Sam Sulek

• GearDoes it$$$Expensive: Several hundred dollars and up.

  Home gym

  His garage holds a hack squat, sled leg press, pendulum hip press, Arsenal chest and pullover machines, a cable station and a stationary bike, with kit stacked on scaffolding to make it fit. The leg corner he calls the dungeon.

  Source: Fitness Volt: Sam Sulek Reveals Inside Look at His Private Garage Gym Setup
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• SupplementDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.

  Intra-workout carbohydrate drink

  A carbohydrate drink goes down mid-session, about 100 grams on the day he counted, mixed in a bottle from Hosstile, whose supplement line sponsored him at the time. Blue Gatorade had been doing the same job before that.

  Source: Fitness Volt: Bodybuilder Sam Sulek Shares 4,887-Calorie Winter Bulk Full Day Of Eating
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Repeatable, mostly free routines with a defined trigger and dose.

• Resistance trainingDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.

  One muscle group a session, six exercises deep, mostly machines and cables. Fitness Volt watched him run a back and rear delt day where every set finished at failure rather than at a rep count, opening on lat pulldowns with the full stack plus plates and stripping weight from there.

  Source: Fitness Volt: Sam Sulek Full Day Of Eating And Back Workout

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• Protein-forward eatingDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.

  Around 250 grams a day is the one number he says he will not fudge. Everything else he treats as calories and macros, but the protein has to come from what he calls a high-quality source, which on this day meant a pound of steak, milk poured over cereal and an intra-workout shake.

  Source: Fitness Volt: Bodybuilder Sam Sulek Shares 4,887-Calorie Winter Bulk Full Day Of Eating

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• CyclingDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.

  The recumbent bike wins on arithmetic, he says: roughly 300 calories in thirty minutes against the 45 minutes a treadmill walk would need for the same reading. The Stairmaster feels like too much work to him, and sitting down to pedal does not.

  Source: Fitness Volt: Sam Sulek Discusses Bulking, His Favorite Form of Cardio, and Getting Jacked

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• Daily cardioDoes itFREE, no cost

  Thirty minutes a day is the line he repeats to viewers, and he tells them the machine matters less than turning up. His definition is deliberately loose: half an hour with the heart rate up somewhere in the 140s or 150s counts, ball games included.

  Source: Fitness Volt: Sam Sulek Discusses Bulking, His Favorite Form of Cardio, and Getting Jacked

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• Training close to failureDoes itFREE, no cost

  Sets end when the weight stops moving rather than at a count. On lat pulldowns he starts with the full stack plus extra plates, strips weight as he goes, and says he does not mind finishing barely able to shift the handle.

  Source: Fitness Volt: Sam Sulek Full Day Of Eating And Back Workout

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• Pre-training warm-upDoes itFREE, no cost

  First movement of the day is deliberately light: rope extensions or a chest-supported row, squeezed and held. Starting that way, he says, leaves the muscle pumped and activated so the nastier reps later in the session feel good.

  Source: Fitness Volt: Sam Sulek Builds a Huge Back With Intense Workout 5.5 Weeks from the 2026 Arnold Classic

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• Tempo trainingDoes itFREE, no cost

  Two speeds, and he switches between them by feel. On chest-supported rows he goes slow and controlled with a hold and a squeeze, while saying he likes the throw-the-weight-around style just as much; sometimes the machine decides which one he uses.

  Source: Fitness Volt: Sam Sulek Full Day Of Eating And Back Workout

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• Flexible dieting (macro tracking)Does itFREE, no cost

  Food choice is mostly beside the point to him. He says he looks at calories in and calories out and the macros attached, and that he has never been much of a believer in hitting set meals. Chex cereal, steak, mashed potato and two packs of ramen made up a day totaling 4,887 calories.

  Source: Fitness Volt: Bodybuilder Sam Sulek Shares 4,887-Calorie Winter Bulk Full Day Of Eating

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• Reverse dietDoes itFREE, no cost

  After the Arnold Classic UK he put himself on a maintenance phase instead of an off-season. Coming off mid-2500 calories, he said jumping to 4,000 would be no challenge at all and would mostly add body fat, so he is easing the number up over a few weeks.

  Source: Fitness Volt: Sam Sulek Focused on Adding Back Mass After 2026 Arnold Classic UK, Breaks Down Maintenance Nutrition Plan

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• Slow fat-loss phaseDoes itFREE, no cost

  Weight comes off at a rate he sets rather than by a deadline. Filming at 241.5 pounds, he said the number was matching the trajectory he was aiming for; that day totaled 2,477 calories with 258 grams of protein.

