Women's Health May 14, 2026 0 Comments

Unlock Karen Fukuhara’s Secret Lifting Hack That Transforms Muscles—And It’s Not What You Think!

Ever wondered what it really takes to train like a superhero? Well, meet Karen Fukuhara—the fierce actress behind the assassin Kimiko Miyashiro on Prime Video’s The Boys—who makes lifting heavy not just a workout, but a mission. It’s not just about flexing muscle; it’s about embodying speed, agility, and superhuman strength. But here’s the kicker: Karen didn’t always stride into the gym with such swagger. From intimidating equipment and confusing gym etiquette to discovering the magic of training smarter, not harder, her journey is as inspiring as it is relatable. Ready to dive into the exact leg-focused workout that fuels her wolf-like moves and see how she wraps it all up with what she cheekily calls the “arm blast”? Let’s get into it and maybe, just maybe, recalibrate what we think about hitting the weights. LEARN MORE

2 min read

Lifting heavy is practically part of the job description for actor Karen Fukuhara, who plays assassin Kimiko Miyashiro on the Prime Video series The Boys. After all, when your character is imbued with speed, agility, and super-human strength, you can’t exactly do a few jumping jacks and call it a day. Luckily for Karen, she wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I come in with a plan, and I enjoy my me-time in the gym,” she tells Women’s Health in the latest episode of the video series Strong Like.

But it hasn’t always been that way. Karen first started training after college, in order to spend time with a friend and get into fitness, but it didn’t exactly stick.

“I didn’t know where any of the machines were or what the gym etiquette was,” she says. “It was just really overwhelming to me.”

Working with a trainer for the movie Suicide Squad changed that, she says. “It really helps to have a trainer in the beginning educate you on what each exercise is doing for your body,” she says. “He taught me how to train smarter, not harder.”

Now, Karen walks into the gym feeling a lot more confident. She recently brought WH along with her to give us a taste of the leg-focused workout that keeps her in fighting shape.

Karen prefers to start her training with the heaviest lifting first, then continue on with lighter weights and unilateral moves. She typically does four sets of 10 reps for each exercise, unless the weight is super-heavy (in that case, she’ll go to failure). She begins her workout with barbell glute bridges, as she says lower-body strength helps with stunt work and her character’s low-to-the-ground “wolf-like” movements.

She supersets the glute bridges with seated cable rows. “I love these because I feel like in our day-to-day we’re always on our laptops, always on our phones, and so there’s a lot of forward shoulder movement,” she says. “My posture is always going forward, and so I like to offset that by working out the back muscles.”

Next, she moves on to landmine deadlifts. After hurting her back doing more traditional deadlifts, she prefers this variation. “I feel that I can lift a little more and get more reps in with this one,” she says.

She follows deadlifts with single-leg deficit glute bridges, for a little more glute work in addition to hip mobility and balance. “I have a really hard time targeting my glute muscle,” she says. “I am quad dominant, but the glute bridges really help me focus on the glute itself without everything else firing up.”

Then she’ll wrap up her workout with what she calls the “arm blast,” super-setting bicep curls, tricep kickbacks, and rear delt flies—with a sprinkling of core in the form of weighted straight-leg raises. “I like it because I’m allowed to be lying down,” she says with a laugh. Who doesn’t feel that way at the end of a tough workout!?!

Hear more about Karen’s approach to lifting by watching the Strong Like video above.

What’s in Karen’s Gym Bag?

lululemon Wunder Train Padded Gloves

BlenderBottle SpongeBob – Pro Series

Drink LMNT Electrolytes – Variety Pack

Amy Wilkinson is a contributing entertainment editor at Women’s Health, where she edits the magazine’s celebrity cover stories and writes health features. She has previously held editor titles at Entertainment Weekly and MTV News. In 2021, Amy completed her 600-hour teacher-training at Core Pilates NYC to become a comprehensively trained Pilates instructor.