If you've recently had a look a Brie Larson's Instagram, you would have seen how strong she has become since filming for Captain Marvel. Her trainer, Jason Walsh, gave fans an inside look at how he transformed Brie into a real-life superhero.
Brie's Diet
The diet that Brie followed in order to transform into her character, Carol Danvers, was carefully thought out between her trainer, Jason, and another registered dietitian and MD. "For the first phase of training, I send every client to my colleague and good friend, who is a registered dietitian and MD, and they do blood work," said Jason. The main purpose of this is to determine whether the client has hormonal issues which help determine the training and diet program he builds for them. After he receives the results, he has a much better understanding of how the client's body is functioning.
At the start, Jason had Brie in a calorie deficit to decrease her body fat percentage. "It didn't take us too long to get her where we wanted her body composition," Jason said. Once her body composition was at the desired level, Jason increased her daily caloric intake. He did this to help fuel her intense new workouts. Jason said that the lower body fat percentage helps with nutrient pairing "meaning the body is more efficient at dealing with carbohydrates." Lucky for Brie, she wasn't put on a highly restrictive diet. Jason said that he encouraged Brie to eat a lot of carbs for energy!
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Brie's Training
You can see a few videos of her crazy training regimen for the movie on her Instagram, including ones of her pushing a 5,000-pound truck, doing heavy barbell thrusts, and push-ups with chains. "So first off, everything you're seeing on Instagram, we want to make sure people understand those are highlights," Jason said. A lot of training and preparation went into accomplishing those exercises. Brie started training three months before filming for Avengers: Endgame. Jason said that during this time he wanted to teach Brie how "to move well and connect with the body and gain a base level of strength."
Once Brie established a base level of strength, Jason had Brie train twice a day for three weeks. Aside from having to build muscle, she also had to learn how to fight. "She did a lot of fight training and choreography," said Jason. He didn't want her to burn out before filming even began so he started having her workout four times a week for 90 minutes. She would do her fitness session with Jason in the morning, then have some time to recover before having to attend her fight training in the afternoon. Once the three months were up, Brie left to begin filming. Jason set her up with a less intense training schedule. He referred to this phase of training as a maintenance program. He wanted her to maintain her muscle mass while still having enough energy and confidence on set.
Once Brie was done filming Avengers: End Game, Jason had her train in the loading phase for three months to build as much muscle as possible before filming Captain Marvel. Building this level of muscle and strength takes time and doesn't come easy, even for a movie star.
"I was like, 'Wow, if I can get her as strong as I possibly can before she shoots Captain Marvel, and she feels that, and she has the confidence going into it, that psychological reinforcement, imagine what it's going to do for her character," Jason said.
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