BDJ: Your first serious workouts were short, intense and relatively infrequent, heavily influenced by the principles of Arthur Jones and Mike Mentzer. What drew you to that approach over more traditional training methods?
DY: I approach things logically, and Jones’s and Mentzer’s training methods seemed logical and well reasoned to me. I’m the kind of person who studies something thoroughly before committing to it seriously. I try to gather and analyze as much information and data as possible, organize it, make sense of it and find the logic in it for myself. But I didn’t stop there…naturally, I combined that information with my own training experience and listened to my body.
I discovered pretty quickly that whenever I exceeded a certain training volume or trained more frequently, I noticed signs of overtraining…I wasn’t recovering, I wasn’t sleeping well, my nervous system felt drained and my progress stalled. Those were all clear signs that I needed to back off and change my approach.
Over the years, I developed a program based on the principles of intensity, volume, frequency and adequate recovery, and how they relate to one another.
So although I learned a lot from Jones and Mentzer, and even trained with Mentzer a few times, I combined their methods with my own experience and beliefs. The result was a hybrid of HIT, my own ideas and conventional approaches. Of course, I don’t agree with everything Jones and Mentzer said about training, including training your entire body in a single workout.
BDJ: I completely agree with you on that. After training legs, for example, I’m really wiped out…even if not so much physically, then certainly mentally.
DY: Yes…doing all of that in one go is clearly a lot. Some things sound great in theory but don’t work in practice. So you have to combine approaches. You read the theory, try it in your training, then adapt it or make changes. But if something doesn’t work in practice, there’s really nothing more to say. Don’t keep blindly plugging away just because someone else does it and praises it. You need to move on and find something else that works for you, while still trying to keep the principles of intensity in mind.
Take the useful information, keep it and apply it; throw away what you don’t need. That’s how I’ve approached Mentzer’s and Jones’s theories, as well as many other methods. I’ve always been open to new ideas. I’ve never had a nutrition adviser or a coach. I listened to different suggestions and tried to find out what worked for me and what didn’t. That’s one thing I like about bodybuilding…I’m responsible for my own victories and defeats.
BDJ: Did you use any special strategies or intensity techniques to bring up lagging muscles?
DY: Of course I had lagging muscles, and they needed attention. I trained them right at the start of a workout or early on, while I was still mentally and physically fresh. Naturally, I also used various intensity techniques, but not all at once. Since I train to failure, I occasionally used both forced reps and negatives. I’ve always tried to emphasize the negative, because that phase of a lift is actually just as important as the positive phase. Many people think muscles only grow from lifting the weight, during the concentric phase, so they focus solely on that. In fact, the negative phase of a lift creates considerably greater microtears than the positive phase. And that has a positive effect on muscle growth. I typically always did negatives in my final sets and on machines, because they allow better control of the movement.
From time to time, I also used a modified rest-pause set: I did 5–6 reps, rested for 10 seconds, then squeezed out another 1–2 reps, and so on. I also used drop sets, doing 6–8 reps to failure, reducing the weight and then doing another 3–4 reps to failure. I used partial reps as well.
I also tried pre-exhaustion, but I didn’t like it and it didn’t work for me…at least in its traditional form. It’s a good example of an intensity technique that sounds great in theory but leaves something to be desired in practice.
A big mistake people often make when they have a lagging muscle or muscle group is to increase their training frequency or number of sets, but that doesn’t help.
BDJ: When it comes to pre-exhaustion, I know guys who have achieved excellent results with it. Of course, it depends on the individual. You probably have a very high percentage of fast-twitch muscle fibers throughout your body, which is likely why you fatigue quickly.
DY: I’ve certainly used pre-exhaustion, but not the traditional version where you do one exercise and then immediately move straight on to the next. For example, I started my leg workout with leg extensions, followed by the leg press as my next exercise. I did all of this in sets, with proper rest periods. The first exercise simply served as pre-exhaustion before I did the leg press. I think traditional pre-exhaustion becomes too aerobic…it turns into more of a cardiovascular workout than a muscle-building one. Traditional pre-exhaustion…I’ve done it, and those were some of the hardest workouts I’ve ever had. You can barely breathe, but I’ve never felt they were particularly beneficial for muscle growth. So I varied the method and adapted it to suit me. I definitely needed enough rest between the two exercises.
BDJ: Is that rest more necessary physically or mentally?
