Grant Gustin's The Flash was action-packed (pow!), featured all sorts of electrically-powered bits of speed (boom!), and instantly generated a massive, devoted fanbase online. It screamed muscled-up masculinity in a way—at least to the audience yearning to be just like their favorite superhero. But Gustin didn't feel what they felt. He felt like his body was stuck, and things continued to spiral in the wrong direction.

He ended up finding inspiration to make a change from an unexpected place—being locked up during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. It was an opportunity to pause, reassess his life and habits, and make some changes to his mental and physical wellbeing that he’d been pushing towards for a very long time.

“I started exercising a lot between seasons,” he says. “I put on 20 pounds of muscle, just because I had time to work out. Since then, it's been four years.”