Christian Bale Workout Routine for Batman

How Did Christian Bale Bulk Up So Quick?

The short answer is intensive bodyweight workouts and intensive resistance/weight training workouts. Not only is Bale’s character extremely muscular, he is also well toned, with low body fat levels. This takes an immense amount of work to achieve.

Christian Bale had a harder task than most to get his body from a skinny frame to a muscular and athletic build. Due to his restrictive dieting for The Machinist, actually starvation at one point, his metabolism was very low, which makes it much harder to fuel the body to workout hard enough to start building muscle.

Christian Bale's workout for Batman consisted of compound, explosive exercises. He performed, power cleans, jump squats, high pulls, and explosive bench press. These exercises helped maintain Batman's speed and agility. Some other good compound exercises include squat, deadlift, and military press. Bale's workout also included fat burning cardio in the form of running each day to ensure that he did not put on too much fat.

Christian Bale Workout

Christian’s workout consisted of compound exercises with power moves to allow him the quick speed and manoeuvrability with his fight scenes. All major exercises were divided into a 3 day sequence with one day of active rest.

Day 1:
Chin ups superset with cable rows. 4 sets of 10-12 reps each.
Power Clean with barbell up to chest. 4 sets with increasing weights – 12, 10, 8, 6 reps
Snatch Hang High Pull where the exercise is similar to a power clean but you do not catch it at the top so it is one fluid movement. 4 sets with increasing weights – 12, 10, 8, 6 reps

Day 2:
Sprinting: 5 sets of 30 meters, followed by 5 sets of 40 meters. Rest 60 second between sets.
Squat jump with arms crossed over your chest (can do this with a weighted medicine ball to increase difficulty. 4 sets of 10 reps.
Reverse Lunges. 4 sets of 10 reps.

Day 3:
Dumbbell Flyes . 3 sets of 12 reps
Bench Press with Smith Machine . 3 sets of 12 reps.
Stability Ball Push-Ups. 4 sets of 10 reps.
Close Grip Pulldowns. 4 sets of 10 reps.
Deadlift. 4 sets with increasing weights – 12, 10, 8, 6 reps

Day 4:
10-20 laps swimming and 30 minute stretching session.

Repeat the above schedule after one day rest.