In this video, I am going to train like Alicia Vikander aka Lara Croft from Tomb Raider.
Growing up and to this day, I loved the Tomb Raider movies and games.
More than just a badass fictional character, Lara Croft represents the smart, strong and adventurous women who explore the world independently against all odds.
While traveling to every country in the world by the age of 21, and often off the beaten path as a solo female traveler, I developed a love for history, culture and raw adventure.
As it turns out, Lara Croft and I have a lot in common and that has not gone unnoticed by you guys.
If you've seen the most recent film in the Tomb Raider franchise, you know how absolutely shredded Alicia Vikander became for her role as Lara Croft.
She gained over 12 pounds of muscle in just three months working with celebrity trainer and nutritionist Magnus Ligbeck.
After learning more about the brutal training routine that Alicia went through to become the Tomb Raider, I knew I had found the perfect challenge to push my limits.
But I knew I would need help, so I took a chance and reached out to her celebrity trainer Magnus, himself.
So it is day one.
I'm pretty surprised because I reached out to Magnus to tell him that I was doing his workout challenge and I was absolutely not expecting him to respond.
And he did, and we're actually going to go meet him and get trained by him right now.
I've never even had a personal trainer or anything like that before.
We're gonna go head out and meet him at a private gym right now.
We're out.
Bye!
Okay, sweet.
Thank you.
Ooh, gosh.
I feel like I shouldn't be as nervous as I am right now.
Hello.
Hey.
Hi.
How are you?
Good.
Nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you too.
Welcome.
Wow, this is a cool spot.
I like to do high-intensity interval training in the beginning of every session.
To get the proper Lara Croft body you really need high-intensity interval training with strength training.
We're gonna start with two minutes just to warm up, and then I'm gonna put you through a couple of intervals.
I won't kill you today, I just wanna show you what it's about.
Try to always lower your shoulders and stay pretty relaxed.
Don't run forward, always push your neck back.
There you go, feels okay yeah, great.
So that was two times 20 seconds.
We're going to work our way up to one minute intervals and up to 10 of them, so you can imagine it gets a lot harder.
But this is, this is a good start.
Let's start with this.
Over the next two hours, Magnus walked me through a preview of all the different exercises in his training.
I tried to play it cool, but this was by far the most challenging workout of my life and it was only the preview.
Over the next 45 days, I'll be using Magnus' app.
That gets progressively more and more intense every week.
After our first workout, I had a DEXA scan done on my body so that I could track the exact amount of fat loss and muscle gain over the course of the next 45 days of training.
So I am walking to the grocery store right now.
This is my first time going shopping.
I need to get all of the food that I'm allowed to eat for this.
There's a pretty strict diet.
I've never really done any diets before and this one requires that I not eat dairy, sugar, or processed foods, which I'm pretty nervous about.
This is probably going to be the hardest part of this challenge, but thankfully in Magnus' app, there is a really clear grocery list of all of the foods that I'm allowed to eat, so it's going to be pretty easy to shop for.
We're going to see how it goes.
I walked into the apartment and I had a very warm welcome.
She hasn't moved from this location since I arrived.
My body hurts so much.
I can't believe that I'm gonna have another day before I have a rest day.
I've never had every part of my body hurt at the same time before.
This is day two?
Yeah!
You're so scary.
I'm so scared.
This thing never gets any easier.
This freaking bike makes me feel like I'm gonna die.
I can barely make it through this without taking a break.
It's so horrible.
I have just completed week one of the training and I am dead.
I was not expecting it to be this intense all week, but surprisingly the most difficult challenge has been so far eating enough food to sustain the muscle growth that I'm aiming for.
It's been a complete lifestyle change for me so far, but I'm feeling very empowered to make it through the rest of the training and see what week two has to offer.
Let's see how it goes.
I hate it so much.
But you love it.
I don't love anything about this.
No, no love hate?
No.
Only five more sets.
I'm not used to doing that much cardio.
So I'm nearing the end of week two and I just got off of the bike and I'm just dripping in sweat, but that definitely felt like it was my best time yet.
For a second.
There, I felt like I was breaking through this barrier that I've created in my mind over the years towards cardio.
It felt like, even for just a few seconds during every set, that I was almost elevated out of my body and like the muscle burn in my legs wasn't as intense.
I was watching myself go through the motion, but I wasn't so self involved in the pain that I was feeling during that, so it felt like a little bit of a breakthrough.
