Here is the updated Chris Bumstead workout and diet program for the 2024 offseason as he prepares for his sixth Mr. Olympia victory.
For years, a large part of the fitness community has disliked the state of pro-bodybuilding. At the highest levels, the sport has rewarded bigger and bigger physiques. While there is a market for these mass monsters, a 300-pound behemoth with a distended gut is far from inspiring for most gymgoers.
In fact, if you ask the average guy at the gym what the ideal bodybuilding physique is, you will likely hear names from forty or fifty years ago—legends such as Frank Zane, Robbie Robinson, Mike Mentzer, or Arnold.
The aesthetic physiques of the golden era stand as a testament to the true essence of the sport—what a bodybuilder should look like. This era’s profound influence has not only endured but has also given birth to an entire class dedicated to its revival. The modern Classic Physique division is a nostalgic nod to the past and a promising glimpse into the future.
And for the past five years, Chris Bumstead has dominated the Classic Physique division. He is the reigning Olympia champion, having claimed the title every year since 2019. With a staggering 23.9 million followers on Instagram and close to 4 million subscribers on YouTube, it is indisputable that Chris is the current face of pro bodybuilding.
Chris epitomizes the Golden Era. He’s got an ideal blend of size and shape, and for the first time in decades, the lifting community has a champion bodybuilder they want to look like. So, how does the most aesthetic guy on the planet train and eat? Let’s dig in and find out.
Chris Bumstead Workout Program for the 2024 Off-Season
Chris has always been a fan of unconventional training splits. He likes to spread his training across eight or nine days instead of the traditional seven-day week. For 2024, he is on a nine-day split. However, as a new dad, some flexibility exists to move rest days around if needed.
Here is the Chris Bumstead workout split for the 2024 off-season:
- Chest, Triceps, and Rear Delts
- Back and Biceps
- Quads and Calves
- Rest
- Shoulders
- Arms
- Chest and Back
- Hamstrings, Glutes, and Calves
- Rest
Chris has been fortunate to work with the renowned bodybuilding contest prep coach Hany Rambod for the past few years. However, this offseason, he’s teamed up with Justin King, an Arizona-based strength and conditioning coach known for his work with NFL players. This new collaboration is about getting his body to feel better and injecting some fresh ideas into his training.
Admittedly, Chris doesn’t follow a strict program, meaning exercises change from workout to workout. That said, the overall structure of his training is consistent.
Day 1: Chest, Triceps, and Rear Delts
The day begins with the sun glistening off the steel as Chris opens the garage door to his new personal gym. It’s a large warehouse space he has filled with an assortment of his favorite pieces of equipment. It’s a bodybuilder’s playground.
Chris always begins his chest workouts with an incline dumbbell press. Over the years, he has found that focusing on incline angles works best for him. This year, he is emphasizing slow eccentrics—3 to 4 seconds down, a one-second pause at the bottom, and pressing up fast.
After four sets of incline dumbbells, he moves over to a flat machine chest press. This is where things start to get interesting—ten sets of ten reps. Yes, you read that right. German Volume Training (GVT) is a method popularized by the late strength coach Charles Poliquin. It involves doing ten sets of ten reps with little rest in between. It’s brutal.
After pushing through the GVT, Chris jumps into a triceps gauntlet. He does two rounds of a three-exercise tri-set, only resting enough time to move from exercise to exercise.
The session ends with a superset of a single-arm triceps exercise with a rope facepull. On the facepull, focus on holding the peak contraction for a few seconds while squeezing the rear delts.
The Workout:
1: Incline Dumbbell Press: 4 sets x 6-8 reps
2: Machine Chest Press: 10 sets x 10 reps
Tri-set
3: Barbell JM Press: 2 sets x 8-10 reps
4: Machine Dips: 2 sets x 10-12 reps
5: Standing Overhead Cable Tri Extension: 2 sets x 12-15 reps
Superset
6: Standing Single Arm Forward Cable Extension: 3 sets x 12-15 reps
7: Cable Facepull: 3 sets x 12-15 reps
Day 2: Back and Biceps
The second workout is for the back and biceps. One change Chris has made to his back training (really, all muscle groups) this year is to emphasize an extended range of motion. His goal is to get a good stretch at the bottom and full contraction at the top.
First up are underhand grip barbell rows. A favorite of Dorian Yates, the supinated barbell row hits the lats a little differently than the traditional overhand grip variety. After four sets of those, it’s back to German Volume Training. He does ten sets with a chest-supported dumbbell row, an underrated exercise that makes cheating incredibly hard.
After the two back exercises, it’s on to the biceps. Chris starts the biceps portion of the workout with a tri-set consisting of EZ bar preacher curls, standing reverse-grip EZ bar curls, and low pulley cable curls.
The last two exercises are a back and biceps superset: machine pullovers and Fat Gripz preacher curls. The superset works because the machine pullover is one of the few back exercises that doesn’t involve the biceps.
