(bright energetic music)
- What up everybody, this is Jay Ellis.
Some of you guys may know me from "Insecure".
I played the lovable loser, Lawrence Walker.
Team Lawrence.
Anyway, Lawrence did not work out a lot.
And then I got cast in this role,
my dream role to play a pilot in "Top Gun: Maverick".
And I realized I needed to go to the gym y'all.
So, I called my guy Julian,
and he put me through this crazy workout
that you guys are about to see today.
You're gonna see some of the workout that I used
to get in shape and get ready for "Top Gun".
So here we go.
Do you know, we have the fortunate experience
of getting to work with
one of the greatest movie stars of all time
in Tom cruise with this.
And everyone knows him as a guy who does all his own stunts,
and is hyper focused on his training,
the specificity in the training,
and then also how that translates on screen.
And that's the same thing that he did for us, right.
We all flew about 40 hours or so in three different aircraft
before we got in the F-18,
and started pulling Gs in there and taking flights in there.
So I called my man Julian to get me in shape.
This guy's a beast.
I think he doesn't like me to be very honest with you,
because he makes me work really hard,
and he smiles, just like he smiling right now.
He smiles while he does it.
I've never seen anyone smile while they torture someone.
But he...
Look at that, he's showing teeth,
that's how much he likes it.
I go home and I really rethink a lot of my life choices
after I leave a workout with him.
(spirited upbeat music)
When I came to Julian
and gave him all my goals for this film,
he basically was like,
"All right, the philosophy behind this,
we're gonna start out,
we're gonna do a bunch of supersets."
Which is like three or four exercises, multiple reps,
and then you jump into another.
You know what?
I don't understand why they call them super,
there's nothing super I wanna do with the gym.
Why do supersets equal lean muscle?
- Supersets equal lean muscle
'cause normally if you just do
one or two exercises at the same time, you're gonna bulk up.
And for what we were trying to do for Jay,
we were trying to keep him lean,
so we get increase in metabolic rate
while also adding a little bit more muscle to the body.
- A lot of more muscle.
Typically, this is how I get in the squat leg press machine.
It's a leg press machine, not a squat machine,
but this is typically how I get into it,
it's really my happy place.
I just kinda, (indistinct), you know,
when I think about all the really good times
that I've had doing legs.
If you're like me, you love leg day, right.
It's just so happy here.
All right, let's do it, okay.
(upbeat music)
A 1 1/2 squat.
And this is for time under tension.
I learned that from Julian.
It really just feels like an extra squat.
I'm not scared to do a weighted pull up.
What do I look like?
I ain't scared.
I'm never scared.
(indistinct)
(Jay breathing deeply)
I like to call this one peek-a-boo
because you can't really see my face.
You know what I'm saying?
It's like peek-a-boo, I see you, peek-a-boo,
this is actually called a Arnold.
I'm sure some of you guys have seen this before.
Arnold Schwarzenegger,
really good friend of mine, in my head, never met him,
but I really like his workout.
(Jay breathing deeply)
I really don't have this much fun
when I'm working out, I promise. (laughs)
One of the things that I want you guys to know
that I hate to admit about my castmates, Glen and Danny,
is that they can't do as many pushups as me.
We've had to do this multiple time now.
We did a photo shoot together once,
and then also while we were on set.
You know, you wanna look good.
you want your arms to look good,
so we would drop down and do some pushups,
and they just always tapped out.
I'm really not sure why.
I get that this could be intimidating, whatever.
But you know, we had a lot of fun,
that's all I'm gonna say.
(upbeat music)
All right, so for this next set of exercises,
I'm gonna do a Bulgarian split lunge,
that's gonna turn into a bird dog row,
and then from there, I'll go into a hollow body press.
Kind of the same principles as earlier,
really it's about time and attention,
like under stress, under activation rather,
and then also really engaging the core with all of these,
which you guys will see.
(Jay breathing deeply)
All right, so now we're moving into the bird dog row.
I'm not gonna talk through this one
'cause it's all about core and balance.
(Jay breathing deeply)
All right, this is a hollow body press.
Honestly, guys, it's really like...
It's admission, it's like two for the price of one.
You know what I mean?
You're getting some chest, a lot of core.
(Jay breathing deeply)
All right guys, for our next set of exercises,
we're gonna do a single leg deadlift with knee flexion,
after that, we're gonna move into a pullover,
and from there we're gonna go to a single leg lateral raise.
Again, a lot of core in all of these,
while also, you know, get a little size,
you know, the muscles are,
you'll see what I'm talking about, here we go.
All right.
(Jay breathing deeply)
So outside of the physical, (lively upbeat music)
which was obviously a super important aspect
to all of our training.
There was a big mental component as well,
because we are in these jets with pilots,
but we are very far away from base camp,
and you're up there by yourself.
So you have to not only act and fly safely,
but you also have to operate the cameras.
We often had to tell the pilot
in which direction we needed them to fly.
So you had to be hyper-focused.
And really like the hick maneuver
in that part of your training
literally had to be second nature,
it's something that you didn't think about.
It had to be something that literally just happened
because there were so many other variables happening
while we were in the air flying.
(upbeat music)
(Jay breathing deeply)
A lot of balance in this (laughs)
my friend.
See, this is what happens when we play around too much.
My balance is amazing, it's really impeccable.
Literally the NBA should hire me and the NFL.
About a week ago Misty Copeland called me, and she said,
"Hey Jay, can you show me how you have such great balance?"
And I said, "Yeah, it's all in this single leg lat raise
that Julian makes me do too many times a day."
(Jay and Julian laughs)
All right guys, so we are going into the final set.
The three exercises that we're gonna do here
are a tricep extension,
we're gonna do an iso hold bicep curl,
and then we are gonna do ball saws for core.
Here we go.
As you guys can see, it's a pretty standard tricep press.
Julian likes to call this the quiet before the storm,
I like to call it the quiet before a tornado, like a F-5,
because what's coming next it's not fun.
This is one of those moments,
where I tell y'all he's torturing me,
'cause if you could see the smile on his face right now.
(upbeat music)
(Jay breathing deeply)
(indistinct)
All right, for this final exercise, it's the ball saw,
all core here. (laughs)
I'm so ready to be done y'all,
no I'm not, I'm not joking,
we don't get tired.
(Jay breathing deeply)
Okay, this is it, this is the last one.
Ah! All right, Jul I'm done.
This is it, I'm outta here,
y'all go do the workout on your own now,
you got all my secrets,
but just make sure you give me the credit
when you do my workout.
I'm just gonna lay here, okay.
All right guys, that's it, that's my workout.
As you can see I'm out of breath, it was a great workout.
I'm exhausted, but you know what?
Turn and burn baby, 'cause I got the "Top Gun" body.
I typically do three sets of each of these, 10 to 12 reps.
Go have fun, go get a payback body.
That's what we're gonna call it,
a payback body.
Later y'all.