Want to build superhero muscle, here is your avengers workout!

Barring a spider bite, chemical exposure, or a billionaire father, building superhero muscle and strength can be a difficult task.

This journey can be a slow process, but we’re going to look at three important lifts you should add to your workouts to build superhero muscle fast.

The Top 3 Avengers Workout Exercises

#1 Pull-Ups 

You know the scenes where a hero slides down the crumbling building and catches someone with one hand while holding on to the other?

If so, you’ve probably wondered how difficult that would actually be. Especially pulling the person up to safety and climbing to stable ground. That’s superhero strength, and the best place to start for scenarios like this is the pull-up.

In addition to hanging from buildings or cliffs, pull-ups are an amazing exercise for building muscle in the back, arms, and even the core. Building a stronger upper back can also improve your v-taper and give the appearance of a smaller waist. When performed correctly, you’ll activate nearly every muscle in your upper body with pull-ups.

Here’s where to start.

How to Perform A Pull-Up

For the pull-up, you’ll want to take a shoulder-width grip on a bar. Before you do anything else, you should focus on tightening your core by flexing your abs and glutes (butt).

Next, you should retract your shoulder blades – or pull the shoulder blades back and down. When done correctly, this should take your shoulders from shrugged (near your ears when hanging) to lock in place (as if you were standing tall with your chest out).

This will not only keep your shoulders injury-free, it will also put you in a stronger pulling position.

Once you’ve gone through this process, you’re ready to pull. While keeping your elbows in front of you or under the bar, pull your upper chest to the bar. It may help to think about pulling your elbows to the bottom of your rib cage instead of pulling your chin to the bar. You should feel the difference in core activation as well as the muscles of your back.

We’ll talk more about how to get your first pull-up below, but the biggest takeaway from this section is learning how to retract your shoulder blades. You can implement hanging shoulder blade retractions right away. To do these, simply hang from the bar and pull your shoulder blades back and down. It should look like you’re doing a reverse shrug of sorts.

How to Get Your First Pull-Up

As great as pull-ups are, they’re very challenging. If you’re in the early stages of your superhero journey you may lack the upper body and relative body weight strength to perform a pull-up right away. As you get stronger and improve body composition, pull-ups and body weight exercises will get easier by default. That said, there are strategies to implement right away to get your first pull-up in no time.

Depending on your ability level, you may want to start with building overall upper body strength before transitioning to this specific strength improvement. In this case, the first two examples below will cover overall strength development while numbers 3-6 cover pull-up specific development.

Cable or Machine Lat Pulldown

If you’re not ready for band-assisted pull-ups just yet, lat pulldowns are a great way to mimic the same pulling movement pattern with resistance. Increasing the weight you’re able to do each set on the lat pulldown should almost transfer directly to pull-up strength.

Bent Over Dumbbell Rows and Cable Rows

Building upper body and pulling strength overall will enhance short-term body composition results and shorten the time frame for your first pull-up. Rowing and pulling movements of any kind are the perfect substitute in the early stages of your superhero journey and should always have a place in your training.

Bar Hangs

If you can’t hang from a bar for more than 10 seconds, you’ll have a tough time performing more than 1-2 pull-ups. Implementing timed bar hangs where you simply hang (and work on scapular retraction if needed) is an excellent way to improve your ability to do pull-ups. A stronger grip leads to greater overall strength. These will also help your performance in our third movement in this article.

Pull-Up Eccentrics

The eccentric portion of a lift is the lowering of a weight or in this case, your body. This phase of a lift is where most of the muscle damage is done, a potent stimulator of muscle growth.

To perform eccentrics on your pull-ups, position a box or bench where you can either jump to the top position or step off and hold yourself at the top position before lowering to a dead hang (elbows locked at the bottom). The slower the eccentric, the better. Aim for at least a 3-second count from the time you begin lowering your body until reaching the bottom.

Band-Assisted Pull-Ups

What better way to improve at something than doing the actual movement with assistance?

You can use the assisted pull-up machines in the gym, but you’ll likely find the band-assisted version to be a totally different feel.

