Arnold Schwarzenegger needed his friends to motivate him after unplanned open heart surgery.

The 76-year-old actor and former bodybuilder has recalled a terrifying moment where what was meant to be non-invasive heart surgery in 2018 took a scary turn on the operating table.

Speaking in a vide on his 'Arnold's Pump Club' fitness YouTube channel, he said: "I remember when I had my open heart surgery, my third one... I was really freaking out.

"And I woke up all of the sudden and the doctor was standing in front of me, and saying 'I'm so sorry, but unlike what we planned, a non-invasive surgery... we made a mistake and poked through the heart wall, and there was internal bleeding, and we had to open you up to save your life.'

"The bottom line is, you cannot roll the clock back. I was in the middle of a disaster... so now it's about, 'how do I get out of it?' You have to shift gears."

Arnie was fighting to get healthy enough to leave hospital, and he turned to his pals to get him through.

He added: "[Getting discharged meant] getting out of bed and start walking. First 10 steps, then longer and longer.

"I called my buddies in and said, 'You guys have to fire me up. You have to count the number of steps that I'm doing.'

"And this is what we did, everyday. Everybody came into the hospital, They said, 'OK, Arnold, it's time to get up!' "

The action movie star was determined to "get out of the hospital as quick as possible" as he was just three months away from starting work on 'Terminator: Dark Fate'.

He said: "So I had to be in shape, I had to be able to move around, run around, lift things up, do the fight scene, all these things."

He succeeded, helping himself back to health and he credited his friends - and his own "positive attitude" - with his recovery.

He added: "And I did it! Because I had a positive attitude and knew exactly how I was going to get there.

"[And] I had the support system, because none of this we can do by ourselves... When I started shooting 'Terminator 6', I was all back together again."