"I drank chicken": what do the actors go to for a stunning figure

We already wrote about doing and eating Dwayne Johnson, former wrestler and action movie star. But the Rock is constantly in great shape, but other actors are often forced to gain muscle during the preproduction stage, and they do it really quickly.

We will tell you about four rules that actors and their coaches use to turn a person into an object of envy in the shortest possible time.

Lots of calories from healthy foods

To gain muscle, you need to eat more. Generally advisedIs an Energy Surplus Required to Maximize Skeletal Muscle Hypertrophy Associated With Resistance Training add about 360-480 kcal, but when you need a muscular figure urgently, you have to consume much more. As a result, during the period of muscle gain, the actors eat 1.5-2 times more calories than they need to maintain their weight. And this crazy amount of food consists of only healthy foods.

About 4,000 kcal a day, maybe 4,500 when I was at mass. Then the calorie content was cut to 3,000–3,500 when it was dried. But those weren't tasty calories. Chicken, fish, maybe steak. Constantly protein - six times a day. Steamed vegetables and sometimes brown rice or something. Protein shakes and no alcohol or sugar.

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Hugh Jackman

Actors give up alcohol completely Sahara, bread and pastries, and their menu includes about the same: stews, broccoli, egg whites, fish, turkey, brown rice and just an incredible amount of chicken.

The hardest part is the food. You just have to consume tons of calories and these are not funny calories at all. Lots of chicken breast. I ate so much chicken breast! And the hardest part is chewing it. So I just put it in a blender and grind and drank the chicken.

Zac Efron

It is psychologically difficult to give up the usual food, so you can't do without cheat mills - short periods in which you can afford anything. And these days, ordinary food becomes magic.

I had a cheat mil, but on Saturday. We filmed a video in London and were in the gym, training. And I think he (the coach) saw that my will to live was rapidly disappearing. It was the fifth month of broccoli, chicken breast and the like, and he was like, "Alex, let me take you to lunch, quit your workout." And he took me to an Italian restaurant, sat me down and said: "What do you want?" And I'm like, “What do you mean? Chicken breast or salmon? " He says: "No, whatever you want from the menu." I ate pizza, pasta, tiramisu... I get excited even just talking about it.

Alexander Skarsgard

Heavy training five days a week

A diet with a huge surplus is necessarily accompanied by power loadsand you have to work really hard. Therefore, during preparation, the actors train daily, and sometimes several times a day.

- I trained for about three hours in the gym.

- Everyday?

- Trained every day, but not with weights. Strength training was done five times a week.

- Did you train not only with free weights? On simulators too?

- Mostly with free weights. They help you avoid injury. I was more often injured on simulators. Did key exercises like squats, deadlifts, bench presses, one-arm lifts, and standing presses.

Hugh Jackman

In preparation for Creed: The Rocky Legacy, Michael Jordan put on 11 kg of muscle. In addition to the boxing required for the role, he also did strength training.

Brown rice, chicken, broccoli, 1.5 gallons of water (5.6 liters) and 2-3 workouts every day, six days a week for a year and a half. And your body will change.

Michael Jordan

For great shape in the film "300 SpartansGerard Butler worked with two different trainers and sometimes did the exercises on set to get impressive relief in the shot.

I trained for seven months. I started about 3-4 months before the film with my personal trainer, and when the trainer of the film arrived, I began to study with him and with his own. Sometimes I worked in the gym for 4 hours a day.

Gerard Butler

You can build muscle and strength faster. For example, trainer Jason Walsh prepared Bradley Cooper for his role in American Sniper in just three months.

Chris Kyle - 225 lb (102 kg), military, highly respected and awarded. Bradley Cooper - 185 lbs (84 kg), beginner, never exercised before, never tried the strength training we were going to do.

Jason Walsh

Cooper trained five days a week, four of them twice a day. The first training session began at six in the morning and lasted 60–90 minutes, after lunch there was another. The exercises included heavy multi-joint movements such as deadlift with a trap neck.

