The two-time Oscar-nominated actor, director, screenwriter and producer, Sylvester Stallone, nicknamed Sly, is unarguably one of the most famed personalities on this planet, thanks to his iconic 1976 boxing classic, Rocky. However, he isn’t just one of the most famed box office draws, but also a great source of inspiration for the fitness buffs.
The Secret Sly's fitness
If you ever wondered how Mr. Sly has been maintaining such a finely chiseled, muscle-bulging physique well past middle-age, you should know that it didn’t come to him overnight through a few shots of steroids.
Sly earned it through his rigorous workout regimen that he had employed since the first Rocky movie. When Sly first started training to play Philly’s cinematic slugger Rocky Balboa, he crafted an intense workout routine to put on a lean sharp shape to get more buff in the sequels.
However, his workout regimen changed from movie to movie. He employed metabolic conditioning circuits to look lean in Rocky 3 while he used a traditional 6 days-a-week bodybuilding workout schedule when the goal was to look bigger for the Rocky Balboa character.
If you are a fan of Sly’s unarguably, envy drawing looks, then here is a brief account of his preparatory fitness schedules for some of his most famous movies as reported by Rock Body Fitness.
The Rocky 3 Workout Schedule
For his role in Rocky 3, Sylvester chose on of the most grueling workout schedule humanly possible. A few years down the road he himself admitted that his routine was excessive by all means and included:
1] Tons of rope-jumping
2] Around twenty rounds of sparring in his ring
3] A jogging session of two miles
4] A two-hour weight lifting session
The Rocky Balboa Workout Schedule
Fast forward twenty plus years and Sly decided to perform the Rocky again, but this time as a 60-year-old guy.
He employed a much less demanding workout schedule this time, learning from his mistakes of the Rocky 3 times. His workout routine during this period included:
Monday
1] Abs
2] Triceps, shoulders, and chest
3] A pre and post training cardio session
Tuesday
1] Calf Raises
2] Squats
Wednesday
1] Biceps and back workout
2] A pre and post training cardio session
Thursday
1] Chest
2] Back
3] Abs
Friday
1] Abs
2] A complete body workout
3] A pre and post training cardio session
The Expendables Workout Schedule
The physique Sly boasted in the year 2010 blockbuster was strikingly better than his physique in Rocky Balboa, and that definitely says a lot since Sly is not getting younger for sure.
Though the exact details of his workout for this movie weren’t revealed, however, his trainer, the famed Gunnar Peterson is said to have devised a set of workout plan, each of which slightly differed from the other. Sly worked out 3 to 5 times a week for around 1 to 2 hours each time. The decision to take this approach was obvious after seeing the amount of research that has gone into the merits of periodized training schedules over the last few decades.
However, all the fitness enthusiasts out there idolizing Sly and trying to mimic his workout schedules need to bear in mind that he didn’t work himself silly in his gym only to pig out in his kitchen, either. The strictly followed, protein-packed diet plan he had put together was a vital piece of the puzzle.
