Tom Hiddleston<\/a> and Chris Hemsworth<\/a> both trained hard to step into the roles of Loki and Thor respectively \u2013 but their training looked quite different.<\/p>\n While Hemsworth focused on building strength with heavy weights, Hiddleston prioritised running and speed.<\/p>\n ‘If Thor was like a rock, Loki was like water,’ he explains in this month’s edition of Men’s Health<\/em>. ‘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.’<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n ‘It was 100 pull-ups<\/a>, 100 press-ups<\/a>, 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!’<\/p>\n While the workout gave the two Marvel stars a chance to compete, it’s also an excellent muscle-building session, says Men’s Health<\/em> fitness director Andrew Tracey.<\/p>\n ‘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<\/a>, and vital when the resistance is low,’ he says.<\/p>\n ‘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.’<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n If you don’t have access to a rowing machine<\/a>, swap the 1,000m row for a 1km ru<\/a>n. It delivers a similar aerobic challenge, which is exactly what you’re trying to achieve.<\/p>\nWhy the Workout Is So Effective<\/h2>\n
\nRead our full interview with Tom Hiddleston at this link<\/a>. You can subscribe to Men’s Health <\/em>by clicking here<\/a>.<\/h2>\n
![\"men's](\"https:\/\/hips.hearstapps.com\/hmg-prod\/images\/1ccebe40-89cd-4965-8b0b-056d3bd82560.jpg?resize=980:*\" "\\"men's")
<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"Headshot](\"https:\/\/hips.hearstapps.com\/scribe-users-prod\/user_images\/59c04777-8640-419f-ad22-0bcab5c6f143.jpg?fill=1:1&resize=120:*\" "\\"Headshot")
<\/span><\/p>\n