This content is an interview with Dorian Yates, a six-time Mr. Olympia champion, discussing his bodybuilding journey, training philosophy, the evolution of the sport, and his current perspective on health, aging, and life.
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people were telling me I was the best bodybuilder in the country honestly like looking back on my
life it's almost like a movie that played out and I knew I had to put like my heart and soul
into this I had to change my life I had to I didn't want to I had to it was my destiny how
far can I take it I'm supposed to be something different I have to be something different and
I'm going to change my life with bodybuilding I don't want to have a normal job I don't want to
be unemployed I don't want to uh get a wife and a kid and a small house and a job and a normal
life try to find a picture of me smiling and was Mr Olympia is very difficult this contest should
be the best of the best and the thing that I loved about bodybuilding was this is an individual thing
I think people now they they don't like hard work they want to have the results but they don't want
to take the journey because you overcome you overcome overcome you're going to push yourself
you're going to be sweating you're going to be in pain if you want to be successful can I
create a new a new level the main Drive was I am not like everybody else I don't want to be like
everybody else I have something inside which is burning deep down I knew this was going to helpen
hey Dorian Welcome to our podcast and thank you so much thank you for having me on man thank
you so much for coming I'm so honored to have you here and my pleasure thanks I have so many
questions uh first of all for for the people that are watching now and maybe they don't know exactly
what what is that Mr Olympia what is this contest and what does it mean to be Mr Olympia okay so um
Mr Olympia started originally the first Mr Olympia was in 1965 yeah yeah uh organized by a guy called
Joe weeder yeah who's uh you know Legend in bodybuilding as a promoter magazine publisher
and supplement company and everything like that his the guy that uh kind of brought arinal swena
to America and everything like that the idea was as you had um and I think back in the in the 60s
probably the most well-known contest was the Mr Universe MH so Joe weider's idea was like we have
these great bodybuilders and they go to win the Mr Universe maybe but it's difficult for them to
continue to pursue and and try to be better and better because yeah there's not a lot of money in
the sport so his idea was to create a contest a professional contest and that this contest
should be the best of the best yeah so you get the best bodybuilders in the world coming to the
contest and there's going to be one person that wins the Mr Olympia contest and that person then
would be recognized as the Undisputed uh best professional bodybuilder in the world that was
the idea and I think since maybe there was some competition between the Mr Olympia and the Mr
Universe because it was this some federations but by early 70s I think is accepted in the
bodybuilding Community Mr Olympia is the ultimate so this is Ultimate Prize for bodybuilding like I
don't know World Heavyweight Champion boxing but even in boxing you have some different federations
uh but in bodybuilding it's generally accepted Mr Olympia is the best professional bodybuilder in
the world so it's not a contest you can just say hey I would like to enter that you know you have
to go through different stages of uh for myself I had to be National Champion so I had to be the
best in my country as an amateur yeah and then when you achieve this you can then apply for
professional status and compete in professional contests and then to get into the Myst Olympia uh
is a little bit different now the qualifications but basically it was like you had to place in the
top three mhm of a pro contest yeah in order to get an invite for the my Olympia so we have the
several contests through the years and uh at the end of the year you have the Mr Olympia and see
who's uh who's number one in the so you've been there and you've been uh the best bodybuilder in
the world for for six years in a row yeah year by year what was you doing different than than
others what's what pushed you there and how could you stay there for for six years in the row this
a matter of uh passion and drive and and focus and how much do you want it yeah that that's something
and I wanted to try to be the best that I could be and then this turns out to be you want to be
the best in the world but for me it was a bit more than this it was like I once I got to be the best
I wanted to see like how far can I take it as a personal Challenge and and for the sport as well
can I create a new a new level this this was a thing and uh it's generally accepted that that I
did because I was not interested in just winning and I know this is not something I'm going to
do all my life mhm so let me see really you know how far can we take this like in a in in running
if you like nobody could run a mile in under four minutes nobody could do it until one guy
actually his British guy Roger Roger Bannister he broke the four minute barrier for a mile once he
did it everybody started doing it because you You released a mental uh a block a mental barrier so
when I achieved the level of muscular development and conditioning uh and set a new standard then
you see the everyone else's standard start to elevate because they see this is possible and the
removes a barrier and then they aim for this so it it raised the whole level of the sport I think uh
with my um unrelenting uh passion to try to pursue that goal yeah and you did it in like the first Mr
Olympia you got in 1992 yeah first one was the first Mr Olympia I competed in was 91 I got a
close second okay which was I think the first time somebody had done that in their in their
debut so I had a uh second in my first one to Lee Haney who was already seven times Mr Olympia very
dominant champion and I was able to uh at least to push him a bit you know I couldn't beat him
but next year he had retired and uh title was open so 92 was my yeah was my first Mr Olympia yeah and
how C can you explain us just a little bit how how in the Mr Olympia you have a jury that give you
you have a judges yeah judges yeah and how they decide who's who's better is it by size by shape
by It's a combination of uh factors so it's muscle size obviously is bodybuilding um but it should be
proportionate and then there's the conditioning of course uh professional body building is very
extreme the conditioning when I say conditioning I mean very low body fat which is combined with the
with the muscle mass which is very hard to achieve um so there's three rounds uh it as I say I don't
compete now so some things have changed a little bit but um when I competed there were three rounds
so you stand in a relaxed position from the front from the side from the back from the side from the
front so four positions and you're judged on that so it's like a relaxed or semi- relaxed
so they're looking at the shape yeah the flow of the body the proportion and then the second
round is like seven muscular poses they're called compulsory poses because it shows every part of
your body so these seven poses really I think it is the core of the judging so you have round one
which is relaxed or semi- relaxed really round two is seven poses which everybody has to do and then
they com compare each other this guy to this guy and so on and see who basically wins the majority
of the positions poses and then now um I believe in the mystery Olympia open class they don't have
this anymore but they used to have a third round which is your presentation of your physique to to
music so you know okay uh there were three rounds of of judging and the one who obviously came with
the basically how they score It Is by placing so if they think that you're first they give you a
one yeah okay okay and if you're second you get a two so the guy with the lowest score is is the
winner the lowest score so that's how they judge it over three rounds normally yeah that's how they
did it so you're looking at uh your presentation to music it's your interpretation and it's your
way that you want to present your physique and uh a lot of guys were before I competed it was
a bit more like artistic maybe yeah and and uh bit more Greek statue type you know and uh flowing to
the music and everything but I had a very powerful physique and this was my personality and this was
my the way I trained was like all out uh intense training so when I had the presentation it was
always something very dramatic and Powerful music and so I presented my physique uh where another
guy may be more flowing and you know so everyone is an interpretation of my physique yeah uh in
the third round what music did you use in your uh I used different music some classical music which
is very powerful and uh maybe some rock music but it was music with power uh Kamina barano was one
that I used a couple of times yeah because it's very hating and very powerful yeah so I used to
mix that with something else I had a house mix with that and different things so it was always
with uh with power because that's what I wanted to present yeah so the first Mr Olympia you won
is 92 yeah it's about 30 32 years ago I was five I was five years old you're making me feel old I
was five years old and I remember that but that time we had no internet yeah we had no knowledge
about nutrition about what protein is how how how should you mix your food uh we had no gyms at all
or or maybe I remember that as 5 years old I uh my brother had a friend that was doing kayak my
brother was doing kayak by a lake by a lake by by nearby and he had a colleague that was doing
kayak with some uh weights he lifted in his um in his basement yeah so that was the level of
uh Fitness uh industry by then yeahia I guess in that because it was still a communist at
the time switching over we just we just switched and I talk about Republic of mova that's where we
are from okay yeah I think in Romania it was uh almost the same because we came in 95 and there
was no no gyms uh where where you could go maybe some sport clubs when you have some weights to
live how was it in the UK I mean I guess when they were communist countries they were more concerned
with the Olympic type Sports because this is where you get the Kudos and so maybe they have for those
athletes some facility with weights and so on um but yeah we had no internet so how how did
the information get out and how did it grow this sport yeah magazines magazines magazines they were
like the Bible you know I when I was young and I started bodybuilding there was one store in
Birmingham that's where I'm from one store which had the bodybuilding magazines from America but
you never know when there magazines coming in so we used to go like every week to this little store
and see if they were there and uh then it's there ah it's like spend all day reading this magazine
and then later on when I traveled to um to Russia and places like that they were telling me they
were getting the magazines like on the black market it was very like valuable to get this
magazine very difficult to get it and read about all the at this point really the 80s and into
the early 90s bodybuilding was very much us-based sport was not start to get a bit proper in England
and some European countries I think but really all the top bodybuild and all the gyms that you
heard about and everything was in the US at that point now bodybuilding is much more International
we have a Mr Olympia from Egypt and Mr Olympia now from Iran but before actually myself it was always
competitors from the US even sweno which everyone knows is Austrian but he was living in California
in the US when he was winning Mr Olympia so now it's much more International now the whole world
knows about bodybuilding but yeah for decades it was just uh magazines that's how you find
out about I read about the the top guys that's how you read about training and uh nutrition and
