The reigning Mr. Olympia champion is Samson Dauda, a Nigerian-born, later turned British-based professional bodybuilder who competes in the men’s open bodybuilding division in the IFBB Pro League. Dauda won the overall Mr. Olympia title in the 2024 Mr. Olympia competition.
For folks unaware of what Mr. Olympia is, it is an international bodybuilding competition that, at one point in time, was considered to be the undeniable number one bodybuilding competition on the planet. Some people in bodybuilding circles now place the Arnold Classic ahead of Mr. Olympia, or at least on par with it, but I still consider the Mr. Olympia title to be the greatest for a bodybuilder to have.
When it comes to building muscle, I try to search out information from folks who have demonstrated that they are true experts. Samson Dauda is obviously in that category. Dauda recently shared some of his bulking and muscle development strategies with Business Insider, and it is information that everyone should know if they are trying to increase muscle mass.
For weightlifting, Dauda adheres to a strategy that Arnold Schwarzenegger also incorporated. He starts with lower weight and higher reps, then increases the weight as he lowers the reps during his sets.
Both legendary bodybuilders point out that it helps exhaust as many muscle fibers as possible via the higher reps, while also giving those exhausted muscle fibers the benefit of having to lift heavy weight as time goes on. Arnold calls this technique ‘pyramiding.’
Samson Dauda is also a big fan of doing supersets. Supersetting involves doing two different lifts back to back, which can provide various benefits to building muscle, and it also helps save time in the gym.
When it comes to nutrition, Samson credits making more meals at home and eating more whole foods with helping him gain weight, which he has stated was a real struggle for him in his younger years.
“You have to give your body the building blocks for you to be able to use to build muscle,” Dauda says. “We cook all my meals at home, so we control everything. We know that the quality of food is there and are able to put on quality size with it.”
Apparently in Samson Dauda’s offseason, he consumes a diet of a whopping 7,500 calories per day. Which is…wild. It is not something that the average person should do, but if you are training to be Mr. Olympia, it is a calorie surplus that is virtually guaranteed to help pack on the pounds. Dauda reportedly weighs as much as 330 pounds in the offseason, then cuts back to about 275 when he competes.
Dauda is apparently a fan of the following foods, and while I don’t endorse eating the quantities that Dauda eats, the listed items are great sources of protein and other nutrition that folks should consider incorporating into their own diets if they are trying to bulk up:
- Eggs
- Chicken breast
- Steak
- Ground beef
- Oatmeal
- Sweet potatoes
- Pasta
- Protein shakes
Of course, those are items for when you are running a calorie surplus to bulk up. Obviously, if you are on a calorie deficit diet, you will want to refrain from eating pasta and steak, and stick to 93% lean ground beef and low-calorie vegetables instead 😉
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