Chris Hemsworth has been packing on more muscle than ever over the last year in preparation for the Hulk Hogan biopic and fourth Thor movie, to the point that it actually became kind of an issue for his stunt double, who struggled to keep up with his gains. And now the Australian actor has just shared a look at his incredibly jacked biceps and triceps as he prepares to film a sequel to the action movie Extraction.
In an Instagram photo taken six weeks out from the beginning of shooting, Hemsworth revealed the “bulletproof rig” he’s been building with the help of his Centr app’s team of trainers and nutrition coaches, and said that he feels “good and ready” to commence the physically demanding, stunt-filled process.
The first Extraction movie included several jaw-dropping action sequences, including a scene where Hemsworth’s character Tyler Rake dives off a cliff (for which the actor held his breath underwater for three whole minutes), but its standout moment was “The Oner,” a 12-minute fight scene that director Sam Hargraves captured in a single take, and which took a real toll on the actors.
“Part of the benefit of doing a longer, extended action sequence is that your performers aren’t just doing it for four or five minutes before you cut and they get to rest,” Hargraves said. “By the time you get to the end, there’s not a lot of acting required—the performers are really tired.”
At this point, Hemsworth is a pro when it comes to pushing through fatigue. In a recent Instagram video, he shared his personal mantra for getting motivated and forcing himself to grind through his workouts even when he doesn’t want to: “If you’re feeling flat, just get moving. Movement creates motivation.”
“Transitioning from heavy weight training to a lot more body weight functional movements concentrating on agility, strength and speed,” he wrote on Instagram. “Give this little workout a go and let the lungs scream for mercy!”
The workout, programmed by the team at Hemsworth’s fitness app Centr, consists of a combination of boxing work for cardio, squats to work the lower body, sit throughs for mobility, a series of crunch variations and ab twists that light up the core, and pushups which target the arms, shoulders and chest. Hemsworth recommends performing 4 sets of each, with 2 minutes of rest between each.
“Hemsworth doesn’t train the same way all the time, and that’s important to do,” says Men’s Health fitness director Ebenezer Samuel C.S.C.S. “He goes heavy and lifts like an animal, but also incorporates bodyweight sessions like this. These phases deload the body while also letting him move his body at high velocity, a quality you lose if you train the same way all the time and lift heavy weights slowly.”
While Hemsworth is used to exhaustingly intensive movie prep after a whole decade in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the expanding Extraction universe might be his most physically demanding. The first film included an action sequence captured in a single continuous shot that lasts 12 minutes, known as the “Oner.”
“He says it’s one of the hardest things he’s ever done for a movie,” director Sam Hargrave told Men’s Health. “And as fit as he is, fitness is all very relative. If somebody runs a marathon, they may have a hard time lifting. If somebody’s an Olympic sprinter, they may not be able to do grappling. Chris is always in shape, it’s just the variety and amount of things he had to do—you’re running up and down stairs, you’re grappling, you’re crawling on the ground, you’re throwing punches, kicks—they’re all very different ways of using your body. Overall, it was just very strenuous, but he trained hard for it.”
This article was originally published on menshealth.com.