Tom Platz Reflects on Training ‘Unknown’ Dorian Yates: “He Surpassed Everything I Taught Him”

Tom Platz, a Golden Era bodybuilder, made a name for himself in the IFBB Pro League with an impressive lower body courtesy of intense training methods. In a recent video, Platz discussed training an ‘unknown’ Dorian Yates in England and shared a tip Arnold Schwarzenegger gave him for working out. 

Hailing from Detroit, Tom Platz started his career competing at various AAU bodybuilding contests during the 1970s. He eventually moved to California and began training at the famous Gold’s Gym in Venice. It didn’t take long for Platz to find his footing on the west coast as he won the Mr. Universe title in 1980. 

Plaz developed a reputation for his remarkable lower body strength. His training methods and techniques influenced generations that followed in his footsteps. During his career, Tom has shared the Olympia stage with a number of bodybuilding greats, like eight-time Olympia winner Lee Haney, Frank Zane, Franco Columbu, and Mike Mentzer. 

In 1992, Platz put his leg strength to the test when he participated in The Great American Squat Off. The contest was described as close. While he hasn’t competed in years, Tom’s influence on the sport is hard to ignore. In his latest interview, Platz discussed training Dorian Yates before “The Shadow” reached his full potential. 

Tom Platz on Helping Dorian Yates: ‘He Took My Training Seminars to Heart’ 

During the video, Platz discussed helping Dorian Yates, who was an unknown bodybuilder at the time.

“Dorian Yates, if I may say so, was more of a pragmatist (a person guided by practical considerations rather than ideals) than me. I don’t want to say he was one of my students, though he was at every seminar I did in England when he was an unknown, and I gave him some suggestions,” Tom Platz shared. 

“When you’re a trainer, you’re a motivator, a public speaker, a coach, you want your clients to do better than you ever did,” Platz said. “To see Dorian [Yates] win that many Olympias — to be involved in some small way in the developmental process — that was my place at that time, I know that. It makes me so happy.

 

I get excited going, ‘he surpassed everything I taught him. Everything I talked about in those seminars. Thirty seminars in thirty days and he was taking notes,” Platz said. “He took it to heart. He was the one. He was the one. There’s never many. There’s always one,” says Platz. 

Platz Touches on Steroids, says Arnold Schwarzenegger told him to ‘Forget Rules’ Like Genetics in Training Room

“In California, I was always taught — do whatever you want, do whatever you believe, don’t be confined with those Eastern United States protocols or those social mores.

 

Arnold [Schwarzenegger] told me that when I was training with him. [He said], ‘forget the rules, forget the rules, forget about it.’ He was a realist. He could do whatever he wanted. He had great genetics, but he was also, ‘I believe in myself, I believe in my existence, I’m not limited in anyway,'” Platz explained.

Watch the full video below: 

RELATED: Tom Platz Says Mr. Olympia has ‘Lost its Identity’ and Arnold Classic Contests ‘Have Lost Their Reputation’

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