Written By: Nirmalya Dutta | Updated : July 16, 2014 3:28 PM IST
Hollywood biggie Sylvester Stallone turned 66 today and he's without a doubt of one the biggest action heroes out there having re-defined the genre with movies like the Rocky and Rambo franchises. Along with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis, Stallone towered over everyone else in the '80s action movies. While his roles have forced him to stay in shape, there's no denying he's been very successful in maintaining his physique considering that he looked rock solid in his last outing in The Expendables franchise where he teams up with action heroes past and present.
In the early days, he would do anything to get in character and did extensive exercises (two mile jogs, 18 pounds of sparring, two hours of weightlifting and jumping rope, running and swimming) to become extremely lean for the movie Rocky III where he played the underdog to Mr T's Clubber Lang. This diet left him weak and dizzy and taught him not to mess with his body but he ended up doing further damage in the sequel Rocky IV where while pulling a sled he bruised his heart muscles.
Over time he realised that these extreme dieting and exercising methods were bad and recommends people to lose weight by exercising and eating a balanced nutritional meals. Nowadays his meals consist of healthy foods like salads, figs, berries, broiled fish, skinless chicken, high-fibre bread in short food that will help you lose weight and will be easily digestible. He even claimed he hadn't eaten a pastrami sandwich in 15 years because he avoids red meat!
In an early interview he had said that he treated his body like a car, always well-fuelled. He said, 'I usually steer away from red meat but I do try to eat it once a week so my body will stay adjusted to it. That way, if I ever do it for example, if I happened to stop at McDonald's I wouldn't go into convulsions. At one time I was so pure with the food regimen that if I ate even a hot dog, I'd end up with painful cramps and convulsions. Usually I work out three days and take the fourth day off. If I have a busy business week and can only work out twice that week, I cut my food intake in half. I run my body like a car. If I have a long way to go, I fill up with 'fuel' good high energy foods. If I'm not doing much I keep it on half empty. And I give my body enough 'maintenance' in the form of physical workouts to keep it running perfectly. When I'm in shape, I feel terrific.'
Of course he works out harder when he is doing an action movie. 'If I know that I'm getting ready to do another Rambo, I have to live up to the last film. That makes it a little bit harder to get in shape. I have a machine like an escalator with the steps coming down, and I pile 40 to 50 pounds of weight on my back and start climbing those endless steps.'
Former Mr Olympia Franco Columbu who trained him in Rocky II and Rambo: First Blood Part II that training him wasn't a problem at all. . 'Sly gives 100% all the time,' Franco says, 'And his determination is awesome. He is an achiever. A leader. He never sits back and let's things happen, he is the one who makes them happen.'
'With Sly, I worked out a program that was right for him,' Franco explains, 'And then I led the way, constantly increasing weights and reps. I knew for sure that this would motivate him to try and keep up with me. If I took a weight and did 12 reps, Sly would have to try and do at least seven. After all, I may be stronger than he is, but not that much stronger. Then, next set, I would do 15 reps, so he would have to increase his reps to at least 10. By the end of our training, he was doing curls with 7 pound dumbbells. You should have seen how strong he got!'
Franco actually helped an already-fit Stallone put on 10 pounds of muscle in six weeks. 'Sylvester gained just about 10 pounds in six and a half weeks,' Franco says. 'He has great structure, with a waist only about 29 inches. When we started, he had a 44-inch chest. At the end, his chest was almost 50 inches. And his arms went from 16 inches to 18 inches. He was bigger, harder and much more muscular. Wait until you see him in the movie. He's going to shock a lot of people by how good he looks.'
Franco worked out a program for Stallone based on a two day double split:
Monday/Wednesday/Friday
Morning: Chest, back, abs
Afternoon: Shoulders, arms, abs
Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday
Morning: Calves, thighs
Afternoon: Rear delts, traps, abs
'Each day we would train, I would change the exercises. I had Sly do extra sets of exercises that were working, and I dropped the ones that weren't working. And the more results he saw, the harder he trained. I'd say, let's do three more sets, and he would immediately agree. The workouts got to be really fun, very exciting.'
Franco had Stallone training abs three times every two days, doing 500 reps every ab workout. 'We trained four different abs and torso exercises: sit-ups, leg raises, side leg raises, and side bends. We did 50 reps of each, one exercise right after another, and five sets of this cycle. And wait until you see the results. Sly has great abs, intercostals, serratus, everything.'
Franco says Sly was determined to be the most impressive man on film this side of Arnold Schwarzenegger himself. 'But Sly wants to go even farther for Rocky IV,' Franco reveals. 'In fact, if Sly had decided to be a body builder instead of an actor, with his great proportions, his tremendous athletic ability, and his mental drive, he would certainly have ended up as one of the top physique champions.'
In time he started recognising that his body had limitations and he started concentrating more on compound machine workouts than isolated ones during his regime to get in shape for The Expendables. His current workouts includes machine lateral raises (for superhero-like shoulders), machine squats, dumbbell hammer curls. For his abdomen, he did core woodchop twists, machine ab curls and mixed it up with cardio which involved plyometrics, running, shadow boxing and HIIT on cycles. And if this video is anything to go by, he's still tearing it up. Besides Stallone. Read about how other actors like Chris Hemsworth, Hugh Jackman, Kellan Lutz, Sullivan Stapleton and Henry Cavill got ripped for their respective roles.
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