(upbeat rock music)
- Hi everyone, I'm Henry Cavill and I play
Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher.
I'm here today to talk
about some of my training
and how it has differed over the years,
especially from movies
like Immortals and Superman
up until now in The Witcher.
I am going to show you some of
my movements with my trainer
that apply to my weights regime.
Every morning, I started
with fasted cardio
and then I did a weight training regime
which happened whenever I could fit
the workout in with my schedule.
And I am going to show you
some of those movements now.
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- This is my trainer Dave Rienzi and
he has guided me through,
a couple years now,
of various programs.
And for The Witcher in particular
we had to focus on things
which would support
the level of stunt work that I was doing.
- Absolutely, and really with
all the stunt work he's doing
the key foundation movement
we're going to incorporate
is the Romanian deadlift
to strengthen the posterior chain.
He's doing a four second
negative with this
and then a two second pause at the bottom
and then coming back up
and contracting the glutes.
And the whole key here is just maximizing
time under tension so he's able to fatigue
the muscles more but not overstress his
nervous system and his adrenals.
- Yeah, which helps
because the days are long
and it's important for me as an actor
to go through all of this,
whether it be in the morning
or the evening and still have the ability
to come to set and perform as an actor
to the highest level.
To have the endurance to
do all the stunts without getting injured
and to have the neurological capacity
to be a great partner to my show owner.
- [Dave] He's doing a four
second negative with this
and then a two second pause at the bottom
and then coming back up
and contracting the glutes.
What we do with this technique here is
I have him utilize a hip
circle above his knees.
So basically with incorporating that,
he's activating his glute medius
and really keeping the glutes activated
and fired the whole time.
(light techno music)
- [Dave] So the next
exercise we utilize in here
is the hyperextension.
We're actually doing this
on a glute ham machine
which is going to be more challenging
than a traditional hyperextension machine.
And what we are focusing
on here is isolation,
really contracting the glutes at the top,
holding each repetition for two seconds.
You're really continuing the conversation
of making sure the posterior chain
is as strong as possible.
- When it comes to the posterior chain
and the kind of stunts I have to do,
especially when it's
pirouettes with swords,
anything which is based
upon one leg movement
where a knee can have a bad injury
if you don't have that
good mediales engaged
or the posterior chain,
this stuff is what saves me.
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- [Dave] And the focus here is again on
isolating the posterior
chain, really activating
the glutes and the lower back.
He's preforming the repetitions by pausing
at the top for two seconds and really
squeezing and engaging those glutes.
And then his hands are behind his head
which actually makes the movement
a little bit more challenging,
engaging a little bit more
of the erectors as well.
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- Another key to Henry's training here
is really focusing on core strengths.
So this movement we are doing here is on
oblique static hold.
And what he's doing here,
he is extending his arms,
he is holding in his core tight
and basically what this
is allowing us to do is
activate the transverse abdominals
and the obliques at the same time.
He's also keeping his glutes engaged.
By extending his arms out and then inward,
he is making the movement
even more challenging.
So typically what we'll do is,
he'll hold it out here
for about 30 seconds
and then he'll go into extensions.
- And with this especially,
this helps with,
one, endurance when I
have to do a fight scene
over and over and over again with sword,
if I'm using a real sword,
real weighted sword.
It's very heavy and
requires lots of endurance
to do the moves safely
and perfectly each time.
And also allows for
nice explosive movement
which is, which is very
typical for The Witcher.
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- For this role, Henry needed
to do a lot of sword fighting.
So with the sword fighting,
the key for the training
was to really focus on the shoulders,
making sure the shoulders were strong
and then also that muscular endurance
is there for the shoulders.
This movement here is a variation of
side laterals and front raises.
So each repetition is
actually three repetitions.
He's starting out in the
traditional side lateral
for the first rep and
then he's coming a little
further forward for the next one
and then doing a traditional
front raise for the next one.
So this allows us to
target the medial deltoid
and the anterior deltoid in one movement.
- As Dave said, this really helps with
the sword fighting aspect.
Swords are typically very very heavy and
when you're using them all day long
over and over and over again everyday
it really does help to
have the muscular endurance
in the shoulders and the strength to
be able to move in explosive movements.
And also control because
when you're film fighting,
you are not going
through for kill strikes.
You're pulling the blow at the last second
but you have to keep that speed up,
between the striking moment
and the stopping moment
to make it look realistic.
And so the extra strength and endurance
in the shoulders really helps with that.
- [Dave] He's starting out in
the traditional side lateral
for the first rep, then he's coming
a little further forward for the next one
and then doing a traditional
front raise for the next one.
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- So this exercise we are preforming here
is going to be a dumbbell curl
alternating from a static hold.
- Yeah for the sword work in particular,
again it's, what this really
helps with is my forearms.
That constant time under pressure,
when you're holding a sword,
the first few takes are fine
but when you're into take 16 of the day
and you're doing very complex
movements with your wrists,
your, your forearm does start to die
and then you'll end up throwing swords
across the room rather
than making a swing.
And so it does make a
big difference to have
that muscular endurance
in the forearm especially.
With horse riding also,
this can make a difference
because if you have a
particularly powerful horse,
whether it be a stallion or anything else,
which is really really going for it,
to have that necessary
heave back on the bit,
it does help, it does help
to have extra strength there.
- [Dave] What's unique about this exercise
is it allows us to keep
the biceps under tension
for a longer period of time.
It allows us to get more
activation out of the formarms
and then also continue working
on that muscular endurance
that is so important for his role.
(light rock music)
- Right everyone, well that's it and
what we've shown you today has been a
selection of moves that is
not a workout in particular
but those are moves which
we put into 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
amount of calories going in.
So you do you and just
make sure each workout
is the hardest that you can do it.
Don't look at the person next to you,
just work out whether you worked as hard
as you could for that workout.
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