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Terry Crews' Secrets to Looking Ripped: Lots of Pullups and TK

There are plenty of ways to mix up your workout. Terry Crews isnt into any of them.
Terry Crews Uses Intermittent Fasting to Stay Cut
Terry Crews Uses Intermittent Fasting to Stay Cut

How do you build an action hero body like the one that Crews has sported in everything from Brooklyn Nine-Nine to The Expendables to Deadpool 2 and Arrested Development? By sticking to classic, tried-and-true exercises for two decades, and almost never missing a day. Thats the game plan that has Crews weighing in at a chiseled 238 pounds, with ostrich-egg biceps and a torso carved from steel, at age 50.

Remember now: Consistency, Crews says. Most of my workout has been the same; literally 90 percent of it has been the same thing for 20 years. Crews built his current program in 1999, working with a trainer to piece together a plan that would keep him jacked but having him feeling great, too.

Crews learned plenty during that period and now crafts his own workouts. And his results have been satisfying and sustainable, getting him as strong and ripped as hes ever been. And if you want to train just like Terry, you can, too, because Hollywoods most diesel police chief is more than happy to share his routines.

Need a new chest workout or a biceps blast? Terrys got you covered.

Terrys Chest Smash

Crews chest workout is all about volume, and it focuses heavily on adding depth to his upper chest. Thats why he leads every chest workout with incline bench presses instead of flat bench presses. This is the one thing I put a major change into this year for my chest, he says. I want to really load the upper part of my chest, because I like the way it looks more. This is why my chest kind of has a split in it.

Pushups

Crews opens every chest workout with pushups as a warmup. I do tons of pushups, he says. And not just on chest day, sometimes two or three times a week. Simply just to warm my body up. It works. And its kind of like, if it aint broke, dont fix it. Think of doing 20 or 30 pushups. Youre just warming up, remember, not really getting into the workout just yet.

Incline Bench Press

Next up is the incline bench press, the key piece of Crews workout. Crews aims to do 4 sets here. Hell do 10 reps the first set, 8 in the second, 6 in the third, and 4 reps in the fourth.

Thats a standard pyramid setup that allows him to work heavier with each set. Ill start out at 185 pounds, he says. Then he adds weight quickly. Then go 225, 275, 315.

Barbell Bench Press

From there, Crews heads to the flat bench. Sometimes, hell bench with dumbbells, but most of the time, hell hit the barbell here, too. He works with the same rep scheme he used on the incline bench, doing 10 reps the first set, then 8-6-4 for the next three sets, aiming to finish at 375 pounds.

Every other week, hell also insert some assistance and go a little heavier, using the Slingshot. The Slingshot is an resistance-band-like advanced training tool that goes around your arms and essentially helps you press the weight off your chest, a slingshot effect that lets you use more resistance than you normally would. Im assured of overloading my chest, Crews says, but safely. If you can do more weight with good technique, you get stronger.

Pushup And Dip Superset Finisher

By now, Crews chest is on fire, but he wants to finish with some lower chest work. He does that with a nasty bodyweight superset that isnt for the faint of heart. First hell do a set of pushups until failure. Then hell immediately get up and do a set of dips, either with his hands on a bench or on dip bars, also working to failure.

After what he describes as little break, hell do another set of that superset, also working til failure. Hell finish with a third set of the same superset. By the last set, he says, youre a little withery.

This superset is filled with challenge, so be cautious if you dare to try it. Make sure to end each set at technical failure, when your technique is no longer clean, especially on the dips. If you cant squeeze your shoulder blades when youre doing your dips, your set is very likely done.

Terrys Biceps Blast

Crews attacks his biceps workouts with aggression, going as heavy as he can - but never at the risk of form. Ive learned youve got to listen to your body, he says. Some days, itl literally tell me On this exercise, dont go so heavy.

That doesnt prevent him from working hard though.

Pullups

For me, one of the most valuable biceps exercises is actually the pullup, Crews says. A lot of people spend some time on barbells. For me, when I started to master the pullup, my biceps really, really started to show.

Crews leads every biceps workout with four sets of pullups to failure. Hell usually wind up doing around 25 pullups the first set, around 18 the second set, then 15 on the third set. The final set winds up being 10 to 12 reps. How does he get such big numbers? Hell use lifting straps for his pullups. Yes, that means hes not training his forearms and grip as much, but thats not why hes doing pullups anyway.

I really want to max out the reps, he says. Im concentrating on arms and back with this one.

Dumbbell Curls

Now that Crews has fired up all his pulling muscles, its onto that old standby exercise, the classic dumbbell curl, where you stand holding a pair of dumbbells and alternately curl each one up to your chest. Crews does four sets here, following his 10-8-6-4 template - and working to train wildly heavy.

I start usually with 50-pound dumbbells, he says, and I go up to 55s and 60s and end on 65s.

He never does one-rep maxes on the move, though, and he always makes sure he can control the weight. I have to be really careful, he says, because I injured my biceps a couple years ago. But I know my bread and butter. I go as heavy as I can to retain my size. I want my muscles to saty big and stay full, and I know going heavy, for me, helps to keep that happening.

Biceps curl 21s

Crews ends his biceps workout by grabbing an EZ-curl bar for biceps curl 21s. First, he does 7 reps from the bottom of the curling motion, going up only until his forearms are parallel to the ground. Then he does 7 curls from that parallel-to-the-ground position to the top of the curl. Then he does 7 full-range-of-motion biceps curls.

He does 4 sets of this. Its tough, he says. Sometimes, I vary the weights on this one.

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