I’m a Superman guy. There are Batman guys, Wolverine guys, but Superman has always been my favorite superhero. What’s discerning is, there’s never been a man befitting of the title, Man of Steel, who’s played Mr. Kent on the silver screen. That is, until now. Henry Cavill is the first guy to play Superman who’s taken his craft seriously enough to add muscle. He not only acts like the Man of Steel, he actually looks like him. It’s refreshing. And this commitment looks like it’s going to revive a franchise that needs a solid shot in the arm.

We’ve done other superhero workouts on this site including the Bane Workout, to the Avengers Workout. Both have been a success, and were fun to give to you guys, but this one takes the cake. The focus of these workouts is always to build a body like the superhero. We take their strongest attributes, and create a program around them. For past programs we focused on things like the Hulk’s incredible strength, or Thor’s power, but Superman is different.

He possesses speed, power, strength, endurance, and agility. There’s no single attribute we can focus on that will suffice, we need to focus on them all. And not only that, as Cavill did, we have to build muscle to have the “show” along with the “go”.

To create a program that has every characteristic mentioned is no small order. But that’s exactly what we’ll do.

The Man of Steel Workout

For the Man of Steel Workout we’ll use a 5 day split to cover everything we need to cover. We’ll have muscle building cadences (tempos), as well as cadences and exercises that will improve your power and athleticism. We’ll also add finishers to the end of every workout to improve agility and endurance.

Do this program for 4 weeks and, by the end, you’ll feel as though the energy from the sun gives you super powers as well. Let’s proceed.

What you need to know…

Cadences: For the muscle building portions of the workouts, we’ll be using different cadences on the eccentric portions of the exercise. This will increase the time under tension of the exercise, helping us break through plateaus and create more muscle damage during a set, which will help us build more overall muscle.

Wherever it gives a “4 sec cadence”, that means you’ll be using a 4 second tempo on the eccentric contraction of the exercise.

Eccentric Contraction: This is the aspect of the exercise where the muscle lengthens, so this isn’t the “curl” of a biceps curl where the muscle is shortening, but the way back down where the muscle lengthens. It’s also the way down of a chin up, squat, deadlift, and bench press, and the way up on a cable pulldown.

Giant & Super Sets: We’ll be combining a lot of our sets in this program to increase the lactic acid build up in the muscles we’re working. This will, by correlation, naturally raise our growth hormone (GH) levels as well.

Every exercise that’s laid out following the same letter, but a different number, is a part of the same set. So if you see “A1.” then “A2.”, complete A1., then immediately move on to A2., with rest only coming after both exercises have been completed.

The Warm-up

For every workout we’ll be doing the same warm-up. It’s an athletic warm up that will prepare your body for the rigors of the program. Perform 3 sets of the following set as your warm-up for the Man of Steel Workout.

Day 1. Full Body Pushes

Focus of set: to Build Muscle

A1. Bench Press – 8 reps. 4 second cadence.

A2. Lateral Raise – 12 reps. 3 second cadence.

A3. Rear Delt Raise – 20 reps. no cadence.

Rest: 60 seconds. Repeat Set 3x

Focus of the set: to Improve Power & Athleticism

B1. Squat – 6 reps

B2. Clap Push-ups – failure

Rest: 60 seconds. Repeat Set 3x

Focus of the set: to Build Muscle

C1. Front Squat – 12 reps. 4 second cadence.

C2. Hack Squat – 15 reps. no cadence.

C3. Seated Calf Raise – 12 reps. 4 second cadence.

Rest: 60 seconds. Repeat Set 3x

Focus of the set: to Improve Power & Athleticism

B1. Floor Press – 6 reps

B2. Dips – failure

Rest: 120 seconds. Repeat Set 3x

Finisher

50 Burpees (done as fast as possible)

Day 2. Full Body Pulls

Focus of set: to Build Muscle

A1. Pull-ups – 8 reps. 4 second cadence.

A2. Upright Row – 12 reps. 3 second cadence.

A3. Inverted Row – failure. no cadence.

Rest: 60 seconds. Repeat Set 3x

Focus of the set: to Improve Power & Athleticism

B1. Deadlift – 6 reps

B2. Knuckle Push-ups – failure

Rest: 60 seconds. Repeat Set 3x

Focus of the set: to Build Muscle

C1. RDLs – 12 reps. 4 second cadence.

C2. Yates Row – 15 reps. no cadence.

C3. Barbell Curl – 12 reps. 4 second cadence.

Rest: 60 seconds. Repeat Set 3x

Focus of the set: to Improve Power & Athleticism

B1. Power Clean – 6 reps

B2. Chin-ups – failure

Rest: 60 seconds. Repeat Set 3x

Finisher

10 push-up to chin-ups (done as fast as possible) – rest, 30 seconds and repeat 3x. Continue on Page 2 >>>