DY: It was necessary for both. With traditional pre-exhaustion, if you do leg extensions first while knowing that the leg press is coming immediately afterward, your concentration on both exercises suffers. Even during the extensions, your attention is already divided. Deep down, you start holding back during that first exercise because you know you’ll have to jump straight into the next one, which is even harder, when you’re already tired. That’s a method that’s easy to praise in theory, but very difficult for many people to put into practice. I prefer to stimulate the muscles, give it everything with a heavy weight and then rest. I don’t really believe in rushing from one exercise to the next. To me, that kind of rushing produces an aerobic training effect. It often creates the kind of fatigue you get from endurance work, which compromises your ability to push yourself with heavy weights. That’s especially true when training legs, because the muscles involved are so large.
BDJ: Did you ever use any methods or techniques that held back your progress?
DY: My biggest mistake was probably trying to maintain the same weights and intensity (training to failure) right up to
competition. HIT techniques are excellent for stimulating muscle growth when your training is supported by enough calories and rest. But when preparing for a competition, your main goal should be to preserve muscle and minimize the risk of injury. That is because your muscles and joints are under considerable strain, while your body fat and energy levels are low. Also, when you are dieting and training hard, your sleep quality clearly is not what it is during a mass-building phase. That means your concentration suffers too. All these factors increase your risk of injury. On top of that, there is a constant, significant risk of your whole body entering a catabolic state because you are pushing the limits of how much stress you can handle. If I could do it all again, I would ease back a little on training to failure…stop each set 1 2 reps before reaching failure. That would still be enough to preserve muscle mass while continuing to lower body fat percentage.
BDJ: As I understand it, you prefer—or preferred—free weights?
DY: I am not a diehard advocate or opponent of either approach (free weights vs. machines). Of course, there are heavy compound exercises that need to be done with free weights, but if you look at my training over the years, you will see that it actually includes both. Each has advantages and disadvantages, and combining them can produce good results.
BDJ: Do you agree that machines actually have little to offer? Unlike many others, I feel that machines let you stimulate a muscle more directly. You do not have to put extra effort into stabilizing the equipment?
DY: I certainly cannot fully agree that machines have little to offer. I think machines are naturally more effective when it comes to working muscles in isolation, and, indeed, you do not have to worry about stabilizing your body position. But one drawback of machines is that they force you to follow fixed movement paths. Whether I use a machine or you do…everything still moves in exactly the same way. When you do an exercise with a barbell or dumbbells, you move the weight according to the individual biomechanics of your body and joints.
BDJ: Perhaps free weights really do have an advantage in that respect.
DY: Definitely, and that is why I think free weights are more effective for pure strength training. Ultimately, there are things you can do with free weights that you cannot do with machines, and vice versa, so the best approach would be to combine the two: free weights and machines.
BDJ: Did you use any psychological techniques before or during your workouts?
DY: I keep a training and nutrition log, and I did back then too. Every workout goes into it: exercises, weights, and so on. Before training, I always look through it and review my previous workout…the weights, sets, and reps. Based on that, I picture what I want to achieve in today’s workout. Naturally, I like wearing certain clothes on particular training days…it all helps me get into the right frame of mind.
I also made a point of visualizing the weights I intended to lift, how many sets and reps I would do, which exercises I would use, and in what order. By the time I get to the gym, I am completely focused on my workout goals, just as I was back then. The workout itself is then about putting that mental rehearsal into practice.
BDJ: I do not think you come across many bodybuilders, especially professionals, who keep a training log and track their progress so closely.
DY: Many bodybuilders have asked me about training, why they are not making progress, and so on. My immediate response is to ask what they did or how they trained last time, or a year ago. The typical answer is, “I am not really sure…I cannot quite remember,” and so on. If that is the case, you will never learn anything about yourself. Keeping a log lets you see how you have progressed with different approaches and how your body has responded. What worked well and what did not.
If you leave it to chance, you are like the captain of a ship in the middle of the ocean without a chart, hoping chance will carry you to your desired destination.
BDJ: This is probably one of the most common questions both former and current professional bodybuilders are asked: Which steroids have you used, and how much money did you spend on drugs each year? Would you be willing to answer that?
DY: I really do get asked these things all the time, especially at seminars. I have a firm principle on this. I do not want to seem evasive, as though I have some special secrets, but I also have a responsibility to consider where I speak, what I say, who I am speaking to, and what I discuss. I do not recommend anything to anyone, and I never discuss doses, because even bodybuilding magazines are read by young people. There are magazines and people who openly discuss and recommend things without feeling any responsibility. You often read claims that “all the pros do this or that.” I once came across an article describing everything the pros supposedly did and took, and it was so alarming that it even frightened me. Why does this matter? Because if you publicly trumpet drug use and encourage it, people come to believe that success depends neither on genetics nor on how you train, but solely on steroids. As I said, children often read this material and assume it is the whole truth and that steroids are all they need.
