For his role as the eponymous Bronson — a bare knuckle boxer who has, during his incarceration, attacked over 20 guards and fellow prisoners and managed to take 11 hostages in a 40-year sentence — Hardy used a one-two punch of a high-calorie diet and simple, bodyweight moves that would mimic sporadic cell workouts to achieve his hulking physique. Simply, a mix of press-ups, ab work and simple resistance training. Often, these would add up to 1000 reps.
"My approach was to do a lot of repetitions in order to send messages to my muscles: this helps them start to grow in a way that you can’t make them in the gym. To achieve dense muscle, you need a specific kind of training," Hardy said to AskMen.
"Also, to ‘become’ Charlie Bronson I had to quickly put a lot of weight quickly on my forearms, chest and neck. By the time I’d finished, my legs looked like those of a stork in comparison to the top half of my body.”
At this point, it's worth remembering that, in Hardy's words, his transformation for Bronson was "a race against the clock: We didn’t have any time to waste, so I started eating and my arse very quickly got very fat. For Bronson, I put on about 7lbs a week – with no steroids. In the end I’d put on about 2 and a half stone by eating chicken and rice, which was my staple diet throughout the day."
"Then I’d have a pizza, Häagen-Dazs and Coca-Cola: So not good stuff, but I had to put weight on. I needed to put a layer of fat on my body, because Bronson when he was younger was a big guy, a brawler. My diet was lenient as we weren’t going for the Bruce Lee look and we weren’t looking for the cut.”
For his role as 'Bane' in 2012's The Dark Knight rises, he followed a relatively similar — and, frankly, more achievable — format for his workouts, utilising a prison cell-friendly bulk-up "matrix" to, once again, stack muscle on to his chest, arms and shoulders. Using a descending 'ladder' format, Hardy would hit a four-round circuit, going from 10 reps in the first round, to 7 to 5 and to 3. Here's what it looked like:
The Square
10, 7, 5, 3 Reps
Position your palms so they’re ‘square’ with your shoulders. Keep your elbows tucked in, moving alongside your torso to detonate your triceps.
The Rectangle
10, 7, 5, 3 Reps
Set your hands wide apart, so that when you lower your chest to the floor your arms, chest and the floor form a rectangle.
The Eagle
10, 7, 5, 3 Reps
Start in the same position as above, but this time spread your fingers as you lower and turn them outwards. Take the pain.
The Kong
10, 7, 5, 3 Reps
Assume a press-up position on your knuckles, your arms at shoulder-width. Lower your chest to the floor, letting your elbows bend back like a grasshopper’s legs. This is a final killer on your shoulders
The Diamond
10, 7, 5, 3 Reps
Place your thumbs and index fingers together in a diamond shape. Lower your chest to the centre of the diamond, then push back up again. Breathe raggedly.
This article originally appeared on Men's Health
