Dorian Andrew Mientjez Yates (born 19 April 1962) is an English retired professional bodybuilder.

[citation needed] Yates started working out in 1983 at Martin's Gym in Temple Row, Birmingham.

His career ended in large part due to chronic acute injuries, including torn biceps and triceps, the latter just three weeks prior to his final contest, the 1997 Mr. Olympia, which he won in spite of the injury; his win generated controversy among fellow athletes, critics, and amateurs, who thought the runner-up Nasser El Sonbaty deserved to win.

[5] Yates was a proponent of Arthur Jones and Mike Mentzer's high-intensity training (HIT) style of bodybuilding, which posits that maximum muscle stimulation can be reached through short and intense workout sessions instead of long and slow ones.

[6][7] He said, “If you feel you can attempt a second set, then you couldn’t have been pulling out all the stops during the first set.”[8] Examples of his biggest lifts include 435-pound underhand barbell rows for 6-8 reps, 425-incline presses for 6-10 reps, and 595-pound barbell shrugs for 10-12 reps.[9] He earned the nickname "The Shadow" coined by Peter McGough for his tendency to unexpectedly appear at major bodybuilding contests and steal the win, having neither confirmed nor denied whether he would compete beforehand, and for spending most of his time between contests avoiding the public eye.

He believes that his injuries are due to his habit of maintaining an extreme level of training intensity all year long, even when approaching contests, while being on a severely restricted "cutting" diet which weakens the body overall.

[10] Regarding the use of PEDs, he referenced the documentary Super Size Me and stated that eating three McDonald's meals a day is more harmful for the metabolism than his 12 years of regular steroid use.

In 2011, Yates founded a third company, DY Nutrition, which specializes in pre-workout formulas and has released several training DVDs.