CHARLES MELTON is on the cover of Men’s Health US this month, showing off muscles many didn’t know he had. Assuredly, though, everyone will soon find out. Melton is set to star in the second season of Beef, which follows a Gen-Z couple (Melton and Cailee Spaeny) up against their wealthy boss and his wife (Oscar Isaac and Carey Mulligan), following a tiff at a bourgeois country club that will almost certainly lead to a downward spiral.
Melton plays Austin, a former college football player who won the Butkus Award for being the best linebacker in the nation who is now working as a PT. Naturally, Melton had to beef up for the role to look like a linebacker. He did play football in high school, so the look wasn’t entirely new to him. In fact, he made the all-state team twice and played in Kansas’s all-star game in 2009. He could run 100 metres 10.9 seconds and had a 4.5-second 40-yard dash. At Kansas State University, he was a preferred walk-on for the football team after redshirting his freshman year.
This is not Melton’s first transformation, either. While Marvel films have raised the bar considerably, Melton has undergone some quieter shifts in his physique. To play Joe in May December, for instance, he gained almost 20kg because he figured his character wouldn’t have time to exercise and would consequently be on the heavier side.
For Beef, his focus wasn’t just on getting bigger, but finding workouts that worked for him. At 35, he has become increasingly form-focused. “I’m getting older, and you realise you need functional movement, and you need to work on the ligaments and the tiny muscles that hold the other muscles together, right?” he says.
When he was a teenager, Melton could power-clean 175kg. Now he hits 85kg five times and is happy with it, because his focus has shifted. “It’s harder to do it when you’re older because it requires form and focus. If your form isn’t right, you can hurt something,” he says.
He has begun working closely with a nutritionist and a physical therapist, and says he’s become more attuned to his body. Before his workouts, he does a mental body scan and decides whether he needs to target his core, for instance, or “accessories” like calves, biceps and triceps.
Melton mainly trains with Ty Manzo. When he and Manzo started working together, Melton was preparing for Warfare. “Not every Navy SEAL looks like a bodybuilder,” Manzo says. “They actually don’t look like a bodybuilder; it actually hinders them to.” Instead of piling on muscle mass until Melton looked like a caricature of a SEAL, the two focused on running, rucking, and trap bar deadlifts, which build dense muscles, rather than aesthetic bodybuilding muscles. Melton was doing 190kg deadlifts, but in Warfare he looked authentic.
Charles Melton's flow and clean workout
Melton shared one of his go-to foundational workouts with Men’s Health. Keen to try it out? See the full workout below.
The Warmup
Floor Drills
Jefferson Curls
Clean Warmup
High Pull – 5 reps
Muscle Clean – 5 reps
Hang Power Clean
6, 4, 2, 1, 1; performing accessory exercises between reps
Scissor
Ab Wheel Rollout
Landfill Pancakes
Landmine Press
5 reps per side
Biceps Curl
10 reps
Martial arts pad work
