Dorian Yates: turning anger into gym fuel

SportLocation Fitness Desk · 4 Oct 2026

Dorian Yates describes directing anger and other negative emotions towards training, and calls the result a form of mastery over oneself.

Dorian Yates’s point is not simply to let anger loose. In this interview, he describes taking anger and other negative emotions and using them “like fire” — directing that energy towards the gym.

He makes the idea vivid with a line about going home ready to “slay dragons in the gym”. But the thought lands on control: Yates describes the process as a form of mastery over oneself. The energy matters; so does where it is put.

As he speaks, Yates raises both hands to emphasise the point. It is a compact account of how he thinks about training: difficult feelings can become fuel, but the aim is to put them to work rather than be ruled by them.