Struggling to build muscle? The reigning Mr. Olympia shares diet and workout hacks that transformed his body
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- 2024 Mr. Olympia winner Samson Dauda said he once struggled to gain weight and build muscle.
- Eating more home-cooked meals and whole foods helped him gain size and strength to compete.
- His workouts aim to maximize muscle with a mix of high reps and heavy weight in time-saving supersets.
Looking at Samson Dauda, you'd never guess he used to be a skinny kid.
But the winner of the 2024 Mr. Olympia β the most prestigious award in bodybuilding β said he once had a hard time gaining muscle.
"When I was young, I struggled to put on weight. I was one of those guys that could get away with eating everything and I didn't put on a pound," he told Business Insider in an interview on his partnership with energy drink brand Celsius.
Now Dauda weighs in at as much as 330 pounds in the off season as he packs on muscle for competition.
Born in Nigeria, Dauda moved to the UK as a teenager, and started his athletic career in rugby, where a teammate introduced him to bodybuilding. He started competing in 2014.
In 2020, at age 34, he quit his job as a construction worker to focus on bodybuilding full time.
He said two changes to his diet and workout routine have helped him break through muscle-building plateaus: eating heaps of nutritious food, and hitting high-rep, time-saving workouts.
High-rep supersets can boost muscle growth
Dauda said that, as someone who struggled to make gains, his workouts involve as much time under tension as possible to prompt muscle growth.
To do that, his typical routine involves back-to-back sets of exercise that start with a high number of reps at light weight, and then decrease the reps while increasing the weight over time.
The strategy allows him to get the benefits of lifting heavier weights, while also maximizing the time his muscles are working.
"You're putting a lot of strain in the muscle over a long period," Dauda said.
Supersets β performing two exercises one after another without rest β can also be useful for muscle building because it saves time. Switching up the exercise allows you to let one muscle group rest while the other is working, so you don't have to wait between sets.
You need extra calories and nutrients to build muscle
All that work in the gym needs fuel, and Dauda said eating nutrient-dense whole foods instead of processed food improved his gains.
"You have to give your body the building blocks for you to be able to use to build muscle," he said.
For a pro bodybuilder, eating becomes a full-time job.
Dauda said his off-season diet, when he's trying to build muscle, involves 7,500 calories a day, the vast majority of which is whole foods.
"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," he said.
Typical meals include protein sources like eggs, chicken breast, steak, ground beef β research suggests the ideal amount of protein for muscle gains is about 0.7 grams of protein per pound of your body weight daily. Dauda also eats plenty of carbs for energy from foods like oatmeal, sweet potatoes, and pasta.
He supplements with whey protein shakes to make sure he's getting enough protein to build muscle. He also relies on caffeine, including Celsius, to keep his energy up in the weeks before a competition, when intense prep can be exhausting and makes it difficult to sleep.
Dauda still gives himself a break, especially right after competition. His favorite post-show meal is pizza, ideally washed down with a big bottle of Coke. But after a few days of indulgence, Dauda is typically happy to go back to his routine of home-cooked healthy meals.
"You are so deprived for weeks and months on end that you have all these things you want to eat," he said. "And after one week you're kind of like, I've had enough, I want to go back to diet food."
