Henry Cavill Explains His 'Witcher' Arm and Leg Workout | Train Like a Celebrity | Men's Health

(upbeat rock music) - Hello everyone, I'm Henry Cavill and I play Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher. I'm here today to talk about some of my

train

ing and how it's been different over the years, especially from movies like Immortals and Superman to now in The Witcher. I'm going to show you some of my moves with my

train

er that apply to my weight regimen. Every morning, I started with fasted cardio and then did a weight training regimen that I did whenever I could fit the

workout

into my schedule. And now I'm going to show you some of those moves. (upbeat pop music) - This is my coach Dave Rienzi and he has guided me, for a couple of years now, in various programs.

And for The Witcher in particular, we had to focus on things that supported the level of stunt work he was doing. -Absolutely, and really with all the acrobatic work he's doing, the key fundamental movement we're going to incorporate is the Romanian deadlift to strengthen the posterior chain. You do a four second negative pause with this and then a two second pause at the bottom and then come back up and contract your glutes. And the key here is to simply maximize your time under tension so that you can further fatigue your muscles but not overload your nervous system and adrenal glands. - Yes, which helps because the days are long and it is important for me as an actor to go through all this, whether in the morning or at night and still have the ability to come to the set and perform as an actor at the highest level .

Having the stamina to do all the stunts without getting injured and having the neurological ability to be a great partner for the owner of my program. - Do a four second negative pause with this and then a two second pause at the bottom and then come back up and contract your glutes. What we do with this technique here is I ask you to use a hip circle above your knees. Basically, by incorporating that, he activates his gluteus medius and really keeps his glutes engaged and activated all the time. (light techno music) - So the next exercise we use here is hyperextension.

We're actually doing this on a glute ham machine, which will be more challenging than a traditional hyperextension machine. And what we're focusing on here is isolation, really contracting the glutes at the top, holding each rep for two seconds. You're really continuing the conversation to make sure the posterior chain is as strong as possible. - When it comes to the posterior chain and the type of stunts I have to do, especially when it comes to sword pirouettes, anything that relies on the movement of a leg where a knee can have a serious injury if you don't have good medial. hooked or the posterior chain, this is what saves me. (upbeat rock music) - And the focus here is again on isolating the posterior chain, really activating the glutes and lower back.

He's performing the reps by pausing at the top for two seconds and really squeezing and activating those glutes. And then his hands are behind his head, which actually makes the movement a little more challenging, engaging the erectors a little more as well. (bright rock music) - Another key to Henry's training here is to really focus on core strengths. So this movement we're doing here is in static oblique hold. And what he's doing here is extending his arms, keeping his core tight, and basically what this allows us to do is activate the transverse abdominals and the obliques at the same time.

He also keeps his glutes engaged. By extending his arms outward and then inward, he makes the move even more challenging. Typically what we'll do is you'll hold it here for about 30 seconds and then you'll do extensions. - And with this especially, this helps with, one, the stamina when I have to do a fight scene over and over again with a sword, if I'm using a real sword, a real weighted sword. It is very heavy and requires a lot of stamina to perform the movements safely and perfectly every time. And it also allows for some nice explosive movement, which is very typical of The Witcher. (intense rock music) (upbeat rock music) - For this role, Henry needed to do a lot of sword fighting.

So with sword fighting, the key to training was to really focus on the shoulders, making sure that the shoulders were strong and also that the muscular endurance was there for the shoulders. This move here is a variation of the laterals and front raises. So each rep is actually three reps. You start with the traditional lateral movement for the first rep and then go a little further for the next one and then do a traditional front raise for the next one. This allows us to target the medial deltoid and the anterior deltoid in one movement. - Like Dave said, this really helps with the sword fighting aspect.

Swords are usually very heavy and when you use them all day long over and over again every day, it really helps to have the muscular endurance in your shoulders and the strength to be able to move in explosive movements. And it also controls because when you're filming fights, you're not looking for deadly attacks. You're hitting at the last second, but you have to maintain speed between the moment of the hit and the moment of the parry to make it look realistic. And the extra strength and endurance in the shoulders really helps with that. - Start on the traditional lateral for the first rep, then move forward a little further for the next one, and then do a traditional front raise for the next one. (upbeat rock music) - So this exercise we're doing here is going to be a dumbbell curl alternating with a static hold. - Yes, for sword work in particular, again, what really helps is with my forearms.

That constant time under pressure, when you're holding a sword, the first few shots are fine, but when you're on the 16th shot of the day and you're doing very complex movements with your wrists, your forearm starts to die and then you'll end up throwing swords across the room. instead of making a move. And that's why it makes a big difference to have that muscular resistance especially in the forearm. With horsemanship too, this can make a difference because if you have a particularly powerful horse, whether it's a stallion or anything else, that's really up for it, having that necessary push back helps.

It helps to have extra strength there. - The special thing about this exercise is that it allows us to keep the biceps tense for longer. It allows us to get more activation out of the arms and then also continue working on that muscular resistance that is so important for their role. (light rock music) - Well, that's it and what we have shown you today has been a selection of movements that are not a particular

workout

, but are movements that we put in the workouts depending on which muscle group or muscle. groups, we are working for that particular day.

The most important thing to remember is that you are you. Everyone has a different genetic makeup, everyone is at a different stage of fitness or training or even has a different number of calories. So go for it and make sure each workout is the hardest you can do. Don't look at the person next to you, just determine if you worked as hard as you could for that workout. (upbeat drum music)