A Regimen Fit for a Hercules

For once, we never tire of seeing a guy in the same old shirt. That would be the chamois shirt covering (but not covering up) Kevin Sorbo’s 43-inch chest. That would also be the shirt that commanded $1,000 at a charity auction in January during the first Official “Xena” and ‘Hercules” Convention.

The shirt’s a lightweight compared to the rest of the outfit worn by Sorbo, 38, who stars on “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.”

“The leather woven pants and boots weigh 12 pounds, and that’s a lot to lug around in those fight scenes,” he said during a recent phone interview from New Zealand, where the syndicated TV show is filmed. “But that’s the most fun part of the show. I love doing my own stunts.”

Question: What’s the most memorable stunt so far--with the worst monster?

Answer: The toughest monster--probably the episode where my mother gets married. “The Wedding of Alcmene,” it was called, with Jason of the Argonaut.

Q: Oh, your mother got married?

A: She got married. Yeah. Did you miss that episode?

Q: I saw the one where Alcmene was engaged to a traitor. Remember Hercules never trusted him?

A: Yeah, that was when we introduced Echidna, the mother of all monsters, and I almost get killed and all that kind of stuff.

Q: Right, and Echidna had you by the throat but Alcmene’s fiance died.

A: Well, in “The Wedding of Alcmene,” Jason of the Argonaut ends up marrying my mother. It was a huge wedding. We shot that over Valentine’s Day a year ago. I remember because my parents were in town.

Q: So what happened at the wedding?

A: During the wedding, Hera sends this huge monster, this sea serpent that swallows up Jason, and I go leaping into the mouth just before it closes to follow Jason down into the stomach. We get down there and, I mean, we had to shoot inside the slimiest, grossest looking bowels of a stomach you’ve ever seen in your life.

Q: Yuck.

A: Yeah, we had to crawl around and slip and slide in this bubbly, gross stuff for two or three days. I was constantly taped from head to toe in this slimy kind of crap that would get rock hard on my body and they’d have to keep hosing me down and slapping more of the crap on me.

Q: We’d better talk about your workout.

A: Just within the last month I changed it. I’ve got a personal trainer, Steve Rosenbaum, and he told me that I’d been over-training. I can already tell in four weeks that my body is getting more sculpted and my posture has changed.

Q: What’s he got you doing?

A: He’s got me down to three days a week lifting weights instead of six and working on just one body part a week and lifting less weight--up to 225--but lifting correctly. You make the resistance the same speed both ways. Also, we start the sessions with a cardio workout on a bike or the StairMaster and end with sit-ups.

Q: And the days you’re on your own?

A: I’ll play basketball and I have a punching bag here in the garage at the house I’m at, and I’ll get in two if not three days of running per week. I don’t do anything marathonish, but after a 12- to 13-hour workday, I think a four-mile run is good enough.

Q: Don’t you burn a lot of calories just from a day’s shoot?

A: Steve reckons that I burn off about 4,000 or more a day easily, so I need to eat 4,000 just to keep my body weight at 215. I’ll eat probably five to six times a day. I don’t stuff myself every single meal, but I burn off calories big time.

Q: Four thousand calories. Let’s hear it.

A: I have a protein drink in the morning just before my workout or on my way into work. Then before we start shooting, I will have an egg-white omelet with maybe turkey in there and sometimes a little bit of cheese. And midmorning, I’ll have an energy bar.

Q: By this time you’ve slain dragons and foiled villains. What’s for lunch?

A: I’ll usually have tuna, chicken, or fish with rice or with pasta. Midafternoon, another energy bar. Then dinner I can go with either fish or chicken again. I like a good steak now and then, and I’ll have hamburger and I love lamb. I never liked that until I got down here.

Q: Do you drink water?

A: Big on water. You know those big ol’ bottles, the ones that everybody carries with them? I’ll have three or five of those per day. I drink a lot of water. I go to the bathroom quite a bit.

Q: No alcohol?

A: I’m not a big drinker. I’ll have a cold beer or a nice glass of red wine when I get home, three or five times a week--tops.

Q: Are you a dessert man?

A: They’ve got the best damn dessert down here in the world. The cakes and ice creams are 10 times creamier and go straight to some artery in my heart. The Olympic Cafe--how’s that for Hercules? Apropos?--has this bread and butter pudding with brandy or something, smothered in this caramel sauce. I know it’s like 8,000 calories a bite, but I don’t care. It’s so good. And about once a month our catering service--I’m glad they don’t make it more than that--makes this graham cracker crust, caramel, butterscotch, banana whipped cream thing. It’s unbelievable.

* Guest Workout runs Wednesdays in Life & Style.