Natalie Portman’s arms are the real star of the new Thor

Pipe down Hemsworth, this is Portman's gun show now.

Pipe down Hemsworth, this is Portman's gun show now.

Natalie Portman dons armour and wields a magic hammer as a mighty superhero in new Thor: Love and Thunder.

The scene stealers, though, are the star’s jacked shoulders and arms.

Her big muscles command so much attention, they have unleashed a debate over how much her look was altered with computer graphics.

Even starting her arm training required arm training.

"Bulked-up arms were definitely the desired goal," Naomi Pendergast, the Australian trainer who spent 10-months working with Portman, said.

Naomi Pendergast is the Aussie trainer who helped "create" Natalie Portman's arms for the new Thor.

They started on easy weights so the actress wouldn’t get injured before switching to the heavy stuff.

Pendergast’s website now sells a workout program with a picture of Portman in full Thor regalia, a tight band on her bulging Viking bicep.

Tickets to the Portman gun show are now available online.

Goodbye, 1kg pink neoprene hand weights, hello big dumbbells.

Many women who decry “armpit fat” on their upper body, “bat wings” under their arms or “bra bulge” on their backs are chasing a brawnier aesthetic.

The weighty topic is getting a lift in part from the rise in female superhero stars on screen, and a body-positivity movement that makes the word “skinny” sound outdated at best.

The pandemic stoked more interest in home-fitness equipment, even for heavy accoutrements such as battle ropes and push sleds.

“You look in the mirror, see it, feel it - strength is addictive,” says trainer Jason Walsh, who helped transform Emily Blunt into an alien-fighting commando in Edge of Tomorrow and Brie Larson into the intergalactic superhero of Captain Marvel.

On Match.com, 10% more women describe themselves as "athletic/fit" than "slim/slender" compared with three years ago, according to the dating app.

And those women get roughly 40% more likes in their first week than the slim/slender group, Amber Harrison, vice president of brand at Match, said.

Harrison herself works out with a CrossFit training group in Palo Alto, California, that calls itself the Meathead Girls Club.

“I had never before felt excited when a piece of clothing was too small,” Harrison said of her latest designer top that can no longer contain her muscled torso.

Not everyone is a fan of the flexing by "Big Muscle"

Some in the fitness world are feeling a trifle sore.

Erika Bloom, whose pilates studios dot upscale locations such as the Hamptons on Long Island in New York, objects to the practice of aggressively pumping up what she calls “vanity muscles” such as lats and biceps.

Women who have been hitting the big weights come to her asking for help to reverse some of the results, Bloom said.

"Every day somebody comes in and says, 'I’m doing traditional training and my neck and shoulders feel terrible, and I don’t like how my arms look'," Bloom, who instead recommends a more balanced approach for "length and strength", added.

In the case of the new Thor movie, viewers scrutinising the trailer debated whether Portman’s on-screen physique was all her.

Natalie Portman yesterday surprising fans at the #ThorLoveAndThunder screening in Rome, Italy. pic.twitter.com/GMorklL0r3

— Natalie Portman Updates (@nportmanonline) July 7, 2022

Fans glimpsed behind-the-scenes photos of Portman with tracking markers on her arms -a motion-capture technique used in computer-generated imagery - and argued over whether a portion of her muscles were digitally enhanced.

And "arm skeptic" weighs in

“I don’t think anyone’s view was that she didn’t do the work because she was a woman, just that it simply wasn’t all real,” Garrett Lopez, 18, an arm skeptic and vocal Marvel fan who makes character figurines in the US, said of the committed vegan actor.

“Not to mention that Marvel films are just quite CGI heavy. It’s not an unreasonable conclusion to draw given that.”

In promoting the movie, Portman, 41-years-old, has talked about the strict workout protocol she followed to embody Mighty Thor, the physically outsize alter ego to her mortal astrophysicist character Jane Foster.

The production says it used digital imagery only to scale up Portman as the taller Mighty Thor.

“Natalie certainly put in the work and bulked up for the role, but there’s still nothing she could do to grow 9-inches,” said Thor producer Brad Winderbaum.

“We had to use just a little movie magic to increase her height to 6-feet and ensure that she stayed proportional.”

Filmmakers occasionally apply digital effects to muscles, Phil Cramer, animation director on Avengers: Infinity War, said.

His crew helped create the ripped bod for the purple villain Thanos. The team used a technique they nicknamed “adding hamsters,” where fake muscle ripples mimic little animals skittering under the skin.

Fashion designer Sarah Staudinger didn’t want Arnold-style bulk for her recent Saint-Tropez wedding.

But she did want chiseled arms. She wanted good posture. She wanted to feel calm.

“That radiant light that you want to emit, that was part of my vision,” Staudinger said of her workout, stretching and meditation plan.

Denver trainer Kourtney Thomas trademarked her slogan, “Big Arms, Big Life,” and put it on tank tops and business cards.

When she switched her focus from weight loss to strength, she said, her business grew. “There’s something incredibly empowering about being stronger and taking up more space in the world.”

Celebrities are promoting the chiseled style, too.

“I like muscle-I don’t just like to be thin,” Khloé Kardashian said between bites of hot-sauced chicken wings when asked about her intense workout regimen on a recent episode of the talk show, Hot Ones.

Celebrity trainer Gunnar Peterson says his female clients, which included the Kardashians, used to pinch extra flesh they wished to banish from their bodies, but now they say they want to be strong.

“I’ve been doing this 30-years,” Peterson said.

“And that’s not a word that was ever tossed around as much as it has been now.”