Jay Cutler (born Jason Isaac Cutler on August 3, 1973, in Sterling, Massachusetts) is an American IFBB professional bodybuilder. He is a four time Mr. Olympia winner (2006, 2007, 2009 & 2010).

Cutler worked in his family’s concrete construction business, Cutler Bros Concrete, from the age of 11, and began training when he was 18 years old as a senior at Wachusett Regional High School.

He graduated from Quinsigamond Community College in 1993 with a degree in criminal justice, intending to work as a Corrections Officer for a maximum security prison.

He was inspired to enter bodybuilding after meeting personal trainer Marcos Rodriguez. Cutler excelled in bodybuilding, desiring to be one of the largest competitors ever and took his first overall win in 1993 at the Iron Bodies Invitational.

His first contest was the 1992 Gold’s Gym Worcester Bodybuilding Championships, at which he took second place. He won consecutive Arnold Classic titles in 2002, 2003, and 2004, and placed second to Ronnie Coleman in the Mr. Olympia competition four times before claiming the title in 2006.

Cutler won the Olympia for a second consecutive year in 2007. Jay Cutler became the third Mr. Olympia in history (along with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Franco Columbu) to win the title in nonconsecutive years, and, defeating the reigning champion Dexter Jackson in 2009, became the only Mr. Olympia in history to reclaim the title after having competed as title-holder and not won. In 2010, he won his fourth Mr. Olympia title, defeating Phil Heath.

In 2011, Cutler was runner-up to Heath at the Mr. Olympia. In 2012, Cutler was unable to compete at the Mr. Olympia due to a bicep injury. Cutler called it a career after placing sixth at the 2013 Olympia.

Life after retirement

Jay Cutler is one of the yesteryear bodybuilders that adapted really well to the age of social media and internet. In the decade after retirement, Jay Cutler has become one of the most prominent voices in the bodybuilding industry. His ‘Cutler Cast’ podcast and other content produced for social media channels has gained a significant amount of popularity.

Although he is significantly downsized after retirement, the 4-time Mr. Olympia continues to train and stay in excellent shape all year round. Recently, Jay Cutler made waves when he transformed his physique for the ‘Fit for 50’ challenge. One year ago, Jay Cutler decided to get in the best shape that he can achieve at this stage of life with proper diet, training, cardio and a little bit of help from TRT.

He took this up as a ‘Fit for 50’ challenge and decided to showcase the results of transformation on his 50th birthday. The 4-time Mr. Olympia showed off the insanely aesthetic and muscular physique as promised when he turned 50 and set a new benchmark for the young bodybuilders to look up to.

Cutler has been featured on the cover of several fitness magazines such, as Muscle and Fitness and Muscular Development. Jay Cutler currently lives in Las Vegas, Nevada. He wedded his girlfriend of seven years, Kerry, on July 9, 1998, at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas. They later divorced.

Mr. & Masters Olympia Results

• 1999 – IFBB Mr. Olympia: 15th
• 2000 – IFBB Mr. Olympia: 8th
• 2001 – IFBB Mr. Olympia: 2nd
• 2003 – IFBB Mr. Olympia: 2nd
• 2004 – IFBB Mr. Olympia: 2nd
• 2005 – IFBB Mr. Olympia: 2nd
• 2006 – IFBB Mr. Olympia: 1st
• 2007 – IFBB Mr. Olympia: 1st
• 2008 – IFBB Mr. Olympia: 2nd
• 2009 – IFBB Mr. Olympia: 1st
• 2010 – IFBB Mr. Olympia: 1st
• 2011 – IFBB Mr. Olympia: 2nd
• 2013 – IFBB Mr. Olympia: 6th

