Anyone who’s seen Top Gun: Maverick, and particularly the film’s beach football scene, will know that Glen Powell is in fantastic shape. But even he isn’t in rom-com shape. Not yet anyway.
Powell has just been cast as the lead in an as-yet-unnamed, R-rated romantic comedy. Starring opposite Euphoria Sydney Sweeney, he says of his role: ‘I’ve got to have my shirt off a lot, so I’ve got to look good.’
What does a Hollywood star do when they have to look good? They call in the experts. So just as he did for Top Gun, Powell has enlisted the help of his long-term trainer, Ultimate Performance’s Eddie Baruta, to get in ‘gnarly shape’.
His new programme, Baruta explains, leans towards being upper-body focused, but he”s not forgetting legs because Powell has to look good running on a beach ‘like a proper man’.
Powell starts his workout with bodyweight split squats – before jumping on a hip extension machine and performing around eight reps, ‘just to get things going’.
He then grabs a set of dumbbells and performs split squats again, but this time with weight. Baruta advises that for proper split-squat technique, the Top Gun star should think about pushing his hips forward to keep them engaged. Powell then moves on to hip extensions, but this time he’s grasping a weight plate across his chest.
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Once he’s done with those moves, Powell shifts to a bench to start a set of decline barbell presses, followed by lat pulldowns.
At this point of the workout, tiredness is setting in, so Powell utilises the rest-pause principle, which as Baruta explains intensifies the exercises by increasing the amount of time his muscles spend under tension. ‘This is a technique you use towards the end to get more quality reps when fatigue sets in,’ says Baruta.
Next, Powell performs a set of unilateral farmer’s carries, which he supersets with bench knee raises, before finishing up with sled pull and pushes.
Once he’s done, Powell drops to his knees with exhaustion. ‘I expect a lot better from you next time,’ says Baruta. Powell looks at his trainer and friend and says with a smile: ’Jesus man, it’s a fucking rom com.’
