Becoming Bane – Tom Hardy’s workout for The Dark Knight Rises
[ads1 id=”alignright”]The Dark Knight Rises broke record after record since the day of its release, which speaks volumes about the movie’s quality.
Part of that quality was owed to the actors, because as we all know, the cast of TDKR was absolutely stellar. Now all characters were believable and well-structured, but the Bane character stands out the most.
As Bane, actor Tom Hardy pulled off one of his best performances, which was mainly due to how well he fitted the profile of this infamous supervillain. Tom’s journey towards becoming Bane wasn’t an easy one however, as he had to go through a very rigorous workout routine.
Tom Hardy is well known at this point for his transformations over the years, and how well he managed to transform himself into his character through hard work and determination. For his Bane character however, he had only three months to prepare. This meant that he had to find the right people to help him reach his goals, as well as giving it his best in training over what undoubtedly was a short period of time for such a project. Tom’s objective was to gain 30 pounds (13kg) by the end of his three months training regime, which is exactly what he did.
In order to become as bulk as Bane, Hardy had to do 4 workouts every day, about 20 minutes each. They were spread out throughout the day starting first thing in the morning, near lunch time, in the afternoon, and immediately after sunset. These sessions would involve body building routines and compound lifts, which were required to increase muscle mass. Unlike the longer sessions, these 20 minutes ones are designed to provide constant injections of testosterone and stimulate growth hormone production. In fact, the 5 sets of 5 reps is the perfect way to develop an impressive muscle mass within a short period of time.
Hardy’s training routine involved press-ups, shoulder flues, dips, the bridge, and abdominal workout done four times a day in sessions of 20 minutes each. Over the course of his training, he used up to five different workout routines, each focused on a different area of his body.
- The first routine involved dead lifts, skull crushers, bench presses, military presses, and triceps dips.
- The second one involved step ups, squats, power cleans, medicine ball slams, and sitting dumbbell shoulder presses.
- The third one focused on renegade rows, chest flies, pull ups, and walking lunge.
- The fourth routine incorporated dead lifts, bench presses, hang cleans, and chin ups.
- The fifth and last routine involved bent over rows, dumbbell snatch, and Romanian dead lifts.
In order for this training to catch on, he had to keep a diet of high protein foods, which included carbs and fats. This diet wasn’t supposed to give him a lean body but a bulk one, so the fats are understandable in this context. During these three months, he would eat around 4 thousand calories a day, the majority of which came from chicken and rice. In an interview, Tom said that he had to eat a lot of junk food as well, as this is the perfect way to put on weight quickly.
