Any actor, actress, or entertainment-adjacent performer who lands a role in a superhero movie is likely signing up for long hours in the gym. Gone are the days of the skinny spandex build of Jimmy Carrey’s Riddler from the 1995 film Batman Forever. The physiques of comic book caped crusaders in modern times often include boulder shoulders and ridged abdominals fitting for an ascending camera tilt.
In the 2021 film The Suicide Squad, actor and comedian Flula Borg got the nod to portray German Olympian turned nemesis of the Green Lantern, Javelin. With the job came an overhaul of Borg’s physique in the three months he had to train with coach Paolo Mascitti of Italy. To get a sense of how Borg feels about his transformation from skinny to jacked, at the time of this article’s publication, six of the last 12 posts on his Instagram page have been images of him without a shirt on. Check out the shot below where he compares his torso to the pillars on the Leaning Tower of Pisa while performing dumbbell lateral raises:
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[Related: 25 Years of Transformation — The Physique of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson]
The inside looks on Borg shares of his training on social media paint a fairly clear picture of focused upper body isometric work. In addition to the lateral raises, Borg’s routine seems to include a combination of triceps pressdowns, single-arm lat pulldowns, dips, pull-ups, dumbbell front raises, cable flyes, and face pulls mixed with mace and medicine ball work. His cardio comes in the form of battle ropes and basketball. When he trains outdoors, he grabs a pair of kettlebells for farmer’s carries.
Borg’s training regimen clearly has a lot of volume, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t some extra time for the comedian to try out new things in iron paradise. Laying dumbbell shoulder presses while training external rotation to hit the glutes with three thick resistance bands in a brand new movement called “The Mermade” is unlikely to be on most actor’s training programs, but Borg isn’t most actors:
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BarBend has reached out to Mascitti for a more detailed breakdown of the training Borg endured preparing to stand alongside the physiques of John Cena, Idris Elba, and Jai Courtney. We’ll update this article if/when Mascitti responds.
The Suicide Squad is currently airing in movie theaters at the time of this article’s publication with a 91-percent certified fresh score from Rotten Tomatoes based on 348 critics’ reviews. In an interview discussing his role of Javelin with Comicbook.com, Borg said, “As an athlete, a former athlete, [Javelin] wants to win, look very dope — but not dope, no HGH. He’s a clean athlete…wants to just win and look DAF, which would be dope and fun, at all times.” Judging by his current physique, Borg certainly looks DAF.
Feature image: @flula on Instagram