Ever wondered how the Hollywood stars achieve such amazing bodies for action movies? Here’s a glimpse into the secrets of five male stars:
Gerald Butler’s Workout
Gerald Butler played King Leonidas in the film The 300, about the epic battle between the Spartans and the Persians. Here’s his workout:
25 pullups
50 barbell deadlifts (60kg barbell – includes weight of bar)
50 pushups
50 box jumps (24 inch)
50 floor-wipers
50 single arm clean & press with 36lb kettlebell (25 reps each arm)
25 pullups
That’s 300 gut-busting reps in total.
Tom Hardy’s Workout
Tom starred in The Dark Knight Rises, the Batman movie. In preparation for this role, he trained using the Bulk Matrix Workout.
Created by his personal trainer Patrick Monroe, this workout involves a tough combination of pressups (also known as pushups):
Diamond close-hands pressups
Standard pressups
Wide-hands pressups
Wide-hands (fingers splayed outwards) pressups
Knuckles pressups
Pressups are one of the most underrated exercises on the planet, and work the upper body to a far greater extent than most people realise.
For the film Warrior, he used the ‘signalling’ workout, developed by his other personal trainer, Pnut. It’s called signalling because you’re sending signals to your muscles to grow on a regular basis. This is a 20 minute routine to be performed 4 times a day: when you wake up, before lunch, before dinner, and just before bed:
Pushups
Dumbbell lateral raises
Tricep dips
Reverse bridge (health warning: potentially damaging to the neck if performed incorrectly)
Abdominal crunch (bring elbows and knees together and squeeze)
Jason Moma’s Workout
Jason starred in the Conan The Barbarian remake, and gained an impressive 9kg of muscle in preparation for this very physical and shirtless role. He chose the ‘110 rep’ workout, an intensive 30 minute workout with heavy weights.
Hugh Jackman’s Workout
In preparation for the Wolverine films, Hugh ate between 3,500 – 4,500 calories a day (mainly fish, steamed veg, protein shakes, brown rice) between 10am-6pm, and alternated 2 days of heavy workouts (dumbbells and barbells) with 1 day of recovery.
Henry Cavill’s Workout
To get in shape for Man of Steel, Henry Cavill used the ‘Tailpipe recovery’ workout, which involves 25 rep sets and just 8 big breaths of recovery between sets. This workout was created and supervised by Henry’s personal trainer Mark Twight (of Gym Jones, Salt Lake City). Here are the exercises:
Goblet squats (16kg kettlebell)
Kettlebell swings (16kg)
Squat thrust jumps
Star jumps (also known as jumping jacks)
Dominic Londesborough is a personal trainer in London.