As many of you know, I used to make a

special video at the end of each year

where I would break down how to train

like Batman. And each year, this would

represent the culmination of everything

I'd learned so far. My attempt to

optimize human performance through

training based on all of the new things

I'd discovered.

A couple of years ago, I took that to

the limit by teaming up with some of the

biggest names in functional training to

create an ultimate workout

based on all of their ideas. We had

contributions from JC Santana, knees

over toes guy, Jack's Blade, Grant

Stevens, Brett Contraras, Liam Ellis. I

wasn't sure how to top that one, so I

took some time away from the tradition.

And I promised I'd make another Batman

video when we reached 1 million [music]

subscribers. But I get comments daily

asking for more. This is not that 1

million subscriber video clearly, but it

is a spin-off based on a spin-off Batman

series. One that has had massive impact

on the comics. One that takes the very

concept of Batman to a whole other

ridiculous level. Batman only metal.

It's time to learn how to train like

Absolute Batman.

Absolute Batman is an alternative Batman

story set in the Absolute Universe

written by Scott Snder. This version of

Batman has a few key differences.

Firstly, he and his world are far more

brutal. There's far more graphic

violence, and he strikes fear into the

hearts of his enemies by dismembering

them, maming them, and injuring them for

life. He's far more ruthless than

regular Bruce Wayne. And this, in some

ways, I guess, is more realistic. At the

same time, this version of Bruce Wayne

wasn't born into wealth. He can't rely

on his family's huge fortune in order to

create any gadget he can dream of. That

means he needs to be more resourceful,

more tactical when taking out his

opponents. He still has gadgets like a

giant axe, but they're far more rough

and ready than the sorts of things we're

used to seeing him using. Finally, this

version of Batman is an absolute unit,

pun intended. He's 6'9 in, which would

put him in the top 01% of the

population, if not even rarer. On top of

this, he weighs 191 kg and he's made of

pretty much pure muscle. He doesn't have

quite the extensive training as regular

Batman, but he makes up for it with his

brute size and brute strength. Now, of

course, it's going to change the way

that he approaches training, and this is

actually reflected quite well in the

story. [music] In my previous videos,

breaking down how he might train like

Batman. I've always discussed how

actually massive strength and size

shouldn't be a number one priority. far

more important are things like

endurance, tactical thinking, and

skills, of course, like martial arts,

parkour. Most people who set out to be

Batman aren't going to struggle because

they're not strong enough. They're going

to struggle because they can't throw a

punch, they can't climb onto a roof,

they get cold quickly, they get tired

quickly. However, we can't take that

same approach here because with Absolute

Batman, there's no getting around the

fact that he's all about strength and

size. If we want to train like him,

we're going to need to do the same. He

has to adapt to his immutable traits.

And that's something that we all need to

consider when deciding what kind of

build we want to pursue. If you're

really small, then obviously you're not

going to become as big as Absolute

Batman. You might be better suited to

becoming a sprinter or a more agile

build. If you're really big, then you

can lean into this kind of training.

It's really up to you. Do you want to

chase your weak points and bring them up

and become that way more of an

all-rounder? Or do you want to become a

specialist by leading on your natural

advantages as Bruce Wayne has done here?

Something I've always like to do is to

find someone who's a similar height and

build to myself, who has a similar skill

set to myself, but who's ahead of me and

use that as an inspiration. That's an

example of the best that I can be

personally. For me, that's Jackie Chan.

For some of you 6'9 monsters out there,

it's going to be absolute Bruce Wayne.

With that said, the title of this video

is train like absolute Batman. [music]

So, we're going to set out to build the

kind of size and strength that absolute

Bruce Wayne demonstrates while still

having some functional performance. And

that's where the challenge is really

going to lie.

So, really, this is our challenge. How

do we build a physique like absolute

Batman? How do we get that big and

massive while still being able to run,

jump across rooftops, kick high, punch

fast, move fluidly? These are things he

still needs to be able to do, and he

certainly does in the comics.

Thankfully, the answer lies within the

law of Batman.

You see, nearly every incarnation of

Batman involves Bruce Wayne going away

for a time and then returning to Gotham,

having gone on a journey of

self-discovery and training. And it's

during this window that can range from 3

to 8 years that he becomes the Batman

physically and mentally. In Absolute

Batman, it's a little bit different. A

lot of his training is done in Gotham.

He trains martial arts with Whan. He

spends time in the criminal underworld

in order to learn how it operates with

Selena.

He also spends time as a college

football player. Very different from the

classic Batman. But what we still have

here is a timeline, a period of time in

which to become the Batman. [music]

And this is what I'm interested in. It's

periodized training, but on a larger

scale. So many people start off training

and they're interested in building some

muscle and they want it as quickly as

possible. So many people get impatient

trying to build abs or trying to build

biceps because it's going to take them

months or maybe a year. But when

training to become Batman, we need to

think in terms of years, possibly even a

decade. And it's going to be a lifetime

of honing. And this is an attitude that

we can bring to any training.

a period of time, years, building

massive strength, a period of time,

years, building skills and performance,

a period of time building cardio and

endurance. And this is what would allow

us to actually build a physique like

Batman.

