The Theo James fitness routine that keeps him in shape at 41 is built on a 15-year commitment to boxing and a weekly weights programme designed around recovering from serious injury, according to the two coaches who train him. With The Gentlemen Season 2 set to premiere on 3 September 2026, James has been preparing to return to one of the more physically demanding roles on television.
The show’s second season finished filming in October 2025, according to Radio Times. Guy Ritchie, who created the series, will return to direct and has co-written the new run with Matthew Read, Netflix Tudum reports. For James, that means stepping back in front of the cameras with a physique that needs to carry both menace and ease in equal measure.
Fifteen Years in the Ring
James first laced up gloves with boxing coach Shahzad Ali in 2011. Ali, a mixed martial artist who has also appeared in Mobland, says the attraction was straightforward. ‘I think he just fancied giving boxing a go,’ Ali says. ‘It’s intense, but you get into a flow state that is useful in acting.’ A decade and a half on, their sessions have moved well past the basics. ‘He’s really built up this resilience over time,’ Ali says. ‘Now, he’s at a stage where he defends his ground and when he moves, I’m struggling to catch him.’
Film schedules mean the two might only spar a few times a month, but Ali says James loses nothing between sessions. He is also quietly modest about what goes on in the ring. ‘He never speaks about his boxing skills,’ Ali says. The mental side of training is where Ali sees the clearest transfer to James’s work on set. ‘During pad work I’ll tell him, “Look how controlled and calm you are on set. Bring that to the ring with you. Listen to what’s going on and react to that, instead of trying to pre-empt it,”‘ Ali says.
The Theo James fitness routine starts, as any proper boxing session should, with a jump rope round to raise the heart rate and sharpen footwork, moves through shadowboxing and pad work, and finishes on the heavy bag when both men are already running on fumes. ‘By this stage we’re already fatigued,’ Ali explains, ‘so the heavy bag is mainly about conditioning.’ If you have a spare evening and a bit of floor space, the beginner version runs to around 16 rounds of three minutes apiece: rope, shadowboxing, six sparring rounds, four on pads, and two on the bag, followed by a short core circuit and a proper stretch.
Rebuilding Strength After Injury
Alongside Ali, James works with strength coach Ethan Chen. The pair began working together when James was preparing for the film Fuze, at which point he was carrying a torn pec and a damaged back. ‘He was dealing with a torn pec, and a damaged back, I think from jiu-jitsu training,’ Chen explains. The injuries had left James unable to train as he would like, and he had lost strength and mass as a result.
Chen built an isolation and unilateral programme to strengthen James’s weaker right side and get the muscles firing again. The previous approach had been counterproductive. ‘He would just keep going, trying to lift heavier, which made everything worse,’ Chen says. ‘We stopped that.’ Once James was moving well again, the work shifted toward building on what he had rather than simply repairing it.
With Season 2 of The Gentlemen in view, training settled at four sessions per week on an upper/lower split. James used that space to chase his own goals. He has worked back to performing pull-up sets wearing a 20kg weighted vest, and his current project is the deadlift. ‘He’s really strong, but he wanted to prioritize his deadlift to where he could lift 200 kilos,’ Chen says. No studio brief, no external mandate. Those are James’s own numbers.
Chen is clear that James’s motivation does not come from anyone else in the room. ‘He loves training. He loves lifting weights. He loves feeling strong,’ Chen says. The one concession to the rest of us: Bulgarian split squats. ‘He’ll only do those if he’s training with me,’ Chen admits.
Looking past The Gentlemen, James is reportedly experimenting with adding size, with an eye on opening up different kinds of roles. ‘He wants to open up the roles he’s being considered for,’ Chen says. ‘He’s experimenting with becoming broader and maybe a more intimidating presence.’ With Season 2 landing on 3 September 2026, there is still time to see whether that shift shows up on screen.
