Ever since January 22, 2010, my guilty pleasure and obsession has been with the new Starz original series, Spartacus: Blood and Sand. The show talks about a man who was betrayed by the Romans, forced into slavery, and reborn as a gladiator.

In order to play these beasts of the arena, all the actors had to participate in a month long “Gladiator Camp.” For 4 hours straight every day, these actors had to engage in cardio, sword fighting, gymnastics, and weights. Part of the intense workouts that the actors engaged in were the combined exercises that made sure that more than one muscle groups were being used. One exercise that the actors engaged in was high knee step ups. These required the actor to start with his feet parallel to the ground with a bench placed square in front of them. On the other side of that bench, a spotter is holding a 20 kilo weight pad. The actors had to step up on to the bench and then lift their leg in to the high knee position and push the 20 kilo weight up. This was done with alternating the legs with about 25 reps per leg per session.

To help build endurance and promote speed agility, the actors also engaged in monkey rolls or as I know the exercise, the dead man’s roll. Three people start on their stomachs about an elbow’s width from each other. The person in the middle leaps over the person to the left, while the person on the right rolls into the middle while the person leaps over the new middle person and the cycle continues. This exercise is usually done for about 5-7 minutes at a time.

In addition to the above exercises, the gladiators-in-training engaged in cardio exercises, such as tire flipping and farmer’s walks (where the actor carries 100 pound weights or more from point A to point B) and lunges. In addition to these strenuous workouts, the actors had a limited diet and were restricted to protein shakes, fish, pasta, chicken, and salads with light or no dressing.

To get a deeper understanding of the workouts from Gladiator Camp, check out the March issue of Men’s Health magazine.  Read a review of a recent episode at our tv publication, Couch Tuber.