Nick Walker had a tremendous debut season as a professional bodybuilder in 2021. He scored a win at the 2021 Arnold Classic and landed in fifth-place in his Mr. Olympia debut. To jump to the top of the sport’s two biggest contests in one’s rookie year draws much attention, including big expectations in the sophomore season. Walker appears up to the challenge and plans to bring “something special” to the 2022 Olympia stage from Dec. 16-18, 2022, in Las Vegas, NV.
In January 2022, Walker parted ways with his former coach Matt Jansen. Since then, Walker recruited bodybuilder, coach, and dietician Dominick Mutascio to guide Walker’s prep for the 2022 Olympia. Mutascio and Walker filmed a training session together where they targeted the chest and triceps. Check out the entire workout below, courtesy of Walker’s YouTube channel:
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The training session opens on Walker performing dumbbell flyes with Matuscio touching his upper chest to ensure Walker is recruiting the correct muscles. After performing flyes on both an incline bench and flat bench, Walker performed dumbbell bench press with a pause at the lockout.
On his second set of dumbbell bench presses, Walker put on wrist wraps and hoisted 120-pounds in each hand. Walker continued to increase the weights, reaching for the dumbbells with seven small weight plates on each end rather than a solid bell.
The main variable that determines the level of success in our sport, is the ability to consistently execute, regardless of the obstacles
The duo followed up the dumbbell bench presses with additional bench presses on the Smith machine, focusing on the upper chest. Mutascio’s strategy for Walker appeared to be higher volume training with short rest periods between sets.
Moving onto the chest press machine, both men did single-arm reps. Matuscio touched Walker’s inner chest during the movement. While there isn’t a way to target the inner chest as the anatomy of the pec does not allow for that, performing single-arm presses at such an angle can help carve the separation of the pecs, which can look more aesthetic on stage.
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Despite all very high volume of pressing already performed. Mutascio had Walker perform incline chess press on a machine followed by cable flyes superset with Svend press. They followed up with elevated push-ups so Walker could continue to train in the stretched position.
After they finally gassed out their chests, it was time to train triceps. Standing cable extensions were up first. Walker crossed the cables, drove his hands down, and only allowed his elbows to come to 90 degrees before the next rep. Once the workout was complete, it was apparent that the pump for both men was intense.
Dominck Mutascio’s Bodybuilding Career
Mutascio is no stranger to the bodybuilding stage. According to NPC News Online, he has competed as a middleweight, welterweight, and light heavyweight, starting in 2014. Here are all the contests he’s appeared in:
- 2014 NPC Junior Nationals | Middleweight — Second place
- 2015 NPC Northeast Summer Classic | Middleweight — First place
- 2015 NPC USA Championships | Middleweight — Eighth place
- 2016 NPC USA Championships | Welterweight — Second place
- 2017 NPC New England Championships | Middleweight — First place
- 2017 NPC National Championships | Middleweight — Seventh place
- 2018 NPC USA Championships | Middleweight — Third place
- 2018 NPC National Championships | Middleweight — Sixth place
- 2018 Caribbean Grand Prix Pro Qualifier | Light Heavyweight — Third place
[Read More: Best Upper Chest Exercises for Building Muscle]
Judging from the training video, the workout volume and load was challenging for Walker, who’s told BarBend that his main priority for 2022 is to win the Sandow trophy at the 2022 Olympia. He will not presumably compete before that contest. He’s already vacated his Arnold Classic title as he will not participate in that contest on March 4-5, 2022, in Columbus, OH. We’ll see if Matuscio can take Walker’s career to the next level and help him improve upon his fifth-place Olympia finish from 2021.
Featured image: @nick_walker39 on Instagram
