(Page 1 of 2)
Call it cosplay. Call it a bizarre fetish. Call it what you want, but every once in a while, gamers have an insatiable urge to dress up like their favorite characters and go out in public. If you're a Final Fantasy fan, this can be as easy as emptying a tube of gel in your hair, tossing on a pair of pants with one long leg and one short leg, and making an enormous sword out of cardboard and aluminum foil. If you've got a thing for Mario, all you have to do is throw on some blue overalls, a fake moustache, and a goofy hat. But what if you really want to go all out? What if you want to storm your next gamer con or anime fest as
God of War's Kratos or his female counterpart, Nariko from
Heavenly Sword? It's not going to be easy -- you can't buy ripped shoulders at a costume shop or make a smokingly nice butt out of papier mache -- but if you're willing to put in the time, you may end up being rewarded with a physique worthy of Olympus.
Think of this as Ripped Body 101. These are a lot of the same exercises that I do with my newer clients at my Boston-area studio,
Black Belt Fitness Personal Training. What's good about these exercises is that they don't require any equipment other than your body and gravity. And since both of things are generally within arm's reach, you have no excuses. Go right from one exercise to the next until you've done each three times. It won't take long -- maybe 15 minutes tops. Shoot for running through it two or three times a week. Later on, I'll hit you with some more advanced moves that'll keep you moving the right direction.
Push-Ups
One of the best exercises you can do. It not only builds your chest, shoulders and arms, it also gets your abs, lower back and legs involved. What's also cool is that push-ups are a really easy way to tell how strong you're getting. The eight or nine you can do today will become 12 or 15 next week, and then before you know it, you'll be banging out sets of 30 or 40, which is more than enough upper body strength than you'll need to wield even the gnarliest of battleaxes.
The key to push-ups is to keep your body straight. That means from your heels to the top of your head if you're doing them from your toes or from your knees to the top of your head if you're doing them from your knees. In the "up" position, imagine a line between your two hands. Slowly lower your chest -- not your head -- to the line. That will keep your body straight. When you've lowered yourself to the point that your elbows are bent at 90-degree angles, slowly press off the floor until you're back to the starting position. Do as many as you can with perfect form.
Lunges
Kratos needs strong legs and glutes to jump and to be able to securely pick dudes up in the air and rip them apart without falling over. Nariko needs a well-developed butt because -- well -- that's what perverted gamers look for in their heroines. Lunges work the entire lower body as well as the core. As a bonus, they'll really help you improve your coordination and balance, so not only will you look good, you'll also be that much better at
DDR.