I will say this much: I did not take anything you would not have heard of or that others could not get hold of. Nothing unusual. Of course, in my prime I lived in England, isolated from the great bodybuilding mecca of the USA. When someone as unprecedentedly big and imposing as me emerged from such a “little place,” rumors naturally followed. I used what everyone else used…Deca, testosterone, various oral steroids…all of it is available there, and it was around then, just as it is now. People think you take some pills and they work miracles. It is not that simple. Steroids help you build muscle, but your progress certainly does not depend on them alone. Regardless, you still have to train hard, eat plenty of good food, and get quality rest.
BDJ: Your before-and-after photos from the early nineties are still legendary and impressive. Was that when you first experimented with growth hormone?
DY: Actually, no. I had already been using it before then. The reason I made that progress was that I knew this was an important year and a crucial moment for me. Haney was known to be retiring, and I needed a clear visual advantage over the other competitors, who were smaller than me. The goal was to be incredibly lean and defined while also being bigger than ever. In previous years, I had always sacrificed far too much muscle through dieting and lost too much weight. Quite often, I was already in contest shape 5 6 weeks out, but I still had to keep dieting, which did me no good: a fair amount of muscle went with it. There was also that drive to get leaner and leaner. I knew what the problem was and knew I couldn’t let it happen that year. So the transformation I made in 1992 1993 actually came entirely from nutrition. Some people still find that very hard to believe, but that’s how it was.
BDJ: I understand what you mean, because nutrition alone really can make a dramatic difference in a short time. For example, changing the foods you eat or the amounts can quickly make you look fuller, or make you look better or worse within just a few hours.
DY: And when your body fat percentage is very low, it’s easy to start burning muscle, which was what I was trying to avoid at all costs.
BDJ: Let’s talk about your business! You offer books and videos, and you’re also involved in supplements and personal training.
DY: Yes. I even have my own website, [url=http://www.dorianyates.net/]http://www.dorianyates.net/[/url], with information about telephone consultations, as well as various personalized programs and learning materials.
My supplement company, Dorian Yates Approved, is doing very well in both England and Europe. We also started operating in the USA quite recently. We focus on protein supplements and meal replacements. How did it all begin? I have a friend in England who works in the supplement industry. He suggested joining forces to launch a range under my name. One of my conditions from the outset was that I would have a significant say in standards, raw materials, product development and research. The protein supplements sold under my name are unique and effective because they contain undenatured proteins. These retain important growth factors needed to build muscle. Our protein supplements also contain important probiotics needed for digestive function and overall health. People who have started using these products have stuck with them because the results speak for themselves. We spent over a year on research before we began making our products. Readers can also visit the website www.propeptide.com.
BDJ: Could you give us a brief overview of your training in the early years, compared with your Mr. Olympia years and what you do now?
DY: When I started bodybuilding, I naturally followed the conventional, popular routines, mostly ones I found in magazines. But I soon realized they didn’t work well for me, because I became overtrained quite quickly. The tendency back then was certainly to copy the top guys and train the way they did, just as it is now. People also stuck to the standard magazine routines.
After digging through the literature, I combined Jones’s and Mentzer’s principles and developed my own training split and approach. As far as I remember, my first HIT routine was a two-part split, alternating between the two parts over 3 days a week. For example, in the first week I did upper body/lower body/upper body, then in the following week I did lower body/upper body/lower body. I arranged it so that each muscle was trained twice every other week. Twice one week, once the next. Over the longer term, that meant I worked each muscle 2 x in nine days. And that worked well for me. But during my Mr. Olympia years, I moved to a 4-day split…two workouts, one day off, two workouts, one day off, and so on. As I grew bigger and stronger, I couldn’t train half my body in a single workout anymore, so I had to split it up further.
This was another point where I departed from Arthur Jones’s and Mentzer’s principles. Even though I wasn’t training with huge volumes, a full-body or half-body workout would have added up to a very large number of sets, and that was clearly too much for a single session. I think an exercise is effective when you do it with a certain amount of volume and alongside other exercises. I don’t think it’s particularly effective to go to the gym and train your back and chest with just one exercise for each.
BDJ: Good point. Something I’ve noticed about HIT followers myself is that they use a varied selection of exercises and often include all the heavy compound lifts in their routines: squats, presses, deadlifts, pull-ups, parallel bar dips and so on.
