Latest / The Dan John Podcast / EP 370 - The Odyssey, Choosing Your Values, Training Regrets, Overtraining & Rep Ranges

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EP 370 - The Odyssey, Choosing Your Values, Training Regrets, Overtraining & Rep Ranges · The Dan John Podcast

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome back everybody to the Dan John University.com podcast.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: I'm Dan John and each and every week I sit
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: down and answer your questions. If you have a question,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: and this is my favorite new thing I'm doing, and
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: you'll see it right here, send your question to podcast
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: at danjohnuniversity.com. As I say, I do my best to
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: answer each and every question. Sometimes questions are a little
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: bit too personal, and it's better for me just to
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: email you back. So thank you. Our first question picks
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: up on a question we had just a few weeks ago,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: and I like that one, and I like this one too.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: This comes from Tony, and Tony says, Would you mind
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: giving us your thoughts on the recent film, The Odyssey,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: as an adaption? In addition, I'd love to hear your
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: ideas on the original texts of the Odyssey and the
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Iliad as they relate to our current Western morality. I'll
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: do my best on that. While some people may judge
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: characters harshly and not without credence, that civilization had a
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: completely different metric for morality. And I would agree mostly
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: with that, sure. And I know it strays from the
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: realm of fitness, but I don't think it's that far off,
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: especially the area of psychology. One of my favorite segments
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: of yours was your self-reflection on the velocity diet and
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: what you got from the diet. I'd love to hear
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: your sights on Homer's work in relation to morality, will, life, fate, Schopenhauer,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: and Nietzsche. Well, we'll do our, I'll give you what
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: I get you. And this is still, that would be
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: more of a course, not a podcast. This is very
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: selfish of me. However, I think it might be an
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: interesting subject. Well, as I noted a few weeks ago,
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: And that's the podcast where I'm wearing my helmet. Uh,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: I'm at my secret location in rainbow beach, Florida right now.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: So I don't have my books or any of my
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: fun stuff behind me. So I like your question, Tony.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: I like it a lot. Uh, and I like where
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: you framed it. First off the Iliad, uh, the Iliad
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: like Beowulf, uh, when I was in college and I
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: hope I pronounce it correctly. Both of them were called
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: first and Spiegel's. And what that is, uh, It is
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: a story about how you're supposed to act. You know,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: if you read Beowulf, a warrior is supposed to show
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: up and fight, a thane is supposed to show up
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: and fight for his leader, his king. And when you
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: become a king, you should have a very broad vision
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: of things. You know, as I noted in my, really
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: my first published article in Beowulf, the warriors speak only
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: in pure presence. And kings talk about the past, the present,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: and the future. And in my life, I've been a warrior.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: I didn't care if I was injured. I didn't care
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: if I was hurt. I didn't care if I hurt anyone.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: I was there to win, to compete. And of course,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: most of my times in my life, I'm more of
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: a king. If you join my inner circle, I mean,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: we talk about the benefit of hindsight. We talk about
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: a perfect day, a pirate map for every day at
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: the present. And then we do the 5-2 assignment and
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: what I call poop site politely on my podcast, but
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: I use another word, in real life. That's a very
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: kingly way of looking at things. When we get to
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: the Iliad, how are you supposed to act? Now, Achilles
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: and Agamemnon have issues. Shocking statement, if you know the story.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: I'm becoming more and more kind to the movie Troy recently.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: I've watched it again a couple of times. I feel
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: like where it's bad, it's bad. But most of the
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: movie is good, which is a big change for me
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: in the last 20 plus years. But Achilles has a
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: set of rules he lives by. And Agamemnon is his leader.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: But Agamemnon kind of doesn't follow the rules. And so
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: one of the things you pick up in the Iliad is...
