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Many people play the game, some go on to win it, but very few completely change it.

The six-time Mr. Olympia Dorian Yates unleashed a ruthless domination from 1992 to 1997, and ushered in what we know now as the mass monster era that still influences the sport to this very day. The moment he stepped on the 1992 Olympia stage, bodybuilding was transformed once and for all.

Nicknamed ‘The Shadow’, Dorian maintained a low profile in England each year before emerging on stage in the United States looking bigger and leaner than ever. With a combination of size and conditioning that were never seen before, he left competitors fighting for second place for six years. But his domination wasn’t without controversy. It seemed like no one could take him down even when competed with a torn bicep and a severed tricep.

Going from a small gang in the streets of England, being jailed, and almost becoming homeless, to becoming the man who single-handedly changed the trajectory of bodybuilding forever, this is the story of the original mass monster.


Dorian Yates started working out in 1983 at Martin's Gym, the original bodybuilding gym located in Temple Row, Birmingham. During this time he won the 1984 Mr. Birmingham as a novice and in 1986 became the British Champion at Heavyweight for the first time.

His professional record consists of 15 major contest wins and two second-place finishes; from 1992 to his retirement in 1997 he won every single contest he entered. His career ended in large part due to chronic acute injuries, including torn biceps and triceps, the latter just three weeks prior to his final contest, the 1997 Mr. Olympia, which he won in spite of the injury; his win generated controversy among fellow athletes, critics, and amateurs, who thought the runner-up Nasser El Sonbaty deserved to win. He is one of only four men to retire as Mr. Olympia and the last to do so.

Yates was a proponent of Arthur Jones and Mike Mentzer's high-intensity training (HIT) style of bodybuilding, which poses that maximum muscle stimulation can be reached through short and intense workout sessions instead of long and slow ones. He said, “If you feel you can attempt a second set, then you couldn’t have been pulling out all the stops during the first set.” Examples of his biggest lifts include 435-pound underhand barbell rows for 6-8 reps, 425-incline presses for 6-10 reps, and 595-pound barbell shrugs for 10-12 reps. He earned the nickname "The Shadow" coined by Peter McGough for his tendency to unexpectedly appear at major bodybuilding contests and steal the win, having neither confirmed nor denied whether he would compete beforehand, and for spending most of his time between contests avoiding the public eye.

Yates is considered to be the first of the "mass monsters" in bodybuilding. He combined his enormous muscle mass along with peak conditioning, quoted as being "granite hardness". He believes that his injuries are due to his habit of maintaining an extreme level of training intensity all year long, even when approaching contests, while being on a severely restricted "cutting" diet which weakens the body overall.

@DorianYatesNutrition

00:00 - Prologue
00:51 - The Original Mass Monster
02:01 - Tragic Childhood
04:24 - Early ambitions
06:36 - British Champ
07:31 - Going Pro
09:11 - 1991 Mr. Olympia
13:53 - Blood & Guts
16:58 - 1992 Mr. Olympia
19:22 - The Gamechanger
21:49 - 1993 Mr. Olympia
25:10 - 1994 Mr. Olympia
29:27 - The Shadow
32:24 - 1995 Mr. Olympia
35:15 - 1996 Mr. Olympia
37:00 - 1996 German Grand Prix
37:23 - A Career Ending Injury
41:24 - 1997 Mr. Olympia
43:52 - Forced Retirement