Titles Won

• 1993 – NPC Iron Bodies Invitational
• 1993 – NPC Teen Nationals (Middleweight)
• 1995 – NPC U.S. Tournament of Champions
• 2000 – IFBB Night of Champions
• 2002 – IFBB Arnold Classic
• 2003 – IFBB Arnold Classic
• 2003 – IFBB Ironman Pro Invitational
• 2003 – IFBB San Francisco Pro Invitational
• 2003 – IFBB Grand Prix Holland
• 2003 – IFBB Grand Prix England
• 2004 – IFBB Arnold Classic
• 2006 – IFBB Grand Prix Austria
• 2006 – IFBB Grand Prix Romania
• 2006 – IFBB Grand Prix Holland
• 2006 – IFBB Mr. Olympia
• 2007 – IFBB Mr. Olympia
• 2009 – IFBB Mr. Olympia
• 2010 – IFBB Mr. Olympia

Jay Cutler Workout

Professional bodybuilding is extremely demanding on the physique and overall health. A lot of elite bodybuilders have suffered the consequences of the arduous lifestyle in the later stages of their careers and post retirement. However, Jay Cutler is one of the few people that were able to call it a career without any major injuries and health complications.

Jay Cutler has a more intuitive approach to training as he does not follow any rigid training philosophy that restricts adding new elements to it. During his professional bodybuilding career, Cutler always listened to his body and modified the exercises as well as training methods in ways that were beneficial for long term health.

He believed in high volume training for inducing muscle hypertrophy and refrained from training with unnecessarily heavy weights by checking his own ego. Another salient feature of Jay Cutler’s training method is the rep range. The 4-time Mr. Olympia never counts the reps in his workouts and goes with the feel. But interestingly, a rep range of 10 to 12 is where the Goldilocks zone lies for the 50-year-old.

Emphasis on Cardio

Cardio is an excellent form of training to achieve overall fitness and performance longevity. But a lot of gym-goers avoid it due to the fear of losing muscle mass and their perceived disadvantage in terms of joint health. Jay Cutler does not belong to this category of fitness enthusiasts and employs a bike, treadmill, step mill, and elliptical machine to get a good cardio workout. His home gym has every piece of equipment which helps him stick to the routine with consistency.

Cutler utilizes cardio training in two ways. He either does fasted cardio as the first thing in the morning or gets it in after his weight training session. While speaking about the benefits of cardio training in a YouTube video, Jay Cutler stated:

“Remember, cardio is necessary when you’re trying to lean down, and increase metabolism. I prefer to do it either first thing in the morning or after the weight training session. Pay attention to that because you don’t want to burn up glycogen prior to working out with weights. So, really focus on adding your cardio as necessary but remember the training is the most important thing.”

For the ‘Fit for 50’ challenge, Cutler extensively relied on cardio, weight training, diet and a little bit of help from TRT to transform his physique. His cardio training routine for this challenge included a step mill. Cutler says that it’s his go-to exercise for getting the heart rate up. But he did other forms or cardio mentioned above as well. The 4-time Mr. Olympia did 20 minutes of cardio for the entire duration of the challenge. While explaining how the cardio helped with the transformation, Jay Cutler stated:

“That cardio’s going to kick in that metabolism. It’s going to allow me to eat a little more and lean out. Fit for 50 full effect.”

Day 1 – Chest, Calves and Abs

Jay Cutler can sometimes cub abs and calves training with other major muscle groups. He sometimes puts the abs and chest training together and goes through the workout with furious intensity. The 4-time Mr. Olympia firmly disapproves the idea that decline, flat and incline pressing movements have any meaningful difference in stimulating different parts of the chest.

The 50-year-old believes that all chest press variations stimulate the pectoral muscle to equal effect. But he still includes different variations of presses to add variety to the training routine and work the muscles from different angles.

