Iron Game
Veteran
[h=2]DORIAN YATES Q&A - THE SHADOW SOLVES YOUR PROBLEMS[/h]
Written by Dorian Yates
14 July 2016
[h=1]Dorian Yates Q&A - The Shadow Solves Your Problems[/h]
Hey Dorian, I’m a big fan. What is the right body fat percent for a person in the off-season?
My theory is that we all have our own individual “set point” when it comes to body fat. Depending on your metabolism, there is a certain level that’s fairly easy to maintain, which will obviously be higher or lower depending on the person. If you have a slow metabolism, restricting calories in an effort to stay leaner than your “set point” will interfere with your gains. That being said, there’s no need to gain a lot of unnecessary body fat, either. On average, I feel an ideal range for most people is somewhere between 8-12 percent. I would hold more water in the off-season, but in terms of body fat I was always around 8-9 percent according to skinfold calipers. That was my set point. For many others, 10-12 percent is ideal.
It should be noted that you can’t get too caught up in numbers. For example, say I was 300 pounds at 9 percent body fat. If contest condition was 3 percent, theoretically I needed to drop 6 percent of the fat I was carrying, or 18 pounds— which would put me at 282 for a contest. But it’s not that simple. You also have to factor in water weight being reduced due to fewer carbohydrates, and a change in the types of anabolics used. Instead of 18 pounds, I would actually lose 25-30. In the end, your off-season body fat shouldn’t be a great deal more than your contest condition. You’ve probably heard that you should never lose sight of your abdominals and serratus, and that’s probably a good yardstick. If you can’t see lines in those areas at all, you’ve let yourself get too heavy.
Shadow, I’m having trouble gaining size on my calves. I’m six feet tall, which I know doesn’t help because they’re long. I do extensions on the sled, and donkeys. I also move my toes in and out to hit all heads. Yours are insane, and any advice from the grand wizard is appreciated.
Thanks. But first of all you need to understand that just because someone has an outstanding body part does not mean they are the best person to ask for advice on building it. In most cases, they had a genetic inclination for that body part to grow easily and as such, they never had to experiment and seek out the best ways to achieve results— because anything they did produced fantastic gains. In my case, my chest and my biceps were two areas that I was not genetically blessed with, but my calves were always very good. As such, I trained them after quads and hams because they were not a priority. But since I retired from competitive bodybuilding, I have trained quite a few people and I’ve learned the best ways to get calves to grow.
There are so many “voodoo” ideas about calf training, the main one being that they are completely different from all other muscle groups. The flawed logic states that since we walk on them all day long, they should be trained with very high volume and very high reps. Think about that for a moment. If they are already used to that, why would mimicking the same low-intensity levels of stimulation yield any results? Calves need heavy, intense training to grow. Only two exercises are needed. Perform one with the legs straight such as the standing calf raise (my personal favorite), calf raises on a leg press, or donkey calf raises, for the gastrocnemius. For the soleus muscle, you need an exercise wherein the legs are bent at a 45-degree angle, which is the seated calf raise. Most gyms have standing calf raises with inadequate resistance. The stacks typically are only 300-400 pounds. At Temple Gym, I have a calf raise with a 1,000-pound stack plus bars which additional plates can be loaded. I used to do sets of 12-15 reps with 1,500 pounds.
As for turning the toes in and out, that’s rubbish. Just have your toes in a natural, comfortable position— which will be either toes straight ahead or just slightly angled outward. Don’t worry; both heads of the gastrocnemius will fire. Form is also crucial, with a full range of motion on each rep. You should exaggerate the stretch at the bottom and rise up until you’re on tiptoes for a full contraction. The short, choppy reps you see people doing all the time will do nothing to stimulate growth. Take sets to failure and beyond. To do that, I liked rest-pause sets. I would do a set of 10 reps to failure, get off the machine for 10 seconds, get back on and do maybe 5 reps, rest briefly again, then finish with 2-3 reps. Two sets like that if you are going heavy enough and going to true failure is all you will want or need. Follow that up with 1 set of seated calf raises for 6-8 reps, and you’re done. On paper it looks like nothing, but I’ve had many bodybuilders hobbling away after that exact workout. Intensity of effort is key!
