By Spencer Bohm-

It is not unusual for actors and actresses to transform their normal physical appearance for a specific role. Some, such as Renee Zellweger in Bridget Jones’ Diary, actually gain weight to heighten their credibility as the character. Others have dieted considerably to fit a role or a particular character like Natalie Portman in Black Swan of Christian Bale for, well, almost every role he’s done.

Many have “bulked up” for particular roles. Five recent examples of this type of transformation have been Bradley Cooper, Jake Gyllenhaal, Sylvester Stallone, Mark Wahlberg and Hugh Jackman.

Bradley Cooper for American Sniper

????In order to portray the real-life sniper, Chris Kyle, Bradley Cooper needed to add strength and increase his weight from 185 to 225 pounds. Not only that but he had to look like, and be, actually strong, not just cut in a way the cameras like. For him it meant a grueling two-a-day workout plan (four hours in total) with his trainer Jason Walsh. The main focus was on building a solid foundation on Cooper, this meant deadlifts and squats in the A.M. and traditional weight training in the P.M. using body weight at first and then building up from there. To fuel these intense workouts Cooper claims to have ate every 55 minutes and consumed around 8,000 calories a day. He also

Jake Gyllenhaal in Southpaw

????To be a convincing boxer, Jake Gyllenhaal needed to “muscle up” substantially. In a prior role, he had lost 30 pounds, but now he needed to gain weight, mostly muscle. He also learn to box convincingly. The target was for him to look and move like a real middleweight fighter as opposed to a weight lifter. He spent time training Floyd Mayweather’s gym in Las Vegas and Church Gym in New York so he could not only get fit, but also understand the boxing world better.
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??The regimen was designed for him to be lean, quick and fast. The twice a day, seven day a week workouts featured, in addition to many rounds in the ring, regular 8 mile runs, pull-ups, core work, and squats. His regimen was so intense that it reportedly cost him a girlfriend.

Sylvester Stallone for the Rocky movies

????Stallone has been training off and on since 1976 for his Rocky and Rambo movies. Most particularly, it was for the Rocky 3 movie when Stallone began to work to seriously to shape up his physique where he got so fit he was down to 2.8% bodyfat. And, at age 60, for the revival of his Rocky role in Rocky Balboa (more details on how to watch all the films here) , he reshaped his body with two very long workouts per day. However he’s quick to warn against pushing your body too far telling Muscle and Fitness “Over the years, my biggest flaw was overtraining. In the gym six days a week, doing more sit-ups at night…my body was in a constant state of breakdown. Now I focus on a variety of exercises, working out three times a week for 90 minutes per session. I really feel good–much stronger than I’ve ever felt, actually. Something’s working.”

????Diet has always been an important part of Stallone’s regime, usually restricting himself to virtually an all-protein diet while in serious training. For average times in his life he claims “I follow a high-protein diet: Anything with a face, that’s what I eat, with something green next to it”.

Mark Wahlberg for The Fighter

????Wahlberg trained to be a boxer for his role as Mickey Ward, a real life fighter. The mission was to make Wahlberg look, move and act like a professional boxer. His workouts were extensive, though geared to improving his boxing skills and, in doing so, to trim down and muscle up for realism. His regimen included two a day workouts, six days a week that featured boxing in the A.M. and a rotation of spot training and basketball.
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???The boxing workout included sets of shadow boxing, heavy bag, focus pads for aim and combinations, and the speed bag for timing and speed. Shifting to his strength workout, Mark worked on his legs, back and biceps with leg extensions, squats, chin-ups, and various curls and crunches. Next came chest, shoulders and triceps with extensive and crunches.

You Can Do It Too

????All of these actors achieved a goal of improving their bodies for a specific role. These were essentially normal men in reasonable shape who, with motivation and commitment to succeed driven by a contract and career, were able to transform their bodies to achieve their goals. Some of their programs may be considered extreme, but usually because of the limited time to achieve their goals.
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???You can clearly see the importance that diet plays in all of these mens plans. You can train and workout until the cows come home but if you’re gonna enjoy a few beers and a plate of nachos afterwards you’re back to where you started. Sure, it seems like common sense but you’d be surprised how many people overestimate the number of calories they burn in a workout and overindulge using that false information.

????The one similar vein in all of the workouts is variety and changing things up. This can be trading a lifting session for a long run or swapping your free weights for old fashion body weight. Repeating the same exercises you’ve always done will get you the same results you’ve always gotten. So, if you’re in a rut take a cue from these men and mix things up.

