Samson Dauda is the 2024 Mr. Olympia — the first bodybuilder of Nigerian descent to win the sport's biggest title, and the first to bring it back to the UK since Dorian Yates in 1997. At 5'11" with 24-inch arms and an off-season weight north of 340 pounds, "The Nigerian Lion" is one of the biggest humans ever to stand on the Olympia stage.
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His 2025 title defense ended in one of the sport's cruelest twists: he led prejudging, then dropped to fourth at the finals as Derek Lunsford reclaimed the crown.
"Sometimes doing everything right still doesn't give you the result you hoped for."
His answer has been to disappear and rebuild. He skipped the 2026 Arnold Classic — his first miss in four years — bulked past 350 pounds, and started prep in June, sixteen weeks out from the 2026 Mr. Olympia (September 24-27, Las Vegas). This guide covers his split, his documented exercises with sets and reps, and the diet that costs him $4,800 a month.
Training Philosophy
Dauda came to bodybuilding late. He was a rugby player in the UK when teammates noticed how easily he carried muscle and pushed him toward the gym; seeing Phil Heath at the 2013 Mr. Olympia converted him for good, and he entered his first show in 2014 while still working construction.
His training is built on high-volume hypertrophy work: generally three to five sets in the 8-15 rep range, compounds first, then isolation, with heavy use of supersets and rests kept around a minute. Machines feature heavily — at his size, the goal is tension on the muscle, not circus lifts.
Two details define his sessions. First, two-second holds: on rows and machine presses he pauses at peak contraction, making moderate weight feel savage. Second, supersets to failure stacked at the end of a session, where the real growth stimulus lives.
The other pillar is his coach — his wife, Marlena Gustowska, a former bodybuilder who gave up her own competitive career and has run his prep since he split with Miloš Šarčev in 2024. She coached him to the 2024 title.
"People need to understand, if she leaves me, I'm stopping bodybuilding."
Weekly Training Split
His current documented off-season split runs five sessions across seven days, one major muscle group at a time.
| Day | Focus | Training Style |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | Back | Pulldowns, rows, rack pulls |
| Day 2 | Legs | High-rep pressing, superset finishers |
| Day 3 | Shoulders | Overhead presses, raises, abs |
| Day 4 | Arms | Cable and machine supersets |
| Day 5 | Rest | Recovery |
| Day 6 | Chest and Calves | Smith and machine pressing |
| Day 7 | Rest | Recovery |
Back Day
Back is the body part that decides Open bodybuilding, and Dauda's is built with a pulldown-row-rack-pull skeleton finished by a superset.
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wide-Grip Neutral Pulldown | 3-4 | 8-10 | Width first |
| Cable Row | 3-4 | 10 | 2-second hold every rep |
| Rack Pull | 3-4 | 10 | Heavy posterior-chain loading |
| Hammer Strength Low Row | 3-4 | 10 | Machine, constant tension |
| Close-Grip Pulldown + Rope Pullover | 3-4 | 10 | Superset finisher |
Leg Day
Dauda's leg sessions are pure volume: five sets of 15-20 on the big movements, then supersets to failure. His June 2026 prep-opening leg day — leg press, single-leg curls, Smith squats supersetted with extensions — came captioned: "Let's get to work. Got to keep these legs nice and big for the Olympia stage."
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Leg Press | 5 | 15-20 | Primary quad volume |
| Smith Machine Squat | 5 | 15-20 | Controlled depth |
| Leg Extension | 5 | 15-20 | Often supersetted with squats |
| Leg Curl | 5 | 15-20 | Hamstring volume |
| Lying + Kneeling Leg Curl | 3 | 6-8 | Superset to failure |
| Hack Squat + Leg Extension | 3 | 10 | Superset to failure, brutal finish |
Shoulders, Chest, and Arms
Shoulder day pairs Smith overhead presses with machine lateral raises in supersets of 6-8, backed by reverse pec deck and front raises, and closes with hanging leg raises supersetted with machine crunches. Chest day leads with Smith incline presses for 8-10 and machine presses with two-second holds, then finishes with seated and standing calf raises back to back.
Arm day is all machines, cables, and supersets — pushdowns with preacher curls for 15s, machine pushdowns with hammer curls, cable extensions with EZ-bar curls for 12s — high reps, short rests, chasing the pump on a frame that already carries 24-inch arms.
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Smith Overhead Press + Machine Lateral Raise | 3 | 6-8 | Superset |
| Reverse Pec Deck | 4 | 10 | Rear delts |
| Smith Incline Press | 3-4 | 8-10 | Chest day lead |
| Machine Chest Press | 3-4 | 10 | 2-second holds |
| Cable Pushdown + Preacher Curl | 2 | 15 | Arm-day superset |
| Cable Triceps Extension + EZ-Bar Curl | 3 | 12 | Superset |
Diet
Feeding a 340-pound frame is a full-time job. Dauda eats six meals a day — occasionally seven — and spends a documented $4,800 a month on food, nearly all of it home-cooked whole food.
A documented off-season day: 150 grams of oats with whey isolate and five eggs; 450 grams of sweet potato with 200 grams of steak; 350 grams of pasta with lean ground beef; a post-workout shake of isolate and cyclic dextrin; two cups of white rice with chicken; and a Nando's half chicken to close. In prep, the foods stay the same and the portions shrink — plus 15 minutes of fasted cardio.
"You won't see much coming out of a packet, or can."
He signed with Myprotein in January 2026 as his supplement sponsor, after five years with Hosstile, where his documented staples were whey isolate, cyclic dextrin carbs, and pre- and intra-workout formulas.
The System
Dauda's career is a lesson in patience at scale. He worked construction and care-home maintenance until 2020 — six years into his bodybuilding career — before the sport could pay his bills. Four years later he was Mr. Olympia.
The 2025 loss would have broken most champions. His response was structural: skip the spring show, add twenty pounds of off-season mass, give the rebuild a full year. Everything about his 2026 — the 350-pound bulk, the June prep start, the same six meals — is a bet that the bigger engine wins in September.
For the field he has to beat, see our Mr. Olympia 2026 preview.
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Not everyone has two hours a day for an Olympia split. If time is your constraint, EMS training condenses a full-body strength stimulus into a 20 minute session.
Feeding a 340-plus-pound frame is mostly a food problem — $4,800 a month of home-cooked staples across six meals. The documented supplement layer around it: whey isolate shakes, a pre-workout before training, and intra-workout aminos and carbs through his highest-volume sessions.