Inverted Rows (TRX or Bar)

Because you can move your feet closer or farther away on inverted rows, it’s easy to mimic a pulling movement with 100% of your body weight or 50%. If your feet are in close, your legs can support more of your weight, while moving the feet away or even elevating them transfers all of your body weight into your pull.

Progressing the Pull-Up

When you’ve progressed or for those already knocking out sets of 10+ on the pull-up bar, there are a number of ways to continue progressing the difficulty of pull-ups. It’s important to note that before you add any pull-up progressions to your training you should know your purpose.

Progression is necessary over time but if you don’t have a need for a 2x bodyweight pull-up, it’s not a great idea to strap weights around your waist and find a one-rep max on pull-ups. Okay, now that we’ve established that, let’s look at ways to progress the pull-up.

Weighted Pull-Ups

Adding weight via a weight belt or holding dumbbells or kettlebells between your feet can be a great way to increase your raw pull-up total and overall strength.

Wide-Grip Pull-Ups

Most people find a wider grip to be more challenging and better for isolating the lower lats.

Chin-Ups

Chin-ups may be easier than pull-ups for some, but they’re a potent bicep builder and target the muscles of the back from different angles.

Paused Reps with Eccentrics

Similar to eccentric training for getting your first pull up, you’d add a pause at the top and use slower negatives in the process of doing full reps.

If you can do 15 pull-ups unbroken, it would be a challenge to get 10 using this method. 

# 2 Split Squats

We’ve covered the single-arm cliff-hanging rescue move, but we need to talk about making athletic and powerful moves look easy. If you’re planning on kicking ass and taking names, a strong lower body is an absolute must. Not to mention, if you build a great looking v-taper with tons of pull-ups, you need a strong lower body to match.

Everyone knows that squats are great, right?

But squats are extremely technical and require an empty squat rack, which can be a problem depending on your training environment.

That’s why you should work the split squat and its many variations into your leg workouts. They can be loaded heavy enough over time to rival a heavy barbell squat. And even better, they’re the perfect substitute for those with low back pain.

You may see this exercise called Bulgarian split squats, rear foot elevated squats, single leg elevated lunges, or plenty of other names but just know, we’re talking about one foot elevated behind you and static front leg squatting or lunging.

A few things to know:

• Front foot placement will determine which muscles you’re targeting. If your front foot is closer to you, you’ll target more quads and muscles on the front of your thigh. If your front foot is farther away from you, you’ll target more hamstrings and glutes. A great starting point is with a vertical shin. Meaning, your shin is perpendicular to the floor.
• Additionally, be mindful of where your weight is distributed in the front foot. Pushing through your toes will activate more quads, while pushing through your heel will activate more hamstrings and glutes.
• Your rear foot shouldn’t be too far away, nor too close. The knee of your rear leg should be able to stay relatively flexed throughout the range of motion. If you find yourself stretching your rear leg at the bottom of the squat, you may be too far away. Likewise, if you feel too much of a stretch in the quad of your rear leg, you may be too close.
• You should have a slight forward lean and maintain a neutral spine throughout. In other words, you should have a straight line from the top of your head to your butt. Avoid rounding or hunching the shoulders at the bottom.
• Balance is usually the biggest limiting factor when starting out with split squats. Use a wall, rack, or another object for balance assistance. Don’t progress to any variations below until you’ve mastered balance and stability during your body weight split squats.

Bonus tip: Use a weight plate or an object to mark where your front toes are on each set. That way when you reset legs or come back for another set, you don’t have to find your mark again.

Once you’ve mastered the movement, you have a ton of options for progression. Here are a few ideas:

Weighted Split Squats

The easiest way to increase the difficulty with split squats is to add weight. You can hold dumbbells by your side, add a barbell to your back (or use the smith machine), use a goblet hold, hold kettlebells overhead, or even front rack a barbell. No matter the method, be sure safety is a primary concern. Don’t front rack a barbell on one leg without safety bars. Otherwise, you may lose your balance and crush your front leg. Ouch!