  Source: Fitness Volt: Bodybuilder Sam Sulek Breaks Down His 2,477-Calorie Full Day of Eating for Weight Loss

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• Partial repsDoes itFREE, no cost

  Once full reps are gone he grinds out partials, explaining that the little movement left is coming from scapular retraction through his lats. He treats it as the tail of the set, not a separate technique.

  Source: Fitness Volt: Sam Sulek Full Day Of Eating And Back Workout

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• Posing practiceDoes itFREE, no cost

  Posedowns went in straight after lat pulldowns in the weeks before his pro debut. He used them to read his own condition as much as to rehearse, saying he felt flat and low on glycogen at that point in the prep.

  Source: Fitness Volt: Sam Sulek Builds a Huge Back With Intense Workout 5.5 Weeks from the 2026 Arnold Classic

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• Self-coached contest prepDoes itFREE, no cost

  He ran his first pro prep without a coach, because looking in the mirror is a quicker check-in than texting someone and waiting for a reply. He is careful to add that he is not claiming it is better, only that it is how he wants to do it.

  Source: Fitness Volt: Sam Sulek Shares Why He's Coaching Himself for 2026 Arnold Classic

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• Eight hours of sleepDiscussesFREE, no cost

  Sleep is where he says the growing actually happens. A canceled 8:30 class read to him as a couple of extra hours in bed and therefore as gains, though he has never put a target number of hours on it.

  Source: Fitness Volt: Sam Sulek Discusses Bulking, His Favorite Form of Cardio, and Getting Jacked

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Daily practices held long enough to become default behavior.

• Calorie and macro trackingDoes itFREE, no cost

  Counting is the whole system, and he reckons a bulk forgives sloppy tracking in a way a diet never will. Dieting down, in his phrasing, needs Mr. Monk levels of care about the gram of fat per serving that most people read straight past.

  Source: Fitness Volt: Bodybuilder Sam Sulek Shares 4,887-Calorie Winter Bulk Full Day Of Eating

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• Batch cooking proteinDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.

  BarBend puts batch-cooked ground beef with rice on standby among his dieting hacks, quoting him on how well a tub of both, already cooked and ready to scoop into Tupperware, works. Tuna, egg whites and white rice sit on the same list, picked for predictable macros.

  Source: BarBend: Sam Sulek's Muscle-Building Diet Hacks

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• Diet soda and non-nutritive sweetenersDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.

  A two-liter bottle of flat diet soda opened one of his cutting days, standing in for a first meal. He argues it draws more criticism than it deserves, and reckons two cans of the full-sugar version would be the stranger choice.

  Source: Fitness Volt: Bodybuilder Sam Sulek Breaks Down His 2,477-Calorie Full Day of Eating for Weight Loss

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• Regular weigh-insDoes itFREE, no cost

  Adjustments get made against the scale, not the calendar. If the number stops moving he changes something, and he says he would rather eat less than push cardio past the hour a day he already splits between morning and night.

  Source: Fitness Volt: Bodybuilder Sam Sulek Breaks Down 2,541-Cal Full Day Eating in Prep for 2026 Arnold Classic

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• Rice cakesDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.

  Rice cakes carried most of the carbohydrate through his Arnold prep. He crushes half a sleeve into a bowl with canned chicken and sugar-free barbecue sauce, calls that format the shape of most of his meals, and keeps three back as a bedtime snack.

  Source: Fitness Volt: Sam Sulek Details His 2,449-Calorie Contest Prep Diet Less Than 3 Weeks from the 2026 Arnold Classic

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• “30 minutes of cardio a day, seated bike, but it doesn’t have to be the seated bike you can do whatever you want. … On the seated bike, you know, I can do 300 calories in 30 minutes, and that’s usually what I go for.”

  On Daily cardio

• “I think we’re all aware that all of your actual growth is going on when you’re sleeping, when you’re chilling. The longer you can stay in bed and dream around in your REM sleep cycles, the better.”

  On Eight hours of sleep

• “But protein is a little different. I do definitely put a lot of emphasis on making sure the 250 grams of protein I do get a day is from a high-quality source.”

  On Protein-forward eating

• “I want to do my thing and just see what happens. That’s how I like it. For me, to coach myself, it keeps it more simple. I don’t have to send somebody my check-ins, and it’s way quicker. I can just look at myself in the mirror. That’s my check-in.”

  On Self-coached contest prep

• “There are so many people who get so many different results doing so many different things, … It’s a snake oil of an idea instead of a product.”