We all know about Arnold Schwarzenegger and his bodybuilding pedigree. Heβs one of the most famous bodybuilders in history, but if you want to study the greats and learn all of their tips and tricks, you'll need to expand your horizons beyond the names that get pushed in front of your face on TV.
For example, while he's not a household name, Dorian Yates is one of theΒ greatest pro bodybuilders of all time.
He has 15 major contest wins under his belt, he won Mr. Olympia six years in a row in the β90s, and if you want to learn from the best, then you absolutely need to learn what you can about his workout routines.
Dorian Yates began hitting the weights in 1983 and began dominating a few years later. Once he hit his prime in the β90s, he was practically unbeatable during every single competition he took part in.
He retired in 1997 due to acute muscle tears and subsequent pain in his upper arms around his triceps and biceps.
Even through those injuries in his last year, he was able to pull out one final win, making him one of the most decorated lifters in his day.Β
He was a huge proponent of the high-intensity training (HIT) that Arthur Jones and Mike Mentzer popularized. Which youβll see in his philosophy regarding how often you should train.
If youβre trying to get your body looking anything like his. If youβre not big on HIT training, itβs pretty hard to argue against it in the face of his wide array of wins over the years. The high-intensity style he opts for seems to be an excellent way to build a decent amount of muscle.
Dorian Yatesβs workout routines are a proven way to get results.
It's nearly impossible to argue against the results he ended up with on the other side of all of this training. He led an illustrious weightlifting career, and he scrambled to the top pretty quickly, considering the amount of time between him picking up the weights and his seemingly unbreakable streak of top-tier wins in the β90s.Β
If heβs so great, why doesnβt he have the same name recognition as someone like Arnold Schwarzenegger? Well, that might have been by design.
Dorian Yates' nickname was βThe Shadow.β
This is because he would disappear for months at a time, training in silence, only to show up at contests, blowing his opposition out of the water.
People would always try to nail down when he would appear so folks could know ahead of time if they even stood a chance, but he would always remain tight-lipped and diligent until the very last second. That silent hard-working attitude combined with a rigid adherence to a HIT routine netted Dorian Yates well over a dozen first-place medals.
Dorian Yates, as we mentioned earlier was huge on Jones and Mentzer-style high-intensity training. He believed, rightly so, that one of the best ways to build muscle was to push your muscles to their limit in one big push, and rest long enough for them to recover. Thatβs why his workout was a four-day split.
This kind of routine gave him the room to constantly pull the high-intensity lever.
The Yates workout plan is all about concentrating your maximum effort on a particular part of your body until you canβt possibly pull another full-power rep out of it, and then moving on to the next one on another day.
Every muscle group gets its time to shine, and every muscle group gets a few days to rest with this kind of split.
Itβs a remarkably simple way to build muscle but being remarkably simple doesnβt mean itβs not effective. Another important aspect of this workout plan is adding a little bit of cardio to your workout routine.
Having the cardio on your rest days is an effective strategy.
You want to get your heart rate up and burn a little bit of energy without cutting into your overall ability to get some high-intensity workouts in. Your training days are about expending as much energy as possible, so you really shouldnβt even have the energy for aΒ solid thirty minutes of cardio in you anyway.
This day is probably the one that takes the most focus. Your shoulders are prone to injury. If youβre going to be taking on this training, then make sure all of your shoulder exercises are done with proper form.
Your back and rear delts get their own day because of how important they are for building a wide and fit-looking silhouette. You might think that back and rear delt day is going to be a cakewalk, but if you want this workout routine to work for you, then every day needs to be as tough as the last. Building up your back is hard work, so you'll need to dig deep to sculpt those muscles.
This day is probably the day that most people think of when theyβre thinking of building muscle. Dorian Yates probably places these upper body exercises on their own day so you donβt spend all of your time throughout the week targeting the most obvious muscles.
His four-day split ensures that your routine travels deep into the land of your less frequented muscles. Youβre building your entire body, not just the ones youβre used to showing off. Donβt let this day spill into your other days, and youβll be well on your way to success.
Dorian Yates was yolked all over. His legs were just as well-defined as his arms. If youβre going to dabble in bodybuilding, youβre going to have to take your leg days as seriously as every other day youβre working out.
If youβre worried about being sore and having trouble walking the next day, you should be taking active rest days, getting the right amount of protein, and never ever skipping your leg days. People have trouble with leg days because they forget to do all of the work that goes into allowing their bodies to recover quickly and effectively.
This workout routine is excellent because of its inherent variability. When you feel like youβre leaving your workouts without hitting failure on all of your exercises, then you can add more weight, you can target down more specific muscle groups and movements when youβre starting to plateau, and you can slot in new exercises that target the same muscle groups when you get sick of doing the same thing week over week.
The four-day split also gives you several rest days. These rest days are going to be key for building muscle, allowing your body to fully recover between HIT workouts, and theyβre great for the motivation and mental health it requires to hit the extreme goals of your new workout routine.
Dorian Yates always worked his way into a lift with a warm-up set. These warm-up sets are a perfect way to get your body ready for theΒ high-intensity workout ahead of you.
