Rocky IV Workout Recreated for the Gym, With Sylvester Stallone’s Approval

A movie workout gets an unexpected audience

Artem Puzin has brought the training spirit of Rocky IV indoors, translating its snowbound montage into a gym routine built around familiar equipment. The Russian boxer and content creator, known online as “Puzin the Motivator,” got an unexpected nod from Sylvester Stallone, who liked Puzin’s Instagram Reel featuring the workout. That small interaction gave a fan recreation a direct connection to the actor who made Rocky Balboa’s training sequences famous.

It’s a striking bit of feedback for a workout built on a familiar piece of movie history. Stallone’s like doesn’t certify the routine as a training program, but it does show how a film scene can keep circulating through new formats: a montage becomes a social video, then a set of exercises viewers can try in a gym. The connection is personal for Puzin, and useful to his audience as a hook for the session.

That response gave the routine a personal charge for Puzin. “This is a sign for me to not just copy the workout and put it on the internet,” he said in a follow-up video. “Hard work and discipline … is seen my legends, so I’m sure everything I do is worth it.” His words frame the like as encouragement to keep making training content, not simply as a celebrity acknowledgment. The confidence is understandable; the broader point is that social media can turn a brief gesture into a visible milestone for a creator.

Puzin’s training content draws on combat sports figures including UFC fighter Khabib Nurmagomedov and Greco-Roman wrestler Alexandr Karelin. For this session, he reworks movements associated with Rocky Balboa’s preparation to face Ivan Drago, swapping the film’s improvised outdoor training for exercises people can do in a gym. The result keeps the recognizable premise while adapting it to equipment and space that many gyms already have.

Puzin’s Rocky IV-inspired workout

The list combines bodyweight work, barbell lifts, cable work, and timed drills. Its structure suggests a session that shifts between strength and conditioning, though the exercises alone don’t tell us how much rest Puzin takes or how he scales the loads. Those details matter: the same set and rep prescription can feel very different depending on the weight, pace, and training experience of the person doing it.

• Pullups: 4 sets of 12 reps
• Barbell walking lunges: 4 sets of 20 reps
• Jump rope: 3 sets of 3 minutes
• Rope rotations into triceps extensions: 4 sets of 12 reps
• Incline straight-leg hip raises: 4 sets of 12 reps
• Slip rope: 3 sets of 3 minutes
• Barbell twists: 4 sets of 30 reps
• Overhead press: 4 sets of 10 reps

From movie montage to gym floor

The session opens with pullup variations inspired by Stallone’s on-screen work, in which Rocky moves his head in front of and behind the bar. The visual reference makes the exercise easy to recognize, but it also points to a practical distinction: a cinematic movement can look dramatic without being a useful target for every gym-goer. The pullups themselves provide the familiar upper-body challenge; the head movement adds a coordination element that calls for control.

The routine then turns to barbell walking lunges, targeting the quads and glutes while replacing the film’s snowy terrain with a gym floor. That swap captures the logic of the whole routine. Puzin keeps the spirit of the scene, but makes the work depend on equipment a gym user can find rather than on the harsh outdoor conditions that made the original montage memorable.

Jump rope adds a cardio and coordination challenge. It’s a simple tool, but timed rounds ask for a steady rhythm and repeated effort, which helps the routine move beyond a sequence of strength exercises. Puzin follows it with a cable-station movement inspired by Rocky hauling a bag of rocks: the pull begins with a rope rotation and finishes in a triceps extension, bringing the core and upper body into the work. The film reference explains the movement’s role in the story; the cable station gives it a more controlled gym setting.

Next comes the bench-assisted incline straight-leg hip raise, which works the quads, adductors, abs and obliques. Slip-rope drills bring in the boxing theme, asking the trainee to move around an imagined opponent rather than simply complete repetitions. Then barbell twists stand in for the wooden yoke featured in the movie. And this is the part most people overlook: translating a prop-based movie sequence into gym equipment changes both the movement and its demands, even when the visual inspiration stays recognizable.

The overhead press closes the list, echoing Rocky’s feats of strength with a load that fits a conventional gym. It also gives the workout a straightforward final lift after the more unusual drills. The routine is a collection of familiar training patterns tied together by a strong visual idea. That’s appealing content, though the movie framing can make the sequence look more unified as a training plan than the exercise list alone establishes.

What the routine means for viewers

It’s a demanding mix of strength, core work and conditioning, so the listed sets and reps may need adjusting to match an individual’s training level. If you’re working in this space, the useful lesson is less about reproducing every detail than about how Puzin turns a recognizable reference into an accessible session. His version gives viewers a starting point and a reason to watch; it doesn’t supply individualized guidance on load, rest, or progression.

This is more significant than it looks as a piece of creator content. A famous scene provides instant context, while the gym adaptations make the idea repeatable for an audience that may not share Puzin’s training background. That said, the attraction rests partly on the movie connection and Stallone’s reaction. The workout still has to stand on its own for anyone who plans to follow it.

For Puzin, the appeal is clear: a recognizable movie sequence recast as a practical workout, with Stallone’s like providing an unexpected stamp of approval. For viewers, the value is in seeing how an iconic training montage can be translated into ordinary equipment and movements, with sensible adjustments for individual ability. A nod from a legend. A routine to adapt.

Follow Artem Puzin on Instagram here.