James Norton is putting a different spin on Santa Claus this Christmas. The Happy Valley star is playing Saint Nick in the new M&S advert, complete with a surprisingly shredded torso that leaves the traditional mince-pie physique looking a little dated.
Rather than building his Santa body on milk and cookies, Norton has been relying on bodyweight training and a varied fitness routine to get into shape.
Now 41, Norton has managed to find a healthy balance with his training. While different roles require him to look a certain way, he still finds time to work on his fitness between a busy filming schedule and managing his type 1 diabetes. The British actor completed the 2026 London Marathon earlier this year, while he likes to combine strength training with cardio four times a week.
‘It depends on where I am in my career,’ he said on the Men’s Health Built for Life podcast. ‘Sometimes it’s all or nothing – I have to get as lean and as ripped as possible and I’ve got three months to do it. And sometimes I just have to get big.
‘Once a week I do a session on my Peloton (indoor bike), I do a run, I do a weights session, and I’ve started doing reformer Pilates which I really love.’
How James Norton Trains for His Roles
Those strength sessions vary, though when he was preparing to play the maniac Tommy Lee Royce in Happy Valley, Norton worked with trainer George Ashwell.
They wanted to achieve a sinewy, prison aesthetic for the character, which meant focusing on bodyweight exercises that could actually be performed in a prison cell.
‘It was a lot of pull-ups, squats, push-ups,’ Ashwell told MH. ‘It wasn’t super heavy stuff. We weren’t deadlifting 150kg, but we were focusing on the more difficult bodyweight exercises, so like with press-ups putting your feet off the ground to make them more difficult, etc. and always going for higher reps.’
And that approach has paid off, with Norton bringing some serious muscle and visible abs to his take on Father Christmas.
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Ryan is a Senior Writer at Men’s Health UK with a passion for storytelling, health and fitness. Having graduated from Cardiff University in 2020, and later obtaining his NCTJ qualification, Ryan started his career as a Trainee News Writer for sports titles Golf Monthly, Cycling Weekly and Rugby World before progressing to Staff Writer and subsequently Senior Writer with football magazine FourFourTwo.
During his two-and-a-half years there he wrote news stories for the website and features for the magazine, while he also interviewed names such as Les Ferdinand, Ally McCoist, Jamie Redknapp and Antonio Rudiger, among many others. His standout memory, though, came when getting the opportunity to speak to then-Plymouth Argyle manager Steven Schumacher as the club won League One in 2023.
Having grown up a keen footballer and playing for his boyhood side until the age of 16, Ryan got the opportunity to represent Northern Ireland national futsal team eight times, scoring three goals against England, Scotland and Gibraltar. Now past his peak, Ryan prefers to mix weightlifting with running – he achieved a marathon PB of 3:31:49 at Manchester in April 2025, but credits the heat for failing to get below the coveted 3:30 mark…
You can follow Ryan on Instagram @ryan.dabbs or on X @ryandabbs_