What is it about the iconic Rocky films starring Sylvester Stallone that makes them so appealing? Why do we find ourselves settling in on the couch to watch one whenever they’re on broadcast television, like a moth to the proverbial flame? Ultimately, was it necessary for the series to be “capped off” by the sometimes questionable last film in the series, Rocky Balboa? The answers to these questions, though mainly steeped in opinionated reflection, have a lot to do with the “underdog scenario,” and the way in which audiences tend to gravitate to these stories; here is an everyday neighborhood figure many of us can relate to, who smashes through the odds against him no matter how large or seemingly unstoppable his opponents appear to be…and that’s always the underlying power behind a feel-good film.

Interestingly enough, the Rocky franchise plays much like a superhero/comic book series in structure: With each passing film, our main character boxes his way through tougher and tougher adversaries, much like a comic book hero does with his rogues gallery of villains, even though it sometimes goes a bit too far with regard to suspension of disbelief (if anyone punched as hard as Dolph Lundgren’s character did in Rocky IV, no one would survive the hit, let alone come back for more). Rocky, the first entry from 1976 directed by John G. Avildsen – who would go on to direct the fifth film to bring the “Philadelphia” theme full circle – introduces us to down-on-his-luck street/club fighter Rocky Balboa, who collects debts for a local loan shark by day and battles local thuggish boxers by night. This original classic introduces us to key players in the remainder of the franchise, including manager and trainer Mickey (Burgess Meredith), girlfriend-turned-wife Adrian (Talia Shire), her unkempt and alcoholic brother Paulie (Burt Young) and heavyweight boxing champion of the world at the time, Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers).

Many die hard Rocky franchise fans, like enthusiasts of any culturally popular series a la Star Wars and Star Trek, tend to categorize their favorite and least-favorite entries based on strength of characters, storylines, plot cohesion and sheer entertainment value; again and again, it’s unanimously felt that 1976’s Rocky remains the most influential and powerful of the series, introducing us to all the characters and setting up the main character’s love/hate relationship with adversary Apollo Creed, further explored in Rocky II. In the original Rocky, we witness with somewhat empathetic eyes Stallone’s punchy – a bit of pun intended – character endure the hardships of being a local, rather unpopular almost-unpaid boxer while being a frowned-upon collector for the local mobster. Yet as the film progresses, we cheer him on as he wins Adrian’s heart, accepts Apollo’s challenge for a match with a local Philadelphia underdog and trains his tail off under Mickey’s supervision. Of course, the concluding boxing match’s draw sets up the inevitable sequel, which Stallone himself would go on to direct.

Rocky II, released two years later and helmed by Stallone, takes a page from Halloween II’s book and becomes a great sequel because of it, picking up exactly where the first film leaves off. Balboa and Creed both suffer from injuries relating to the beating they gave each other at the end of Rocky, and are shown being transported to a local hospital where Creed spews a series of rematch challenges at Rocky. While Rocky doesn’t initially want it and trainer Mickey advises against it due to Balboa’s state of health after the first tussle with Creed, a rematch is set up, with the premise being that Apollo didn’t wholeheartedly agree with the “draw” ruling in their fight.

It’s often believed by enthusiasts of this franchise that once 1982’s Rocky III arrived, the series took a downward turn, mainly because of the almost cartoonish foes our main character was forced to face in the ring. Rocky, in winning the championship belt from Creed, is now living the good life with wife Adrian and their son, as Balboa defends his title in win after win. However, lurking in the shadows is the ridiculously tough Clubber Lang (Mr. T), a brutal fighter that becomes Balboa’s number-one contender for the title and who uses every demeaning trick to lure Rocky into the ring with him – even coming onto Adrian at a statue unveiling ceremony in Philadelphia. As a sort of turning point in the series, Rocky III is remembered for the way in which Balboa loses the title and then wins it back again under unprecedented odds against him, how his once arch nemesis Apollo Creed becomes his trainer and how the main character endures unthinkable pain with the death of his mentor and trainer, Mickey.

By the time Rocky IV rolled around – with Stallone again in the director’s chair – the “plausible plot” element had become out of control, at least to many diehard fans of the now-enduring franchise. Here, our main character faces his most lethal and powerful opponent yet in Dolph Lundgren’s “Ivan Drago,” a hulking machine of a boxer who comes from Russia to engage in a friendly exhibition match against world renowned champ Rocky Balboa. But when ex-champ Apollo Creed sees an opportunity to face Drago first, he seizes it…and pays a big price for his ego-fueled posturing when he is defeated – lethally – by the massive Russian at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. This sets up the inevitable match between Drago and the physically outmatched Balboa, the two pumped-beyond-belief super athletes duking it out on Christmas in Moscow. Of course, Rocky IV has been heavily criticized for being somewhat beyond believable, what with the unrealistic inhuman blows delivered by Lundgren’s Ivan Drago and the fact that none of them actually kill Balboa in their match, or the way in which Drago receives all sorts of “boosting” chemicals to make him even stronger than he actually is, while Balboa continues to take him on in the ring.

