Dorian Yates: My Trauma Made Me Who I Am

Profile

• Name: Dorian Yates
• Date of Birth: 19 April 1962
• Height: 1.78 m (5 ft 10 inches)
• Off-season Weight: 128-140 kg (282-309 lb)
• Competition Weight: 118-128 kg (260-282 lb)
• Arm size: 51 cm (20 in)
• Leg size: 79 cm (31 in)
• Waist size: 88 cm (35 in)
• Calf size: 52 cm (20 in)
• Chest size: 142 cm (56 in)
• Hip size: 107 cm (42 in)
• Championships: 6x Mr. Olympia

Biography of Dorian Yates: The Shadow

“MY TRAUMA MADE ME WHO I AM”

Let's hear the story of a country boy who endured a series of tragic events, leaving him alone in a big city. The cruel hand of fate dealt one more blow: a young offender's institution. In his darkest hour, it was the chains he lifted, not the ones that tied him, that changed the course of his life forever_ making him a 6x Mr. Olympia, The Original Mass Monster, The Shadow.

Early Life

Andrew Mientjez Yates was born at home on April 19, 1962, into a modest, conventional, working-class family in the inauspiciously named Lugtrout Lane, Solihull, England. Kenneth Yates is his father, while Hilma Yates is his mother. In his childhood, he was close to his maternal grandparents.

Dorian Yates started at Wood End School around the age of five and transferred to Kingsbury Middle School in his pre-teens. His father died as a result of a heart attack when he was 13 years old. He then moved from Solihull to Birmingham with his mum. He grew up with little interest in sports.

 Instead, after being negatively influenced at a young age, he chose a life of crime. Dorian Yates dropped out of school at the age of 16 and joined a skinhead group after moving to Birmingham in 1980. He was eventually detained after becoming part of a riot.

Dorian Yates was sentenced to 6 months in a youth detention center when he was 19 years old.  Dorian began power lifting to keep himself engaged and quickly piled on muscle, realizing he had the capacity to succeed as an athlete.

Dorian Yates first developed a reputation for his physique at Whatton. He was regarded as the toughest of Whatton's 300 convicts. This gave him newfound self-esteem, and he decided that he would not ever be back.

Bodybuilding

Dorian Yates began working out in 1983 at Martin's Gym, Birmingham's original bodybuilding facility on Temple Row. Dorian Yates is regarded as one of bodybuilding's first "Mass Monsters." He paired his massive physical mass with peak conditioning, which he refers to as "Granite Hardness."

Training

Dorian Yates followed Arthur Jones and Mike Mentzer's high-intensity training (HIT) approach to bodybuilding, which made his training sessions short and intense. He dominated the sport in the 1990s with his six Olympia victories, a time when the top pros' muscles appeared to advance dramatically.

In a 17-contest pro career, Dorian Yates won 15 and was second in the other two.

But Dorian Yates’ greatest legacy will be his training philosophy.

His body was a result of a detailed and scientific investigation of a depth that had been previously unexplored. Before his rise to prominence, the most widely used training regimens involved twice-daily workouts six days a week, with up to 20 sets of exercises for each muscle group. Dorian Yates's brief, rigorous training, which consisted of one all-out set for each exercise, set new benchmarks. Additionally, he only worked out once each day, four times per week. With this outlook, he refrained from the bodybuilding sin of overtraining. This was a continuation of his insight that giving his muscles enough time to recover between workouts is the most crucial step in growing muscle.

He was also a forerunner in combining cardiovascular exercise with bodybuilding. He increased his metabolism and improved his ability to burn fat by doing exercise all year long. He was able to consume more calories throughout the pre-contest period by doing this. Therefore, he did not go the proverbial "kamikaze crash-dieting route." He would start dieting about 13 weeks prior to a competition and shed no more than 2 pounds per week as he glided in to reach his required bodyweight two weeks prior to the start of flexing hostilities.

Fans of bodybuilding adore Dorian Yates' physique, yet Yates' physique does not make him a great bodybuilder. The "muscle" hidden behind his forehead was the one that was the most powerful.

Suffice to say that Dorian Yates appears to have mastered the technique of turning cerebral visions into physical realities in the context of bodybuilding.

The shadows' Legacy

Dorian Yates earned the nickname "The Shadow" for his propensity to win big bodybuilding competitions by showing up out of the blue after going for extended stretches without being seen by the public. In order to safeguard his privacy, he reportedly declined many significant supplement endorsement contracts and shunned interviews and other forms of television publicity.

In 1987 Yates bought Temple Gym on Birmingham's Temple Street. In 2006, he franchised four more Temple Gym facilities, three of which are in the United Kingdom.

