Last week, Ryan Reynolds sent the Marvel universe into meltdown when he revealed that Hugh Jackman would be starring in the new Deadpool movie. And, of course, the actor announced the news with a humorous trailer:
While Reynolds didn't give too much away in terms of what lies in store for Wolverine, fans of the character could not contain their excitement to see him back.
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And the Aussie actor hasn't wasted any time in getting fighting fit for the role.
Taking to Instagram, Jackman revealed that he was back in the gym and hitting the weights hard.
In the sweaty snap, which was posted to his stories, the 53-year-old can be seen wearing a very damp grey t-shirt while flexing his muscles.
He captioned the pic: "Work in progress."
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And, if you want to get an insight into the kind of gruelling regime Jackman puts himself through when preparing to play Logan, personal trainer Mike Ryan is about as good a person as any.
He got Jackman into shape back in 2009 when he was preparing to shoot X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
Speaking about his progress, Ryan said: "It’s all about evolution.
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"From one workout to the next I’ll always have something new to add to the equation. Our sessions are based on established principles, but we’ll always try and bring new ideas to the table."
But fitting in a session was sometimes difficult due to the actor's busy schedule, so that meant they often trained very early in the morning - super early in fact.
Ryan went on: "We have a philosophy of training first thing in the morning. Research suggests that people who train in the afternoons consistently do workouts of far less intensity than those who do train in the morning.
"When Hugh has a 6am filming start, that means we’ll be in the gym by 4am."
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Ryan added that the pair would workout for up to 90 minutes, mixing up weights with cardio.
He said: "We never start a weights session without a minimum ten-minute cardio warm-up. Never, ever.
"After a session we often finish with 20 minutes of cardio, which could be a run, or run and swim."
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Ahead of 2013 release of The Wolverine, Jackman also worked with UK-based trainer David Kingsbury, who wanted to make him lean and defined for the role.
Discussing his workout plan, he said: "Hugh hadn't done much direct strength work prior to training with me. He tended to work in the 8-12 rep range. I always encourage low, one to five-rep heavy work to stimulate myofibril hypertrophy. Then, after the heavy work is done, we move on to the higher rep schemes to encourage sarcoplasmic hypertrophy.
"By increasing your strength with the low reps, you increase your capacity with the higher reps, so I always plan heavy sets of the compound movements. The combination of the two styles brings the best gains."
So we'll have to wait and see what kind of shape he gets into for the new Deadpool movie.
Deadpool 3 is set to be released in September 2024.
Topics: Deadpool, Hugh Jackman, Ryan Reynolds, TV and Film, Wolverine, Marvel