Move over Chris Hemsworth, there’s a new shredded stud in Hollywood and he goes by the name of Glen Powell. The 35 year-old Texan first gained our attention while rubbing shoulders with Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick and next month will be getting his rom-com on in Anyone But You with Euphoria’s Sydney Sweeney. But we’re less interested in his career, here, than in his physique. Specifically, those eye-popping abs, traps and delts he fashioned for that Top Gun beach football scene – an homage to the famous volleyball match from the original.

In LA, if you need to get in shape fast, you call Nick Mitchell, founder of global fitness brand Ultimate Performance. “I’m not a celebrity trainer,” Mitchell says.“I hate that [title], it’s vomit-inducing, but this was an interesting opportunity and Glen Powell is genuinely the most positive, upbeat guy, so why not?”

With most celebrity film roles, trainers work towards a ‘money shot’ scene, in which their client’s physique will be most on show – like the beach football scene.

“Different roles have different looks,” says Mitchell. “Top Gun is more cartoonish, more over the top. For the beach scene, we worked on specific poses. Every few days we’d literally get him to do the arms down, holding the ball thing that became a meme to see how that would look. It was all about mirror-muscles.”

“We were focused on muscle building for his upper body, and more functional training for the lower,” Mitchell continues. “It’s everything from traps to deltoids. back, abs and obviously arms. We did train his back for balance, but we weren’t doing heavy squats and leg curls and those kinds of things.”

In other words, Powell trained to look good in certain poses, in one scene – which isn’t at all how you should structure your own training unless you’re starring in Top Gun. Still, there’s a lot to be learned in analysing how they did it. [More at Source]