For example, if you just want to build

the kind of strength and power of a

powerlifter, then of course any basic

powerlifting program will have you

covered. that will give you the tree

trunk legs, the powerful core, and the

grip strength and the neural drive to

just generate force, especially if

you're committed and you have lots of

time to dedicate your training recovery.

But if you try and learn martial arts

skills at the same time, you're going to

struggle because you're going to run

into the interference effect. The amount

of effort you're going to need to put

into your lifting at the start is going

to mean you don't have much recovery

capacity to then be able to kick high.

Doing a day of heavy squats and then a

day of roundhouse kicks to the head is

practically impossible. And sequencing

here is important. If you train for

massive strength first and then try and

do martial arts on top of that, you're

going to find that that muscle, that

bulk makes it harder for you to move.

You will have lost mobility, you'll have

learned to move only one plane of

motion. Some people get confused and

think that building massive muscle means

you can't run fast, you can't kick high.

This isn't true if you could control

your body. But the point is, this is

harder to learn when you've built lots

of muscle, packed on lots of weight, and

when you've learned to only move in one

plane of motion. Conversely, if you

learn the skills first and build the

muscle on top, you're going to be able

to add that strength and power on top of

those already formidable skills. Look at

someone like Jujimu. He's able to do

flips and high kicks and splits despite

being [music] absolutely massive. But I

wager that's because he learned the

tricking first. In the world of athletic

coaching, we call this long-term

athletic development or career scale

periodization. It means thinking not in

terms of what you're going to look like

in a year or two years or four years,

but coming up with a plan to build

massive muscle and performance over the

course of 5 years. That's how you're

going to build the size and the strength

whilst retaining those skills and that

performance. But if you want to build

absolute Bruce Wayne scale size and

strength, we're going to need to try

something even more advanced. But of

course, not everybody has years to

dedicate to their training. Everyone so

committed to crime fighting that they

can have entire year-long phases of

martial arts training or powerb

building. So of course for the rest of

you I've developed a program called

superfunctional training three super

mover. I released it only a couple of

months ago. It's getting an amazing

reception and basically it's the closest

thing you're going to get to this kind

of training but in a realistic manner

that fits into your routine. It does

this by focusing on movement. athletic,

powerful, strong movement that will give

you more body awareness, more power, and

at the same time, more agility, control,

and strength. You'll be building

mobility, joint integrity, you'll reduce

pain. You'll be able to run faster, jump

higher, all of those good things just so

that you can do more of [music] what you

want to be able to do. And it comes

packaged with a whole bunch of extra

stuff. You get a 200 plus page ebook, 26

instructional training videos, cool

anime inspired workout Q cards that you

can download to your phone to remind

yourself what you're doing in the gym,

and tons of other cool stuff. If that

sounds awesome, there's a link in

description down below. And it's just

gone on Boxing Day sale, so now's the

best time to grab yourself a copy.

Thanks for considering it. Either way,

let's get on with the show.

If we want to get as big and as strong

as absolute Bruce Wayne in this time,

we're going to need to use some even

more advanced techniques to pack on that

kind of size and strength. This is again

where sequencing can be really important

and it's something that people don't

talk about all that often because

actually when you combine different

types of training over a long time

scale, they actually have compounding

effects. They can magnify one another.

Take for example using isolated

exercises that target specific muscle

groups in a bodybuilding fashion. This

can actually build the kind of size and

strength in muscles that otherwise

wouldn't be targeted by powerlifting.

For example, targeting your biceps or

perhaps your side delts, things that

just won't get targeted to the same

extent if you're only doing the big

three lifts and perhaps some accessory

lifts.

So by doing bodybuilding first and then

powerlifting, you can actually improve

your physique, become much wider by

building the stable, powerful core and

frame that you get from powerlifting as

well as adding on all that extra muscle

that you get from bodybuilding. What's

more though is the bodybuilding will

have prepared you in many ways for the

powerlifting, giving you, for example, a

better mind muscle connection, so you

can feel when the correct muscles are

working, giving you stronger joints and

better blood supply. When you use things

like drop sets, this is excellent for

increasing vascularization, blood supply

to the muscle. That blood supply can

then increase hypertrophy when it's

provided with other kinds of stimulus

like the mechanical tension you get from

powerlifting. In other words, the

powerlifting is highly effective and the

bodybuilding is highly effective. But if

you've had a bodybuilding career and you

move into powerlifting, in many ways,

that's actually going to enhance your

results because your body will be primed

for growth. Think of this a bit like

irrigating the soil before you sew your

seeds and fertilize them. It's doing

these things in the correct sequence

that yields the best crops or as I think

farmers call it yields the best plant

gains. And if you've done some form of

cardiovascular training before this,

then you're also going to have the work

capacity to do higher rep ranges to

recover faster. So you see by smartly

planning our routine, we can actually

build more size and power than we could

by using any one of these things. But

again, by thinking in terms of months

and years and by having a singular

focus, you can actually achieve some

quite incredible things. So, if I were

planning a absolute Bruce Wayne workout

using these principles over the course

of 3 to 5 years, I'd probably start with

some form of athletic training.

