Want to look like the God of Thunder?
Chris Hemsworth’s trainer Luke Zocchi and longtime stuntman Bobby Holland Hanton have shared what it takes to rival Thor.
“Chris takes it very, very seriously, and the shape he gets into, it’s phenomenal,” Hanton, who has been the actor’s stunt double in over 10 movies, told Page Six. “There’s a real process that goes into achieving these goals. But I think over the last 10 years, we’ve managed to come up with ways to do that.”
And according to Zocchi, who has been friends with Hemsworth since they were 8 years old, it all comes down to “consistency, hard work and also eating the right foods.”
One of the “Avengers” star’s main challenges when it comes to bulking up is consuming enough to fuel his body.
“When we go into prep for movies like ‘Thor,’ it’s a massive increase in food,” Zocchi said. “He eats, like, six to eight meals a day.”
He added that because the Australian star is a staggering 6-foot-3, he needs to work that much harder to take in the thousands of calories required to build muscle mass.
“We’ve kind of got a structure. He found if he eats a really big meal he, like, feels too heavy, so they’re 450-calorie meals broken up into the eight,” Zocchi said. “We try to eat every two hours and getting 450 calories in [each time].”
Hemsworth typically enjoys a few bigger meals a day — like steak, chicken and fish or sweet potato with white rice — and then he turns to smaller meals like protein shakes in between.
Hemsworth is seen training with Zocchi.Centr
Zocchi, with the help of a chef, stays on set to make sure that Hemsworth eats at the proper times while filming.
“I usually just keep running him food all day,” he said, joking, “I’m like his grandmother just giving him food.”
But maintaining his calorie intake is only part of Hemsworth’s process, as consistent training is a key part to looking a-Thor-able.
“It’s just heavy weight lifting, training at least once a day, sometimes twice a day,” Zocchi said. “People are surprised you don’t normally train over, like, an hour in a session. It’s normally an intense, heavy workout. But we’re normally done within an hour because we’ve just pushed him that hard over that hour.”
He added, “But it’s an intense hour. It’s not like we’re standing around and taking photos for Instagram.”
Along with weight training, Hemsworth mixes up his routine and turns to boxing, HIIT training and other forms of fitness.
“We try and take the best parts of many different styles,” Hanton said. “I think the main thing is trying to find that happy medium, that balance to give you, you know, the best chance possible to achieve what we need to achieve on each film.”
The actor goes shirtless as Thor in 2017.Marvel/Walt Disney Studios
And anyone can have access to the film star’s Thor wellness plan. Hemsworth, Zocchi and Hanton joined forces in 2017 to launch a workout app called Centr and have since created a 10-week program to achieve serious Thor-like results.
“Chris says to me, ‘We want to be the strongest, healthiest versions of ourselves for this next “Thor.” We want to take it to the next level,’” Hanton said. “As you know, every single ‘Thor’ and ‘Avengers,’ he’s always in incredible shape. For him to want to take it to that next level, it was another huge challenge.”
The trio put their heads together, and after some trial and error, they created a “monster plan.” And thus, the new Centr program to “look like Chris” was born.
“I think we achieved the best results,” Hanton said. “I think it’s the best shape myself and Chris have ever been in my entire life. I think we excelled, and I think we went beyond what we thought we actually could achieve by slightly adapting.”
The program includes workouts, nutrition plans and relaxation exercises because, as Zocchi said, “It’s all about balance.”
Hemsworth as Thor in 2015.Walt Disney Studios
For his latest role in “Thor: Love and Thunder,” Hemsworth revealed that he had to put on even more weight, thus kicking up his workout routine to another level.
“The target weight we aimed for was quite a ways above where I’d been before. This was probably the biggest and fittest I’ve ever been. We had 12 months where I was at home just training and puppeteering the body and manipulating,” he told Disney (via The Direct) in June 2022. “We’d try more swimming then try more martial arts and adjust calories. It was a really fun exploration. I got really big and fit but then just had to hold it for four months, which was very hard.”
And Hemsworth wasn’t the only star in the film to ramp up their fitness routine. Natalie Portman’s trainer Naomi Pendergast also dished on how the actress shaped up for the film, premiering July 8, 2022, sharing that she trained every day for 10 months.
“We worked on building her upper body three times a week, which included arm, back, chest exercises, boxing, skipping and running,” Pendergast told Variety. “The other two days were dedicated to injury prevention work, which included Pilates-based exercises, stretching, release work and balance exercises.”
Source: pagesix.com
