Tom Cruise's seriously big muscles (From Clacton and Frinton Gazette)

Tom Cruise's seriously big muscles

1:34pm Wednesday 16th May 2012 in Entertainment News © Press Association 2013

Tom Cruise has revealed he once trained so hard he couldn't fit his shirt over his bulging muscles.

The Mission: Impossible star told Playboy magazine how he always loved stunts and action as a young boy, and he has channelled that into his work as an action hero.

Tom said: "I train pretty hard. You've got to build the body up for impact. I remember trying to put my shirt on at one point and couldn't because my forearms had gotten so big.

"For The Last Samurai I spent a year training six hours a day, seven days a week to be able to handle a sword and do it on uneven terrain, because I didn't want to blow my knees out."

The 49-year-old actor plays a rock star in new musical movie Rock Of Ages and trained with Axl Rose's vocal coach, a former opera singer, to learn to sing as best he could, doing five hours of singing and three hours of dancing a day.

He said: "It's like learning a new sport or a skill for a character. I had to find out how to move air through the vocal cords and where to place it in my head, in the chest. It's something you have to do every day to strengthen your voice.

"I knew I could hold a note. I sang in a glee club when I was 14 years old and in a high school musical. But I never had a singing lesson. No one ever taught me how to use my voice."