Tom Hiddleston and Chris Hemsworth both trained hard to step into the roles of Loki and Thor respectively – but their training looked quite different.

While Hemsworth focused on building strength with heavy weights, Hiddleston prioritised running and speed.

‘If Thor was like a rock, Loki was like water,’ he explains in this month’s edition of Men’s Health. ‘Chris was interested in heavyweight boxing and having that sense of enormous power and speed and strength. And Loki would be his ideal partner because he was agile and fast.’

But despite their different approaches, the pair still found themselves competing from time to time. In fact, Hiddleston revealed there was one workout they regularly tackled together on set that sparked some healthy sibling rivalry.

‘It was 100 pull-ups, 100 press-ups, 1,000m row and 100 squats for time,’ Hiddleston explained. ‘He’d always had me on the pull-ups, and I had him on the row!’

Why the Workout Is So Effective

While the workout gave the two Marvel stars a chance to compete, it’s also an excellent muscle-building session, says Men’s Health fitness director Andrew Tracey.

‘This type of high-volume bodyweight work, where you’re working against the clock (or racing against the God of Thunder), means you’re taking each set extremely close to failure, ideal for muscle-building, and vital when the resistance is low,’ he says.

‘Throw in the row, and you’re also forced to work under fatigue, building a bigger engine and muscles that are as much “go” as they are “show”. Those 100 squats straight off the rower are going to be absolutely brutal, making what should have been the easiest set of 100 potentially the hardest. The trick here is keeping the reps clean as fatigue builds by controlling the tempo and using the full range of motion. Anything less and you’re just getting sweaty for the sake of it.’

The good news is that the workout is easy to scale to your current fitness level. One hundred pull-ups is a huge amount of volume, so if you can’t manage 10-15 unbroken reps, Tracey recommends reducing the target to 50. You could also halve the entire workout on days when you’re already feeling fatigued.

If you don’t have access to a rowing machine, swap the 1,000m row for a 1km run. It delivers a similar aerobic challenge, which is exactly what you’re trying to achieve.

Read our full interview with Tom Hiddleston at this link. You can subscribe to Men’s Health by clicking here.

Lauren Geall is deputy site editor for Women’s Health UK and Men’s Health UK. She graduated from Exeter University with a BA in English Literature before studying an MA in Magazine Journalism at City, University London. She’s been writing about health, fitness and wellbeing for over five years, with a total of seven years in digital journalism. Prior to her current role, she worked at Stylist as the acting health and fitness editor. As well as being a keen runner, Lauren is passionate about women’s sport and can often be found cheering on Arsenal Women at the Emirates or keeping tabs on the Red Roses’ latest win.