Sucker Punch Workout

Everyone is talking about the intense workouts that the young stars Vanessa Hudgens (“High School Musical”), Emily Browning (“Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events”), Abbie Cornish, Jena Malone, and Jamie Chung underwent filming Zack Synder’s (“300″) “Sucker Punch” (March 25, 2011) – a movie described as “Alice in Wonderland” with guns…or “300″ with chicks:)

Training for Sucker Punch

Training for Sucker Punch was no joke. The actresses trained with hardcore trainer Logan Hood in LA (now with Epoch Training but previously of Gym Jones, where Mark Twight trained the actors for “300.”) five weeks before filming and then continued training for months until the movie wrapped.

Sucker Punch Training Video

The goals of training for Sucker Punch included:

Gaining strength and endurance which would allow the actresses to perform their stunts over and over again. Keep in mind, a single action scene can require a day or more to shoot perfectly. This means your average action star has to repeat those crazy stunts perfectly and with peak energy all day.

Looking believable – this means learning martial arts basics, fight choreography, and being able to pull of complicated moves with speed and confidence.

The average day for each actress included:

Morning:

Three hours of martial arts and fight choreography

Afternoon:

Two hours of functional training (calisthenics, weights, body-weight pullups and pushups, box jumps, pulling tires) and at least one hour of firearms training.

“The great thing about all the training was that it gave us a new self-confidence, taking us to places we’d never been to before, both physically and mentally,” says Vanessa Hudgens.

How to Train Just Like Vanessa Hudgens in Sucker Punch

If you want to get a look like Vanessa Hudgens, Emily Browning, or any of the other cute stars of Sucker Punch you are going to want to -

Focus on doing intense interval circuit training that includes strength training and fat blasting exercises.

Don’t be afraid to lift heavy. During training all of the actresses (who are tiny by the way) worked up to deadlifting 180lbs! As you can see, none of the actresses bulked up.

Why?

Partly this was due to choosing the right exercises. For the most part, focusing on full body exercises like deadlifts versus lifting heavy on isolated muscle exercises – think bicep curl -like bodybuilders do, pretty much eliminates the risk of bulking up. If you are doing full body exercises you are getting stronger and burning calories – not getting bigger. (I really like working out with kettlebells for this. Kettlebells are becoming more and more popular as they are able to get most women fit and lean in a lot less time, click here to read an earlier post on women and kettlebells.) Just want to get lean (and look cute in your own corset?) Then I would keep it simple with Visual Impact for Women or Fit Yummy Mummy – cause Moms can still be hot too!

The other important factor is watching your diet. Most of the time when women think they are bulking up with muscle, its actually just excess fat on top of the muscles. Cleaning up your diet and avoiding overeating usually does the trick. To get lean for Sucker Punch, Vanessa Hudgens regularly ate-

Breakfast:

Egg white omlettes with veg or oatmeal with almonds and fruit
Lunch/Dinner:

Grilled chicken or salmon on top of a spinach salad with almonds, feta, and light vinaigrette.

Vanessa Hudgens Sucker Punch Inspired Workout

You will need:

• Kettlebells or free weights ranging from 12lbs to 24lbs each.
• 12-24in step

Do this circuit three times per week, complete each exercise and move to the next with little to no rest, then rest a couple minutes and start over. Do 2-3 times through.

The Exercises
Farmers walks (two 25lb kettlebells in each hand) walk at moderate pace for 2min. (First exercise in video below.)

Weighted carries (same as farmer walk but one hand raised straight above your head – walk for 1 min, then switch arms and walk 1min more)
Goblet squat (15-20 reps)

Up/Down plank (16-20 reps) get in push up position with a 12 in step in front, place right hand on top of box, then left, then returns hands to starting position one at a time)

Box jump (20-25) stand facing a box, jump onto step using arms to propel you

Push press (15-20 reps 1 side)

Important note: Vanessa also did kettlebell training. Check out this previous post on that topic to get a good introduction of the exercises typically done…)

Rope training was also done as a regular part of training - this is typically done by athletes and mixed martial artists for fat loss and conditioning:

If you also want to get fit and lean, I recommend you check out Visual Impact for Women.