It is a must to go see the pictures!!!
www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/weekend/2010/July/weekend_July105.xml§ion=weekend&col=It’s all hunky doryAnshuman Joshi (BODY LANGUAGE)
23 July 2010
How adding some muscle has helped Hollywood’s hottest male stars beef up their potential at the box-office
Gerard Butler
He’s the sort of Butler no woman would mind having around the house, yet he is only an actor, and a well-built one too. He was also King Leonidas, the Spartan king who fought off hordes of weirdly dressed Persians in 300, with the help of 299 other scantily clad warriors — all of them who looked like they had been carved out of granite. Can you imagine the pressure of being the leader of men who looked like their abs had been baked in an oven? Well, he could have gotten some painted on him as well, but Gerard Butler being the hardworking star that he is, decided to manufacture some for himself at the gym.
More than a little help came in the form of Mark Twight, a world-class mountain climber who designed the 300-rep Spartan Workout that pumped Butler’s graduation from a less-than ideal body shape to that of a warrior’s physique. Without any rest between exercises, Butler was expected to perform 25 pull-ups, 50 deadlifts with 135 pounds, 50 pushups, 50 jumps on a 24-inch box, 50-floor wipers, 50 single arm clean and presses using a 36 pound kettle bell and 25 more pull ups. In addition, he had to do things like tire-flipping and gymnastics-style ring training.
And if you think that is enough to kill a man, here’s more: Butler also enlisted the services of a Venezuelan bodybuilder to exaggerate his pumped up physique. No wonder, Xerxes had to rain down zillions of arrows before he could kill him.
As far as the hot Law Abiding Citizen star is concerned, the time that he spent
at the gym has helped build both his muscles and career. And his effect on women? Rippling.
Daniel Craig
First came the mermaids, then came Ursula Andress and finally when the sea looked like it could throw up no further exotic surprises, out came Daniel Craig, the beefiest 007 to serve in his Majesty’s Secret Service. The world’s sexiest spy was no longer just brainy, he was brawny, and for a legion of women, who had raved and ranted against what they perceived was the ‘sexist’ approach of Bond movies, Craig’s hunk-in-a-trunk image was Moore than what they had bargained for. Suddenly the man who was dissed as the ‘Blond Bond’, much before Casino Royale was even released, was the best thing to have happened to a faltering franchise, his “sticky-out” ears notwithstanding. He ran, killed, gambled, seduced Eva Green, survived a heart attack and an excruciating torture session that left most men shifting uneasily in their seats, and in doing that ensured that Casino Royale was the most successful Bond movie at the box office.
However, if you think, it was easy getting to shape for the role, banish the thought. It was loads of hard work, both in terms of workout and diet routines. Remember, he needed the right bulk to look good both in a tuxedo and swimsuit. In the gym Craig adopted the punishing circuit training routine three-four times a week. Considered to be more effective than a traditional cardio routine, it comprised seven exercises (Clean & Jerk, Squat, Bench Press, Pull-ups, Dips, Bicep Curls and Dumbbell Lateral Raises) of four giant sets each done back to back with minimal rest between exercises. It helped him bump up his heart rate and burn more calories. This was followed by an Ab routine (crunches and ab leg raises) and a final cardio blast — rowing for 1000 m at level 10. His diet was very measured too—eggs, protein shakes, fruits and nuts, lean meat, fish, yoghurt, and that occasional tipple twice a week. All those hours spent in the gym worked for him, gave him the chiseled look that left women, shaken and stirred.
Jake Gyllenhaal
From being a man’s man in Brokeback Mountain to being the swashbuckling Prince Dastan in Prince of Persia, Jake Gyllenhaal is a classic example of how one video game can help Donnie Darko find his feet and fists in a world of daggers and cloak in the dagger operatives. Critics may have panned the movie, but women across the world went faint at the sight of his lopsided smile and his biceps that looked like they had bulged overnight.
To get ready for his role, Jake had to learn swordfighting, horseback riding and Parkour, the French martial art.
The producers of the film enlisted the services of David Belle, the creator of Parkour, to help Jake practice the jumps and landings on hard surfaces. He even had special Parkour boots made for him so that he could do his own stunts (that included a 35 foot jump). In addition, Jake hit the gym twice a day and his morning training included half an hour of intensive cardio workout outdoors and interval training (10 in uphill sprint followed by ab exercises at the summit) that he repeated five times. In the evening he went through an hour of resistance
training using cables, pull-ups, press-ups and ab exercises with weights and rounded it all up with stretching.
The results are for everyone to see — Jake Gyllenhaal has beefed up his potential as an action star to reckon with. And the women? They don’t seem to get enough of him.
