Dorian never did hit. He did a version of powerlifting in a bodybuilding style. I totally agree with another poster on here that Dorian did not outwork anyone. He simply did the same as most pro's. He did 3 to 4 sets of an exercise pyramiding the weight each set which pre exhausts the muscle before the top set. His sets were not 'warm ups' as he likes to believe. Thee did, what? grimacing displayed on his face on some of those so called warm ups in Blood and Guts proves that. Even on some exercises he never went to failure, notably deadlifts, barbell rows, stiff leg deadlifts, he just did 6 normal reps and that was it.
About the warm-up sets, I beg to differ.
In his video, he started out with barbell inclines. 135, 225, and 315 sets were clearly no struggle. He did, what? Six reps with three plates?
Seeing as how he did six perfect reps with either 415 or 425, I don't see why that disqualifies his status as a "HIT" trainer. Indeed, he went on to do a max set of Hammer Press, another max set on incline fly and on the cable crossover. Admittedly, that's more than most so-called HIT people do; then again, HIT covers a whole spectrum, even paradigm, of training. Nobody can really identify where HIT ends and volume begins. Was Arnold doing "volume" opposite Johnny Fuller? Did any of the 90s crew do volume compared to Sonny Schmidt?
Dorian warmed up with progressively heavier weights but saved his energy for a few top sets per bodypart. Set total varied per muscle but he seemed to fall in the 4-8 range.
P.S. -- I know what Jeff is going to say
His incline was taken to technical failure. It's obvious he wouldn't get another by himself. Yes, it's also true that Yates left a rep or two in the tank on some of the aforementioned exercises. I don't see that as him being any less than a very hard trainer for two reasons:
The exercises he seemingly stopped early were all movements that could further exacerbate his biceps injury
This is shit he did day in, day out for years on end. It's one thing to drill yourself into the ground for a few months, or even a couple of years. It's entirely another to go from almost nothing in 83 to the freakiest human to walk the planet just ten years later.
Fact is, what you see in blood and guts was just for entertainment purposes. It is not a training manual.
Also, Yates only used used the blood and guts method once or twice a year for 6 to 8 weeks. The rest of the year he did more pump sets since you can't train heavy and to the max long term. Even powerlifters don't do that. They cycle their training to avoid burnout and plateaus. So no, Yates wasn't the hardest trainer ad he likes to believe. Problem with Yates is that he is his own biggest fan. He exaggerates a lot but when you actually study his workouts and such, you find he wasn't doing anything different than most bodybuilders. The guy was all hype really.
I'm sorry to differ with you, but that's pure bullshit.
Yates logged his workouts religiously early on, and there's nothing in them to substantiate your claims. His training logs from the mid-eighties up to and after the '91 Olympia are readily available via .pdf. You won't find "pump training" or such there.
Was he the hardest trainer? Set per set, no, not versus some guys; but year-round? He probably worked harder than most of his contemporaries, many of whom were notoriously lazy in the gym (Wheeler, Dilett) and/or partied their asses off (Cormier)? Yes, especially after Levrone took to his long layoffs. Shawn Ray was up there, though.
