Friday, August 16, 2013

How To Adapt An Action Movie Star Workout Into Your Fitness Routine

By Russ Howe


The overwhelming majority of men who own gym memberships will confess that the initial reason they became interested in building a ripped physique was seeing an action hero in a movie while growing up. It's not uncommon to hear movies like Conan and Rocky cited as huge gym influences. Many of them then try to follow the same workout routines of their chosen action hero. The Sylvester Stallone arm workout is a prime example of that mistake.

Looking at the super lean physique you see on screen in the final product, it would be quite foolish to walk into a workout like this with ambitions of taking it easy. Use that vision of the end result as a barometer to tell you that this is going to be very tough.

One particular action star, Sylvester Stallone, is well known for his intense workout schedule and it would be ill advised to attempt a full scale workout in his style without first familiarizing yourself with the surroundings at your local gym for a few months.

This workout is broken up into four stages. They are aimed at biceps, forearms, triceps and a cool down. It is performed as a circuit, with one set of each exercise in the phase without rest being classed as one round of the circuit for that particular muscle. You need four rounds before you can move on to the next round.

Dumbbell Hammer Curl - Go quite heavy on this exercise for 12 reps while your biceps are still at their full ability.

Incline Dumbbell Curl - 15 reps on an incline bench.

Biceps Curl - The old classic exercise is yours for 12 reps. After reaching 12 reps, switch to a wide grip and try to push out up to six more.

Flat Cable Curls - Pull a flat bench underneath a cable pulley station and lie on it. Curl down towards your head. The constant tension provided by the cables will make this variation of a curl much more difficult, so aim for 15 reps with a significantly lighter load.

Twisting Wrist Curls - Otherwise known as Zottman Curls, this exercise incorporates the forearms into the move by twisting the palms to face away from you at the top of every repetition. Try to force out 12 in total.

Phase two begins with Reverse Curls, an often overlooked exercise which will not only help you to develop your forearms but also minimize the gap at the bottom of your biceps muscle. 15 repetitions will suffice. This exercise is paired with Wrist Curls and Reverse Wrist Curls, which both need 20 repetitions each, before performing a timed hang from a monkey bar for as long as you can hold it. The forearm round is finished off with one of Sly's favorite moves, Handshake Curls. This move needs 30 reps with a light weight, and simulates a handshaking motion with a dumbbell.

The workout's final stage features it's largest muscle group, the triceps. Go heavy to obtain maximum results but also bear in mind how fatigued you will feel at this point. The first exercise in this phase is Close-Grip Barbell Bench Press for 10 repetitions.

After getting that out of the way, you can move on to Bench Dips to failure. We will immediately follow this up with a set of 12 Triceps Pushdowns and more Dips to failure, before rounding out the phase with 20 Triceps Kickbacks.

After four rounds of each phase, you will be feeling pretty exhausted by the time you round out the triceps phase. There is only a cool down phase remaining. It is always advisable to do a cool down, particularly after a session as brutal as this one, because it will help you to prevent blood pooling and feeling faint. The cool down only consists of two exercises - holding the plank to failure three times and a set of close-grip push ups to failure.

The time and dedication which goes into building a physique for the big screen is quite daunting. Rome was not built in a day, as they say, and this workout is certainly structured with that quote in mind. The high intensity circuit style often tricks people into thinking it's going to be easy. You will increase your chances of success if you don't make that mistake.

The Sylvester Stallone arm workout is one of the most brutal celebrity training sessions out there and that is largely down to the man himself. After all, you wouldn't expect a Rocky-style training session to be anything too easy.




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