THIS IS SPARTA! The Gerard Butler 300 Workout

The Gerard Butler 300 Workout - The Spartan Workout for Gym Rats

By Benscudder
Published Mar 30, 2007

Virgil spoke of "arms and the man", but he might have been talking about abs and pecs, too. To become King Leonidas, Gerard Butler, in the starring role in 300, spent 4 months transforming both his body and his mind. The actor with a law degree went to extreme steps to get the chiselled body look that has audiences gawking at every screening of the hit film "300'. The hottest online searches today are from watchers of the movie dying to replicate Butler's abs of steel. The intense training required to build a warrior's physique while simultaneously cultivated a warrior's mentality.

The workout is specialized and has a special gym to train in to do it. Mark Twight, a personal trainer, is respsonsible for Butler's shaping up. The constant pushing needs the right person. He's a former world-class mountain climber believes in training as if your life depends on it. The sprints with a bungee-jumping type cord to grab a retreating kettlebell attest to that. Scottish thespian Butler had to train in marathons of varying new types of exercises to get that ultra ripped look.

The 300 workout is the latest in a growing trend of physical fitness towards more naturalistic regimens. For example, to hasten Butler's mind-body transformation, there was created what he calls the "300-rep Spartan workout." For those who know, 100 reps is difficult even for trainers. But no athlete should begin at 300 reps. Strength should be built up. Use sofa and armchairs with hands wrapped in oven mitts to duplicate classical warfare.

This workout is not for newbies or amateurs. Warm-ups and conditioning exercises with yoga poses are required to get muscles flexible enough to perform. The 300 workout has unarguable results. Experts strongly advise working with a trainer before doing the highest amounts of reps. Start in the low numbers and work within your own fitness levels. It goes like this: Without resting between exercises, Perform 25 pullups, 50 deadlifts with 135 pounds, 50 pushups, 50 jumps on a 24-inch box, 50 floor wipers, 50 single-arm clean-and-presses using a 36-pound kettle bell, and 25 more pullups.

These should be done in succession without rest. All this must be done in addition to utilizing other unconventional yet equally taxing training methods, such as tire flipping and gymnastics-style ring training. Seasoned gym rats can't claim immediate facility to the 300 workout. It takes a different kind of guts to master push ups laterally using your shoulders as balancing all your upper weight in the air, with the lower half of the body supported on a bench.

Butler saw big results, and so did happily female 300 audiences. Butler knew from experience he wanted a more legitimate look to the acting and depicting Leonidas than others he'd seen before. King Leonidas as played by Gerard Butler dominates the battlefield like the real king would. The height of pitched battle bleeds with testosterone incarnate. Butler's lethal performance intimidates others onscreen as well. Butler shows with the steely gaze, rasping voice, cobblestone abs, and broad, chiseled shoulders what kind of person could be king in a place like Sparta.

"You know that every bead of sweat falling off your head, every weight you've pumped -- the history of that is all in your eyes," says Butler of his dedication. The audiences of the film agree that Butler as King Leonidas never looks like a green screen hero because the definition of his body sells the performance. Butler put on his green screen cape knowing he'd trained like a lion.

Twight's gym routines include running bungee jumps toward a retreating kettle bell, and pull-ups until failure. Beginners should start off by doing 100 reps using four to six different exercises, 10 to 25 reps per exercise. Yoga and conditioning is needed just to build up the body to the point it can take this kind of abuse. Build up from there until 300 can be done without rest. Swap in cross training sets of complementary exercises such as jumping jacks, dumbbell curls, and Swiss-ball crunches.

"Lie on the floor holding a 135-pound bar straight overhead," says Twight. "Keeping legs straight, touches the feet to one plate, lower them to the floor in the center, and then raise them up to touch the other plate." That's one repetition. Try it yourself, but with an empty bar first, raising your feet until they're about 8 inches away from the bar (since there's no weight plate to touch)

The 300 workout is extremely time efficient, since almost all the time is used for max burn. Cape not included.