Warm-ups are important, but especially so when youβre aiming for high-intensity training.
If youβre following the Dorian Yates training style, youβre going to be pushing your body until youβre not able to pull anything else out of yourself. Itβs going to be hard and itβs going to be intense, which means the warm-up sets are one of the most important aspects of the entire Dorian Yates workout routine.
One of the most common questions folks wrestle with when theyβre training is βhow often do I need to do this?β Itβs an important issue to chew over because if youβre over or under training, youβre just flat out wasting your time. Thereβs no magic bullet, but if you want to train like Dorian Yates, then youβre only grabbing the weights once a day.
Yates was known for never using a personal trainer to build all of the muscle that would win him all of those medals and first place trophies, so that's the first clue that he knew exactly what it takes to build a world-class physique.
After all, you donβt win at that level depending on luck.
He kept his nose to the grindstone, he pushed his body as far as he possibly could have, and he spent his time proving his worth on the stage. Yates is quoted saying β...when I go into my gym, Iβm committed to investing everything I have, physically and mentally, in the most intense workout I can muster, and I wonβt stop until I know thereβs no way I can generate another maximum-strength rep for the next 24 hours.β
Thatβs what he meant by high-intensity training.
He wouldΒ do a lot of his sets until failure, rather than aiming for a pre-prescribed number of reps, and intuitively this makes a lot of sense, right? How many times have you left the gym after sticking to your workout plan, knowing you didnβtΒ leave it all on the gym floorΒ when you got back home?
High-intensity training is all about harnessing your bodyβs natural processes, specifically the process of hypertrophy.
Your body builds muscle by rebuilding torn fibers, the pain you feel when youβre pushing your muscles to the brink is the pain of muscles being broken apart on a cellular level. HIT training pushes you as far as you can go (safely) every single time you train.
By doing all of your exercises to failure, youβre making a promise to yourself and your muscles that youβre going to be getting the absolute most out of a workout every single time you hit the gym. Doing your exercises until failure means that youβve done the most damage to your muscles you could possibly take during a single training period.
Thatβs the strength of the four-day high-intensity training split.
And itβs hard to argue with results. If youβre going to be following this workout routine, then you only need to be making space for one workout a day, and itβs a pretty good plan to do so. Youβre not going to be devoting all of your free time to the gym, and this way youβre going to be able to live your normal life while also maximizing the amount of muscle you can build.
It might feel like youβre not going to be doing enough work, but if youβre taking the high-intensity route and really maxing yourself out while also taking your rest days seriously, then youβre going to understand pretty quickly why you only need to work out four days a week.
Is this the kind of workout that everyone can implement into their lives? Surprisingly, the answer seems to be yes. The only thing that Dorian Yates had that you donβt was a head start. If you started today and built your way up incrementally, you could see yourself hurtling towards the same kind of results that he had.
This is a training style thatβs built to push your body to its limits.
As long as you tailor your plan to your own limits, youβre approaching body-building from a pretty good angle.
Dorian Yates was able to achieve his incredible success way before the internet age.
Youβre going to have the knowledge advantage over him, any stumbling blocks you find yourself running into can be worked around pretty easily with a quick search. There are a couple of gaps that Dorian Yates doesnβt often fill out, so if youβre aiming for high-level results like his, youβre going to have to do a little bit more digging.
He doesnβt talk a lot about what he did on his rest days or the kind of nutrition plan he kept up with, but itβs not hard to figure that out.
Good rest days are active rest days.
You want to set your muscles up for growth and recovery, so your rest days should reflect that desire. When your muscles are damaged, they really only want one thing afterward. They want to rebuild themselves stronger than before. Rebuilding means coming back with more muscle fibers. Muscle is dense and tough, itβs rigid and strong, so youβre going to want to keep your body flexible.
Your rest days should reflect that with long static stretches and low-impact activity that encourages movement like walks, yoga, or lifting lightweights for limited numbers of reps.
Rebuilding your muscles also means giving them the nutrients and the time to do that.
Thatβs why there are so many rest days in the Yates workout plan. These are days for giving your body the opportunity toΒ redirect energy towards rebuilding your body.
You need to be keeping up with a diet of lean proteins, vegetables full of the vitamins and minerals your body craves for optimal function, and plenty of water, even on days youβre not working out.
A good diet in conjunction with an active rest day is going to flush lactic acids out of your muscles, itβs going to get blood into your damaged tissues, and itβs going to feed your hungry muscle fibers with protein and pump your body up much quicker than youβd expect.
Dorian Yates was a champion. He devoted himself to learning all about the mechanisms of his body and spent a lot of time hammering it into the best shape possible. His bodybuilding antics were only paralleled by some of the best in the world.
His system of maintenance and construction gave him a perfectly sculpted body that judges all of the world had no choice but to award with some of the highest professional praise. It wasnβt done with a mystery workout plan or any kind of secret special training though, and if youβre trying to climb to those kinds of heights, then youβre now equipped with the tools youβll need to build a workout that suits your body and will grow with you when itβs time to climb even higher.
