Fitness
6 fitness lessons from the man who trained Wolverine
Having trained some of the biggest names in cinema, David Kingsbury imparts his experience to get you blockbuster fit.
If flexing muscles won Oscars, Meryl Strep would be swole and the Rock would need a bigger mantlepiece.
While a ripped six-pack clearly has its benefits, aesthetics will only take you so far in Hollywood. Just ask David Kingsbury. Having trained some of cinema's biggest names from his gym inside Pinewood Studios, his job isn’t just to get A-listers washboard abs, it’s to build functionality for performance, laying the foundations for, say, Jake Gyllenhaal to navigate his way around a spaceship set on high-wire pulleys, or for Jennifer Lawrence to take out assailants with flying kicks, take after take. Much of his best work goes unseen.
"What a lot of cinemagoers don’t realise, most of an actor’s training is done for performance, not for the washboard abs. These are very rarely static roles."
Here, Kingsbury shares a few fitness tips that could work for you.
1. Boxing can be very handy
Michael Fassbender in Assassin's Creed
© 20th Century Fox
Few actors have impressed me more than Michael Fassbender. He’s focused, has an incredible work ethic and never missed a session when we worked together on Assassin’s Creed. Our goal on that film was to develop a strong athletic physique, like an MMA fighter’s, which has functional muscle but not muscle for the sake of it.
There were lots of fight scenes, including a lot of work with swords, so we did a lot of boxing training as it was a fantastic way of getting in cardio but also highly beneficial for choreography, too. Most gyms have boxing classes, but if it’s just you and a mate hitting the pads, try timed sessions, throwing different combinations and repeating them. And if you’re alone you can always do straight punching against a bag, 45 seconds at time, which is also a good workout.
2. You can't beat suspense
Ryan Reynolds and Jake Gyllenhaal in Life
© Columbia Pictures
In 2016 I trained Jake Gyllenhaal, Ryan Reynolds and Rebecca Ferguson for the sci-fi thriller Life. It’s set in space so to look weightless while flying around a ship they would act on wires all day, so we focused on core strength and endurance.
I had the guys do conventional weight training and exercises with Swiss balls to help with their balance. But by far the best core work was done using the TRX; specifically a fantastic exercise called a Fallout, where you hold the handles and extend your arms out straight.
Remember, the lower the angle the harder it gets. Fallout gives you another dimension to movement, increasing stability, stretching the hamstrings, the back – lower back, middle back, upper back – and the glutes. It’s great for the core and the whole body.
3. Form follows function
Jessica Chastain in The Huntsman: Winter's War
© Universal
When I worked with Jessica Chastain on The Huntsman: Winter’s War, her key goal was to perform and look like a warrior. There was a lot of lifting involved in our exercises and it helped with her bow and arrow work. Similarly, I worked on Tim Burton's Dumbo film recently and was training Eva Green, who plays a trapeze artist. Of course she didn’t have 10 years of circus training to look the part, so to get the appearance of an acrobat in a short space of time we paired trapeze-style training with more traditional resistance and weight training. Pull-ups worked especially well due to the grip strength they offered. This exercise also worked the back, too. Many people, actors included, can be guilty of over-training their pressing muscles – chest, shoulder triceps - and under-training their back muscles.
4. Low intensity workouts can be hugely beneficial
Blockbuster film lessons
© 21st Century Fox
From time to time I’ll have actors looking to gain weight quickly, or lose it quickly. In Hugh Jackman’s case on Les Misérables, he did both. We had to lose his weight for his role, but then gain it back as he was also prepping for a Wolverine film.
During his weight loss, I had Hugh training with low-intensity cardio. He didn't need the same willpower that you would for a hard session and it helped balance his energy correctly while his body dealt with the stress of rapid weight loss. But even if you're at a completely normal weight there are benefits to an occasional low intensity weight session. If you do have the odd day where hitting the gym seems a slog, lowering the reps but gradually increasing your sets could be just the trick.
When we put the weight back on with Hugh, that base layer he'd created with low intensity workouts really paid off.
5. Carb-cycling can help you build muscles
Hugh and David enjoying a well-earned feast at the end of training
© David Kingsbury
When we bulked back up, Hugh worked in the 8-12 rep range. We started with low, 1-5 rep heavy work then moved onto the higher rep schemes. By increasing strength with low reps, he also increased his capacity with the higher reps. Most importantly, he ate clean throughout the film and had carbs on weight training days, and went low-carb on rest days. We call it carb-cycling and it worked really well in helping achieve the goal we wanted (although we did enjoy a few big burgers when it was all done). You can get in-depth training programmes on my website.
6. You can't out-train your diet
Chris Hemsworth before he crash dieted In the Heart of the Sea
© Warner Bros
Another time I had to work with actors going through weight loss was on Ron Howard's In the Heart of the Sea. My goal as a trainer on that was to make sure the cast - minus Chris Hemsworth, who had his own trainer - could lose weight safely and effectively. We spent the early part of the film building up strength before then dropping body fat and muscle down with a calorie-restricted diet.
This doesn't just apply to extreme weight loss cases, mind. If you're trying to shift a bit of weight and feel a bit fatigued, it's important to find a balance. If you cut calories too drastically, it’ll have a negative effect on your energy levels and you'll be less likely to a) stick to the diet, and b) train effectively. Finding a balance of things you enjoy, both food and workouts, is key. This creates a base level of strength and fitness that you can maintain without going to extreme measures. It sounds cliché, but you can’t out-train your diet.