The Elysium Workout

How I Got Ripped For Elysium In 3 Months

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About two years ago, I got a call from my agent telling me I had booked a role as a South African mercenary in the new Neill Blomkamp film Elysium.



At first, I was thrilled. Then I found out my character, Crowe, has a massive fight scene with Matt Damon’s character, Max. At the time, I thought I was in pretty good shape — after all, I’ve played marines, fugitives, green berets and other assorted shady individuals who have been finely tuned physical specimens. This time it was different. First, South African mercenaries are tough bastards. They were the blueprint for most special ops soldiers. They are highly skilled and highly trained killing machines. And they’re in insanely good shape. Second, I was about to tango with Jason Bourne. I knew right away I had work to do.

At the time, I was 5’10” and weighed 165 pounds with about 13% body fat. I felt good and thought I looked pretty good, but that wasn’t going to cut it. I wanted to put on at least 15 pounds of lean muscle mass and get Tyler Durden ripped. Right away, I called my brother, Matthew. He’s a personal trainer and I knew I’d need his expertise. I told him I had three months to put on 20 pounds of lean muscle mass and get down to single digit body fat. He laughed. He knew it was possible; he also knew I loved beer.

As the saying goes, abs are made in the kitchen. Diet is the most important part of any workout regimen. Most personal trainers would have told me to start loading up on lean proteins like chicken and salmon. But I’ve been a vegan for 20 years, and that wasn’t going to work. Ultimately, I knew the diet wouldn’t be an issue; after all, I’d been training and staying in shape for the last 15 years and never had a problem putting on and maintaining lean muscle mass. But 20 pounds in three months was going to be a challenge. Matthew and I were up for it. About one week later, we were in the gym going over the program I was going to undertake for the next three months.

Matthew set up a three-part regimen. Each part lasted one month and served a specific purpose. Before I began this program I had been working out for the last five years consistently, so it was easier to transition to a much more grueling and demanding workout. We called this our Athletic Powerbuilding Workout.