Dorian Yates was the standard-bearer in bodybuilding for the majority of the 1990’s. He is the only British Mr. Olympia winner, having held the title from 1992 to 1997. 25 years after his retirement from the sport, Yates is still considered a legend.
Yates joined fellow ’90s bodybuilders Milos Sarcev, Dennis James and Chris Cormier on a recent episode of “The Menace Podcast,” and the group started discussing Yates training principles that led to his success. Yates expressed that his Blood & Guts training, which were short and intense sessions was all he needed to make improvements and have quality training sessions both in the offseason as well as during his contest prep.
“Four days a week was the maximum,” Yates told James. “I never trained for more than an hour.”
James followed up with another question for “The Shadow.” Would he change anything now that he knows about the injuries that he suffered leading to his eventual retirement in 1998?
“Ultimately, no, because I am where I am and I’m happy, and everything that happened before brought me to this place.”
In recent years, Yates has been using his philosophies to coach and train other bodybuilders as well as average gym goers and even beginners who never trained before. Yates reported that his principles have been successful across the board.
“The training is relative to the person. So, if you’ve never done one pushup in your life, even bench pressing five-pound dumbbells is going to be intense enough,” he said. “I’ve turned people’s health around in just a month.”
Yates went on to express that isn’t just about training. How it is done matters too. Yates recalled how he told Cormier about adjustments that made a world of difference for him when they trained together.
“It’s the little details about how you lift the weight, and how you control the weight. Which path is it taking? How you control the negative on the way down, and it’s little thing after little thing after little thing. All those little things add up to a big thing.”