Men’s Open division standout Nick Walker is gearing up for the upcoming Olympia 2022, scheduled for Dec. 15-18 at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. In a recent interview with Dave Palumbo of RxMuscle, coach Dominick Mutascio revealed the reason behind his split from Walker.
Walker emerged as one of the most promising talents in the IFBB Pro League last year. He opened the season with a win at the 2021 New York Pro. A few months later, he followed that up with another dominant win at the Arnold Classic. Hopes were high for Walker’s maiden Olympia appearance and he proved the hype was real with a fifth-place finish at the 2021 Mr. Olympia.
He achieved most of his success after joining forces with coach Matt Jansen. In February, Walker disclosed that he would no longer be working with Jansen. Considering what they managed to accomplish together over the last four and a half years, Jansen’s exit led to doubts over Walker’s performance for the remaining season. There was speculation whether Jansen’s recommendation of taking time off rubbed Walker the wrong way. Although Nick intended to defend his Arnold Classic title, he took Jansen’s advice to bulk up in the off-season.
Following Jansen’s exit, Walker teamed up with Dominick Mutascio, popularly called Dom Supersliced, in preparation for the show. They appeared to get along well in the training updates shared online. However, Walker confirmed that he would be working with Jansen again in September.
Coach Dominick Mutascio reveals why Nick Walker re-joined Matt Jansen
In a recent interview with Dave Palumbo of RxMuscle posted on YouTube, coach Dominick Mutascio opened up about the ending of his ‘coach-client’ relationship with Open division competitor Nick Walker.
“This happens very often in the industry where people switch coaches. We started 10 months ago. I didn’t know if it was going to be necessarily a good fit for him. I told him before that I needed to see certain specific sets of previous lab work and cardiovascular tests.“
Mutascio shared that they hit it off quickly in the start but things turned sour after a while.
“In the beginning all this stuff, we were on the same page. He went for all this additional stuff I wanted him to do. But once we got into prep around the 14 week out marker, I noticed that he was just giving me resistance on certain things. Some things were little things too, like with training whether I wanted to do leg extensions and he didn’t want to. I sat him down and I told him, those things we can meet somewhat half way but some of the other things, the reasons why you hired me, to bring your waistline down, to keep your health in the best possible place while contending to win the Olympia.
“Competing at this level, no matter how safe you are it’s not the healthiest thing. But in my perspective theree’s a right way to do things and there’s a wrong way to do things. The right way to do things requires a lot more work. It’s a pain in the a**. You might have to go for different tests and what not. The stuff like bringing down someone’s waisttline and mobility.
“They have to do all this other tedious stuff that really isn’t fun and its outside of the normal bodybuilding realm. But in my honest opinion, those are the main variables that close the gap from him being able to place fifth or sixth place at the Olympia and potentially winning the Olympia. That’s how I noticed he was giving me a little resistance on that stuff. There were other little things.”
Mutascio believed it was best to focus on training Walker whereas Walker wanted him to workout with him in the same session.
“I told him the best move is to have me go to the gym and actually train you and then I’ll do my workouts later but he actually insisted he wanted me to work out with him. I would’ve preferred me actually training him. He said he gets more motivated by having a workout partner. It was just little variables like that that it started with. At the end of the day, mentally, if you’re not in a good spot, it doesn’t matter where you’re at, how much progress you made. That’s what made him very successful is him having that confidence in the mental state he was in.”
“Just last two or three weeks I noticed he didn’t have that confidence. It was just his mental state started to shift a little bit where he wasn’t the old original Nick Walker that I previously saw.”
He suggested Nick’s bond with Jansen was something he missed and revealed that he found out about the news the same way as everyone else, on Instagram.
“He built a very close relationship with Matt. They were like family. That was probably one of the main variables is he like missed having that friendship.”
“We were very close. I don’t have anything bad to say about him but I do wish that maybe things were handled a little differently at the end.”
Nick Walker recently shared a shredded physique update just six weeks out from Olympia 2022. He showed off his gigantic upper body and v-taper along with a significantly improved waistline. He will look to challenge the dominant two-time reigning Mr. Olympia Mamdouh ‘Big Ramy’ Elssbiay, who enters the contest as the favorite to win his third Sandow trophy.
According to renowned bodybuilding coach Milos Sarcev, the world wants to see Walker matchup against Ramy. He favored Ramy because of his overwhelming muscle size and praised Walker’s incredible front double bicep look.
1983 Mr. Olympia Samir Bannout is ‘very impressed’ with Walker’s improvements in prep for the Olympia. He highlighted the key differences in Walker’s physique, such as the double bicep, and shoulder-to-waist ratio. He also backed him to get a higher place than last year.