everything like that it was magazines was like the Bible especially the magazines from America from
um from weeda yeah okay so I I'm curious now when did you start how how did you start and at which
point I mean how much how much of what you did you did by yourself and at which point did you
get a mentor a trainer uh well I started being interested in I guess Fitness you know Fitness
and physique and bodybuilding maybe when I was like 14 15 and I also was big fan of Bruce Lee
yeah so Bruce Lee was skinny but he had a he was ripped you know he had some kind of physique so
I was not doing bodybuilding but I used to do like push-ups and and situps and squats in my
room just in the home just uh you know no what was the drive I mean was it like to to look better to
uh um to have a better place in competition for oh I mean to attract like other girls or maybe
it was just for you to look better or what is for you to to be able to stand up against somebody on
the trade what what was the main Drive uh well this was just uh something what I did corrup
yeah and when we did Karate we also did conditioning you know like freehand squats pushups
CH and I found I was enjoying this more and then I started doing some weights and I'll really connect
with that but I didn't do bodybuilding properly until I was like 20 21 because I left home at 16
MH and I had uh you know sometimes nowhere to stay stay at friends houses a job not a job and uh when
I was 19 I got into a bit of trouble I went went to a Detention Center that was sent there for 6
months which is like a youth jail facility yeah and in there they had weights as well okay and I
realized like hey there's 300 guys in here yeah and I have the best physique and everybody treat
me different the guys the officers everybody and uh they could see I was very disciplined
with any kind of training because that was one of the things we're going to get these kids who's uh
you know undisciplined and a problem we're going to give them military discipline we're going to
give them physical training we're going to give them they try to teach us some skill
I learned Plastering you know for the walls and all that stuff I never used it but that was the
idea but uh in a way was a bad experience but in a way it was like let me observe I'm in a place
with 300 guys same age between 17 and 21 and I have the best physique and uh I'm stronger than
nearly all these guys and I really like this and even the officers were in there saying you have
to you should do powerlifting because it was a powerlifter the physical training guy so he said
you should do powerlifting but I already know in my mind I don't want to do powerlifting I want to
do bodybuilding and um what was the main Drive the main Drive was I'm not like everybody else I don't
want to be like everybody else I have something inside which is burning and I look around and
this life and everything I I see is not for me I'm supposed to be something different I have
to be something different and I'm going to change my life with bodybuilding I don't know uh exactly
how it's going to change but I can continue down this road with the and be a criminal or or not and
I have something else the other guys maybe they don't have something else I have something here
and I want to do this and hey maybe I can be like a I don't know a British champion one day maybe I
can have my own gym this was how I started you know and then quickly uh I got very successful
within two years people were telling me I was the best bodybuilder in the country I did then
win the British Championship to be uh to get the pro status so it was not something where
I wanted to attract the girls or I wanted to be stronger to protect myself because I was already
okay this was not the motivation the motivation was to change my life because what I see around
me is not for me I don't want to have a normal job I don't want to be unemployed I don't want
to uh get a wife and a kid and a small house and a job and normal life whatever whatsoever
is normal but that's the average existence was not for me I knew I was going to do something
different and I knew I had to put like my heart and soul into this bodybuilding I had to change
my life I had to I didn't want to I had to it was my destiny and honestly like looking back
on my life it's almost like a movie that played out that was predetermined deep
down I knew this was going to happen I knew that I was destined for something different
and that was the motivation change my life get out of this everything what's around me I don't want
it and for me this was a huge motivation Do or Die really like this is not for me
so and this is what I'm supposed to do this is what I'm good at and I love doing it and
uh I never really had a mentor or a coach and the thing that I loved about bodybuilding
this is an individual thing basically everything's down to me yeah I have to go to the gym and do the
training at this point there is no such thing as a coach in bodybuilding I'm not a big fan of
bodybuilding coaches uh because the reason I did it is because this is individual soul Endeavor I
have to do the training I have to do the research I have to find about nutrition I have to find
about supplementation I have to find about steroids I have to find about everything MH so
this was fascinating for me and as you say no internet you have bodybuilding magazines then
I went to the bookstore and I bought books on nutrition and uh you know calorie breakdown macro
breakdown like really yeah nobody knew even what that was I just went and I bought the books and I
learned for myself uh and also from the magazines and articles that are the bbls is written so
I planned my training I planned my diet I and everything and yeah there was some people along
the way that was encouraging and helping like the guy that ran the BR British Federation at the time
yeah Ron Davis he was very um encouraging and he was a judge at the Myst Olympia so I could respect
his opinion as he has seen the best bodybuilders in the world yeah and he was like you can beat
these guys and it was telling me after two years I've been training you can beat these guys you
can be Mr Olympus so was good and I had a guy with a supplement company one of the very early
ones in in UK and he gave me a little sponsorship okay you know some financial help was not a lot
but it was was helping me out and uh I opened my own gym as well so at that point the gym I mean
there was not many gyms in the 80s even in the UK and Birmingham was I don't know 1.5 million
people yeah I think when I started training there was maybe four gyms that I knew about
now I have no idea maybe there's 50 gyms but it's different those were like real spit and
sawdust as we call them hardcore gyms now it's I don't think they're gyms they're not gyms I mean
they're Fitness facilities they're they're they're sterile they're sterile I can go into one of these
gyms where you I don't know they have these gyms in England where you pay 20 152 pounds a month
yeah it's nothing and they have uh 30 treadmills they have tons of card they have everything yeah
but the people in there don't look like they even go to the gym yeah that's true because it's
a sterile environment uh they don't encourage you uh Hey sh don't make a noise don't don't sweat on
the floor like it's a it's it's like a a clinic a gym should be a place where you go and you you
know you can lift and if you lift weights and you push yourself you're going to scream you're going
to shout it's going to be noisy that's the way it is and uh it's all about hard work and uh I
think people now they they don't like hard work mhm they want to have the result yeah but they
don't want to take the journey and it's the journey which makes you not the result it's
the journey which strengthens you when you push yourself to the limits and you push yourself to
the limits and you find out about yourself and you become stronger because you overcome you'll
overcome you overcome and you build strength um I don't see that in a lot of kids these
days everything's too easy too accessible and it's almost too much information where everyone wants
the technical information yeah okay I can give it to you but you got to work hard there's no
way to uh go around this there's no magic tricks you're going to work hard you're going to push
yourself you're going to be sweating you're going to be in pain uh if you want to be successful and
of everything not just bodybuilding everything life everything is too too easy now people are
weak I think that the drive you you you told me about that moment when you sat in detention and
you saw this guy yeah and you decided that you you want to be different that you are different and
you are going to follow a different path and the fact that you didn't just wanted that deep inside
you believed in that that's something you cannot buy from a personal trainer no I mean you can buy
I mean I know why people take a personal trainer I some as a doctor I to somebody that is not uh I
see he has no drive and he has no motivation to study I recommend to people to take a personal
trainer for two three months for him to say to you what you should eat what how how should you train
listen for the average person I I use this analogy yeah I like my car I like to drive a car MH
but I don't have time to study about something when my car goes wrong what do I do I take it to
my friend he's a mechanic he knows all about the cars because he studied this yeah yes so
I give my car to him and I say okay fix my car yeah it's the same thing for the average
person but I'm not the average person I'm a high level competitor but for the average person yes
you have your family you have your life you have your business you have many things going
on you don't have time to study the best way to train the best way to eat and supplement so yes
in this case a personal trainer can be very useful but high level competitor at in in in
competitive bodybuilding this is your profession I think MH so in that case not a big fan of uh
of coaches and yeah true this was my Approach but for the average person yes they don't have time or
inclination to find out about all this it takes a lot of time and and effort and everything so
the average person yes you have a trainer um to help you with your training and the diet I think
is a good thing but it's a bit of a uh how do we say you know there's a lot of bad trainers
out there yeah and a lot of people who's I see trainers in I don't spend so much time here but
in England you got some young guy who did a course you know he did a course for a few months even I
couldn't believe it there's a coaching uh company in UK they do everything online yeah I say so you
you certify your coaches online You' never even seen him he's never even been in front of you and
lift it away no no it's just videos so a lot of people with a with a piece of paper saying they're
coaches uh I would look at what experience they have what is a good trainer for you I
mean what should we look for uh when uh an average person like me looks for a trainer
I mean what should I look for I would look for somebody with some track record some experience of
you know helping people and uh getting the results and um you know also is a little bit of psychology
mhm to get the most out of people to try to keep the motivation going and everything like that so
uh and nutrition of course a trainer should also know about nutrition unless you're going to get a
nutritionist as well but ideally because if you train correctly but you don't have the
nutrition it won't work vice versa you need both together because when you go to the gym you're not
building muscles in the gym you're damaging them you're breaking them down you're you're causing
stress yeah afterwards the compensation process is where the the growth takes place but this takes
materials you don't BR build a house without bricks and without concrete mhm so no point to
remodel your house oh I want a nicer bigger house so I'll knock this wall down and knock this wall
down but you don't have the bricks to to rebuild the walls yeah so you have to have the training
