Build Muscle & Strength & Forge Your Life Path | Dorian Yates

**Dorian Yates** (0:00)
When people come to train with me, I said, our objective is to get an exercise and go to real muscular failure. You gotta give it more than it's used to. The body does not wanna change, it wants to keep status quo. So you gotta give it a bloody good reason, as we would say in England, to change, right? So you gotta put more stress on the body than it's used to. And then you need to recover from that. That's the idea, to do enough to stimulate, but not more than that, because this is an overload that you gotta recover from. And the number one thing that I hear from people is, I don't really have time for that. I have a business, I have a family. I said, if you could give me 45 minutes twice a week, that's all you need to do. And it's not theory because I've done it. You change your life, literally, with that and a good diet. So the whole time thing, excuses, it's not relevant. I'm not listening. You don't need a lot of time.

**Andrew Huberman** (0:50)
Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.
I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Dorian Yates. Dorian Yates is a legendary six-time Mr. Olympia winner, who is also considered one of the greatest pioneers of training methods for bodybuilding health and fitness. He is known for using and recommending low-volume, high-intensity workouts, meaning very few sets done with maximal focus, perfect form, and directed muscle engagement taken to muscular failure and beyond. Today Dorian teaches us how the typical person who is not interested in competitive bodybuilding should train for health and fitness and overall best results. We cover muscle building, fat loss, mobility, what forms of cardio are best, when to do them, and much more. The advice Dorian provides today is immensely valuable and applicable to everyone, men, women, young and old. He explains how for most people the best muscle building and strength results will be achieved by training no more than three and in some cases only two days per week. Dorian also shares valuable insights on how to mentally frame and navigate your life and goals, how to use your hardships as fuel, there's a lot to say about that based on his own experience, but also how to recognize and lean into your natural strengths, how to be practical in choosing what dreams you chase, and how to know when to pivot from one endeavor to another. We also discuss cannabis. In fact, even though I, of course, knew he was, Dorian and I first connected because of an episode that I did about cannabis, both the potential benefits of cannabis, as well as the very serious risks that may exist for certain people. Dorian's experience and read of the data on cannabis contrasted with mine, and that led us to an ongoing discussion that we continue today on the podcast, and that has me now reading into some newer studies, and I promise that I'll update everyone on my take of those studies once I get through them. Oh, yes, and Dorian also took me through a Yates style high-intensity workout at Gold's Gym Venice. We trained back, we filmed it, and it's posted to our clips channel, so you can check that out. It's linked in the show note caption. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, today's episode does include sponsors. And now for my discussion with Dorian Yates. The Dorian Yates. Welcome.

**Dorian Yates** (3:19)
Apparently, yeah.

**Andrew Huberman** (3:20)
Yeah. Certainly. Big fan for many years. Thanks to you and thanks to Mike Mentzer and a few. At the time, real iconoclasts.
I trained differently than everyone around me told me to. And while I never became a competitive athlete at anywhere near the level that you did, certainly, it got me the results I wanted so much faster. I feel super healthy and great at 50 And I really want to talk about this high intensity, low-ish volume training that really can be credited to you. Because for those that don't know the community that you come from, there have been people who have been big proponents of long sessions, many hours in the gym at the opposite extreme. There have been people such as Mike Mentzer who have been proponents of very brief, very high intensity, even one set to failure, and that's it. And you brought things into some sense of moderation.