Known for his iconic character, Thor, in the Marvel cinematic universe, Chris Hemsworth is a fan favorite. Hemsworth is not only famous for his acting but also for his renowned physical fitness. But in reality, his training techniques did not make the cut with the critics. Famed exercise scientist and co-founder of Renaissance Periodization Dr. Mike Israetel has deep-dived into the topic and broken it down for us.
Dr. Israetel ruthlessly critiques Chris Hemsworth’s training routines in a recent episode of the Renaissance Periodization podcast. He questions Hemsworth’s training and advises followers not to try these workouts to get into a superhero shape. Mike points out in the video that maintaining a jacked physique is easier than getting jacked.
He begins the video with Chris doing a bizarre workout that could be a bear crawl dumbbell push. He was quick to critique this exercise and said there are three types of muscle action, which are; concentric, eccentric, and isometric. And what Chris is doing in the video, is concentric, which only contracts his legs.
“While that’s cool, it’s not the most growth-promoting thing you can do.”
Muscle growth most importantly benefits from concentric and eccentric movement. Here, what Chris is doing is only concentric-focused. Therefore, Mike states that if you want this exercise to change your body shape and become muscular, this isn’t the workout you’re looking for.
Furthermore, the video dives into the warm-up routines, and here, Chris’ personal trainer, Luke Zocchi is the one present in the video. Along with Zocchi, is Hemsowrth’s stunt double, who would be demonstrating the training methods. They started with warm-ups, and Luke suggested doing warm-ups to prevent injuries.
However, when Luke suggested doing warm-ups for 10 minutes, Mike disagreed with that and said 5 minutes is better. Warm-ups should be short and sweet and not too rigorous. The first warm-up was the bear crawls, which is a great exercise, and considered a full-body workout.
Do this warm-up for 20 seconds on and 10 seconds off. Start slowly, progressively, and later up the force, keeping your core tight. This is a perfect bodyweight exercise to get your heart rate up. And according to Mike Israetel, this is a good exercise to warm up.
But, the stunt double in the video stated that he was tired from this warm-up. Mike shares his insights on this and what happens to your body when you warm up. You’re physically warming up your joints, raising the levels of your fight-and-flight hormones, and waking up your nervous system through high-intensity activity.
“My recommendation is to give it some time to keep warming up. It’s going to be tough, it’s going to suck, but as you go through the warm-up warm war you’re going to find that you get your swag back a little bit and you feel a little bit better now, and the warms are easier.”
Mike Israetel criticized Hemsworth’s exercise routine suggested by his trainer
Chris’s trainer, Zocchi starts with the weighted burpee flagged off the session where hands hold a dumbbell on either side of the body, squat, and perform a push-up in plank position. Mike lauded it since it is tough and takes to train like 80% of the body. The curl and press followed focusing on the shoulders and biceps. Here Mike critiqued that it can so happen that one can shoulder press more than you could curl making it uneven for training the whole body.
Goblet Squats are next with only one exercise. Israetel shared that most people can hold two dumbbells and make it focused on legs instead of arms. Lateral raise, front raise, and upright row are a good combo according to Dr. Mike. Furthermore, Zocchi pulled off a plank punch out for his abs. Isreatel however criticized this technique and called it a waste of time. He suggests it would be better to do crunches or toes-touching to target your abs.
“Very solid. Good combo. It really fries all of the delts. Could do a little bit more rear delt, something like start with a bent lateral then come up and do side lateral, and then maybe a front raise or an upright row.”
After Zocchi’s training methods were completed, Mike showed a couple of Hemsworth training videos from Instagram. The first video showed the actor tied in a rope and moving sideways while throwing a ball back to the trainer. Israetel did not like this method at all calling it useless.
After this, a video on resistance band bear crawl also shows up. While the resistance band adds something to the exercise, it is a lot of setup for a very small benefit. Chris then pulls a punching bag with a rope and pushes it back. Mike liked this exercise, but when Chris did alternating push-ups on top of the punching bag, it baffled Mike to see such a random exercise.
Hemsworth then does a partial push-up on a bear crawl stance, which is absurd in Israetel’s view. He even questioned Hollywood on the random training methods they were doing.
“What is it that we’re even training for anymore? Jesus Christ. What the F*** is that? What the F*** is that? Weird partial knee push-up like a prayer, which is nice. Hollywood!”
At the end of the video, Isratel rated Chris, his stuntman, and his trainer for their workouts. He gave Zocchi and the stunt double an “A or A-“, while he rated Chris Hemsworth as “Incredibly good looking out of 10.” Hemsworth doing a lot of break dancing and fighting methods was not the ideal training routine in Mike Israetel’s eyes.
