Men’s Health Australia — September 2017

Ed’s Letter

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Runner’s World, Bicycling and books

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• Health

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Associate Editor

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Associate Editor

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• Health

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• Health

Rocky Road

Luke Benedictus

Twitter: @LukeBenedictus

Email: [email protected]

Film critics really didn’t like Rocky IV. “Ridiculous

jingoistic nonsense,” sniffed Empire magazine. “Grim

and witless storytelling,” chided the LA Times.

Whatever. As a wide-eyed kid watching it on video

rental in 1986, I thought it was the best film I’d ever seen.

Many things dazzled me about that movie from the

angularity of Dolph Lundgren’s flat-top to the bombastic

soundtrack (Burning Heart!). But the scene I rewound to

watch time and again was the final training montage.

To prepare for his big fight, Rocky banishes himself

to the Siberian wilderness to train in the most primitive

conditions. While Soviet superman, Ivan Drago, enjoys

the state-of-the-art facilities of a dastardly totalitarian

regime, the Italian Stallion is forced to improvise. He

grinds out chin-ups on roof beams and wades through

snow-drifts carrying logs. In short, cinema’s favourite

underdog is forced to revert to

his tried-and-tested values: hard

work and gritty self-reliance.

Why was I obsessed with this

segment? The film’s climax,

after all, is surely the boxing

showdown where (spoiler alert!)

Rocky triumphs over Drago -

and, by extension, Russia and

Communism – in a pair of stars-

and-stripes shorts. But a quick

office survey shows I’m not the

only one who enjoys a training

scene involving one-finger push-

ups and overblown soft-rock.

Such enthusiasm isn’t limited

to Rocky IV either. From Batman

Begins to Bloodsport, training

montages are a much-loved cinematic tradition.

The power of the training montage is that it plays

out the act of human transformation. It shows the

hero actively taking control of his circumstances and

slogging his guts out in a brave effort to evolve. Reliably

uplifting, these sequences wield a certain mythical

power. The transformation narrative is like Cinderella

for men.

But the impact of a transformation isn’t limited to

fairy tales. In this issue, you’ll read how a frazzled dad

with two young kids, a debilitating injury and a heinous

workload managed to claw back his health and get into

incredible shape in eight weeks flat. Guy Sebastian

happily admits that his MH transformation has changed

his life. The training program he followed on p68 could

change yours too. Eye of the tiger!

“The power of the

training montage is

that it plays out the

act of human

transformation”