Then after you’ve stimulated the muscle, you need to let it rest and grow. Forget about training calves every day or even three times a week. These ideas have spread and become largely accepted because there is such a wide range of genetic variation for calves. Mine happened to be long and full and thus had a tremendous potential for growth. If your calves insert much higher up, they will never be outstanding— but you can still make the most of what you’ve got with proper training. A lot of crazy ideas for calf training were born out of frustration, so don’t subscribe to them. Contrary to popular belief, they are not so different at all from all the other muscle groups you train, and should not be treated as such.
Dorian, do you feel you sacrificed mass for condition for the majority of your Mr. Olympia titles? I’ve seen some shots of you several weeks out from the O, where you looked fantastic and bigger than I ever recall you being onstage!
I did sacrifice mass for condition, every time. The most famous shots of me were the black and white ones at my gym six weeks prior to the 1993 Mr. Olympia. In them I was 275 pounds and some commented that I was ready at that point. At the show I was about 257, or 15-17 pounds down in weight, which also includes water loss. Was I much fuller and rounder at 275? Certainly. But even though I had good separation there, to me that look was still a little too watery and blurry for what I considered true contest condition.
It’s funny how some dubbed me the first “mass monster,” but being the biggest man onstage was never my goal. Throughout my preparation, my focus was on being the best-conditioned man. Of course, the main aim was to win. In the early ‘90s when I was beginning my reign, my main rivals were Flex Wheeler, Shawn Ray and Kevin Levrone. None of them were going to beat me on size, so I had to be absolutely sure none of them would beat me on condition, either. There was actually a higher standard for condition back then, as the top guys then as a whole were harder and drier than today’s crop of pros.
Tactically speaking, if I were competing today I would probably come in heavier and fuller. But at the time my feeling was that I had enough mass to spare a bit in exchange for extreme condition. I was actually flat every time I competed. Think about being flat or cold as opposed to being full and pumped in the gym as a good analogy. If you’re lean, you should see plenty of detail and striations in your chest before a workout. But when the workout is done and you’re fully pumped, the fine lines are blurred.
I saw it as a challenge for me as a big man to also display the level of condition usually only seen on smaller guys. I would get so lean that the bottom of my feet actually hurt. Before I understood why it was happening, I thought it had something to do with my habit of stomping my foot down to set certain poses like the abdominal and thigh or the front lat spread. I would be limping backstage and people thought I was cramping. Later I looked in a medical textbook and saw that there are actually fatty pads underneath the balls and heels of our feet, and I had succeeded in dieting mine away.
So yes, I always gave up some mass for condition, but it paid off with six Mr. Olympia titles and nine other pro wins.
Hi Dorian. Although there was an incredible amount of disbelief and downright animosity in the No Bull forums toward your cycle published in MD, I just want to say that a great many of us appreciate this, especially those of us that train using your system of HIT (or a variation thereof). I think we always knew you didn’t need astronomical dosages, and this confirms it. I really think that many who didn’t believe your cycles just don’t know how to train without anabolics. They overtrain like crazy and don’t take enough time off between training sessions— something that mega-doses of anabolics will disguise. I’m guessing they probably eat right and sleep enough, but their training routines are ridiculous. No wonder they think they need so much.
Your cycle should also be an eye-opener for those up-and-coming in the sport who can see what a six-time Mr. Olympia used and how effective it was— when applied to a proper diet and training regimen. The problem is this sport is just littered with “bro-logic” that tells people they don’t need to train so much, and not taking so much anabolics is just too unbelievable for many. Again, much appreciated, and it definitely did not fall on deaf ears.
Thanks, I am glad that yourself and others appreciated what I was trying to achieve with the article. I had no reason to do the article other than to try and educate. If I wanted to keep some secret, I wouldn’t have said anything! I knew many wouldn’t believe what I said because they use much more and don’t look remotely like a Mr. Oympia. That is simply because they don’t apply 100 percent to training, don’t dedicate themselves 24/7 to the job, and mainly because they don’t have the genetics! I just wanted to tell people that it is unnecessary to use huge doses that threaten your health. If one person benefits from what I wrote, then I am happy. Fools will continue to be fools!
