Although he retired years ago, Dorian Yates ‘blood and guts’ training sessions live on as some of the most iconic of all time. In a recent YouTube video, ‘Hypertrophy Coach’ Joe Bennett critiqued the former six-time Mr. Olympia’s back routine, revealing if it was optimal or not.
From the moment he captured the Mr. Olympia title in 1992, Dorian Yates wouldn’t let anyone take it until he decided to step away from the sport. He mastered training and nutrition to build a physique that many thought was impossible. His massive detailed back and dry conditioning ushered in a new era of size and muscularity.
Yates adopted a failure-based training approach created by the late Arthur Jones and Mike Mentzer. Instead of performing a set number of sets and reps, Yates listened to his body, which ultimately paid him with six Mr. Olympia titles.
Hypertrophy Coach Joe Bennett Critiques Back Workout of Former 6x Mr. Olympia Dorian Yates
Bennett, a thriving fitness and bodybuilding coach, has trained high-profile athletes for years. In his latest endeavor, he used his expertise to offer insights into the effectiveness of Dorian Yates’ back routine.
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Quick Breakdown
- Barbell rows
- Seated single-arm row machine
- Rear delt flye
- Bent over rear delt flye
- Lower back extensions
- Deadlifts
Barbell rows
Bennett said Yates used barbell rows to widen his lats, but he believes this movement targets the upper back the most.
“I’m pretty sure I’ve heard him say that this [barbell rows] was more of a lat exercise for him, which for most people, if we’re looking at your body and we’re looking at that degree of elbow flare, again if this was me and I was in the exact same bone position, I would think this would be a much better upper back exercise.
Again, the huge difference between Dorian and I, and we’ll talk about it a little bit on another exercise, is the bigger the muscle, it actually changes the internal moment arms. Internal moment arms are going to be determined by where that tendon is.”
Seated single-arm row machine
He was complimentary of Yates’ form while performing seated single-arm row machine reps.
“Big things here is the arm path. So again, you can’t tell here, this is again one of those machines that comes the teeniest bit close together and comes out a little bit. It really promotes this shoulder-width arm path. From a lat standpoint, this is awesome.”
He emphasized that movements like these can be more challenging for people with bigger bodies.
“He’s not even quite all the way back yet but his tricep is literally smashing into his lat. So again, what is this tricep covering? His humorous, what is the lat attached to? The humorous, so this is where some of these queues go out the window for large human beings. This is something that I found super interesting because I’ve trained some of the largest humans on the planet.”
Rear delt flye
Bennett believes Yates’ spine and upper arm could be tweaked to optimize his results on rear delt flyes.
“This machine is great overall for rear delts. Again, loading pattern is okay. But the idea is he’s face down,” said Joe Bennett. ”
“The only thing I’m going to say here for rear delts is he found the angle that feels the most comfortable for him. So again, if we’re looking at his body positioning, where his spine is, and where that upper arm is, it’s this slightly teed out.”
He favors the rear delt machine because the chest support immobilizes other body parts.
“What else is awesome about his machine, he’s got his chest supported so nothing can move. It’s loaded through the upper arm which is actually awesome. There’s nothing wrong with obviously doing cables or reverse pec deck or holding on to a dumbbell, but it’s impossible to take the elbow joint out of it.”
Bent over rear delt flye
Bennett explained that Yates’ body position was great during bent over rear delt flyes.
“This would be the type of thing, not that Dorian would ask me, but he’s almost in the exact same position so his upper arm is here, his elbows are pretty flared out, that rear delts obviously in a great position to work so from a position standpoint he’s great.”
Lower back extensions
While he didn’t take issue with his form on low back extensions, Bennett believes Yates would have benefitted from performing these after deadlifts.
“We got some low back extensions. I find it funny that he did it in this order so this might be something that I would change a little bit. But, this is one of those things where I don’t know in some ways it just makes it more awesome that he finishes with deadlifts. Anyway, if I was going to do something slightly different here, I think I would rather prioritize the deadlifts before doing low back extensions.”
Deadlifts
According to Bennett, Yates’ deadlifts looked closer to Romanian deadlifts, mentioning that he was unsure of his hip mobility and flexion.
“He’s keeping his knees fairly fixed so this is a little bit closer to an RDL,” said Bennett. “I have no idea what his mobility and hip flexion ability is or whatever, but that’s about the angle that he’s at.
The best way to get peak challenge on all the spine and the hips, it would need to have that spine parallel with the ground, but again the exemption is I don’t know if he’s trying to keep a neutral spine which I think for this exercise is a good idea.”
Joe Bennett has been contributing to the bodybuilding community for years. In a recent collaboration, he joined 1980s standout Lee Labrada for general ‘guidances’ on hypertrophy and injury prevention. In addition, they discussed the role genetics have on muscle growth.
Boasting over 129,000 YouTube subscribers, Joe Bennett is committed to offering training advice backed by reason. Bennett was critical of Yates’ back workout but credited him for a legendary career.
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