and the nutrition together goes hand in hand so preferably somebody that knows about both
of those subjects would would be ideal yeah okay um so you told me you of course in your position
you didn't need a trainer you was your own coach your own trainer you studied you you had that uh
that drive inside and the belief you had that it will happen plus they didn't exist there was no
personal trainers yeah okay yeah there wasn't any but I I you know I wouldn't I'm not very coachable
yeah because I mean I I can learn from people I used to learn from a lot of people and get all
the information and and then trial it out uh and and see if it works for me but ultimately I had
to make the decision I do this or I don't do this and uh when I win the contest or I don't win the
contest is me I don't say oh I had the wrong coach or the I get the wrong advice ultimately you're
the competitor you're responsible for everything yeah so that's that's the way I think you know
you know what what I mean is like when I was young at um uh 11 12 my my father took me to
the gym for the first time and it was kind of the gym we say the Cartier it was like average
gym will where uh the guys were gather Gathering and train we had no trainers there so it was a
proper gym as you yeah you encourage each other and all that stuff and that was so cool I mean
I was going from from like one post to other and everybody was uh giving advises to uh to
everyone and he was like Hey that that move is not good you have to keep your you you have to
stay like that show your uh show your spectrals and make the move like that you know and everybody
everybody everybody was sharing knowledge also uh yeah yeah you had those uh those uh guys that was
like heavy lifting and screaming and stuff like that so it was raw and real I kind of
is that now because now when I go to the gym yeah I love that this is a fitness trainer
uh fitness facility yeah we have a nice Spa we have AC uh we have water everybody everything
is clean but it's really sterile you either sometimes it's too comfortable you know yeah
and back then as well it was more like um it was a more male environment mhm it was like a man's
club yeah at least my gym was we had some ladies coming but rarely yeah it was not a lot you know
yeah was not a lot and would have baggy baggy sweatpants on baggy tops nowhere you know you
go in the gym now the girls the half naked M oh cool if you want to look but not really the best
when you're lifting weights I don't want to see that but yeah it's a different environment now
because many more people go to the gym mhm but I don't think uh I I actually think there's less
people that are doing bodybuilding than they were doing in the 80s and 90s yeah bodybuilding per se
now it's people going to the gym for fitness and uh you know a lot of fashion with the clothes
and all this stuff uh it's kind of a lifestyle thing now that that people follow yeah and uh
I everything changes nothing stays the same but you know I look back on those days with Nostalgia
when it was just a you know hardcore lifting gym and a a male environment a boys place you know
type of uh that's how my club was anyway we only had like 100 120 members but serious everybody
came down even if they were not competing that was the atmosphere and this is what I talk about the
the Gym's now a little sterile where you where you would go in the gym in the past and you would feel
the energy and hear the music and you see people lifting and wow the energy has hit you as soon
as I'm gonna train yeah let's go now you're going in the gym and it's nothing it's uh it's like in
a doctor's office or something yeah that's true I can't no atmosphere I didn't notice that until
you told me because yeah that that that's how the gym was was before I mean I'm I I'm so proud that
my my my father took me to the gym and I saw that you know and that was really that energy I was not
in that energy mood because I was like 12 11 12 I just learned to lift weights properly at this age
you know but right now yeah everybody's like on the phone making some moves once in two minutes
and they're not getting results I I really go to a gym and I see people in there actually was with
my wife about a year ago we went back to UK in Birmingham and we wanted to train do some cardio
so we went to one of these big Fitness Gyms where you have to get a code online and put it in the
thing and there's no human there you know and we're in the gym I don't know it's like 30 40
people in there right yeah I say to my wife look have you ever been in a gym where everybody in
in the gym looks like they don't go to the gym it's like yeah it's what it's like I mean what
are you doing in there guys it's you know bit of cardio or something maybe I don't know but
uh young guys uh is different from from my day you know it's like I don't know you're a young guy me
and you we're friends I want to see if I can lift more weight than no I lift more weight than you
and then you got another friend and it's like that is is that kind of uh male competitiveness
we had you know I'm thinking now I have something like that like uh one of my friends he's also the
director of uh the TV show that uh I'm the host of it's medicol it's like the biggest medical TV show
in we have in Romania and the director his name is Vladimir deminsky he is one of my friends from the
high school uh and now he's director he's director of the TV show this this is yeah so we have this
medical TV show that we do a lot of research about health and stuff like that right so we are making
some competition but even like we are a bit shy to compete on who's uh who can lift more weight but
we are competing like hey look what Shake I've did this morning look how many vegetables I have here
then he s me pictures of look I stood 30 minutes uh uh uh after my my swimming I stood 30 minutes
on the sun with my feet uh on the ground like that's that's how guys in each other you know
I still do it with my friends they still love that now I do like a you know rowing machine or
something you know how fast can you do 500 meters or 1,000 meters I still do it with my friends hey
what's your time I I'm my friend in England what's your time now he's the same age as me you know so
we still have that little competitive thing going on that's cool that's cool yeah so okay let's get
back to Hey listen it's great that you're a doctor yeah yeah and you're concerned with health and
diet and all the other things which does it not come with your training right yeah I don't know
about in Romania but I know in England yeah we have no we train I think a doctor does one one day
one day on nutrition yeah we have two hours of nut this crazy yeah so it's great that you're looking
into you know uh let's say non- pharmaceutical means uh of helping people to be healthy not
that Pharmaceuticals don't have their place but uh I mean they they don't make you healthy maybe
they help you fix some problem but let's try to not have the problem in the first place minimize
it doct the doctors don't make you uh healthy the Pharmaceuticals the pharmaceutical yeah because
like doctors we are trained to uh to fix disease or to keep you alive with the disease but not to
prevent it no we we we we are not trained to do that no and I think we I don't I mean people think
that's what I think people think that doctors should kill keep you keep you healthy that's not
our job no I mean that like people get sick then they go and they seek doctor's advice then nobody
comes to the doctor at here like 20 years old and say hook look tell me what should I eat how should
I train what should I do to stay healthy nobody cares preventative medicine yeah nobody cares the
problem at least now people start to care and this is what like Peter is is calling that medicine
3.0 and probably we're going to have I'm have a podcast with him in uh few weeks time really yeah
he's coming on to my podcast tell him tell him that I salute him he doesn't know me but I I watch
I watch his podcast in the middle of reading his book at the moment yeah this is so cool yeah this
is medicine 3.0 so so he's a doctor he he quits medicine and he actually he quits uh his clinical
um job and right now he's uh he is doing medicine 3.0 that means he tries he he helps people
prevent but there's no science uh and no training facilities for that probably we're going to have
that in um in short time well there's financial reasons for all this you think so also so why
would you want to prevent somebody from getting a disease that would then mean that they won't
use your product later on yeah that's true but by the other uh like by by the other hand you yeah I
think it's everybody's own drive you you need to understand that and you want to like you uh
you need to want that prevention for yourself and I think there there's an industry for that also I
mean it's growing it's growing um of course pharmaceutical companies make pharmaceutical
so yeah and that's what they stud they invested in that all right exactly yeah and I mean you
you have diseases you want to treat you make the studies they are so I mean the studies are very
very expensive like if you make a study and that bill doesn't work nobody's going to give you the
money back I mean you lost the money so that's why they they to have a return yeah yeah but they get
pharmaceutical businesses have a good return yeah but in the end like if you think like if you are a
big boss of pharmaceutical company and your like your main income is from selling uh a pill that
keeps you alive with the disease and then you you have another pill that cures the disease will you
sell it will you keep it for yourself to make profit if a CEO own is is the you there to make
the maximum profit so whatever that is of course would be the long-term treatment of course so uh
if you're a CEO of a pharmaceutical company then yeah I understand that but it's up to us you know
and that's what's slowly happening yeah um that people are becoming aware all this information is
getting out there and um then people need less Pharmaceuticals M and then maybe they have to
change their approach a little bit yeah I always say to people look um you know McDonald's for
instance to use as an example yeah if everybody or the majority of people say hey I'm not going
to buy that anymore M because it's poisonous it's [ __ ] I'm not going to buy it and this
gets momentum McDonald's have two choices go out of business yeah or change change their strategy
and give people more healthy food which is which is what they want I guess so it's uh people will
make the difference you know by their own by our choices things will change eventually that
probably we need more generation of people too to make that choice we do what we can do man you know
and the information's coming out and uh this is the good thing about the internet in I know can be
bad as well information information but it's out there and people are being more motivated yourself
about it Peter attia um uberman who's a biologist a lot of information coming out so people are
taking a different approach once they get the information and here's the thing uh it's about
quality of life mhm yeah not just staying alive not just being uh alive it's about the quality
of life it's about how do you feel how do you function um I'm in my 60s but I feel great I
have some little injuries from my sports career but doesn't really bother me that much but apart
from that I feel great I get up in the morning I feel great I eat a good diet I exercise I keep my
body as good as I can and so I have a quality a good quality of life and I'm trying to keep
that as as long as I can it's not about to live to 120 years or something if the last 30 years
of your life you can't uh you can't move and you can't function and have a good quality of
life so I think that's what people people are realizing now is about the quality of life and
yeah you could if you have diabetes you could take insulin but maybe it could just also stop eating
carbs not take the insulin which is what used to be recommended in whatever before they made
the insulin right just don't need carbs yeah that's true I I'm very curious about what you
