Starring alongside Jason Momoa in the epic Apple TV+ series, Chief of War, Brandon Finn decided to dial up the weights and increase his food intake in order to look the part of Prince Kūpule, a noble commander who is asked to help realize a prophecy of uniting the Hawaiian islands. By the time cameras rolled, Finn tells M&F that he’d put on around 20 pounds of muscle by heavy lifting and packing on the pounds with protein. Finn also shared the three exercises he felt added the most to mass.
So, to help chief your own body transformation, here’s what you need to know.
Born in Hawaii, of Filipino and Croatian descent, Finn was first introduced to fitness via martial arts as a kid. His early heroes included Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Tony Jaa. He became proficient in karate, but to look legitimate as a high-ranking member of his kingdom in Chief of War, Finn knew that he’d need to recomp his physique and find a thicker, fuller appearance. “I was never strictly told, ‘hey’, you need to put on weight,” Finn says. “I kind of made the decision myself.” Looking around to his castmates, like Jason Momoa (who plays the warrior, Kaʻiana) the star says he wanted to emulate the big strong men of the 1800s and increase his 165-pound, slender frame.
To achieve this, the first thing that Finn did was to take a break from his usual grind of heavy cardio. “I realized I might have to put some of that aside and focus more on what is an aesthetic approach,” reflects the actor, noting that while he was attempting to achieve a certain look, he still wanted to utilize functional training because the character that plays is both strong and fast.
Brandon Finn Chose Up-Rep Dropsets to Build Muscle
“I found what worked best, for me, is that I’ll do the heaviest weight and I try to do 6 to 8 reps of that,” explains Finn. “For the next set I would lower the weight, but increase the reps. So, with a medium weight I would try to hit 12 to 16 reps, and by the third or fourth set I would be at the lightest and would try to go for 20 to 25 reps.”
Up-rep dropsets combine the fatigue of heavier loads with the metabolic stress of higher volume, giving a brutal burn and providing the perfect environment for blasting the muscles so that they can build back bigger. In fact, Finn shares that the scales read 185 pounds by the time he was shooting Chief of War, meaning he had put on around 20 pounds through just several weeks of heavy training and eating. “The heaviest I’ve ever been,” he says. But with his rep scheme sorted, what were the three exercises that Finn felt added the most mass? The actor reveals that the incline chest press, shrugs, and lateral raises provided the most results for his upper body, according to his epic effort.
How Brandon Finn’s Built The Muscles For His Role as Prince Kūpule
Chest Press
“I would always start my chest day with that exercise,” explains Finn. “I always felt like I lacked that ‘shelf’ up top.” The incline dumbbell chest press can add mass to the higher portion of the chest muscles because it targets the clavicular head, otherwise known as the upper pectoral. To try it for yourself, adjust the bench to somewhere between 15 and 30 degree on the incline. Anything higher than that moves the load onto the anterior deltoids (shoulders), rendering it less effective for that top shelf development.
Dumbbell Shrugs
To build his neck and shoulders, the actor says he sought out shrugs, “just to get the traps ready to go,” he explains. The trapezius muscles cover the neck, shoulders, and middle back area, so adding mass makes a significant difference to the shape of a physique. Shrugs can be practices for mobility without weight, but adding dumbbells will encourage greater mass. Be sure to lift and lower in a controlled motion, and you may also find that by strengthening that large diamond shaped pair of muscles in the back, that your posture will improve too.
Dumbbell Lateral Raises
To vie for that V-shaped appearance, Finn says his third favorite exercise for the upper body is the dumbbell lateral raise. Not only does this exercise compliment shrugs by further exhausting the traps, but lateral raises also rely on the lateral deltoids to provide that rounded, capped, shoulder appearance. To get the best from this exercise, slightly turn the arm when raising so that the dumbbell travels away at a 20 degree angle from the chest, rather than in a straight line, to avoid rotator cuff issues.
Of course, fueling Finn’s heavy workouts relied on increased eating. “I ate around 400 to 500 calories more than usual, per day,” explains the star, who explained that in order to ramp up his protein intake he would add eggs to meat dishes consisting of steak or lamb, but he would also be sure to eat vegetables such as broccoli for the fiber and antioxidant content.
During the making of Chief of War, the actor also had to engage in fight training, learning the ancient art of Lua, a martial art that is more akin to wrestling and focuses on joint manipulation, strikes, and pressure points. To that end, Finn’s energy levels needed to remain high at all times.
“What ended up being most helpful was sweet potato and rice, in terms of increasing the carbs,” explains the star, who tells M&F that he had a blast working on the show, and learned a lot from Jason Momoa, including how to tell stories with body language in addition to the vocals. “The guy can move, but he also moves within that 16:9 frame,” praises Finn. “I realized very early on that Jason knew exactly where his frame was and where the beginning and the end of that frame was, and where, within his Greek God body, he was placed in the shot.”
Chief of War is streaming now on Apple TV+
