Kratos, God Of War
Gaming’s angriest man/god doesn’t work out: he goes to war. More specifically, he stays in shape via a combination of opening inexplicably heavy doors, shoving around inexplicably-placed crank handles…and, of course, tearing entire pantheons of lesser deities limb from limb.
Get the look: No Blades Of Chaos to hand? Battle ropes work the same muscle groups with equally furious intensity. Do 30 seconds of slams, rest for 30 seconds, and repeat for 10 minutes.
Solid Snake, Metal Gear Solid
Yes, Raiden is more, uh, *lithe*, but for aspirational old-man fitness, there’s no other option. At an age most men are browsing mobility scooter catalogues, Snake (Snake? Snaaaake!) is still dangling off ledges and snapping necks with the best of them.
Get the look: No space to practice your crawling? Work the bodysaw instead: assume the plank position with your feet on a teatowel, then push off your forearms to slide backwards and forwards. Yes, like a saw.
Ryu, Street Fighter V
He’s always had the arms – seriously, that karate gi really should have sleeves – but it’s the shirtless version of Ryu available with pre-orders of Street Fighter’s fifth iteration (already christened ‘Hot Ryu’ by fans) that the ansatsuken master’s really come into his own. That beard! Those abs! That frown! That noise you just heard was Vega crying.
Get the look: Ryu frowns on gyms. Perfect the form for his classic over-the-shoulder throw with the uchi-mata pressup - basically, like the regular version but with one leg in the air. It’ll work your core, balance and arms.
Nathan Drake, Uncharted
The attainable face/body of videogame heroism, Drake’s an Indiana Jones for the parkour generation, staying ahead of trouble with nothing more than his wits, finger-tendons and glorious five-o-clock stubble. Proof, if you needed it, that you *can* pull off distressed jeans with a ratty jumper: just as long as you’ve got the CGI bone-structure of a young Clark Gable.
Get the look: Leaping, clinging and climbing are sort of Drake’s thing. Practice all three with the demon burpee, invented by Demon Drills’ Ryan Ford: it combines a hop, pullup and clamber.
Captain Price, Call Of Duty
He’s not as regularly-shirtless as the other men on this list, but COD’s manliest soldier makes up for it in every other way possible – from utter disregard for danger to the greatest moustache in videogames history. Or, to put it another way: when you’re ending World War 3 two weeks after escaping from a half-decade in a gulag, nobody cares if you’ve got a six-pack.
Get the look: Long, loaded marches are the key to SAS endurance: for the entry-level version, chuck a couple of extra books in your bag on the way to work.
Mike Haggar, Final Fight
A typical day’s work for the mayor of Metro City goes something like this: catch up on paperwork, take phone calls from Mad Gear Gang, unleash pipe-smashing hell on everyone (and their car). Yes, it helps that he’s an ex-wrestler, but when you’re strong enough to punch through an oil barrel and can fix your own knife-wounds by eating chicken out of a bin, that’s the definition of functional fitness.
Get the look: Unless you can swing a job in a scrapyard, nobody’s going to thank you for taking a length of lead tubing to their Chevy. Get your aggression out with sledgehammer swings and a big tyre instead: 5 sets of 10 each arm will build shark-piledriving strength.
