Chris Bumstead revealed that his brand new private gym is finally ready. The renowned bodybuilder recently went through a chest workout in the gym to continue getting better for the 2023 Olympia stage. He shared different aspects of his training and equipment in the new gym as he dealt with the training session.
Canadian professional bodybuilder Chris Bumstead is a global superstar and an accomplished competitor. The 28-year-old has won the prestigious Classic Physique Olympia title four consecutive times from 2019 to 2022 Olympia. His two previous appearances, in 2017 and 2018, resulted in runner-up finishes to former champion Breon Ansley. CBum is widely regarded as the most successful active bodybuilder and the one that put Classic Physique division on the must-watch list of fans.
Bumstead is one of the elite bodybuilders that have embraced their human nature with an open mind and spoke candidly on the struggles he has been through. Be it the stress and pressure of being a champion, impact of steroids or difficulties faced during competition prep, CBum has been candid about everything. While he is training hard to bring home a few more Olympia titles, CBum is also expecting to retire soon from competing.
Rising contenders like Urs Kalecinski and Ramon Rocha Queiroz are making rapid progress. However, CBum is confident in his abilities and feels that he needs to beat himself to remain on top. With an arduous training regime and a stringent diet, he continues to prepare his physique for the 2023 Olympia competition that takes place from Nov. 3-5 in Orlando, Florida.
Chris Bumstead goes through a chest workout
Chris Bumstead is working with the focus and determination of a true champion to bring home fifth Classic Physique Olympia title. He had previously explained that working in a commercial gym leads to a lot of distractions and uninvited attention. To train in privacy and maintain focus, the champ was working on setting up his own gym for the past few months. The task is finally complete and CBum has named this gym ‘Bum Lifting Club’.
“Had a bit of a rough start to the prep. But it’s okay… We’ve got a private gym now. Making up for it. But I’ve been training here alone for, I guess, a week. It’s been beautiful honestly, having no one to bother you… Just like chilling closer to work, coming in here and training…” Chris Bumstead said.
The Classic Physique Olympia champion will be tackling most of his workouts for the next eight weeks in this cool private spot. In the first workout video shot in the gym, Chris Bumstead trained chest and triceps and posted it on his YouTube channel. So without further delay, let’s take a closer look at the detailed account of this training session.
Seated Close Grip Cable Chest Press
Bumstead commenced the workout with this movement to force the blood into pectoral muscles and get a sufficient warm up. Cable machines keep the muscles under tension throughout the range of motion. THis enables firing them up in the beginning of the session to tackle heavier compound movements. Bumstead, who has dealt with a bad shoulder for a while now, stated:
“This is one of those things where if you have an injury or pain somewhere like my shoulder, you can set the cable up… This is like the perfect range of motion you need it to be. Elbows in the perfect position and it’s not a flye, it’s a press. So it’s just like a machine but it’s constant tension because it’s a cable pulling you from the weight behind you. Honestly, it’s better than most presses you can do. Just can’t do much of a load. But with an injury, nothing really beats a good cable press.”
CBum tried this exercise for the first time and noted that he will do a lot of fine tuning in the days to come. The 28-year-old got a few good sets of the exercise under his belt before jumping into the heavier movements.
Smith Machine Incline Bench Press
Bumstead normally maintained a rep range of six to eight and used quite heavier weights for his workouts. However, he feels that with growing age, he feels that heavy training might affect joint health in later years of life. As a result, the reigning Classic Physique Olympia champion is increasing volume in his training.
“It used to be like eight to ten or six to ten even. I’ve been trying to do like a good 12 to 15 for most of my (redacted). It’s been feeling pretty good. I definitely get better pumps but it’s a lot more of a mental game now, trying to keep a really, like, constant state of tension and time under tension rather than just pushing some weight. Mentally I have to stay in it a little bit longer…”
Bumstead pushed through a few high volume sets of incline bench press on the Smith machine to fire up his upper pecs. He got a drop set in before jumping into another compound chest builder.
Star Trac Incline Chest Flyes Machine
Pushing strength is a must to have without an ounce of doubt. However, it’s equally important to build the adduction strength in the upper body and chest flyes are the kind of exercises that do the trick.
Bumstaead does not get optimal stimulation through some common exercises like pec deck flyes. To meet his requirement, he has installed a Star Trac chest flye machine with a 30-degree incline in his gym. This machine enables pushing the weight from the elbow instead of having to grip it.
“I have really long arms. So when I do a pec deck, it’s hard to take out my shoulders, biceps and forearms out of the movement. These force you to push from your elbows…”
He took a couple of sets to figure out the correct weight needed for ideal stimulation of the pectoral muscles and then performed straight sets to work the muscles further.
Machine Decline Chest Press
Chris Bumstead shifted his focus on the lower pecs next and did machine decline chest press. Once again, his shoulder injury plays a crucial role in determining the best way to perform this exercise. He explained:
“I am not a big fan of decline presses. Again, because my f*ed up shoulder has been f*ed up for three years. But this machine, with the neutral grip and the angle I can really squeeze that pec minor underneath my lower pecs in here and it doesn’t hurt my shoulder. So it’s one of my favorite for this…”
After shooting some good working sets of decline chest presses with slow and controlled movements, Bumstead finished up with a drop set.
Incline Machine Chest Flyes
CBum took to a second variation of cable chest flyes for the final chest exercise of his training session. He used up the remaining store of energy and poured it all into this to get a good stimulus to the chest. Bumstead performed three sets of eight to ten reps and held the weights in the stretched out position to failure at the end of each set. Following this, he turned towards training the triceps.
Cable Horizontal Triceps Extensions
The tricep work started with this isolation exercise. The Canadian nBodybuilder performed the movement unilaterally to focus on building mind-muscle connections and got a few sets under the belt.
Dip Press
The reigning Classic Physique Olmpia champion reached his destination with a few sets of dip press on a selectorized machine. He gave the final bit of stimulus to his muscles with this and wrapped up the training session.
Overall, the workout included:
- Seated Close Grip Cable Chest Press
- Smith Machine Incline Bench Press
- Star Trac Incline Chest Flyes Machine
- Machine Decline Chest Press
- Incline Machine Chest Flyes
- Cable Horizontal Triceps Extensions
- Dip Press
Chris Bumstead is the clear favorite heading into the 2023 Olympia. After ending the client-coach relationship with Iain Valliere last year, he has been training under famed coach Hany Rambod’s guidance. The duo have developed a great rapport and will most likely bring home the fifth Classic Physique Olympia title. It will be interesting to see how the picture unfolds in the weeks to come.
You can watch the full workout video here, courtesy of Chris Bumstead’s personal YouTube channel:
You can also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and
YouTube for even more content.