Wednesday morning I was up bright and early as usual, and this time I made it to Starbucks for coffee before my workout. I was in the gym and ready to train. I was given a pre workout supplement, Dorian’s own NOX, and to say it gets you psyched would be an understatement of biblical proportions. I was pumped up after our 15 or minutes of stretching, which has become the norm now as a means of injury prevention. The workout began with that infamous pull over machine. Dorian said, “You’re a little short for it mate so just use the elbows, keep your arse in the seat and focus on flexing those lats.” I did what I was told and I was already starting to get an amazing pump. Last set to failure, I sat in and psyched myself, which was unusual for this exercise, after all I always used pullovers as kind of a warm up movement. I struggled for 6 reps, until Dorian yelled, “2 more Bullman! 2 fuckin more! Come on!” With a tip from my “training partner” I squeezed them out, barely. Next exercise, we moved onto the hammer strength reverse pulldown. Dorian went first, illustrating how it was to be done. “The chest never leaves the pad, pull with your lats, not your arms, and hold it at the bottom for a second and slowly leave the weight up.” My turn, so we stripped off some weight and in I went, pulling down fast, squeezing for that second and releasing slowly. The feeling in the muscle was something I was not used to. I was under the impression I trained hard, but lifting heavy and moving fast is nothing, this is what it was all about. My final set, not even two plates a side, and I was forcing out 8 reps, pulling down with every ounce of energy I had, while Dorian yelled instructions. “Squeeze, that’s it! Keep the chest on the fuckin pad Bullman!” I got my 8 reps, I wasn’t getting 9!!! “that’s how you work your lats properly mate” remarked Dorian “that’s why your little mate never beat me at the Olympia, from the back it was all over” I replied in nothing short of whisper “I don’t know about that, I think he had you in ‘94” With that being said I ran out of the reach of Yates as he swung for me with a grin I read as, “you cheeky little f@#ker” We moved on to the next exercise, bent over rows. “No need to warm up mate.” I understood that if I wasn’t warmed up and ready by now, then I never would be. The same principle applied to every exercise; one or two sets to allow the body to adjust to the new movement, and then BAAAAMMMM, hit it with the all out set to failure. Super strict form is the key, stretch and squeeze, a familiar phrase I had heard so many times from training with Shawn Ray. The bar was loaded with one and half plates, I hit out 12 reps, my torso making a 60 degree angle at the hips, and the only movement was pulling the bar up into my lower abdomen, holding that fully contracted position for that split second. Dorian loaded up the bar 3 plates each side and hit out 8 super strict reps, stretching squeezing with every repetition. Bodybuilders just don’t train like that anymore. The feeling you get is amazing; the muscles are truly buzzed, blood is gorging into them like there is no tomorrow, you suddenly have the feeling that your back is as wide as a barn door. My turn again, two plates each side, lightweight. “Lets go mate, this is it, 8 reps come on lets do this,” growled Dorian. My back was truly shagged, I felt like I had gone through a good tackling session with the Munster Rugby squad (The World’s Number 1 Rugby Club).