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: And it's interesting because, you know, now I slide over
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: into the Viking stories. Being an oath breaker was about
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: as bad as you could be in most of those
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: early Germanic stories or Nordic stories or Anglo-Saxon stories. And,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: you know, when I think about it a little bit,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: some of the Celtic stories I know fairly well, but
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: not as well. I know the story of Cú Chulainn
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: really well. And I know the The Finn stories, the
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Fianna stories pretty well, but some of the other ones,
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: I'll get a book on Celtic heroes and legends, and
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: it'll be like, I didn't know any of this. My
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: point on this is, if we're going to be, if
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: you're my leader, my ring giver, and that also ties
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: us right into the Hobbit, especially, and less so maybe
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: in the Lord of the Rings from my vision of it,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: don't worry if you're But Achilles is expecting certain things
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: from Agamemnon, and Agamemnon is not doing those things. Having
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: said that, Achilles is supposed to do what Agamemnon wants.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: The reason the Iliad is so interesting, there's no Trojan
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: horse in it, and there's a whole bunch of stuff
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: that's not in it, and there's a whole bunch of
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: stuff that's not in it. But it gives us, like Beowulf,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: a vision of what we're supposed to do in these relationships.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: you know, my number five on my daily pirate map
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: used to be make a difference. A couple of months ago,
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: because of someone in the inner circle, I changed it
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: because they went to Jesuit Dallas, I think is what
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: it's called. It's a Jesuit high school in Dallas, Texas.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: And their motto is be a man for others. And
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: I changed my number five from make a difference to
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: be a man for others. So what I'm trying to
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: say is this, if you decide to be a man
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: for others, if you If you take an oath and you,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: in front of a whole congregation of people, vow to
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: be with one person the rest of your life, those
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: are oaths. And if you break those oaths, things happen.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: And the more and more people break their oaths, according
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: to the traditions, the more and more things become unraveled.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: That's why I like teaching the Iliad so much. There's
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: also just great names and great things that happen in
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: the story, obviously. Now, in the Odyssey, and of course,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: it's been nice in the last couple months because we've
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: returned to the phrase, the original meaning of nostalgia. When
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: we get back to words sometimes, they're really interesting. We
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: have a word in English called meander. And in English,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: when we say meander, it kind of means kind of
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: going all over the place, not following the lines. The
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: original meaning of it is a handlock like this. It's illegal,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: I think, in American wrestling. I don't know about other forms.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: But it's this lock, and if you draw the meander,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: you'll see it very often. When you go to Greece,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: it's a very common pattern. So it's funny because the
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: word meander came from a wrestling hold. It evolved into
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: an art form, and then it evolved into a word
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: that means to kind of aimlessly go somewhere, sort of,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: kind of. Well, So we're back to nostalgia, you know,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: the wishing to be home, the Odyssey. I've had two
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: courses where we studied the Odyssey. In one course, my
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: professor was very clear about it. He felt that Ulysses
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: was singing for a supper. You show up naked on
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: a beach, and the first person who finds you is
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: the king's daughter, the princess, and you're naked, and you
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: better come up with a good story, you know, So
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: the point of that class was that all those adventures
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: before were kind of invented. Now, that's also, if you
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: read it, it's discussed as not true, but I enjoyed
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: both courses. And I think it's really important academically to
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: always have both sides of an argument. Ulysses was a
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: discus thrower. Ulysses was very competitive, but he was also
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: very intelligent. I've always found as a role model, Ulysses Odysseus,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: to be a very good one because he's very clever,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: but he's also, he's a stud. I mean, the guy,
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, he survived all that. I do like the
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: fact that he keeps warning his men not to do
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: things and they keep doing them. If any of you
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: ever coached, you're constantly spending your time saying, please don't do,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: don't be stupid this weekend. And then of course on Monday,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: you're like, okay, what happened? And we're stupid, you know,
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: and bad things happen from there, injuries, arrests, and all
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: kinds of other things. One of the things that we
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: get out of the Odyssey, besides the fact that it
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: is a great story, is this idea of the longing
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: for home. Now, it's nice. I think what they did
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: really nice in the movie was the character of Argus,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: the dog, And the way Argus is treated, you know,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: I have, I got to tell you, I have the hard,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: hard time with the guy. He did a great job.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: I want to punch him in the face, but I
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: think his name is Robert Pattison. He was also in Twilight.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: What a phenomenal movie that was. I said no whenever.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: Sorry if I hurt any feelings. But he's such a
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: slimy guy in the movie. And then the way he
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: treats the dog. I kind of have a worldview that,
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: you know, You learn a lot about a person by
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: the way they treat their... Especially the way they treat dogs.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: And I didn't throw him on the ash heap. It
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: was not cool. But hey, hats off to Argos who
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: sticks around to see his man come home. I love
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: that section. I think he wanted something else out of
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: what I'm saying here. But I'm not going to judge...