Deficit Split Squats

These can be performed with body weight by elevating your front foot. This can be a great way to increase the range of motion for the hypermobile superhero or those not ready to add weight just yet.

1.5 Split Squats and Paused Split Squats

To perform a 1.5 squat, you would simply perform the eccentric squat and instead of coming all the way up to standing you would go half way up, back down, and then up. One and a half rep. For a paused split squat, you would pause in the bottom position for 2-3 seconds. You’d be surprised how challenging these variations can be.

#3 Deadlifts

The deadlift was born in battle, with its origins rooted in the removal of the dead from battlefields. It’s only fitting that a superhero would incorporate this exercise into their training program.

Deadlifts are one of the best full-body exercises around for strength training. Since this movement allows you to move more weight than arguably any other lift, you can expose your body to out of the ordinary amounts of stress to stimulate superhuman changes.

There are a ton of different deadlift variations, but the four you’ll run into the most are the conventional, sumo, stiff-legged, and the romanian deadlift. In terms of powerlifting and deadlifting in competition, the conventional and sumo are the two primary variations used.

Before we look at choosing the best variation for you, let’s cover the movement pattern required for deadlifting.

Deadlifting 101

A hip hinge, or bending at the hips with a neutral spine, is one of the more difficult movements to learn. The hinge is involved with nearly every movement you do in the gym and everyday life. So learning, or not learning, how to hinge properly can set you up for success or a catastrophic injury.

Since it’s a difficult movement to learn, it’s a great idea to have a coach or someone help you learn the movement. Until then, here’s a walkthrough to teach yourself:

1. Set up a chair, bench or box about 2.5-3 feet away from a wall. Grab a broomstick, PVC pipe, or a straight object of some kind.
2. Stand between the chair and the wall, one foot-length away from the wall. You want the chair to be on your toes or slightly in front of the toes.
3. Place the broomstick behind you with it touching the back of your head, your upper back, and tailbone. Have a friend hold this in place if needed. If you don’t have a broomstick, place your hands behind your head and keep your chest up.
4. From this position, push your hips back until your butt touches the wall behind you while keeping a neutral spine. If you lose any point of contact with the broomstick, you did not maintain a neutral spine. If your knees pushed the chair forward, you’re trying to squat instead of hinging. Your knees should be “soft” or slightly bent but should flex minimally during the hinge.
5. You should feel this “load” your hamstrings and glutes, and your weight should shift into your heels. It’s common for the toes to come off the ground if you’re not very flexible in the hamstrings.
6. Using your glutes (squeeze your butt) stand up while maintaining a neutral spine and lock the hips out. Repeat until you’ve ingrained the movement pattern into your mind.

Deadlift Variations

A few common mistakes include hyperextending the lower back and locking the knees to push the hips back. The former can be corrected by flexing your abs while hinging. The latter is more of a learned-over-time correction through repetition.

Once you’ve learned the hinge, you can progress into deadlifting. The truth is, it’s hard to tell which variation is best for you. Your body size and lever lengths will have some say in which gives you the best mechanical advantage for superhuman strength. One of the most important things to consider when choosing your deadlift variation, however, is your desired outcome.

If you want to get into Olympic lifting, for example, a conventional deadlift will have the most carryover. Let’s say you want a pair of superhuman glutes. In that case, the sumo deadlift may be superior for glute recruitment.

Or maybe you’re after overall development and don’t have any particular goals that would benefit from one variation or another. The correct answer there could be all four.

You’ll hear plenty of arguments over which is superior for this reason or that reason. Don’t waste too much time deciding and get busy trying them out for yourself. If you feel a sumo deadlift puts you in a more upright position and is, therefore, the safer deadlift for you, go with sumo.

Likewise, if you feel an RDL gives you all the hip extension power development you need, go with that. The deadlift is such an individual movement, your best bet is to experiment and embrace variety until the winner reveals itself to you.

