The Superhero Bod Secret...

By Pieter Vodden

Not many people know this, but before creating Pharos, I used to build gyms for Warner Brothers on Superhero movies.

Training an actor for a movie requires the development of both aesthetics (so you look the part) and function (to make it believable that you are capable of action) and coaches are brought in to ensure results and use every tool at our disposal to support balance, multiplicity, and that elusive superhero status before and throughout filming. 

The game really changed in 2006 with the 300 Movie. As a young trainer at the time I was fascinated to know “how those guys trained,” but there was no social media so you really had to dig. It was the stuff of myth, whisper and legend and nobody apart from those at Gym Jones (who trained the cast) and those who were in the movie knew the real truth. There was a secret out there that I needed to find. I was a fanboy and disciple, and eventually joined the Gym Jones team to see behind the curtain and be a part of the revolution. At the time, gym culture was pretty divided and dogmatic. You had the bodybuilders on one side of the fence with their machines, isolation and flex offs. Then as CrossFit and “Functional Training” started to gain traction, more people rejected bench and bicep curls and found more freedom and excitement in skill acquisition and “all body athletic” movements. 

But I knew the secret and the success would be in that hybrid model. Dogma doesn’t matter. Results matter. And the best results are found through programming with purpose and multiplicity.

So the secret to the superhero bod?

Approach your training with balance and not dogma. There is a place for Weightlifting and functional stuff as well as machines. There is a need for community and growth that only the energy of group training provides and there’s a need to put on some headphones and do some work on your own. There is a space for combat and for yoga. A place for balance, experimentation and achievement that can’t just be measured on a scale.

Seek out lean muscle tissue alongside the thrill of task and challenge. Resist calorie deficits and fitness fads and instead trust that when you train with purpose and build your metabolism with proper nutrition, lean muscle tissue and an aerobic base, you are living that superhero life. 

Interested in training with Pharos? We have remote and in person programs for any one at any stage of life with any goal.

Before Pharos Athletic Club, you had to choose. This studio for yoga or that for HIIT. Open gym or coached classes? Crossfit or bodybuilding? Boxing or stairmaster? Dogma reigned supreme. 

Through PHAROS, our partners, team and greater community built a facility with such broad offerings delivered in a premium way. We believe in the importance of building and maintaining muscle as we age, in mobility and recovery, in the drive for competition and challenge, in the improvements to mental health through physical activity, and in the need for community shared experience.

PHAROS is simply the best of everything we have experienced under one roof. It’s our highlight reel of fitness over the last 20 years. It exists as both a homage to the past and a look at the future. Not dismissing anything but offering many paths to stay active and find joy in the pursuit of Limitless (or your superhero bod…)