Bodybuilding legend Dorian Yates is bringing everyone's attention to a simple trick he credits for keeping his shoulders healthy.

According to six-time Mr. Olympia Dorian Yates, there is a simple yet most-overlooked way to keep your shoulders healthy: hanging from a bar. While modern culture focuses on heavy mobility drills and special exercises to correct our back, Yates approach is much more basic.

"Of all the exercises I’ve done to strengthen my rotator cuff and protect my shoulders, nothing has worked better than simply hanging from a bar. It’s basic, it’s old school, and it’s powerful. My shoulders feel healthier, more stable, and pain-free."

Every time it's chest day or shoulder day, The Shadow starts the routine by hanging from the bar for a minute. He repeats the maneuver three times with rests in between.

He describes these three minutes as the best way to decompress the shoulders, improve positioning, energize the stabilizers, and properly warm up the upper body before pumping iron.

Many sports medicine specialists also recommend preparing the joints before performing compound lifts. The focus particularly lies on the shoulders because they are the most injury-prone areas in the body.

Though hanging from a bar is not a perfect solution, it does improve mobility, promote neuromuscular activation, and improve positioning, which is a much safer option than most modern techniques.

Dorian Yates explains why the underhand pulldown is better than a lat pulldown

Who can be a better authority on training routines than a multiple Mr. Olympia title winner? There is only one answer, no one.

If he is not busy running DY Nutrition, you will catch Dorian Yates teaching his followers gym tips and tricks on Instagram. In one of his videos, Dorian explained how the underhand pulldown is a much superior exercise than the lat pulldown.

He explained that the lat pulldown had a shorter range of motion, and the biceps are in a weaker position. All you need to do is switch to the underhand pulldown and have your chin and head up.

"The hand placement is just closer than shoulder width, and pull with your elbows, drive them into your lats, and hold for a second with a slow negative." Dorian wrote in his caption.

This was Dorian's second exercise in his back routine. He used to perform it on the lat pulldown station, but later switched to the Hammer Strength underhand pulldown machine.

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Written by

Ruwa Javed

Edited by

Oajaswini Prabhu