A Performance Coach Ranked the Most Ripped '80s Action Hero Bodies
The '80s and '90s were a golden age for action cinema, and the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone have carved out a lasting legacy not just as hyper-macho leading men, but also as inspiration for whole generations of fitness buffs. In a new video on the Athlean-X channel, trainer Jeff Cavaliere C.S.C.S. takes a look at six iconic actors from that period—Sylvester Stallone, Carl Weathers, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dolph Lundgren, and Chuck Norris—and judges just how effective they would each be as a gym buddy.
In Cavaliere's book, there are four key criteria to being a decent training partner, and he assesses each of the movie stars on how well he thinks they'd fit the bill: motivation; physique; training style; and the ineffable "X factor."
Jean-Claude Van Damme
While Van Damme was a huge star back in the day, Cavaliere doesn't think he's the kind of guy who'd scream at him in a workout, so he loses points in the motivation stakes. However, his muscle definition, size, conditioning, and the fact that he trains like an athlete first and an actor second—he was a dancer and martial artist—makes him a contender.
Dolph Lundgren
"You might think he's kind of a stoic, quiet guy, but I actually know better," says Cavaliere, who has trained with Florian Munteaunu, the actor who played Lundgren's son in Creed II. Munteaunu says that Lundgren can train everyone else under the table even in his seventies, making him a highly motivational workout partner. And like Van Damme, Lundgren was a high-level athlete before he got into movies, with his training focusing on karate and judo before pivoting to bodybuilding for Rocky IV.
Carl Weathers
"All you have to do is watch that training scene in Rocky III to see what an amazing motivator Apollo could be," says Cavaliere, who also commends Weathers' lean muscle mass and full-body peripheral heart action training (PHAT), which sequentially works the entire body in a single session without rest, burning fat and building muscle at the same time.
Arnold Schwarzenegger
The Terminator himself gets a 10 out of 10 from Cavaliere in terms of motivation, but Cavaliere admits that Schwarzenegger in the '80s is not the most realistic physique goal. However, the bodybuilder-turned-actor gets a full score for setting a benchmark and literally writing the book on training.
Chuck Norris
While Norris had a reputation for playing the badass on-screen, Cavaliere thinks he's too much of a nice guy in real life to push anyone too hard in their workout. He also deducts points for Norris' focus on martial arts at the expense of weight training.
Sylvester Stallone
Every single one of the Rocky movies is a rousing underdog story, and so Cavaliere reckons that Sly would be a great person to get him fired up for a workout—and the physique goal was there too. "When I set out on day one, Stallone was who I wanted to look like," he says.
Your mileage with each of these action stars may vary, and what you want out of a (hypothetical) training partner relies entirely on what your own personal fitness goals might be. And as far as that "X factor" goes? That depends on your favorite movie.
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