Mark Webster is just your average Joe. He is a family man and works in an office in New York City. Sick of his boring workout routine, he decided to switch things up a bit. 

He remembered reading about The Rock’s training routine for the movie Hercules and thought he would try it out. His goal was to train and eat just like The Rock for 30 days. Here is how it all went down. 

He knew that this would not be an easy task. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is huge! He wakes up at four in the morning every morning to get in his gym time. This would take some serious self-discipline, but that is exactly what Mark was looking for. 

He never had the intentions of bulking and becoming huge. He wasn’t trying to be The Rock. He just wanted to see if he could have the "will and discipline to spend a month walking in his shoes."

He logged his entire journey in a blog if you are interested in trying it out for yourself. Just a warning: You will have to eat a lot of egg whites and even more cod. Oh man, there is so much cod. 

The Rock is not a small man, so you have to imagine that he eats a lot in one day. In order to maintain such a massive frame he eats over 5,000 calories a day. He eats seven meals a day that add up to about 500 grams of protein. Every time Mark went to the grocery store, he had to pick up 6 pounds of cod. I told you it requires eating a lot of cod. 

The worst part about the diet for Mark was the meal prep. Keeping up with seven meals a day while still having a full time job and a family is a hard thing to do. You also have to factor in your gym time. His meal prep took about two hours every two days. 

Meal 1 – 10 oz cod, 2 whole eggs, 2 cups oatmeal. 

Meal 2 – 8 oz cod, 12 oz sweet potato, 1 cup veggies

Meal 3 – 8 oz chicken, 2 cups white rice, 1 cup veggies

Meal 4 – 8 oz cod, 2 cups rice, 1 cup veggies, 1 tbsp fish oil

Meal 5 – 8 oz steak, 12 oz baked potato, spinach salad

Meal 6 – 10 oz cod, 2 cups rice, salad

Meal 7 – 30 grams casein protein, 10 egg-white omelet, 1 cup veggies (onions, peppers, mushrooms), 1 tbsp fish oil

When you have to eat seven meals in a day, you can only imagine that you are forced to eat in the weirdest places. Mark would even have to eat a meal at the gym to get it all in. "I basically sit in a chair in the lobby area, and consume cod, eggs, and oatmeal. I am conscious as to whether the cod smells as people walk in. Thankfully I’m only there for 8 minutes or so."

In 15 days alone, Mark consumed 34 pounds of cod. Wouldn’t you get sick of all the cod after one day? Well, it turns out The Rock hates cod because of all the cod that he has consumed in his life. 

Now, don’t think that you can eat 5,000 calories a day and keep your weight down. This plan has enough exercise that Mark to not gain any weight in the first 22 days. That is impressive. 

According to Mark's blog, the Rock's schedule requires 50 minutes of elliptical followed by a six-day split workout. There is one chest day, two leg days, one arm day, and one shoulder day. This adds up to two hours of exercise, six days out of the week. The weight lifting routine is split into seven exercises, four sets of 12 reps each. 

50 minutes on the elliptical, six days a week sounds really boring. I can only imagine that that much time on a machine can make you feel like a hamster on a wheel. Mark got by thanks to podcast and audiobooks. 

All that working out can make you super sore. Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOM) can be brutal but Mark didn’t suffer as much as he thought. In his blog he wrote: "Even my previous fitness routine, which I had done for months, left me feeling a tad sore and tight. But on this plan I’m haven’t had that experience. The only thing that could account for that is the diet." 

The massive amount of protein is the reason why he didn’t suffer.  

So you can see that in the end he didn’t gain any weight, despite all the calories, but he did gain some muscle mass. He also proved to himself that he could complete such a difficult task. And now we know that the answer to “Can you smell what The Rock is cooking?” is cod. 

So much cod.