SRS

“Leonidas jr. Good to see you, again.”

“Ah, King Hamish of the distant Picts. It has been too long, my friend. Tell me, what news of Prince Dougald and his quest across the Western sea?”

“He’s deid. Anyhoo, I have brought you a present from my ane hame. A mighty gift for a mighty king: it will protect you well in this uncharacteristically brisk Persian winter.”

“Why, this is a fine gift, my woden friend. It fits like a second skin, yet does not restrict my movements. I cannot feel the wind on my chest, yet I can swing a sword like Hephaestus himself. Pray, tell me, my friend: what do you call this magical token?”

“An Aran jumper, my lord. And as a further gift, I offer you this emblem of my family line: a kilt of most exquisite plaidness.”

“…plaidness?”

“My King?”

“THIS.

IS.

TARTAN!”

HOOF

*DANANA, NANANA*

*DANANA, NANANA*

//\Oo/\\

I ride a recumbent bike for more than three hours a day, burn over 3,000 calories doing so, and have (relatively) massive thighs because of the daily workouts, but I have never had any painful sessions. Exercise intensively for years, and the body either adapts or breaks.

SRS

P.S. I should note that abdominal crunches, push-ups, and the like contribute to someone looking good, but they do not burn calories. One poster I saw in a fitness center said that steady muscle exercising burns about 270 calories per hour, which is less than walking for an hour at a three miles an hour pace.

http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2007/03/19/gerry-i-will-never-look-like-this-again/

Didn’t Gerard say that he’ll never be in that same shape again, as it killed him to get there, and he actually got injured in the process?

The interviews I sampled indicated that Butler thought he benefited from the workouts with Mark Twight, a mountain climber, and later from working out with Venezuelan body builder Franco LiCastro. Saith Butler:

Those were really your abs in the film?

GB: Yeah, I tried to borrow someone else’s, but they wouldn’t give them up. That was seven months of training.

There was always a part of me going, ‘Okay, am I going to stop doing this?’ But I really was really kind of happy and surprised that I kept it up. I kind of became, I think, a bit addicted to it or perhaps addicted to the advantages it was giving me. Because after a certain point, I never once felt silly or strange standing in my cape, that started to become, just a couple of days after putting it on, one of my biggest allies. Wearing that costume and feeling so strong and that your body was an intimidating factor and an inspiring factor for your army, as we all were. I mean, you’re surrounded by probably a few tons of muscle, and when you pull that together and pull that spirit together and have nothing but focus and belief and pure intention… the power of that! You become a thousand times stronger. It actually makes sense that you could hold off an invading army that doesn’t have that belief, that are in disarray, that you could hold them off quite easily.

Also, I think it was some military guys who got them into that shape!