Bodybuilder Nick Walker is scoring every opportunity to work with different sets of people to get better. During his visit to Canada for inaugural 2023 Pure Muscle Championships, the 28-year-old bodybuilder partnered with Quinton Eriya for a push day workout.
Walker is the staple of IFBB Pro League’s Men’s Open division. After making his pro bodybuilding debut with a fourth place finish at the 2020 Chicago Pro, he became a hot prospect in the sport. The 28-year-old brought excellent conditioning, muscle definition and size to the table. Predictably, he went on to become the 2021 New York Pro and the 2021 Arnold Classic winner within a year of earning the IFBB Pro card. The NY Pro win earned Walker a direct qualification to the 2021 Olympia. The young contender outdid the expectations and surged into the top five at his Olympia debut. The fifth place finish prompted the New Jersey native that he had to improve his physique even more to compete against the top crop of the division.
Walker took an extended break from competition and returned to stage approximately a year later to battle it out at the 2022 Olympia. The 28-year-old dominated the stage from prejudging to finals along with Hadi Choopan and Derek Lunsford. However, he walked away with a third place finish and the Olympia gold eluded him this time.
Walker made a quick turnaround and returned to the stage at the 2023 Arnold Classic. In spite of a strong performance, he finished second at the show. But the result was contested as many people thought that Walker deserved the judges’ nod. Also, Walker appealed everyone to move on respectfully. He is now training hard to see ‘how far the body can go’ in 2023 and has made some changes in training style.
Nick Walker and Quinton Eriya go through a push day workout
At the inaugural 2023 Pure Muscle Championships, Nick Walker and Eriya posed alongside down syndrome bodybuilder Kyle Landi. The inspiring visual is going to be etched in the minds of bodybuilding enthusiasts for a long time. Eriya is one of the promising names in the Men’s Open division. After achieving third and fifth place finishes at the 2022 Tampa Pro and the 2022 Texas Pro respectively, Eriya took an extended break from competition to improve his physique.
While he is yet to score a breakthrough performance, experts predict that Eriya has the talent to become Mr. Olympia in future. The duo went through a push day training session in Canada and the video of this session was posted on HD Muscle YouTube channel.
Walker decided the exercise sequence and training split of this workout and led the way. Eriya is more used to doing bro splits target specific muscles like chest, biceps, shoulders etc. Therefore he followed in Walker’s footsteps throughout the workout.
Machine Incline Chest Press
This served as the first movement in the push day workout. The incline pressing movement primarily works the clavicular (upper) pectoralis major muscle along with anterior deltoids. After doing a few sets of the movement, Walker and Eriya took to the next exercise.
Machine Chest Press
After the incline chest press, the duo performed chest presses from a seated position on a plate-loaded machine. It is an effective way of working with minimal set-up. This exercise primarily works the sternal (Lower) pectoralis major muscle. The 2021 Arnold Classic winner and his training partner performed this exercise with slow and controlled motion before jumping into the next exercise.
Seated Cable Chest Flyes
This chest isolation movement ranks high up in terms of pectoral muscle activation and helps improve the adduction strength of the upper body. The Mutant and Beastwood performed a few sets of the movement before taking up a shoulder exercise next.
Machine Lateral Raises
All the lateral raise variations are very effective in building the outer portion of the deltoids. This movement primarily works the lateral head of the deltoid muscles which is responsible for arm abduction. A properly developed lateral deltoid gives the upper body a wider at top appearance. Walker and Eriya did this as the first shoulder movement of the day and took to a cable machine exercise next.
Cable Front Raises
After working the lateral head of the deltoid muscle, Walker and Beastwood performed the cable front raises to work the anterior deltoid muscles. While shoulder press is one of the most common exercises for working the anterior deltoid muscles, Walker stated that he stopped doing them because of ‘elbow problems’.
“When you do so much chest press and then shoulder pressing, it’s a lot of pressing whether you do it in one day or separate days throughout the week, it’s a lot of pressing and a lot of problems on your elbows,” Walker explained.
He added:
“I do believe you can grow awesome shoulders without pressing. I’ve seen it… When you’re incline pressing, depending how high of course, but you are going to incorporate the delts no matter what.”
Cable front raise is an isolation movement involving only shoulder joint movement. Therefore Walker can use it for developing anterior deltoids without stressing the elbows too much. Although Nick Walker does not perform shoulder press often, it is strictly because of personal preference and he does not deny the benefits of the movement.
Triceps Rope Pushdowns
After working the chest and shoulder muscles, the bodybuilder duo took to the triceps exercises. They started with triceps rope pushdowns which activates all the tricep heads. After cranking out good sets of this exercise with slow and controlled movements, they jumped into the next one.
Dip Press
Walker and Eriya performed the triceps dip press on the machine next to stimulate the triceps further. After doing a few sets of this machine exercise, the duo took to the final exercise of the day.
Push-Ups
The training partners wrapped up the training session with this simple yet extremely effective compound bodyweight movement. Push-up is an excellent compound bodyweight exercise to build the upper body pushing strength. Walker and Beastwood used push-up handles to elevate the palms for increasing the range of motion. After pushing through some solid sets with perfect execution, the duo wrapped up the training session. Following this, they admired their handiwork with a brief posing session in the gym.
Overall, the workout included:
Chest
- Machine Incline Chest Press
- Machine Chest Press
- Seated Cable Chest Flyes
Deltoids
- Machine Lateral Raises
- Cable Front Raises
Triceps
Nick Walker and Quinton Eriya are hungry and young contenders. They will look forward to elevating their career to the next level when the competitive season arrives. If they continue to push themselves and work smart, they can be the torch bearers of the change of guard in the Men’s Open division.
You can watch the full workout video here, courtesy of HD Muscle YouTube channel:
Published: 5 April, 2023 | 9:03 AM EDT
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