do now to have a good quality of life but before that I would like to like take it chronologically
and talk to ask you about your method of training and because you was your own coach you was doing
your own research yeah I think you was not the only one that had the drive the belief that you
can achieve your goals there were was were like many other guys probably that had the drive and
the belief but what what made the difference that made you Mr Olympia six times in a row what what
was like the different approach or the thing that you discovered that helped you in your training
and your your press well as I said I did a lot of reading whatever bodybuilding magazine uh
magazines I could get and people used to donate them I had a big collection unfortunately got
destroyed in a flood had something like last night in Spain one day and came in the basement and had
to throw them all away so it's it's a shame but uh I came across uh Mike mener who was a
Mr Universe and um controversially didn't win the Mr Olympia in 1980 where Arnold Scher won it but
anyway I was very impressed with the the writing of Mike mener and about high intensity training
and the logic which came really from Arthur Jones is a guy that had the Nautilus machines
in the early 70s and it's the first guy to really ask a lot of questions and get the answers about
what is it muscle growth what you know why is it happening what's causing it um and he discovers it
the intensity of the exercise yeah so it's the intensity where you you push that muscle within
parameters of uh you know bodybuilding training which is usually whatever 8 to 12 repetitions over
the exercise it's really how much time is under tension but we use that as a guide repetitions um
and pushing that to the point a maximum in in a set that that's the key so uh you could do let's
say a set well it's below Your Capacity let's say you could do eight rep uh you could do 10
reps with with a certain weight yeah but you stop at seven or eight you don't go to 10 or 11 you go
seven or eight is not enough intensity oh yeah but I do more volume it's not enough intensity
you know you could do this uh Mike men used to use an analogy which I like you know it's like if you
have a stick of dynamite and you hit it with a pencil it doesn't go off right yeah why the
impact is not enough the intensity is not enough yeah so if you tap the dynamite with a pencil and
it doesn't go off if you tap it the second time and the third time and the 100th time will it
go off no because the intensity is not enough but you hit it one time with a hammer yeah boom
message sent job done so my training was when I started three times a week or an hour okay okay
when I was Mr Olympia it was maybe four times a week or an hour okay so I Mr Olympia the best
bodybuilder in the world and I didn't spend more than four hours a week lifting weights come on I
spent more in a gym yeah but you didn't train with me after half an hour you want to go home because
it will be that intense and that hard trust me I had guys train with me for half an hour and they
feel nauseous they feel sick and they want to go home what do you do go home okay go home sleep eat
rest when you're when you're in the gym you're just damaging you're breaking down fibers and
then it's like U muscle growth is a reaction to stress yeah okay why do why do you get some color
when you go in the sun because the sun is coming the ray is stressful for your skin so it produces
melanin to protect itself from this future exposures to the sun that's it yeah same thing
in the gym you're lifting weights you're putting stress on the muscle it's not used to it's got to
compensate it's got to get a bit bigger and a bit stronger so next time the stress won't be so much
and it's continually increasing the stress so okay I'm going take you to the gym we're going to do
a chest workout yeah okay it's it's nice to do it like this because I can talk about it but hey yeah
what does it mean what are we really doing here yeah it's okay let's go for a chest workout you do
a little warm up in a gym whatever five minutes on a bike or across just to get your body temperature
up okay uh we might do some light movements just for the shoulders the surrounding areas we're
warming up yeah okay let's go to First exercise let's do incline pressure okay I'll say to mik
what do you think you can do eight reps with your maximum maximum oh I think I can uh bench
press 100 kilos okay so let's start with the 50 kilos okay warm up set easy 50% of this estimated
maximum okay you do one set rest minute minute and a half we do another set now with around 70 to 7
5% of your projected so these two sets are warming up mhm they're getting your your um nervous system
used to the movement they getting blood in the muscle it's warming up it's preparation yeah
okay now we're going to take the 100 kilos okay on the third rep yeah on the third set take the
100 kilos and I'm going to watch you yeah I'm going to be close to the bar and you're going
to push and I'm going to shout and you're going to push you're going to P you're going to get to the
point where you cannot you can't do anymore then I'm I'm going to help you a little bit to complete
that rep then we say m come on one more one more and you're going to again give your maximum effort
but it's failing it's failing but I help you a little bit so we're going just past failure yeah
then you put the weight down okay we finished with this exercise now we go to a second machine press
we already warmed up all the muscles in but it's a different angle let's say it's flat now where
we gone from incline to flat so we do one set to warm up the 70% the medium one yeah we just do
that there's not point to do the first one we do it we warm up same thing we go to failure but this
time you're on a machine so it's controlled yeah not like the free weight yeah so you go to this
point again to failure I kind help you a little bit and then I might even bring it to the top
and you lower it down because we have three phases of strength in an exercise at the pushing we only
have two because there's no resistance at the top but let's say there's a resistance at the top the
lifting of the weight which everyone is thinking about this is the weakest part of the movement
okay yeah so even if you failed here ah I can't do anymore yeah but you could lower more because
the negative failed you can put more weight to do to do a negative you can yes that's why you should
always slow it down when you're doing an exercise M more explosive slow it down more explosive slow
it why because we're trying to we're trying to text this part of the movement yeah so you
failed here but I can get the weight and lift it to the top okay lower it I'll lift it to the top
you lower it so even though you failed positively we can do a couple of extra reps maybe negatives
and and I love so we gone past failure now yeah we've done two sets yeah move on now we're going
to do dumbbell flies same thing one warm-up set one set to failure so you also it's one one so
it's not four usually when I go for the chest I I do four four four four sets they wasting a lot
of time and energy yeah I lost a lot of time yeah because those warm-up sets are warm-up
yeah they're within your capacity if something is within your capacity it will not change you please
listen people if you can lift whatever let's say 20 kilos for eight reps you can go to the gym for
the rest of your life and do this weight for eight reps and nothing will change yeah nothing will
change because why your body wants to keep status quo you know it wants to keep balance it doesn't
want to build excessive amounts of muscle you got to and after the first year in the gym or the year
and a half this is my observation I see people that go to the gym they make some progress for
the first year because the body's not used to it yeah so even the training is a bit ineffectual if
you've never done a push-up if you do 10 push-ups it will work yeah but pretty soon you're doing 15
and 20 and it's not really working anymore so you got to be always pushing it and always Progressive
and um this type of training I do for about six weeks and then I would do maybe two weeks lighter
training to like Del load let the nervous system and the joints relax a bit mentally six how would
you say six weeks six weeks this is a guideline because you have to listen to your body but six
weeks of all out training getting one more rep getting stronger going up going up you get to uh
kind of reach a plateau you know and then you go back down train Light Within Your Capacity you're
resting your nervous system resting your joints a little bit in your mind even so you make for like
three times a week for one hour when for the chest for example you you said we've been at
this the third exercise you just do one uh to warm up War up and then one out okay and you
got to focus you know you got to feel it you got to lift the weight you got to slow it on
the way down you know you got to put everything into this set and uh I don't know guys please
leave your phones at home or at least in the locker yeah in the locker like you shouldn't be
looking you should be just here and even for your mind this is beneficial to leave the electronics
and you have this hour in the gym which is just you and your body and your focus and it's like
a meditation if you're deep into training you forget about everything else you forget about
your job your bills your relationship whatever you're just in the workout and this is great for
your mind because you need a break from all this uh information all the time these days so I see
training there's a kind of meditation as well that you so you're training three times a week
what should we do uh chest shoulders triceps take a day off back biceps take a day off wait chest
shoulders triceps push chest and shoulders in the same day yeah triceps uh ah chest shoulder triceps
you do that in the same same day yeah yeah why not you know why uh why not because uh like until now
it took so much time to do four four four as I said you're wasting a lot of time and energy I
mean I can make you're doing four four4 but the only sets which is really possibly counting is
the last set on each exercise right the other ones are in Your Capacity so you're just spinning your
wheels body is used to this yeah why you don't need three warm-up sets and if you do incline
press and then you do flat press is the same muscles it just changed the direction a little bit
so okay do one one one just to get the movement just to get everything and then go it's so cool
I I hope I'm going to start to grow again like I like I did in the first year when I let's find out
let's find out um and one thing I want to address because a lot of people bring this up and it's
totally the wrong way around yeah oh yeah that's okay you only train for one hour four times a week
because you're on steroids yeah yeah a competitive bodybuilding will be on steroids but steroids what
do they do help your recovery ability yeah right so if you're a natural bodybuilder who's not
taking steroids and you train hard you cannot train more than three or four times a week you
won't recover so what you have is professional bodybuilders take steroids and they train six
times a week it's not ideal yeah it's too much but they can recover because of uh the help that they
get from the from the steroids to recover but I was like I would rather do the most effective
training unusual steroids together rather than using the steroids to overcompensate for some
ineffective training that's the way I see it and if you're not taking steroids which I don't
recommend unless you you know have some ambition to really compete at a good level maybe um you're
not going to recover try to do Ronnie Coleman's training see what happens you get smaller because
you will not recover from the stress you're breaking down breaking down not building up
that's true yeah breaking down breaking down so you can't do that guys if you're training three
times a week try this so try it for a month I will try so the first day is chest shoulders triceps
yeah and you can see for chest we did seven sets total seven sets yeah we did three sets
