From BeyondGossip.Com

For more than a year now, R&B star-Usher Raymond has been working out hard, training to play boxer Sugar Ray Leonard in an upcoming biopic…

The below shots show that the time he is spending in the gym is worth it, fetching him a full body display highlight in November’s issue of Men’s Health.

In the magazine, Usher talks about his musical career being on hold to mentally prepare him for the film, titled “Hands Of Stone,” among other things…

Check out the below excerpts from the magazine…

On putting his music career on hold
Mentally, I’m the type of person who can ignore the pain. Put it somewhere else and allow my body to just go there. But I always suffer. You can’t box, ride a bike for 20 miles in the heat—Georgia heat—and then go to the studio and rehearse. That’s not happening.

On keeping in shape
I train like an athlete every day, believe it or not. My second day, I decided to ride to the gym, 10 miles from his home in Atlanta. So I rode there. Boxed. Rode the bike back home.

On how boxing compares to dancing
Fighters and dancers train to gain a measure of control over the outcome. If either deviates from his plan, the result is typically ugly, as Leonard learned the hard way. “I think we all reach a point in life where we’re not able to listen to common sense,” Usher says. “You almost have to fall to get up sometimes.

On his character Sugar Ray Leonard
My commitment to this character demands that I not only physically get ready, but also become him. The hair, the personality, the manner he conducts himself in—all that. He’s an incredible man.

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