Dorian Yates Chest & Biceps Workout in 1993

For this blog post, we’re going back to 1993, in the lead up to the game-changing Mr. Olympia…

This is an exact workout from Tuesday 21st July 1993, seven weeks out from the Olympia and actually just one week before those iconic black & white photos - which were taken then following chest & biceps workout!

So join us on a heavy duty, Blood & Guts chest & biceps workout from the depths of Temple Gym, Birmingham.

Now chest and biceps were probably Dorian’s weakest body parts, so he really put a lot of effort into bringing them up. Especially after his first Olympia in 1991 where he was beaten by the great Lee Haney, the following year in particular and onwards, he put grit and determination into bringing these up. His goal was to be the complete package and that first Olympia gave him even more drive into perfecting his craft.

After taking his pre-workout stack of caffeine and ephedrine (not quite our Blood & Guts pre-workout back then) and unlocking the padlock to unveil those steep steps down to the gym itself, he began his usual upper body warm up to get everything ready for the poundage to come.

A breakdown of how the sets work is that he'd usually perform 2-3 warm up sets on the first exercise to get the entire muscle warm and prepared. It’s important to note that these warm ups were performed NOWHERE near to failure, their only purpose was to get everything fired up for the one working set that would be performed to failure, to trigger the growth mechanism.

If he’d just performed his warm up sets only and moved on, there would not be enough stimulus to activate that growth, so, warm ups performed with a ‘lighter’ weight usually 50% and 75% respectively, and then one working set to failure with 100% load to failure.

So first exercise in, decline barbell press.

This was a staple exercise in his routine that he used and always began with it. That was until some point later in 1994 where he switched to incline barbell press.

First warm up set, 135lbs for a light set for around 12 reps. Second warm and after a minute or so rest, he added another 20kg plate for 220lbs for 10 reps.

Nice and easy so far.

Another short rest and now it’s 335lbs for 8 reps.

Warm up complete.

Now, mind and body prepared, this is his one working set to muscular failure… with 460lbs! In his mind, this was his one chance this week to stimulate growth for this exercise… it was his reality.

He’d now built up that aggression, the adrenaline was in full flow and he’d already visualised what was going to happen.

He unracked the barbell, took it down and exploded up with ferocious intensity and a full range of motion, but always under total control.

5 reps he got and 1 forced rep.

That was failure.

For upper body he aimed to reach failure in 6-8 reps and lower body it was higher, around 10-15.

In Blood & Guts the video, you’ll see his performing incline barbell press first and although it doesn't look like’s struggling, he is! Over the years he built up the ability to maintain his form, even when it got extremely difficult… it’s an art form, the ability to resist using momentum and trying to rush.

A short rest and it was time for the next exercise, incline smith machine press.

He added this exercise into his routine in 1991 after the Olympia with the aim of bringing up his upper pecs. It was a low incline he used to minimise the usage of the front delts and to try to keep the tension on the pecs.

Now since his pecs were already warm, it was just one warm up set here on for pecs and for this exercise he loaded up 120kg for 6 reps… not to failure.

His working set to failure came 2 minutes later with 160kg for 5 reps by himself, plus 1 forced rep. But the set wasn't over.

After a few deep breaths he unracked the bar and squeezed out another rep before racking. This is a rest pause - a high-intensity technique where you go to failure, rest a few seconds and push out another rep. It’s best saved for machine based exercises and used sparingly.

Pressing exercises were now out the way and it was time for incline dumbbell flys. Again just one warm up set with 70lb dumbbells for 10, before his set to failure with a gigantic 100lb dumbbell in each hand for 10 whole reps, plus 1 forced rep at the end! To see this in action, watch it here in Blood & Guts.

Up next was cable crossovers with 80lbs on each side for 13 reps to failure with another 2 forced reps! Again you can see this in the Blood & Guts video.

Usually that was it for chest, 25 minutes and 4 exercises complete.

But this is the beauty of logging workouts, he actually performed another exercise for pecs on this day, another fly movement.

He finished up the chest with a set to failure on the pec deck machine. But this was no ordinary 90 degree angle pec deck with the seat vertical, instead it was uniquely positioned to make it more of a decline fly. He performed a set with 150kg for 6 reps plus an additional 2 forced reps where his spotter helped get the weight into the contracted position and he slowly lowered the negative for another 2 reps!

Actually a little story from The Shadow about this machine which occurred some time later…

“The whole stack was a massive 300lbs but it got a bit too easy for myself so I stacked a few 45lb plates on top to make it close to 400lbs. One day I was on my working set of flys, powering through the reps and now imagine the pure muscular force being driven through… so halfway through the fifth rep, Kenny Brown (my old training partner from 1987-95, RIP) lent in to spot me and of course, he’s in front of me….

The arm broke off!

The arm broke off the welding and missed Kenny’s nose by 1mm!

Kenny could’ve been injured and I could’ve torn a pec! It was crazy to say the least.

We were both in shock for a minute or so but of course, carried on with the session! I did get it repaired but I never used it again, it was too risky. It truly was a great machine but perhaps not to the Yates strength!” 

So now the chest was complete, the pec muscle fibres were rock solid and pumped!

A short break was now needed before moving onto biceps.

His bicep routine was pretty much what you see in Blood & Guts, except for this workout he didn't perform single arm curls on the Nautilus curl machine.

First exercise for biceps was seated incline dumbbell curls, with only one warm up set being required which was the 50lb dumbbells for a set of 8 reps. A big squeeze at the peak contraction with absolutely no swinging the weight up, followed by a slow negative.

His working set began with 70lb dumbbells, he performed these with both arms at the same time but when he reached failure he squeezed out another rep or two focussing one one side at a time so that the brain could focus on each side at a time. In total this meant 6 reps together and 1 forced rep with a spotter assisting the rep on each side.

Final exercise of the workout was EZ barbell curls with a set of 155lbs for 6 reps where failure was reached. Often he performed extra negatives on this exercise where his partner would lift the weight to the top and he’d slowly lower for an extra couple of reps, but he excluded that from this workout since he had some strain on his brachialis, so just positive failure was required.

The workout was completed in 45 minutes.

Before and during the workout itself, it was nothing but deadly seriousness from Dorian and his 1-2 training partners. The only words spoken were those of encouragement and how much weight they’d use.

But after the session they’d often sit down, enjoy their protein shake and now was the time to have a little chat about, well, whatever they wanted!

In a few months time on September 11th 1993, the game was changed. The Shadow defended his Olympia crown and set a new standard for bodybuilding.