Man of Steel: Building a physique like Henry Cavill’s Superman

When the first photos of Man of Steel popped up, like everyone else I was impressed with the physique of the newest superman, and with the shirt-less scenes the filmmakers make it clear that the actor is not wearing a “muscle suit” under his costume.

People may have seen some of the work Cavill did previously, and know he is no stranger to getting into top shape. For Superman it appears as though his main focus was on building impressive pecs and delts.  His fat levels were kept low, though he didn’t get ripped to the point where he was likely to risk losing lean mass.

It would also seem that he did a good job of balancing hormones, I suspect naturally, but by making optimal nutritional choices.

I’m going to state up front that while I have done some research into his style of training I have no intention of putting his EXACT routine here for many reasons, the primary one being that Cavill’s genetics and starting point are unique to himself.

I actually spent many months in the pursuit of building a similar physique (completely naturally of course), my results were actually very good. Here’s how I did it…

Training:

I start each program with a 7 day detox where I flush my body and lower the training intensity to focus on teaching my body form, increasing flexibility and balance.

Following the detox the real fun begins! I alternate between a week of overloading shoulders and a week of overloading chest, that not only gives those muscle groups more stimulous than normal, it also gives a week of hyper-recovery while I’m overloading the other part. Shoulders will be trained 3 times over the course of delt week, where Chest will only be trained twice during the pectoral week:

Week 1:

1. Shoulders
2. Legs
3. Shoulders
4. Chest & back
5. Shoulders
6. Arms

Week 2:

1. Chest (lower, outer)
2. Back/hams
3. Shoulders
4. Chest (upper, overall)
5. Quads/calves
6. Arms

This two week cycle is then repeated.

I will put the specifics of the workouts in my next couple of blogs, including something really cool I discovered, which I now call “SUPER DROPS”!

*Chest routine: “Super Drops” for a Man of steel chest

**Delt routine: Man of Steel Cannon-bass delts

Nutrition:

The first goal is to keep lean (but not necessarily ripped) while building muscle.  The best approach I’ve found to do this is to consume a large amount of protein and moderate amount of carbs 3-4 hours after working out, and moderate amounts of protein, healthy fats with lots of vegetables for every other meal.  Actual amounts of food wll vary from person to person based on several factors, the more serious you are the more rigid you will have to be.

On that note, check out my post on: The Perfect Post-Workout nutrition

Also due to the high volume and frequency of this kind of training, make sure to have lots of vitamin C throughout the day to boost your immunity and assist with recovery.

On shoulder days a joint supplement including MSM will help recovery and avoid injury.

That’s all for this post, please subscribe so you will receive updates on my followups to this blog as well as a few other fun ones I have on the way!

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