Tag: Pull Day Workouts
Nick Walker Shares Pro Tips for Building a Huge Back
Bodybuilder Nick Walker is switching gears in his training journey as 2023 Olympia is drawing closer. Walker recently went through a pull-day workout as a part of his preparation for the show and posted the video of this session on his YouTube channel.
Walker is an American professional bodybuilder and a top competitor in the IFBB Pro League’s Men’s Open division. He rose to prominence with a series of impressive performances in this first year of turning Pro. After making the debut with a fourth place finish at the 2020 Chicago Pro, Nick Walker snatched a win at the 2021 New York Pro, earning the maiden Olympia invitation in the process. He then became the 2021 Arnold Classic winner and rose to the contender’s status even before making the Olympia debut.
The fifth place finish at the 2021 Olympia was a great achievement given that ‘The Mutant’ was relatively new in the professional circuit. However, he decided to step away from the competition to improve his physique and take on the top crop.
Walker returned to competition at the 2022 Olympia and dominated the stage from prejudging to the finals. His effort earned him a podium finish as Walker stood third at the show. Walker’s most recent appearance came at the 2023 Arnold Classic in March. Although he was favored to become the two-time Arnold Classic champion, the New Jersey native lost to Samson Dauda by a razor thin margin.
Nick Walker will now attempt to dethrone Mr. Olympia Hadi Choopan and achieve the ultimate goal of his bodybuilding career at the 2023 Olympia. 16 weeks out of the show, he annihilated a pull day workout in the gym to prepare his physique for this task. So let’s see what Nick Walker’s current pull-day workout looks like.
Nick Walker goes through a pull-day workout
Back Workout
Cable Straight Arm Pullovers
Walker started the pull-day workout with this exercise. But instead of pulling the weight in line with the upper body, he pulled it back as far as possible to get maximum stretch in the lats. The 28-year-old employed slow movement in the eccentric phase to focus on the muscles.
“On this movement, I’m able to get a full stretch. It’s giving me more of a stretch than an actual pulldown would. So I think it’s very beneficial when you’re trying to grow your lats, 100 percent.”
Walker pushed through three sets of straight arm pulldowns adhering to 15 to 20 rep range and took to the next exercise.
Chest-Supported T-Bar Rows
The 2021 Arnold Classic winner followed up the cable machine exercise with one of his favorite back movements – the chest-supported T-bar row. Specifically, Walker likes to perform this exercise on the Atlantis plate-loaded machine as it offers different grips for variation. To put more emphasis on the stretch, he employed a wide grip in this training session.
After using explosive movement during the concentric phase, but similar to the previous exercise, the 28-year-old performed the eccentric phase at a really slow pace. He is a huge proponent of slow eccentric movements and advises to adapt them for maximum gains.
“You’ve got to realize that training in this fashion, you don’t need to do seven to eight exercises per body part,” Walker added.
He performed eight to ten reps in all three sets of this exercise and proceeded to do the next one.
Assisted Pull-ups
Pull-ups are arguably the best bodyweight compound exercise to build the upper body pulling strength. However, it is not a suitable exercise for beginners as it needs sufficient upper body strength. This is where assisted pull-ups come in handy. But professional bodybuilders have to focus on hypertrophy.
To eliminate the jerkin motion or momentum and to build mind-muscle connection many elite bodybuilders opt for assisted pull-ups. Walker’s weight is hovering in the 290 lbs range right now. He felt that doing assisted pull-ups was probably in his best interest and performed three sets of ten to 15 reps to stimulate the pulling muscles.
Wide Grip Seated Cable Rows
After working on the lats for the first few moments, Nick Walker advanced to doing the seated rows to work the upper back muscles. In between sets, Walker explained the main challenge of developing the back muscles. He feels that the back is a tricky body part to grow simply because you can’t see it. Experience has taught the 28-year-old to use moderate weight while focusing on the contraction and eccentric phase for the best results.
“Ever since doing that over the years, what was once a weak body part has become one of my best body parts.”
Finding the best rep range is also crucial as it may vary for each muscle group depending upon individual body type. Walker applied this same wisdom to seated rows as well and performed two sets of this exercise for 15 reps each. This movement served as the finisher to back exercises as Nick Walker shifted his focus to the biceps next.
Biceps Workout
Nick Walker’s arms training routine has changed significantly over time. A few years ago, ‘The Mutant’ dedicated a separate arms day in his routine and performed a few biceps or triceps exercises on other days. However, his current split of push, pull, and leg day does not have a full Arm day.
Instead, Walker performs two to three biceps exercises (for two to three sets each) on a pull day and follows the same method for triceps training on a push day. The 28-year-old feels that his arms are pretty dominant already and overdoing arms exercises may not be ideal from the aesthetic point of view. On this pull day, Nick Walker incorporated two variations of machine curls after finishing up with back exercises.
