The Sylvester Stallone Expendables Workout Explained

By Russ Howe


Over the last few years, the Sylvester Stallone Expendables workout has been one of the most requested items in the health and fitness industry. There's a lot of people out there who like to train with the same workout plan as their favorite celebrity and this type of query is now right up there with questions such as "Which whey protein should I use?"

Today's article will take you by the hand and walk you through the entire thing. Be warned, however, it's not for the faint of heart! []

Today's workout is going to work your arms. It will cover the three main areas and will be split into sections designed specifically to hit the front of your arm, the back of your arm and your lower arm. Your biceps are the first phase.

The first exercise here is good, old fashioned chin-ups. Aim for 12 repetitions before moving onto biceps curls with a EZ-Bar and going to failure. The third move in today's plan is dumbbell hammer curls on an incline bench set to around 45 degrees. You need to push this out 12 times.

By now your biceps will be starting to burn but the work has only just begun, as we move into two lesser known exercises. First up is the high cable curl, which involves lying on a bench and curling a high pulley down towards your forehead for 12 repetitions. The biceps section is then wrapped up in style with a bout of zottman curls. You'll be performing 10-12 on each arm here, focusing on the flick of the wrist at the top of each move which will bring your forearms into play ahead of the next phase.

Given Sly's forearm vascularity, you shouldn't expect the forearm phase to be an easy ride. You'll begin by forcing out 25 wrist curls immediately followed by the same exercise with a reverse grip. Then, you'll move onto an exercise rarely seen these days. Handshake curls are a devastating move which bring out great definition in the lower arm region. Shoot for 30 reps on each arm before attempting a the timed hang from pull-up station.

The final phase focuses entirely on your triceps. The back of your arm has yet to be tested, so you'll be pushed quite hard here. Begin with 12 close-grip bench presses and then immediately switch to triceps dips until failure. Once here, transition into a lying triceps extension for 12 more reps before once again hitting failure on dips. By this stage you'll be feeling the burn considerably and the final exercise of the round, rope pushdowns, will finish you off entirely.

Every phase is performed a total of 4 times before progressing to the next. This circuit style approach will elevate heart rate and allow you to maximize fat loss while simultaneously stimulating considerable muscle growth due to the high volume of exercises involved.

Sly wraps up this session by pushing out a set of close-grip push-ups to failure and then holding the plank position for ninety seconds.

If you are relatively new to the gym then you might wish to stay away from the Sylvester Stallone Expendables workout until you have got a few months worth of training under your belt first. It's a tough challenge for most, so scale it down to two or three rounds in each phase if you need to and then gradually step it up when you feel your fitness improving.




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