Literally.
Still dripping sweat.
Working out is a challenge, but I discovered that my nutrition routine is the real key to building muscle.
Each meal consisted of a fist-sized portion of protein, a fist of slow carbs or fats and two fists of vegetables.
Every morning, I was eating three eggs and a fist of veggies.
Then I would drink 20 grams of protein in a shake.
After that, I would work out.
Then, within 20 minutes of exercising, I would eat lunch, then another 20 grams of protein as a snack and then dinner.
Out of every 20 meals, I'm allowed to take three cheat meals, so this is my first cheat day in 27 days, first time having bread.
This is vegan cheddar cheese, so i don't know if it counts as being as bad as eating normal cheese.
I haven't had a cheat meal this entire time.
That's pretty impressive, Damn.
Good job.
He's so good.
Look at that.
Definitely a cheat meal.
I won't do your workout.
So I just got off the bike here and it's day 43, and that was by far the best round that I've had this entire time.
I mean, I'm still dripping in sweat and really exhausted, but I didn't take any extra breaks.
I went faster than I ever have in the last rounds.
And I feel like I'm really starting to hit my stride.
As I mentioned earlier, Skillshare is back to sponsor this video.
Skillshare is all about learning and challenging yourself, which is why, as I'm telling you about Skillshare, I'm going to be challenging myself to hit these targets with some Lara Croft style archery.
Skillshare is an online community of lifelong learners where millions come together to take the next step in their creative journey.
For less than 10 a month.
With an annual subscription, you can gain access to thousands of inspiring classes on photography videography, writing and more.
I actually signed up for Skillshare through a YouTube video just like this one, back before I even started my channel.
Since then, I've used Skillshare classes to improve my video and photography skills, as well as my writing skills.
One of the classes that has helped me so much is low budget filmmaking tips and tricks for an indie look by maddie brown, which taught me how to achieve that indie aesthetic on my travel videos.
Now here's the important part.
The first thousand people to use the link in my description will receive a free trial to Skillshare Premium Membership.
This helps my channel out so much when you use my link and it also gives you knowledge for free.
So if you wanna keep these Skillshare challenges coming in the future, feel free to share my link with your friends and family so they can get a free trial as well.
But for now, let's jump back to the workouts.
Good morning, guys.
My workout challenge is officially over and I thought it would be so fun to wrap up this 45-day challenge with a fun little photo shoot to transform into the Tomb Raider.
All right, so I've just arrived at the office.
I think my friends are inside setting up.
This is super impromptu.
We have not really any idea how this shoot is gonna turn out, but we're gonna find out.
All right, I've finally arrived.
It's all coming together.
I've never done any kind of cosplay or anything before, so I have a feeling that these photos side by side are gonna be pretty satisfying.
The last finishing touches.
Making you look sweaty.
Implied sweat.
Little cosplay.
So after all this time of eating clean and working out, it's the moment we've all been waiting for.
I went and got my body scan taken and the results are in.
In 45 days, I gained 6.1 pounds of muscle and I lost 4.9 pounds of fat.
Specifically, I lost 0.3 pounds of fat in my arms and gained 1.1 pounds of muscle.
In my legs, I lost 1.6 pounds of fat and I gained 2.2 pounds of muscle.
Wow guys, these results are absolutely blowing my mind.
Alicia Vikander gained 12 pounds of muscle in 90 days using the Magnus Method.
Gaining Over six pounds of muscle isn't something that I even realized I was capable of doing, let alone in only 45 days.
Using this program really works.
My friend and trainer Magnus, has just launched his very own YouTube channel, The Magnus Method, which you should definitely go subscribe to if you want to see these kind of results in transformation in your own body, as well as gaining all of the insights that he's taken from training celebrities for over 20 years.
Overall, I loved this workout and diet plan.
It felt like something that I can sustain going forward in my life, especially since I was seeing such incredible results.
And even though the exercises were hard, I feel so good and healthy.
The quarantine funk is definitely out of my system now.
I've never felt this good about my body.
Don't get me wrong, though.
This was really hard, but in life you get what you pay for, and this was definitely worth the effort.
I'm so excited to try some of Lara Croft's other skills, like mixed martial arts, rock climbing or weapons training.
So, as soon as it's safe, you can definitely expect to see some more videos tackling those activities.
If that sounds interesting, be sure to subscribe to see me put myself through a lot more pain.
