The One Lesson About Getting (Superhero) Fit Henry Cavill Wishes He Had Learned Earlier

henry cavill superman zack snyder's justice league
(Image credit: Warner Bros.)

If there’s one thing we know about Henry Cavill (besides the fact that the man loves to build himself an awesome gaming rig and do a bit of cooking), it’s that he quite enjoys paying special attention to his diet and going into beast mode on a set of weights so that he can stay in tip top, shirtless superhero shape at all times. While he’s now taken his ripped Superman physique to other projects like Netflix’s The Witcher and the upcoming film, Argylle, Cavill’s revealed the one lesson he’s learned about getting superhero fit that he wishes he’d learned earlier. 

What Has Henry Cavill Learned About Getting Superhero Fit?

We all learn some important lessons over time, and the same has certainly been true of Henry Cavill when it comes to his workout game. The actor has noted before that he didn’t really get serious about his exercise regimen until he played Theseus in 2011’s Immortals, and those efforts ramped up as he prepared to give us a brand new Superman in 2013’s Man of Steel. In a chat with Bodybuilding, he was asked what piece of health / fitness advice he’d give to his younger self, and Cavill answered:

It is not supposed to be easy. And with that kind of mindset going into workouts and training, I think I would have benefited from that enormously. Everyone's different—but I know as a young man myself, I would have benefited from that.

Well. As someone who can’t imagine doing half of the things superhero actors like Cavill do when staying nice and beefy for their roles, I’m going to assume that he’s correct and it’s pretty much never an easy part of the job. Though, I can imagine, if you’re someone who already considers yourself relatively fit or if you just happen to be pretty young when starting down this superhero training road, it might be a surprise to find out that it’s much tougher than you thought it would be.

And, it absolutely sounds as though that’s the original mindset that Cavill went into his first rounds of intense training with. So, it does make sense that he would have been taken aback at just how hard it was to really workout the superhero way, not to mention all of the dietary restrictions and other things that would go into keeping himself at a certain physical level, both while working and in his off time. Sounds like he’s learned a hard lesson, indeed. 

At least one thing is very clear, and that’s that Henry Cavill has continued to be very committed to making sure his superhero fitness levels don’t slip, even as he does things like enjoy lots of tasty food during the holidays

Cavill managed to come back from a serious injury that could have ended his action career, and has remained so determined to look like the superhero we all want that he does things like go on a dehydration diet and plan special workouts when he knows he’ll have to be shirtless in a scene, so it would appear that he’s really embraced how difficult this part of his job can be.

Adrienne Jones
Senior Content Creator

Covering The Witcher, Outlander, Virgin River, Sweet Magnolias and a slew of other streaming shows, Adrienne Jones is a Senior Content Producer at CinemaBlend, and started in the fall of 2015. In addition to writing and editing stories on a variety of different topics, she also spends her work days trying to find new ways to write about the many romantic entanglements that fictional characters find themselves in on TV shows. She graduated from Mizzou with a degree in Photojournalism.