Winning Mr. Olympia is indisputably the peak of achievement in bodybuilding. And it has been for years: It’s the competition Arnold Schwarzenegger was training for in the classic 1977 documentary Pumping Iron, after all. Winning just one would be the pinnacle of a bodybuilder’s career. Winning multiple means you’re an all-time great.
Chris Bumstead has won five in a row. He competes in “classic physique,” a newer category that emphasizes proportions and symmetry over absolute size. (You know, relatively speaking.) This week, he’s looking to extend that to a sixth consecutive title. Mr. Olympia is the only competition he enters all year, but it still requires year-round dedication to lifting and eating to get huge and strong, and then “cutting” into fighting shape.
He’s learned to lessons along the way—GQ caught up with CBum as he prepped for this year’s competition to hear about his cleaner diet, intense recovery routine, and the mental work he’s done to stay cool under pressure.
For Real-Life Diet, GQ talks to athletes, celebrities, and other high performers about their diet, exercise routines, and pursuit of wellness. Keep in mind that what works for them might not necessarily be healthy for you.
GQ: You’re mid Olympia prep right now—what’s that like?
Chris Bumstead: The best way I can explain it is in the span of the year there’s peaks and valleys of trying to grow and trying to get big. The majority of my year is just putting on weight, eating as much as possible, training to get as strong as possible or as big as possible, and just putting on as much muscle as you can. Then 16 weeks before the competition, I get on a diet, start doing a little bit more cardio and then the goal becomes cutting as much body fat while maintaining as much muscle as possible. From there I’m whittling down my calories and increasing my cardio. So you are pretty much tired, hungry, exhausted, and you have to work harder than you have the entire year. It just becomes a mental battle of discipline and trying to get your body as lean as possible while still maintaining as much as possible.
How do you handle that level of stress and mental fatigue?
I don’t really have a lot of balance when it comes to prep in bodybuilding. I just kind of go balls to the wall, throw my bounds out the window—when you’re in prep you just gotta do what you gotta do. But throughout the year, because I only compete once, I can give myself a little bit of time reprieve, like to go out for dinner with my wife, to travel, to have a little bit of a downtime and then that builds me up to be able to do it again. If I were competing constantly throughout the year, I would burn out a lot faster.
I also just force my brain into other things besides bodybuilding. My life is bodybuilding, but I don’t really spend a lot of my time talking about it. I’m in the gym a few hours a day and when I’m out of it, I’m with my family, with my wife, or I’m at work and talking about business. Instead of it being constantly on my mind 24/7, I’m able to put my time into other things.
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