right two and two yeah that's it oh yeah that's it seven okay okay shoulders overhead press two
sets Naturals two sets triceps push down two to three sets uh lying extension mhm two sets of
course if you write it on a paper it looks like nothing every time I come to the guys and they
train with me I said what do we do six seven sets so yeah but if I told you we're going to do six
or seven sets and I wrote it on a piece of paper what is this this is nothing yeah looks easy it
looks easy but it's the intensity that you have to put into it not the volume if it was the volume
I would be in the gym all day I was best professional bodybuilder in the world if
it required me to be in the gym 10 hours a day I would have been in the 10 hours a day I would eat
dog [ __ ] whatever it required I would have done it but it doesn't require bodybuilding is not an
endurance sport it's short intense training and overload so I I've did this sets chest
shoulders triceps back biceps and legs back and biceps is another workout it's back and B back
uh okay and how many said seven seven I would do for back one pullover movement which you try
to isolate the lats with so that's your first movement you're probably going to do three sets
do a couple of warm-ups and a failure and then um pull Downs with a close grip reverse grip
to the chest maybe two sets on there uh barbell row mhm two sets cable row two sets Okay and uh
biceps two exercises two exercises that's it yeah how many you how many how many exercises you do
for coughs I usually skip the the legs day and that's not a joke like I mean yeah it's a joke
that's the hardest day that's the most productive day yeah really yeah because you're working the
biggest muscles in your body and it has a knock on effect like a dropping a stone in a pool so if you
just did Legs squats let's say your arms would also grow a little bit okay because it's like
a systemic effect yeah yeah so the stress from training the legs is the most beneficial workout
you can do of course it's the toughest yeah but the reason I asked you how many exercises you do
for calves is because I said two exercises for biceps and you seem to be surprised which is a
normal reaction what biceps the most the muscle that everyone shows the most but yeah but what
does it do it only has two functions bend the arm and yeah supernate the wrist yeah how many
exercises do you need so I see guys they want to do four exercises for biceps but they don't
do anything for coughs or they do one or two yeah but you have two muscles here the gastrus
and have the cus underneath you have two muscles so you need at least two exercises in order to
exercise this muscle right at least two why don't do three or four because it's coughs people don't
think about it it's this is the muscle that you associate with hey I've got muscle since you're
a kid right so yeah people tend to want to do more for biceps but why it's like one of the smallest
muscles in the body with a very simple function two exercises if you don't do it forget it you
know okay yeah I got well three times a week I can do legs also yeah you do legs once a week
you do once a week on the third on the third day I do legs and leg extensions isolation followed
by compound movement leg press or squat mhm which one you know uh suits your structure better some
people don't feel with a squat they feel it in the back and and things like that and maybe they
better with a leg press yeah um and then the third one I would do hack squats okay very deep isolated
and so three exercises for quads MH um two for hamstrings like a leg curl and maybe a stiff
legged deadlifts or rdl's as people call them now uhhuh uh and two for coughs you need one with the
leg straight okay to to work the gastonis which is the main calf muscle that we see and underneath
this lies the stos mhm and this works best when they're 45° so seated C Raaz is the only one that
really hits that properly so you need at least two exercises to hit the whole calf okay and in
the legs day I do only the legs yeah yeah and uh what what what would you say about about the apps
I would say if you're lean enough you'll see them if you want to do some exercises fine but I had
abs before I started so I'm not I don't I only did a little bit before competition basically if your
body Fat's low enough uh your abs are engaged in a lot of this stuff so if you want to do some AB
training uh crunches and maybe hanging hanging leg raises on the tun okay uh but mainly it's uh it's
it's a matter of having low body fat if you have low body fat I can take a guy on the street who
never trained in his life if he has low body fat it will'll see his abdominals MH that's
true yeah yeah so it's just a sign of that you're in shape you know I I I never really did that much
abdominal training yeah okay so yeah that that's that's kind of achievable but you need you need
a partner yeah to help you ideally you would train with a partner or or a coach yeah yeah because you
need somebody there to to spot you and to make sure that you're doing it correctly and like I
mean you're doing incline press with the barbell if you're on your own can you go to failure no
because you could get stuck with a bar it's a safety thing yeah so if you're on your own I mean
you can go to failure safely on a machine yeah that's true so you could use more machines um or
you could do um let's say a drop set you know you go as many as you can and then reduce the weight
maybe 25% and go again to you could do you could do that um but if you're really focusing and you
know and you're slowing down the negative and you go to failure for most people there going to be
enough MH and if you have a training partner there that can really like that's great I always like to
train with somebody else and uh I like the energy as well between two people that were pushing each
other and we had a similar goals I used train with people when I was bodybuilding that were
competitors MH okay yeah I mean amateur competitors I didn't train with another
Pro because it was not another Pro where I lived and probably if you're a professional then you
have your own you know your own agenda and you don't want to train with another professional
as your competitors uh but I trained with guys that competed on the British level MH okay uh
what about so we talked about um weightlifting what about cardio do you do any anything for for
that uh I when I was bodybuilding yeah on those days off I would do like half an hour moderate
moderate cardio is just really walking fast or walking fast stationary bike stuff like that
cuz my idea was like just to do some cardio to get uh you know blood around the system and keep
some level of cardio conditioning 30 minutes yeah but I didn't do intense cardio and then when I was
getting ready for a competition would do like an hour and a half a day why ah to get rid of to burn
body fat like 45 minutes in the morning 45 minutes in the evening that would be fast walking or or a
bike just as a calorie burning exercise okay not intense because if you go very intense with the
cardio then you can interfere with your recovery from the weights and at the end of the day if
you're doing bodybuilding it's bodybuilding it's not uh insurance training yeah you know you have
to be specific with the demands that you put on your body what do you want from it uh if you want
to some strength yeah and some cardio and everything yeah cool mix it up probably for
the average person that's good but for me it was specialized training it was just the for
muscle mass but what what would you recommend for an average person that well I I'll tell you
what I do now um so for me my goal with the weight training is really like more or less to maintain
the muscle that I have yeah and not irritate the injuries which I have so I don't lift that much
weight and I do once a week upper body once a week lower body so I do twice in the gym okay
I do twice a week uh interval cardio now this is going to sound like nothing but trust me this is a
hell on Earth yeah how how is that is that I do uh the the most ideal equipment for me is the assault
bike you know the one where it has a handle so you're pushing and pulling at the same time yeah
and you're doing the legs elal yeah no no it's the air bike it's called um uh I think uh Rogue
make One MH they're not even expensive but the thing is why I like to use this is because you're
pushing and pulling so you're engaging all the upper body yeah yeah and the lower body and when
you go all out on this so I would do a little warm-up couple of minutes on there you know mhm
and then I would do a 20 seconds absolute all out crazy burst on there and then I would do a
minute easy and then I'll do 20 second bust and then I do a minute easy and a 2 so three
or four intervals it takes you like eight minutes yeah but if you do it properly is like uh it feels
like leg day when you're going to do it you're like oh no not that again you know even now I
feel a little bit bit nervous if I do that because the time you do that fourth interval in fact most
people I I do the first time they can make it to the fourth one and I do three or four intervals
okay so the whole thing is like eight minutes yeah and there have been studies on this on the
changes in the V2 Max using this or 45 minutes of regular cardio yeah the same okay 458 minutes
and 45 minutes I'd rather do eight minutes okay and push the heart rate right at like 160 165 or
something I get up to okay so I do that twice a week yeah yeah and then I do what I'll call
two longer sessions yeah so I go mountain biking okay and I go hiking oh cool so bit you know some
walking some biking there's beautiful mountains in Spain biking is very popular there because it's
beautiful outside you live in Spain now I live in Spain yeah so there's good mountain roads there I
can do mountain bikes um so to sum it up I do some resistance training although it's not my priority
now because I did it all my life so now it's just to maintain as I get older to maintain the muscle
I do high intensity cardio maybe twice a week and I do lower lower intensity maybe twice a week
and also do um Lattis or yoga once a week which is more for the flexibility and Mobility yeah what
okay uh pil right now I'm doing Pilates because I have a hip problem and the yoga irritates it and
pilates is very controlled with the with the bench the reformer bench yes this is important because
uh you can increase the resistance where if you're just doing stretching with your body you just got
your body weight but with the reformer bench you got Springs on there so once it get easy
you can add the resistance you would you recommend that yeah for I mean I'll tell you my attitude
towards it yeah you know I was super hardcore Macho bodybuilder right so I saw Jay Cutler
doing Pilates that's gay man what are you doing that for you know like yeah and then later on I'm
doing yoga I'm doing Pilates because um you know I'm in a different stage of my life with different
requirements so what do I require I require not to be too heavy because as you get older that's not
good right so I brought my body weight down uh and it require muscle mass and strength cardiovascular
fitness flexibility and Mobility so I like to take all all the boxes MH would you recommend
some Pilates if you could to the Doan Gates 30 30 years ago no definitely I would do it once a week
because you're working uh on keeping your range of motion um because you lose range of motion
when you lift weights you know because we're only moving this and this we don't you don't turn a
lot of things so you get kind of limited and you know you see your bodybuilders walk is like this
you're very limited with your range of motion so um I wanted to have uh you know to be able to do
the splits and uh everything like I want to be good in all the areas not MH competitively it's
just for me I I compete with myself and I like to have these little challenges you know yeah
so cool yeah so uh so nice to hear that from you I love to get up and do something physical every
day I look forward to go to the gym or go for a hike or ride my bike I mean if you don't exercise
