You can always bet on Zac Efron to get into tip-top shape for a role.
Case in point: His latest body transformation for The Iron Claw. On set of the biopic Oct. 24, the High School Musical alum looked ready to rumble as famed wrestler Kevin Von Erich. Rocking long brown hair and a blue towel wrapped around his waist, Zac showed off his rock-hard muscles—beefed-up to resemble the wrestling champ’s frame—as he stepped out of his trailer.
Also starring Jeremy Allen White, Lily James and Harris Dickinson, The Iron Claw follows the true story of the Von Erich family, a dynasty of wrestlers who took the sport by storm across three generations.
Zac recently opened up about his “bulking” journey for the role, sharing that he took an entirely different approach than when he was preparing for 2017’s Baywatch. “Something about that experience burned me out,” he told Men’s Health. “I had a really hard time recentering.”
So, what did he do differently this time around? For one, he stopped overtraining.
“That Baywatch look, I don’t know if that’s really attainable,” he said. “There’s just too little water in the skin. Like, it’s fake; it looks CGI’d. And that required Lasix, powerful diuretics, to achieve. So I don’t need to do that. I much prefer to have an extra, you know, 2 to 3 percent body fat.”
In addition to foam-rolling, stretching, self-massages and yoga, Zac also developed a penchant for ice baths—something he called “my favorite part of the day.”
“Before is when it’s most miserable, and when you finally just commit and jump in there,” he shared. “From that point forward, you’ve conquered something deep within you; you do not want to get cold. That’s the simplest philosophy: Anything you don’t want to do, make it a habit.”