Yates co-founded Heavy Duty Incorporated in California in 1994 with Mike Mentzer and Ray Mentzer. The company sold athletic clothing and literature about bodybuilding.

In 1998, Yates formed the bodybuilding supplement firm CNP Professional with Kerry Kayes, which sold a Dorian Yates Approved product line in the United States.

In 2006, he quit the company to start his own, Dorian Yates Ultimate Formulas, which sells protein and weight-gain supplements. In 2010, he founded EU Peptides, which distributes pep-tide hormones and other pro-hormone supplements.

In 2011, he launched DY Nutrition, a firm that specializes in pre-workout formulations, and has released several training DVDs. In 2012, he left EU Peptides. In recent years, he has performed multiple international seminar tours to discuss nutrition and his bodybuilding experiences. On his official website, he provides training videos as well as textual analysis. He directed the documentary All I Know Is Pain in 2015.

Marital Life

Dorian Yates' first marriage was to Debbie Yates. The couple married in 1991 and separated in 1998 due to Dorian's depression after he retired from bodybuilding. He and Debbie have two children: a boy named Lewis Yates, who works as a personal trainer, and a daughter named Tahnee Yates.

Dorian dated a lengthy string of women from all over the world after his divorce for a few years until he became bored with the constant partying, indulging in drink, and recreational drugs.

Dorian Yates is currently married to Glauce "Gal" Ferreira, a Brazilian fitness model. She had won the IFBB South American Bodyfitness Championship as well as the IFBB World Bodyfitness Championship in 2007. They met for the first time in the Arnold Classic in 2008. They are residents of Marbella. Lewis Yates, Yates' son, has taken up bodybuilding and works closely with his father.

Dorian now resides in Marbella, Spain, with his wife, IFBB PRO World Champion Gal Yates, and their puppy, Moby.

Injuries

Dorian Yates' career was cut short by chronic acute injuries, including torn biceps and triceps, the latter three weeks before his final contest, the 1997 Mr. Olympia, which he won despite the injury.

Dorian's triceps injury was severe, causing him to win his final Olympia victory by the skin of his teeth.

Dorian Yates presently resides in Spain and owns numerous gyms as well as a nutrition company that focuses on pre-workout supplements.

Dorian Yates now sees his injuries as a blessing in disguise since they forced him to focus more on his long-term health.

Dorian Yates has stated that he does yoga and meditation on a daily basis to keep his health in check.

No doubt, Dorian Yates will be regarded as one of the finest bodybuilders of all time.

 Controversy

The sport of bodybuilding has always been controversial, and Dorian Yates was no exception throughout his peak bodybuilding career.

The Dorian Yates era – Controversial decisions

• Dorian's final years at the top in 1996 and 1997 were doubtful. Competing with some serious injuries, many believe Shawn Ray and the late Nasser El Sonbaty were denied the Mr. Olympia title.
• Shawn Ray was far more balanced in 1996 than an injured Dorian Yates, who appeared larger but was not on the same level as Shawn Ray. Dorian Yates would win his fifth championship.
• Another example is Dorian Yates' last Mr. Olympia contest in 1997 when he was injured again but still defeated a very good Nasser El Sonbaty. The fans and media thought Nasser El Sonbaty should have been crowned Mr. Olympia, but it was Dorian Yates who walked away with the trophy once again.
• How could a very flawless Nasser El Sonbaty be defeated by a Dorian Yates with practically no triceps and biceps? Yes, they say the back wins the show, but Dorian was unable to defend his crown due to a number of injuries.
• Dorian Yates has also taken a number of controversial political stances, including calling for a new investigation into the 9/11 attacks.

Championships

Dorian Yates Was a six-time Mr. Olympia who dominated the event from 1992 to 1997, displaying his signature "granite hardness" and massive muscle bulk, ushering in the "mass monster" period. From 1992 until his retirement in 1997, he won every competition.

In his career, he has 15 major competition triumphs and two second-place finishes.

He has won numerous championships, including Night of Champions and the Spanish Grand Prix, among others.

A 6 time Mr. Olympia winner and a bodybuilding legend “Dorian Yates” is probably the bodybuilder that most aspiring trainees can best identify with because of his blue-collar beginnings, relentless determination, and modest confidence. He is known all around the world for the seriousness and intensity of his training sessions, his knowledge of diet/nutrition and supplementation, and his unyielding tenacity.

Dorian Yates dominated the competition throughout his era, becoming an industry icon.

 After retiring as a competitor, he founded his own supplement firm and built a number of gyms to assist others in achieving their goals. But it wasn't always a smooth ride for Dorian; as he spent time in a youth prison center and his career was cut short due to injuries.