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Fans of ripped bods in '300' hunger for Spartan workoutDate: 04.04.2007
Posted by: Anabolic Info Team United States
Gerard Butler and the other male actors in the blockbuster movie "300" did grueling exercise routines for several hours a day for weeks to achieve the look of Spartan warriors.
Now, mere mortals are wondering whether it's possible for them to do the same.
On the social networking Web site Facebook are groups dedicated to people who seek Spartan bodies.
Stories about the "300 workout" - a circuit of 300 reps of various exercises some actors went through - have appeared online and in Men's Health magazine.
Yahoo reports that search terms like "300 workout" and "Spartan 300 training" are becoming increasingly popular.
But Mark Twight of Gym Jones in Salt Lake City, the trainer who worked with the cast of the movie, says the "300 workout" was just one of many exercises actors and stuntmen went through.
The actors' body transformations came from an intense training regimen that lasted 90 minutes to two hours a day, five days a week, for seven weeks before filming began.
Twight and colleague Logan Hood led them through full-body workouts involving medicine balls, tires and kettle bells - weighted balls with thick handles - among other tools rather than machines.
The goal was to make them look "all sinewy and ripped."
Each session was competitive, with a penalty-reward system tied to performance and results posted daily.
"This kind of transformation requires a change in diet, sleep patterns, stress levels and attitude," Twight said.
"If you can't change your brain and your behavior, even the most perfectly designed and adapted training program will not work."
According to the Gym Jones Web site, the team used calorie restriction to make the actors look as if they lived off the land. The diet was said to be adequate to fuel effort and recovery, but barely.
The trainers also prescribed random physical challenges to keep actors off balance, to ensure they never knew what was coming, to cause a stress-reaction.
But even with this kind of diet and exercise, most people will never get the perfect pecs and six-pack abs they see on the silver screen, one trainer said.
For nearly 90 percent of people, it is impossible to develop the body of a movie-star warrior. It depends on personal physique, although people can achieve up to a 50 percent increase in muscle strength in the first three months of a proper strength-training program.
In one interview, Butler summed up his experience: "Pretty much anything Mark Twight offered up was so difficult in the kind of way where you wish you had never been born - and even more than that, wished he had never been born."
Bill Phillips, author of the 12-week strength program book "Body for Life," said he hopes people don't get hurt or discouraged in the process of trying to replicate the workout.
He also said that by incorporating reasonable bodybuilding routines - 45 minutes of strength training, three days a week - people can see a change.
'300' final test workout
25 pull-ups
50 deadlifts, 135 pounds
50 push-ups
50 box jumps, 24-inch box
50 floor wipers, 135 pounds
50 kettle bell clean and press, 36 pounds (KB must touch floor between reps)
25 more pull-ups
300 reps total
Source: www.gymjones.com
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