Hunter Labrada Workout and Diet

Hunter Labrada is an IFBB Pro bodybuilder in the Men’s Open division and the son of IFBB Hall of Famer Lee Labrada, one of the top Mr. Olympia contenders of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Hunter turned pro by winning the 2018 NPC National Championships overall and finished fourth at the 2021 Mr. Olympia.

He is known for carrying a lot of size with good conditioning. His training is built on a short list of mostly machine exercises that he repeats and pushes harder over time. His diet stands out too: much of it is drunk rather than eaten, with whey isolate shakes and liquid egg whites doing a lot of the work.

Below you will find his stats, the split he showed during his 2022 Olympia prep, a sample off-season day of eating with the macros checked, and his contest record.

Who Is Hunter Labrada?

Hunter Labrada is a professional bodybuilder who earned his IFBB Pro status by winning the 2018 NPC National Championships overall. He competes in Men’s Open, the heaviest and most mass-focused division in the sport.

Bodybuilding runs in the family. His father, Lee Labrada, was one of the best-known physiques of the Lee Haney era and is a member of the IFBB Hall of Fame. Lee never won the Sandow trophy; Haney held the title through 1991, as our list of Mr. Olympia winners shows. Hunter has followed him onto the Olympia stage in the Open division.

Hunter also has a YouTube channel where he has documented his training, meals and daily life as a professional bodybuilder, which is where much of what is known about his routine comes from.

Hunter Labrada Stats

Hunter Labrada’s Training Philosophy

Hunter trains on progressive overload: he runs the same workouts with the same exercises week after week and tries to add load or reps over time. He does not chase variety or “muscle confusion”. Keeping the exercises fixed makes progress easy to measure, because a better set on the same machine is a real improvement, not a new movement that only feels harder.

Progressive overload itself is far older than modern bodybuilding; it is the basic principle behind nearly every strength and muscle-building program. What sets Hunter’s training apart is the low-volume, high-effort style: few sets per exercise, each one taken very hard. That approach is often compared to the training Dorian Yates made famous on his way to six Mr. Olympia titles in the 1990s.

Most of his exercises are machines, cables and chest-supported variations, many done one side at a time. Stable, supported movements let a lifter push a set close to failure without balance, grip or lower-back fatigue becoming the limit. Unilateral work also lets each side be trained on its own, which helps when one side lags.

Several exercise names below carry the name of the machine maker (Nautilus, Arsenal, Prime, Rogers, Strive). Any similar plate-loaded or cable machine trains the same muscles.

Hunter Labrada Workout Plan

The sessions below are the ones Hunter showed during his prep for the 2022 Mr. Olympia, in the order he ran them. Volume was reduced in the lead-up to the show, so treat the set counts as a prep-phase snapshot rather than his year-round plan.

Pull A

Push A

Arms A

Legs

Leg day has the fewest sets of the rotation: most movements get a single set. A plan this lean relies on each set being taken very close to failure.

Off Day

One full rest day sits in the middle of the rotation. Hunter uses it for posing practice and recovery rather than extra training.

Pull B

Push B

Arms B

Hunter trains in a well-equipped gym with a wide choice of machines, so he can pick the exact tool for each muscle. He placed seventh at the 2022 Olympia with this plan, after fourth the year before; a prep split is no guarantee of a placing, which also depends on the field and the judging on the day.

How to Use Hunter Labrada’s Approach

Copy the principles, not the exact set counts. A prep-phase plan for an elite Open bodybuilder is not built for a lifter with a normal job, normal recovery and a normal gym. For most people, more weekly volume will work better: a 2017 meta-analysis by Schoenfeld and colleagues found a dose-response link between weekly sets and muscle growth, with 10 or more sets per muscle per week producing more growth than fewer than five.

• Keep your exercises fixed for several weeks. Log every set and aim to add a rep or a little load each time.
• Use stable machines and supported rows for hard sets, so the target muscle fails before your balance or lower back does.
• Add sets before you add exercises. Two or three hard sets per movement, across two sessions per muscle in each rotation, gets most lifters into a productive weekly range.
• Train hard, not recklessly. Low-volume, near-failure sets demand good technique and full warm-ups, especially on heavy pressing and leg machines.

Hunter Labrada Diet Plan

Hunter’s diet stands out for how much of it is liquid. On the off-season day below, two meals are built around whey isolate shakes, two include large servings of liquid egg whites, and only one is a classic meat-and-rice meal. Shakes and egg whites are quick to prepare and easy to get down, a practical way to hit very high protein and carbohydrate targets without having to eat huge amounts of solid food.

A note on sources: this sample day is based on an off-season plan Hunter has shared publicly. The per-meal macros are approximate, meal 5 is a free meal with estimated macros, and it reflects one off-season, not a fixed plan. His food changes between the off-season and contest prep.

The totals add up: 387 g of protein and 489 g of carbs at 4 kcal per gram, plus 63 g of fat at 9 kcal per gram, gives about 4,070 kcal. That splits into roughly 38% of calories from protein, 48% from carbs and 14% from fat.

The protein figure is very high. For a man of about 245 lbs (111 kg), 387 g is roughly 3.5 g per kg of body weight. A 2018 meta-analysis by Morton and colleagues found that the benefit of extra protein for lean mass gains levelled off at around 1.6 g per kg per day, with an upper estimate of about 2.2 g/kg. Most lifters can build muscle on far less than Hunter eats.

Most of his protein on this day comes from whey and egg whites rather than meat, and fat is kept low, which leaves room for a lot of carbohydrate around training. If you struggle to eat enough to gain weight, liquid calories can work for regular lifters too; our 1000 calorie shake guide shows one way to do it.

Beyond whey isolate and a carb powder, his published plan says little about supplements. For most lifters, the supplements with the strongest evidence are the basics: protein powder to help reach a daily protein target and creatine monohydrate, one of the most studied sports supplements for strength and lean mass.

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Hunter Labrada Bodybuilding Career

Hunter won his class at every amateur contest in the record below before turning pro at the 2018 NPC Nationals. As a pro, he won the Tampa Pro and the Chicago Pro and reached fourth place at the 2021 Mr. Olympia, part of the same new wave of Open competitors as Nick Walker.

The table covers his amateur career and his pro results through the 2022 Mr. Olympia. For later placings, the IFBB Pro League’s official contest results are the reference.