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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
a must read for any bodybuilder, June 6, 2007
This review is from: A Potrait of Dorian Yates: The Life and Training Philosophy of the World's Best Bodybuilder (Paperback)
This book will contradict antything you have probably read in the past about bodybuilding. The books starts off with a short biography of Dorian Yates. Then it slowy introduces the reader to Yate's training principles. This book teaches short and intense training periods and lots of rest. The principle stressed is High Intensity Training, or HIT. This training method was the brainchild of Arthur Jones, then was the basis for Mike Mentzer's heavy duty training, which is what Yates used tobased his training. Dorian put his own twist to it and calls his version Blood and Guts Training. What this book teaches is highly beneficial book to a bodybuilder, especially one who is not using steroids. Of course Yates used steroids, but his methods will work better for a natural bodybuilder than the methods of most boybuilders, aka High Volume Training. Yates preaches for the bodybuilder to use no more than three sets: the first being a warm up set, and the next two set being to muscle failure. He advises a two day split for the body and in a 2 weeks time you will have done six workouts. It is set up where you do workout one twice the first week and once the second week, and you do workout two once the first week and twice the second week, then the schedule starts over. Yates said this split is near identical to the one he used his first years in bodybuilder. His advanced training utilizes a three day split, but he only used one set per exercise, really putting a lot of effort into intensity.
The informtation in this book i give five stars, but i gave it four stars for another reason, All of the pictures in the book, which are black and white, are grainy and almost blurry. And there are no real good Pictures of Yates really, ther are about five decent pictures of him: the one on the cover, a front double biceps pose (which is used about three of four times throughout the entire book), a side tricep pose, and just a few others are barely decent. Everytime you turn a page in the book it puts a crease in the spine, so if you plan on reading this book a lot you can also plan on eventually losing a page or two. The cosmetics and durability of this book is why it recieved four stars.
Overall, every bodybuilder needs to be familiar with Yates training method no matter how hardcore or serious of a bodybuilder he is.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Intensity, January 17, 2007
This review is from: A Potrait of Dorian Yates: The Life and Training Philosophy of the World's Best Bodybuilder (Paperback)
Dorian is my favorite bodybuilder, so I'm somewhat biased. I grew up emulating Arnold and studying his book, but after a few years the whole high volume routine became ridiculous and a waste of time. Dorian has it right - high intensity, one set to failure, don't hold back. The results tell it all. And if nothing else, it sure makes weightlifting a lot less boring.
I work out this way now and get either the same or better results compared to high volume. Put everything into that one set after a couple of warmups. Of course, many other pros still do high volume, and they're huge, so maybe it's just finding what works for you.
The book is kind of simple, but so is the system. Train all out and become huge. Period. Dorian obviously didn't feel the need to make a bible like Arnold did. He tells it like it is, and that's it. To be fair, there is very good detail on how to train each body part, his life story, etc...a lot of stuff I didn't know before reading the book.
But from a pure training perspective, I'm not sure I learned anything more than I did when reading Dorian's Flex articles when he was competing. But those were great articles! If you don't have those, or want to get more detail or background on Dorian, then buy this book. Some very motivating photos also, and it's not expensive.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding book, January 9, 2007
This review is from: A Potrait of Dorian Yates: The Life and Training Philosophy of the World's Best Bodybuilder (Paperback)
Provided the title of the book is taken into account: Namely that this is about both the LIFE and TRAINING PHILOSOPHY of Dorian Yates, this is a 5 Star book.
The book provides a nice insight into Yates' past and present (as of the publication of the book) life, and also into the progression of his weight training. As such, the book will be an excellent primer on weight routines that should work nicely for beginner, intermediate, and advanced lifters.
Couple this book with a Kinesiology book such as Dr. Yessis' book on Kinesiology, and you would have the beginnings of an excellent library on bodybuilding.
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