Conclusion

• Pull-Ups are an excellent upper bodybuilder that can be progressed for years to come by adding resistance, slowing down eccentrics, and adding variation to grips. Progress to your first pull-up by adding more rowing and pulling exercises like rows, pulldowns, and assisted pull-up variations.
• Split squats are a challenging single leg exercise that can be loaded heavy enough over time to rival a barbell squat. Because of the simplified movement pattern, these can be easier to learn and safer for beginner lifters when compared to the barbell squat. Master the body weight split squat before progressing to weighted or more advanced versions.
• Deadlifts are excellent for developing full-body muscle and power. The exposure to heavy loads is unrivalled in the gym and can lead to a potent hormonal cascade as well as benefits from heavy mechanical tension. However, you should learn to hinge properly before deadlifting.

About the Author:

Kyran Doyle is a certified, incurable workaholic. When he’s not lifting heavy things he can be found online at fitnesscrest.com. His goal is to humbly empower others to grow stronger and take control of their health and fitness as he continues to grow himself as a lifter.

Want to look like a star? Of course, you do! Who wouldn’t? Good news! We give you the tips you need to build a physique with the Matt Damon Workout. But, it’ll take work. Are you ready?

No one can say Matt Damon hasn’t made sacrifices for the sake of his acting career. The Jason Bourne and Good Will Hunting actor has, without a doubt, put his body through more than one striking change for the sake of getting into character. Indeed, he has made headlines again and again for putting his body through extreme changes.

He’s packed on weight for his roles in films like The Informant (which he credits to a gut-busting diet of McDonald’s and all the dark beer he could guzzle down) and shrunken down to a shell of his normal buff self when he played a heroin-addicted soldier in Courage Under Fire. In fact, in that movie he went to such great lengths to achieve, doctors later warned him he could have permanently damaged his heart. He actually suffered from extreme adrenal gland damage that left him on medications.

A simple Google images search will reveal this yoyoing of body transformation Damon has put himself through. But lately, in his mid-40s, a time when many are letting their physique slip away, Damon has gotten into the best shape of his life. Not only has he returned to perhaps his most famed role after a nine-year break to step back into the role of Jason Bourne, Damon also appeared in the critically acclaimed film The Martian, and has once again graced the big screen this year in the highly anticipated movie, The Great Wall.

To deliver his best work for this back-to-back crop of films, Damon knew he’d have to get his workouts and diet on point. He needed to do so not only to chisel out his physique but also to maintain it for the course of the filming of all three movies.

Lucky for you, you can skip the extreme deprivation diets and beer-gut gains he’s put himself through in years past. Instead, you can simply adopt his current workout plan to get the same striking results that Damon’s been sporting lately. You don’t even have to have the best of Hollywood trainers or any fancy diet techniques.

Why?

Simple.

We break down Damon’s workout and diet plan so that you too can craft your best body ever.

The Basic Plan Matt Damon Workout

While Damon’s workout plan was slightly altered for the three different roles he appeared in back to back, his trainer and the overall approach they took remained a constant throughout. You won’t need any fancy equipment to copy the results at home or at your gym. And, while Damon’s approach this go around was one of intensity, there was none of the extreme deprivation or binging as when prepping for movies in his past. In other words, you won’t have to put your body through hell to get the same results.

Damon’s workouts focused on a balanced approach of giving him a solid base of fitness, while not forgetting to tend to his mobility and flexibility. This isn’t your heavy lifting approach where strength is the only priority.

There’s more to it!

Damon’s plan is balanced and ensures a well-rounded approach that won’t only whip you into great shape, but will get you healthy and functionally fit in every sense.

You’ll also be glad to hear that Damon’s workouts don’t only rely on gym equipment. There was a healthy dose of bodyweight activities to get him chiseled the old-school way. That included such things as squats, sit-ups, push-ups and squat jumps.

Of course, you know by now that there’s no outworking a sub-par diet, which Damon has been no stranger to in the past. This time, he took a level headed, common sense approach. He followed the diet designed by his trainer.

This diet included a moderate 2000-calorie range per day during shooting.

With that said, it did also employ some more taxing, competition style techniques such as cutting back on water intake prior to shooting to show off his hard-earned muscles. You can see for yourself the clear effects of this during scenes in the newest Jason Bourne.

