"Bodybuilding isn't forever for me," Cbum confirms speculation of his departure!

Few bodybuilders have the predisposition to reach the highest ranks at Olympia. And while just getting close to the podium is extremely difficult, maintaining your position in the long term is many times harder. Thus, in the past we have seen the sovereign Ronnie Coleman being replaced by Jay Cutler, or Phil Heath falling through the starting field after a string of successes. Recently, speculation has been growing regarding Chris Bumstead, who spoke about his possible retirement on a podcast.

Cbum is undoubtedly one of the most talked about names in the bodybuilding world. The Canadian bodybuilder, who is followed by over 23 million people on Instagram, has won a total of five Classic Physique Olympia titles - he confirmed his dominance at the 2023 Classic Physique Olympia, where he defeated both Urs Kalecinskiy and Ramon Queiroz.

However, it's no secret that his career has not been without complications. For example, he trained for the last Olympia with a torn broad back muscle. In a recent podcast with renowned clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson, he therefore reaffirmed that he would like to retire by the age of 30. As well as talking at length about his calorie and training regime in both volume and pre-contest preparation, he and Peterson were talking specifically about future plans, with Cbum saying:

"Even in the past year, I've had a lot of things on my plate and I've spread myself out a little bit. I haven't been able to compete at the level I wanted to since the beginning of the year. I read a book called The One Thing, and it talks about if you want to be in the top one percent in something, you have to focus on that one thing.

And I was trying to be good, but I was wearing too many different hats. And I was still Mr. Olympia. But it also showed me that if I want to be the best father I can be, the best husband I can be, and the best businessman I can be, bodybuilding will rob me of that for at least part of the year."

In addition, Chris mentioned in the interview that bodybuilding takes a lot out of him and that the biggest goal he has in life is to be a good father. So all indications are that he may be retiring in the near future. And we, like many of his competitors in the Classic Physique category, are waiting to see if he will be able to add a sixth Mr. Olympia title to his collection before the aforementioned 30th birthday.

If you're interested in the full interview with Jordan Peterson, we've added a link to the nearly two-hour video from the channel of the aforementioned psychologist: