Home | Articles | Book | Video | Training

Click Here to Sign Up for Your Free High Intensity Training Magazine Subscription

Mike Mentzer Training Dorian Yates

In this blog post, we delve into a momentous episode from Dorian Yates, the day he trained under the tutelage of the iconic Mike Mentzer. Mentzer, known for his revolutionary High-Intensity Training methodology, left a profound impact on Yates during this encounter, shaping his approach to training and ultimately contributing to the making of a six Mr. Olympia champion.

Here's the story in Dorian's own words...

"I was here with Mike Mentzer where he watched me train. After meticulously observing my workout, when back then, was performing 2 final working sets to failure, he advised I reduce it to just one final working set.

Trusting his wisdom, experience and knowledge, Mike soon after put me through a biceps workout which I could never forget.

I was the reigning Mr. Olympia at this point, grafting my way through the ranks and living every aspiring bodybuilders dream, reaching the pinnacle of our sport.

Always being someone who is eager to learn and improve myself, the workout with Mike was, to put it simply... all or nothing in one fierce set.

We headed on over to the Nautilus biceps machine to begin a brief warm up.

The working set itself went down like this.
Mike wanted me to fail between the 6-8 rep range, of course with flawless form and the perfect amount of time under tension.

A 3 second positive, followed by 2 seconds in the static hold and finally, a 4 second negative. I got 7 reps here which totalled approximately just over a minute to complete... it felt like eternity!

But the job wasn't finished yet.
After I got the 7th rep, Mike assisted me with an extra two forced reps but he added extra pressure on the negative phase by pushing down on the weight stack!
And if that wasn't enough, he then stuck an extra 25lbs on the stack and helped push the rep up to the static hold phase where I had to hold it for a 15 second count. The weight stack gradually began slowly lowering and that was true, extreme, heavy duty, high intensity training where the biceps were utterly exhausted.

After a short break, my other bicep was ready for the brutality to come.

Mike was a great person, mentor, philospher and someone who I looked up to.

Heading back to Birmingham with my new-found knowledge and I guess, adventure. Something even more spectacular was now stirring in the dungeon. With my troops beside me, battleground infront of us... it was time to change the game."

If you have any questions about Mike Mentzer, Heavy Duty, High Intensity Training, Diet, etc. email us and we'll get back to you with an answer as soon as we can.

Click Here to Sign Up for Your Free High Intensity Training Magazine Subscription

Home | Articles | Book | Video | Training