, and then once you reach fatigue/failure, dropping the amount of weight and doing more reps, repeating this until you run out of weight to drop (see example video).

It appears his workout method draws on ideas made famous by guys like Mike Mentzer and Dorian Yates.

Mentzer, a famous bodybuilder from the 70s and 80s, was an advocate of High Intensity Training (HIT). His method, also known as Heavy Duty training, involved fewer workouts (around 4 days per week) with each session lasting no more than an hour.

Similarly, Dorian Yates (six-time Mr. Olympia) used and promoted a style of training known as High Intensity Training (HIT). His approach involves doing fewer sets, but with maximum intensity.

Above, from video footage on Twitter, shows RFK doing an incline bench press.

Whilst the above may not look like a lot of weight (perhaps 50kg (110 lbs), bar included), according to Ryan this was RFK’s last dropset of the day for incline, at 50% of his max.

If my estimate on the weight is correct, it suggests he may be able to bench press around 100kg (220 lbs) at his max.

That’s a respectable amount of weight for an in shape 20 or 30 year old.

But how many can still bench that at 69 years old? It’s a good question.

RFK also posted a video on Twitter of him doing push ups on that same day:

Morning Routine

RFK describes his morning routine (again on Lex’s podcast) as follows:

He starts the morning with a meeting
Then he goes to a regular hiking spot with his dogs, where he walks 1.5 miles up a hill and back again
During the hike period he “does his meditations” (as he describes it)
Then, if it’s a gym day, he goes to the gym.

Is RFK Jr on TRT?

During RFK’s interview with Lex he confirmed he uses Testosterone Replacement Therapy.

Adding that he doesn’t take any other steroids.

It seems possible that he hasn’t been on TRT for long. For example, in a video of him 4 years ago on a hike, he doesn’t look as muscular and chiselled as he is now. In particular, there’s less bulk and definition around his shoulders and upper arms:

Then versus now:

TRT, or Testosterone Replacement Therapy, is a way to raise testosterone levels artificially.

Men typically use TRT, as they get older, to bring their testosterone levels closer to the level they had in their 20s and 30s.

This usually gives them more energy, vitality, ability to train harder, recover quicker, and stay stronger into older age.

Even with TRT it still requires the individual to work out hard and watch what they eat, if they want to maintain a high muscle mass and low body fat percentage.

You can’t simply take testosterone and expect your muscles to start bulging like popeye, sadly.