Written by Dorian Yates
14 July 2016
Hey Dorian, I’m a big fan. What is the right body fat percent for a person in the off-season?
My theory is that we all have our own individual “set point” when it comes to body fat. Depending on your metabolism, there is a certain level that’s fairly easy to maintain, which will obviously be higher or lower depending on the person. If you have a slow metabolism, restricting calories in an effort to stay leaner than your “set point” will interfere with your gains. That being said, there’s no need to gain a lot of unnecessary body fat, either. On average, I feel an ideal range for most people is somewhere between 8-12 percent. I would hold more water in the off-season, but in terms of body fat I was always around 8-9 percent according to skinfold calipers. That was my set point. For many others, 10-12 percent is ideal.
It should be noted that you can’t get too caught up in numbers. For example, say I was 300 pounds at 9 percent body fat. If contest condition was 3 percent, theoretically I needed to drop 6 percent of the fat I was carrying, or 18 pounds— which would put me at 282 for a contest. But it’s not that simple. You also have to factor in water weight being reduced due to fewer carbohydrates, and a change in the types of anabolics used. Instead of 18 pounds, I would actually lose 25-30. In the end, your off-season body fat shouldn’t be a great deal more than your contest condition. You’ve probably heard that you should never lose sight of your abdominals and serratus, and that’s probably a good yardstick. If you can’t see lines in those areas at all, you’ve let yourself get too heavy.
Shadow, I’m having trouble gaining size on my calves. I’m six feet tall, which I know doesn’t help because they’re long. I do extensions on the sled, and donkeys. I also move my toes in and out to hit all heads. Yours are insane, and any advice from the grand wizard is appreciated.
Thanks. But first of all you need to understand that just because someone has an outstanding body part does not mean they are the best person to ask for advice on building it. In most cases, they had a genetic inclination for that body part to grow easily and as such, they never had to experiment and seek out the best ways to achieve results— because anything they did produced fantastic gains. In my case, my chest and my biceps were two areas that I was not genetically blessed with, but my calves were always very good. As such, I trained them after quads and hams because they were not a priority. But since I retired from competitive bodybuilding, I have trained quite a few people and I’ve learned the best ways to get calves to grow.
There are so many “voodoo” ideas about calf training, the main one being that they are completely different from all other muscle groups. The flawed logic states that since we walk on them all day long, they should be trained with very high volume and very high reps. Think about that for a moment. If they are already used to that, why would mimicking the same low-intensity levels of stimulation yield any results? Calves need heavy, intense training to grow. Only two exercises are needed. Perform one with the legs straight such as the standing calf raise (my personal favorite), calf raises on a leg press, or donkey calf raises, for the gastrocnemius. For the soleus muscle, you need an exercise wherein the legs are bent at a 45-degree angle, which is the seated calf raise. Most gyms have standing calf raises with inadequate resistance. The stacks typically are only 300-400 pounds. At Temple Gym, I have a calf raise with a 1,000-pound stack plus bars which additional plates can be loaded. I used to do sets of 12-15 reps with 1,500 pounds.
As for turning the toes in and out, that’s rubbish. Just have your toes in a natural, comfortable position— which will be either toes straight ahead or just slightly angled outward. Don’t worry; both heads of the gastrocnemius will fire. Form is also crucial, with a full range of motion on each rep. You should exaggerate the stretch at the bottom and rise up until you’re on tiptoes for a full contraction. The short, choppy reps you see people doing all the time will do nothing to stimulate growth. Take sets to failure and beyond. To do that, I liked rest-pause sets. I would do a set of 10 reps to failure, get off the machine for 10 seconds, get back on and do maybe 5 reps, rest briefly again, then finish with 2-3 reps. Two sets like that if you are going heavy enough and going to true failure is all you will want or need. Follow that up with 1 set of seated calf raises for 6-8 reps, and you’re done. On paper it looks like nothing, but I’ve had many bodybuilders hobbling away after that exact workout. Intensity of effort is key!