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Western morality as good or bad. I think Western civilization
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: has been and continues to be amazing. I'm still a
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: big fan of the Harvard five-foot shelf of books, the
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: University of Chicago's version also from about the 1940s and 50s.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: I love the great books. I've read many, many, many
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: of them, and I continue to do so practically every
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: single day of my life. when Western civilization is at
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: its best, when it really reflects the Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: traditions the best. And I'm not necessarily talking about the religions,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: but the idea that we are more than just our flesh.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: I think that's when we do best. And I think
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: that came off well in the movie. I was very
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: impressed with the movie. I thought, you know, I thought,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Matt Damon and Hathaway. I mean the whole cast, I
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: thought was fantastic. I thought the show was excellent. And
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: as I noted in my last podcast on this, I
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: think they did a great job with the peoples of
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: the sea. And, uh, I also think they did a
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: great job with that little elbow, uh, that, wait a second,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: these terrible people doing all this damage. That's us. Um,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: and it's one of those things in life. When I
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: was young, you know, um, The heroes in stories always
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: look like me. The heroes in stories were always people
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: of my same background, my same country. And as you
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: go through life, you discover that first, that there's heroes
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: in every culture, nation, country, state. And there's also heroes
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: in every, I don't even know what we call it anymore, race, color, creed.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, everyone's heroes. And sometimes another country's hero is
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: your mortal enemy. That's a lesson you learn in life,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: and sometimes it's difficult. The thing I've learned the most, though,
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: and I like a lot about the movie, they call
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: it Zeus's Law in the movie, but I'll just finish
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: with this, Tony. But a long time ago, 41 years ago,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: I was very sick. I was very sick when I
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: was in the Middle East. And I was in a
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: place called, well, it's called Upper Egypt, but on the map,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: it's to the south. And it was an area of
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: what's traditionally called Nubia. And I was the only person
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: who looked like this. I was probably the only blue-eyed
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: person for a long, long ways around. And yet, the respect,
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: the kindness, the dignity I was offered still makes me
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: think that the world's a pretty good place, as long
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: as we don't let Some of the people in charge
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: keep messing it up. I love the movie. I would
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: hope that we maybe keep exploring films like that. The
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: nice thing about the Western canon is it's filled with
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: great stories that need to be done. I saw at
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: a preview at a movie a while ago that there's
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: a new Don Quixote coming out. with a very interesting cast,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: but I haven't been able to find it, and I
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: hope I can catch that one. But, you know, if
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: you just go through, I mean, obviously, you could probably
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: do a Shakespeare film a day for a while. There's
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: just so many great Shakespeare's. I have found traditionally that
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: Don Quixote movies, they're not very good, and I'm hoping
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: this new one is great. But we have just so
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: many great books in the tradition. I mean, I thought
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: Denzel Washington's, I hope I got the name right, Denzel's
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: Macbeth was phenomenal. Just a couple of years ago, there
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: was a great Green Knight movie that I thought did
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: a great job with that story. Of course, there's also
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: the Sean Connery version from my youth, which I really enjoyed.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: So we have a huge body of movies that could
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: be made. And yet they're just going to keep making
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: comic book stories for a long time and movies with
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: endless chases and battles that lead to nothing. Nothing worse
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: than having a movie that's three quarters chases and battles
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: and not one of them leads to the solution of
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: any character's issues. All right, Tony, that's going to be
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: good enough for this time. I really appreciate the question.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: And thank you for asking me. I really enjoyed it.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: We have a question from Jason. I discovered your podcast
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: and work about six months ago, and I've learned a
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: ton about fitness and weightlifting, especially kettlebells. I've read both
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: armor building formula books, and I've lost a surprising amount
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: of weight and put on a surprising amount of muscle
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: in a surprisingly short amount of time. I started the
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: 12 kilo bells, and I'm right on the verge of
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: using 24 bells currently. Doubling your load is pretty impressive, Jason.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: That's pretty good. That's all great, but the thing that
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: has surprised me the most has been just how much
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: you've inspired me to think about self-improvement not related to weightlifting.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: You have a lot of great insights to share about
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: philosophy and living a more meaningful life that I found
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: myself thinking about a lot. One thing I'm interested in
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: is learning more about your three values. I was wondering
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: if you could talk a little bit more about how
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: you decided on the values you picked and why you
