Want to ‘Get Swole’? Try the Templar Knight Workout

[guyincognito]

Tired: Gladiators

Wired: Knights

editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/knightfall-star-tom-cullen-on-weight-of-historys-new-adventure-drama/

If you’re looking to get fit, Tom Cullen, star of History’s Knightfall, has a suggestion for you: wear chain mail.

The actor stars as Landry, leader of the Knights Templar, in the newest scripted drama from the network home of Vikings — which meant wearing 50 pounds of armor nearly daily for the better part of a year.

“I didn’t want to weigh the costume early on, because otherwise it would just become a thing in my head. I have weighed it since and it has become a thing in my head,” Cullen, who played Lord Gillingham in Downton Abbey, told Rotten Tomatoes. “The costume weighed 50 pounds, which is a lot to be carrying for 14, 15 hours a day when you’re fighting and riding horses. My body changed shape. I went from fit and kind of slender to muscular and big, just from the fact that I was carrying this amount of weight, this heavy costume.

“I couldn’t even get on a horse when I first started,” he confessed. “I had to have a stepladder because I didn’t have the power in my legs to get over the horse. But by the end of the shoot, I was leaping and running and jumping on horses. It was intense.”

So if you want to “get swole,” try the Chain Mail Workout!

“It’s where you wear 50 pounds of chain mail for seven months, every day, 15 hours a day,” Cullen said. “That’s all you have to do. And you’ll end up [muscular]. I’ve had to go to my wardrobe and buy all new trousers because my ass is so big. Honestly, if you want an ass like Kim Kardashian, become a knight.”

[Dave Reslo]

May 1, 2019 13:22:34 GMT @thinman said:

I've wanted to wear chain mail for Tai Chi forms since 1979.

Man, that would be cool.

I have a little suit I used to wear for shadowboxing in. It's a weight vest, ankle weights but strapped on the elbows, small dumbells in each hand, larger ankle weights tied round the thighs, and work boots. It isn't that heavy, about 30kg, but it made a huge difference. The weights were all chosen to be roughly in proportion to the different bodyparts. It was a hassle to put on of course. After taking it off, I'd feel like I could fly.

I got the idea from knights, who also wore around 30kg of armour (though doubtless at a lower bodyweight). If you go back to old texts on training knights or indeed on training Roman soldiers, the advice was a combination of stone lifting and throwing, jumping, and running around in armour.

[Dave Reslo]

I used to practice xingyi staff forms with a cheap old barbell, not heavy but heavier than a wooden staff. I think you don't want to go to heavy, so you can still move everything properly. Then again, it's not like we are likely to be getting into sword fights.

[Mr Average]

May 1, 2019 21:53:40 GMT Dave Reslo said:

I used to practice xingyi staff forms with a cheap old barbell, not heavy but heavier than a wooden staff. I think you don't want to go to heavy, so you can still move everything properly. Then again, it's not like we are likely to be getting into sword fights.

Speak for yourself

[Bruce Tackett]

I'd love to step into a crowded elevator wearing chain mail and shout, "Group hug!"

[fastfor40]

The Weider course. Those were the days - the mid-60s - when I was introduced to Joe Weider in an issue of Sport magazine. The ad may have been on the back cover and featured Dave Draper on a beach.

I ordered the information and received the documentation, including the order form for the $30 course, which was not going to happen. But after several followup letters from the Master Blaster came a simple letter and the offer to purchase the course for $5. That was it; everything for $5, and I broke open the piggy bank and ordered it.

A few years later I was buying the protein and weight-gain supplements, and somewhere in there I also purchased the Atlas course and did that for one summer.

But it was the Weider days I remember most fondly. BTW; my weights were not barbells, but heavy rocks I found in a rockpile on the edge of our rural property, and sandbags my dad had in the garage. I don't recall getting that much bigger, but I did get stronger. Weider's letters inquiring of my progress were a hoot.

Wish I'd kept all that stuff.

[mr potatohead]

Love the anecdotes, m8s!

[stormshadow]

Love this thread. Those are really cool dumbbells Henry. Can one accomplish the same training effect with 50 to 100 pounds of blubber? I have seen heavy people with great calves

[jrmeatplow]

Steve Justa talks about wearing a 100b vest while working for awhile doing hard manual labor in his book. It would be awesome to have a job that you could do that.

[mr potatohead]

May 8, 2019 9:57:56 GMT stormshadow said:

....   Those are really cool dumbbells Henry. ......

What dumbbells? Where?

[billfish]

May 8, 2019 12:10:19 GMT jrmeatplow said:

Steve Justa talks about wearing a 100b vest while working for awhile doing hard manual labor in his book. It would be awesome to have a job that you could do that.

I've had several jobs that involved hard labor and they got me very strong. But to be honest, i would never want to work hard while wearing a weight vest
The work itself was hard enough