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Jennifer Garner’s fitness preparations for Deadpool & Wolverine look both exhaustive and exhausting but they’re impressive to boot. The 52-year-old actor has reprised her role as Elektra Natchios in the box office smash, using a varied exercise regime to get “Marvel fit” in time for filming.
A recent Instagram reel reveals she committed to daily sessions with trainer Beth Nicely, as well as boxing three times per week and taking regular Peloton classes with instructor Becs Gentry. Alongside this, the star also found time for fight practice, stability work, plyometric exercises, boxing, running, swimming, strength training and more.
“Other than trying to convince my kids’ pre-school buddies that I was secretly a ninja, I hadn’t picked up Elektra’s sais since 2004; I was fit, but not Marvel fit,” she writes. “we had a superhero summer over here, twirling sais in the backyard and laughing at our sore, old bodies.”
There are impressive athletic displays aplenty in the short clip, but as a fitness writer one thing stood out above all others: Garner’s consistent use of multiplanar training.
In layman’s terms, this simply means moving in a range of ways. The body operates in three planes of motion; sagittal (up, down, forwards and backwards, loosely speaking), frontal (side-to-side) and transverse (rotational) and Garner’s training contains a healthy dose of all three, which makes sense for someone readying themselves for intense fight scenes.
But most exercises sit predominantly in the sagittal plane – think squats, lunges, deadlifts and bench presses, which all involve lifting weights up and down.
Everyday life often requires us to shift and twist our limbs in a range of ways, from side-stepping a stranger on the pavement to twisting around to grab something off a supermarket shelf. Multiplanar training prepares you for these actions by building a strong, functional and mobile body, increasing the resilience of your muscles and joints to reduce injury risk.
If you want to give it a go for yourself, try completing the lower-body workout below. After all, if multiplanar training can help Garner get Marvel fit, chances are it can benefit you too.
Exercise |
Reps |
Rest |
How to do it |
Goblet squat 3x10 |
3x10 |
60 seconds |
Stand with your feet roughly shoulder-width apart holding a dumbbell with both hands tight to your chest. Keeping your chest up, bend your knees to lower your hips as far as you can, then drive through your feet to return to the starting position. |
Banded lateral walk 3x10 in each direction |
3x10 in each direction |
60 seconds |
Stand with your feet hip-width apart and a soft bend in your knees. Place a short resistance band taught around your legs at the bottom of your thighs. Keeping your feet level and facing forwards, step sideways, first with your outer foot and then with your inner foot. Take 10 steps in one direction, then repeat going the other way. |
Lunge with rotation 3x10 each side |
3x10 each side |
60 seconds |
Stand upright holding a single light dumbbell or kettlebell in both hands. Extend your arms in front of you so they’re parallel with the ground. Keeping your torso upright, step forward with your right leg and lower your left knee until it’s just above the floor, so both knees roughly form a right angle. As you do this, twist your body to rotate your arms 90-degrees to your right. Drive through your front foot to return to standing and bring your arms back to centre, then repeat on the other side. |
As with any new exercise style, make sure you warm up and go at a pace that suits you. With multiplanar training, alignment is important so if you can, try these exercises in front of a mirror to check your form and be aware of putting too much pressure on your joints. Starting with a weight that feels manageable and a resistance band that feels comfortable is your best route in, then you can gradually work with more weight and resistance.
We can’t all be superheroes, but we can give their workouts a good go and Garner’s mix of exercise styles shows just how impactful a slick and varied training schedule can be.
