An Ode to Dorian

Dorian Yates was a six time Mr. Olympia during the nineties who revolutionised bodybuilding, forever. He used a style of training known as ‘high intensity training’. Obviously, most of you will have been ignorant to Mr. Yates’ achievements; the majority of you will probably prefer to remain so. However, like it or not, high intensity training gets rather marvellous results, and in a world where everyone at least appears to be in the most dreadful of hurries, saving time on your workout can’t be a bad thing. Ladies, please do not be deterred - bodybuilding is exactly that: the art of building one's body to the desired shape and size, the tools for such an art can not be overlooked by layman like ourselves.

Mr. Yates was also given the nickname ‘The Shadow’, not because he was black (he wasn’t), but due to the lengthy amount of time he would remain in obscurity (Birmingham) before entering a competition. I mention this not because of a newfound approbation for Birmingham based training, but rather as I wish to relay a certain message, a lesson for disciples of, or weary bystanders to, fitness:

...Sometimes when you train, you should do it alone, away from materialist distractions; set aside from conversations about Kate’s pregnancy; disconnected from the disturbing white noise a gym gives birth to when, simultaneously, the Kardashians scream out through LCD covered walls and bass ridden speakers squeeze out Rihanna’s finest or One Direction’s top tunes (among other oxymorons). A touch of solace is good for the soul. So, in light of obscurity, why not throw in the wisdom of Mr. Yates into your life. Every relationship requires refreshment; let this be your spa weekend in Devon, your role play in the Ritz or your handcuffs and nine-tails on a Wednesday night, after Madmen.  Below are a few essential components to HIT.

•   Gorilla Training – do as the gorillas do and workout a little less but a lot more intensely. Gorillas will do almost nothing for most of their time – largely spent gambling or squandered in strip clubs of such notoriety as ‘The Bamboo Pole’ or ‘The Slippery Branch’ - but when they do, it is carried out with 100% intensity. It is the intensity that counts.

• Two Minutes Only – this is the only time that lasting two minutes is actually seen as a good thing, but make sure that you are unable to go any longer than 120 seconds. If you can, add more weight, jump higher, use one hand etc.  (When applying HIT to your cardio routine, I would advise exercising at 100% for a total of no more than 4-5 minutes (i.e. 10 sets of 20 seconds at 100% effort and 40 seconds at 30%). WORK TO FAILURE, PLEASE.)

• Form – when applicable to weight training, one should focus on the ‘eccentric’ phase, which means lowering the weight slowly (around 4 seconds), so that you can work the muscle most effectively - you are strongest in this phase. When your muscles have failed, throw in one or two ‘negatives’, ‘drop sets’ or a ‘rest pause’ (look these up).

•  Rest – don’t rest much between sets and exercises. The time it takes to grab whatever you need for your next set or exercise is more than enough. Your heart rate should remain high.

• Frequency – give your body time to recover. Do not exercise more than three times a week in this fashion.

•   Time – the whole workout shouldn’t go on for more than 45 minutes. You shouldn’t be able to go for longer than that anyway.

• Warm Up – thoroughly and always do one or two warm up sets (40-60% of your max) before starting your ‘working set’ for that exercise. For cardio, you should be sweating by the time you start your HIT.     

     Some of you are still a tad baffled, fear not. Below is a very, very rough idea of what your plan could look like for a week:

Monday – Weights:

    Choose two exercises from each movement section and then perform 1 warm up set and one working set of each exercise. The working set should be done to failure and you should not be able to get more than 12 repetitions. If you can, add more weight, jump higher etc. I feel life I am staining the page with endless repetition, apologies.

·         Lower Body Push – squats, lunges, Bulgarian split squats, leg press (use a barbell, kettlebell, bodyweight (jumping to increase difficulty), medicine ball).

·         Lower Body Pull - Romanian deadlift, deadlift, single leg deadlift.

·         Upper Body Press – bench press, dumbbell press, bodyweight press up (going to half press ups when reaching failure), shoulder press.

·         Upper Body Pull – bent over row, elastic band pull, wide grip pull up (jumping up and lowering yourself down slowly when failure is reached).

·         Core – hanging leg raise, reverse crunches, Russian twists, the plank (turn into a superman plank, if needs be) etc.

Tuesday – Rest.

Wednesday – Cardio:

·      Please see my article on HIIT Training and choose one of the workouts from there.

Thursday – Weights: The same as Monday.

Friday – Rest.

Saturday – Cardio.

Sunday – Rest.

So there it is. Just remember, go flat out and make sure that by end of each exercise, you can physically do no more. Be a Gorilla, man.