Exercise specialist breaks down and critiques Chris Bumstead's upper body training

Specialist Dr. Mike Israetel returns to review another big name in fitness, this time taking a closer look at Chris Bumstead's lifting technique. In a recent YouTube video, Dr. Mike Israetel critiqued Bumstead's upper body training, including his chest and back.

As of 2019, it's impossible to ignore the dominance of reigning Classic Physique Olympia winner Chris Bumstead. Not only has he maintained a flawless record since he replaced Breon Ansley on the throne, but "Cbum" has used that success to become one of the most popular fitness stars in the world. He boasts a whopping 23.5 million followers on Instagram, and fans take notice whenever they hear about the Canadian superpower. Bumstead overcame a number of obstacles that stood in his way of becoming a five-time Classic Physique Olympia champion. In addition to suffering a torn latissimus during his preparation for the competition, he watched his close friend and brother-in-law Iain Valliere abruptly end his athletic career.

Enter sports physiologist Dr. Mike Israetel, who mixes humor and scientific studies into his training analyses. He recently sat down to critique and evaluate Chris Bumstead's upper body lifting technique and offer his improvements.

The exercise specialist examines Chris Bumstead's upper body lifting technique and gives tips for improvement

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Příspěvek sdílený Chris Bumstead (@cbum)

Back training

Dr. Mike Israetel begins by assessing Bumstead's form during several back muscle exercises.

"Oh, the hips, these aren't the worst hips I've ever seen. He's getting a really good stretch and contraction. I would have preferred if Mr. Chris Bumstead had flexed significantly more and thus had to use less weight, he could have achieved a deeper stretch and could have maximized back growth while minimizing fatigue, which means that in the long run he could have maximized back growth even more and minimized fatigue that would have hindered the growth of his other muscles as well."

Taking a closer look at Bumstead's one-arm barbell exercise, Israetel explains why the stretching part of the movement helps muscle growth.

"One-handed dumbbell pull-ups," said Dr. Mike Israetel. "That's where we can take advantage of that stretching phase, that's where the exercise is better compared to other exercises, why not do it?"

Chest training

When it comes to chest training, Israetel offered Bumstead a few tips, particularly on how to achieve deep stretching and more effective contractions.

"The technique here looks pretty good. I'd like Chris to open up a little more. Having a little bit less angle in his elbows because he's doing kind of a combination of push-ups and stretches, there's nothing wrong with that, but I'd like to see him try a clean stretch, it would be great if his elbows were bent a little bit and also stretch super deep in that position."

To get the most out of his chest workout, Israetel advised Bumstead to control the execution of the exercises more.

"This is good, he's getting into a really deep stretch, which is awesome. I'd like him to control a little bit more in the eccentric phase, to control the descent a little bit more. Make it a little bit slower, I'd like him to take a pause down there for a second or two to get that really crazy deep chest muscle stretch, otherwise I think it's really great technique."

"Interestingly, Chris is training with a narrow grip here, which means he won't be doing too many reps, which isn't important for the chest anyway, so it's no big deal," Israetel says. "I would normally choose a much wider grip to preferably train the chest."

He adds that weightlifters tend to rush the eccentric part because they're fixated on performing more reps.

"One of the reasons people like to rush the eccentric part is because in their head they really think they want to do more reps, if I can make each rep a little faster and easier, then I can do more reps. But we're not here to do reps, we're here to stimulate the muscle as much as possible."

Order of exercises

Israetel claims that the order of exercises is not as important for chest growth as the ratio of stimulus to fatigue.

"With chest and chest stimulation exercises, they're really all good. You can do splits first, push-ups first, whatever feels better, there's really no wrong answer. As far as the order of exercises, I don't see any great logic here [with Bumstead] that's more complicated than trying a few different machines and hitting a few different angles."

He uses several different types of spreader bars and several different types of pressure. They do a few regular push-ups and a few oblique push-ups, which I like, and a few splits, which I like, but I would say one splits exercise, one oblique push-up, and one flat push-up is about all you need for a chest workout."

Finally, Dr. Israetel gave his opinion on Cbum's lifting technique, which he was generally impressed with.

"From what I could tell, very good technique, especially with the one-arm dumbbells. I would have liked to see Chris do a little more full range of motion, especially on the eccentric one by a little bit, he did very well. I would have liked to see him control the negative movement more. I think he would just get more out of that movement with less fatigue."

"I would have liked him to lean forward more on the push-ups and possibly choose machines that better emphasize that deep stretch," added exercise specialist Dr. Mike Israetel.

Source:Fitnessvolt.com

You can watch the full video here: