Ritchson describes going above and beyond while training for the role of Jack Reacher.

Alan Ritchson’s physique is the focal point of a new interview. The star of Amazon Prime’s Reacher recently spoke to GQ about how he gained 30 pounds of muscle to obtain his overbearing frame and nearly damaged his body from overtraining.

“I want to clarify one thing because in every interview, someone says ’30 pounds of muscle,’ Ritchson said. “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,” he added. “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 f— 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.”

In the end, Ritchson had to undergo surgery after filming season one of the show.”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.”

He continued, “There’s no doubt that people place a big emphasis on his size, but to me, the character is much more than that.

The heart of the character really lies in his sardonic sense of humor, which is incredibly fun to play. He’s a smart guy, and isn’t afraid to be a smart-ass. That underlying humor is what brings depth to him as a character and also keeps audiences entertained.”

Ritchson proceeded to go into more detail about Jack Reacher-induced injuries, this time from the actor’s favorite on-set fight scene. “There’s one fight that sticks out in my mind because it was brutal,” he said.

“In season one [the penultimate episode, ‘Reacher Said Nothing’], I’m fighting a guy with a crowbar and he like cracks a vase over my head and we end up in the pool, and he’s choking me out with a crowbar, and I see a gun that has fallen in the bottom of the pool, and I shoot him from behind my back, right? That fight took so much out of me!”

“I had a beanie on, and when I got cracked in the head with a vase… Look, it was a sugar vase and I said to the guy to just f— rock me with that thing, man. It looked really cool. It shatters and I’m like… I feel it.”

“I am dazed,” he continued. “We finish the sequence, and I take my beanie off, and there is blood everywhere. I told the stunt guys and was like, “Dude, that was a sugar vase?” and they go, “Oh yeah, the sugar vase doesn’t help at all.”Season 2 of Reacher is currently available to stream on Amazon Prime.