Written by Dorian Yates
07 March 2018

15NN067-DORIAN

Gold's Gym & Temple Gym

Dorian Yates Compares the Two

 

 

Dorian, I know you visited LA and Venice Beach several times in the ‘90s during your pro career. It seems to me like that may have been the best time and place to be a bodybuilder. How did Gold’s and Venice compare to Birmingham and Temple Gym? And did you give any thought to moving to the Mecca?

 California and Venice Beach were places I had seen and read about in the magazines for years before I got the chance to actually go there. Joe Weider did a fantastic job in his magazines of idealizing Venice Beach, so it was pretty much every bodybuilder’s dream to go there— hence the term “The Mecca,” a play on the holy city in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Mohammad, that all Muslims are supposed to make a pilgrimage to at least once in their lifetime. To me, Venice Beach seemed a million miles away from my native Birmingham. And to be honest, that wasn’t really such a bad thing.

 Southern California is famous for its sunny skies and warm climate. The United Kingdom is known more for rain and gray skies. We’ve all seen those images of bodybuilders training out by the Venice Beach boardwalk, and the “Pumping Iron” guys would lounge about there after their morning workouts, sunning themselves like crocodiles. That wasn’t my world. Our winters are cold and wet, the kind of cold that seeps into your bones.

 I vividly remember the winter before I won my first pro show, the Night of Champions. The United Kingdom doesn’t ordinarily get a lot of snow in the winter, but this time we had a sizeable storm. Without an abundance of snowplows to clear the roads, you couldn’t drive anywhere and most businesses were shut down. But I had to get to the gym to train! Realistically, putting off that workout for the next day wasn’t really a big deal and would not have affected me much physically. It was more of a mental challenge. How badly did I want to be the best, to win? Was I going to let some snowflakes stop me from the workout I meant to do that day that would get me one step closer to victory?

 Putting on my warmest winter coat and sturdiest boots, I set off for the three miles from where I lived to Temple Gym, wading through snowdrifts that were often up to my waist. Meanwhile, I was thinking to myself about those boys out in sunny Venice I would be competing against. As I trudged through the storm I was thinking, “I am gonna destroy those soft, complacent fuckers!” It took me over an hour to get to the gym to open up and train. The rest is history. I won that show and aside from taking second to Lee Haney that year at my first Mr. Olympia, I was never beaten again. I really do feel that staying home in a harsher environment and weather kept my feet on the ground and helped me stay hungry. Of course, these days I much prefer the sun and spend a good part of the year on the beach in Spain. I think I earned it!

 As for Gold’s Gym in Venice, it was enormous— three cavernous rooms loaded with all the equipment lines that existed at the time. Companies used it as a showroom and sent them everything for free. Plenty of pros trained there at the time like Flex Wheeler, Chris Cormier, Paul Dillett, Aaron Baker, Mike Matarazzo and plenty of movie stars, professional athletes and models. Those were just the regulars. At any given time, there would also be a good amount of pros and top amateurs from around the USA and the rest of the world. Most of them would stay down the street at the Marina Pacific Hotel, which was right on the beach. It had rooms with kitchens as well as a bodybuilder’s menu in their restaurant. You also had The Firehouse and several other eateries in the area that catered to bodybuilders and our special dietary needs.

 But honestly, I never had my best workouts when I was in Venice. Gold’s was just too crowded and noisy, with far too many distractions. I found it tough to concentrate on what I was doing. Not only that, but very few of the people in that gym were really busting their asses in their workouts. Most of them seemed to be there primarily to socialize and “be seen.” Guys would be discussing their plans for the evening as they worked out! It was not at all conducive to balls-to-the-wall workout intensity. None of this was ever a problem back home at Temple Gym.

 Temple Gym was tiny by comparison, not even half the size of one of the rooms at Gold’s. It was darker and musty, without any windows or even fresh air (it circulated in from the alley above, lined with dumpsters). We didn’t have row upon row of shiny new machines, but we had everything a bodybuilder needed. It must have been sufficient, as it was where I trained from before my first amateur contest all the way to six Mr. Olympia titles! People didn’t go there to gossip and ogle each other. The members, most of whom were blue-collar working-class men (which makes sense if you known anything about Birmingham and its long history of industrial workers), came to train and train hard. Unlike at Gold’s, I never had people coming up and trying to talk to me or take a picture with me when I trained. The guys and girls of Temple Gym all knew how seriously I took my workouts, because most of them did as well.

 One reason people assume training out in Venice is an advantage is that you will supposedly draw inspiration and motivation from being around so many other pros. Personally, I never needed external motivation like that as I was motivated by my own goals, and I never needed anyone else’s approval or admiration. I was the only pro at my gym, which suited me just fine, as I wasn’t chasing anyone else’s physique standards. They chased me during my Mr. Olympia reign— I wasn’t chasing them. I wanted to set new standards of my own, which I did.

 The Venice scene, as I have said, was rife with gossip and partying. Because I was off many thousands of miles away and thus a mystery to the U.S. bodybuilders as I toiled away in my dungeon of a gym, Peter McGough gave me the nickname “The Shadow,” which I quite liked. Mystery and the element of surprise suited my personality. Even in my own gym, I was covered up nearly all the time. I might do a bit of posing after workouts in the final stages of prep, but that was it. The other guys over in the States would get nervous and wonder how I was looking, because in those days there was no Internet to update fans with photos and videos every week. They wouldn’t see what I looked like until game day, and by then it was too late for them. They should have been training and dieting harder all along out there by the sunny beach— like I was back in good old “dreary” Birmingham!

 

For information on DY Nutrition, visit http://www.dorianyatesnutrition.com/. To inquire about Dorian Yates Gym franchises, see http://www.dorianyatesgym.com/.

 

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