Getting more from your workouts isn’t just about how heavy you lift — it’s about how you think while lifting.
That’s the message six-time Mr. Olympia Dorian Yates wants gym-goers to understand after revealing a deceptively simple mental cue that he says can instantly improve your pressing power.
In an Instagram post shared with his 1.9 million followers, the bodybuilding legend broke down his so-called “spring technique” — a psychological method he’s used for decades to generate explosive force while staying in total control of the weight.
“Psychological tip: on pressing movements, so if you imagine on a hack squat, leg press, or bench press, anywhere you’re pressing, when you take the weight, you visualize your muscles as a big coiled spring, like you get on a car suspension,” Yates said.
That mental image, Yates explained, helps him stay locked in throughout every phase of a rep.
“As the weight is coming down, that spring is getting compressed, so you’re coming down, it’s getting compressed, compressed, and then when you want to release the power, bang. It’s like a spring is coming out. It’s just a little trick in the mind that I use. Keep the weight really tight and then power out of the bottom,” Yates shared.
READ MORE: Eddie Hall Reveals His Unique Trick For Groundbreaking 500Kg Deadlift
It’s a simple visualization, but one that directly links mind and muscle — the same connection that Yates has preached since his competitive prime. The idea, he says, is to harness that internal tension and use it as stored power.
“Control the weight and use it as a tool to put maximum stress on the working muscles,” he says. “Keep it tight and compact, then release with power whilst still keeping immense control.”
The “mind-muscle connection” might sound like bro-science, but it’s a proven performance enhancer. Research in the European Journal of Sport Science found that lifters who consciously focused on their target muscle during curls achieved nearly double the growth of those who didn’t.
Yates has long embodied that principle. Even in retirement, his training wisdom continues to resonate — a legacy built on his high-intensity training (HIT) approach, where effort and intent outweigh endless volume.
Thanks to this relentless HIT mentality, Yates was unstoppable through the 1990s, collecting six consecutive Mr Olympia titles from 1992 to 1997 and redefining what mass and precision looked like on the bodybuilding stage. He credits his psychological methods for much of that edge.
And fans appreciated the advice from one of the GOATs of the bodybuilding stage, with one person writing, “Thanks for the tip mate” and a second adding: “No one ever talks about visualization techniques. This is a solid tip.”
The “mind over matter” approach has also been detailed by the 2017 World’s Strongest Man Eddie Hall.
Speaking to RSNG, Hall explained how his secret to becoming the first human in history to deadlift 500kg was less about brute force and more about psychological warfare with himself.
When asked how he prepares for maximum effort, Hall replied: “Attacking weights, especially in competitions going for ‘max lifts’ – you’ve got to put yourself in a different place, and I can only describe it as the same as when you hear stories of mothers lifting cars off their own children in accidents – that’s the kind of flip switch you’ve got to learn to control. You’ve got to release a tonne of adrenalin in the split of a second.”
That “flip switch” mentality, Hall says, is what separated him from the rest of the world that night in Leeds.
Hall admitted that his body alone could never have managed the half-tonne deadlift. Instead, he turned to a terrifying mental image to fuel the attempt: “For instance, when I did my final world record deadlift, it wasn’t my body that lifted that weight, it was my mind. I put myself in a position where, in the same way, I was lifting that 500kg weight off one of my kids, and somehow I did it, I put myself in that scenario. I envisioned that weight being a car and one of my children being under the weight.”
In other interviews, Hall has referenced this ability for mothers to use “100% of their muscle fibres”, calling it a “fight or flight” adrenaline response.
For Yates, muscle mastery doesn’t just start in the gym — it starts in your head.
Featured image credit: Instagram/DorianYates (screenshot)
