Fitness influencer Sam Sulek has started the winter bulk of his training journey and recently shared chest and lateral deltoids workout for bulk on his YouTube channel.
Sam Sulek became a sensation among the younger demographic of online fitness communities as a TikTok content creator. He later extended his presence to other social media platforms like YouTube. At the time of this article’s publishing, Sam Sulek has a massive 2.1 million followers on YouTube alone.
Sulek’s journey of athletic pursuits has been unique. As a kid, he dreamed of becoming a professional diver and started training accordingly. However, his passion for bodybuilding increased over time and he pursued it as his primary interest in teenage years. After a few years of hard work, the 21-year-old built a massive physique.
By this time, he had started creating content for social media and became an instant sensation. Sulek’s transformation is noteworthy because he carries a 240 lbs lean and muscular physique at the young age of 21 years.
Diet is arguably the most important aspect of bodybuilding. Sam Sulek’s transformation has raised a lot of eyebrows as he does not follow an optimal diet for bodybuilding. His meal preferences include a lot of ultra-processed, sugary and fried foods which has led to speculations about him using PEDs to achieve growth at such a young age. In his defense, Sam Sulek has never claimed to be natty. However, the combination of his insanely muscular physique with a sub-optimal diet remains a mystery.
Sam Sulek goes through a chest and side delts workout
Sam Sulek is in the middle of his winter bulking phase and recently went through a chest and lateral deltoids workout. The video of this session was posted on his YouTube channel. The 21-year-old typically followed a practice where he used extremely heavy weights to load the muscles and achieve growth. However, he has changed the approach for some body parts and explained:
“I don’t know if I want to keep doing it that way – at least not for every lift. For the couple of other body parts, I’ve been changing up the style and rather than doing as much weight as I can do in the beginning, I’ve been doing some lighter squeezing sets and then getting into something heavy.”
But Sulek feels comfortable with starting the chest training with heavy pressing movements and following them up with lighter squeezing sets of exercises like dumbbell and cable flyes. He adhered to the same training method for this workout but intends to make consistent small adjustments to get maximum stimulus to the muscles.
So let’s check out how he fired up the chest and delts in this training session.
Overall, the workout included:
Warm-up
| Exercise | Sets | Reps |
|---|---|---|
| Standing Cable Rows | – | – |
| Cable Triceps Pushdowns | – | – |
Workout: Chest
| Exercise | Sets | Reps |
|---|---|---|
| Smith Machine Incline Bench Press | Warm-up Sets (varied) | 1 plate for 5 reps, 2 plates for 3 reps, 3 plates for 1 rep, 3 and a half plates for 1 rep |
| Working Sets | 3 and a half plates for 10 reps, 3 plates for 10 reps | |
| Bent Over Cable Chest Press | 2 | 10 to 12 |
| Standing Cable Chest Flyes | 1 | 10 to 12 |
Workout: Lateral Delts
| Exercise | Sets | Reps |
|---|---|---|
| Seated Machine Lateral Raises | 1 | 10 to 12 |
Smith Machine Incline Bench Press
Sam Sulek commenced the workout with a few warm-up movements to get the shoulder and elbow joints ready for the heavy pressing exercises that followed. He then took to the Smith machine incline bench press. Sulek shed light on the reasons for taking up this movement first and said:
“Part of the reason why I wanted to do the Smith machine today is because you can actually hit failure and not have to worry about getting completely destroyed… because you can just re-rack it. I’m not going to say there is zero risk but no need for a spotter.”
Sam Sulek got a few warm-up sets of the exercise under his belt and then followed it up with a drop set.
Bent Over Cable Chest Press
The 21-year-old advanced over to the cable machine and performed a bent-over cable chest press. Sulek gave an essential tip to maintain focus on the pectoral muscles by using the grip effectively and said:
“I don’t like to press it with (pronated grip) because when I am pressing like this, I feel like I get a lot of front delt activation. I’m hitting my chest so I don’t want anything to come into play, more than it has to. So when I am doing these presses, I like to have my hands facing each other (neutral grip).”
After executing two heavy sets of the exercise with perfect form, Sam Sulek moved on to the final chest exercise of the day.
Standing Cable Chest Flyes
Flyes are exercises that build strength and can be done using dumbbells at home while lying on a bench. Standing cable flyes not only work your upper body but also engage your core muscles. They help strengthen your arms, shoulders, and chest.
If your joints hurt while bench pressing, try cable fly exercises. Cable chest flys alter the movement angle and lessen joint stress when your shoulder blades are stable.
It is important to incorporate both presses and flyes in the chest training program for overall chest development. Sam Sulek concluded chest training with a few sets of standing cable chest flyes.
Seated Machine Lateral Raises
Sulek shifted his focus to the lateral deltoids next. Seated machine lateral raises served as the only lateral delt movement of the workout as he performed a few solid sets of the exercise and concluded the training session.
Sam Sulek is young and has a lot of time on his hands to figure out the direction he wants to go in. He has shown interest in becoming a competitive bodybuilder. If the 21-year-old continues to work hard and cleans up his dietary habits, we may have a serious contender in the professional bodybuilding circuit.
Watch the full workout video below, courtesy of Sam Sulek’s personal YouTube channel:
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