Case in point: The boxing scene where Damon appears especially lean and mean.

The Trainer Was Key

A key part of Damon’s recent transformation is his constant sidekick of a trainer, Jason Walsh. Walsh is a big name around Hollywood. He has whipped into shape not just Matt Damon, but actors like Emma Stone, Jessica Biel, Bradley Cooper and many others.

He’s an in-demand trainer for the simple reason that he delivers without a doubt impressive results, a fact which Damon realized early on when he began working with Walsh back in 2013 for his film, Elysium. Needless to say, that was a film in which he had to get totally shredded and leaned out. His results were so impressive that Damon continued to enlist Walsh’s help when he found out he was cast in the three back-to-back roles.

Walsh’s approach for Damon this go around was to focus on getting the athletic build he needed to pull off the Bourne role, rather than only on packing on the brawn. Walsh describes his training approach for the Bourne film simply by stating he puts Damon through tough workouts just short of breaking him.

Before he began his grueling approach though, Walsh’s main concern was to work on ironing out some shoulder and lower back issues that had been plaguing Damon since they first began working together. Once those issues were 100% healed, they began the real work.

These Are The Workouts

Damon’s workout plan is simple and fairly easy to copy. Don’t kid yourself, though, it’s still quite grueling. After all, you don’t get into Jason Bourne shape, or fit for his latest role as a man trapped inside the Great Wall of China, by cutting corners or going for overnight changes. Walsh designed a four-week, high-intensity, heavyweight program to get Damon into street fighter shape for the latest Bourne film.

But, Walsh also focused on creating a solid base of fitness that could continue to be built upon.

He stressed building up that base first with basic routines of lunges, squats, and crawls.

Why?

The reason was so that when they advanced to the next phases, Damon could continue to build rather than break down the progress they’d made. His plan was also designed to increase his range of motion, flexibility, and agility.

How?

With the use of simple bodyweight moves and high rep ranges.

As time progressed into the filming, Damon had greatly increased the weights he was using. At one point, he even began using 125-pound dumbbells for Bulgarian split squats! A far cry from the bodyweight foundations they’d begun with.

For his initial four-week program he used to get into Jason Bourne shape and convincingly pull off the much leaner and meaner look he sported in the last movie, compared to the prior ones, Damon did lots of classic moves. That included stuff like bench presses, rows, curls, deadlifts, triceps pushdowns and other common mainstays like these. Most were done for three or four sets of 10 reps per workout move.

Another technique that Walsh and Damon credit with much of his leaning-out progress was the use of the VersaClimber. In case you don’t know, that’s a cardio machine that forces your entire body to be pushed to its max.

How?

You use your arms and legs to pull your body up and down (think mountain climbing on speed).

This was posted on Instagram during the filming and production of the movie. The post showed him on the machine following Walsh’s lead of seeing how fast they could hammer out 200 feet or more in the course of one minute. Walsh stated that Damon looked like he was about to throw up by the end of it.

To pull off the lean and mean look that was needed for Damon to sport for this role, and at the ripe old age of 42, some serious time commitment and determination was required. Luckily, Damon was no stranger to a grueling schedule.

Even back in 2013 while training for his role in Elysium, Walsh and Damon trained for up to four hours a day, every day, breaking it up into two-hour chunks in the morning followed by two more hours in the afternoon. Walsh would also sometimes give Damon four to five-mile recovery runs just to break up the gym-time sameness.

Damon filmed his part in his latest film, The Great Wall, in which he plays a knight, before filming the latest Bourne. That meant that he didn’t actually have to look the part of Bourne during this chunk of time. But, his role required him to be in top fighting shape just the same to pull off physically demanding fight scenes, often riding a horse, swinging a sword, all while wearing armor in the Gobi Desert.

Since Damon had to then quickly transition back to Bourne (tired yet?

We’re tired just from reading about his back-and-forth changes from role to role), Walsh and Damon would knock out some of their training in the streets of northwestern China, near the Mongolian border. At times, that was all the space they had to train. Once back in L.A. after filming of The Great Wall wrapped, they had all of two weeks to turn around and polish off Damon’s physique before Jason Bourne filming started.