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: picked them. I would like to pick some values too
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: as a nice way to remind myself of what I
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: want to focus on and kind of like a mission
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: statement for my life. What would you recommend to someone
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: thinking about selecting a few values? For example, should I
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: pick something I want to get better at or pick
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: something that I already value and do well? Since you
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: picked your priorities, do you find you think about those
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: things differently? I'd value any of your thoughts on the subject. Well,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: first off, thank you for that statement about the armor
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: building formula. Folks, Jason doubled his weight in six months
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: from 12 kilo to 24. He got more muscular and
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: he lost some body fat. I think that's pretty good.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: I go online sometimes and I read so much nonsense
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: and yet Jason here, six months, Double his load in
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: the kettlebells. Lost body fat. Put on some muscle. Life
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: is great. Okay, Jason, real quick. If you get a chance,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: I don't know if it's going to be in the
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: comments below, but it should be. Go to danjohninnercircle.com. I
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: have a new five, six week group opening up pretty soon.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: But this is a central part of what we teach
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: in the Inner Circle. Real quick couple of comments. First off,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: my friend Patrick is the one who got me involved
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: with looking at my own values. Now, I always knew
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: my values, you know, like you know something, like before
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: you learn how to drive, you probably knew where you live,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: but you'd have a hard time explaining it. So that's
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: kind of what values are to me. It's like, it's the,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: you know, map, okay? And I'll take a left here,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: take a right there. So my first assignment, he gave
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: me a list of values and they're available online. If
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: you can't find some, just ask me over at the
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: Dan John University Forum and I'll shove some up there
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: for you. And the first thing you do is you
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: just circle maybe 10, or you could circle more if
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: you like, doesn't matter. You circle 10 that kind of
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: leap off the page at you. And it's interesting for
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: me is that I had a hard time getting to 10.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: I really did. Once I got to about seven or eight,
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: I was already saying, yeah, those are them. Once you
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: get to the 10, then you go through that list
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: of 10 and you say, you know, is this real
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: or is this a bunch of nonsense? What really helped
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: me is I get good feedback. My daughters are very
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: good at feedback with me. I remember, I think I've been...
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: Hold your children's ears very quickly, gentle listener. When I
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: asked my daughters, so I was thinking, how was I
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: on the Velocity Diet? And they said, you're an asshole
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: the entire time. Ah, thank you. I also have Erica.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: I can ask about my values. Mike Brown, of course,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: I can ask. Obviously, I can ask Patrick. But, you know,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: I can even ask my brother Gary. I would trust.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: I have some nieces and nieces, especially about saying nephews.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: But I'm thinking of Beth and I'm thinking of Jennifer.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: I think they would give me good feedback. I mean,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: they've known me since I was, what, 10? I was
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: 10 when they were born, nine maybe. So they've known
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: me my entire life. And as I went through that five,
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: I asked people, I go, is this real? Now, when
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: I said fitness, everyone kind of goes, you know, duh.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Because when I'm bored, I read old strength and health magazines.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: When I'm bored, when I go on trips, I take
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: along weightlifting books from the 1950s and 60s, or a
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: book that a friend of mine just wrote and I'll read.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: When I'm thumbing around the internet, I go to fitness stuff.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: I just read fitness stuff. Now, I do struggle, as
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: I say that, with many of the fitness personalities now.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: I find many of them extremely rude. And if you
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: really want to find horrible people treating people horribly, just
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: go look at a nutrition discussion. Um, so fitness was
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: real obvious to me now because it's, I live and
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: breathe it. Okay. The next one is order. And when
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: I said order, uh, everybody I know, uh, laughs out
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: loud because, you know, on the back of my computer
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: is my pirate map. You know, uh, I have monthly
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: checklists I have on the gym. I, I spend quality
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: time typing up my workouts and, you know, putting them
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: up on the gym wall. Um, I mean, Everything has
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: a place. What's the phrase? Everything has a place and
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: a place for everything, I think it is. Yeah, I'm
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: very much ordered. I like to cull things. I like
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: to declutter. Not long ago, I went through... I had
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: a group of Navy SEALs spending some time with me.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: And God bless them. When they clean your kitchen, man,
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: you're embarrassed to live there. And one of the things
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: they did was the spoons all spoon, the fork spoon.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: And since then, I have decided to keep my house
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: in much better condition. So the spoons always spoon, the
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: forks always spoon, the knives go where the knives go.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: And I try very hard to keep things orderly. If
