How to work the abdominal muscles? Bet on Dorian Yates' tips!

Dorian Yates, who rose to fame in the 1990s, has long since retired from competing, but his legendary tenure on the bodybuilding scene has stood the test of time as he is still one of the sport's greatest legends. During his career, Yates won the Mr. Olympia title six times in a row (1992-1997) and competed against the best bodybuilders, including eight-time Mr. Olympia winner Lee Haney.

He was on the professional scene for fourteen years and his last competition was the 1997 Mr. Olympia. Dorian entered this show despite struggling with acute chronic injuries, including torn biceps and triceps.

Despite this, Yates is still one of the greatest living legends of the sport and many people still take motivation from him. Recently, this seasoned veteran shared his experience with abdominal exercises that you can follow.

I usually train my abdominal muscles once a week. I exercised them after a heavy shoulder and triceps workout. This was because I felt that shoulders and triceps were probably the "easiest" workout of the week (well, easier than the others!) and didn't require as much effort from me, so I added them in here at the end. My routine for abs was simple:

2x bodyweight crunches to failure
2x reverse bodyweight crunches to failure

However, these were done with a hard contraction and a big exhale of air at the peak of the contraction. We were squeezing the abdominals so hard that they were almost on the verge of cramping!
A character that inspired me in my youth, especially in terms of abdominals, was Bruce Lee, he had great abs. When I was younger, I was always doing exercises with my own weight, like push-ups and sit-ups, and there was a poster of Bruce Lee hanging above my head!

As far back as I can remember, I always had visible abs. In my bodybuilding beginnings I used to train them with dumbbells, but I noticed that they grew quite fast and potentially looked quite "bony".

So I switched to contraction exercises with just my body weight. In my opinion, training my abdominal muscles wasn't that important because they were always visible due to the low body fat content throughout the year and genetics played a role in helping me stay lean. Everyone has abdominal muscles... it's just a matter of revealing them by reducing the amount of body fat.