Legendary bodybuilder Dorian Yates definitely didn’t build his legacy on gentle, high-volume slogs. His ‘Blood and Guts’ philosophy was infamous for its low-volume, high-intensity brutality – and even today, in his 60s, Yates applies that same logic to cardio.
According to Yates, the problem with traditional steady-state work isn’t just boredom. It’s wear and tear. ‘Long drawn-out cardio has negatives to it,’ he says, speaking on an Escape Fitness video, ‘If you’re running, you’re wearing your joints… you’re producing free radicals.’
His intuition: if you can get the cardiovascular benefits without excessive joint stress or unnecessary volume, why wouldn’t you?
Dorian Yates' 7-Minute Sprint Interval Session*
*This is going to hurt
Yates’ current go-to is interval-based work using the air bike. It’s short, sharp and (typical of Yates) vomit-inducing.
Warm-up, then perform:
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- 1 minute at a moderate, steady pace
- 20 seconds absolute all-out effort – ‘like your life depends on it’
- Drop back to 1 minute moderate
- Repeat the sequence 5 times
You’re only looking at roughly six-and-a-half to seven minutes of work, but anyone who has ever ridden the Devil’s Tricycle will already know how tough this is going to be.
‘Amazing cardio workout. That’s all you need to do,’ he says. ‘Couple of times a week.’
Why the Air Bike?
While he’ll rotate modalities including the rowing machine, cross trainer, etc. Yates favours the air bike. ‘You’re pushing, pulling, and you’re using your legs at the same time. So every muscle is working on there,’ he says.
That full-body demand means heart rate spikes fast. You’re not waiting 10 minutes to ‘get warm’. An air bike takes you from zero to a hundred, real quick.
Yates built his career on extracting the most adaptation from the least wasted effort, no matter how much it sucked, so this tracks.
The Science
Yates is sardonically bullish when it comes to science-backed workouts: ‘Trust me, you’ll hear it from the scientists in a few years.’
In fairness, the research on high-intensity interval training has been building for years – showing improvements in VO₂ max, insulin sensitivity and cardiovascular efficiency in significantly less time than traditional steady-state sessions.
That doesn’t make long runs redundant. It’s very hard to build endurance and stamina without doing actual endurance work. But if you’re pushed for time and don’t have any marathons planned in the near future, sprint work is definitely an efficient option for engine building.
With almost 18 years in the health and fitness space as a personal trainer, nutritionist, breath coach and writer, Andrew has spent nearly half of his life exploring how to help people improve their bodies and minds.
As our fitness editor he prides himself on keeping Men’s Health at the forefront of reliable, relatable and credible fitness information, whether that’s through writing and testing thousands of workouts each year, taking deep dives into the science behind muscle building and fat loss or exploring the psychology of performance and recovery.
Whilst constantly updating his knowledge base with seminars and courses, Andrew is a lover of the practical as much as the theory and regularly puts his training to the test tackling everything from Crossfit and strongman competitions, to ultra marathons, to multiple 24 hour workout stints and (extremely unofficial) world record attempts.
You can find Andrew on Instagram at @theandrew.tracey, or simply hold up a sign for ‘free pizza’ and wait for him to appear.