I I don't know how you survive man I really don't know how you people function without exercising I
I it makes you feel so much better physically and mentally I'm like how do people go through life
and they're not I can't imagine it not training and being overweight and and feeling [ __ ]
most people feel [ __ ] but they don't know they feel [ __ ] because they never felt good now they
get used to it you know the problem is that you have to like you you get used to the feeling uh
of your body without exercise and then when you start to exercise you feel even worse at the first
like two or three months you get your tired mus muscle sore and stuff like that so you you have
to sleep more you start to eat more you start to eat better because your body starts asking
for what reiring so you need to go through a shittier period then you start to feel better
and better and better and your body starts to ask for exercise exactly ask for your brain is asking
for it yeah you know um we live in this world which is great we have all this technology and
and everything which is we don't want to go back to the Dark Ages yeah right um but we miss we miss
something somehow with all that we miss you know the human body functions optimally the human body
the human mind functions optimally under stress okay we were we were designed to function best
under stress you know we had to hunt for food we had to so now we don't really have this stress
of you know exercise is beneficial stress hortic stress is a stress which optimizes your body uh
some things I do as well is like heat sauna sauna is very beneficial it's stressful right yeah cold
is beneficial why it's stressful so in order for you to feel really good mentally and to function
at your highest level with your mind and and your body and everything you have to go through stress
and the stress has been removed from life you know you get a uber you go here you you go online
there's not people don't have to exercise and they're not naturally under stress we're not going
outside now and and it's cold all the time we have air con we have heating um so you need to be under
some stress to really feel good it's like free drugs you know yeah you know you can go buy some
cocaine and it will put your dopamine up and then it will crash down and you'll feel like [ __ ] and
you've paid money for it or you can go to the gym and exercise your dopamine or go in the cold your
dopamine will go up and will be like this all day and it's free you just need to make some efforts
you know so it's a a way to change your brain chemistry it's a way to relieve depression it's a
way to make the body optimize itself and we don't have all these uh diseases that we're getting now
uh diabetes type two diabetes shouldn't exist yeah it shouldn't exist it's just a bad diet and
a lack of exercise yeah it could not exist yeah if if you follow a lot of things shouldn't uh
you know um and that's the thing that I'm talking about quality of life especially as you're getting
older now you can have a much better quality of life when I was a kid a guy of 60 it's finished
man is with a stick it's finished yeah now you know yeah I'm hoping that I'll still be doing what
I'm doing in when I'm in my 70s that's my goal to be able to function and uh very well into a later
age and if you've got muscle mass and you've got cardio and you're not sick you're going to enjoy
your life a lot more and I'm going to be able to spend more time with my grand son and uh all
these things which is more important now you're 62 now right yeah yeah you look amazing 62 yeah
and yeah actually you know I was uh talking with a friend lately uh like if you try to
remember how people were uh were looking like or how you were related to them uh when we were young
you know when I was in a kindergarten and a father of 35 years old were coming to pick up
my colleague from the kindergarten he was looking like a proper adult with problems with like with
like unhealthy looking you know old he was looking old like and I I'm looking now to my friends which
are 35 years 40 years old and we kind of I don't know we look like kids still yeah and yeah like
people a different lifestyle a lot of things you know knowledge we have that people didn't uh you
know my my father died at 42 years old yeah because uh he didn't sleep very much mhm uh
he smoked 40 cigarettes a day yeah and uh then I had a stepfather he died 44 okay so you know
um but people didn't know then about vitamin D3 like uh uh supplements that could enhance your
immune system and so on yeah and um exercise was kind of a bit wasn't really popular true yeah uh
to do exercise and uh knowledge of nutrition and all this we we didn't have it then mhm uh and now
it's easily available at the click of fingers you can Google anything you want well you want
to find out about something click if I wanted to find out about something when I was starting
bodybuilding I have to go to the bookstore yeah exactly or the library yeah now you have this I I
can't go online and order a book even I'm going to go there on a bus to the center of town and go to
the bookstore and look in there and see what they have and you cannot even check if what you read in
that magazine is true because you don't have this all there's no reference there's nobody counter
claiming or anything like that yeah you said about sonab and about the stress you have to like this
positive stress you have to deliver to your to your body so we have a material a vlog about
Sona and I was researching that and like my only reason to make that research is was because people
were asking me if you really detox in the sound or not and I took some like maybe four or five
meta anal analysis and I started to read them and I was oh my God this is amazing how many things
are changing like your blood pressure in the first session goes down by 10 mm uh um then your uh your
arteries start to open to make like new arteries yeah your your heart starts to pumping more uh
more blood in the same way it's it works when you exercise so basically in the studies like just SAA
have almost the same benefits of sports and then when you think and you add the sauna to the sport
like I was before that Vlog I was like going to the sauna just to relax from time to time now I
now even like if I'm in the recovery day and I want to ask you about the rest and Recovery when
I'm in in recovery day I go to the gym like especially to to enter the SAA and I feel how
good it is perfect yeah I go four or five times a week really how much time I have a sa at home oh
my God that's well I get the temperature up around 90 plus yeah uh 20 25 minutes is like pretty tough
20 minutes yeah in one in one SE yeah I go up high high as I can so in the hot yeah but you say for
30 minutes like from the beginning to the end yeah like one one session one session yeah normally
I do one session 20 to 25 minutes I I try to sit for like 5 to 10 minutes where it's getting really
uncomfortable like to feel uncomfortable yeah that yeah okay yeah and then I get then I get out
and take the cold shower yeah that's cool that's so cool I mean you like like that that's in the
studies I've read that was the target like to say to have like four to five session a week ideally
yeah yeah IDE we're reading the same information yeah but the also uh the effects for depression
is very encouraging it affects everything like depression uh Alzheimer disease risk uh how long
you live uh the uh the stroke risk it's all about blood flow you know if you can get blood around
the body it's healing and bringing nutrition and this is uh is dilating all the vascular
system you get more blood flow as you say and uh something I read uh very interesting recently is
about the microplastics MH which is a big problem now I mean we're surrounded by Plastics right you
know that the 18-year-old man now 18y old has something like 50% of the testostrone from 40
years ago yeah I've read about that yeah I think microplastics is a lot to do with this it can be
yeah anyway apparently it's pretty much the only way to like detox yourself from micro
is yeah yeah this recently I read about that yeah we might want to look into that that's cool yeah
yeah one more reason to go to the SAA and about uh uh I was saying about resting and recovery so
we've talked about let's say three days of going to the gym yeah pushing to the max then you said
you have to rest to recover what's what's the best way to recover and to rest well you got to
get sufficient nutrition this the building blocks that we're talking about yeah okay so that's one
thing you need to have um sufficient protein mhm how much is sufficient um I always have to
convert to kilos because I still okay yeah work in pounds um but generally like one gram per pound is
a good guideline so what's that 2.2 per kilo yeah that's a lot so if you're 100 kilos try to get 200
grams a day 100 grams a day and what what's the best sources for that best sources first class
protein eggs number one uh beef chicken fish uh you know Dairy cheeses things like that and of
course supplementation whe protein MH um obviously I have a nutrition company I'm not saying it just
because of that you can go back you can find the earliest articles written about me from the 80s
and I've always been a supplement user and from day one I use a protein supplement because when
I started training I was working yeah I had one uh very heavy industrial job where we were going
to a factory and and clean it and the boss said it's an eight- hour shift officially but I don't
care if you were guys who just want to work your ass off and get out of here in five hours you can
do it I just you just do the job yeah yeah okay so you know doing that I'm a young guy I can't
really say to the other guys hey do your mind while I take a break and eat my chicken breast
and I don't think they would be so happy you know so I used to have a protein shake and it became
like for me to get that protein every day was difficult to eat eggs beef chicken so I always
use the protein supplement okay uh alongside it so yeah to get that amount of protein from solid food
can you do it you can mhm but it's difficult so uh high quality protein supplement is a
it's another good sauce you can you know I used to have two shakes a day pretty much when I was
uh when I was younger how many grams like 50 grams of protein in sh 50 grams in each Shake okay and
you since then you take your protein shake daily right yeah still do take like one way protein a
day because I only normally eat twice okay so I might eat twice with 50 grams of protein so that's
100 and then I have a shake it's like 150 so it's a bit below that level but I'm not trying to
build more I'm just kind of maintaining what what about sleep how much do you sleep or how
what's what's your sleeping you as a competitor I was religious about this really yeah yeah uh I
used to sleep eight hours at night and yeah I had the luxury of all day because I was professional
bodybuilder is what I did so I used to sleep two hours in the afternoon as well like every day 10
hours 10 hours you know it was it's like a baby right what does a baby do eat [ __ ] and sleep you
know because it's growing right so it's a little bit like that you know uh six meals a day six
meals a day non-negotiable how many eggs could you I used to have 24 a day really yeah 24 in those
days we had the wrong information that fat was bad yeah so we'd throw away most of the yolks like I'd
have 12 egg whites with two or three yellows mhm twice a day so 24 egg whites maybe six yolks yeah
but now I would say no don't do that have the fat is good have the cholesterol is good you
need it so yeah whole legs whole EGS is uh there's several ways to measure protein efficiency like
PR protein efficiency ratio yeah uh aou amino acid utilization mhm doesn't matter eggs are number one
yeah eggs are number one and then after that maybe beef I would say uh chicken whe protein
costage cheese fish I'm not a big fan of fish but it's a good first class protein if you like
it yeah what about carbs carbs uh that's your energy source yeah so uh depends on your goal
