How Is Frank Gallagher In Such Great Shape?

The American take on Shameless, television’s most popular show about poverty, brought to fruition one of the most iconic drunken lowlifes to ever grace the TV screen; Vernon Francis Gallagher, better known as Frank.

Frank Gallagher is something of a cinematic anomaly. Despite his relentless substance abuse and affinity for self-destruction, Frank Gallagher keeps a sharp mind that harbors some very worthy one-liners. Frank Gallagher is known as a liar and con-artist, but no one can deny the complexity and depth of the stories he weaves and schemes he cooks up. Still, the ingenuity of his plans is outweighed by the fact that Frank will trade anything, including the future and well-being of the Gallagher children, for a quick payday.

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Frank Gallagher’s wit and coherence takes the backburner in light of another observation; his physical fitness. More often than not, Frank Gallagher is able to avoid trouble (or prevent it in the first place) via his supreme athleticism and physical ability. Frank Gallagher’s physique has some fans wondering how he stays in such great shape.

As Shameless doesn’t provide an answer to Frank Gallagher’s fitness, fans are left to locate the clues and piece together the puzzle behind Frank’s killer body.

Some might attribute it to Hollywood; actors and entertainers tend to maintain their physical appearance for the sake of aesthetics. Being fit and attractive is right behind acting ability when it comes to job security for many entertainers.

This doesn’t seem to be the case for the Shameless star, as the writers of the show regularly use Frank Gallagher’s fitness as a plot device to get him either in or out of trouble. One such example is in the season 3 finale when Frank challenges everyone at the bar to a push-up contest, and blows them out of the water, even though he had just been released from the hospital.

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If Frank Gallagher’s fitness can’t be attributed to actor William H. Macey’s offset workout regiment, there must be a reason pertaining to the Shameless script to answer as to why Gallagher is so fit.

One option is jail-time. It isn’t uncommon for a convict to leave the yard with a lean physique, and Frank Gallagher has a history punctuated with criminal activity. Although he hasn’t served a considerable amount of time behind bars since Shameless first premiered, weightlifting during his time in the big house is certainly a sound theory.

Throughout Shameless, Frank Gallagher has virtually zero work history, as he’s more concerned with being paid by the state for various medical reasons and insurance claims. Still, some of Frank’s friends at the bar maintain steady lines of work in things like demolition and construction. Perhaps Gallagher had a stint as a laborer during his time in Chicago.

The last, and perhaps most realistic theory, is that Frank Gallagher’s fitness just comes to him naturally. Although his priorities consist of getting drunk and finding a bed to sleep in, Frank seems to spend part of his time either on the run, literally, or having copious amounts of sex. Rarer, yet – sometimes one leads to the other for the shameless Frank Gallagher.

Throughout Shameless, as Frank has his run-ins with death, nothing seems to bring him down. Even in the face of fatal liver failure, Frank smiles and assures his doctors that it “takes more than that to kill a Gallagher.”

Frank’s persistent nature reflects the fitness of the character; he’s strong willed and arrogant for no particular reason, just as he seems to be in great shape by no real effort of his own. Frank Gallagher returns to television in season 8 of Shameless, although the premiere has yet to be announced, as reported by an earlier Inquisitr article.

[Featured Image by Showtime]