For two months, she submitted herself to an intensive workout with trainer Harley Pasternak. The beautiful news is that the Catwoman workout only took 25 minutes a day, five days a week!
In an interview on Live With Regis & Kelly, Berry said, "I’m on a strict routine for this movie, and as soon as we wrap on this movie, I will be off it. I cannot live like this. Nobody should live like this."
She quickly added though that all the training was necessary. "I have to fight in like, four-inch heels. And we’re doing this style of martial arts that’s Brazilian, so it’s all low to the ground, very influenced by gymnastics … that’s challenging," she said.
How Berry Evolved As Catwoman
A publicist of Warner Bros., Jay Gonzales, helped me with my research by providing some cat news. The movie press release quoted Berry, "I knew this was going to be a huge undertaking for me and I actually started intensive fitness training with Harley Pasternak in June of 2003. I’ve always worked out and been in shape, but I needed to take it to a whole new level to meet the physical challenges of this character and create the kind of body that Catwoman ought to have."
She added, "My fitness and nutrition regimen was constant throughout pre-production and production, but there were many other skills that I had to work on for the film, like whip training, fight training and movement."
Known for being open to pushing herself physically, Berry did an unbelievable amount of fight work and stunts herself. Producer Denise Di Novi quipped, "From the beginning, she wanted to do as much of it herself as she could."
Steve Davidson and Jacob Rupp, stunt coordinators, together with Michael Gunther, fight coordinator, taught Berry the elaborate fight sequences. Davidson is full of praises for the actress, "Halle is just amazing, a total pro. Her level of concentration, focus and determination is unlike any we’ve ever seen!"
The Brazilian martial art Berry mentioned earlier in this feature is Capoeira (pronounced Ca-po-we-ra). This is a combination of martial arts, dance and gymnastics. (Big gyms in Manila now offer this special class, just in case you are intrigued.) Anne Flethcher, film’s choreographer, claimed, "It’s one of the most difficult disciplines to learn, but it is one of the most beautiful holistic art forms in the world."
"Of all my training, learning to crack the whip was the most fun. The whip is probably the most elusive tool you can play with, but it’s also the most sexy and the most fun. Once you get the first good crack, there’s nothing else like it," Berry noted.
She was trained to properly wield a bullwhip. This is Catwoman’s main weapon to disarm or dispatch her foes. It also acts as an accessory to her tight leather outfit. It either dangles from her hips or trails behind her like a long leather tail.
Whip master Alex Green beamed, "Halle was one of my best students ever. She was a very quick study. She listened intently and practiced constantly and her hard work paid off. The whip became a true extension of her character."
He explained, "The crack sound a whip makes is due to the fact that the tail on the whip is actually breaking the sound barrier. When a whip is cracked properly, it travels at 950 miles per hour 1,400 feet per second."
How does one perfect the feline style? Fletcher is responsible for developing Catwoman’s signature style. She taught Berry how to think and move like a cat.
Di Novi explained, "A lot of the action that Halle does in the movie is based on actual cat movement. When you see cats leaping from eight stories or doing figure eights in mid-air, it’s almost supernatural, and re-creating that with a female human body was fantastic."
Each workout day of Berry with Pasternak consisted of five five-minute parts:
• Cardio training on an elliptical machine
• Upper-body weightlifting focused on strengthening the upper back muscles to pull Berry’s shoulders and give her a strong and confident superhero posture
• Lower-body weightlifting focused on the back of her legs ("The front of her thighs were already strong, but the back was comparatively weak, putting her at risk for knee injury," Pasternak commented in an interview.)
• Strengthening the core — the abs and lower back.
• More cardio training, this time focused on fat burning. Though Berry was already slim, she needed to lose more body fat to appear sculpted. Hence, this last phase was extended to 30 minutes in the last few weeks to make Berry lean.
Every week, Pasternak changes the number of repetitions, sets, length of rest periods, and the muscles worked. "I split my body up so I work all my large muscles twice a week and my small muscles once a week, and every day I do a different part of my core: One day the rectus abdominus, the next it’s the lateral obliques; one day the transverse abdominus," he expounded.
Under Pasternak’s supervision, cat food was a strict high-fiber, high-protein, low-carb diet rationed as five small meals a day.
His commonsense diet guide: "Six days a week stay away from flour, full-fat dairy and sugary foods. On the seventh day, feel free to dial that two-for-one pizza number that’s been burning a hole in your phone or indulge in that piece of cheesecake. Anything you want." Asked about coffee, he said that there is no need to give up the habit but use non-fat dairy and sweetener instead of sugar.
But he warned, "Well, the first thing you need to know before beginning an exercise program is that there is no secret. No quick fixes, short cuts or easy routes. Fitness cannot be pursued, it must ensue. In other words, the results you seek should be the by-product of exercise, lifestyle choices and healthy eating – and to build the body you want, you need to create a synergistic balance between all three. Face it – if you want a lean, healthy, muscular body, then you’re going to have to work for it."
Pasternak swears by the philosophy of multi-variable training, MVT is a training system where the variables (position, duration, activity, reps and rests) are constantly changing. This forces the body to adapt, thereby stimulating muscle growth and promoting fat loss. It also helps determined dieters avoid those unwanted plateaus.
He shares these workout tips in his website:
ARMS/SHOULDERS
Make sure you take a balanced approach to working the shoulders. Often people neglect the back of the shoulders. You have to hit all aspects of this area to get a nice rounded shape. Some recommended exercises: The dumbbell shoulder press, dumbbell laterals, and rear dumbbell shoulder flies.
Also, you want to work the triceps more than the biceps. The triceps muscles are double the size of the biceps muscles. Developing the triceps muscles will help your posture. If the biceps muscles are too tight, the biceps pull the shoulders forward, causing you to slouch.
LEGS
Make sure you have balance between the muscles in the front of the thighs and the back of the thighs. Too often, people neglect the hamstrings. You have to do a lot of unilateral leg exercises (where you use one leg at a time). These would include lunges, step-ups and single leg presses.
ABS
This is one of the most overworked muscle groups. The best way to get rid of the abs-covering layer of fat that many of us are saddled with: Cardio exercise and a healthy diet. When the layer of fat is gone, you will begin to see the fruits of your labor. Variety is the key to working the abs. Use different exercises to work them. Some effective exercises include resist-a-ball crunches, hanging knee raises and double crunches.
BUTT
There really are no exercises that isolate the butt. But you do work your butt when you work your legs. Lunges, step-ups and squats will not only tone your legs – they’ll affect your bottoming out backside as well!
With exercise, you can put the spring back to your legs. You can be stronger than you can imagine. Stretch your body’s flexibility limits. Challenge yourself (under professional supervision, please!). And watch your whole body tone to purr-fection!