what you're trying to do of course if you're bodybuilding you need carbs if you're body
building uh I would was big on oatmeal I don't know what you call it here porridge oats we call
it in England yeah we call it over as I'm a big fan of yeah this I liked um rice sweet potato
some vegetables and fruits but mainly it was rice and oatmeal those are the two things that I used
a lot for my carbs sweet potatoes I liked as well okay what about supplements what what did you use
uh in the competition days what you using I was probably one of the Pioneers that had like on The
Cutting Edge of supplements I had early '90s was one company from Australia called Masashi and they
made powdered amino acids Branch chains eaas some different things like nobody had powdered amino
acids they used to send me so I used to use their VCA um and then you know creatine came
on the market mid mid 990s I think okay yeah um so I was using that one of the first ones to use
that actually I think the first people to use creatin in the UK was horse racing owners yeah
before athletes they were using in horses I mean you know how much money is in horse racing right
so uh and then a lot of the studies came from England as well from the University in L I think
on Creatine a lot of the studies came from there um and now you know we're 30 years on it's uh the
most studied uh and most effective supplement you can take for bodybuilding and more and more
information coming out on uh brain health and and different things like that so literally everybody
should take creatin yeah we have especially if you go to the gym you you should take creatine and
even if you don't go yeah we have a if you don't go there's benefits yeah but you should go I mean
yeah yeah exactly you should go I had research the same way I did the research about creating
it and I was like shocked about how many good uh how how how many good results you can have with
creatin in so many fields I mean if you watch that movie or if you studi the literature you
can find like you you you won't find one reason or one type of people that should
not take creatin only maybe if you have I don't know kidney damage let's say or if you have like
there are some people that have uh gastro interal intestinal symptoms and signs of creatin otherwise
there's like no reason to not take it you know very considering the amount of time it's been
around and the amount of people that's taken and the amount of studies that's on it that's
positive yeah this is like such a small negative yeah but still people have a misconceptions
for instance I was in a hotel last night and the guy you know you see my started asking me
about training and this and that and what to take I say protein and creatine to start with and then
you can move on to other things well the basics you know it's like yeah but I don't take creatine
because um I Heard it can damage your liver yeah I said no that's nonsense like I don't know where
you heard that but it's not correct doesn't damage doesn't you know like you said kidneys like you
have an existing kidney disease that'll be quite a few things that you you can't even eat a lot of
protein and so on yeah so in that case yeah a lot of things are not good but it wouldn't create the
problem yeah if you have this problem then there's certain things you have to avoid but it it's been
around so long and so many studies done it's it's just a great supplement the most beneficial single
one actually your your liver is producing creatin it makes creatin yeah and you uh so you said
protein creatin what what else uh did you take that time and I I'm curious amino acids I took
amino acids and uh primitive pre-workouts there was no Pre-Workout in those days so we just made
our own with a fedrin and caffeine which was illegal in those days ephedrine caffeine and
and lowd do aspirine okay why why aspirin uh it potentiates the the effects of the edrin and uh
some more fat burning so people used to use it as a pre-workout stimulant but also as a as a
fat burner and Elevate the metabolism for a period of time so it was very raw you know like they're
just stimulants yeah uh which is also overuse of stimulant is not good because you can burn
out your nervous system yeah so now it's much more sophisticated because I have compounds uh
now in my pre-workout Blood and Guts we have a really high dose of citrine which also has uh is
the one you got me yeah okay so we have a citrine malet which is has also great health effects for
blood flow you know blood flow and nitric oxide production is very important for your health but
also for the gym for a muscle yeah uh uh blood pump and everything like that we have uh so we
have that in there which helps your blood flow good for everything um we have bit alanine which
delays fatigue and you get that little thing sometimes some people don't like it uh and of
course you know green tea and caffeine and the stimulant base as well so there's a stimulant in
there but it's not solely stimulant and it's not very powerful harsh stimulant so it's a blood flow
fatigue delay uh Focus uh and so on so I mean we didn't have anything like that back in my day so
we just made our own kind of pre-workout yeah and what what are you using now I'm curious like what
I'm using now o how long do you have man you know I use uh I the protein yeah uh creatine I
take five grams a day daily yeah uh glutamine I use glutamine okay not so much for the recovery
and muscle protective I had a little um gastro problem like a reflux with acid and everything
and uh it helps actually I was with a doctor in the states who's like yourself you know he's a
doctor but he's more into like uh supplementation and hormones and everything like that and he
recommend I take the glutamine for that which I wasn't aware of then I read about it I was like
wow this is great for your uh stomach lining so I take that glutamine for that so maybe you
want to look into that the glutamine effect on the digestive system and repair mhm uh so
creatine and glutamine I take um Antoine NAC mhm uh this is this is another amazing supplement NAC
uh because it raises your glutathione level which is your master antioxidant uh so that's all around
good for everything detox your liver detox your lungs 600 milligrams twice a day mhm I also take
magnesium in a tablet and I take uh when I have a bath once a week I put liquid magnesium oil in
the bath and it's it goes trans dermal really yeah yeah mean you you get some um magnesium sufate oil
or you get the flakes you put it in your bath you're sitting there for 20 minutes man you'll
like really yeah yeah so what is that what kind of Mag magnesium magnesium chloride I think it is
and it goes through your skin yeah it's oil or uh you know flakes okay and you put it in the water
because magnesium Is Not Great absorption through your digestive system and this goes through your
skin turn It's s magnesio it's called in Romania it's magnesium salt yeah you you there two times
you have sulfate and another one there's two times of magnesium but the point is it goes through your
skin and it gets absorbed that way and you rest better after that yeah you feel better and uh
for some reason because have regular blood tests like three months everything uh I have a tendency
for my magnesium to go low uhhuh uh maybe from uh stress or something I don't know so I'm careful
with that supplement so that that's one I take um zinc okay I take zinc uh vitamin C uh vitamin
C what um General antioxidant has a lot properties no I take two 500 milligrams liposomal twice a day
if you take liposomal C you're going to absorb about 90% if you take regular it's maybe 20 25%
okay because it get destroyed in the digestive system MH and vitamin C has many many benefits
uh collagen production stress immune system okay um what else I take various B vitamins as well I
take quite a lot but it's more you know not solely for muscle building more for General Health yeah
okay you also you told told me about steroids you use them back days are you like doing any
um testosterone on replacement therapy nowadays I do trt because I have done trt since I was 40
years old mhm because of the bodybuilding and using the steroids it suppressed my own level
and uh I tried for a couple of years to get it but it was not getting up below the very low level and
of you know testosterone uh supplementation is uh as you get older is very beneficial for
your health and for your quality of life and uh but you have a doctor that follows your uh yeah
I have a anti-aging longevity uh doctor in Spain he keeps an eye on things so every three months
I do the test okay so it's just to keep it in the normal that's very important towards the last uh
quadrant of the normal range so high inside the normal range but on the higher level and then you
feel better you have a better quality of life uh I recommend anybody that's over 40 any guy
that's over 40 go check your testost mhm and not your overall testosterone your free testosterone
that's that's the important reading because you overall testerone can look normal uh but if you
have a high SG H uh sorry I forgot the term but basically takes it out of circulation yeah so the
relevant thing is how much free testosterone you have that's the test and normally I don't
know here but a lot of places they just give you your overall testosterone oh you're okay but they
didn't test your free testosterone which is in your bloodstream available yeah but for use so
this is the important level that you should check and it's yeah it's very important for and it's
getting to be an epidemic of low testosterone as we were saying earlier now younger guys have low
testosterone yeah but definitely if you're over 40 if you're in a good range hey leave it alone yeah
exactly but if it's low and it's suppressed then you might want to think about supplementing it
and uh if you got low testosterone and you put it to normal you're going to feel like a new man MH
like you know much better quality of life mentally you're going to feel better your
sex drive is going to be up the energy is going to be up you're going to be leaner you're going to
put on muscle easier all these things uh with with very little negative I mean what's negative is to
have a low testosterone all your life yeah this increase your chance of many diseases including
heart disease if you have low testosterone mhm of course if you have testosterone 20 times higher
than it should be because you're a professional bodybuilder that's not necessarily healthy but
I'm talking about a normal range I want to ask are there like beside this I mean you can speculate
that yeah maybe your testosterone is lower than normal because you used to it I suppressed it for
a long time you suppress it you you don't know how it would be if you did not maybe it would be
low as well I mean you you don't know it may be uh but are there like any uh other side effects
that you can feel now uh from using the terets uh in your competing days fortunately not no I mean
what negatives I did have that I didn't address at the time because I didn't know I mean I had a
I think I was the only guy that I know in England that even had a doctor that would do a blood test
because they were like no I'm not doing I'm not helping you that was their attitude yeah I'm not
helping you to do that because it's bad and you shouldn't do it okay yeah this was the attitude
but fortunately I had a doctor that was at least didn't prescribe anything for me but he said I'm
happy to do your blood test and you know uh so I had my blood pressure was too high okay you know
and uh now if somebody was taking steroids and their blood pressure was too high I would say
you need to medicate and bring it down but I was not advised to do that and I didn't think to do
that or want to take another medicine on top of the ones I'm already taking so it was high
while I was like competing was too high yeah okay and now it has a little tendency but it's
like 1305 so it's okay but that was one thing that I noticed and some of my readings was out
of the normal range but not you know liver enzymes were up a little bit uh kidney readings were up a