Then after you’ve stimulated the muscle, you need to let it rest and grow. Forget about training calves every day or even three times a week. These ideas have spread and become largely accepted because there is such a wide range of genetic variation for calves. Mine happened to be long and full and thus had a tremendous potential for growth. If your calves insert much higher up, they will never be outstanding— but you can still make the most of what you’ve got with proper training. A lot of crazy ideas for calf training were born out of frustration, so don’t subscribe to them. Contrary to popular belief, they are not so different at all from all the other muscle groups you train, and should not be treated as such.
Dorian, do you feel you sacrificed mass for condition for the majority of your Mr. Olympia titles? I’ve seen some shots of you several weeks out from the O, where you looked fantastic and bigger than I ever recall you being onstage!
I did sacrifice mass for condition, every time. The most famous shots of me were the black and white ones at my gym six weeks prior to the 1993 Mr. Olympia. In them I was 275 pounds and some commented that I was ready at that point. At the show I was about 257, or 15-17 pounds down in weight, which also includes water loss. Was I much fuller and rounder at 275? Certainly. But even though I had good separation there, to me that look was still a little too watery and blurry for what I considered true contest condition.
It’s funny how some dubbed me the first “mass monster,” but being the biggest man onstage was never my goal. Throughout my preparation, my focus was on being the best-conditioned man. Of course, the main aim was to win. In the early ‘90s when I was beginning my reign, my main rivals were Flex Wheeler, Shawn Ray and Kevin Levrone. None of them were going to beat me on size, so I had to be absolutely sure none of them would beat me on condition, either. There was actually a higher standard for condition back then, as the top guys then as a whole were harder and drier than today’s crop of pros.
Tactically speaking, if I were competing today I would probably come in heavier and fuller. But at the time my feeling was that I had enough mass to spare a bit in exchange for extreme condition. I was actually flat every time I competed. Think about being flat or cold as opposed to being full and pumped in the gym as a good analogy. If you’re lean, you should see plenty of detail and striations in your chest before a workout. But when the workout is done and you’re fully pumped, the fine lines are blurred.
I saw it as a challenge for me as a big man to also display the level of condition usually only seen on smaller guys. I would get so lean that the bottom of my feet actually hurt. Before I understood why it was happening, I thought it had something to do with my habit of stomping my foot down to set certain poses like the abdominal and thigh or the front lat spread. I would be limping backstage and people thought I was cramping. Later I looked in a medical textbook and saw that there are actually fatty pads underneath the balls and heels of our feet, and I had succeeded in dieting mine away.
So yes, I always gave up some mass for condition, but it paid off with six Mr. Olympia titles and nine other pro wins.
Hi Dorian. Although there was an incredible amount of disbelief and downright animosity in the No Bull forums toward your cycle published in MD, I just want to say that a great many of us appreciate this, especially those of us that train using your system of HIT (or a variation thereof). I think we always knew you didn’t need astronomical dosages, and this confirms it. I really think that many who didn’t believe your cycles just don’t know how to train without anabolics. They overtrain like crazy and don’t take enough time off between training sessions— something that mega-doses of anabolics will disguise. I’m guessing they probably eat right and sleep enough, but their training routines are ridiculous. No wonder they think they need so much.
Your cycle should also be an eye-opener for those up-and-coming in the sport who can see what a six-time Mr. Olympia used and how effective it was— when applied to a proper diet and training regimen. The problem is this sport is just littered with “bro-logic” that tells people they don’t need to train so much, and not taking so much anabolics is just too unbelievable for many. Again, much appreciated, and it definitely did not fall on deaf ears.
Thanks, I am glad that yourself and others appreciated what I was trying to achieve with the article. I had no reason to do the article other than to try and educate. If I wanted to keep some secret, I wouldn’t have said anything! I knew many wouldn’t believe what I said because they use much more and don’t look remotely like a Mr. Oympia. That is simply because they don’t apply 100 percent to training, don’t dedicate themselves 24/7 to the job, and mainly because they don’t have the genetics! I just wanted to tell people that it is unnecessary to use huge doses that threaten your health. If one person benefits from what I wrote, then I am happy. Fools will continue to be fools!
