So I hit up the movie Thor the other night when it came out. I’ll admit, I’m a superhero movie freak! I love em! I collected 1000’s of comic books back when I was young! In fact, I still have them! I think I need to look into seeing how much some of them are worth. I’m sure I got a few gems in there! I know I have a Superman comic that could be worth thousands… Not sure!
One of the main reasons I collected comics and followed the superheros like Batman, Superman, The X-Men, The Punisher, Spiderman, X-Force, Thor, ect was that all of them were JACKED UP! Aside from that, they all were strong, athletic, and had special powers. Who as a kid didn’t want that?? Well, at least I did…
As a kid, I wanted to look like Wolverine. That was my favorite character. His general attitude and demeanor was what attracted me to him so much. He was just a straight up bad ass! Highly athletic, JACKED, and PRIMAL!
Anyways, what makes me bring this up is the fact the Thor is the big talk around town right now. If you’ve seen the movie, you probably noticed that the leading actor, Chris Hemswoth is straight up JACKED!
The dude had to add some serious muscle for his role in Thor. Normally the guy walks around tall and slender. He had to pack on a whooping 20 lbs of muscle to look good enough for his role! This isn’t easy, especially for a tall “ecto-morph” type guy like Chris is. Being an ecto morph simply means adding muscle is tough or damn there impossible! In order to do so, one much follow a few different principles religiously!
Below, I’ll share 4 crucial tips that will help you get ripped and jacked up like Thor!
Check em out below:
1) Eat, Eat, Eat, and Eat – The RIGHT Foods.
So the first rule for ANYONE looking to gain some real mass and muscle is, you need to eat more food!
Simply put – EAAAAAAAAT MORE FOOOD!!
There are no short cuts here and no magic pills or powders. You need to focus on eating tons of whole, vitamin and nutrient dense foods.
So foods like:
Lean Proteins – free range chicken, grass fed beef, cage free eggs, wild caught salmon and tilapia, turkey, ect
Tons of Veggies – Kale, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Broccoli, Spinach
Starchy Veggies (For Building mass ONLY) – Sweet potatoes, Yams, Pumpkin
Fruits – All Berries, Apples, Avocados
And YES, Your “HEALTHY MASS” Grains – Quinoa or Brown Rice.
For the grains and starchy veggies, I’m normally against consumption of those due to the fact they are against the Paleo way of eating. But when you’re trying to pack on mass fast, this is a special situation where you’ve got to include these foods!
On top of just eating the right foods, you need to eat enough of them! This is the hard part!
Eating 4, 5, 6, or even 7 meals per day should help you fit in enough calories to help you start to grow. Eating this much is almost more taxing than the work you put into the weight room!
What I tell my young athletes and clients that are trying to put on mass is that “EATING is Training”. Meaning, every time you eat, it’s like another training session! You’ve got to DESTROY that plate of food just as if it were a heavy deadlift or squat PR! Just make it happen!
2) Train With HEAVY Weight using Complex “BIG MONEY” Lifts”
Now this shouldn’t be any sort of surprise or big news to you if you read this blog quite a bit. If you want to build bigger and stronger muscles, you got to hit the main “BIG MONEY” Lifts!
Some of the best mass building lifts are:
- ALL Deadlift Variations
- Back and Front Squats
- Military Presses
- Bench Press
- Weighted Pull Ups
- Bent Barbell Rows
All of those lifts, when done correctly will help build some serious muscle!
The reps scheme you would want to focus on using for STRENGTH would be the 3-6 rep range. Then for MASS building you would want to hit reps for 6-10.
The idea is that overtime you build up more strength so you can push HEAVIER WEIGHTS for more reps. That’s the key!
For hard gainers like Chris, you would want to focus on split training your body. So doing an upper body focused day on Monday, Lower Body on Wednesday, then either another Upper Body Day on Friday or Full body day. There are many different combos that work but none of them will work unless you get the next tip down perfect…
3) REST, REST, REST, and REST
The cold hard truth is your muscles only grow when they are at REST! They don’t grow during your workout. Your muscles get pumped full of blood which makes them bigger at the time when you’re training, but they aren’t actually growing in size at that time.
The magic happens when you are at rest. So the key point to follow with this is, is to GET IN AND GET OUT meaning – get your training session done in 60 mins or less and get out so you can REST.
The longer you’re in the gym training, the more time your taking away from you resting and GROWING!
Most people have the attitude, “More is Better” so they do grueling 2 hour workouts 5-6 days per week then wonder why they’re not getting any bigger and stronger.
There will always be “that guy” out there that thinks this rule doesn’t pertain to him. Well, if that is you, you are DEAD WRONG! You will forever stay skinny and weak!
Everyone is the same when it comes to adding big time muscle – we all need to rest in order to grow and get bigger! Some people recover quicker than others which is a plus when it comes to having good genetics. For everyone else that got screwed, they need to be trying to get in the following:
- 7-8+ Hours of Sleep per night
- 20 min nap during the day
- Training sessions last 60 mins or less (30-45 mins is optimal)
- Get a massage every 2 weeks or so (lucky You if you can fit this in!)
- Take 10 Min Ice Baths or Hot/Cold Contrast Showers
- Foam Roll after each session
If you can find enough DISCIPLINE to follow these simple rules, you’ll find yourself packing on more muscle in no time! Just like Chris Hemsworth did for Thor!
Just remember – MORE is NEVER BETTER!
4) Build MASS then get LEAN
Finally, after you are able to add about 10-20 lbs of muscle to your frame, it’s time to get LEAN.
Usually I’m against the old “bulking and cutting” routine but if you’re trying to get this done fast, bulking and cutting is the way to go.
Of course, if you’re eating LEAN and CLEAN foods, you won’t have to cut that much fat. But anytime you are trying to add more muscle by eating more calories than you burn, you’ll add a little bit of fat.
Not a problem as for when you get here, your main focus will now turn to high intensity intervals / complex training. For this, we still want to leave in our main “MONEY LIFTS” from above, but now we’ll start to put more focus in on really jacking up our metabolism to get that shredded up superhero look!
For this we’ll want to add in the following:
- Sprints (hill sprints, sled sprints, 40’s, 100’s, 400m)
- Barbell Complexes
- High Intensity Intervals
- Bodyweight Circuits
- Prowler and Sled Pushes / Sprints
With these types of protocols, you’ll want to hit these at the end of your training session.
As always, you still want to focus on short and intense training sessions. So a typical training session may look like:
- Deadlifts 5 x 5
- Military Press 5 x 5
- High Intensity Circuit:
- Prowler Sprint x 20 yards and back
- Sledge Hammer Swings x 10 per side
- Sandbag Clean and Press x 10
- Kettlebell Swings x 10-20 reps
- Repeat circuit x 4 rounds with 30-60 sec rest in between
Short and sweet! This type of training will definitely shred you up!
Do something simialr to that 3-4 days a week and you’re set!
All in all, the secret to getting Jacked Up and Ripped like Thor is by following these principles, staying patient and sticking to your plan consistently!
For me, I walked out of that movie theater pumped up to go and train! I don’t know about you, but I want to be JACKED and RIPPED up like a superhero!
If you want a full proof plan that follows a similar type of template from above that will get you JACKED and RIPPED Up like Thor, you’ll want to check out my man, Jason Ferruggia’s Muscle Gaining Secrets.
This is a full proof plan that will get you Bigger, Stronger, and Faster in no time! BUT, you have to be willing to put in the work!
Post up your comments if you got em!