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: you come to my house, you'll notice my lawn is,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: I mow my lawn twice a week. My neighbor, Vivi,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: who just got married, was asking me if there's something
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: magical about my lawn, why it grows so much faster
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: because I'm always mowing it. But I like to keep
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: my lawn really high. I live in Utah. It's very hot.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: The taller you can keep your grass and clover, the
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: taller you can keep it, the less the heat destroys
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: it and it doesn't burn. So to keep it neat
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: and tidy, I mow more than my neighbors. And then
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: when it comes to generosity, well, this is a good example.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, here I am, my podcast, uh, I don't
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: charge anything in my podcast. Every week I have my newsletter,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: Wandering Weights, and we're like at 12 years of it.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: And I've never missed a single edition in 12 years
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: through all kinds of really rough times, road trips, illnesses,
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: all kinds of things. I've never missed a Wandering Weights.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: Most of the work I do is free. I always
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: joke about being a, a highly paid volunteer throws coach
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: at the university, which I think is funny. Nobody else does.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: So generosity, really, I can prove it. I sponsor Hot
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: House West, a wonderful swing collective here, a musical collective
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: here in Utah. I also sponsor Utah Presents, which is
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: a mix of jazz and dance and a bunch of
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: other arts, and I'm very proud of all that. Um,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: I am, I open my wallet a lot to, you know,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: organizations that need help, that I respect. So I can
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: defend my three. Now, if my three, oh, humor is
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: a top five for me also. Uh, if I can't
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: defend my values, then they're not my values. If you
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: tell somebody your values and they laugh out loud in
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: your face, um, I don't know of a value that
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't have. I can't think of something that someone
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: would laugh at me, but maybe my athletes would say
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: something like, okay, if my number one value was easygoing,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: I think people would laugh in my face at me.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: So that's the system you use. And then once you
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: have it in front of you, then you say, okay,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: am I living my values? Am I living my values
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: of fitness or generosity? Then, and this is the great thing,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: is once you kind of have your values kind of
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: cleared up in your own head, and you already have
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: your values, they're there right now, but we're going through
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: an active exercise of labeling them, asking about them, checking
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: in that you're following them. You step back and then
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: you use them, just like I use my mission statement.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: Our family mission statement is make a difference. Am I
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: making a difference? I can check in and check out
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: with that and see if I'm really doing what I'm
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: going to do. So that's the value of values is
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: that it gives you a chance when something comes along.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: So we used to use make a difference as the only,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: that was our mission statement. So I can remember years
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: ago in a family meeting, we're discussing supporting something and someone,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: I It could have been Kelly or Lindsay. It could
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: have been Tiffany. I don't remember, but someone said, would
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: this make a difference? And it was like, oh yeah,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: let's go do it. But with also with fitness, order,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: and generosity, it'll allow me to make like buying decisions. Okay,
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: I'm going to buy this year. So this year I've
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: put in really nice carpet on the main floor. And
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: then I really did a nice job upgrading everything. the
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: furniture in the bedroom, not the bed, but you know,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: the side tables and lamps and stuff. Well, one of
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: the reasons I updated the side tables was because I
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: wanted a little bit better order when I went to
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: bed at night. And I have this little thing that
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: I can put my watches on and like it's got,
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: I can plug in my cell phone charger there and all.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: It's got a pen and I can keep glasses there.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: And like I have a notepad there and It's order.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: It's more order. And inside the drawers, I've got my,
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: we call it an acupressure mat. It's a sticky mat
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: that you lay on and it helps me relax. It's
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: kind of the opposite of what you think. That's all
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: stored there before it was stored under the bed. And
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: it got dusty because, you know, the underneath beds always
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: are filthy no matter how clean your house is. So
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: when I made that decision, I kind of folded my
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: arms and I said, okay, will this help me with
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: fitness or generosity? Oddly, it helped me with the first two.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: Now I have a place where I can keep my
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: water at night. Everything is organized on the bed, on
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: the little stand I have. And then, of course, I
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: keep my recovery tools right there next to the bed. Win-win,
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: fitness and order. If you're interested in learning more, hey, danjohninnercircle.com.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: I'd be happy to have you as a member. I
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: think it's important to think about it. A lot of
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: people don't appreciate that exercise. And when I do work
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: with somebody who doesn't appreciate the values exercise, I make
