Christian Bale has proven that he is more than just a pretty face in his roles at Batman. In Batman Begins we saw how his journey began, with his gruelling martial arts tuition to improve his fighting skills. In the Dark Knight, his body is still in perfect condition. But few people realise that Christian Bale only had six weeks between filming the machinist, where he played an anorexic insomniac, to Batman Begins, where he played a super fit super hero.

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So, how did Batman Get Fit?

The short answer is intensive cardio 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.

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, 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.

Batman is famous for his martial arts, and martial arts training would have been required to help build his fitness and strength. Martial arts are one of the best forms of interval circuit training. By its nature a martial arts class or training session involves period of intense activity followed by gentler exercises, and also interspersed with compound weight bearing exercise. Squats and lunges and ideal exercises for building athletic thighs and legs, and boxing and grappling is an excellent way to strengthen and tone the upper body,

One of the things that makes Batman one of the most popular comic book heroes, is that he does not have any “super powers”. Bruce Wayne is just a man who is driven to fight for justice, and utilises a combination of martial arts and high-tech gadgetry to fight crime under the mask of the Batman. Anyone could become like Batman if they spent the time and energy required to train their bodies and minds into a ultimate fighting machine.

Fighting in reality is never as glamorous as it appears on screen. There have been some classic kung-fu moments on screen when the hero is forced to perform gruelling and painful exercises to become masterful fighters - such as Jackie Chan in The Drunken Master and Uma Thurman in Kill Bill Vol.2 (the cruel tutelage of Pei Mei) - but generally fighting appears easy. This is not the reality though. Real fighters have to train extremely hard to reach the top of their game. Some of the fittest athletes are professional boxers. What does this mean for would be Batmen and Batwomen? To get a body like Christian Bale, you need to work hard.

Batman’s Fitness Workouts:

The best workouts to follow to get a body like Batman would probably be a combination of Bruce Lee’s strength training and Sly Stallone’s training. Also plyometric workouts used by boxers would also be required to improve speed and agility. Bruce Lee had one of the most athletic bodies of any actor ever seen on screen, and Sly Stallone’s training was designed to bulk him up to look the part in Rocky 2. Christian Bale’s physique in Batman Returns and The Dark Knight is really a good combination of these two systems. The keys areas are:

• Compound Weight Training
• Intensive Interval Training
• Explosive Plyometric Circuit Training

With this is mind, here is a workout routine that will get you strong, fast, agile and flexible like The Batman. The workout is split over three days, so can be repeated once a week with an extra day rest after Day 1 which involves the greatest load bearing exercise:

Christian Bales Batman Workout - 3 Day Split:

For each of these exercises aim to complete three sets of 8-12 repetitions. Ideally the final set should allow you to work to failure, or close to failure. Ensure plenty of rest between sets of exercises, unless they are supersetted.

Batman Workout Day 1:

• Chin-ups supersetted with bent over rows
  This superset is used as a warm-up before the main compound exercises are done. Chin-ups and bent over rows are both compound movements which work the upper body well and also provide large range of motion. Chin-ups / pull ups are a great power exercise. Unfortunately being even just a little overweight can make the exercise extremely difficult. Modified pull ups are of course allowed to ensure that the workout is completed. If you prefer cable rows can be performed instead of bent over rows.
• Squats
  Squats are considered by many to be the pièce de résistance for any successful strength training program. They are the key exercise in the MotleyHealth Core Four workout, which is designed for quick strength gains and fat loss.

• High Pulls
  With the “high pull” a barbell is lifted quickly from the floor by extending the hips and knees. As the bar reaches the knees, the shoulders are rapidly raised while keeping the barbell close to the thighs, and then the body is extended with a small jump movement. Elbows are flexed out to the sides, pulling bar up to neck height. This is an explosive movement, similar to a clean, but without the squatting movement. Start with a light bar to ensure that you are comfortable with the movement, before adding weight. A fuller description of the high pull is available on ExRx.
• Clean and Press
  The clean and press is a good exercise for overall mass building as well as power, most of the major muscle groups are utilized during the execution of this movement. To perform, a barbell is lifted from the floor to the chest in one continuous motion. Once it reaches the chest, the bar is the pressed overhead.

Batman Workout Day 2:

• Sprints - Speed Training
  Day 2 is dedicated to speed training and intensive cardio / interval training. Sprinting is an excellent form of field interval training. Utilise a football pitch to help pace out your sprints. Start out jogging around a field / pitch at a comfortable pace, and then when ready sprint flat out over a set distance. The length of a football pitch (or width) is ideal. After the spring, return to jogging, recover, and then repeat. Aim to build up the number of sprints completed in a session, and then aim to increase speed.
• Squat jumps
  The squat jump is exactly as it sounds - a squat followed by an explosive jump. In a normal squat a weight is lowered on the shoulders until the back of the thighs are almost horizontal, and then the bar/weight is slowly raised. With a squat jump, the lift is explosive, with the aim to lift the body onto the toes and leave the ground momentarily. An excellent plyometric exercise. Ideally a heavy punch bag should be used instead of a bar to avoid shoulder/neck injury.
• Lunges

Lunges are another excellent leg strengthening exercise. Either perform with a barbell across the shoulders, or two dumbbells (this builds grip strength). Or perform bodyweight lunges to build up muscular endurance.

Batman Workout Day 3:

• Dumbbell Flyes followed by Bench Press
  Start the sessions with flyes as a pre-exhaust, followed quickly with bench press. The bench press is another of the Motley Health Core Four weight training exercises.
• Clap Push Ups

Clap Push-Ups are an explosive way to perform push ups. Like the squat jumps, they turn a slow steady exercise into an fast, plyometric one. Simple start as with a normal push up in the plank position, lower your body until the chest just touches the floor, then raise quickly with the arms, and rapidly push up so that your hands leave the floor, clap once, and land, and repeat. If this is too much, then start with standard puch ups, but perform them as quickly as possible.

• Lateral Jumps
  Lateral jumps are a simple but intensive cardio workout. Like skipping, they build muscular endurance in the legs, allowing you to keep moving for longer - essential for martial artists and boxers. A great power exercise. To work up from this, box jumps can be added - simply a sideways (lateral) jump up onto a box (e.g. Reebok stepper)

Batman’s Diet:

Diet would have played an important role in such an intensive training regime. Meals need to have a good balance of quality protein sources, and carbs in the form of salads, vegetables and fruits, while maintaining low blood sugar levels to ensure that fat is burnt and not stored. A starvation diet is no good for building muscle and getting fit, in fact when working out intensively calorific consumption generally needs to be higher than average.

Christian Bale is a vegetarian, so whereas most people can take their protein from lean meats Bale would have been concentrating on high quality protein from eggs, cottage cheese, fat free cheese, milk and protein shakes. Supplementing the diet with nutritional snacks and drinks is often essential during intensive regimes, especially for vegetarians.

When working so intensively, meals need to be eaten more often, to ensure a constant supply of energy and proteins to the muscles. Bale would have had to eat every 3 hours to ensure that he was building and repairing muscle tissue, rather than wearing it down.

For an alternative workout, Diet.com have have created a Super Heroes Workout routine:

To conclude, with determination and a bit of knowledge, anyone can shape up like our favourite superhero Batman. Superior fitness is attainable for most people if they can maintain the gruelling fitness regimes required. You too can be Batman.