Chris Hemsworth’s Thor: love and thunder workout

With the new Thor movie hitting the cinema’s, it’s no secret that Chris Hemsworth has done an absolutely fantastic job to take his physique to the next level. I would even say that a ton of people I’ve talked to are more impressed by the physique Chris presented us on the big screen instead of by the movie itself. While Hemsworth has always been in amazing shape since his first portrayal of Thor, he really outdid himself this time.

The big question that arises is: “How in God’s name did he do that?!”. In order to take it to another level, Chris was under guidance of a personal trainer and probably had his meals prepared for him. This way, he could just focus on performing the workouts his personal trainer writes out for him and eat what he’s being served. Don’t forget, in Hemsworth’s eyes, his main job is acting. Not being a bodybuilder. Chris probably was putting most of his attention to learning the script and doing the best acting job he can to bring another fantastic portrayal of the Thunder God himself, Thor.

Since we don’t have the luxury of having our own personal trainers and personal chefs to guide us through the process of transforming our bodies into that of a superhuman being, I have put together a workout routine and dietary guidelines that will produce similar results for the average guy.

THOR’S PHYSIQUE ANALYSIS

When we take a look at Hemsworth’s physique, the first thing that clearly stands out are his massive boulder shoulders and meaty arms. Those areas are the eyecatchers of his physique and will therefore receive the necessary attention to make them stand out. This will be done by implementing direct shoulder and arm work for higher reps, which will cause the muscles to store more glycogen in those specific areas and therefore will create an effect that makes them appear bigger and more pumped.

The next thing we notice is an angular, armor plated chest that is resting between his shoulders. His chest is amazingly developed, but not to the point where it’s out of proportion and looks cheap.

Hemsworth’s muscular torso is accompanied by a taut waist and a low body fat percentage. These factors combined create the V shape and are the main elements that make a man’s body look powerful and cause it to appear extremely attractive to the opposite sex.

For the lower body we want to develop a pair of strong, athletic legs. We don’t want to have the upper body of a Norse God to be ruined by a pair of chicken legs underneath it. In the scene where Zeus, played by Russel Crowe, uhm.. flicks off Thor’s disguise, we can see that his legs are well developed, but not overly bulky or sluggish. We don’t want to create freakishly big Mr. Universe quads, but instead want to sculpt strong, athletic legs that look like they can squat a heavy weight, but also sprint fast and jump high.

Obviously, everybody has different genetics and Chris Hemsworth’s muscle insertions will differ from yours. This doesn’t mean that you can’t get as amazing results just like Chris did. It just means that you want to develop the most important areas that make Thor’s physique look amazing in your own body and you will have your unique, amazing, Norse God physique.

THE THOR WORKOUT

The Thunder God’s workout will involve 4 days of hitting the gym. Each muscle group will be hit about twice per week with some overlap of the shoulders and triceps. The workout is put together with a focus on important compound exercises that will stimulate a lot of growth in key areas such as the shoulders, chest, lats, upper back and quads. Smaller assistance exercises are thrown into the mix as well to bring up areas such as the arms and calves to give you a more complete and solid look. The lateral raises, upper back rows and direct arm work will highlight some of the areas that are the key factors to Thor’s proportions.

If you follow this routine correctly and consistently, this workout will transform you into having the physique similar to that of the Norse God Thor himself.

You can see that on your first two important compound exercises you will perform a lower rep set before performing the rest of the volume in a more moderate rep range. This is to stimulate strength gains and creates central nervous system efficiency.

Since you’ll be better at handling heavy weights, you’ll be able to recruit and contract your muscle fibers more efficiently. As a result of this, the skill of strength will be transferred to a more moderate to higher rep range as well. This will lead to you being able to use heavier weights in the optimal hypertrophy rep range and therefore stimulate more muscle growth. Besides looking good, it’s also important to perform good. It’s always great to have a physique that not only looks amazing, lives up to its image. You never know when you’ll have to swing a massive hammer, no pun intended.

The bench press will be responsible for the main development of your overall chest and is supplemented by incline presses, which will fill in the top of your pectoral area. This will give you a square, masculine chest that runs smoothly from top to bottom. The bench press will also give the front delts and triceps a good hit to grow.

The chin up will blow up your lats and will be the main movement for our overall back development. This movement is the best upper body posterior chain builder, but to fully develop the upper back and give you a more dominant, warrior look like Thor has, upper back rows will supplement the chin up to complete the package. Next to complete back development, hitting the chin ups hard and getting stronger on them means getting a significantly bigger biceps as well, since the biceps are heavily involved when performing this movement.

For the lower body, front squats and Romanian deadlifts will be your best friends if you want to create the legs of a warrior. Front squats will smash the quads. Combine that with Romanian deadlifts, which hit the posterior chain of your legs heavily and you will have a pair of strong, athletic, well-developed legs to match your upper body.

Smaller accessory exercises such as triceps extensions, bicep curls, lateral raises, leg extensions and calf raises are incorporated and should be performed to give these areas a little more volume to match the bigger muscles of your body. Giving these body parts more training volume is necessary to create those perfect proportions that makes up Thor’s physique. It’s all about proportions and creates visual harmony.

Heavy compound exercises such as front squats, Romanian deadlifts and weighted chin ups all target the core. Your abs will pop out and develop fantastic when you get stronger on these movements, that’s the reason there’s no direct ab work involved. If you do find your abs to be a problem area and you do want to throw in some direct ab work to the routine, then perform 3-4 sets of hanging leg raises or cable crunches at the end of shoulder and legs focused workout. Perform sets of between 6 and 15 reps and add weight to your hanging leg raises if necessary.