Dorian Yates, a Men’s Open bodybuilding legend, is still teaching fans how to lift weights properly. In a recent YouTube video shared on July 15, 2025, he detailed the three phases that make up a successful rep to maximize peak contractions.
Though he wasn’t blessed with picture-perfect genetics, Yates never let that stop him from utter dominance in the IFBB Pro League. Besting names like Paul Dillett, Lee Priest, and Nasser El Sonbaty, “The Shadow” built a larger-than-life persona in the sport thanks to his hardcore, heavy-duty training style.
Yates wasn’t your typical bodybuilder. His routine didn’t center around the conventional four sets of 12 repetitions. Instead, he took notes from late icons Mike Mentzer and Arthur Jones, both of whom promoted a failure-based workout regimen. Despite stepping away from the stage, Yates remembers exactly how he built the physique many would likely chalk up to AI-generated today.
Dorian Yates Shares ‘3 Phases’ to Optimal Lifting & How to Capitalize on Peak Contractions
In the YouTube video, Yates explained how to navigate peak contractions with three phases: positive, static, and negative.
“When you’re in a peak contraction, you should hold it and squeeze it.
This is the three phases of the movement: let’s say we’re doing a pulldown, positive, the weakest part of the movement, the part that everyone concentrates on, ‘I’ve done a rep!’ No you haven’t, you’ve done half a rep. Positive, static contraction, and negative, that’s a rep.”
Yates urged lifters to avoid using body momentum and to slow down the negative or eccentric portion of each rep for maximum results:
“There’s three parts to it. So positive [example: bringing the bar down for a lat pulldown], and you can do it quite explosively, if you want as long as there’s no body momentum.
It’s all muscle contraction. So this is weaker so therefore, we should be able to hold it here [at the bottom] because we’re stronger here, but most people can’t because they’ve used momentum to get the weight going.”
To achieve failure, Yates recommended slowing down the negative.
“Slower on the negative, why? Because we’re stronger. So if we’re going to tax it and get anywhere near failure on the negative, we need to slow it down,” shares Dorian Yates.
Yates is always looking for an edge inside the gym. He recently explained why he reduced his working sets from two to one, highlighting that effort and approaching failure were cornerstones for rapid growth. He also admitted that the reduction gave him a muscle growth spurt in retirement.
Yates continues to share training secrets with his growing fan base. He stressed that mastering the three phases of a rep is key for better peak contractions.
RELATED: Dorian Yates Breaks Down 3 ‘Basic Things You Need to Do’ To Get in Shape
You can watch the full video from the Dorian Yates Nutrition YouTube channel below:
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