What I Learned From Dorian Yates

Some years ago I remember speaking at a conference in Toronto, Canada, and as it happened, one of my co-speakers we Mr. Olympia Dorian Yates.

As Yates prepared begin his talk, you could hear a pin drop in the auditorium- everyone was anxious with anticipation at what they might learn over the next hour, including me.

To say that Yate's talk was surprising would be an understatement:

(Paraphrasing) "Well, usually, on my first exercise, for example, on squats, I'll warm up with the bar first, then I'll go to 135 pounds for a set, then 225 pounds, and I'll keep adding weight like this until I get to my work sets. Then, depending on how I feel, I might do for example, 3 sets of 10, or 5 sets of 8, or something like that. I'll work as hard as I can on those sets, and then I'll go on to my next exercise..."

I remember seeing several attendees looking at each other, wide-eyed with boredom and disbelief. Clearly, Dorian had secrets to share- juicy tibdits that would accelerate everyone's training results?

The rest of Dorian's talk was equally mundane, consisting of stuff that everyone else in the audience was already familiar with. I never heard him offer a single pearl that couldn't be placed into the "obvious" category.

In the hallway after Yate's talk was finished, I heard numerous expressions of mumbled disappointment from those who had attended. They were all looking for novelty, and all they got was effective. The owner of (arguably) the World's best physique shared his methods and philosophy- all of it- with his audience that day.

Had Dorian known that his fans didn't want truth, he might have delivered a very different talk that day.

But I learned something that day. What really works is often stuff that I'm already familiar with. Which puts the responsibility right back on me.

There are no secrets. There is no "best" way. If you want secrets, you're lost before you begin. Most of the best athletes I've met are doing stuff that would strike you as conventional, obvious, simple. Nothing special at all. But what these great athletes all know is one "secret" if I may call it that: hard, consistent work can take you a long way.