Six-time Mr. Olympia Dorian Yates built his career on brutal efficiency, with a philosophy centered on low volume and maximum intensity.

So when he trained alongside Andrew Huberman during a lat-focused back workout, there was one rule he followed: everything to failure.

Dorian Yates Back Demolition Workout

At Gold’s Gym in Venice, Yates kept the workout brutally simple: just 14 total sets across five exercises. Low volume and no cheating. Yates made the workout in such a manner that over a third of those sets were pushed till failure.

• Lat Pullover x 3 sets (1 light set, 1 medium-heavy set, 1 heavy set to failure)
• Reverse-Grip Lat Pulldown x 3 sets (1 light set, 1 medium-heavy set, 1 heavy set to failure)
• Single-Arm Dumbbell Row x 3 sets each arm (1 light set, 1 medium-heavy set, 1 heavy set to failure)
• Seated Wide-Grip Cable Row x 3 sets (1 light set, 1 medium-heavy set, 1 heavy set to failure)
• Rear Delt Bent-Over Dumbbell Raise x 2 sets (1 medium-heavy set, 1 heavy set to failure)

Yates was known to workout only three times in a week back when he competed professionally and limited his workouts to 45-60 minutes in those sessions.

“It involves training three days per week and hitting each muscle directly once per week,” Huberman explained on his Instagram post. “Yes, only once."

The structure is deliberately minimal: one lighter set to groove the movement and increase blood flow, followed by one moderate set, then one – occasionally two – all-out sets taken to failure with strict form.”

And that’s not all, Yates has a few more pieces of advice for his fans.

Dorian Yates Honest Thoughts on Building Muscles

Unlike other bodybuilders who had a set range of reps, Dorian Yates built his muscles using short workouts focused on taking the body to the limit. As per Yates, pushing your body out of its comfort zone can really give you an edge over others.

“When people come to train with me, our objective is to get an exercise and go to real muscular failure. You've got to give it more than it's used to. The body doesn’t want to change, it wants to stay status quo,” said Yates.

“You've got to give it a good reason to change, so you've got to put more stress on the body than it’s used to. And then you have to recover from it.”

To sum it up, control the weight on the way up, contract hard at the peak, and lower it slowly to really feel the burn.

Written by

Suryakant Das

Edited by

Siddharth Shirwadkar