Working out with weights can be a great way to strengthen muscles all over your body, but it’s not the only way. You can build muscle, work your core, and perfect your form with Chris Hemsworth’s dumbbell-free seven-move routine in just 15 minutes.
All you need to get started is a set of the best resistance bands. These make a great alternative to weights and most sets come with several bands of different strengths so you can still use the progressive overload training technique to increase the load as you get stronger.
Hemsworth uses a couple of bands from the Centr Workout Kit, which is currently on sale for $50 at Walmart, saving you $20 on the regular price. The kit is designed to complement the Centr workout app’s routines, but you can use any set of bands for your training.
It’s a high-intensity workout, so you’ll do each move for 40 seconds, take a 20-second rest, then start the next exercise. Hemsworth recommends repeating the seven-move circuit twice, but you can do four rounds for a more comprehensive full-body session if you’ve got the time.
However, it’s vital to do each exercise with proper form if you want to get the most from your training and avoid injury. Fortunately, Hemsworth demonstrates each move, so you can practice your technique before you launch into the seven-move high-intensity workout.
Watch Chris Hemsworth’s 7-move resistance band workout
Since it only takes 15 minutes, it’s an ideal workout when you’re tight on time, traveling, or away from home. It’s a form of high-intensity resistance training (HIRT), which is similar to high-intensity interval training (HIIT) but with a focus on muscle-building moves instead of cardio.
This is also my favorite way to exercise, as HIRT workouts often include several compound exercises, which work multiple muscles simultaneously to improve the efficiency of your training, so you can strengthen more of your body in less time.
Plus, keeping the breaks to a minimum helps raise your heart rate, so you burn more energy than during an equivalent steady-paced routine. Sustaining this high heart rate has longer-term impacts, like boosting your metabolism (the amount of energy you burn throughout the day).
If you’re worried that switching from weights to bands would affect your results, you needn’t be. When comparing resistance bands vs weights, the main difference is the maximum resistance — weights range up to higher loads — but bands are more affordable and portable.
And if you’re after more evidence of their effectiveness, Hemsworth used a resistance band workout to help get into impressively muscular shape for Thor: Love and Thunder — showing that banded resistance workouts are worth the time, even for superheroes.
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