Jay Cutler’s chest and abs workout is composed of following exercises:

• Machine Incline Chest Flyes – 3 sets of 12 reps
• Dumbbell Bench Press – 3 sets of 12 reps
• Cable Crossover – 3 sets of 12 reps
• Incline Barbell Bench Press – 3 sets of 12 reps
• Dumbbell Pullover – 3 sets of 12 reps
• Hammer Strength Incline Chest Press – 3 sets of 12 reps
• Seated Calf Raises – 3 sets of 12 reps
• Seated Toe Press – 3 sets of 12 reps
• Roman Chair Leg Raises – 3 sets of 12 reps
• Cable Crunches – 3 sets of 12 reps
• Straight Leg Crunches – 3 sets of 12 reps

Day 2 – Back

Jay Cutler’s back training formula is pretty simple – Have vertical and horizontal pulling movements in the training routine to get a thick and wide back. Vertical pulls like pull-ups and lat pulldowns are essential for building a wide back that tapers down nicely to the waist level. Meanwhile, horizontal pulls like seated rows and T-bar rows impart thickness to the back. A combination of these factors helps you build a 3D looking back that is fully developed without any imbalances.

Cutler almost always starts his back workout with lat pulldowns and performs heavy compound exercises afterwards to stimulate the back muscles and get a good pump.

A typical back day in Jay Cutler’s training routine looks like this:

• Lat Pulldowns – 3 sets of 12 reps
• Bent Over Dumbbell Rows – 3 sets of 12 reps
• Machine Pullover – 3 sets of 12 reps
• T-Bar Rows – 3 sets of 12 reps
• Seated Machine Rows – 3 sets of 12 reps
• Bent Over Cable Straight Arm Pulldowns – 3 sets of 12 reps

Day 3 – Shoulder and Calves

Shoulder training is essential to cap an impressive physique with a set of boulder shoulders at the top. Jay Cutler’s shoulder workout focuses on targeting all three heads of shoulders – lateral, anterior and posterior delts. While the anterior and posterior delts get stimulated during compound pulling and pushing movements, lateral delts need to be targeted with specific isolation movements  to activate them.

Cutler performs several variations of specific movements for all three heads in his shoulder training routine. Over the last few years, the legendary bodybuilder has started to club calves training with other parts of his physique. He sometimes performs the calves exercises on shoulder day.

A typical shoulder workout in Jay Cutler’s routine looks like this:

• Standing Calf Raises – 3 sets of 12 reps
• Seated Calf Raises – 3 sets of 12 reps
• Machine Seated Overhead Press – 3 sets of 15 reps
• Standing Dumbbell Lateral Raises – 3 sets of 12 reps
• Incline Barbell Front Raises – 3 sets of 12 reps
• Reverse Pec Deck Flyes – 3 sets of 12 reps
• High Pulley Rear Delts Crossover – 3 sets of 12 reps

Day 4 – Arms

Jay Cutler was never a fan of working the arms as it was his least favorite body part to train during the peak of his bodybuilding career. But a true champion does not give in to the feelings or personal biases and does everything with equal dedication. Cutler performs an arms workout once every week. Interestingly, it has become one of his favorite body parts to train.

“I always talk about arms and how I hate training arms, believe it or not, it’s become one of my favorite body parts to train because I’m actually starting to feel the movements a lot more,” Cutler said in a YouTube video.

These are the exercise that his arms workout is composed of:

• Cable Triceps Pushdowns – 2 warm-up sets, 3 sets of 12 reps
• Rope Pushdowns – 3 to 4 sets of 10 to 12 reps
• Overhead Dumbbell Triceps Extensions – 3 sets of 12 reps
• Triceps Dip Machine – 3 sets of 12 reps
• Superset – Dumbbell Triceps Extensions and Dumbbell Kickbacks – 3 sets of 10 to 12 reps
• Nautilus Biceps Curls Machine – 3 sets of 12 reps
• Alternate Dumbbell Curls – 3 sets of 8 to 10 reps
• Incline Bench Spider Curls with Straight Bar – 3 sets of 10 to 12 reps

Day 5 – Legs

Jay Cutler tackles leg training in many different ways. Depending upon the goal and training progress, he either performs a full lower body workout or splits it in a quad or glute and hamstrings workout. Cutler admits that there was a time when he found it extremely difficult to feel the pump in his hamstrings and hated to train the muscle. However, he was able to break out of the plateau by incorporating effective hamstring focused movements like standing leg curls.

