Packing on a solid 40 pounds is no easy feat, but Bradley Cooper challenged himself and set the bar high and that’s how he landed the lead role in American sniper. The film is an autobiography of Chris Kyle, a famous Navy SEAL who made a record 160 confirmed kills in Iraq. He was told it was a 230-pound Texan who was professionally combat-skilled.
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Not only that, but after this crazy transformation, after American sniper wrapped up, he had to lose all the bulk weight for his next role, he said, “I lost about 15 pounds in three weeks.” “The next 15-20 pounds was really hard to lose.”
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How Bradley Cooper Gained 40 Pounds For American Sniper?
The challenge was actually to get him down from 185 to 225 pounds and for that he went through intense training as well as serious diet plans. He totally relied on unilateral exercises, including Bulgarian split squats, single-leg deadlifts, and Romanian deadlifts with a landmine, and started to grow from there. But he still has no abs.
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He also ate a lot of food during this whole process, over 5,000 calories a day. His personal chef cooked five good meals a day, but even that wasn’t enough. The actor also shared:
“It was a real shock to my body. If it’s pizza and cake, that’s one thing. Putting 6,000 calories a day into your body ages fast.
“It changes absolutely everything, it changes the way you walk, the way people relate to you. If someone hits you on the sidewalk, they sort of ricochet. You go to a party and everyone dances, nobody moves you.
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Bradley Cooper Reveals His American Sniper Workout Routine
Bradley Cooper used to train twice a day, starting at 5 a.m. He was entirely focused on structural exercises to build muscle, including heavy deadlifts and squats to build strength and maintain the extra mass. The second workout routine started in the late afternoon and focused on core muscle building. He also said that it also entails many inconveniences, he only wore pants with an elastic waistband, and said that even his hands got bigger. But when asked if he wanted to return to this training phase, he simply replied “NO”.
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American sniper was released on January 16, 2015. You can stream American sniper by renting or buying on Vudu.