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: it a value judgment. Very often, they miss a whole
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: bunch of the other things too. They struggle with looking ahead.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: They struggle with the science of hindsight. If you struggle
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: And so probably that kind of person doesn't share some
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: of the values I share. I hope that helped. Thank
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: you so much. We have a question from Dylan. And
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: Dylan says, if you could go back to your 30-year-old self,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: knowing what you know now at your age about your
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: body and training, would you change anything about the way
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: you trained for the next 30 years? Well, actually, Dylan,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: it would be the next 40 years because I'm almost 70.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: At 30, I had finally, age 30, 1987, I had
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: finally recovered from that parasite I picked up in the
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: Middle East. And it had taken a full two years.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: And I'd also hurt my back at that time. These
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: aren't fun memories. And I decided, since I did some
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: sprint triathlons, because the guy helped me with my back,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: I had a nice team of people. I'd hurt my
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: back picking up a typewriter, for God's sakes. I had
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: a nice team of people helping me. And they said
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: I should do bilateral breathing when I was in the
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: swimming pool, which I had to learn and I should
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: ride bikes. And I figured, well, if I ride a
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: bike and I'm buying a swim, might as well do
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: a triathlon. Right. And, uh, I decided to come out
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: of retirement and start throwing the discus again. And I
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: was getting a lot of bad information from people cause
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: it was the eighties. Um, I had trained, I wish
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: I had just trusted what I had done my whole
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: career and stuck with basically the Olympic snatch and the
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: power clean. Now I do the power clean and military press,
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: but let's not worry too much. But I allowed people
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: from the bodybuilding side to influence me. So I started
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: eating massive amounts of food, massive amounts of protein. I
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: never felt very good. I bulked up too quickly, but
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: I didn't throw farther, okay? So the first thing I
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: would do is I would, okay, a couple things I
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: know I would do. Okay, first off, no question about it.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: I would only train in the weight room three days
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: a week. I would take Coach Mon's advice, lift three
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: days a week, throw four days a week. That's what
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: I would do now. When it comes to lifting, in
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: my high school years, I used to do a lot
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: of incline bench presses. And I just benched then. And
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: in the early aughts, I started doing inclines again, stopped
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: doing them. And then the last year or so, I
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: started doing inclines again. And I got to tell you, folks,
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: so my presses would be inclines in military. I would
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: not have chased the big squat like I was told
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: to do. That didn't help me at all. Inclines, that's funny,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: if you don't mind. When I was in the ninth grade,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: we did the Southwood training program. It was clean, press,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: bench press, and front squat. What I guess I'm saying
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: is I would do incline, press, military, press, clean, and
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: I would never go heavy on front squats. Never. I
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: would just keep them spicy, and I would have done
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: a lot more hill sprints. So don't bulk up. There's
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: no value in it. Get big and strong. Don't try
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: to bulk up. Number two, lift three days a week.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: And maybe even just do, I don't have a perfect
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: idea for you right now, but maybe, here you go. Mondays,
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: I would do inclines. Fridays, I would do militaries. Maybe
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: the day I'm doing inclines, maybe do front squats. Fridays,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: militaries and power cleans. And Wednesday would be the Olympic
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: snatch work. There. There's your program. Toss in a day
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: or two of hill sprints each week. Don't bulk up.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: Another thing I wish I would have done earlier is fasting.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: Fasting has been such a benefit for me. I just
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: like the way I feel. Supplements at that time were
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: all voodoo. I mean, there was so much crap in them.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: We still have that issue, but it seems to be
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: getting better again. But, you know, you would, you'd go
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: to the GNC and they, they would have 3000 ingredients.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: I don't know if any of these companies are still
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: around anymore, but I mean, you, they, they just threw
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: in so much garbage, you know, the kitchen sink of supplements.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: And I'm not sure how good that stuff was. At
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: this time, ephedrine was becoming very popular. Fortunately, I stayed
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: away from that, but there were supplements that were just
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: basically ephedrine and caffeine. And so, you know, you're go
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: to a workout and people be, you know, kind of
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: twerking out, you know, or, um, lift three days a week.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: I would focus more on recovery, probably one day a week,
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: be completely devoted to recovery. Um, I think I was
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: a member of a gym at the time, but one
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: day a week I would do the sauna, ice shower, steam,
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: ice shower kind of thing. Uh, I've owned two hot
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: tubs in my life. And once you own your own
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: hot tub, you never go into a public hot tub.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: My hot tubs were always crystal clear, hinting on blue.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: I looked at one the other day and it was
