Although it seems like the franchise has been relentlessly draining our wallets for decades, Marvel Studios was actually only formed in 2007, with their first production, Iron Man, released shortly in 2008. Little did we know that it would become the billion-dollar juggernaut it is today - as well as providing us with a bevvy of MH cover stars.
To celebrate this milestone, to be marked with next year's massive Avengers: Infinity War, we've provided the best superhero workouts on offer to us - including Marvel's competitors, the X-Men and DC Comics' stable. Because what's life without a little healthy competition?
These are the workouts that built Chris Hemsworth’s hammer-swinging arms for Thor; took Chris Evans from sand-in-the-face recipient Steve Rogers to Nazi-smashing war hero Captain America; and turned Henry Cavill into all-American superman, er, Superman, in Man of Steel.
Fancy emulating their exploits? Then be prepared to work at heroic intensity. We’d advise keeping the cape in your kitbag.
Unlike his crime-fighting colleagues, Batman’s powers aren’t endowed by an adamantium skeleton or godly parentage. So given the right combination of time, cash and motivation (none of which is worth offing your parents for) couldn’t anyone become the caped crusader? Well, yes and no. We explored the body-bruising reality of the extra-judicial lifestyle – and the workout that builds the strength and power you’ll need if you fancy undertaking it.
Not everyone has access to a super-soldier lab stocked with muscle-growing serum and “vita-rays” (and no, that’s not what the dodgy guy in your gym keeps offering you). Chris Evans didn’t either, but he still packed on so much muscle producers had to use CGI to slim down his physique for Captain America. While we can’t promise the same results, this abs-blasting workout will carve out a core more solid than a vibranium shield.
Before picking up Mjolnir, Chris Hemsworth was a stranger to weightlifting. But to fill the Norse god Thor’s vast frame he had to pack on 9kg of muscleusing an ever-changing regime designed to challenge his physique in unpredictable ways. The programme was so successful that, come shooting, he couldn’t fit into his costume. Steal his chaos training secrets – and prepare to buy yourself some new shirts.
Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine physique set the bar for superhero bodies. And despite being the wrong side of 40, the Aussie actor’s size and definition has only grown more impressive over seven films and 15 years. But building that kind of superhuman frame doesn’t come easy. This 12-week programme will transform your body so drastically you can expect a call from Professor Xavier – if it doesn't punish you so much you become an ex-man.
The Superman suit hides little from the imagination. To don it, you'd better be in the kind of shape that looks impressive when it’s stretched as-good-as across a 120-foot screen. That demands blubber-burning Tabata circuits mixed with hormone-spiking moves that swap fat for muscle from your traps to your calves. Because it takes a mighty physique indeed to distract attention from the fact you're wearing your pants on the outside.
Sure, the suit does most of the work. But if you haven’t the engineering skills to build one, then you’re going to have to craft enough muscle to take its place. This three-stage circuit fires up your core without the aid of an Arc Reactor to ensure you’ve got the stability and strength to cope with everything from psychopathic Norse gods to charging flankers.
Green Lantern may not have impressed enormously as a piece of art, but it did show that Ryan Reynolds could cast off his frat-house physique to build a body comfortable going toe-to-toe with malevolent extra-terrestrials – and pull off a six-pack that was still visible through clothes. This low-rest, high-rep body blast will get you eyeing up the tightest t-shirts in your drawer.
OK, so he isn’t exactly heroic. But Tom Hardy’s transformation into the mouth-breathing, Gotham-terrifying, Batman-breaking ubervillain Bane certainly was. Fashioning a chest and shoulders that can demolish metropolises without the aid of a nuclear warhead doesn’t only happen in the gym. This five-stage press-up circuit will blast your pecs, arms and shoulders to build superhuman size – even when you’re being kept in solitary for the safety of the other prisoners.
