Dorian Yates believes multiple avenues of fitness have changed the standard in bodybuilding.
Dorian Yates built a career on the bodybuilding stage that puts his name with the best of all-time. Since his retirement, Yates has stayed in great shape while watching the sport he competed in evolve. When discussing some major changes, Yates highlighted two specific body parts — calves and forearms.
From 1992-1997, Yates did not lose a competition and racked up six-consecutive Olympia titles. Following his final victory on the biggest stage, Yates retired from bodybuilding after suffering different injuries. In retirement, Yates has maintained a shredded physique while sharing his wisdom in the gym.
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Yates is no stranger to the Olympia stage and believes the competition is different than during his time.
“The competition, are you talking about Open Mr. Olympia? It’s not the same. It’s not the same standard at all I don’t think.
It’s conditioning. I think when people ask me what’s the change in competitors, why are they now all the guys that are very short? All the guys don’t have calves and they don’t have forearms.”
Yates continued to discuss the reasoning behind this and pinpointed the amount of fitness activities there are.
Dorian Yates Talks Change In Bodybuilding
Dorian Yates, who was joined by Derek from MPMD, attempted to pinpoint the reason for certain changes in the sport. First, he discussed the overall interest in bodybuilding compared to what it was during his era.
“If you had 10 million people doing something or one million people doing something, you’ll have more outstanding genetic specimens in the 10 million than you would in the one million. More people are going to the gym, more gyms, but less people are doing bodybuilding.”
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As the years have gone on, there have been more areas of fitness for people to take on. This could be within bodybuilding, with a plethora of different divisions, but also outside.
“In the 80s and the 90s, every dude wanted to be a bodybuilder. That was it. If you went to the gym, you wanted to be a bodybuilder and you probably wanted to try competing as well. It was all quite new, everyone was into it. Now, there’s so many different avenues you can go down with fitness and so many different categories in all the competitions.”
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