I then watched as many training montages as humanly possible, and rated each on a scale of zero to 10 by how well they satisfied the four principles.

Which training montages are the best ones, you ask? To answer that question I determined the four core elements a training montage must have. The best ones might even make you want to go for a run. The sequences are astonishing in scope - forcing characters to endure unthinkable amounts of pain, spanning days, weeks, or even months - and almost always vibrantly triumphant. This is the power of the training montage.Īs the song 'Montage' in Team America: World Police so deftly summarizes, 'Show a lot of things happening at once / Remind everyone of what’s going on / And with every shot you show a little improvement / To show it all would take too long.' The training montage is an essential trope mostly found in sports movies, but also in revenge and action and thriller flicks, that efficiently prepares a character to face an ultimate challenge.

Push-ups turn into lifting boulders the light jog turns into an unceasing sprint. Then the music starts to build: an electric guitar wails over swelling strings, and the person who just seconds ago looked pitiful - the down-and-out boxer, the guy who just watched his brother die - starts to puff out his or her chest like a warrior who can accomplish anything. It starts with one push-up, or maybe a light jog.

Workout montage