Train Like a Spartan!

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
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Alright heres an interesting argument which might stimulate some debate,

If training with goal of constant progression, doing the same exercises, training the same muscle fiber proportions, and same goals is the key to gaining mass, strengh losing fat, why in the hell did Gym Jones, trainer of the actors for “300” train them otherwise with great success? Honestly, I believe the quote I heard Charles Staley present which was"Everything works, and nothing works" it went something like that.

SO these dudes who some never trained before, started a rigoruos training regimine in which they never repeated the same regimine, sometimes worked on pysocological training where they deadlift blinded folded with unknown weights to themselves! and made monster like progression not ever repeating the same workout twice or so I have read, I sure they used some like movements, but literally no two workouts were identical in the true sense of the word.

So here at T-Nation, are we doing it all incorrectly?

MAybe we’d be better off training for battle, think about it, if you had to go to hand to hand combat, or the fight of your lives where brute power and force were what you needed, excellent conditioning, how the hell would you train, Probably a lot different then you do now. 3 sets of 10 maybe, I think not!

these guys actually trained with the intensity as if they were training to save their lives. Think about this the next time your going to train your forearm extensor muscles or maybe you’d rather not look like thats all you ever do.

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FUNNY.

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I may be a newbie but here are some points to consider:

  1. These guys are ACTORS. They had perfect diets and a hefty paycheck to motivate them.
    They also had lots of time to sleep etc.

  2. I think intensity is very important. When I train I imagine myself as a Viking warrior, or as Batman being trained by the Ninjas in the mountains of Asia, or the Doomguy preparing to take on the hideous hordes of hell.

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I like your point of view.

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[quote]musclex wrote:
Alright heres an interesting argument which might stimulate some debate,

If training with goal of constant progression, doing the same exercises, training the same muscle fiber proportions, and same goals is the key to gaining mass, strengh losing fat, why in the hell did Gym Jones, trainer of the actors for “300” train them otherwise with great success? Honestly, I believe the quote I heard Charles Staley present which was"Everything works, and nothing works" it went something like that.

SO these dudes who some never trained before, started a rigoruos training regimine in which they never repeated the same regimine, sometimes worked on pysocological training where they deadlift blinded folded with unknown weights to themselves! and made monster like progression not ever repeating the same workout twice or so I have read, I sure they used some like movements, but literally no two workouts were identical in the true sense of the word.

So here at T-Nation, are we doing it all incorrectly?

MAybe we’d be better off training for battle, think about it, if you had to go to hand to hand combat, or the fight of your lives where brute power and force were what you needed, excellent conditioning, how the hell would you train, Probably a lot different then you do now. 3 sets of 10 maybe, I think not!

these guys actually trained with the intensity as if they were training to save their lives. Think about this the next time your going to train your forearm extensor muscles or maybe you’d rather not look like thats all you ever do.[/quote]

I thought the idea of deadlifting blindfold was interesting!

If you were training for battle you’d train for weapon skill and other battle skills not muscles.

A good coach can get a lot from people and mixing it up is effective, especially if guided. Just going in and randomly trying stuff on your own may not do it though.

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Once a week I do a “bootcamp” class by a guy who’s an instructor/trainer for the Coast Guard. Just lately he’s had us doing some stuff with our eyes shut. It’s really difficult to not fall over while doing Bulgarian split-squats!

He does this with his Coast Guard trainees because they often go out and get dumped into the ocean at night.

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Not this again.

Just because they never did the same workout doesn’t mean they didn’t use the same basic lifts and focus on doing more work in the same amount of time.

Also, how could you say anybody is doing anything wrong if they are getting results?

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I am also willing to bet that no one here would actually want to look like a Spartan. In The Republic, Plato said that you never train soldiers like atheletes, because soldiers have to be ready for the rigors of campaigning. Which means endurance, and getting by on an insufficient diet.

If you want to know what a Spartan looked like, image a wiry old white guy with a pony tail, who paints houses, or cuts lawns for a living and whose skin is covered in vericose viens and tanned like old leather.

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Iv seen that guy! Hes the only guy to ever taunt me in the gym. I about threw him into a bunch of gym equipment but he backed off. Moral of the story the guy didn’t look at act like he could fight and wasn’t intimidating, and if you look at my stats I’m not either.

