Blessing Awodibu is fueling the intensity of his training with Kai Greene in the final stages of his 2022 Olympia prep. In 2022, Blessing Awodibu, one of Ireland’s most prominent bodybuilders, saw a dramatic upswing in his career, despite a lackluster competitive season the previous year. Awodibu is an IFBB Pro competing in the Men’s Open division. Following a sixth-place finish at the 2021 New York Pro, he took time off to improve his physique and returned with a bang, scoring wins at the 2022 Indy Pro and the 2022 New York Pro. The wins qualified The Boogeyman for the 2022 Olympia where he will go up against the best.
Awodibu became a social media star long before turning Pro. The outspoken Irishman has generated a lot of intrigue around his name with his pro wrestling style trash-talking and has developed a fierce rivalry with old foe Michal Krizo. However, the 31-year-old has the work ethic and talent to back up the trash talk as seen from his recent performances.
Awodibu’s quest to win the 2022 Olympia continues and he recently teamed up with Kai Greene for an intense back and hamstrings workout. 46-year-old Greene is one of the greatest bodybuilders that never won the Mr. Olympia crown. The three-time Arnold Classic winner was a fierce rival of 7-time Mr. Olympia winner Phil Heath. Unfortunately, he could not beat the champ in spite of coming close a few times. Greene has not competed professionally since winning the 2016 Arnold Classic Brazil and the chances of his return are slim as of now.
The duo went through the workout with their trademark swagger. The video of this session was posted on Awodibu’s YouTube channel. So without further delay, let’s see how the duo annihilated the workout.
Blessing Awodibu and Kai Greene go through a back and hamstrings workout
Seated Rows
Awodibu and Greene started the training session with seated rows on a plate-loaded machine with a swivel handle. After performing a few warm-up sets to increase the blood flow in the back muscles, the duo got a few high volume working sets under the belt.
Lat Pulldown
The training partners next jumped into the lat pulldowns to fire up the back muscles further. After cranking out a few good sets with high intensity, Awodibu and Greene took to the next movement.
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T-Bar Rows
If vertical pulls like the lat pulldowns give you a wide back, the horizontal pulls like rows give the back necessary thickness. Therefore it is important to incorporate both in the back routine. When it comes to building the upper body pulling strength, there are only a handful of exercises that match the potential of T-bar rows. The Boogeyman and Greene pulled off some heavy and high-volume sets of this compound movement. They wrapped up this exercise after performing a massive drop set in the end.
Superset – Close-grip Seated Rows and Stiff-leg Deadlifts
The training partners released the stress of an intense training session with a good-humored dance and went back to work with this superset. The duo targeted the back with close-grip seated rows and worked the glutes and hamstrings with stiff-leg deadlifts.
This superset really increased the aerobic intensity of the training session as Greene and Awodibu pushed through all the high-volume sets with minimal rest periods.
Greene explains the efficacy of this superset in building neurological awareness for cohesive contraction of the posterior muscles
Blessing Awodibu opined that it is ‘one of the toughest combos to perform in a gym’ and Kai Greene explained the purpose of incorporating this superset in their training session. He said:
“Nothing will teach you the proper mechanics and function of gripping the floor like this combination. What happens here is you will be able to flex your hamstrings, glutes, spinal erectors, your lats, your whole posterior chain as you go into thinking about all the longitudinal muscles in your back.”
He added:
“You’re talking about iliocostalis lumborum, latissimus dorsi. If you wait till it comes time to just practice your posing to think that now you’re going to gain all of the awareness that is appropriate in an effort to learn the technique of gripping from the floor.”
“How to separate your semi-membranosis from your semi-finolis, how to flex them together and put them all together so that you can make one cohesive contraction – that’s really the bunch of different muscles being contracted at the same time and held.”
Greene further explained that this superset can help someone get the neurological awareness necessary to pose from the rear. It took Greene a full seven years to articulate the benefits of doing this sequence together. Greene reminded the viewers of his fierce rival and seven-time Mr. Olympia winner Phil Heath’s unparalleled ability to cohesively contract the muscles in posing from the rear.
“Listen, man. Do not get it twisted. There’s not a lot of men alive that were competing at that time in the sport that were able to put it all together like (Phil Heath) did,” Kai Greene stated.
Standing Leg Curls
Awodibu and Greene next switched to working the hamstrings and trained the muscle with standing leg curls. This is one of the most effective hamstring isolation exercises that can be called ‘the preacher curls for hamstrings’. Since the quads are firmly pressed against the pad, the hamstrings are engaged to a far greater extent. The duo pulled off a few sets of this movement and took to the final exercise of the day.
Barbell Romanian Deadlifts
The big guys capped the training session with this variation of the deadlifts. The Romanian deadlifts work the entire posterior chain of muscles and are extremely efficient in building hamstrings strength. Following some solid sets of this exercise, Blessing Awodibu and Kai Greene wrapped up the training session.
Overall, the workout included:
- Seated Rows on a Plate-loaded Machine
- Lat Pulldown on a Plate-loaded Machine
- T-bar Rows
- Superset – Close-grip Seated Rows and Stiff-leg Deadlifts
- Standing Leg Curls
- Barbell Romanian Deadlifts
Blessing Awodibu has looked absolutely shredded and stage-ready in his recent physique updates. Andrew Jacked and Michal Krizo’s meteoric rise in the division has slightly pushed Awodibu out of the spotlight. However, the Irishman is really pushing his limits and has partnered with the likes of Phil Heath and Kai Greene to improve. There are many mass monsters in the Men’s Open division, among them reigning champion Mamdouh ‘Big Ramy’ Elssbiay, but Blessing Awodibu plans to defeat them all with his conditioning and proportions. In order to determine whether or not this strategy is effective, we must wait 15 days. For updates on the 2022 Olympia, please stay tuned to Fitness Volt.
You can watch the full workout video here, courtesy of Blessing Awodibu’s personal YouTube channel:
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