Dorian Yates‘ innovative workout techniques, such as high-intensity training (HIT), have greatly impacted the fitness and bodybuilding community. In a recent YouTube video, Yates shared why high-intensity training methods are individualistic, and discussed muscle-building and dieting during contest preps and the off-season.
Dorian Yates revolutionized bodybuilding with his unparalleled dedication, intensity, and training philosophy that prioritized efficiency and going to failure. As a six-time Mr. Olympia champion, Yates brought a new era of muscularity and conditioning to the stage, redefining the standards of excellence within the sport.
In his peak years, Yates embraced a high-intensity fitness approach. The core concept driving this methodology focused on triggering optimal muscle development by focusing on failure instead of a set number of reps/sets. Yates emphasized the crucial role of a thorough warm-up before engaging in a HIT workout.
Dorian Yates Talks High-Intensity Training And Putting On Muscle Mass
During a recent interview on YouTube, Dorian Yates went into detail about high-intensity training and how it should be shaped to one’s personal needs.
“Well, you know what high intensity for one person might not be for another one. It’s relative to the person. It’s training as intensely as you can and then balancing that with recovery.”
He believes these workouts can be done at any age with modifications.
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“Yes, you can do it at any age but you have to tailor it, always tailor it to the individual. There may be some exercises that you can’t do because you have some joint issues or something that you wouldn’t have had at 25 or 30″ Yates said.
So you got to tailor it to the individual and take into account everything that’s going on but the principles apply to everybody. Old, young, man, woman, you’ve got to give your body some stress that it’s not used to in order for it to adapt and develop.”
Yates explained that while high-intensity training can be done by anyone at any age, it’s crucial to focus on building up muscle mass at later ages that has been lost over time to avoid health problems.
“It also depends on what your goals are. As you get older muscle mass is very important. It doesn’t have to be competitive bodybuilder level but if you are 55-60-65 years old and you can build your muscle mass back to a level that you were at 20 years old, that’s going to have such a massive positive effect on your health.”
“So if you put it back to where it was when you were younger, massive health benefits. I think that’s what you should be looking at as you get older. Less important like building competitive looking bodybuilding physique. Not saying you can’t do it, if you want to maybe you can, it’s more important to look at the health aspects as you get older.”
“We can all get away with stuff when we are younger but as we get older we got to be more careful and if you want a good quality of life you need muscle. You need your bones to be strong stuff like that.”
At the age of 61, Dorian Yates is focused on staying active to improve his health and well-being. During the interview, he shared what he currently does every week as a means to keep himself youthful and strong.
“It’s nice to look good in the mirror but it’s about the quality of life so bodybuilding, and weight training its different things at different ages.
I do some weights twice a week, I do pilates or yoga twice a week, I ride my bike do a bit of cardio. I do a bit of everything you know strength, mobility, cardiovascular a little bit of everything” Dorian Yates explained.
Yates specifies “You don’t need to do a lot to be healthy.”
“You don’t need to do a lot to be healthy. That’s what I’m really interested in now. You know the competitive bodybuilding thing you know I’m the fucking man, im the expert on that but I’m also the expert on aging and aging healthily.
It’s amazing what you can do with some weight training and the correct diet.”
Dorian Yates Breaks Down Dieting: “It’s Mathematics. It’s Not Really That Complicated”
Dorian Yates was asked about his ideal physique during competition and he clarified that being considered a mass monster wasn’t his desired effect.
“Although I was known as a mass monster, I didn’t really like that term because I wasn’t just trying to be as big as I could be I was trying to be as big combined with being shredded as well. I could have potentially been on stage a lot bigger and heavier but I wanted to have the conditioning like a light weight. Basically, I wanted to look like a massive walking anatomy chart.”
To achieve his ideal look, Yates explains what his diet would look like during the off-season as well as explaining how he would alter it when he was getting ready for a competition.
“Average off-season I’m on 6,500 calories so that’s my off-season. For contest prep, I would start probably at 4,500-4,800.”
“Every subject no matter what it is you can take it and make it very complex or you can make a complex subject very simple. I think the second is the best one.”
Breaking it down into terms easy to understand, Dorian Yates explains how he would balance his protein, carbohydrates, and fat.
“Keeping everything simple, protein is pretty much always the constant. So you should be a gram a gram and a half a protein per pound of body weight. So if you are 200 pounds, 200-300 grams of protein, you can play around with it to see if you need a bit more but somewhere in that area” Yates said.
“You need fat because you need fat for hormone production. You need fat for absorption for some vitamins. Various things in the body so it is essential to get some fat so I probably get 100 grams of fat a day.”
“So let’s say I’m on 400 grams of protein and 100 grams of fat, the rest is carbohydrates. Carbohydrates is energy, it has no other purpose. The carbohydrates would come down [when cutting weight] if I want to gain weight they would go up.”
In addition to balancing what he ate, Yates had to keep track of the calories burned to maintain a deficit needed to lean out. He also described the basic ‘cardio’ he would use that wouldn’t take away from his strength training.
“You need to be in a negative balance, you drop 100 grams of carbs you drop 400 calories and start from there and add in some more activity. We can call it cardio but it’s not like high intense cardio.”
“It’s just general calorie-burning, so I would do like fast walking, I would walk outside for like 45 minutes or do station recycling, get the heart rate up like burning calories. It’s not intense in that it’s going take away from your weight workouts and your recovery from your weight workouts because that’s your priority. The rest is calorie burning” said Yates.
“Drop the calories a little bit and increase the expenditure a little bit until you have a deficit of around 1,000 calories a day and then you are going to lose around 2 pounds of fat a week. Its mathematics. It’s not really that complicated.”
Now that Dorian Yates isn’t focused on being a professional bodybuilder, he has shifted his attention to achieving happiness and a better quality of life. Some of the methods he has used to obtain this enlightenment include doing Ayahuasca in the Amazon rainforest. Yates also practices yoga and meditation as a means to help improve longevity.
Overall, Dorian Yates is enjoying the fruits of his labors while prioritizing a stress-free lifestyle. In retirement, Yates remains a source of invaluable Information for those seeking not only to become a better bodybuilder but also to those aiming to improve their health.
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