The Workout
1: Underhand Grip Barbell Row: 4 sets x 6-8 reps
2: Chest Supported Dumbbell Row: 10 sets x 10 reps
Tri-set
3: EZ Bar Preacher Curl: 4 sets x 8-10 reps
4: Standing Reverse Grip EZ Bar Curl: 4 sets x 10-12 reps
5: Low Pulley Cable Curl: 4 sets x 12-15 reps
Superset
6: Machine Pullover: 3 sets x 10-12 reps
7: Fat Gripz Machine Preacher Curl: 3 sets x 12-15 reps
Day 3: Quads and Calves
Day three is quads and calves. This workout is one of two leg days in the program.
One change Chris has made this year is cutting out barbell squats. Although they are an excellent movement, he finds that loading a barbell on his back does more harm than good. As he gets older, Chris wants to ensure he stays pain-free, so the session starts with the belt squat.
After three or four sets of belt squats, he moves into a brutal tri-set consisting of pendulum squats, hack squats, and leg presses. Are you noticing a trend? Chris is using a lot of tri-sets this year.
One technique note is that he places his feet low on the platform during hack squats to bias the quads. Putting your feet low on the platform forces the knees to travel further forward, increasing the demand placed on the quads. The key is ensuring your knees are healthy enough to handle it.
Exercises five and six are a superset between leg extensions and seated hip adduction. If you are a guy who thinks the hip adduction machine is “for girls,” you are missing out. The inner part of the leg is hard to target with other movements.
The training session ends with three sets of seated calf raises.
The Workout:
1: Belt Squat: 3-4 sets x 10-12 reps
Tri-set
2: Pendulum Squat: 3 sets x 10-12 reps
3: Hack Squat 3 sets x 10-12 reps
4: Leg Press: 3 sets x 8-10 reps
Superset
5: Leg Extension: 3 sets x 10-12 reps
6: Seated Hip Adduction Machine: 3 sets x 12-15 reps
7: Seated Calf Raise 3 sets x 12-15 reps
Day 4: Rest Day
Day 5: Shoulders
After a rest day, Chris is back in the gym for shoulders. It’s not “easy” by any means, but this shoulder workout is a little less demanding than the rest of the program’s workouts.
The training session starts with an extensive warmup using resistance bands before jumping into side raises. Chris performs the side raises slowly and controlled, with a pause at the top. He uses strict form with these. After four sets of side raises, he does four sets of machine presses.
Next is a superset of reverse pec deck for the rear delts with seated dumbbell side raises. Chris does the side raises right on the pec deck machine, facing the opposite way.
The workout concludes with three sets of seated dumbbell shoulder presses.
The Workout:
1: Machine or Cable Side Raise: 4 sets x 10-15 reps
2:Machine Shoulder Press: 4 sets x 8-10 reps
Superset
3: Reverse Pec Deck: 4 sets x 10-12 reps
4: Seated Dumbbell Side Raise: 4 sets x 10-12 reps
5: Seated Dumbbell Shoulder Press: 3 sets x 10-12 reps
Day 6: Arms
Arm workouts are typically not scary on paper, but this one is as brutal as it looks. It consists of nine exercises, two tri-sets, a superset, and loads of volume. Try this one at your own risk.
The workout starts with four rounds of three triceps exercises and then moves on to four rounds of three biceps exercises. After that, he supersets machine dips with regular bodyweight parallel bar dips before finishing with standing dumbbell hammer curls.
Despite the workout consisting of 31 sets, Chris gets through it rather quickly. The key to the session is minimizing rest time between exercises in the tri-sets.
The Workout
Tri-set
1: Rope Overhead Cable Extension: 4 sets x 10-12 reps
2: Decline Cable Skull Crusher: 4 sets x 10-12 reps
3: Rope Cable Pressdown: 4 sets x 10-12 reps
Tri-set
4: EZ Bar Reverse Grip Preacher Curl: 4 sets x 8-10 reps
5: Wide Incline Dumbbell Curl: 4 sets x 10-12 reps
6: Machine Preacher Curl: 4 sets x 10-12 reps
Superset
7: Machine Dips: 2 sets x 10-12 reps
8: Bodyweight Dips: 2 sets x failure
9: Standing Dumbbell Hammer Curls: 3 sets x 10-12 reps
Watch this workout on YouTube:
Day 7: Chest and Back
Day seven is an old-school chest and back workout. Combining chest and back was a staple of Arnold Schwarzenegger. For this workout, Chris does three chest and back supersets. By the end of it, his entire upper body is pumped.
Grouping chest and back exercises together is called an agonist-antagonist superset. An agonist-antagonist superset is a workout technique in which you perform back-to-back exercises that target opposite muscle groups, such as the chest and back or biceps and triceps. These supersets are great because they save time without negatively impacting performance on either exercise. They essentially allow you to get more high-quality work done in a shorter time.
Chris finishes the workout with three sets of abs, typically cable crunches or leg raises.
