Chris Evans' trainer Simon Waterson says actor was 'bit imbalanced' before the Captain America shoot

The scene in the film Captain America: The First Avenger where Steve Rogers, played by Chris Evans, transforms from a skinny child to a muscular supersoldier takes one's breath away. It is indeed one of the most impactful scenes of the movie and it seems, behind the scenes, Chris Evans had to undergo a similar, but less dramatic transformation himself.  

According to his trainer Simon Waterson, the then-28-year-old actor had the body of a college boy and he was a 'bit imbalanced'. He told Insider that he was disproportionately muscular in his biceps, chest, and core. The trainer opened up about Chris Evan's workout regime for the filming of the 2011 movie. He said, "He could do a lot of pushing exercises but not a lot of pulling exercises. So he didn't deadlift, he didn't do many pull-ups, he didn't have very overdeveloped legs." 

Simon had to work with Evans to build strength in his muscles, which helped the actor with a more balanced physique and improve his mobility for action scenes. The same regime was followed by the actor for his character for nine years until the release of Avengers: Endgame in 2019.

Waterson called Evan's workout before Captain America a college workout or a pub workout. "It's just about training your pub muscles, and your pub muscles are the ones that are on show for everyone else and not there for yourself," he told the portal. This kind of training had led to an imbalance in the appearance of his body. It can also cause strain to your spine, especially if you focus more on your chest without balancing it out with reinforcing your back muscles. Such workouts can cause injury to the spine as well. 

Waterson's aim was to focus on athleticism just as much as aesthetics for Evans so that Evans could perform most of his own stunts as Captain America. "It was a mixture of heavy lifting but then also dynamic circuits," he said adding, "Captain America has really good movements. We were working both angles, the aesthetic and the athletic to give him the ultimate performance." His dynamic circuits, based on body-weight workouts, included sprints, mountain climbers, lunges, total resistance exercises and sit-ups. Evans struggled with lower-body workouts since he had been focussing on his upper body and core before 2010, but he mastered them all with squats and deadlifts, he said.