Page 27 - Men’s Health - USA (December 2019)

BODY

BETWEEN
SETS

Favorite cheat food?
“Ice cream. Choco-
late-chip mint. The
last seven years, I’ve
started to really like it.
I like it a lot.”

What gets you through a
tough workout?
“I count. I’m always
counting. When I do a
treadmill workout, I
count steps. I think it’s
a way of meditating.”

Workout goal?
Blum’s full-body sweat sessions typically include moves that challenge his “I’d like to get my box
core, like the single-arm land-mine press (inset) and the offset-load barbell row. jumps back up to 50
inches. I injured my
shoulder, but it’s better
myself an hour a day to work out,” Blum sweat. “I’m very into effi ciency,” he says. now, so I’m working on
says between sets of land-mine shoul- Blum wanted more hardcore fi tness, so my chest, too.”
der presses and ab drills. “I don’t know he asked to work out with the fi lm’s star,
whether it’s true or not, but I’ve never not Dwayne Johnson, who trained at 3:00 A.M. Fitness role model?
given myself an hour a day to work out, so No luck. “I endlessly tried to get in there “The person who taught
I’m not going to fi nd out.” and work out with him, and I never pulled me how to exercise,
There’s no reason to mess with success, it off ,” Blum says. “He was always super Logan Hood, a Navy
and from the Purge fi lms to Whiplash nice about it: ‘Yeah! We’ll do it next SEAL who took a break
and Us and Glass, Blum has had plenty. week!’ But he never let me. His workouts from the military and
He heads Blumhouse Productions, the are incredibly private. But whatever he’s had a gym near the
Hollywood fi lm factory that specializ- doing is working.” airport in L. A. He’s in
es in transforming micro budgets (try Whenever Blum trains, he makes sure all-around shape.”
under $15,000 for 2007’s Paranormal to push himself to his limits. On this day,
Activity) into major moolah (see: nearly he rides his bike 30 blocks
$200 million at the global box offi ce). through Manhattan traffi c
He traces his discipline back to when (hey, more adrenaline!) to
he decided to quit smoking at age 30. He’d meet Creighton. (Creigh-
smoked since high school, but at a night- ton and Jeff Scarborough,
club during the 1999 Hamptons Film Blum’s Los Angeles
Festival, tired of being constantly out of trainer, always keep their
breath, he resolved to quit and stomped schedules fl exible when
his fi nal cigarette butt into the ground. he’s in town.)
“I replaced it with the gym,” he says. Forty-fi ve minutes later,
Not that he was a box-jumping badass Blum is doubled over after
right away. His fi rst post-smoker workout busting through 40-sec-
was a 20-minute session on a hotel sta- onds-on, 20-seconds-off
tionary bike—and it left him wrecked. intervals on the dreaded
But a decade later, while on the Vancou- Airdyne bike, his T-shirt
ver set of the family comedy The Tooth plastered to his midsec-
Fairy, which he produced, he stumbled tion. He wouldn’t have it
onto a CrossFit workout with a lunchtime any other way. “I really
group and loved how the pace fi red up like that my mind is totally
his muscles and had him dripping in blank,” he says.