As the level of professional bodybuilding competition grew (literally an figuratively), the Mr. Olympia contest, and its' judging system, it seems, felt a need to adapt to the standards to which physical display was increasingly held and a new trend in ultra-massiveness began to emerge. The man responsible for this new trend was a relatively unknown behemoth from Birmingham, England: Dorian Yates.In '91 Yates showed that few could touch him in the mass department. But it was his incredibly grainy conditioning and definition that was in a class of its own. In 1992 he set a new standard for ultra-massive size by competing at over 240 pounds ripped.
Held in Helsinki, Finland the '92 Olympia featured possibly the toughest competition of the 90's, with Lee Labrada, Shawn Ray, newcomer Kevin Levrone and Mohammad Benaziza all hoping to capitalize on the sizeable void left by Lee Haney. The line-up that year also included a rookie by the name of Ronnie Coleman who would tie, along with seven others including Samir Bannout, for dead last.Yates Showed That Few Could
Touch Him In The Mass Department.Ronnie would get a little redemption in later years. And so it was, against a stacked field of competitors Dorian Yates won his first Olympia title. While many fans though they had seen for the first time the smashing of the size barrier with Yates' win, he was only just beginning and in 1993 would shock the bodybuilding world more so than probably any other competitor before or since.
Dialing down from a massive and cut off-season weight of over 270 pounds, Dorian strode onstage at the '93 Olympia, held in Atlanta, at an unprecedented 257 pounds bodyweight. For one under six feet tall, he had well and truly broken all size records and, coupled with his usual great conditioning and good proportion, made that year's Olympia a competition for second place.Runner-up Flex Wheeler himself would later remark that Dorian was "untouchable" in '93. In winning his second title, Dorian raised two questions: how can a competitor at his level of development make such progress (16 pounds of added muscle) in just one year and will there ever be a limit to which the muscular body can be pushed?Almost 20 years later Dorian answered the first question in a Bodybuilding.com interview: "What I realized is that for '92 I was in great shape but I was near enough in that shape five or six weeks before the contest and kept coming down in bodyweight, wanting to get harder. What I realized was happening was that I was just about as hard as I was going to get anyway. And if you are losing more weight at that point, what are you losing?"I came to the conclusion that I was losing muscle. Although I was big and shredded in '92, I was competing well below my potential so, with that knowledge and all of my records, I decided the following year I would try to avoid that, basically the over dieting."So I was able to come in - between those two Olympia's - around 16 pounds heavier. I had a really good year of training so I probably was five or six pounds heavier, which at that level is a pretty respectable amount anyway. The other ten pounds of muscle came from simply not sacrificing it, not deleting it during the dieting process.The second of these questions (raised moments ago) could be answered in the years immediately preceding his first two Olympia victories. But alas, Dorian never definitively made another breakthrough as he did in '93 and, due to several physique-altering injuries, probably would not recapture his personal best as he did for his second Olympia win.Almost 20 years later Dorian answered the first question in a Bodybuilding.com interview: "What I realized is that for '92 I was in great shape but I was near enough in that shape five or six weeks before the contest and kept coming down in bodyweight, wanting to get harder. What I realized was happening was that I was just about as hard as I was going to get anyway. And if you are losing more weight at that point, what are you losing?"I came to the conclusion that I was losing muscle. Although I was big and shredded in '92, I was competing well below my potential so, with that knowledge and all of my records, I decided the following year I would try to avoid that, basically the over dieting."So I was able to come in - between those two Olympia's - around 16 pounds heavier. I had a really good year of training so I probably was five or six pounds heavier, which at that level is a pretty respectable amount anyway. The other ten pounds of muscle came from simply not sacrificing it, not deleting it during the dieting process."The second of these questions (raised moments ago) could be answered in the years immediately preceding his first two Olympia victories. But alas, Dorian never definitively made another breakthrough as he did in '93 and, due to several physique-altering injuries, probably would not recapture his personal best as he did for his second Olympia win.Almost 20 years later Dorian answered the first question in a Bodybuilding.com interview: "What I realized is that for '92 I was in great shape but I was near enough in that shape five or six weeks before the contest and kept coming down in bodyweight, wanting to get harder. What I realized was happening was that I was just about as hard as I was going to get anyway. And if you are losing more weight at that point, what are you losing?"I came to the conclusion that I was losing muscle. Although I was big and shredded in '92, I was competing well below my potential so, with that knowledge and all of my records, I decided the following year I would try to avoid that, basically the over dieting."So I was able to come in - between those two Olympia's - around 16 pounds heavier. I had a really good year of training so I probably was five or six pounds heavier, which at that level is a pretty respectable amount anyway. The other ten pounds of muscle came from simply not sacrificing it, not deleting it during the dieting process."The second of these questions (raised moments ago) could be answered in the years immediately preceding his first two Olympia victories. But alas, Dorian never definitively made another breakthrough as he did in '93 and, due to several physique-altering injuries, probably would not recapture his personal best as he did for his second Olympia win.I Was Competing Well Below My Potential.However, the question of whether the professional bodybuilding physique could improve post '93 Dorian was resoundingly answered in the early 2000. But that was a way off and Dorian still had four Olympia's to win.In 1994 Dorian was expected to again shock the world, as was his habit of redefining himself with each passing year. However, in March a rotator cuff injury combined with a left quad tear two weeks later made training very hard for the Englishman. But he battled through and with nine weeks to go before the big day it looked like he just might show an improvement over '93.
Almost on cue, if one is following the dictates of Murphies Law, he tore his left biceps. While this combination of injuries would have ruled most competitors out, Dorian persevered and eventually won his third title with Shawn Ray, Kevin Levrone and Paul Dillett placing second, third and four respectively.By 1995 the Mr. Olympia had been running for 30 years and to honor the occasion all past winners, including Dorian - defending his title that night - appeared onstage to the thunderous applause of the fans.For the show itself, many had doubts as to whether Dorian Yates would be up to the task winning his fourth Olympia. Proving them wrong he not only won but he did so with straight firsts in one of his best appearances ever. Third place (behind second placed Kevin Levrone) was a man who would out-mass even Dorian: the 270-pound Nasser El Sonbaty, who would come extremely close to taking Dorian's title two years later.
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