little bit but yeah it's all normal back to normal and you know I did an amateur career but I didn't
take like a lot of stuff during that time okay in the 80s so it was just really six seven years
that I was Mr Olympia that I was pushing it maybe not like the way the guys push it now push it even
more but I was pushing it a bit then when I was uh but hey was a calculated risk in my part because I
was uh you know I was earning quite a lot of money MH and being the best at what I did so I could
justify the risk to for me it was a calculated risk which I Justified and here I am fortunately
at 62 feeling very healthy and good and yeah you know nobody knows the future but uh uh and and
and here's the thing when I was bodybuilding I was bodybuilding only I was not drinking any alcohol I
was not uh you know doing anything else that was maybe bad for me I was not smoking cigarettes or
not doing anything so my lifestyle was very healthy apart from the possible negatives of
having a very high hormone level for five six years yeah there should be a balance yeah and
I mean would you like today would you recommend against using testosterone or steroids for like
average guys that go to the gym and they just want to be bigger that's what my advice is if they ask
me you know um because it's like AER go around does that make sense in Romanian I merry go around
it's a English expression when when you're in the you know the fun fair and they have all these
rides but they have the one that goes round and round with the little horses or whatever for the
kids and it just goes round and round and round and round yeah I say if you take steroids you
get on the Mero round uhhuh because you're going to take steroids you're going to feel good you're
going to progress you're going to get bigger you're going to get stronger but what's going to
happen when you stop taking them yeah you're going to lose all that oh no if I keep tra no I had so
many guys I'm going to do a course but then I'm going to stop and afterwards I'm going to train
hard and I'm going to keep it I'm like no you're not you're going to lose all of it yeah because
you're in this High hormone status and then you're going to drop back down and slowly over three or
four months you'll lose what you gained so what happens here the guys go back on MH and then they
don't want to come off because they don't want to now face this crash of physical mental you know
they're going to crash down uh so once you start using it it's like and this goes times 10 for
the women mhm a lot of women using steroids now a lot really a lot of women use steroids that don't
even compete man I mean it's crazy girls come to me and uh ah I want to lose a bit of weight you
know somebody tell me to take anavar or wistol you know what that is oh it's to lose weight
right like some derivative of a male hormone is a steroid and it could have side effects oh I
didn't know that like you know steroids is like mainstream now mhm when I was competing it was
competitive people that took steroids competitive powerlifters competitive bodybuilders yeah so on
it was not in the general public MH now it's like you can see musicians you can see actors you know
all all sports people uh use steroids now so if you're an average guy who is not going to compete
I would advise you not to take steroids because it's a temporary gain and you come off and you're
going to lose it and also you're not going to feel good and so on so that's why I say
once you get on the Mero round be careful because you don't want to get off and you stay on it you
know yeah don't get there and uh I I'm concerned about women's mental health MH that use steroids
because men have depression when they stop using because your levels are so low yeah how's it going
to be for women that don't even really produce hard you know very little testosterone so when
they take anabolics this is a big change a big change and what's going to happen when you stop
eventually when you get tired of doing bikini competitions or whatever it is because that's
how it they designed bikini competitions for women in bodybuilding mhm because the women were getting
too muscular in the bodybuilding and it was losing popularity so they made smaller classes MH I mean
the bikini with the idea was like it's a lady and you have a nice young girl with a nice Beach Body
MH and then you know one girl starts taking some stuff and she gets harder and she gets
rewarded yeah now it's like everyone you know so I don't know what they're going to do next
you know bikini minus bikini light or something okay H how does it affect the sexual life and
male and female yeah you know you're an animal man of course your sex drive goes up MH um your
drive for everything goes up you're aggress and your positivity all goes up so yeah that's why
there's a lot of uh divorces and separations in bodybuilding I guess yeah really that that's one
of one of the reasons it's a is a hazard yeah yeah yeah so I try to keep myself you know when
I was competing just gym home gym and you know I was a professional mhm but yeah of course it has
a positive effect on your sex life yeah H does it have negative effect when you quit yep what
goes up comes down right this the nature yeah so if you're going to Super physiological levels of
hormones from outside your body shuts down its own production why I'm going to make hormones
now it's coming from outside right then you take the outside Source away and nothing's happening
will will your production come back yeah possibly will your fertility be affected possibly will it
come back possibly I mean and I had my uh well I didn't have my my wife my ex-wife had our daughter
uh yeah was like I think she conceived around two years after I finished with everything MH
so you know my fertility bounced back but my actual testosterone level was like right
on the bottom so that's when I decided to you know I'm going to look into replacing it m yeah
good um yeah that was such a nice talk I really love your sincerity and your like
you're very pragmatic and like I I feel what you you you're saying in your message is so so
real and so uh so true so that's the only way I can be man and like and it's the only way to be
helpful with people it's not helpful if you if you're not honest and just this is what it is
yeah this is what it is you know um tell people the truth and it's the best uh the best medicine
what would you have what would be your like message this is my last question what would
be your your your recommendation to Today's Fitness and bodybuilding Community Fitness
bodybuilding anything doesn't matter the key is here the key is your mind yeah and uh we're much
more powerful than we think or that we've been led to believe yeah mhm our mind is the key and
what you put the focus on you you're bringing it to your to your reality you know like a magnet I
only thought about bodybuilding 24 hours a day I used to sleep and dream about workouts so yeah I
had the you know you can say I had a good genetics for the sport but who maybe many guys had that you
know but no one was thinking about it like me no one was focusing on like me I was in Birmingham
sitting on the bus because I didn't have a car even when I was British champion I had no money
I didn't have a car I sit on the bus and read the magazines and read about bodybuilding in America
and California and guys that were making a living from being professional bodybuilders by just going
to the gym and training which I love to do are you kidding me you can make a living at doing that
and I just focused on this all the time and throughout my life whatever I focus on it
comes more to me and also on the negative side as well you have to be careful with
your what you're thinking about and be aware of what you're thinking about because if you
think negative things you're also going to increase the possibility of this being your
reality so to get some control over your mind and over your thoughts um I would recommend some
meditation um very important to be aware of what you want do you know what you want and
if you know what you want then you need to start really focusing on that thinking about it doing
the actions of course as well and putting your energy into it is life is you get the energy
what you give out is kind of what comes back to you as well so that's what I would like to say
nothing really specific because this can apply to I think it applied to bodybuilding for me because
that's what I wanted to do and I focused on it and I give all my energy and it came back to
me so it's pretty much like that with anything a business a relationship anything uh be aware
that you're powerful and use it you know because you're powerful you can make your life [ __ ] if
you think about it or you can make it good depends what you're thinking about and putting your energy
into so that's the message really that I would like to leave whoever's listening to this yeah
you can be much better than you are now and your life can be different if you want it to be you
have the power can do it yeah I'm I'm curious this is a very powerful message but I'm curious what is
the what what does uh the 62 years old Doran Yates put his energy on now what's important for you now
what's important for me now is being grateful and appreciating life and everything that I have in
it and everything around me and enjoying it and every day getting up looking and thankful for
another day thanks for the sun I live in the Sun so thanks for that and um trying to be the best
version of myself and by being that hopefully that I'm inspiring other people to do the same thing so
that's what I'm doing and uh just the benefit of like what I've learned in my life I talk about
it just talk about it honestly and that that will help somebody somebody will listening to this and
they listen to this and it will have a positive effect on their life that's the main reason to sit
here and talk to you somebody hopefully it's more than one person maybe that would be great but even
if it's one then we did a good job today yeah yeah that's that's so power powerful thank you thank
you so much for taking your time thanks for having me on man and uh yeah sharing this uh information
here you know we can always do it another time because um uh adopted Romanian now here quite a
lot because we have the company here yeah exactly you have the company here yeah we have a company
in Bucharest D nutrition that's my company and we now have a big a big uh change in the business a
big advancement now we have our own manufacturing facility viter in seil so yeah when we finish
this I'm 5 hour drive to seil okay yeah so I'm going down there to visit the factory and see um
you know how things progressing and we have a lot more new supplements going to be coming out in the
next few months all the kind of supplements that I use now you know because bodybuilding is somewhat
course huge it's part of me ding so Mr Olympia but is it actually my past it's not what I do now now
I I everything I do is for anti-aging is a silly term because you don't ant you know yeah you age
better you age with a you know because we're all going to age and we're all going to die that's
the that's the reality but I would like to be uh functional mentally and physically and to have
uh good quality of life so that's really that's the focus now and uh enjoying the life you know
try try to find a picture of me smiling when I was Mr Olympia is very difficult because I was
so intense so engrossed in what I was doing I was not really enjoying it but I had to do
that had to do that and for me to be sitting here now and be the man I am now so I'm very
grateful to the younger Dorian so it just have that like single-minded drive to go from having
nothing with no family with no nothing to being the best at what I did and that what I did when
I was younger is laid the foundation of my life now so I'm much uh Freer now and I enjoy life
you know without having a particular goal it's more a general goal yeah that's true
yeah thank you again so much for for what you do and yeah I'm gonna switch to Romania now
to foro
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