Seated Machine Curls
Walker first performed seated machine Curls to stimulate the biceps. He reiterated that his arms respond best to high volume for inducing hypertrophy and shared the ideal rep range for him:
“I specifically like to stay in the 12 to 20 range. More so 15 to 20 but 12 I am okay with. But I feel for biceps and triceps, I feel I got the most growth was definitely in the 15 to 20 range.”
Walker is a big believer of slow reps and that’s how he performs the arms exercises as well. Needless to say, they have responded well to this type of training. Additionally, Walker employed the myo-reps training method for doing seated machine curls to eliminate the junk volume and produce maximal muscle growth. He performed two sets of machine curls for 15 to 2o reps and proceeded to the final exercise of the day.
Cable Curls
Cable Curls concluded the pull-day workout for Nick Walker. He performed a few sets of this exercise and addressed a crucial problem that a lot of people face.
Walker stated that quite a few people experience the plateau in their fitness journey and fail to make gains in spite of adapting the best training methods. He attributed this to wrong exercise selection and advised:
“You’re probably just doing wrong exercises too. Find the exercises that you best connect with already and then do those methods. I guarantee you, you will transform.”
After doing three sets of cable curls for 10 to 12 reps with a slow eccentric phase, ‘The Mutant’ called it a day in the gym.
Overall, the workout included:
Nick Walker gives health update as he makes changes to diet and training for 2023 Olympia
Nick Walker is already leaps and bounds ahead in 2023 compared to his previous off-season. He admits having fallen into the ‘more, more and more volume’ mindset in 2022. But he has made the necessary adjustments and said:
“Now I’m paying more attention to just making the sets count. I think it has shown in my physique thus far. I think I have made quite some improvements in a short amount of time.”
At the time of recording this video, Walker was 16 weeks out of the 2023 Olympia. He spoke about the changes in his diet as well and said:
“We’ve upped the cardio and dropped food in terms of fats. We did drop the carbs just a little bit but not crazy but we did drop all the fats pretty much out of my diet except for Beef meals and a little almond butter before the diet.”
Nick Walker stated that his weight has already started to drop down, which is a positive sign. He feels that he has made a lot of progress during this off-season and he is confident that 2023 is going to be his year. Although ‘The Mutant’ is closer to the Olympia title than he has ever been, he will have to push aside elite competitors like Derek Lunsford, Samson Dauda, and reigning Mr. Olympia Hadi Choopan to take it home.
You can watch the full workout video here, courtesy of Nick Walker’s personal YouTube channel:
Published: 29 July, 2023 | 9:22 AM EDT
Jeff Nippard’s Ultimate Back and Biceps Workout Backed by Science
Jeff Nippard recently shared a science-backed high-volume pull-day workout for back and biceps gains.
Canadian fitness expert Jeff Nippard is one of the leading figures in the science-based YouTube fitness community. He is a lifelong natural bodybuilder, powerlifter, and personal coach. Nippard started training as a kid and went on to become the 2022 Mr. Junior Canada when he was 22 years old. As a powerlifter, he holds the record for 502-lbs squats, 336-lbs bench press and a 518-lbs deadlift. At one point, Nippard also held the Canadian national record for bench press.
Jeff Nippard’s knowledge comes from a degree in biochemistry and decades of training. He is a student of bodybuilding and continues to acquire and share knowledge. He routinely shares entertaining and informative videos on his YouTube channel that has amassed 3.8 million subscribers. Additionally, he has trained several natural bodybuilders and powerlifters to achieve their goals.
In recent months, Jeff Nippard has taken a deep dive into the minimalist training philosophy. He is in the process of releasing a six-part push–pull–leg training series based on the minimalist training principles. The most recent issue, a pull day workout was recently posted on Nippards’ YouTube channel. So let’s check out what Nippard has in store for us this time.
Jeff Nippard shares pull day workout and tips
One-Arm Half kneeling lat pulldown
Jeff Nippard advises to start the pull-day workout with this lat-focused exercise. Technique-wise, he suggests pulling the cable back until the upper arm is aligned with the body. Pulling the weight too far back is not ideal as the lats lose leverage once the arm goes behind the torso.
Nippard further stated that a lot of people prefer doing the lat pull-in where you pull the weight down from the sides. However, the teres muscles can take over the movement during the pull-in, causing the lats to get understimulated.
As of now, there is no scientific study that conclusively proves one exercise to be better than the other in terms of hypertrophy benefits. So as of now, choosing either of the two exercises is an individual preference without any specific benefits attached to it.
“I’d just say to roll with whatever one you feel hitting your lats harder. OR If you feel them both equally well, you can periodically rotate them in and out,” Nippard concluded.
