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November 2018 85MUSCLECarl
Weathers
PREDATOR (1987
Dolph
Lundgren
ROCKY IV (1985Jake
Gyllenhaal
SOUTHPAW (2015
Chris Evans
CAPTAIN AMERICA:
THE FIRST AVENGER 2011The 186cm former Oakland
Raiders linebacker may not
have the biggest guns in the
squad, but he arguably has
the best physique. He has
clearly been pushing iron as
well as pencils, getting up
early with the rest of the
testosterone-fuelled cast to
get a pump on before
filming. Weathers could also
have made it onto this list for
any of his appearances as
Apollo Creed, who made Sly
look flabby: Muhammad Ali
repeatedly challenged him
to a fight, possibly jokingly.
But it’s for his arm-wrestle
handshake – and biceps-of
- with Arnie that he muscles
his way in.
Those first shots of Jake
Gyllenhaal as Billy Hope- snarling, snaked with veins
- hit the internet like a left
hook. Having lost 14kg
for Nightcrawler, he had five
months to resemble a boxer
both in physique and
technique. He did it by
training twice a day – take a
look at the training montage,
set to Eminem. Gyllenhaal
also flipped a 160kg tyre
and beat it with a 10kg
sledgehammer, ran 13km,
performed 2000 sit-ups a
day, and skipped “shitloads”.
After winning a scholarship
to study chemical
engineering at MIT, the
Swede was scouted
to be a boxer in New York. He
was talked out of going pro
by his then girlfriend, Grace
Jones, whom he had met
while moonlighting as a
security guard in Sydney.Instead, his agent sent him
to audition for “some boxing
movie”. Unlike in Rocky IV’s
iconic montage, Lundgren
trained alongside Stallone six
days a week for five months:
an hour of weights (chest/
back, shoulders/arms or legs)
in the morning, then two
hours of boxing in the
afternoon. Even if you didn’t
know he was a former
European Kyokushin karate
champion, you only had to
look at Lundgren to know
he’d win in a real fight, too.Few superhero film-body
transformations are as
striking as that of Steve
Rogers, who goes from
big-hearted wimp
to broad-chested warrior
after an injection of
super-soldier serum.
Unfortunately for Chris
Evans, the actor who
portrayed him, the process
was much more painful in
reality than a quick jab. He
was drilled two hours a day
for three months by Simon
Waterson, who also trained
Daniel Craig for Casino
Royale, targeting two major
muscle groups at a time
before moving onto the
core. At least he didn’t have
to do any cardio.