Callina Liang was a Pilates and cardio person before she got cast as Chun-Li in Street Fighter. That changed fast. Strength training was new territory, and the early sessions left her genuinely confused about how any of it worked. But two things happened: a trainer who drilled her on core foundations, and a role that demanded legs strong enough to sell one of the most iconic fighters in video game history. Now, a few years out from filming, she trains entirely for herself, and her lower body sessions are the kind of thing that raises eyebrows even at serious gyms.
Where the session actually starts
The workout opens with barbell hip thrusts, her self-described strongest lift. She works through five sets total, starting lighter and building toward her heaviest weight around the third set, then maintaining that load through sets four and five. She notes she can move double her body weight on this lift, and the feeling it gives her is unlike anything else in her routine. On days when the gym has a hip abduction machine, she supersets the thrusts with that movement. When it does not, she works the same pattern standing, holding a weight to the side and driving up. It was that lateral hip stability, she explained, that made a real difference during stunt work, particularly for the balance demands of kicks.
The sumo deadlift comes next, and this one stands alone with no superset pairing. If the weight is manageable, she targets eight reps. If she is genuinely pushing her limit, she holds form and grinds to at least six. Three sets, always, with form as the non-negotiable. She then moves to cable step-ups, and on this particular day she swapped her usual weighted back extension superset for squats instead.
What preparing for Street Fighter actually looked like
During production, the structure was more demanding. Three days a week were dedicated to leg-focused lifting. Every single day also included two hours of stunt training, much of it alongside her co-stars Reina and Orville in preparation for a shared fight sequence. When she got word that her stunt double had been fitted with butt pads to match her physique, she took it as confirmation the training was producing results.
Her trainer at the time was direct about the upper body too. As she put it: ‘Chun-Li can’t have noodle arms.’ So some upper body work was folded in, but the legs were always the priority.
Nutrition during filming was equally structured. She ate 12 eggs a day, folded into everything: protein shakes, oatmeal, and a scramble she still makes regularly, ground turkey or chicken or beef with onions and spinach, served on toast with sriracha. She does not eat 12 eggs daily anymore, but the scramble stuck.
For recovery and what she calls bulletproofing, she emphasizes mobility work and targeted stretching alongside the lifting, treating rest as equally important as any session. Her long-game motivation is simple and practical: she wants to still be lifting things comfortably at 55 or 60.
The gym bag that went everywhere with her
Liang’s gym bag carries Don Toliver on her playlist, a resistance band for warmups when machines are unavailable, and a hanging ab attachment for when she has something left after the main session. She brings two apples for carbs before or after training, a facial spray from Tower 28 she uses mid-sweat to keep her skin clear, and a pair of large sunglasses for leaving the building incognito.
The hair, by her own admission, is another matter. She ties it up in what she describes as a specific two-step method that looks chaotic and requires re-tying every two sets. If you happen to spot her at the gym, she has already asked you to pretend you did not.
The resistance band lives in the bag because cables, she has found, are reliably available at almost any facility. When the specialized machines are not there, she can still hit the side glute with a kickback or lateral pull from the cable stack.
That band, looped and ready, is sitting somewhere at the bottom of the bag right now.
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