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: green and kind of a yellowish color. I'm not putting
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: my feet in there. So those would be the kinds
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: of things. So let's go through it. So I would fast,
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: lift three days a week, probably move something to each workout,
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: one big or two big focus lifts, I would have done,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: if I could, I would have done a little bit more,
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: just general bodybuilding stuff. I added that later. But, you know,
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: especially at the gym I was at, they had curl machine,
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: tricep extension machines, maybe more hyperextensions, that kind of thing.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: Nothing too crazy. And if I could toss in one
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: last thing, I would do a lot more hanging bent
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: knee leg raises. As I often say on the podcast,
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: this brand new exercise that Bob Hoffman told president John F.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: Kennedy to do to help his lower back. That's a joke.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's not nothing new, but hanging bent knee
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: leg raises do so much wonders for the shoulders, the
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: lower back and the ab wall. It's, it's wonderful. I'm,
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking there's a whole bunch of other exercises I'd
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: love to sit down with him and tell him, like
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: the hip thrust and a few others, but this is
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: good enough for now. I would also remind him that,
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: you know, and this is good advice for any of you,
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: but put a little extra money away. And I did
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: do a couple things that were really smart in my 30s.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: I always kept learning. So let's see, when Kelly and
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: Lindsey were Two, maybe two and four is when I
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: started my another master's degree. I've got a couple of
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: them because you can never have two masters. And it
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: was hard. But, you know, in four years, it was
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: a really hard program. Loyola, really serious academics. At the
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: end of the four years, you know, they were a
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: lot older than I. It was great to be a
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: constant learner. I got exposed to a lot of good
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: information and a lot of good thought. That's something I
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: think I did really well. I still over-trained for way
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: too long. Finally, the last thing I'd do is I
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: would tell little Danny, if he could, go to discus
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: camp within a year or so when it first opens.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: But the other thing I would tell him, you need
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: to take time off every year. Six to eight weeks off. O-F-F.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: You know, let things heal, enjoy things, still do that
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: ab work, but take it easy. I hope that helps.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: You know, that was a fun question, and I enjoyed it.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: But those questions, they're always tough, you know, what it
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: could have, should have kind of thing, okay? Thank you.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: Good question. Much appreciated. Okay, this question is from Jake.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: There's that great commercial, Jake from State Farm. I took
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: your advice to heart when you suggested to one listener,
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: that he alternate the armor building complex with the humane burpee.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: And that's his plan for the rest of his life. Yeah,
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: I would find that boring, but if you can do it,
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: it's a good combo. Due to the brief time needed
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: for each workout, this plan has worked well for me
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: for the past five months because at 47, I have
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: a very stressful job and a crazy toddler. 47 and
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: a toddler. You're a brave man, Jake. I think your
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: suggested schema was alternating them over three days a week. Yes,
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: I did. I've been doing five or six days, okay?
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: For the ABC, I start off with double 12s and
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: I've worked up to double 16s with the double 18
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: sets thrown in so far. Work up to double 18s
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: on all the sets next, okay? I started out with
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: a 16K bell for the humane burpee and I'm now
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: using the 18, but doing counting down from five as
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: you demonstrated in one of your videos. Every couple of
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: weeks or so, I get the feeling I'm overtraining very
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: fatigued after the workout for the whole day, sore and sad,
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: left knee howling at me. I wondered how you'd run
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: alternate the ABC with the humane burpee over five or
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: six days without overtraining. I'm also interested in your thoughts
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: on knee sleeves as a tool to prevent, manage moderate
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: intermittent knee pain during training. So I don't give medical advice,
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: but if you have knee sleeves, I think they're good.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: A whole bunch of my friends use them and You know,
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: back in the day, Tommy Kono made them. Walt Lampert
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: made them too. And then I think Bob Hoffman stole
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: the idea from Tommy and started making his own. I
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: think they work. Bob Banarski, the great American Olympic lifter,
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: used them. Here's the situation, Jake. You're overtraining. You're stressed
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: at work. You got a toddler. You're 47. You're lifting
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: six days a week. When an internet celebrity told you
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: to only do it three days a week, what I
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: would suggest to you, Jake, is find something else to
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: do on those other days. You know, you're squatting. Yeah.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, you're squatting. What, 15 squats, you know, three
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: days a week. And the other three days a week, what,
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: you're up to maybe 90 squats. That's squatting every day. And,
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: you know, if you keep hitting yourself in the face...
