Jorge Blanco, trainer to Hollywood stars: ‘Maybe I come from a different era, but I’m not good at quitting’

He was Spanish kickboxing champion and a member of the Olympic boxing team. He has coached elite athletes and movie stars including Robert Pattinson, Chris Evans, and Elsa Pataky. In the space of a week, his work could take him from New York to Los Angeles, then Montreal and Toronto. It was in Canada, in fact, that he left his job as a lawyer to fulfill his dream: making a living from sports. He had little idea at that time that he would end up training and befriending Chris Hemsworth, and turning to him for fashion advice when it came to dressing up for events. Now, after decades working with Hollywood stars, Jorge Blanco has returned to Spain with a new ambition: to find his place in the performing arts. His recent appearance on reality show El Desafío [The Challenge, in which celebrities perform physical tasks in competition with each other] has confirmed that he is as comfortable in the ring as he is in front of the camera.

“The pandemic made me think about various things. At that moment, I felt very far from home. And I wanted to try my luck in Spain,” Blanco says. Now back in his native Madrid, he attends acting classes and but still finds time to train. “I’m always going to do sport, because it’s part of my life.” And from time to time, he’ll do so on an empty stomach. “For The challenge, for example, I only ate one meal a day. If I didn’t fast, my energy levels would drop. I was hungry, but the feeling after eating made me too sleepy. I needed to stay focused.”

A prime time show in Spain, The Challenge had Blanco balancing on top of a towering column formed by chairs, or crossing a glass bridge in something more akin to Squid Game than a standard reality show. “I suffer from vertigo so I felt nauseous, but I tried to block it out. I would concentrate my eyeline and never look down. You have to take your focus off the ground to counter the sensation of height and try to block out how much everything around you is moving,” he says. Blanco did not overcome his vertigo, but at least he learned to control it. That is his philosophy on life, which impressed Hemsworth. The actor has a health and sports app called Cntr, on which Blanco has been an instructor for several years. Thousands of users around the world follow his advice.

But the question begs himself, why him, in such a competitive and sought-after industry? “I’m a very discreet guy. And besides, I know how to understand my clients. I interpret their story and lifestyle. If someone wants to meet certain goals, but loves to eat out, I can’t take that away from them from on day one.” Rafa Nadal, his greatest sports role model, enters the conversation: the 22-times Grand Slam winner reputedly once lost a sponsorship deal when he ordered two pizzas during the meeting. “When it comes to exercise, everything has been discovered. There is no magic or miracles. I always use the analogy of a boat. If you turn the rudder just one degree, over time, the destination becomes very different. A year is enough time to change a lot of things,” Blanco says.

According to Blanco, marking a date in the diary to swap the sofa for the treadmill with military determination makes no sense at all. “It’s better to take the first step and then take it little by little. It’s fine to go to the gym for three days instead of five.” On vacation, even the most dedicated people abandon their routines, but you can fan the flame with a run now and then. “Spain is a small country in terms of demographics, but it is a country of great athletes. These days, we like to exercise and we like to have a beer.” Toronto, where temperatures plummet below zero in winter, and where he arrived after recently graduating from law school, was a different story. Blanco, by his own admission, has not taken a single day off in years, including weekends. “When I realized I could make a living out of this, I was excited. Then came the recognition, and I viewed my work as a luxury. I didn’t mind training Monday through Sunday, for myself or for others. It happened almost unintentionally. I look back and I’m surprised by all the punishment I’ve inflicted on myself,” Blanco reflects.

And what happens when Hemsworth, or another of his celebrity clients, says they can’t take any more punishment and asks him to bring a session to an end? “That’s when a tug-of-war begins. If I see that we’ve reached our limit, maybe we’ll call it a day, but we’ll make it up the next time. You have to be aware how the other person is doing. The path is never linear.” Simone Biles, one of the greatest athletes of all-time, withdrew from some events at the Tokyo Olympic Games, citing mental health problems. “That was a very important moment, because someone withdrew because of an injury that was not physical but psychological. It was necessary to open the door to that acceptance. If we don’t take the head into account, training is reduced to counting repetitions,” says Blanco, whose philosophy has also seen him give talks to businesspeople on discipline and self-improvement.

What Blanco enjoyed most about The Challenge, he says, was being pushed outside his comfort zone. And that he picked up a few bruises during shooting: “There are those who really hit a brick wall, they take a hit to their mind as if they have ruptured a tendon. But I don’t like the culture of giving up. Maybe I come from a different era, but I’m not good at quitting. I learned to keep my promises, to always move forward. That’s what works for me, but my story doesn’t have to be the same as everyone else’s.”

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition