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Tom Holland trained as a competitive gymnast before he was Spider-Man, and he performs a lot of his own stunts. That is why his training looks nothing like bodybuilding: full body circuits, bodyweight progressions and gymnastics work, built to move rather than to bulk. Trainer George Ashwell has said that not chasing size is exactly what let them hit more muscle groups in every session.
Holland also trained in an electrical muscle stimulation suit, and it is exactly as sci-fi as it sounds. Twenty minutes, and you can do the same thing at home. See how it works →
It starts every Monday with a 1,500 rep ladder that Holland calls the hardest thing in his whole Spider-Man prep. Here is the full week.
This page is the routine itself, session by session. If you came looking for the physique rather than the plan, the height, weight, body fat and how the build changed for the newest film are in our breakdown of Tom Holland's physique.
The week at a glance
| Day | Focus | Type |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | 1,500 rep bodyweight ladder | High volume circuit |
| Tuesday | Upper body + gymnastics | Compound lifts, skill work |
| Wednesday | Lower body + core | Functional strength |
| Thursday | Boxing + HIIT | Conditioning |
| Friday | Full body circuit | Bodyweight + dumbbells |
| Saturday | Gymnastics + stunt work | Mobility, skill |
| Sunday | Active recovery | Surfing, golf, hiking |
Monday: the 1,500 rep ladder
Five bodyweight moves, climbed as a pyramid with a training partner. Round one is 1 pull-up, 2 dips, 3 press-ups, 4 sit-ups, 5 squats. Every round adds one more of each. Takes about an hour.
| Round | Pull-ups | Dips | Press-ups | Sit-ups | Squats |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 2 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 10 |
| 3 | 3 | 6 | 9 | 12 | 15 |
| 4 | 4 | 8 | 12 | 16 | 20 |
| 5 | 5 | 10 | 15 | 20 | 25 |
| 6 | 6 | 12 | 18 | 24 | 30 |
| 7 | 7 | 14 | 21 | 28 | 35 |
| 8 | 8 | 16 | 24 | 32 | 40 |
| 9 | 9 | 18 | 27 | 36 | 45 |
| 10 | 10 | 20 | 30 | 40 | 50 |
Then straight back down, round 9 to round 1. The totals land on exactly 1,500 reps: 275 squats, 220 sit-ups, 165 press-ups, 110 dips and 55 pull-ups on the way up, and 675 more coming down.
"Start with one pull-up, two dips, three press-ups, four sit-ups, five squats. That's round one, and you basically go all the way up to 10, so the last round is 10, 20, 30, 40, 50. And then you'll go all the way back down to one."
Tuesday: upper body and gymnastics
Trainer Duffy Gaver's circuit, five rounds. The first round is the warm-up, the next four are working sets. Rest 30 seconds between exercises and two minutes between rounds.
| Exercise | Prescription |
|---|---|
| Pull-ups | 3 x 6-12 |
| Bench press | 10 reps at 145 lb, in circuit |
| Weighted dips | 3 x 8-10 |
| Renegade rows | 20 each arm |
| Shoulder taps | 20 each arm |
| Floor wipers | 10 reps at 145 lb |
| Ring push-ups | To form failure |
Holland has pushed this to 27 rounds in a weighted vest at peak prep. Five is the sane number.
Wednesday: lower body and core
Power for jumping, sprinting and stunt footwork. Core is trained as a stability tool, not for aesthetics.
| Exercise | Prescription |
|---|---|
| Deadlifts | 10 reps at 145 lb, circuit |
| Dumbbell thrusters | 20 reps |
| Goblet squats | 4 x 10-12 |
| Reverse lunges | 3 x 10 each leg |
| Floor wipers | 3 x 10 |
| Leg raises | 3 x 15 |
| Bear crawls | 60 second intervals |
| Planks | 3 x 45-60 seconds |
Thursday: boxing and HIIT
Boxing runs through every one of Holland's film preps. Short efforts and incomplete recovery, 45 to 60 minutes, built to mirror a shooting day.
| Exercise | Prescription |
|---|---|
| Heavy bag | 5 x 3 minutes |
| Speed bag | 3 x 2 minutes |
| Shadow boxing | 3 x 3 minutes |
| Jump rope | 5 minute intervals |
| Burpees | 4 x 15 |
| Battle ropes | 4 x 30 seconds |
| Sprints | 10 x 20s on, 40s off |
Friday: full body circuit
George Ashwell's Spider-Man circuit. Each round pairs a posterior chain leg movement with a horizontal push and pull, then an anterior leg movement with a vertical push and pull. Four to five rounds, 30 seconds between exercises, two minutes between rounds.