The tight schedule gave results: in 12 weeks of the program, the actor gained 18 kg of muscle mass, and the shots in which he does a deadweight with a barbell of 180 kg are real.

Combination of strength, cardio and conditioning exercises

When it comes to weight gain, and especially rapid muscle building, heavy weight training is a priority. But at the same time, do not forget about cardio and conditioning: such exercises help not only build muscle, but also avoid gaining excess fat.

Hugh Jackman, in addition to strength training, did long cardio every day, as well as a combination of different types of crossfit-style loads.

I lost a lot in size doing CrossFit. I did 2 hours in the morning - an hour of cardio, then work with weights. And he did a combination of cardio and strength after lunch, more like crossfit. But he also worked with weights and did everything that you don't want to do: rowing on a machine, squats with a barbell on your chest, deadlifts.

Hugh Jackman

Dwayne Johnson does not hesitate to cardio. He starts his day with joggingdoing aerobic workout before breakfast.

I get up at four in the morning, do some cardio for 40-45 minutes, then have breakfast and do strength and conditioning workouts in the gym for about an hour. And then I have a set of a combination of cardio and strength, maybe more stretching, about 1 hour and 45 minutes.

Dwayne Johnson

To prepare the actors for the movie 300, the coach gave them a lot of cardio and conditioning work. In addition to strength training, they did circuit training with different types of stress: elements of gymnastics, work with resistance bands, kettlebells, tires.

The complexes were never repeated, so the body did not have time to adapt and constantly received stimuli for growth.

High-intensity CrossFit training helped prepare John Krasinski for the role of a fur seal in 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi.

As his trainer Jason Walsh said, in addition to strength training, John did a lot of intense conditioning work to burn fat without losing muscle.

We ended up with a lot of conditioning work for a fat burning effect. High intensity training: pushing the sled forward and backward, lifting weights and throwing down, jumping, running, pushing. All this with little or no rest.

Jason Walsh

Discipline, regularity and consistency

Changing your figure is a long process. Even with a strict diet, huge calorie surplus, and hard training, the body takes time to build muscle and burn fat.

As Hugh Jackman said, he hoped to turn into Wolverine in three weeks, but it took a lot longer to really make the superhero body.

In the very first video, I didn't know anything at all. I was a skinny guy, I played in the musical Oklahoma! here in London. I had three weeks and I was like, “Oh, cool, three weeks. I will have time to become a Wolverine. " If you've watched X-Men, there is the very first scene where I walk down the stairs in the mansion to the blue hallway and take off my T-shirt. And they didn't shoot me because it really didn't look good. They shot the very first scene at the very end - four months later. I called Dwayne Johnson and asked what I should do. And he said, "You need at least six months."

Hugh Jackman

It took Henry Cavill nine months to complete the stunning figure - five before filming and four more in the process.

This is a very long and complex process that requires a lot of knowledge to achieve the goal. Therefore, we work with coaches who tell us what to do, what to eat. I can say as someone who was trained that when it gets really bad and you want to finish, this is actually the moment when you need to continue.

Henry Cavill

Christopher Pratt also says that getting fit takes time, discipline and consistent training.

People want to know what the secret is. The secret is that you cannot do it in a month. It will take eight months, or a year, or a lifetime of consistent daily workouts and proper nutrition. Real nutrition, not starvation, when you give your body the right food to recover. You have to burn all the crap you stuffed into yourself and replace it with really good food. And it will take a long time. But actually eight months isn't that long. […] Time will pass equally quickly, whether you do something or not. Who do you want to be in eight months from now? If you want to be in good shape, start today.

Chris Pratt

Perhaps the main reason actors get in good shape quickly is motivation. If in a few months you need to show a great figure (and this will bring you a lot of money), it is much easier to stay away from a slice of pizza than if you do it for yourself.

Find a good motivation for change and you - and turning the body into a work of art will not be so difficult.