Chris Hemsworth uses these three moves to build his core—here’s how to make them beginner-friendly
Combine these moves for a functional core workout
Chris Hemsworth is known for undergoing intense physical transformations for his movies and this week he gave fans a glimpse of what he’s doing to prepare for Extraction 3.
Ahead of reprising his role as black-ops mercenary Tyler Rake in the upcoming action thriller, Hemsworth took a break in Costa Rica, where he filmed himself doing a “little workout” for his 58 million Instagram followers.
The post shows Hemsworth working through an impressive 19 exercises, with one fan joking: “even your voice sounds like it’s got abs”.
The strength training session—using resistance bands, kettlebells and bodyweight exercises—is fairly advanced, but many of the exercises can be easily modified for beginners.
We’ve picked out three core exercises to modify.
These moves are important because they challenge your core muscles through different movement patterns: rotation, lateral flexion and forward flexion.
When you do these different exercises, you train your core to be strong for the different twisting, bending and flexing movements you do in everyday life.
The modified moves
- Standing woodchop (instead of Hemworth’s kneeling wood chop)
- Bodyweight side bend (instead of the kettlebell side bend)
- Half crunch (to replace the weighted Jack knife)
For this workout, you will need a light kettlebell or dumbbell (around 7-10lb).
Work through each exercise, one after another.
Aim for two rounds with two minutes rest in between.
1. Standing woodchop (rotation)
Rounds: 2 Reps: 10 each side
In his reel, Hemsworth does a kneeling wood chop with a kettlebell.
Being on your knees makes the move harder because it reduces how much assistance you get from your lower body, increasing the demand on your core to control the movement.
Try doing this version first, before progressing to the kneeling version.
- Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart.
- Hold a dumbbell or kettlebell in both hands over your right shoulder.
- Rotate through your torso as you bring the weight diagonally towards your left hip.
- Bring the weight back up to your right shoulder and repeat for ten repetitions.
- Swap sides and repeat.
2. Bodyweight side bend (lateral flexion)
Rounds: 2 Reps: 10 each side
Hemsworth uses a kettlebell to make this exercise more challenging, but for beginners, this modified version is bodyweight only, while still involving the lateral flexion (side bend) movement pattern.
If that's too easy, add a light weight to the move.
- Stand with feet about shoulder-width apart and arms by your sides.
- Engage your core.
- Keeping your hips still, slowly bend your torso to the right side and slide your right hand towards the floor. Don’t twist or lean forward or back.
- Only reach as far as feels comfortable—you should feel a stretch down the opposite side of your torso.
- Return slowly to an upright position, then repeat on the other side.
3. Half crunch (forward flexion)
Rounds: 2 Reps: 10
In the video, Hemsworth does a Jack knife—an advanced exercise that requires serious core strength and upper body stability.
The half crunch is beginner-friendly while training the same trunk-flexion movement pattern to help you get stronger.
- Lie on your back with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor.
- Put your hands across your chest or lightly behind your head (but don’t pull on your neck if you do the latter position).
- Engage the core.
- Curl your head, shoulders and upper back off the floor, bringing your ribs towards your pelvis. You only need to come up part of the way.
- Pause briefly, then lower.
