Chris Hemsworth posted a very Chris Hemsworth Instagram yesterday. He’s apparently on the set of the next Thor, wearing the wig, and walking hand-in-hand with his young son who wants to be Superman when he grows up. In his caption, Hemsworth joked that he’s “lucky” he has two other kids.
The post got a typical slew of charmed celebrity replies — everyone from Ryan Reynolds to Gal Gadot threw down some laughing emojis — but scroll down past the blue checkmarks, and all you’ll see is a sea of barbs aimed at Hemsworth’s legs, as pointed out by Men’s Health. Since his lower body doesn’t look as large or defined as his upper body in the photo, the troll of choice is some variation on “don’t skip leg day!” Commenters wrote “Never skip leg day,” “Should really be training legs too bro,” and “Probably because Superman doesn’t skip leg day.”
Hemsworth, shocker, doesn’t skip leg day. He doesn’t “skip” any day. The man works out nonstop, and his nutrition is top-notch. Hemsworth is an owner and program curator at Centr, a popular home fitness app, and consistently books Hollywood gigs thanks to his filled-out frame — which is extremely difficult to maintain, by the way. That’s especially true when your job has you sleeping in hotel rooms for a sizable percentage of the year.
So what’s going on here? Why are people taking potshots at Thor? Well, it would seem that in this particular photo, Hemsworth’s calves aren’t cut enough for what his Instagram audience has come to expect. (I lost a brain cell writing that sentence.) The most obvious explanation for his physique is proportion: triceps that big are going to make anything else in the picture look puny. But the larger reason is that isolating calves in the gym is tricky and somewhat useless.
Hemsworth practices a full-body fitness routine. Think: Lots of circuits that recruit major muscle groups for explosive movements, core work, HIIT. He’s still bulking, obviously, but there’s no sense in him spending an hour doing endless standing barbell calf raises (which could put his legs out of commission for days), when he could roll through scorchers that offer holistic results.
Plus, and this is just genetic, Hemsworth is a tall guy. Google says he’s 6’3″. The work he would need to put in to get those softball-sized calves so many guys are after just isn’t worth it. That sort of training could even lead to injury, which only means headaches for everyone else on set.
Fortunately, some of the “leg day” fare seems to be jokey. Hemsworth’s brother chimed in with a chirp of his own. But this serves as a general reminder that no one — not even the Asgardian God of Thunder — is immune from body-based criticism in the toxic cesspool that is the internet. There will always be people out there finding faults (or, frankly, looking for them), and the best way forward is to pretend they don’t know what they’re talking about. Which, more often than not, is the truth.
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