With seemingly nowhere left to go with the plot structures, Rocky V returned the action to the streets of Philadelphia where it all began, reuniting much of the main cast from the original film with its director, and shifting the focus from Rocky being a fighter to him becoming a manager and trainer. Rocky Balboa, meanwhile, felt like an unnecessary bookend to the series by many fans, with Stallone again directing and attempting to create some kind of “closure” that wasn’t really needed; Adrian has passed away and Rocky finds himself visiting her grave every so often, to Paulie’s dismay, who is attempting to put all the pain of the loss behind him. What ultimately feels so odd and out of place about this last Rocky entry (to date) is the way in which the final inevitable fight between a “real” boxing contender and Balboa plays out, for the first time in the franchise, like a genuine pay-per-view event at a Las Vegas resort. Making the situation even more uncomfortable is the way in which Balboa has become so arthritic and downright old, forcing his antics in the ring to appear strangely “off” as he faces his younger, seasoned opponent; this didn’t feel like a Rocky film, at all, but it can be argued this is exactly what Stallone was going for.

Perhaps the most recognized sports underdog story, the Rocky series continues to endure for many reasons and on varying (and a rapidly expanding number of) mediums – including iTunes, DirecTV, and, perhaps the best option for those fanatics out there, MGM’s Rocky Anthology DVD box set, considered to be one of the definitive versions of the collection to own – proving why everyone likes to root for the come-from-behind unlikely favorite.

Sport fans of MMA and drama fans alike can rejoice over the premier of the new series Kingdom on DirecTV’s Audience channel. Subscribers to DirecTV already have access to some of the most exclusive sporting events on the planet, including highly publicized MMA match-ups, and now those same subscribers can tune in to a family drama set in the behind-the-scenes world of MMA training and struggles.

Kingdom is set in Venice, CA, and centers on the Navy Street gym, owned and run by main character Alvey Kulina, played by Frank Grillo, and his girlfriend Lisa, played by Kiele Sanchez. Alvey, a former MMA champion and legend, establishes the show’s MMA credentials almost immediately when the show opens on his morning jog, interrupted by a group of gun-toting thugs who have the highly misguided notion of surrounding and attacking what they think is a defenseless jogger.

Once back at the gym, Alvey goes into coaching mode with his youngest son, Nate, played by Nick Jonas of Jonas Brothers fame, preparing for his first big MMA cage match. Alvey hopes that Nate will prove he can continue his father’s legacy and become the champion fighter that will save the gym’s shaky financial situation. Enter Ryan Wheeler, another former MMA champion who has just spent four years in prison and is currently living in a halfway house while trying to put his life back together. Ryan is not only an ex-con, but also an ex-fiance of Lisa’s, but Alvey sees a business opportunity and possible salvation for his gym through Ryan, so agrees that Ryan can help coach Nate.

Other wildcard characters are Nate’s older brother, Jay, portrayed by Jonathon Tucker, disowned by Alvey for his wild ways and addictions, and Alvey’s ex-wife, Christina, played by Joanna Going, mother to the two boys, prostitute and drug addict. The family conflicts and drama are explained and fleshed out as the initial episode proceeds, playing out to the consistent backdrop of the MMA world. Nate wins his first match but is later laid low by the same thugs that were earlier laid low by his father.

How these themes of retribution, family conflicts, and consequences for previous actions will play out throughout this series remains to be seen, but the show is off to a strong start, if initial rates are any indication. Although exclusively available to an audience of DirecTV customers, the Nielsen ratings were high, a factor that many attribute to the shows producers’ high interaction with Twitter followers and with the high involvement of Nick Jonas’s live tweets regarding his new show. With 8.7 million followers on Twitter, Jonas’s influence on the shows initial ratings would be hard to deny.

Whether Jonas’s involvement is largely responsible for the initial popularity of the show or not, ongoing reviews are mainly positive and based on the overall merit of the show as a whole, both in terms of its faithfulness to authenticity in terms of the MMA world and in terms of character development and the family drama being played out. This authenticity of MMA attributes was very important to the producers of the show, evident in the casting of casting of UFC star fighter Cub Swanson to play Nate’s opponent in the cage match during the initial episode. Even the smallest details, such as the tattoos favored by MMA contenders were studied and incorporated as much as possible for Kingdom.

Interested viewers can find Kingdom on DirecTV’s Audience channel on Wednesdays at 9pm/ 8pm Central. The show has been picked up for a second season following the initial ten episodes already scheduled to air.