- [Narrator] This is actress Brie Larson,
and, yes, she's pushing a Jeep.
But when she started her demanding physical training
for "Captain Marvel," she couldn't even do a proper push-up,
according to her trainer.
Larson joins the Marvel Cinematic Universe
as Carol Danvers in "Captain Marvel."
To prepare for this career-defining role,
Larson had to get in shape.
She trained with Jason Walsh —
he runs Rise Movement and Rise Nation in Los Angeles —
the man who's helped actors like
Matt Damon, John Krasinski, Emily Blunt,
and Alison Brie train for physically demanding roles.
- [Jason] My goal for Brie was to get her resilient,
super strong, so that she can actually do the stunts
and walk away and not get injured.
- [Narrator] So how did Walsh get Larson in such good shape
for this role?
It wasn't easy.
Larson trained with Walsh for about nine months
before "Captain Marvel" started shooting.
She started her career as an indie darling,
gaining critical acclaim for movies like
"Short Term 12" and then eventually won an Oscar
for her performance in "Room."
Playing a superhero is unlike anything she's done before.
- [Jason] It was a highly physical role obviously,
she's a superhero,
so what you want to take into consideration is
the day in, day out physical aspects,
the stunt work that's gonna take place.
She wanted to do most of the stunts.
- [Narrator] Larson's Instagram videos of her workouts
have gone viral,
but getting to this point was a battle.
- [Jason] So upper body strength is very, very important
for Brie. She came in, she couldn't perform one push-up,
so we had to start from the very, very beginning on this.
People see the highlights and think that
that's just something that we kinda just jumped into.
This is something that takes time.
I had three cycles with her at three-month periods
where I was able to progress her each time,
and it took nine months to get her to a point
where she's doing chain push-ups and things like that.
- [Narrator] Walsh and Alyssa Shoji, another trainer,
demonstrated how some of Larson's
workouts progressed over time.
- [Jason] One of the staples
that we use here at Rise Movement is the hip thrust,
and we do use it for a lot for warm-ups,
and sometimes we'll use it, like in Brie's case,
we use it as a staple exercise
where you get up to 400 pounds on the hip thrusts,
but like anything, you need to start from the bare basics,
learn the movement.
Nice and slow on the tempos, none of this needs to be fast.
The next progression we like to do
is to get a bar across the waist here,
and this is great because we can track our progress
with the actual weight.
In order to get to the point where
she can start from the top and go to the bottom
and do the push-up correctly, we worked on progressions.
I want the hands spread about 5 degrees out,
and I want the elbows to come back about 45 degrees,
keep the hips up and engaged here.
- [Narrator] Once Larson could do perfect push-ups...
- [Jason] One of the highlights we got to with Brie is
she got strong enough over a certain amount of time
that we could do chain push-ups,
and this is about 50 pounds worth of chain.
As she lowers all the way to the ground, it gets lighter.
As she pushes up dynamically, it gets a little bit heavier.
So what I would do is drape
this over the weakest area or the midpoint over the hips,
which makes her have to engage those hips even more,
core right here.
Now, go ahead.
It gets lighter. It gets heavier on the way up.
- [Narrator] Then you'd finish with
a few more regular push-ups under fatigue condition.
Walsh also encourages all sorts of recreational activities.
He usually tailors workouts to the actor's role.
For instance, he made sure Emily Blunt
was able to handle wearing and moving around in
a 70-pound exoskeleton in "Edge of Tomorrow."
He made sure Bradley Cooper was ready to carry around
heavy gear while shooting in desert conditions
for "American Sniper."
When he trained with Alison Brie prior to "GLOW,"
he added exercises to her regimen
that would prepare her for the show's wrestling scenes.
Walsh's job wasn't to train Larson for the actual stunts
and fights you see her do in the movie.
His job was to prepare her so she could then train for that.
All the little workouts she did
would perfectly lend themselves for hand-to-hand combat.
- [Jason] I want the body to work as a unit.
Everything that we're doing is, generally speaking,
full-body workouts, multi-planar multi-joint exercises.
You're able to learn how to connect the foot and the hip
and the arms, you're going to be able to throw a punch
a lot better than you are if you're just sitting there
doing a bunch of bench press or bicep curls.
- [Narrator] Her fight training was a mix
of tae kwon do, judo, and boxing.
Over time, Larson saw some surprising changes.
- [Jason] It's pretty funny actually, the costume designer
was becoming very annoyed with us
because as we were progressing, she was getting stronger,
she was actually getting smaller
because she was becoming denser and denser and denser,
so they actually had to take this suit
and keep taking it in.
From the "Avengers" to the point when we started
shooting "Captain Marvel," she was probably half her size,
but she was 10 times stronger than she was when she started.
- [Narrator] As we mentioned earlier,
she was even able to push a Jeep by the end.
- [Jason] She saw a video of me doing a stupid exercise
where I was pulling my Jeep,
and then of course she got it in her mind
that she wanted to be able to push the Jeep.
I told her if I see a certain level of progression
and strength with her and I felt confident,
then I was like, "Absolutely."
She was hip thrusting 400 pounds.
She was doing everything, surpassed everything
that I had really anticipated. She was just hungry for it.
She loved the challenges.
She insisted, and I felt it was a safe enough environment.
We controlled the environment,
and she pushed this 5,000-pound Jeep up a slight grade
in the back alley of my studio.
The most rewarding thing for me is to see somebody
really start to adhere and absorb and appreciate
what strength training can do for you.
Being pain-free, being strong, doing things
that you really just didn't think was possible for you,
Brie was one of those.
I think she's a lifer.