Christian Bale Workout Secrets Exposed

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Christian Bale Workout Secrets Exposed

If you’ve watched the new Batman workout, you probably got to see Christian Bale doing a bunch of pull-ups, pushups and crunches while he was in that prison.

Christian Bale is a strong dude, hands down. He’s been in some crazy roles, like Mark Wahlberg’s crackhead trainer in The Fighter, and has done weight loss so severe it’s almost sickening to think about.

The 36-year-old star has been known to have dramatic weight changes. He dropped more than 60 pounds from his 190-pound frame for The Machinist, and then beefed right back up for his role as Batman. He did it once again going from almost scrawny in The Fighter, to being big again in the latest Batman movie.

“I didn’t take this job because I went, ‘Oh, there’s a physical transformation needed.’ I always go, ‘Damn! There’s a physical transformation needed!’” Bale recently told MTV News. “Again, I just didn’t recognize that. I just liked the character and then realized, ‘Oh, crap, he’s a welterweight.’”

For the record, the weight limit for a welterweight is 147 pounds. But most welterweights aren’t tall in stature—former champ Sugar Ray Leonard is 5’9” and Manny Pacquiao is about 5’6”. Bale stands 6’0”. “[Normally] I’m a good 60 pounds heavier than a welterweight. I can’t lose that much weight, because I wouldn’t be able to box and train and everything,” he said in the MTV News interview. “I didn’t look at numbers, I didn’t look at scale, I just went down to what looked like might be the right body type for [my character] and the way that he fights as well.”

Now that Christian Bale has become Batman again, he’s had to once again put on weight.

Christian Bale Workout

Batman is famous for his martial arts, and martial arts training would have been required to help build his fitness and strength. Martial arts are one of the best forms of interval circuit training.

By its nature a martial arts class or training session involves period of intense activity followed by gentler exercises, and also interspersed with compound weight bearing exercise.

Squats and lunges are ideal exercises for building athletic thighs and legs, while boxing and grappling is an excellent way to strengthen and tone the upper body.

One of the things that makes Batman one of the most popular comic book heroes, is that he does not have any “super powers”. Bruce Wayne is just a man who is driven to fight for justice, and utilises a combination of martial arts and high-tech gadgetry to fight crime under the mask of the Batman. Anyone could become like Batman if they spent the time and energy required to train their bodies and minds into an ultimate fighting machine which is what the Christian Bale Workout is all about.

Fighting in reality is never as glamorous as it appears on screen. There have been some classic kung-fu moments on screen when the hero is forced to perform grueling and painful exercises to become masterful fighters – such as Jackie Chan in The Drunken Master and Uma Thurman in Kill Bill Vol.2 (the cruel tutelage of Pei Mei) – but generally fighting appears easy. This is not the reality though. Real fighters have to train extremely hard to reach the top of their game. Some of the fittest athletes are professional boxers. What does this mean for would be Batmen and Batwomen? To get a body like Christian Bale, you need to work hard.

Christian Bale Workout:

The best workouts to follow to get a body like Batman would probably be a combination of Bruce Lee’s strength training and Jeremy Renner’s workout. Plyometric workouts used by boxers would also be required to improve speed and agility. Bruce Lee had one of the most athletic bodies of any actor ever seen on screen, and Sly Stallone’s training was designed to bulk him up to look the part in Rocky 2. Christian Bale’s physique in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight is really a good combination of these two systems. The key areas are:

• Compound Weight Training
• Intensive Interval Training
• Explosive Plyometric Circuit Training

With this is mind, here is a workout routine that will get you strong, fast, agile and flexible like The Batman. The workout is split over three days, so can be repeated once a week with an extra day rest after Day 1, which involves the greatest load bearing exercise:

Christian Bales Batman Workout – 3 Day Split:

For each of these exercises aim to complete three sets of 8-12 repetitions. Ideally the final set should allow you to work to failure, or close to failure. Ensure plenty of rest between sets of exercises, unless they are supersetted.

Batman Workout Day 1:

• Chin-ups supersetted with bent over rows
  This superset is used as a warm-up before the main compound exercises are done. Chin-ups and bent over rows are both compound movements, which work the upper body well and also provide large range of motion. Chin-ups / pull ups are a great power exercise. Unfortunately, being even just a little overweight can make the exercise extremely difficult. Modified pull ups are of course allowed, to ensure that the workout is completed. If you prefer, cable rows can be performed instead of bent over rows.
• Squats
  Squats are considered by many to be the pièce de résistance for any successful strength training program. They are the key exercise in the MotleyHealth Core Four workout, which is designed for quick strength gain and fat loss.
• High Pulls
  With the “high pull” a barbell is lifted quickly from the floor by extending the hips and knees. As the bar reaches the knees, the shoulders are rapidly raised while keeping the barbell close to the thighs, and then the body is extended with a small jump movement. Elbows are flexed out to the sides, pulling bar up to neck height. This is an explosive movement, similar to a clean, but without the squatting movement. Start with a light bar to ensure that you are comfortable with the movement, before adding weight. A fuller description of the high pull is available on ExRx.
• Clean and Press
  The clean and press is a good exercise for overall mass building as well as power, most of the major muscle groups are utilized during the execution of this movement. To perform, a barbell is lifted from the floor to the chest in one continuous motion. Once it reaches the chest, the bar is then pressed overhead.

Batman Workout Day 2:

• Sprints – Speed Training
  Day 2 is dedicated to speed training and intensive cardio/interval training. Sprinting is an excellent form of field interval training. Utilize a football pitch to help pace out your sprints. Start out jogging around a field/pitch at a comfortable pace, and then when ready sprint flat out over a set distance. The length of a football pitch (or width) is ideal. After the spring, return to jogging, recover, and then repeat. Aim to build up the number of sprints completed in a session, and then aim to increase speed.
• Squat jumps
  The squat jump is exactly as it sounds – a squat followed by an explosive jump. In a normal squat a weight is lowered on the shoulders until the back of the thighs are almost horizontal, and then the bar/weight is slowly raised. With a squat jump, the lift is explosive, with the aim to lift the body onto the toes and leave the ground momentarily. An excellent plyometric exercise. Ideally a heavy punch bag should be used instead of a bar to avoid shoulder/neck injury.
• Lunges
  Lunges are another excellent leg strengthening exercise. Either performed with a barbell across the shoulders, or two dumbbells (this builds grip strength). You can also perform bodyweight lunges to build up muscular endurance.

Batman Workout Day 3:

• Dumbbell Flyes followed by Bench Press
  Start the sessions with flyes as a pre-exhaust, followed quickly with bench press. The bench press is another of the Motley Health Core Four weight training exercises.
• Clap Push Ups

Clap Push-Ups are an explosive way to perform push ups. Like the squat jumps, they turn a slow steady exercise into a fast, plyometric one. Start as with a normal push up in the plank position, lower your body until the chest just touches the floor, then raise quickly with the arms, and rapidly push up so that your hands leave the floor, clap once, land your hands on the floor and repeat. If this is too much, then start with standard push ups, but perform them as quickly as possible.

• Lateral Jumps
  Lateral jumps are a simple but intensive cardio workout. Like skipping, they build muscular endurance in the legs, allowing you to keep moving for longer – essential for martial artists and boxers. A great power exercise. To work up from this, box jumps can be added – a simple sideways (lateral) jump up onto a box (e.g. Reebok stepper)

If you want a workout that will help you get in the same type of shape, you should check out the Visual Impact Muscle Building Course.