Everything Action Theater: Maximum Potential

Two years after he burst onto the scene as Ivan Drago in Rocky IV and a year after Masters of the Universe, Dolph Lundgren released Maximum Potential, a workout video that was designed to help you get the body of He-Man or a Russian supersoldier.  The video arrived in 1987 and was directed by John Langley, who later went on to mainly be a writer and producer for law enforcement reality shows like COPS, Jail and Vegas Strip.  One of the best bits of trivia surrounding Maximum Potential is that it was the first-ever job behind the scenes in Hollywood for Quentin Tarantino, was hired out of the video store he was working in along with Robert Avary to be a production assistant for the video but it mainly turned into him picking up dog crap that was turning up on the front lawn of the house they were using for the shoot.  The video itself is a fairly standard workout tape with Dolph leading you through various exercises ranging from push-ups to shadow boxing but there is some wacky flavor around the edges, like the intro philosophy from Dolph as he does his best Baywatch impression to the “stress management” section toward the end where Dolph teaches you how to exercise your mind after exercising your body.  There’s also plenty of wonderfully cheesy 80s music to fuel your workout and it’s been immortalized in an amazing synthwave song by Power Glove as well.  Check out the entire video below and get ready to sweat along with Dolph.