Alan Ritchson would like to clarify just how much muscle he put on to star in Reacher.

(Image credit: Amazon Prime Video)

Reacher is possibly the best reason to have a Prime Video subscription, and its star is, literally, a big reason why. Alan Ritchson is a big guy.

Even without the camera tricks Reacher uses to make the actor look even bigger than he actually is, Ritchson has a massive physique, but the actor would like to clarify one thing, as recent reports regarding just how big he is are maybe not entirely accurate.

Speaking with GQ, Alan Ritchson wanted to clarify reports that he had gained 30 pounds of muscle to play Lee Child’s massive hero.

While Ritchson confirms that he did gain 30 pounds for the role, and believes that most of it was probably muscle, he can’t say for sure, and doesn’t seem to believe, that all of it was muscle. Ritchson said…

I want to clarify one thing because in every interview someone says ‘30 pounds of muscle’. I put on 30 pounds! I don’t know how much of that was lean muscle.

I went from 205lb to 235lb in eight months, I was eating a tonne. I don’t think all of that was muscle. A good chunk was – a little more than half, maybe. But I didn’t take steroids, I didn’t take testosterone.

There was only one way to get where I needed to be and that was hard work. I fucking wrecked my body, dude. It was too much. I didn’t have time to heal. I would strain something and I was like, ‘I don’t care! I’m working through it!’ I suffered the consequences.

While a lot of actors have to hit the gym pretty hard in order to make a certain look on-screen work, it’s certainly not all fun and games. Zac Efron has talked about working out, and the brutal toll it has taken on his body in the past.

It sounds like Ritchson has a similar story. He pushed himself pretty hard, likely harder than he needed to, and the result was that while he looked amazing, he didn’t necessarily feel that way.

Alan Ritchson says he didn’t use testosterone during his workout for Season 1 of Reacher, but it seems that was perhaps the wrong decision.

The actor says that he required surgery before the new Season of Reacher and that his testosterone levels were too low as a result of his workouts. Now, he doesn’t need to work out quite as hard to maintain his massive size. He continued…

When I finished [season one], I needed surgery. I couldn’t breathe well. I got a blood panel done and found out I had no testosterone left [because of overtraining].

My doctor was like, “You need to be on testosterone”. [Testosterone therapy] was a real gift because now I’m able to easily maintain that size. My workouts are short and sweet – maybe 30 minutes a day.

We’re glad Alan Ritchsaon is keeping himself healthy because it Reacher is one of the best Prime Video shows and now we don’t have to wait too long for Season 3. Season 2 just ended but Season 3  of Reacher is already in production, which is great for those of us that are huge fans of the huge man.