Taylor Lautner
Let’s get one thing straight — in Twilight, New Moon and Eclipse, the werewolves are probably bigger and furrier than African lions on steroids. Not surprisingly, their human appearances, had to pack in more meat than their vampire counterparts. So Taylor Lautner, often shirtless in his role as Jacob Black, had to look like he was the best in the pack so as to make Bella Swan swoon. In order to do that he had to add almost 30 pounds of lean muscle without adding an ounce of body fat.
It’s a tough ask, but Lautner, thanks to his earlier stints with athletics and martial arts (he’s a black belt in karate), was able to do so. All it took was nine months of sweating it out at the gym, two hours a day, five days a week and eating six meals a day.
Though he has always been vague about how he got his ripped look, he did say in an interview that he used to warm up by running on the treadmill which was followed by a lot of compound and body weight exercises such as push-ups, squats, pull-ups and lunges.
In all honesty, Lautner must have killed himself at the gym to being the good-looking beast that he’s today. All the beauties would love to get their fangs into him.
Christian Bale
As Trevor Riznik in The Machinist, Christian Bale survived on a diet of coffee and apples to get the emaciated-skeletal look of his character. This was in 2004. In 2005 Bale had landed the role of Batman and that of his alter ego, Bruce Wayne, which meant that he had to look intimidating in a Batsuit. The problem was that, playing the Riznik character had left his body with very little muscle definition. Such was his state of health that by his own admission, he couldn’t do a single push-up. He had a six-month deadline to get into a shape that would make him acceptable as the Gotham’s caped crusader in Batman Begins.
He got to add 45 kgs (100lbs) in six months through a carefully modulated fitness plan that pumped his low metabolism levels to a new high. Bale was put through intensive cardio and weight-training workouts (chin-ups supersetted with bent over rows, squats, high-pulls, clean and press, sprints, lunges, dumbbell flyes followed by bench-press, clap push-ups, lateral jumps, etc.) to give him that extremely toned muscular look. He was also put through a martial arts training routine interspersed with compound weight-bearing exercise to build the athleticism expected of his character. Each workout of his needed to have some explosive movement
to it, so that he did not have to go through regular cardio sessions after his workout.
True to character, as the mean, often violent superhero who has to struggle to restrain himself physically, Bale went on to train in the Keysi Fighting Method, the Spanish art of self defense that integrates street fighting techniques in a 360-degree approach to multi-assailant attacks for The Dark Knight. The hard work paid off with the movie amassing $1 billion plus at the box office. Seems like Alfred wasn’t the only one happy with Master Bruce Wayne’s crime-fighting abilities.
Hugh Jackman
He’s Australian for Sexy. Part monster-killer, part monster, Hugh Jackman is a claw unto himself when it comes to playing Wolverine, Marvel’s superhero comic character. He’s played it thrice, but the last time he did in X Men Origins: Wolverine, it was all about him. And that Hugh Jackman actually towered over his character is not an understatement — he was 6’2’’ when Wolverine was supposed to be only 5’3’’, which meant that apart from the broad-sized camera angles, Hugh Jackman had to be compressed to a shape so compact that his forehead was the only body part that could afford to look non-muscled.
To get to this desired body size, Hugh Jackman took up the two-phase Wolverine workout plan. In the first phase involved him lifting really heavy weights as part of the 3-second technique — a regimen designed to make his muscles adapt and grow. In the second phase, the workout was focused on developing brute strength. So he lifted heavier weights in gym sessions, which lasted 90 minutes a day, five times a week. Each phase lasted between six to 12 weeks and was repeated over and over again. To get the flexibility expected of the character, Jackman also did Yoga, Pilates and running. The result was there for everyone to see—here was a sleek mutant with powerful limbs and knife-like appendages capable of ripping into the most powerful of enemies. People’s Sexiest Man Alive for 2008 might go on to do a lot of song and dance movies, but movie-goers will forever remember him for being the ultimate comic book anti-hero.
Brad Pitt
For millions of women across the world he is the ultimate Troy-boy, the poster-boy who defined new-age machismo and inspired millions across the world to emulate both his sex and pecs-appeal. Even in Troy, the Wolfgang Petersen epic, which sank at the box-office without a trace, this action hero with his flashing blade and swirling spear had nothing to show for an Achilles heel — except his blank expression, which didn’t really matter as long as those muscular legs could be seen under that little armoured dress that he wore through the movie.
Pitt was built for A-list stardom right from the time he appeared in Fight Club (1999), a fist come-fist served nihilistic orgy of violence. His shredded look for the movie came about through a carefully-structured fitness routine that focused on building one muscle group each day (Monday — Chest, Tuesday — Back, Wednesday — Shoulders, Thursday — Biceps and triceps, Friday and Saturday — Treadmill) and then giving it a week’s rest to recover. This is said to work very well when you are looking to add muscle mass fast, because muscles grow during the rest periods and not during the time spent at the gym.
