Chris Bumstead is gearing up for the 2023 Olympia as he attempts to become a five-time Classic Physique Olympia champion. Recently, he went through a quad-focused leg workout to fuel the growth for the show.
IFBB Pro League’s Classic Physique division has become synonymous with Canada’s own Chris Bumstead over the last few years. The 28-year-old bodybuilder has asserted himself as the most dominant champion in the division’s history with four straight Classic Physique Olympia wins from 2019 to 2022 Olympia.
Arguably, he is also the most famous active professional bodybuilder in the world right now and has contributed tremendously towards the rise of the Classic Physique division.
Chris Bumstead’s success lies in his resilience and ability to handle the pressure that comes with being a dominant champion. CBum has used his learnings from several years of competing to stay on top. He has masterfully conquered several injuries, health concerns and other professional challenges like last-minute coaching changes with the efficiency of a champion.
While he does not have a lot of time left in the sport, Bumstead wants to take home a few more Olympia titles before he calls it a career.
Chris Bumstead is working relentlessly in the most challenging competition prep of his career to win the fifth Classic Physique title at the 2023 Olympia and has looked staggeringly amazing in recent physique updates.
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Chris Bumstead goes through a leg workout
It is not possible to avoid public attention when you’re Chris Bumstead. Training in commercial gyms caused disturbances in CBum’s training due to uninvited attention. He addressed this problem by setting up his own private gym where most of his competition prep will take place. However, he recently traveled to the USA to train with his head coach Hany Rambod.
On September 10, 2023, Chris Bumstead went through a quad-focused leg workout in Fort Worth, Texas under Coach Rambod’s watchful eye to sculpt an Olympia worthy physique.
The video of this session was posted on Chris Bumstead’s personal YouTube channel. So without further delay, let’s check out how the Classic Physique Olympia champion built the massive quads.
Single Leg Extensions
CBum commenced the training session with this quad isolation exercise to target the quadriceps. While leg extensions have a bit of a bad reputation for their impact on the knees, they are a great quad movement when done with the right form and amount of weight. Besides, most compound lower body movements cannot target the rectus femoris head of the quads and leg extensions put a lot of emphasis on this head.
Chris Bumstead performed a few sets of leg extensions unilaterally under Hany Rambod’s guidance and advanced over to a compound exercise next.
Pendulum Squats
Bumstead tackled this compound exercise for targeting the major lower body muscles like quads, adductors, calves, and glutes next. Pendulum squats offer unique benefits in terms of spinal health while enabling excellent lower body development.
The Classic Physique Olympia champion annihilated some good sets of pendulum squats and advanced over to a classic quad builder.
Leg Press
While free weight exercises are undoubtedly the best way to build functional strength, Machines are great for their benefits in bringing about muscle hypertrophy.
Leg Press is one such exercise that works the same muscles – quads, glutes and hamstrings – ss traditional barbell squats. However, it puts significantly less stress on the lower back and also eliminates the need to engage the supporting muscles. This helps direct the focus on the target muscles and train for hypertrophy more effectively.
Bumstead cranked out a few sets of this exercise on an iso-lateral Machine that had separate platforms for each foot that were attached to different weight stacks.
Belt Squats
As the name suggests, a belt squat is a simple squat variation where the load is put along the waist/hips with a belt instead of loading it on shoulders. This alteration keeps the load on the lower body and makes squatting a lot more lower back friendly.
Chris Bumstead executed a few good sets of belt squats and proceeded to the final exercise of the day.
Vertical Leg Press
The Canadian bodybuilder performed this leg press variation in the concluding part of the workout to add the final bit of stimulus to the lower body muscles and called it a day in the gym.
Overall, the workout included:
Chris Bumstead will try to fend off elite competitors like Ramon Rocha Queiroz, Urs Kalecinski and archrival Breon Ansley to retain his title at the 2023 Olympia. It will be interesting to see how things play out on November 3rd.
Watch the full workout video below, courtesy of Chris Bumstead’s personal YouTube channel:
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