The Workout:
Superset
1: Incline Dumbbell Press: 4 sets x 10-12 reps
2: Underhand Lat Pulldown: 4 sets x 10-12 reps
Superset
3: Chest Supported T-Bar Row: 4 sets x 10-12 reps
4: Incline Machine Press: 4 sets x 10-12 reps
Superset
5: Incline Machine Fly: 4 sets x 10-12 reps
6: Pullover Machine: 4 sets x 10-12 reps
7: Standing Cable Crunches: 3 sets x 15-20 reps
Day 8: Hamstrings, Glutes, and Calves
The last workout of the microcycle is hamstrings, glutes, and calves. Not many people train hamstrings this hard or with this much volume, mostly because it’s just not possible to train both quads and hamstrings maximally in one workout. With this in mind, splitting quads and hamstrings into two training sessions is smart.
After the tri-set to start the workout, all other exercises are performed using straight sets.
The Workout:
Tri-set
1: Seated Hip Abduction: 3 sets x 10-12 reps
2: Seated Leg Curl: 3 sets x 10-12 reps
3: Seated Hip Adduction Machine: 3 sets x 10-12 reps
4: Plate Loaded Hip Thrust Machine: 3 sets x 10-12 reps
5: Barbell Stiff Leg Deadlift: 3 sets x 6-8 reps
6: Lying Leg Curl: 3 sets x 10-12 reps
7: Standing Calf Raises: 3 sets x 10-12 reps
Day 9: Rest Day
Rest up before starting back on day one.
Chris Bumstead’s Offseason Diet in 2024
It takes a lot of food for Chris Bumstead to pack on muscle. In the offseason, he weighs 250-260lbs. That said, his diet consists of mainly minimally processed whole foods he cooks himself. You won’t find a lot of junk just to get calories in.
Here is a sample day of Chris Bumstead’s 2024 offseason bulking diet. Keep in mind, the food choices change a bit from day to day but the calorie and macronutrient targets remain consistent.
Breakfast
- Filet mignon
- 1.5 scoops of protein powder
- Large bowl of oatmeal
- Handful of blueberries
- Banana
- 30g of almond butter
Pre-Workout
- Ground turkey breast
- Baked Japanese sweet potatoes
Post-Workout
- Two scoops of protein powder
- Two scoops of carbohydrate powder
Snack
- Ground turkey breast
- Large bowl of pasta
- olive oil
Dinner
- Two salmon burgers
- Large plate of white rice
- ½ avocado
- Green veggies
- Olive oil
This amounts to a little over 4,500 calories: 340g of protein, 450g of carbohydrates, and 150g of fat.
How You Can Train and Eat Like 5x Mr. Olympia Chris Bumstead
I get it. Most of us are not ready to jump into Chris Bumstead’s exact routine. That’s okay. Here are a few things we all can do to train and eat a little more like the five time Mr. O.
Aim For Progression Workout to Workout
One thing stands out when watching Chris train: He goes hard and heavy using a double progression loading scheme.
Double progression is a method that puts you in control of your programming. You work in a specified rep range (8-10, for example) and maintain the same weight until you reach the top of that rep range. Once you hit the top of that rep range for the programmed number of sets, you increase the weight and repeat the process. The key is increasing reps first, then increasing the weight once you are capable. It’s an easy way to build progressive overload into your training.
Incorporate Intensity Techniques
Chris uses various movements, utilizing free weights and specialized machines, but nothing is fancy about what he does. However, in 2024, he started incorporating more tri-sets/supersets, tempo work, and GVT. Let’s break these down individually.
- Tri-sets and Supersets: Incorporating tri-sets and supersets is a great way to get more work done in less time. Plus, it presents the muscles with a novel stimulus compared to straight sets. Start grouping some exercises and see how they feel. I particularly like agonist-antagonist super sets involving biceps and triceps or back and chest.
- Tempo Work: Slowing the eccentric down and even throwing in some pauses is a great way to improve your form. A problem many young lifters (and even some experienced lifters) have is that they lower their weights too fast. Control the weight for the entire rep.
- German Volume Training: Ten sets of ten is no joke. Everyone should try this for at least a training block or two. Assistance movements work great. Think rows, pulldowns, curls, pressdowns, side raises, and similar exercises. The soreness you feel the next day will be intense.
Track Your Macros
Even as a 5x Mr. Olympia, Chris recognizes the benefits of tracking his macros. In a recent full-day eating video on his YouTube channel, Chris notes that he only has a good idea of how much he eats if he tracks his macros. That same sentiment goes for us, too. Look, what gets measured can get managed. Without tracking your macros, you are just guessing. You don’t need to weigh, measure, and track everything you eat at all times. However, you should track what you eat occasionally and absolutely when progress is slow or nonexistent.
Success Leaves Clues
Following Chris Bumstead’s training and eating strategy does not guarantee a Sandow trophy, let alone five, but success leaves clues.
You may be surprised by the simplicity of what he does. The truth is, there are no secrets. The best athletes in the world are not doing anything you haven’t seen posted about. In the end, it comes down to consistency and effort.
It’s also motivating to see how the best athletes in the world do it. We can’t always emulate the results, but we can emulate the effort. The first step in achieving greatness is witnessing it. Hey, if Chris Bumstead can do it, why can’t you?
Author: Kyle Hunt
Instagram: @huntfitness
YouTube: @HuntFitnessTV
Hire Kyle as your coach: http://www.kylehuntfitness.com/services/