For Troy, Pitt relied on a low-carb, high-protein diet in addition to quitting smoking to bulk up for the role. His workout routine, minus a few variations, remained similar to what he had done for Fight Club, but he put in an extra two hours of sword-work every day that helped him pack an extra 10-pounds of brawn to his frame. And if it were not for his mother’s oversight while dipping him in the Styx, he would have remained virtually indestructible.
In Hollywood, of course, there is nothing that is permanent, but then if you have Angelina Jolie by your side why would you care. He hasn’t flashed too much of his famous torso of late, but Brad Pitt continues to occupy a small, often censored portion of every woman’s brain.
Ryan Reynolds
The way Ryan Reynolds’ career is shaping up, many of his contemporaries will see green as he becomes the first actor ever to play a superhero in screen adaptations of both DC and Marvel Comics. Not that his Deadpool appearance didn’t make the cut, but as Green Lantern, he is set to expand his ring of influence over a number of directors in Hollywood. And he will have to work extra hard on that exquisitely-shaped physique, which along with his winsome screen charm, swept Sandra Bullock off her feet in The Proposal.
Reynolds, however, is no stranger to hard work. Both
as vampire hunter, Hannibal King in Blade Trinity and Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, he sculpted his body to great proportions to achieve the look expected of his characters.
In Blade Trinity for instance, not only did he gain 20 pounds of solid muscle, but even managed to shed his body fat from 11 per cent to just 3 per cent. Workouts spanned about 2-3 hours everyday, six times a week and focussed on one muscle group a day. Sit-ups were followed by a variety of weight training exercises and since he was very scrawny to begin with, cardio routines were completely abandoned. Since lower abs are the hardest to develop, his trainer used the exercise ball to good effect (he had to hold it between his legs, lifting up and down while he used his arms to anchor himself). He would also put a 15-pound dumbbell between his feet and do leg-raises while lying on the ground. Excruciating. Along with the right diet and protein supplements, Reynolds sweated his way to a 6-pack, so much so that people who had seen him earlier thought he had gotten implants. As Green Lantern,we can expect to see more of that tremendous physique, and knowing Reynolds, he’s no green horn—he knows how to get there.
Will Smith
You can’t be Mohammed Ali if you are not light on your feet, smart in your head and have tonnes of stamina and you can’t fight an army of robots unless you are built of steel yourself. Even if you could do all that, you can’t survive an army of zombies, unless you are a scientist who can do chin-ups. And if you can, you probably are Will Smith.
When he was getting into shape for Mohammed Ali, Will Smith worked out for six hours everyday, five days a week. This included running, five miles a day, weightlifting and boxing — a schedule that saw him pile 35 pounds to get into the skin of the character.
Three years down the line in 2004, having lost much of his muscle definition after Ali, Smith began training again for iRobot. Once again he started running, five miles a day, worked one muscle group every day, and three months later started to bench press an awful amount of weight topping at 385 pounds. Coupled with a very strict diet routine that saw him eliminate junk food completely in favour of a high-protein intake he had cranked up extra muscles while reducing his body fat percentage from 12 to 7.5 per cent. You would think that this physical torture would suffice for a lifetime, but with Will Smith, it works differently. He shed another 20 pounds for I am Legend — an achievement, he says, was much easier than putting on weight for Ali. Do we hate this guy?
Robert Downey Jr
For a man who once unsuccessfully attempted to explain his drug addiction to a judge with, “It’s like I have a loaded gun in my mouth and my finger’s on the trigger, and I like the taste of the gunmetal,” Robert Downey Jr’s career today is in stark contrast to how it had panned out as a Brat Packer in the Eighties.
Perhaps it was the idea of putting on a red metallic suit and becoming a superhero that bought out the best in him, or the realisation that his life was turning out to be one big Tropic Blunder. Tony Stark helped him put his heart in the right place and as Iron Man raced to fabulous box-office openings across the globe, Robert Downey Jr had finally become a blockbuster star.
To whip himself into shape for Iron Man, Downey Jr worked with personal trainer Brad Jose who sculpted his workout routine using weightlifting, intensive martial arts training and cardio. He used unique pieces of training equipment, which included the Ab-Inforcer (it gets your spine in neutral mode to work your core muscles properly), The Pineapple (a vibrating platform that helps you use your core muscles and leg-muscles) and The Vortex (a 360-deg movement training system which enables core and total body training with free movement capabilities). In addition, he also put him through the Jacob’s Ladder (a cardio machine that’s basically a ladder that lets you climb in place), which promises better cardio results than traditional methods. In five months he had put on 20 pounds of lean muscle and was looking the part. Now with his armour on and looking good for more Iron Man installments, Robert Downey Jr is red hot.