| Exercise | Prescription |
|---|---|
| Bear crawls | 60 seconds |
| Shoulder taps | 20 each arm |
| Dumbbell thrusters | 20 reps |
| Renegade rows | 20 each arm |
| Push-ups | 20-30 reps |
| Incline push-ups | 3 x 15 |
| TRX or bodyweight rows | 3 x 12 |
Saturday: gymnastics and stunt work
Less structured than a gym session and often harder. Body control, spatial awareness, and the skills that make the stunt work read as effortless.
| Exercise | Prescription |
|---|---|
| Handstand holds and walks | Skill practice |
| Ring work | Muscle-ups, dips, holds |
| Tumbling | Sequences on mats |
| Box jumps | 4 x 5 |
| Broad jumps | 4 x 5 |
| L-sits | 3 x max hold |
| Mobility circuit | 10-15 minutes |
Fuel and recovery
Holland trains within 60 to 90 minutes of waking, after mobility work rather than straight into load. Meals are built on a simple hand measure, and he batch-cooks cod and chicken so hitting the protein target is not a daily decision.
| Exercise | Prescription |
|---|---|
| Pre-training | Porridge, fruit, nuts, protein shake |
| Post-training | Fast protein plus carbohydrate |
| Every meal | 2 fists protein, 2 fists carbs, 2 fists vegetables |
| Sleep | 7 to 9 hours |
| Rest days | Surfing, hiking, golf, basketball, not sitting still |
Related: Tom Holland's full supplement list, ranked and shoppable →
How Tom Holland electrocuted his body to build muscle and strength
EMS is not only a celebrity trainer's tool. We ran a suit at home for three months and wrote up exactly what that involved: the schedule, the intensity settings and how hard a twenty minute session really is.
Tom Holland trained in an EMS suit. EMS is electrical muscle stimulation: a vest wired with electrodes that contracts your muscles for you while you move through simple exercises, so the overload comes from the current rather than from heavy weight. Twenty minutes, once or twice a week, and his verdict was that it is "a lot of fun, and it works."
Why it works. Your strongest muscle fibres are the ones you almost never reach: they only switch on when you are close to failure. An electrical impulse recruits them directly, from the first rep, whatever the load. Put electrodes over chest, back, abs, glutes, thighs and arms and every one of those groups trains at the same time, with the overload coming from current instead of weight on your spine.
You do not need a studio to try this. The same twenty minute whole body session runs off a home suit, and the one we use is the Visionbody Personal System at $1,890, with ROUTINES50 taking $56.70 off. Tom Holland trained in a studio rig rather than this one, so treat that as our recommendation and not his.
Muscle gain · large effect across 16 trials Strength · legs and core, 897 adults Fat burning · a built-in program Time · 20 mins of EMS can equal 3-4 hours at the gym
THE HEAD TO HEAD
Kemmler's team split 48 untrained men for 16 weeks. One group ran EMS for 20 minutes, three sessions a fortnight. The other did high intensity resistance training twice a week. Back extension strength rose 11.6% with EMS against 10.2% in the gym.
THE SAME TWENTY MINUTES, AT HOME
You do not need a film budget to train like this.
Holland has never named a brand, so this is our pick rather than his. After testing the consumer suits, the Visionbody is the one we would buy: Up to 98% muscle activation, easy-to-do at home programs for muscle gain and fat burning, no subscription, FDA cleared. $1,890 at the time of writing with payment plans available.
If the EMS part is what brought you here: our ranked guide to EMS suits covers every model worth buying, what EMS costs weighs studios against owning one, and our three month log is what living with a suit is actually like. If you have already decided, the Visionbody is here.
What makes it work
Nothing here is exotic. It is high frequency, mostly bodyweight, organised around movement quality rather than load, with one brutal benchmark session a week to measure against. The gymnastics background is the part most people cannot copy, but the structure is.
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Around the core training fuel, Holland leans on recovery, fish oil to manage the joint load of high-volume gymnastics and bodyweight work, and a post-session repair formula he treats as seriously as the training itself, paired with 7-9 hours of sleep a night.