All in all, in spite of a very draining filming schedule, many different physiques required for diverse roles, and Damon’s prior injuries and age, Walsh’s biggest achievement appears to have been one that might surprise some folks. Walsh says his biggest achievement was keeping Damon not just strong and ripped, but injury free during demanding times and even more demanding action-packed roles.

He always had Damon approach moves like back squats and heavy deadlifts with caution. Walsh stressed the strength work like single-leg exercises and high-rep pullups to keep him functioning in peak shape and keep his mobility and flexibility at top notch.

The Matt Damon Diet

Any good workout routine would be incomplete without the diet to match. We’ve all heard it a million times over, but you truly can’t outwork a shoddy diet. Needless to say, Damon and Walsh know this fact all too well. To keep up with the grueling workout schedule and complement the time Damon was logging in the gym, his work in the kitchen had to be equally as thought out and purposeful.

Walsh prescribed Damon a moderate, 2,000 calorie a day diet to make sure his body was torching calories and shredding the fat in order to see the hard-earned muscle he was building each day. He also tinkered with hydration.

Why?

To push Damon’s physique to the edge for key filming scenes like the street fights when Bourne needed to look his most defined.

The general process entailed having Damon drink lots of water leading up to the day of the shooting, and then cutting back two days prior. On the day they filmed, Damon would barely drink any water at all. Of course, that’s a technique that while not sustainable over the long term, can give you that extra leanness on filming day.

Conclusion

Even for the toughest super fighter, balance is key. It’s been reported that on the last day of filming, Damon had a large pizza waiting for him.

Needless to say, he devoured it.

Keep in mind that while pushing yourself if you are looking for extreme results there are a few non-negotiable items. Listen to your body. Never push it to the point of injury. Give yourself the fuel and rest your body needs to rebuild. With these tips in mind, you, too, can achieve Matt Damon’s level of results, whether you’re a former CIA assassin or just training to look the part of one.

By Emmy Schneider-Green

Want to look like a movie superhero? How about also looking like a former world champion? Guess what? One man already does. We will explain the Dave Bautista Workout . You’re welcome!

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is known for his time in the WWE ring and on the silver screen. But he’s not the only wrestling superstar that has traded in his championship belts for starring movie roles. In the 1980s, there was Hulk Hogan, “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, Terry Funk and Jesse Ventura. More recently, there’s been “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, The Miz, John Cena and Dave Bautista. With that said, Bautista isn’t trying to be just another ex-wrestler.

He’s preparing to be better. 

It all began with his prep for Guardians of the Galaxy.

Over the course of his career, Bautista wore many hats. He started his career working as a bodybuilder. That stint as a bodybuilder helped shape Bautista and allowed him to transition into his next profession, pro wrestler. But, it did not come easy. World Championship Wrestling trainers told him he didn’t have what it took to make it in the business. It didn’t matter.

Dave Bautista, known to the wrestling world as Batista, worked as a WWE wrestler for 15 years where he became one of the most accomplished and well-known performers in the business. He joined WWE’s Smackdown brand in mid-2002 as Deacon Batista before moving on to Raw near the end of the same year. On Raw, he quickly joined with Ric Flair, Triple H, and Randy Orton to form one of the greatest factions in wrestling history known as Evolution.

For the next year, the group dominated by capturing all the gold.

By the end of his career, Batista was a six-time World Champion. His first World title win came in 2005 against Triple H. He was also a four-time tag team champ winning that alongside greats like Rey Mysterio, John Cena, and Ric Flair. But, that wasn’t enough for Bautista. As a result, he went on to face his next challenge as a Mixed Martial Arts fighter. After winning his first, and only, fight, Bautista decided to make one last change.

He went on to test his luck in the world of acting. Though he’s been acting for over a decade, Bautista recently played his biggest role yet. That role was as Drax the Destroyer in the box-office hit Guardians of the Galaxy.

So how did Dave Bautista become Drax the Destroyer, one of the most feared men in the galaxy?