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[quote]Uncle Gabby wrote:
I am also willing to bet that no one here would actually want to look like a Spartan. In The Republic, Plato said that you never train soldiers like atheletes, because soldiers have to be ready for the rigors of campaigning. Which means endurance, and getting by on an insufficient diet.

If you want to know what a Spartan looked like, image a wiry old white guy with a pony tail, who paints houses, or cuts lawns for a living and whose skin is covered in vericose viens and tanned like old leather.[/quote]

True, that.

There were a lot of Spartan and ancient Greek athletes, and I think there was also somewhat of a culture of bodybuilding there too, the Spartans were the first to introduce oiling the body among the Greeks during exercise to highlight its beauty, as they saw this outer beauty as something that reflected “arete” or virtue within.

No culture has celebrated physical fitness and development to such a degree since, and I think this is a big part of their culture that is sometimes overlooked due to modern-day image of these things as being homosexual.

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Oh, and as an addendum, I agree, this “spartan workout” crap is all hype.

If you want to take anything away from the Spartans then take yourself away from 300 and read up about their mentality, discipline and ethics. You might find them inspiring, you might not, but it’ll be time better spent than reading up on some Hollywood workout.

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A lot of the muscle in that movie was CGI

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and hideous amounts of pro-tan…

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The Spartan training at GymJones is just the poor cousin of Crossfit. It uses combos of gymnastics, olympic style weightlifting, rowing , kettlebell shit, powerlifting, and a few other training methods to make people better rounded athletes.

I don’t like the differences that set GymJones apart from Crossfit. Both do the Deadlift but GymJones might put a blindfold on you ever once in a while. When I went to the GymJones sight they were bragging on some guy blindfold lifting 295. I don’t know about you all, but my ideal body defiantly doesn’t need to be tricked in order to deadlift 295.

I also think both institutions use of high-rep olympic lifting is just weird. There might be some instances where in Olympic Lifting you might train with more than 6 reps, but I can’t think of many.

Having said that I do think Crossfit does a lot of cool shit and their workout “Heavy Fran” is killer.

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[quote]shizen wrote:
A lot of the muscle in that movie was CGI [/quote]

lol no it wasnt, you mean to tell me they went ahead and CGI’d the clips of them training that was put on the DVD?
come on, give credit where its due.

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I am not a soldier there for I do not train like one.

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I did hear that they used some kind of fake ab plates in some parts, not sure if that is true or not. I think they actors look impressive, but they are not THAT big. To me it looked like they were just very well conditioned and had good diets. It is not like they had a ton of muscle, just well defined bodies.

If you want a well defined body do a lot of speed work, whether it be pushing/pulling your car, running up hills, parachute sprints; any and all of these will produce similar results; being lean bodies.

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I respect what the actors did, yes, but some of it was make up effects (putting dark shadowing on the serratus and also the incredible amount of tanning those guys. Would I love to look like the 300? Absolutely.

You have to remember also that the movie producers and casting agents didn’t cast alot of big name stars in 300, they picked alot of extras that were in insane shape to begin with. David Wenham had to gain 80 pounds for the role. Thus, not every single extra and actor in 300 was training alongside Gerard Butler and David Wenham.

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[quote]gatesoftanhauser wrote:
I respect what the actors did, yes, but some of it was make up effects (putting dark shadowing on the serratus and also the incredible amount of tanning those guys. Would I love to look like the 300? Absolutely.

You have to remember also that the movie producers and casting agents didn’t cast alot of big name stars in 300, they picked alot of extras that were in insane shape to begin with. David Wenham had to gain 80 pounds for the role. Thus, not every single extra and actor in 300 was training alongside Gerard Butler and David Wenham.[/quote]

stop stop! Take it back! It was all real and I enjoyed every minute of the whole bare chested ripped abs movie.

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“SO these dudes who some never trained before, started a rigoruos training regimine in which they never repeated the same regimine, sometimes worked on pysocological training where they deadlift blinded folded with unknown weights to themselves! and made monster like progression not ever repeating the same workout twice or so I have read”

DON’T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU READ.

No real records have been found of how true spartans trained or what where there methods. The barbell and dumbell have been with us longer than you or even I can think.