DY: Yes, some people say that if a muscle is working, it’s working…and there’s no need to train it from different angles. But that can’t be the whole truth, and it isn’t logical. We all know that doing one exercise or another for a muscle doesn’t produce the same result. There’s a big difference between doing only presses for your shoulders and also including standing lateral raises, bent-over dumbbell lateral raises, front raises and so on. They all work the shoulders from different angles. The same applies to the chest: decline and flat bench presses work the lower chest more than the upper chest. So it should be obvious that different exercises performed at different angles affect a muscle differently, and ultimately that affects how your body looks. You should definitely train your body using a variety of exercises and angles.
BDJ: What did your cardio training look like when you were preparing for competitions?
DY: My strength training was essentially the same in the off-season and before competitions. To increase fat burning, I added one hour of cardio a day alongside reducing calories. I did half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the evening, depending on how I looked and what I needed. I didn’t do high-intensity cardio; I preferred low intensity so my body would use fat for energy. Of course, you can also increase fat burning by doing more sets in your strength training, but that also significantly increases the risk of losing muscle. Higher-than-usual training volume also immediately makes recovery more difficult.
BDJ: How is your training going these days? I assume you’re still working out.
DY: Yes, of course I still train, and I follow essentially the same principles. The intensity is naturally lower than it was in my Mr. Olympia days, partly because of my triceps injury. I have to keep a close eye on that because there’s a significant imbalance between my right and left triceps. That also means I use machines more, particularly for upper-body training. One of the advantages of machines is that they allow you to train even with injuries.
BDJ: I know Sergio Oliva has severe joint inflammation throughout his body, which means he can only train on machines. Sergio himself feels that free weights would be too much for his joints now.
DY: In an ideal world, under ideal circumstances…if I had no injuries, I’d use a lot of free weights and wouldn’t train on machines nearly as much. But I am where I am now, and I train as best I can, within the limits of what my body allows.
BDJ: I assume there’s no chance you’ll ever return to the stage?
DY: My decision to retire was mainly down to injuries, and I’d competed a great deal. The only question that lingered then, and still does, is whether I could have improved my physique any further. But with all those injuries and the recovery involved…I knew I couldn’t carry on like that. And I certainly didn’t want to return looking smaller or worse than people were used to seeing me.
BDJ: The final week before a bodybuilding competition is known to be the toughest. Competitors are hungry and stressed, and everything seems worse to them than it actually is.
DY: That’s absolutely true. You look in the mirror one minute and everything seems fine, but a couple of minutes later, things look terrible. Of course, your condition doesn’t really change that quickly, but your mind starts playing tricks on you at that stage. A lot of people start trying crazy things in that final week to make themselves look even better. It’s common for the whole preparation to go well…you keep looking better and better, then mess everything up in the last week. Although you need to be flexible in your approach, it’s important to follow a plan and not keep changing it.
BDJ: Have you also experimented with carbohydrate loading and depletion, or manipulated your water intake?
DY: I’ve always manipulated my carbohydrate intake, and it worked. It doesn’t suit everyone, but our bodies respond differently to different nutrients. Over the years, I’ve worked out exactly which amounts and approaches work, what doesn’t work, and why. I didn’t leave much to chance, although sometimes I look back and think that a higher intake at one competition or a slightly lower intake at another might have produced an even better result. I always kept journals of this too, right up to the competition. If I needed to change something or wanted to know how I’d looked after loading with a particular amount, I’d go back through my journal and draw my conclusions.
BDJ: Speaking very generally about nutrition, what was your ratio of protein, fat and carbohydrates?
DY: My first priority and goal was always to get an adequate amount of protein at regular intervals throughout the day. I consumed an average of 3 g/kg/day of protein. I split the remaining calories between fat and carbohydrates. I can’t give you exact figures, but I think the macronutrient breakdown was generally 30 40% protein, 50% carbohydrates and 15 20% fat. That varied, of course.
BDJ: There seems to be a growing trend toward diets that are high in protein and fat and low in carbohydrates.
DY: Yes, but it still depends largely on the individual’s metabolism and their insulin sensitivity in response to carbohydrates. My diet was relatively high in carbohydrates because whenever I cut back on them, I lost mass, muscle separation and a lot of energy.
BDJ: I’ve noticed the same thing myself. I tried a high-protein diet, but my body didn’t adapt to it, and I ended up increasing my carbohydrates again to around 40 50% of my calorie intake.
DY: Even carbohydrate depletion meant eating 200 g of carbohydrates a day for me. Spending 2 3 days at that intake was already very low for me. That was enough to create a deficit. Yet many other people would consider that a moderate intake.
