When I grow up, I want to be Luke Zocchi. The sparky-turned-trainer has managed to make fitness his life, traveling the world with best mate Thor (aka Chris Hemsworth), and shaping the best bodies in Hollywood history. In short, he is living the dream. And there isn’t a bloke in the world who deserves it more.
Although famous for building the world’s greatest bodies, Zocchi is a weapon in his own right. Educated, charismatic and motivating it’s easy to see why he’s the go-to trainer for some of Marvel’s biggest superheroes, including key members of the Marvel Universe. He’s the kind of bloke that you’d definitely turn to for fitness advice.
Over the years, we’ve been fortunate enough to hit a few sessions with the Asgardian God-Builder, however the first time we met for Men’s Health Australia, we suitably hit a cheeky arm session – something of a specialty given his clientele.
According to Zocc, on his last few Marvel outings “[Hemsworth] wanted to be big, obviously, but wanted to be more functional. He hated being big and not being able to move. We still did traditional body building, but added in a lot more functional movements.” Zocchi attributes the incredible agility during his final Avengers fight scenes to this combination of lifting and functional body weight movements.
Luke’s training philosophy is very much quality over quantity. “Me and Chris never train for more than an hour a day. Never more than that,” he explains. “We’d lift 3-4 times a week and hit the main muscle groups. We try to do something a little different each time, otherwise it gets boring.”
As for building Hemsworth’s famous guns, these days Luke and his infamous workouts can be found on Hemsworth’s app, Centr. But these kind of workouts come with a stern warning from Zocc;
“Be careful leaving the gym, you may get caught in the doorway. For your own safety, exit all doorways in a parallel manner.”
Thor’s Arm Pump
Perform all sets as supersets
*A superset is when one set of an exercise is performed directly after a set of a different exercise without rest between them. Once each superset is complete, then rest for one and a half to two minutes to recover before repeating 4 times.
Superset A (complete 4 rounds)
15 x Standing cable bicep curl
15 x Standing cable tricep bar push down
Superset B (complete 4 rounds)
15 x Standing dumbbell curls
15 x Bench tricep dumbbell skull crushers
Superset C (complete 4 rounds)
15 x Seated dumbbell incline curls
15 x Cable tricep rope push downs
A version of this article originally appeared on Men’s Health Australia.