Hugh Jackman, known for his popular role as Wolverine in the X-Men movies, has noticeably bulked up for the X-Men origins movie. Most will recall seeing Hugh rise from the water where he strikes almost a most muscular pose revealing insane vascularity and muscular definition.  

It has been reported that Hugh Jackman is able to bench press 315 pounds, which is very surprising for an actor. His workout plan consists of two phases: a phase for gaining muscle and a phase for gaining strength. Here are the two phases used in his workout routine, referenced from squidoo.

Gaining Muscle Phase: Hugh Jackman’s trainer changed the tempo that Hugh had been lifting to force the muscles to adapt; to force the muscles to grow. He had Hugh lift the weight for 3 seconds up and one second down. At first this limited the amount of weight he could lift, but as he adapted it help him put on a lot of lean mass.

Strength Training Phase: This phase was all about lifting as heavy as possible with no rules on tempo. He just wanted to see how heavy he could go. The great thing about the previous phase is that it made these weights seem lighter. Hugh actually was benching 315 for reps before filming began.

These two phases were alternated every 5 months.

Hugh Jackmans routine for maintaining muscle and getting lean:

The last week of each phase, Hugh would lift only once per week and concentrate hard on interval cardio. These workouts were intense and meant to help him burn off any little bit of fat he accumulated during the 6 weeks of each phase while maintaining muscle.

He didn’t want to follow a typical bodybuilder routine, because he needed to have a sleek strong look, not slow and bulky. This is why he would take part in an hour and a half bootcamp every Friday. It was brutal bodyweight and interval style training to boost the metabolism and keep him lean while gaining strength.

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