How Tom Holland Built His Spider-Man Muscle

Spider-Man suits used to rely heavily on padding and CGI to look convincingly muscular on screen. Tom Holland’s more recent transformation flipped that formula, building enough real muscle that the effects team barely had to fake anything.

Getting there took a specific combination of training and eating, most of it built around ideas Holland has been surprisingly candid about in interviews.

Diet Matters More to Him Than the Gym Does

Despite the demanding workouts tied to the role, Holland has been consistent about where he thinks the real results come from. “My diet is far more important than what I do in the gym,” he’s told Men’s Health, estimating the split at roughly 80 percent diet and 20 percent fitness.

That philosophy shapes how he prioritizes his day generally. Training matters, but for Holland, what happens in the kitchen carries more weight than any individual workout.

He Actually Struggles to Eat Enough

Unlike most actors bulking up for a role, Holland’s challenge tends to run in the opposite direction. “I really have to think about eating three times a day,” he’s admitted in an interview, describing a normal breakfast, lunch, and dinner as an oddly large amount of food for him to manage.

On typical days outside of bulking phases, he often eats just once, batch-cooking simple meals like vegetarian chili to make sure something is available when he does remember to eat. Building muscle has meant deliberately overriding that natural tendency.

Gymnastics Shaped How He Actually Trains

Before Spider-Man, Holland trained competitively as a gymnast, and that background still shows up clearly in his current routine. Rather than traditional bodybuilding splits, his training leans on full-body circuits, bodyweight progressions, and gymnastics-based movement built to support agility as much as size.

His trainer has pointed to that approach as the reason his sessions can hit more muscle groups without chasing pure bulk. It’s training built around what his body needs to do on screen, not just how it needs to look.

Real Muscle Replaced Padding and CGI

For his most recent Spider-Man role, Holland pushed specifically to avoid relying on the padded suits and digital enhancement used in earlier films. He’s explained wanting to add enough real muscle that the visual effects team wouldn’t need to fake the difference.

That shift required a genuine six-week push to add several kilograms of lean muscle, using a daily full-body circuit built around compound lifts. The goal wasn’t just looking bigger on camera, but actually being stronger underneath the suit.

Cod, Chicken, and Potatoes Do the Heavy Lifting

Holland’s go-to proteins are simple: cod, because it’s easy to cook, and chicken, because it’s easy to prepare a dozen different ways. Potatoes are his favorite carbohydrate by a wide margin, something he’s said comes from his Irish heritage and will eat in almost any form.

That simplicity extends to the rest of his approach. Nothing about his everyday meals sounds particularly exotic, just a short rotation of foods he can prepare reliably even while traveling for work.

Even a Strict Plan Leaves Room for a Cheat Meal

Despite how deliberate the rest of his eating is, Holland has a clear go-to indulgence: an In-N-Out Double-Double with raw onions. It’s treated as an earned exception rather than something he denies himself entirely.

That balance between structure and the occasional splurge mirrors how a lot of actors talk about sustaining a demanding physique long-term. Total restriction rarely survives contact with real life, and Holland’s approach doesn’t try to pretend otherwise.