I'd focus on conditioning and getting a

good work engine. I'd focus on joint

integrity. And in Absolute Batman, he

did exactly that by spending time as a

college football player. This also train

you to run fast, to change direction

quickly, get you used to moving in

multiple planes of motion. I might then

add calisthenics [music]

to really build strong joints, to get

lots of blood supply to the muscles, and

to train the body to start to to build

core strength and stability so that we

can then handle heavier loads in

subsequent training phases.

On top of this, I'd add martial arts

training, parkour, and gymnastics. And

we'd [music] focus on just those things

for several years.

to the point where we're delivering

crisp kicks and powerful punches and can

do all sorts of acrobatic moves. Then

I'd start adding in bodybuilding. And

the bodybuilding would allow us to build

extra muscle on top of that to bring up

to speed the areas that were perhaps

overlooked. And on top of that, I'd then

add the powerlifting or to build real

brute power and strength. We'd still be

practicing a little bit of the martial

arts, some of the acrobatics, some of

the calisthenic skills, but the big

focus now be building pure power and

size. Because our technique is now at

such a high level, we can now direct

that power and size into powerful

punches, huge jumps, explosive

sprinting, we can start to move like

absolute Batman. You can then apply

different advanced techniques to take

your strength training even further

using things like the dynamic effort

method from Louis Simmons to increase

your starting strength and rate of force

development. That means lowering the

weight and increasing the bar speed. You

could also use overcoming isometrics to

develop a bit more limit strength and

motor unit recruitment. You also want to

add functional strength. We'll have

gotten a little bit of this just as a

result of everything else we've been

doing. But now we want to train with

things like sandbags, with atlas stones,

with unusual objects. We want to build

real grip strength. We want to build

rotational power. We want to build the

supportive muscles, obliques. We want to

learn to support more weight on one side

when heaving something awkward. This is

something that will allow absolute

Batman to swing an ax with the utmost

power. And in our real world as well,

it's important to train this kind of max

strength, both in a linear fashion, but

also in these more unpredictable

vectors. And the final piece of the

puzzle is to remember that maintenance

takes far less effort and recovery than

building muscle. and size and skills in

the first place. This is going to be key

to not only keeping those skills and

attributes we've developed going in the

background, then also to allow absolute

Bruce Wayne to go out on the streets of

Gotham and to perform his duties while

still maintaining that kind of size and

muscle. If you're out all night fighting

crime, you can't be lifting your

heaviest repetitions every day at the

gym. So, at a certain point, Absolute

Batman would have to stop chasing bigger

numbers and gains and instead be content

with the strength he's built. be content

to maintain that. Perhaps adding skills,

but mostly focusing on doing his job.

Knowing when enough is enough. Knowing

when one set of traits or attributes has

been built to a satisfactory level so

that we can then focus on other things

that are important to us. It's not all

about limitless growth, even for

absolute Batman. By the way, guys, this

video was sponsored by Vivo Barefoot.

And the reason I wanted to talk about

barefoot shoes in this video is because

I actually think they're the perfect fit

for a kind of Batman loadout. I don't

just wear barefoot shoes because I think

they're healthier for your feet because

they let you move more like we're

supposed to. Although that is why I wear

them as well. I think having your heel

on the floor so your calf isn't in a

shortened position all the time can only

be good for the way that you move. But

the real reason I wear them is because

they let me do things I couldn't do

otherwise. Barefoot shoes let me feel

the ground beneath my feet because they

have a thinner sole. They let me contort

my foot around bars and ledges when I'm

balancing and running. I feel lighter

and faster because the shoes are

lighter, but at the same time, they're

also immensely wellmade. They still

[music] provide that protection. Viva

Barefoot create a large number of

different boots that offer more

protection during winter months that

protect your feet when you're hiking,

whilst at the same time giving you all

of that freedom and control that's good

for your health and that lets you move

faster and lighter. And Bioneer viewers

can get 15% off a purchase by using code

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Hope you found this video useful and

interesting, guys. If you did, then

please leave a like and share it around.

That would help me out immensely. Let me

know how you think absolute Batman would

train and will you be taking any of

these concepts and applying them to your

own training. Either way, thank you so

much for watching this one and I'll see

you next time. Bye for now.