Muscle Diet

Q. I saw you on the video for the Dorian Yates Blood & Guts seminar that MUSCLE INSIDER put on. What would you say were the top 5 best training secrets you learned?

The one main thing I learned was that Dorian is a true professional who not only loves weight training but puts a great deal of thought into how to do it effectively. I talk to Dorian fairly often but seeing him do the seminar demonstrated the breadth of his knowledge on training! The most important training tip had to do with back training. Of course, that’s not surprising because he had the thickest back I’ve ever seen to this day – and that includes Ronnie and Jay! He pointed out that for lat pull downs, this whole “wide grip gives you a wider back” technique is unfounded. I’ve always thought the same. The lats tie into the humerus (the upper arm bone) just under the shoulder joint and because you can’t change where that tendon attaches, there is unlikely to be any “widening” effect of placing the hands further away from the body when doing pull-downs. The second thing was that Dorian is a believer in “high-intensity” weight training – meaning doing one set to failure of each particular exercise (with appropriate warm up sets before hand). Not sure I entirely agree because many pros have done pretty well using a much higher volume approach and for guys just starting, even Dorian agrees that more volume is probably a better way to go. The other three are: to ensure a distinct stop and momentary squeeze at the end of each rep (because if you can’t manage that, then you are probably using too heavy a weight). Also to “think” about the muscle you’re working (this has been said before of course but is a very important tip that bears repeating) and finally for calves...don’t listen to any crap about “high reps”...Dorian had his calf machine modified to carry even more weight!

To read more of Mark Gilbert's work, check out FitnessInventor.com

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