You know Matt Bomer from his role on FX’s American Horror Story: Hotel, but we’ll guarantee that your significant other discovered him first in 2012’s Magic Mike (and came back for seconds in the equally steamy sequel, Magic Mike XXL). And though wearing a thong might not be your goal, you probably wouldn’t mind getting that physique, either. So we got a sampling of the routine that Bomer used to beef up his chest and arms for those roles, courtesy of his trainer, Ryan Farhoudi.
“The point of emphasis is time under tension,” a method of training in which the reps are performed at a controlled speed, says Farhoudi. The longer your muscles are exposed to a challenging load, the better they receive the message to adapt to the work by growing. The training itself is nothing out of the ordinary—back-to-back sets of bodybuilding exercises that work the target muscles—but the “magic,” so to speak, lies in the rep speed.
“I say slow down [to clients] more than anything else,” says Farhoudi. “Go into the burn and you’ll grow.”
Directions
Perform the exercises marked “A,” “B,” and “C” in sequence: You’ll do one set of each, and rest only after C. The remaining exercises are done as straight sets.
Important training note: For exercises 1A through 2C, take four seconds to lower the weight and four to raise it up. On exercise 3, take three seconds on each phase of the rep.
