Aaron Taylor-Johnson's Kraven The Hunter Workout

Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Kraven the Hunter workout

The actor dialled in his diet and training for a beastly transformation. Here's how he did it

THE MAKING OF a movie comic book hero (or anti-hero) is a difficult, demanding process. The cycle is now well-established over almost two decades into Hollywood’s muscle industrial complex: an actor is cast, then undergoes a total lifestyle shift to build the type of physique that might live up to fans’ wildest dreams of what their favourite character could look like in flesh and blood. Aaron Taylor-Johnson isn’t new to this world – having played cult-hero Kick-Ass in his early career, then his short stint in the MCU as Quicksilver – but his most recent turn for Kraven the Hunter challenged the actor to undergo a transformation that took his body to beastly levels to play the iconic Spider-Man antagonist.

Taylor-Johnson’s goals for the production were lofty. He set out to gain a serious amount muscle in six months. That’s the type of mission even a superhero wouldn’t scoff at – so the actor brought in experts to help him along the way. He tapped Nate Schmit to handle his diet, then brought in trainer David Kingsbury to help fine-tune his workouts to build up the Kraven physique. 

Men’s Health got an exclusive look at the details of the program directly from Taylor-Johnson and his team to learn more about what it took to build up the Kraven body ahead of the film’s release in Australia on December 12.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson

Sony Pictures

Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Kraven the Hunter nutrition

To eat like the world’s greatest hunter, Schmit built Taylor-Johnson’s diet around real food and stripped away the extras, like sugar. “The idea was, we have this monumental task of eating this much food – how can we do it, and keep you functional?” Schmit says. That meant getting protein from real sources in any way possible, from bone broth and gelatin gummies and marshmallows to steaks. Then, they added carbs for plenty of fuel to burn.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Kraven the Hunter upper body workout

After the diet had run for three months, it was time to kick the training into gear. Taylor-Johnson began working with Kingsbury to refine the accumulated mass into the svelte, slightly-scary Kraven shred to drop body fat. “From my perspective, it was the perfect starting point because this person’s already got muscle mass,” the trainer says. “Building quality muscle takes months and years. Dropping body fat takes weeks.”

The workouts were generally organised by upper-lower body splits, with four to five training sessions per week. Kingsbury challenged Taylor-Johnson to take on each exercise for 2 to 3 sets of 6 to 10 reps, pushing to failure with one rep left in reserve. Each session, Taylor-Johnson’s focus was to do one more rep than he did last time to drive muscle growth.

Bench Press

2 to 3 sets of 6 to 10 reps

Lat Pulldown

2 to 3 sets of 6 to 10 reps

Seated Row

2 to 3 sets of 6 to 10 reps

Cable Preacher Biceps Curl

2 to 3 sets of 6 to 10 reps

Single-Arm Triceps Cable Pushdown

2 to 3 sets of 6 to 10 reps

Seated Dumbbell Shoulder Press

2 to 3 sets of 6 to 10 reps

Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Kraven the Hunter Stunt Prep

The weight room was only part of Taylor-Johnson’s physical prep to portray the animalistic Kraven. He needed to be able to move convincingly as an apex predator onscreen, too. “I was doing a lot of parkour movements and quadruped movements – meaning I run on my hands and feet,” the actor says.

That meant Kingsbury had to add some movement-specific exercises to the workouts. The trainer also had to make sure that Taylor-Johnson kept up with his preparation outside the gym too; whenever there was a physically-demanding maneuvre during the shoot, there was an extensive warmup before every take.

The extra work paid off. Taylor-Johnson’s physique communicates the character’s lethality, all lean muscle without the bulk that would slow lesser anti-heroes down. All accomplished, according to the actor, with no major issues. “We got through an entire shoot with a ton of action with not one injury,” he says. “I thought that was amazing.”

Related:

Jake Gyllenhaal’s complete training and diet regimen

Hugh Jackman shared a glimpse of his Deadpool 3 diet

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