Worlds are being saved by Chris Pratt, Seth Rogen, and Paul Rudd—men who, just a movie or two ago, looked like me, a guy who could probably be the guardian of his own lunch but definitely not a whole galaxy. Now, somehow, these funny schlubs have transformed into the shredded, shirtless muscleheads that guys like me are supposed to mock, fear, and envy, all at the same time. Hollywood's new generation of superheroes aren't so much entertaining me as shaming me. Enough, I was shocked to discover, that I felt compelled to do something about it.

Sure, I haven't worked out in more than two years and eat like a person who hasn't worked out in more than two years, but if Rudd—who has always appeared to be the same slouchy, undefined mass as I am—can play a six-packed Ant-Man, then I must be able to as well. I figured there must be a Hollywood trainer who specializes in the Geek-to-Superhero Workout. In fact, the transformation has gotten so common that there are several.

The best is Harley Pasternak. He played himself as Megan Fox's trainer in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (he trains Fox) and was the inspiration for the Simpsons episode Seth Rogen co-wrote about superhero movies (he trained Rogen for The Green Hornet). He tells me he trained Tobey Maguire for Spider-Man, Halle Berry for Catwoman, both Ben Foster and Ellen Page for X-Men, and Robert Pattinson for Twilight, which, as a 43-year-old man, I have no idea whether that was a superhero movie or not. Before Harley even sees me, he tells me that three months will be plenty of time to transform my physique. He says he worked out with Halle Berry for just five weeks. Which means he assumes my body is only 2.4 times as bad as Berry's. I'm guessing Hollywood trainers aren't great at math.

I show up at Harley's West Hollywood office, which is in a garage attached to his gym. It does not seem like a gym that a superhero would use. More like a gym at a boutique hotel where you look around and say, "Yeah, I guess this will work." When he sees my surprise, Harley says, "Much of what we do is from an IP perspective." Not only do we live in an age of nerdy superheroes; our trainers talk about intellectual property. I fear I'll be struggling to finish my set on the bench press and he will get in my face and yell, "The optics on this rebranding project are not market-ready!"

Harley is a bald, intimidating linebacker-shaped 40-year-old Canadian Jew. He played junior hockey and dabbled in bodybuilding before becoming a trainer. Since then, he has co-hosted a daytime ABC show called The Revolution, written seven books, starred in a Wii fitness game, and created a gray camouflage sneaker with New Balance. Inside the heel is a quote inspired by his favorite book, Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning: "The process is the goal." But he's also drily funny. I've heard every New Jersey joke by now, but when I tell him I'm from there, he says, "I love the architecture."

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I fill out a medical form, and he tells me to leave the "Weight" field blank. No one, he explains, asks a superhero what he weighs. After reading that I drink wine with dinner every night, he tells me that my biggest change will be eliminating all alcohol. I am not happy about this. "When your body is metabolizing alcohol, it's not metabolizing fat," he says. "And when we drink alcohol, we tend to make poor food choices." I am starting to think that when we accept magazine assignments, we make poor life choices.