Bodybuilding Behemoth, Who Found His Fitness Calling In Prison, Opens Up on His “Mind-Muscle Connection” That Won Him 6 Mr. Olympia Titles

Bodybuilding icon Dorian Yates is among the most significant Mr. Olympia title holders. He was the first Mr. Olympia who used Arnold Schwarzenegger’s rival, Mike Mentzer‘s training philosophy, to win the Mr. Olympia title six times. While Yates talked about his training method extensively earlier, the bodybuilding legend revealed some essential details about his approach.

It was during his reign as a champion that bodybuilding evolved into what it is today. While bodybuilders before his time had competed for around 250 lbs bodyweight, Yates used his high-intensity style of workouts to push his physique to a new limit. In a new video, the man who found his fitness calling in prison showed how he could train with such intensity.

The bodybuilding icon reveals the secret to training with high intensity

After landing in prison, the English bodybuilder got hooked on training. Yates had found his calling and separated himself from the troubled crowd to focus on achieving his newfound dreams. His pursuit to build the perfect physique led Dorian Yates to Mike Mentzer. Mentzer was the proponent of short but High-Intensity Training (HIT).

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Mentzer mentored Yates and in his latest video, Yates divulged a crucial secret to the training method. “When training with high intensity, I recommend you do 1 or 2 warm up sets per exercise,” Yates wrote in the caption of his post. While warming up is essential no matter the intensity of the workout, for HIT, a proper warmup is necessary to avoid injury.

“The goal here is to get both the muscles and the mind-muscle connection firing up,” wrote Yates. The six-time Mr. Olympia said it’s especially important to warm up on the first exercise for each body part. “This is because the muscle is pretty cold at this point,” explained Yates.

The Englishman also said that for the first warmup set, he would work with 50% of his working weight, and left 75% on the second working det. In the video, Yates showed footage of what the 50% and 75% warm-up sets looked like.

A visceral demonstration of Dorian Yates’ intensity

Like countless other champions, Dorian Yates is also a believer in the power of the mind-muscle connection. While the warmup set helped him reach that mind-muscle connection, the intensity of those sets didn’t diminish compared to the working sets. In the video, Yates showed just how intense the atmosphere got while he worked out at Temple Gym.

In the video, Yates performed the first warm-up sets of bent-over barbell rows. For the first set, the bodybuilding behemoth performed six reps with two plates. In the next set, he performed six reps with three plates.

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While many bodybuilders, including Dorian Yates, have talked about HIT, his recent post addressed a crucial part of the training philosophy.