I do wonder about some of these Hollywood transformations. Take a guy who I truly admire (as a fellow Scotsman from humble beginnings who has done well for himself with modest talent) - Gerard Butler. His physique was totally transformed for 300. He credits this to ‘living like a bodybuilder for 5 months’. You can’t dispute what 5 months of perfect training and dietary compliance could achieve but you will be dogged by accusations and innuendo.
Ryan Reynolds in Blade is another great example. When you read about his programme, you’re like ‘is that it?’
In both cases, my response would be - well done to them. Assisted or not, they have clearly worked their ass off to get the job done. That’s plain commitment; an attribute not a lot of folks are willing to develop.
I wonder, though, how close they really look to their on-screen physique even when filming. No doubt they get fit, but I think the lighting, make up, and everything going towards making them look a certain way for a scene is a big factor. When you see photos of them at the beach or out and about pretty near the time they were filming, they look fit but they don’t look ultra-jacked. I also think they are typically pretty small: even a “buff” Tom Cruise is probably not benching or squatting much over 2 bills.
I totally forgot about the Casey Butt scale. For someone who asked me before about natural potential.
I do think this is going to be fairly close. When I punched in my numbers sure enough it puts me at about 211 pounds around 10% bodyfat. Which is exactly where I was as a natural.
So if you want to know about where your potential is going to be at 10% bodyfat or so, here you go…
I have heard from several sources in the past (some news articles too) that steroid use among Hollywood actors is very common. They often have to change body composition for roles, which can mean getting fat as fuck or extremely skinny. Like that movie with 50 Cent where he looked like a skeleton. Plus plastic surgery is normal among those people too.
So while you don’t know who is actually doing what and you can only speculate, you can be sure that some of these actors are taking steroids for movie roles, it would be naïve to think otherwise. They often have to make drastic changes in body comp in a short time, and they are making millions of dollars too. And it’s not like they have to pas a drug test. I think almost anyone would take steroids if that was what they needed to do to make that kind of money.
On the topic of Hollywood transformations. Imo this kinda shows how they can create an illusion. Henry is in good shape but nowhere near the 225 lb monster Superman is supposed to be based on the comics. Im not great at judging weight but he looks 165-175 in this video. Just a guess.
Point is he’s most likely natural but looks much bigger on screen than in this video.
Lol, listen Paul, I was trying to be polite and respectful. It’s your forum, people come in here for your thoughts on things, and to be honest, I’m not anyone’s rabid follower, searching for the holy grail and hanging on everything someone writes on here or elsewhere. I’ve never come in this particular sub-forum, don’t read most articles On the main page, and only even responded as someone tagged me and I started reading along.
When you make claims of certain stats or almost anything else online, especially around anyone who has been in the game a while, someone might ask for a pic instead of wasting an afternoon scrolling through a social media barrage of pics that doesn’t address what was even being discussed.
From what I’ve seen, I agree with a lot of what you seem to feel about no nonsense, hard work basics approach to the lifestyle… I don’t agree with everything, and if you felt my feeling things out and politely asking questions instead of just being a typical online A-hole (who usually hasn’t accomplished anything themselves) jumping in, quoting studies, getting all worked up,… well I’m sorry about that.
I used Dorian and Ronnie because when you’re discussing any approach, finding those who truly achieved the best results and looking at what they did makes perfect sense. Success leaves clues, and when you can find photographic evidence as support, it probably holds more weight than nameless and faceless testimonials on an Internet forum.
There are probably countless others who approached training likewise. IF you find something that works, there’s no need to make changes just for changes sake. When I was still competing, only when I found any area that needed specific addressing did I ever throw in anything new to the same 99% movements I had been doing for years. Of course I know better than to ever myself as an online example of anything.
I’ll chime in on Layne. 5’10 at 190 stage weight isn’t ridiculous for someone with a decent size frame. Having a larger structure doesn’t always help you in bodybuilding. I was 5’8 with a pretty smallish frame (joints) and it made me look much bigger at a stage weight most people would never guess (178).
Layne also was never a top pro. This isn’t a dig at all, because I’ve corresponded with him over the years, going back to when he was doing his studies on Leucine to a year or so ago about something totally unrelated and he’s always been a friendly pleasant and intelligent guy. Compare to Shevon Cunningham though, I’m guessing 5’9-5’10, 180 lbs onstage. Of course shevon competed in the Wnbf with their crazy drug guidelines and Layne never did,
Largest natty pro I can think of off hand in terms of just being a thickly structured guy would be Godzecki (google him!)
Camera adds 25 lbs. conditioning, lighting. Being around “normal folks”… Jackman, Reynolds,… much respect as they put in the work and dialed in the conditioning when they needed to but if they walked into any good gym no one would comment on how huge they were.
If you were being legit respectful and not doing the “JAQ” thing then I offer up my complete and most sincere apology. I have to sort through a metric ass load of stupid posts, questions, and trolls on the daily. I’m bound to be wrong on some of them. So if that’s the case then my bad, my man.
As for the rest, I don’t like to use Ronnie or Dorian for examples of anything…but most especially Ronnie, who is the outliers of outliers. So using him as an example of anything (except for how NOT to train) is something I don’t do.
On to Layne, whether he was a top pro or not wasn’t what I was getting at. It was more or less looking at height to weight ratio for natural guys onstage. Again, it’s probably most common to see guys in the 190’s at the biggest, but there’s going to be some outliers in there as well. I believe there’s one guy that’s around 5’5" that gets onstage at 180. Which is massive for a natural guy.
The link to the Casey Butt calc puts me exactly about where I was as a natural guy. 210-215 at around 9-10% bodyfat. I never ever considered that to be spectacular. That would put me onstage at around 195ish at 5’11". Hardly massive.
Before I ever did my first show i went through some old magazines that covered natty contests (yes, they existed back then!) I found anyone close to my height and would hunt down their stage weights. I was about 210-215 at the time and finding out that most guys my height competed at the time in the 160’s blew my mind.
Oh, here’s a pic of that guy Gozdecki I mentioned. Just a beast who would be a “big guy” even if he never trained. Lists his weights as 205 Kgs. Gotta be over 6’ judging by pics of him next to others I know to be 5’9.
Structure can have such an impact on a visual sport like this.
