Okay, stick with us for a minute here. While you may not have seen the Twilight movies (or at least won’t admit to it), the saga’s man-vampires and dude-wolves have shown a pretty significant commitment to fitness over the series’ roughly four-year run. In fact, some were even forced to get cut for their role—or be cut. Seriously.
The result? A cast of men whose lean bods or toned muscles will make millions of women squeal this weekend (we wish we were kidding) and one guy, in particular (we’re talking to you, Taylor Lautner) who’s shirtless so much he gives Matthew McConaughey a run for his money.
So, with that in mind, we went on a fact-finding mission to uncover all of their secrets to staying in shape. Click through to read, respect—and steal their training methods.
Lautner, 20, famously had to pack on 30 pounds of muscle to keep his role as Jacob Black for the second Twilight installment, and since then, he’s kept up his workouts to be ready for Breaking Dawn: Part Two. His quickest tip for bulking up? “Eating thick, heavy food every two hours,” he told USA Today. “That was really tough for me. Three protein shakes a day.”
New Moon was when he first debuted the abs that would go on to become an integral part of the franchise’s marketing strategy. Nathan Mellalieu, who trained the werewolf in Canada, said he replaced one weight training session a week with a circuit of five pull-ups, 10 press-ups, and 15 bodyweight squats. The wolfpack actors would compete to see who could do the most circuits in 20 minutes (FYI, 17 was the record).
While not known for being as rugged as his werewolf rival, Pattinson, 26, bulked up after the second film, and even admitted to Showbiz 411 that he kicked his training into high gear in anticipation for Breaking Dawn’s much-anticipated sex scene. Pattinson works out with trainer Harley Pasternak, using his 5-factor diet and fitness plan, which combines strength and core training with five healthy meals a day. Pasternak told Hollywood Life that Pattinson prefers to work out his upper body using simple exercises like dumbbell bicep curls and lying dumbbell tricep extensions.
To get abs like Pattinson’s, Pasternak recommends a five-minute cardio workout, then a circuit of bicycle crunches, dumbbell side bends, double crunches, and a superman—with three sets of 25 reps per move.
This vampire maintains his muscular physique with lots of water, protein, and intense workouts. He starts every training session with five minutes of cardio, and says the secret to his cut abs is working them harder and less frequently—as opposed to doing a little bit every day. Lutz, 27, squeezes in quick workouts whenever—and wherever—possible, like lunges when he’s walking his dog. And don’t think you can have a BD2-worthy bod without the proper nutrition: Lutz said he drinks between 12-15 bottles of water a day, eats small meals every 2-3 hours, and has a hard-boiled egg each night before bed.
Rathbone's character, Jasper Cullen, is a war veteran. So to get ready for the fight scenes he has had to perform in all the Twilight movies, he was devoted to hardcore fight training. “I did two months of kung-fu training for The Last Airbender and then that actually parlayed really well going into Eclipse, so I had all the background training,” he told MTV. In addition to his fight training, the 27-year-old Rathbone—who admits that pepperoni pizza is the one fast food he can’t live without—has been spotted working out (and lugging around a medicine ball)with a personal trainer.
Since having an incredible body is a prerequisite to being in the Twilight wolfpack, it’s no surprise Spencer, 37, is so dedicated to his workouts, which include circuit training and lots of muscle confusion. “We’d work out for an hour and a half, and sometimes me and another cast member would go back to the gym and work out twice a day. It’s all about the diet and hitting the gym,” said Spencer. He also credits his physique to lots of protein shakes, saying he would drink three or four a day, along with eating six regular meals.
As the leader of the Cullen clan (he plays Carlisle Cullen, Robert Pattinson’s father) Facinelli, 38, needs to be fit—and ready to fight off other vampires and werewolves threatening his family. So to get in shape for the films, Facinelli completed fight training, which quickly turned into a cast fitness competition: “It was funny because it became almost like an in-house competition and everyone was always in the gym or working out. Sometimes we’d work out like three times a day. One time, I was in my apartment and I was going down to do my workout, and the elevator doors opened and Kellan Lutz was [in there] doing push-ups. I was like, 'Okay, Kellan, you win! You win the competition!',” Facinelli told Vulture.
In addition to fight training, Facinelli logged time on the treadmill— lots and lots of it. “We would just run on them for hours at a time, at 10-minute intervals,” he told That's Fit. Starting to feel a little bad about your own health regimen? Facinelli at least said he doesn’t always eat well, and cops to being either totally healthy—eating mostly salads—or the opposite, chowing down on burgers, pizza, and fries.
Between cardio, kettlebells, dragging tires, and shouldering 80-pound sandbags, Meraz, 27, who plays the explosive and hot-tempered werewolf Paul in the films, admits to Extra that his workouts are pretty intense. Case in point: one of his trainers was a Spartan in 300. And thanks to his mixed martial arts training, he gained 20 pounds of muscle to play the role. “I figured my character Paul, he’s volatile shape-shifter, he loves to fight, he’s scrappy, so I figured I should have that appearance,” Meraz told People.
If you want to look wolfpack-worthy like Meraz, prepare to kick it into overdrive. “He was intense," Mariko Hammett, a personal trainer at Seattle's 24 Hour Fitness who worked with Meraz on Breaking Dawn, told People. “He's one of the most able clients I've ever had. Alex's workouts were grueling. He was awesome.”