Scarlett Johansson got seriously buff for her role in Avengers: Endgame. Epic physical fitness is definitely a requirement for playing a super-hero. We shouldn’t be surprised, then, really, to hear straight from her person trainer that she essentially trained like an Olympic athlete.
Eric Johnson, co-founder of New York fitness business Homage, told Bazaar exactly what he got Scarlett to do to prep for one of Hollywood’s most physically demanding roles.
“Our inspiration for this iteration of Black Widow was Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2… Without the cigarette smoking, pounding the pavement for miles, and sleeping more than four hours a night,” he said.
He says he treated Scarlett like an athlete in training for a competition – the Olympics, perhaps. That meant a focus on “integrated foundational strength training” which took moves from plyometrics, kettle bell workouts, gymnastics, yoga and Olympic weight lifting. She did a lot of jumping, medicine ball throws, core work and bear crawls to build up impressive strength. Apparently Scarlett loves to do pull-ups, military presses, pistol squats, kettle bell swings and deadlifts (it makes us tired just to hear about it).
To make things even more intense, Scarlett also fasted for 12-15 hours at a time (You do you, Scarlett, but we couldn’t make it from breakfast to lunch without a snack and we like it that way).
Truly, we’ve never been more grateful to only be playing the role of “audience member, guzzling popcorn up the back” in the final instalment of the Avengers. We take our role very seriously and will be in training until further notice.