On the full leg day workout, the 4-time Mr. Olympia still starts out with lying leg curls to warm up the knee joints along with lower body muscles. Knees are the most crucial joint in most lower body exercises and it is essential to warm them up to avoid training related injuries. Leg curls are a great way to get a good knee warm-up without putting a lot of stress on them.

Cutler follows it up with several compound and isolation movements to target all the major muscles like quadriceps, glutes and hamstrings for complete leg development. He is careful to work the hamstrings first and then shift the focus on quads as that’s the sequence which gives him a good pump, especially in hamstrings.

The full leg day in Cutler’s training routine looks like this:

• Seated Leg Curls – 3 sets of 12 reps
• Dumbbell Stiff Leg Deadlifts – 3 sets of 12 reps
• Lying Leg Curls – 3 sets of 12 reps
• Walking Barbell Lunges – 3 sets of 12 reps
• Leg Extensions – 3 sets of 12 reps
• Leg Press – 2 sets of 12 reps
• Barbell Squats – 1 sets of 10 reps
• Glute Ham Raises – 2 sets of 12 reps

A decade into retirement, Jay Cutler continues to train hard and stay in shape. His priorities have changed significantly over time but the end goal is still to stay healthy, fit and be the best version of himself that he can be.

Jay Cutler Diet

Jay Cutler maintained a massive and muscular physique throughout his professional bodybuilding career. A high protein diet was essential to sustain the kind of muscle mass he had on the body.

Cutler typically ate as high as 5000 calories every day when he was bulking and the caloric intake was spread across seven meals spaced evenly throughout the day. Predictably, his diet consisted of clean, organic foods and dietary supplements to balance things out. He indulged in fast foods once in a while too but it was limited to occasional intake.

To consume enough protein, Jay Cutler sometimes ate nearly four pounds of meat every single day and some of his diets involved eating as much as 140 egg whites a day.

“I’m not going to lie, there were a lot of diets. I ate 140 egg whites a day. So I was cracking eggs non-stop. I remember sitting cracking eggs for an hour in the morning and I would put everything in Tupperware containers. I would just dump out. I was eating thirty egg whites a meal then. There’s only about three grams of protein in egg whites. Shoot, I was eating 500 grams of protein a day,” Cutler said in an interview.

A typical day of eating in Jay Cutler’s routine looked like this:

Meal 1

15 Egg Whites
3 Whole Eggs
Toast
1 Cup Oatmeal
Multivitamin Tablets
1 glass of Orange Juice

Meal 2

12 Ounces Chicken
2 Cups Brown Rice

Meal 3

Protein Shake
8 Ounces Chicken
1 Cup Oatmeal

Meal 4

8 Ounces Steak
2 Cups White Rice

Meal 5

12 Ounces Chicken
1 Cup Brown Rice

Meal 6

8 Ounces Chicken
1 Cup Brown Rice
12 Ounces Buffalo Meat
3 Whole Eggs

Meal 7

14 Ounces Chicken
12 Ounces Sweet Potato

Jay Cutler has significantly downsized after retirement and does not consume the massive amounts of food that he once did. However, he still maintains a disciplined diet and stays away from junk food.

To Conclude…

It is an extremely difficult task to escape the long term effects of an arduous lifestyle that competitive bodybuilders have to endure. However, Jay Cutler is a shining example of a bodybuilder that achieved greatness without sacrificing long-term health.

Not only did he approach training and diet with a cautious approach but also let go of the huge physique upon retirement and chose longevity over image. The legendary bodybuilder has set a perfect blueprint and a positive example that young bodybuilders should thrive to follow.