BDJ: Yes, I noticed that about your diet…you don’t take carbohydrate depletion to extremes. You reduce your intake somewhat, and that’s already enough to create a deficit.
DY: My main rule was to reduce carbohydrates by 50%. My average carbohydrate intake was 400 450 g a day, although it fluctuated a little, with more on some days and less on others. When I reduced carbohydrates to around 200 grams for three days, I also slightly increased the number of sets to deplete my glycogen stores faster. At the same time, I increased my protein intake and my fat intake so that my total calories stayed more or less the same. A lot of people make the mistake of cutting carbohydrates and running out of energy. Worse still, they don’t replace those missing calories and start losing muscle. Before competitions, I’d load back up with around 1000 g of carbohydrates a day. During the off-season, I usually consumed 700 800 g of carbohydrates a day.
BDJ: So your average daily calorie intake must have been 5000 6000 kcal.
DY: Yes, somewhere around 5500 6000 kcal. That included 400 450 grams of protein a day.
BDJ: You’re also working with Ernie Taylor at the moment. How is that going, and how does he train?
DY: Everything is going well. His workouts are short compared with those of other pros. I think winning Mr. Olympia in 1993, and the coverage of my training methods that followed, had quite a big impact on bodybuilding as a whole. I don’t think everyone immediately started training the way I did, but from that point onward, even the pros’ training frequency and volume began to decline noticeably, and that trend has continued to this day. Back then, it was quite common to do 3 workouts, take 1 day off, do 3 workouts, take 1 day off, and so on. Most people trained each muscle twice a week. Now it’s common to train each muscle once a week or every 5 6 days, and the number of sets per workout has also dropped significantly.
BDJ: Lee Priest is an exception, then. He claims to do 30 sets per muscle in a workout.
DY: Yes…but he also has the genetics and the physique for it.
BDJ: He’s young, too. I remember having a lot of energy at his age and doing some pretty brutal workouts. I look back and wonder how we managed to put ourselves through all that.
DY: Yes…I remember that, too. I quite often trained chest, back and shoulders in the same workout, doing more volume for each than I do now. And it all produced results.
BDJ: What would you change about bodybuilding? What could be done to improve things?
DY: What would I change or tackle? Public awareness and understanding of what it takes to build a good physique. That’s what we need to improve and spread. When you watch sports like basketball or football, you see the athlete’s actual skills and abilities. At bodybuilding competitions, you only see the end result of all the hard work. A lot of people don’t appreciate that work; they don’t understand it. If you’re involved yourself, of course you understand, but the average person on the street doesn’t. They see it as something strange and extreme. Most people don’t know or can’t grasp the dedication, hard work and effort it takes…the knowledge of nutrition, training, physiology and so on. There should be more documentaries showing what it actually takes in bodybuilding to achieve the results you finally see on stage for a few moments. During my time as Mr. Olympia, I received quite a few invitations to appear on TV shows. I always wanted to talk about what goes on behind the scenes in bodybuilding and what the sport involves, because the more people understand it, the more they can appreciate it. But my experience with TV people was almost always that they weren’t particularly interested in what I had to say…all they wanted was for me to come into the studio and pose, then they’d ask two questions and that would be it. That’s also why I turned down invitations on quite a few occasions. I said, if you had someone from another sport on the show, a sprinter, for example, would you have them run around the studio…or have a basketball player dribble a ball? No, you wouldn’t. You’d sit down and talk to them.
And that’s what I always wanted to do, and I’m still willing to do it now: talk, talk and keep talking about what bodybuilding really is and what it involves. Unfortunately, though, nobody was interested at the time. A bodybuilder turns up wearing nothing but posing trunks and poses…they treat us like objects. To them, it’s all just a big spectacle. It’s as though they think we can barely speak!!! Sad!!!
BDJ: Do you think you’ve received the recognition you deserve in England?
DY: Certainly not in England. I’m much more popular in America
BDJ: Could that also be because bodybuilding isn’t very popular in England?
DY: No, it isn’t very popular. It’s a demanding sport, and there aren’t many serious bodybuilders in England, as you probably know. There’s a small group of people involved here…in a sense, it’s something of an “underground” activity. People don’t see it as something anyone could do…unlike in the US. I’m much better known in the US, even among people who aren’t actually bodybuilders but simply go to the gym, pursue fitness or exercise for their health, and appreciate bodybuilding and healthy living. You could even say that people from all walks of life recognize me in the US. That isn’t the case in England, unfortunately!!!
Source: Dorian’s DY products
Translated by: Janar Rückenberg
Come and train! ArtGym
