First off, it should be admitted up front that Bill Conti’s “Gonna Fly Now (Theme From Rocky)” is an almost embarrassingly cathartic piece of music, a melody and rhythm that makes it nigh impossible to resist throwing a few air punches and jogging around whatever room you’re in. (Pray you never hear it during a conference meeting at work.) But Rocky is plenty inspirational even without that particular piece of music—the training montages from almost every installment in the series are a thing of joy, even as they steadily progress from the pure hunger of the first one to the over-the-top cheese of Rocky IV. (Not to be confused with the over-the-top cheese of Over The Top.) These workout sequences are enough to get anyone pumped up.
So it’s not exactly surprising to see this YouTube video of a little kid so amped up by Rocky’s training montage, he’s decided to get in on the act. What’s more impressive is just how accurately the lil’ guy has matched the beats on Stallone’s routine, from the jumping rope to the push-ups, with near-laser precision. Sure, he can’t quite mimic lifting the bar or doing pull-ups without a way to hoist himself off the ground, but the commitment to verisimilitude is still something to behold. We look forward to the subsequent entries in this new franchise-imitating-a-franchise.