Dorian Yates won Mr. Olympia six years in a row and never hid how he did it. In this clip from his first London Real interview, recorded in January 2013, Brian Rose asks him the question most people only whisper: what did years of steroid cycles actually do to him, good and bad?
Yates answers plainly, from his own experience, and puts the risks in a context most people don’t expect.
▶ Watch the full episode: Dorian Yates – Into The Shadow
Growth hormone wasn’t the big change
Brian starts with a rumour: that Yates was one of the first bodybuilders to experiment with growth hormone. Yates corrects him. He used it in the early 1990s, but others had used it before. Growth hormone can help add muscle and lose fat, he says, and combined with steroids it may have pushed the sport to a higher level, but its influence was “not huge.”
Twelve years, and the side effects he noticed
Yates then lays out his own history. He used steroids on and off from British amateur competition through his professional career, from 1985 until he retired in 1997. Like most competitive athletes, he says, he took far more than any recommended dose.
Over that period he describes side effects such as water retention and some acne, and he says his aggression levels were clearly higher. In the gym, that made him more positive and more driven. Outside it, he admits, the same mood after a few pints in a club could easily be a problem. He has seen door staff get into trouble that way.
His point is that it depends on the person, the same way alcohol makes one man aggressive and leaves another totally relaxed.
Putting the risk in perspective
Brian notes that, given what the media says, after 12 years of cycling Yates should have “a horn growing out of” his forehead. Instead he looks healthy. Yates argues that any drug taken for that long, well over the recommended dose, without serious harm, can’t be as dangerous as its reputation.
He offers two comparisons. A friend of his was facing a kidney transplant after damage he linked to an over-the-counter painkiller, not steroids. And he cites the film Super Size Me, where a man’s blood results went off the chart after a few weeks of fast food. In his view, that month did more harm than his 12 years of cycles.
Crucially, he also says he had a doctor supervising his blood tests throughout his career, and that nothing in them ever gave the doctor cause for concern.
What he’d tell his son
Brian asks what he would say if his son wanted to do a cycle. Yates says it has more or less happened. His advice is to get as much factual information as possible first. When he started in the mid-1980s, there were only a couple of underground books, including Dan Duchaine’s steroid handbook, and most of what people knew came from gym rumours.
What to take from it
This is one man’s account, not a safety study. Yates had medical supervision and regular blood work, and he is clear that heavy abuse can cause serious problems. What the clip offers is a frank, first-hand view from one of the most successful bodybuilders ever, and a reminder to look at the facts rather than the headlines.
This clip describes Dorian Yates’s personal experience. It is not medical advice. Anabolic steroids carry real health risks and are controlled substances in many countries.
Who is Dorian Yates?
Dorian Yates is a British former professional bodybuilder from Birmingham who won Mr. Olympia six times in a row, from 1992 to 1997. Known as “The Shadow”, he built his physique with short, brutally intense “high intensity training” sessions, and he has since written and spoken widely about training, health and spirituality.
In his full London Real episode, he talks with Brian Rose about how his training methods changed the sport, his steroid use and its effects, how he reinvented himself after retiring, and his views on psychedelics and cannabis. You can also watch another clip from his London Real story: Dorian Yates – Steroids, Testosterone & Ageing.
See everything Dorian Yates has done with London Real on his guest page: Dorian Yates on London Real.
More on London Real
Transcript
Transcript: Dorian Yates – Steroid Side Effects: What 12 Years Of Use Taught Him
0:05 Brian Rose: I’m very interested in both the positive and negative effects, like when you were in hard competition training doing cycles of Deca or Dianabol, whatever it was you were using. It’s my understanding, and I’d like you to tell me if it’s true, that you were one of the first bodybuilders to experiment with growth hormone.
0:27 Dorian Yates: I don’t think so. I used growth hormone in the early 90s, and it had been used before that. Growth hormone is another thing. It can increase muscle mass and minimise body fat, but just because of the name, “growth” hormone, it sounds like more. Combined with steroids, I think it took everything to a different level. Schwarzenegger was one of those guys in the 70s who was just using steroids. When growth hormone came, I think it helped people get to a higher level. Perhaps it had an influence, but not huge.
1:02 Brian Rose: So you’re in your competition phase, you’re putting stuff in your body. Personally, I don’t make any judgements on that. I think you did what you had to do to peak in your sport. I’d just like to know what you experienced. Obviously you became bigger and stronger and you healed more quickly, but were there any negatives? Did you ever get bad mood swings?
1:24 Dorian Yates: I guess in every drug there are negatives, but I can only speak from personal experience. I took steroids on and off from when I was competing in amateur competitions, British championship level, up into the professional level, from ’85 to ’97, when I retired. So that’s 12 years of very consistent use. And of course athletes don’t use the recommended dose of steroids. They use way more than the recommended dose.
2:01 Dorian Yates: But I can say that in all that period of time I did get some side effects, like water retention and some acne. And yes, your aggression levels are definitely higher. But it depends what you do with that aggression. I utilised it for my training in the gym. You’re more positive, you’re more aggressive, and that’s great for training. But if you’re out somewhere having pints in a club, it’s probably not a good thing.
2:29 Dorian Yates: I’ve seen people who work the doors get themselves into trouble because of this. But again it varies from one person to another. We all know alcohol can lower people’s inhibitions and make them more aggressive. One guy can have a few pints and turn into a total a**hole, and somebody else can be totally chilled. So it depends on the individual.
2:52 Brian Rose: The mainstream media would have us believe that if you cycled steroids for 12 years, you should have a horn growing out of your forehead. But you look like a relatively healthy guy.
3:04 Dorian Yates: What I’d say is that any pharmaceutical drug you could take for 12 years, way over the recommended dosage, has got to be a very mild drug. This is a hormone. I’ve got a friend who’s now looking at a kidney transplant because he destroyed both of his kidneys.
3:26 Brian Rose: Through steroids?
3:27 Dorian Yates: No, it wasn’t from steroids. I don’t know anybody who’s had that. You’d have to really, really abuse it before you’d get any severe side effects. This guy is having a kidney transplant because he took Nurofen, and Nurofen is an over-the-counter drug. If you got a bottle of aspirin from the pharmacy now and took the whole bottle, it would burn through your stomach lining and you’d die. These are things you can get over the counter, so that puts it in perspective a little bit, I think.
4:07 Brian Rose: So, hypothetically, you mentioned you have a son. If he came to you and said, “Dad, I’m thinking of doing a cycle,” would you be cool with that?
4:15 Dorian Yates: He’s 20 years old, so it’s sort of happened. I tell people: if you’re thinking about it, look at all the facts. Get as much factual information as you can. When I started, in the middle 80s, there were a couple of underground books around. I photocopied the underground steroid book from Dan Duchaine, which was probably the only thing out, and there was another book, Anabolic Steroids in Sports by Dr James Wright. I actually met both of those guys. That was about it.
4:50 Dorian Yates: The rest was just gym rumours. And actually, back then we were very cautious, because we’d think, “Sh*t, I heard this stuff can damage your liver,” and all these things. I was very lucky that I had a doctor who supervised all my blood tests throughout the years, and there was nothing in those results that gave him any concern, nothing where he’d say, “Hey, you’ve got to give it a break,” or “You should stop doing this.”
5:20 Dorian Yates: But if you’ve ever seen the film Super Size Me, about a guy who had McDonald’s three times a day: after he’d done that for two weeks, his blood results were so off the chart his doctor was begging him to stop. So eating McDonald’s three times a day for two weeks was much worse than me taking steroids for 12 years.