Dave Bautista Diet

When you look at guys as lean as Dave Bautista, you always tell yourself it’s not possible to ever build a body like that. After all, these types of guys have a team of nutritionists that watch their every bite. Though it is tough to do alone, eating healthy does not always have to be a chore. Bautista, whose body fat is under 10%, doesn’t keep a strict diet in terms of what he eats on a daily basis.

Instead, he just tries to ensure that he eats good quality meals.

The only true limits that he puts on himself are limiting fats while maintaining a steady helping of protein. This ensures that his body fat stays low, while his muscles are fed and maintained. Unlike most other Hollywood fitness buffs, Bautista does not pay much attention to calories or carbs. Because of his rigorous exercise program (which we will get into just a little later on), he feels that he has some wiggle room in terms of his diet.

Though he does not like to limit his diet based on numbers, Bautista did recently begin limiting the types of food he puts in his body. In the last couple of years, Bautista has adopted a gluten free lifestyle. He has also been cutting out all red meats.

This change began during his MMA career, where most fighters live like that in an attempt to keep weight low. When Bautista began doing this, it started out as simply a trial run. But, after a month, he decided to keep it full time, crediting it with not only helping him look better but also feel better.

What follows is an example of the type of gluten-free meal plan that would suit Bautista’s needs:

Breakfast

Herb And Onion Frittata

1 Cup 1% Milk

1 Slice Gluten-Free Buckwheat Bread

Morning Snack

6 Ounces Low Fat Plain Yogurt

1 Cup Cantaloupe Melon

Lunch

Warm Quinoa Salad with Edamame And Tarragon

1 Medium Orange

Afternoon Snack

1 Ounce Roasted Salted Soybeans

Dinner

Spicy Cioppino

1 1/2 Cups Tossed Salad Mix

4 Teaspoons Vinegar And Oil Salad Dressing

1 Cup Strawberries

3/4 Cup Cooked Brown Rice

Bautista also augments his diet with many different supplements to help fortify any potential deficiencies in his menu.

What does that include?

For starters, Dave takes caffeine pills rather than drinking coffee. This helps give him the energy and fat-burning power of the caffeine without any of the drawbacks. Also, he supplements with vitamin D, fish oil, DHEA and protein supplements. Even with the perfect diet, supplements are a vital aspect of turning from average Joe into a guy like big Dave.

How Did Dave Bautista Lift?

Dave Bautista has faced more challenges in his life and in the ring than most men could handle. He was a bodybuilder. Then he conquered the world of pro wrestling. But, arguably his greatest challenge was trying to find a way to make himself fitting of the name Drax the Destroyer. With a name like that, enemies must quiver in fear just by you walking into a room.

The best way to do this is to get bigger, stronger and more ripped than anyone else in the galaxy.

For Bautista, getting bigger wasn’t necessary. Let’s face it: Listed at 6’6” and well over 260 pounds, he is already just about as big as they come. But, for Guardians of the Galaxy, he decided big and strong was not enough and Bautista dedicated himself to getting cut. This meant changing his philosophy of bodybuilding and changing his routine completely.

At 48 years old, and after the beating that his body took from pro wrestling and mixed martial arts, working out daily is no longer an option for Bautista. In recent years, Bautista has also limited the weight he will lift. Rather than doing a low rep, high weight exercises, Bautista has switched to less weight but extra reps. This allows him to train his muscles for endurance, which is crucial during his 12 to 15 hour days on set. Also, it helps him get bigger while eliminating body fat. This is what gives him his massive, but ripped, look.

So, what exactly do you have to do to go from plain ol’ (kind of) Dave Bautista to transform into the biggest tough guy in the universe, Drax the Destroyer?

What follows is the type of workout used by Bautista.