You should perform three sets of the exercise adhering to a moderate 12 to 15 rep range.
Pull-ups
The advanced bodyweight movement follows the lat pulldowns. Personally, Jeff Nippard likes to do as many sets of pull-ups as possible. However, the lats already got the work during lat pulldowns and he feels that an-out set of pull-ups would be sufficient in this training session.
Additionally, Nippard’s priority is to make exercise enjoyable to a large variety of fitness enthusiasts. So while calisthenics enthusiasts might be excited to perform pull-ups, many bodybuilders are not in favor of doing them.
“While I do think that it’s important that your training is enjoyable, I also think pull-ups are a great exercise worth including that you shouldn’t avoid just because they’re harder than lat pulldowns.”
To address all of these factors and include this compound bodyweight movement into the workout, Nippard found the middle ground of performing one AMRAP set. The goal here should be to increase the number of reps every week while maintaining a consistent form.
“If you’re bulking, just matching the number of reps should be enough to present an overloading stimulus because as you gain weight, you’re adding resistance. But if you’re cutting, you should try to add at least one rep each week because as you lose weight, you’ll be lowering the resistance,” Nippard explained.
Technique-wise, putting the arms at a distance 1.5 times the shoulder width should be ideal and you can always use an assisted pull-up machine or resistance band if you’re at the early stages of development.
Kroc Rows
Nippard classifies Kroc rows as a more loose and slightly more upright version of dumbbell rows with ‘controlled cheating’. He argues that it is absolutely necessary to be more strict with the form, especially when you are a new lifter. But according to the Canadian fitness expert, you can restrict your progress in the name of perfect technique as you get into more advanced stages of development.
“Once you’ve mastered the technique basics, I don’t think there is anything wrong with a little controlled body English on select movements, especially if it allows you to overload the target muscles more effectively.”
Many elite professional bodybuilders allow their body to sway during exercises. Nippard drew attention to the fact that they are in control of the weight in spite of swaying, especially during the eccentric phase of the movement.
“The strength curve of the back exercises is actually very unique in that it’s super easy at the bottom and then much harder at the top. So if you stop at the first sign of any technique loss…”
He concluded:
“…You may be stopping well shy of the point where your back is fully stimulated. So using just a little bit of momentum at the bottom can help your back approach that point of full exhaustion much more effectively.”
Nippard does not advise cheating on exercises all the time. Instead, he feels that it can be an effective intensity technique in certain cases. Three sets of 10 to 12 reps on the Kroc rows should be enough for you to stimulate the back muscles.
Cable Shrug-Ins
The cable machine variation of shrugs should be the next exercise in the pull-day workout. Unlike the dumbbell or barbell shrugs where the weight moves along a straight vertical axis, the direction of movement is up and towards the center in cable shrug-ins.
According to Nippard, the direction of movement on cable shrug-ins lines up better with the orientation of the upper trap muscle fibers. As a result, shrugging up and towards the center is more effective for trap stimulation.
“That’s also why I generally recommend a slightly wider grip when doing barbell shrugs as it will force you to shrug up and in, and not just straight up and down,” Nippard concluded.
Once again, he advises doing three sets of this exercise for 12 to 15 reps before advancing to the next one.
Reverse Pec Deck Flyes
This rear delt-specific movement should be next in the workout. The focus here should be to push the weight out and back and not just back. This way, you can put more emphasis on the rear delts. According to Nippard:
“If you just pull the weight back, you’re going to shift a lot of focus on the mid-traps which isn’t a big deal if that’s what you’re going for. But we’ve already smashed the mid-traps with pull-ups and Kroc rows. So I’d much rather isolate the rear delts here since they’re usually overpowered by the bigger back muscles in those compound movements.”
You can experiment with the neutral, pronated, and internally rotated grip to stimulate the rear delt muscles in different ways and get the most benefits out of this exercise.
Overhead Cable Biceps Curls
Nippard is not a big fan of overhead biceps curls. However, he recently came across an experiment done by natural bodybuilders Alberto Nunes and Brian Miner. Both of them experienced more activation in the long head of the biceps during overhead curls.
There is little data to conclusively approve the findings of this experiment. But Nippard finds it worthwhile to at least experiment with this exercise. Three sets of 12 to 15 reps should usually suffice. But you can always add a couple of more biceps exercises to stimulate the muscles more.
Overall, the workout must include:
Jeff Nippard’s fitness advice stems from extensive research and study. So there is a high probability that you might be able to make better gains if you follow the training routine. So head over to the gym and give this pull-day workout a try!
You can watch the full video here, courtesy of Jeff Nippard’s YouTube channel:
Published: 27 July, 2023 | 11:07 AM EDT