B. C. trainer put actor Hugh Jackman through tough regimen for X-Men
By LORRAYNE ANTHONY The Canadian Press

AFTER WHIPPING Hollywood hunk Hugh Jackman into even better shape for his X-Men 3 role as Wolverine, trainer Steve Ramsbottom fine-tuned his workout regimen for other people who want to add muscle mass while keeping the body lean and agile.

"When Hugh came in - he's a pretty fit guy already - I stuck to my philosophy and did an assessment and asked him his goals," said Ramsbottom from his gym, the Performance Institute in Burnaby , B.C.

"Hugh is a dream client."

While the rigorous Wolverine workout is sure to garner results, it has to be tweaked for those who aren't able to train more than five days a week for five months for their big role.

"They are unrealistic goals in that not everyone has the body type that can achieve that level," said Lorraine Hendry, manager of physiotherapy at the University of Ottawa 's Sports Medicine and Physiotherapy Centre.

She said that when people are motivated to get fit - at the beginning of a new year or after hearing about a workout used by Hollywood stars - they tackle it with a vengeance.

When they don't see results right away, they get frustrated and often quit. Or worse, they take on too much and injure themselves.

Hendry, a member of the Canadian Physiotherapy Association, said that if people start slowly to attain their fitness goals they tend to have better luck seeing them come to fruition.

Often people will join a gym or hire a personal trainer to help get them started.

Once you find a club and trainer with whom you are comfortable, Ramsbottom said a physical assessment is the first order of business. The process should take just under an hour and the trainer should ask you about specific goals.

While fitness assessments can vary from gym to gym and trainer to trainer, Ramsbottom is quite specific. He looks at body composition which includes skin-fold testing to measure body fat, posture and alignment of the pelvis to see if there will be any back issues. He also looks at flexibility, core strength, aerobic and anaerobic testing. This allows trainers to understand where the body is at before you embark on a program.

As for Jackman, he wanted to get leaner and put on more muscle. No one would believe Wolverine as a less-than-sleek mutant with powerful limbs behind his knife-like appendages.

The first thing Ramsbottom did was get Jackman into two different phases of weight training.

The first phase was focused on building muscle mass by altering the tempo or speed of the lift. Ramsbottom had Jackman lift the weight to a three-second count up and then a one-second count down.

"It's a lot more difficult and what it does is it increases the time under tension that you have on that muscle so you force adaptation and force breakdown in the actual muscle and, in turn, it ends up growing," said Ramsbottom, who added Jackman gained 15 pounds of muscle during the training.

The second phase focused on maximum strength where Jackman was lifting really heavy weights, without any attention to tempo. The goal of this phase is to increase strength, as opposed to mass.

Each phase lasted from six to 12 weeks depending on results and then was repeated. During each phase, Jackman would lift weights for one to two hours, five days a week. But during the last week of the phase, Jackman would lift only one day and fill the other days with yoga, pilates, running and stretching.

But Wolverine isn't supposed to look like a bodybuilder.

"It's a very athletic role that he has to play. So he needs to look the part but he needs to move properly so we tried to focus on athletic movements. Things that would not make him move like a bodybuilder but move like an athlete."

So every Friday, he would have Jackman take part in an hour-and-a-half bootcamp workout class.

Ramsbottom said that these types of classes are a really great way for both men and women to get lean and really fit at the same time, although he noted men tend to become lean more quickly than women.

He also said that varying the workout is an important factor in getting results.

"People stick with the same program too long. If they adjust the different variables - sets, tempo - that's going to force changes and get people more fit."

In addition to the exhaustive workout, Jackman was extremely disciplined about nutrition. He ate six meals a day made up of lots of vegetables and lean proteins.

He also had massage therapy every day to help his body recover.

And if there was ever a week where Jackson was really sore, Ramsbottom adjusted the five-day routine to include another day of working out.

"If you've pushed so hard you are sore, the worst thing is to actually sit there and do nothing."

The taskmaster does have a heart. If Jackman was simply burned out and tired, Ramsbottom would give him the day off. Still, the Australian actor isn't put off by harsh workouts. It's the third time he trained with Ramsbottom.