This year, Thanksgiving season may be getting renamed “Wicked” season. The movie adaptation of the beloved Broadway musical is appearing in theaters on Nov. 22, and in the run-up to the big-screen debut, our news feeds have been absolutely flooded with Glinda (played by Ariana Grande), Elphaba (played by Cynthia Erivo), and “Wicked”-related news.
The snippets of the movie we’ve seen so far, like in the official trailer, have only made us more excited about the adaptation. But there’s one moment in particular that caught our fitness-obsessed attention: the chandelier scene.
You may know what we’re talking about, since it was included in the trailer and in Vanity Fair’s interview with Grande and Erivo. “I’m literally never going to forget you jumping on a chandelier over my head whilst singing,” Erivo is quoted as saying. “She was just so excited to perform for her new friend. She wanted to do a trick,” Grande responded, referring to Glinda.
The idea of swinging from a chandelier seems pretty physically taxing on its own, but add in singing (it seems like Grande is belting out “Popular” while she does the move) and we’re really stunned. So, we asked certified fitness trainer Teddy Savage what he thought it would take to nail a stunt like this. Here’s what he said.
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Teddy Savage is a certified fitness trainer and the national lead trainer at Planet Fitness.
How Hard Is the Chandelier Stunt in “Wicked”?
“This stunt poses a myriad of physical and mental challenges to perform safely,” Savage tells PS. “Namely, you must have a great amount of core stability, range of motion through your shoulders, upper body and core strength, athleticism, and focus.”
Next, he gets into the specifics. “To hang from a suspended object, you’re effectively engaging your lats, rear delts, abs, obliques, lower back, and forearms,” he says. Dangling from a chandelier is an inherently unstable activity. This “requires your internal stabilizer muscles that support your spine to work in overdrive to keep you safe. In this position, they’re working against gravity, your bodyweight, and the external forces acting against you from the surrounding environment,” Savage says.
Again, the singing only makes things more difficult. “You’re asking your core and diaphragmatic muscles to put in overtime to stabilize your body, keep you upright, and provide the necessary force to hit the high notes,” Savage says.
How Would You Train For the Chandelier Stunt?
Savage doesn’t train Grande or any of the movie’s cast members, but if he were asked to get someone into shape to swing from a chandelier while singing, he’d first focus on overall core stability and upper body strength.
He’d put his client through exercises that work the full abdominal chain, obliques, and lower back. He names: crunches, in and outs, back extensions, and planks, plus back exercises such as lat pulldowns, seated rows, and reverse flies. “We’d transition to doing dead hangs from a bar to incorporate grip strength in the forearms while getting used to stabilizing themselves from a suspended position,” Savage adds. “These kinds of workouts that are more dynamic and target multiple muscles at the same time are best suited to prepare for an unusual movement such as hanging from a chandelier.”
Someone performing this move while singing would also need to work on controlling their breathing, maintaining body control, and engaging all their core muscles isometrically (or evenly, in all directions). “Even through they’re not necessarily pulling themselves up or pressing themselves away from the chandelier, their muscles need to still exert a great amount of force/work to maintain their positioning,” Savage points out.
Finally, Savage says no one should overlook the mobility and flexibility required simply to get on and off the chandelier. “Being able to have full range of motion in your upper body (shoulders and wrists) and lower body (hips, knees, and ankles) are critical to safely grabbing onto the chandelier and getting down from the chandelier. Unless you want to stay up there all night,” he jokes.
All told: yes, that move is as physically impressive as it looks. Of course, Erivo has her own share of intense stunts as Elphaba, who at one point has to “fly” (assisted by harness, of course), while singing “Defy Gravity.” Knowing how much work went into creating these iconic scenes just makes us more excited to watch — while obeying gravity safely on the ground.
Mirel Zaman (she/her) is the health and fitness director at PS. She has over 15 years of experience working in the health and wellness space, covering fitness, general health, mental health, relationships and sex, food and nutrition, spirituality, family and parenting, culture, and news.