Dave Bautista’s Workout

Day 1 Is For Legs

3-4 sets of Seated Calf Raises with 10-15 reps

3-4 sets of Standing Calf Raises with 10-15 reps

3-4 sets of Seated, Standing Leg Curls with 10-15 reps

3-4 sets of Standing Leg Curls with 10-15 reps

2-3 sets of Hack Squats with 10-15 reps

3-4 sets of Leg Extensions with 10-15 reps

2-3 sets of Leg Presses with 10-15 reps

Day 2 Is For Rest

Day 3 Is For Back And Shoulders

3-4 sets of Front Pulldowns with 10-15 reps

3-4 sets of Rear Pulldowns with 10-15 reps

2-3 sets of Seated Cable Rows with 10-15 reps

3-4 sets of Lateral Raises with 10-15 reps

2-3 sets of Barbell Behind-the-Neck-Press with 10-15 reps

2-3 sets of Bent Laterals with 10-15 reps

3-4 sets of Dumbbell Shrugs with 10-15 reps

Day 4 Is For Rest

Day 5 Is For Chest And Arms

3-4 sets of Incline Bench Press with 10-15 reps

2-3 sets of Dumbbell Bench Press with 10-15 reps

2-3 sets of Cable Crossovers with 10-15 reps

3-4 sets of Dumbbell Curls with 10-15 reps

2-3 sets of Preacher Curls with 10-15 reps

3-4 sets of Triceps Presses with 10-15 reps

2-3 sets of Triceps Extensions with 10-15 reps

3-4 sets of Wrist Curls with 10-15 reps

3-4 sets of Reverse Wrist Curls with 10-15 reps

3-4 sets of Hanging Leg Raises with 10-15 reps

2-3 sets of Crunches with 10-15 reps

Day 6 Is For Rest

Note that on every other day, Bautista rests. Also, though it is not mentioned, one of the biggest staples of Bautista’s workout is cardio. As a pro wrestler, Bautista’s weight hovered around 285 pounds. However, now that he is working in Hollywood, he decided to shed the weight and live at a more chiseled 265 pounds.

Bautista believes in using his entire workout as a cardio exercise. This is one of the main reasons for keeping his reps high. By using high reps, and keeping rests short, he is able to keep his heart rate up constantly. At the end of his workouts, if he is not satisfied with his cardio, he will hit the elliptical for 20 to 30 minutes. That’s where all of his years in the wrestling ring really come in handy.

Bautista’s exercise does not end when he walks out of the gym. Because of the types of roles that he is cast in, he must maintain a high level of hand-to-hand combat. Bautista uses boxing to help not only make it seem real on the screen but as a way of preparing for the physicality of the intense scenes. Though staying in shape can play a huge factor, hand-to-hand scenes look much crisper if the actor is experienced.

Conclusion

Dave Bautista is looking to break out of his WWE shadow and hit the mainstream of acting in a way very few of his peers (other than The Rock) have truly achieved. Just as in WWE, becoming a star will not happen overnight. Now with over a decade in the business, Bautista is beginning to break through. With recent films like Riddick, Spectre, and Guardians of the Galaxy, Bautista has shown he’s more than just a wrestler.

The main takeaway from Dave Bautista’s workout is to keep your heart rate up.

Rather than doing three reps and then walking around the gym for the next 10 minutes talking about your max (if this isn’t you, then you at least know many like this), you need to focus on high reps and short rests. It’ll not only keep your blood pumping, but it will help you burn fat while getting bigger.

As well, though working out daily might seem great to some, the truth is that allowing your muscles a chance to recover and rebuild is crucial to getting bigger and remaining healthy, especially as you age. Getting enough quality sleep is vital. You simply must rest if you want to build a great physique.

You also need to remember that muscles are made in the kitchen, not in the gym.

Bautista proves this. If you truly want to adopt the Dave Bautista lifestyle, then the first step is to cut out the red meats and go gluten free. More and more Americans are opting for this lifestyle and they now have a huge endorsement from Drax the Destroyer. Bautista feels it helps him not only aesthetically, but also functionally.

Since adopting the gluten-free lifestyle, he says he not only feels better but also has noticed a decrease in both his asthma and allergies. Bautista’s diet proves you do not need a team of nutritionists in order to get in shape. You just have to listen to your body and find something that works for you.

Becoming a superhero has never been so easy!

By Michael Hersey