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Sterling K. Brown Explains His “No Gym” Workout

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Sterling K. Brown doesn’t need a gym membership to stay camera-ready as Randall Pearson.

The This Is Us star and Waves lead sat down with Men’s Health for the network’s “Train Like a Celebrity” series and laid out the exact circuit he leans on between takes. No barbells, no machines, no trainer standing over him with a clipboard — just a bodyweight pyramid he can run through in a hotel room, a living room, or a backyard.

• Brown’s go-to session is a descending-rep pyramid — 50 jumping jacks, 40 squats, 30 push-ups, 20 “butt-ups,” 10 burpees, 10 pull-ups — run for three total rounds in roughly 20 to 25 minutes.
• Pull-ups are the only movement in the routine that requires equipment, which Brown adds in whenever he has access to a bar, whether that’s a gym or a park.
• He calls it “the best bang for my buck that I get out of all of my workouts.”

The Pyramid, Move by Move

Brown’s circuit starts with 50 jumping jacks to get the heart rate up before moving into 40 bodyweight squats, which he takes at a controlled pace rather than rushing the depth. From there it’s 30 standard push-ups for chest and triceps, followed by 20 “butt-ups” — a plank-to-pike hip raise that hammers the core. The pyramid closes with 10 burpees, each one finished with a full push-up at the bottom and an explosive jump at the top, and 10 wide-grip pull-ups with his legs crossed whenever a bar is available. He runs the whole sequence three times through.

It’s the same descending-rep logic that shows up in a lot of no-equipment circuits built for time-crunched schedules — the kind of format readers will recognize from 10 HIIT Exercises to Lose Belly Fat FASTER. Stack five or six movements, shrink the rep count each round, and keep the rest between exercises short enough that the heart rate never fully drops.

Technique Over Speed

Brown is explicit that grinding through reps as fast as possible isn’t the point of the pyramid. He treats breathing as the actual driver of the burn, not tempo.

“The more you breathe, the more you burn. Not about speed, it’s about technique.”

That emphasis on control over the squats and push-ups is what lets him push through three full rounds without the form breaking down on the later sets — a small detail that separates a circuit that builds muscle from one that just burns time.

Built for a Filming Schedule, Not a Gym Schedule

Between shooting This Is Us and starring in Waves, Brown doesn’t have the luxury of a fixed gym block every day. The pyramid’s whole design — minimal equipment, one piece of gear at most, roughly 20 to 25 minutes — is built around that reality. It’s the same travel-friendly, bodyweight-first mentality behind routines like the one in INSANE 7 MINUTE AT HOME WORKOUT, where the constraint of no equipment forces efficiency instead of limiting it.

Brown is candid about why he keeps coming back to it: the job occasionally demands he take his shirt off on camera as Randall Pearson, and he wants to be ready when that call comes.

“Every once in a while your boy’s gotta come out of his top… Gotta do something to keep it tight, right?”

Browns Place Among Celebrity Fitness Routines

The “Train Like a Celebrity” format has become a running showcase of how differently actors approach staying camera-ready, and Brown’s entry stands out for how little it asks of anyone watching. Compare it to Ethan Suplee on Losing 250 Pounds and Getting Jacked | Train Like A Celebrity, which walks through a much longer transformation story — Brown’s segment is about maintenance, not overhaul, and that’s exactly why he calls the pyramid his best return on investment.

Ten pull-ups is the only rep count in the whole circuit that depends on finding a bar, which is why Brown treats it as a bonus round rather than a requirement — the other five movements travel with him no matter where he’s shooting next.