fitnessbreakout
Turn to Hollywood for Workout Inspiration
Mar 31, 2011
An inspirational movie may be the spark that ignites your fitness journey.
At least that was the case for me. One night in September 2009, I was lounging around on my couch flipping through channels. A few months earlier, my cable provider had cancelled the NFL network and as a consolation, they offered me the Starz movie package free for a year. This was great for me because I love movies and I never watched the NFL network to begin with. Little did I know that this promo was about to provide me with some serious workout inspiration.
So I flipped to Starz and the movie that was on immediately sparked my interest. Normally, the thing that caught my attention would have been an attractive female or a funny scene. This time, it was the exact opposite. There was nothing comedic about the scene. It was a shirtless dude about to kick another dude’s butt. Normally, I would have switched the channel right then. I’m not usually into this kind of movie. But this time, I was hooked.
The dude was Cam Gigandet and the movie was Never Back Down.
Gigandet plays Ryan McCarthy, the villain of the movie. He is a spoiled rich kid in Orlando who is the best MMA fighter around. The good guy, Jake Tyler, is played by Sean Faris. He had just moved to Orlando with his mom and brother from Iowa, where he played football and had a tendency to get into fights. So he’s trying to adjust to life in Orlando, butts heads with McCarthy over a girl named Baja Miller (interesting name), gets dismantled by McCarthy in a fight at the beginning of the movie, starts training with a zen-like MMA master named Jean Roqua, and well, you can probably guess what happens at the end.
The movie isn’t exactly Academy Award material, but it does have its moments. The movie has some excellent training sequences, a great soundtrack, and once you stomach all the cheesy lines, the underlying plot is actually kind of a feel-good story. It’s very similar to The Karate Kid, another one of my favorite movies. Also, Baja Miller is played by Amber Heard who is one of the best-looking actresses in Hollywood right now, in my opinion. But none of this is what pulled me in. So what was it?
Cam Gigandet was more ripped than anyone I had ever seen on screen before.
This guy took definition to a whole new level. He had the fully developed six pack abs, line down the middle of the chest, ridiculous muscle tone in the arms, the V-shaped back, you name it. This is the look that men want to have and the look that women want to see in men. In my opinion, this look is the pinnacle of physical fitness.
The next time the movie was on, I recorded it on my DVR. Over the next several weeks, I watched it several times. Each time, I got more and more obsessed with achieving the Cam Gigandet look. I started researching Cam Gigandet online and came across Rusty Moore’s website, Fitness Black Book. I downloaded Rusty’s Vacation Body Blueprint report which outlines exactly what to do to achieve this type of look. The rest is history.
I was skeptical at first, but after putting some of these techniques into practice, I started seeing results.
It’s funny to look back on this now and think that my fitness journey was jump-started by watching a movie about fighting. But it really was that powerful. From that point on, I felt like I was working out with a purpose and not just for the sake of working out. Anyways, the moral of my story is that sometimes, inspiration can come from the most unlikely of sources. Whether it’s a movie, song, book, conversation, anything that really gets you off your seat, just go with it. Revisit it frequently and keep it in your head. You will experience some of your best workout inspiration ever!