💪 Bumstead vs. Arnold: The Winner?

It's a mass-building world, and we're just living in it. So eat your protein, get your sleep, and make sure you're practicing hypertrophy-friendly resistance training at least three times per week!

Both Chris Bumstead and Arnold Schwarzenegger followed our advice up top. But here's why Bumstead thinks he'd win (hands down!) in a pose-off against "The Austrian Oak."

Dorian Yates is a legendary six-time Mr. Olympia — but we know posing prowess doesn't always make the strongest athletes. "The Shadow" rarely prioritized one-rep maxes, so how strong was he in reality?

Flex Lewis is officially retired from bodybuilding. But he's got big life and fitness goals we can all learn from.

FANTASY SHOWDOWN

CBum vs. Arnold?

Chris Bumstead is the proud owner of four Classic Physique Olympia titles and touts one of the biggest fan followings in the sport of bodybuilding. But with so much success comes the inevitable comparisons to competitors from past generations — more specifically, to the legendary Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Bumstead stands around 6’1″ and weighs approximately 240 pounds when on stage; impressively, those measurables are nearly identical to Schwarzenegger when he competed throughout the ‘70s. That’s led to countless debates among fans — and right here on BarBend — about who would win a pose-off between these two.

In a recent interview on The Full Send Podcast, Bumstead weighed in on who the judges would pick if the two went squared off. Check out the video below for the entire interview.

HISTORY

Yates, Plates, and How His Strength Rates

Six-time Mr. Olympia Dorian Yates is often singled out as the man who helped usher in the “mass monster” era of bodybuilding. But for all the size he possessed, he still maintained the type of elite conditioning everyone expected from an Olympia winner.

In that way, Yates was an iconoclast — he created his own path within the sport using a unique training system that was eventually nicknamed “Blood and Guts.” This workout philosophy focused on using heavy weights to failure on just one or two working sets, with the intensity dialed up as far as it could go.

While testing his one-rep max strength wasn’t a goal during his career, his raw power was still on the upper end of elite bodybuilders. And to examine how strong Yates really was, it’s important to dig deeper into this trademark training style.

PHYSIQUE UPDATE

Flex in Retirement

Seven-time 212 Olympia champion James “Flex” Lewis hasn’t competed onstage since his final victory in 2018, but he waited until 2022 to announce his official retirement from the sport. While Lewis has no aspirations of competing again, the Welsh bodybuilder still looks the part, as he has documented on social media.

On March 30, the 39-year-old father of two shared a physique update on Instagram and reported that he weighs around 200 pounds. You can see how he looks in the post below.

THE DROPSET

Jacked's Next Run

• Andrew Jacked took bodybuilding social media by storm in 2022, and he followed that up with a string of strong pro finishes. Here's why he thinks he can successfully defend his Texas Pro title later this year.

• Researcher, powerlifter, and bodybuilder Layne Norton is one of the sharpest minds in strength. We go deep into his PHAT training methodology.

• Dr. Kelly Starrett changed the game on our understanding of human movement, injury prevention, and recovery. Now he's sharing what he's learned over the past decade — and the gaps that remain in our knowledge of elite training.