Amaran: How Sivakarthikeyan, who never weight-trained before, transformed his body for the film

When a video featuring actor Sivakarthikeyan's workouts and heavily built-up physique was out early this year, many wondered what he was up to. The sculpted, athletic look and the well-defined 'back pose' he struck in the video were also circulated widely on social media.
Though it was known that he was working for director Rajkumar Periasamy's film based on the life story of Major Mukund Varadarajan, not many were aware that Sivakarthikeyan or SK, who plays the late army officer in the film, had never weight- or strength-trained before taking up this project.

The film 'Amaran' hit theatres on Thursday and is surging ahead with great reviews. Here's what you need to know about SK's hard work behind building his body for the movie. 'Amaran' is also trending on Google Trends, with more than 100K search volume in the past 21 hours. 

From 'only cardio' to all-things-Army
While its lead actress, Sai Pallavi, had to work hard to emote its Tamil-speaking Malayali heroine, Sivakarthikeyan had to put in some major effort in the gym to look the part. Interestingly, he weighs differently at each of the story stretches! The sequences in which he is training for the military have him at around 72 kg, around 75 kg for the Captain's portions and almost 80 kg for the part in which he plays the Major in the army. In various videos released by the 'Amaran' team, the audience also sees his 100-day transformation to become Mukund. 

According to his trainer Sandeep, Sivakarthikeyan didn't look the part when they started working out for this film. On the first day of their training, when Sandeep went to the actor's place to click pictures to track the changes, even the film's director, Rajkumar, was apparently doubtful about how far a transformation was possible. 

In an interview with an online portal, Sandeep says, "SK was mostly into cardio and sports before for exercise and had never done strength or weight training in his life. We started in July 2023 to prepare for this film. He followed a disciplined regimen and said no to biryani and ice cream. There were many injuries and painful days, too. At times, I used to ask him to sleep rather than train, as he was putting in a lot of effort." After SK started working out for the film, Sandeep revealed that it had become a part of his daily routine.