Chris Hemsworth is in peak physical condition. The Marvel star has spent the past year accruing serious strength and muscle gains for the up-and-coming Thor: Love and Thunder and Extraction 2 movies.
How? Truly savage workouts. Hemsworth’s latest “dumbbells vs. bodyweight” workout is no exception. Luckily for you, he’s posted the full workout on his Instagram, so you can ramp up the intensity of your next workout, too. Think you can hang with Thor?
Why It Works
Hemsworth’s workout leans on a classic technique of supersetting a weighted exercise with a bodyweight exercise to add a shock of intensity to his workout. Supersets are the most common way to pack more work into your workout in less time. The concept of a superset is to perform two exercises back to back, followed by a short rest.
Three major benefits of supersets include:
- a decrease in total workout time
- an increase in work capacity
- an increase in time under tension (an important factor for muscle growth).
By using back-to-back similar muscle group exercises, you can push closer to failure and recruit more muscle fibers as effort increases throughout each round of supersets.
Supersets are best used when heavy work is out of the way since maximal loads require more energy, which is why we love that Hemsworth has planted the weighted dumbbell work before bodyweight. However, if you are looking to see major strength gains, use superset circuits like this after finishing up any other focused ‘heavy’ lifting.
The Workout
The workout includes 4 total rounds of his sweat-inducing “dumbbells vs. bodyweight” circuit. Grab a range of medium-heavy dumbbells (30-60-pounds – keeping in mind you can likely squat more than you can press) and get to work.
The circuit:
- 12 x Dumbbell Floor Press
- 8 x Pushup
- 20-second Rest
- 10 x Dumbbell Double Squat
- 8 x Squat
- 20-second Rest
- 12 x Dumbbell Skull Crushers
- 5 x Tricep Pushup
- 20-second Rest
- 12 x Dumbbell Reverse
- Lunge to Curl
- 8 x Jump Lunges
- 20-second Rest
- 12 x Dumbbell Deadlift
- 8 x Burpee
- 20-second Rest
Repeat for 4 total rounds.