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: But after a while, it's going to start to hurt.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: And so what I would suggest to you is figure
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: out something else to do. Those are two or three days.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: If you just have the need to exercise, find something else.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, you could do something as simple. I'm trying
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: to find something that's knee friendly. But I mean, for me,
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: hill sprints, for me, hill sprints are always knee friendly
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: for me. You might want to swim. You know, you
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: got a toddler. Take the toddler to a swim class.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: just find other things. Jake, I'm worried about you because
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: you're banging your knees up going really contrary to what
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: I recommended and you got hurt. So I don't know
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: what to say except do the plan as I ABABAB
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: week one humane burpee ABC humane burpee Monday, Wednesday, Friday,
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: whatever week two ABC, Humane Burpee, ABC, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, whatever.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: And on those other days you feel like you have
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: to work out, why don't you do mobility? Why don't
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: you look up some Tim Anderson and do some rolling
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: on the ground? If you have a toddler, toddlers love
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: it when you roll on the ground and they always
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: join in. Anytime I want my grandkids to come to me,
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: I don't say, come here, come here, come here. I
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: just get on the ground and start doing stuff and
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: they come right over. Jake, I think you're doing a
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: lot of good things But I am a little worried
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: about you beating yourself up. Age 47 was the best
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: year of my athletic career. And one of the things
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: I learned at 47 is you can't win every day.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: And that's when I really took easy strength seriously. That's
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: when I took loaded carries extremely seriously. And it all
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: seemed to work. Jake, try the idea as I told you.
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: Knee sleeves, try that. But you might also have to
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: go see a doctor and get this looked at. It
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: might be something very simple. Or when you say to them,
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: I squat six days a week, they might go, yeah,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: that might be the issue. I would also take a
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: video of your squat technique and try to see if
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: you're making some mistakes as you do the lift. Are
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: your knees caving in? If you have flat feet, your
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: knees cave in. That's a recipe for disaster. And there's
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: some other things too. Thank you, Jake. I hope I helped.
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: So we have a question from Mike. Mike says, thanks
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: for all the great information you give out. You're welcome.
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: I have a most likely easy question for you. I'm
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: in my early 40s and I've recently been interested in
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: focusing on putting on some size, hopefully 10 to 15 pounds,
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: hopefully mostly muscle. If it's not all muscle, don't do it. Okay.
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: And get stronger. My plan was to do compound lifts.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: vertical and horizontal press, push, pull, hinge, deadlift, squat, and
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: carry three days a week. What I'm having trouble with
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: is figuring out how many sets of reps to aim for.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: I'm finding there's almost too much information out there. It's overwhelming.
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: My plan was something like six to eight reps, good,
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: times three sets. I was planning on starting with six
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: reps of moderate weight lift, moderate heavy weight, and lift
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: until I can hit Three sets of eight, I like this.
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: Increase the weight, drop back the sets to six, rinse
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: and repeat. Is this an ideal method for what I'm
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: trying to achieve? If not, do you have another suggestion? Yeah,
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: I've written about this. It's got to be in some
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: of my earlier books, but I don't remember where they are.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: But Mike, you're doing fine. So I would suggest, and
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: I think I'm hearing the same. So we've known since, well,
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: since Tom DeLorme did that article in 1951, that 15
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: to 30 total reps is that kind of best zone
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: for hypertrophy, muscle building, and power or strength, however you
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: want to define it this week. So the only thing
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: I would say is that you're going to hit a
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: quick limit on this 3x6 to 3x7 to 3x8. It's
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: going to last you about, you know, you'll get there soon.
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: I don't know, six weeks, eight weeks. What I'd recommend
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: is play around with some of those other rep ranges.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: I'm still a big fan of three sets of three
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: for pure strength. I still think that's one of the easiest,
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: simplest ways to get things done. But as always, your
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: mileage may vary. But if you want to try this,
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: try something more like this maybe. So what you can
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: do is start off, and I've said something like this
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: before on the site, but Week one, do three sets
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: of five. And you have five lifts, so loaded carries.
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: So you have four lifts. So three sets of five
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: isn't going to take a lot of time. And if
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: you do that Monday, Wednesday, Friday, or however it works out,
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: you'll quickly be able to figure out where you want
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: to be. That's the reason I mentioned three sets of three,
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: because three sets of three might be a good place
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: for you to start. So in a sense, week zero
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: would be three sets of three where you're figuring out, okay,
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: I can do a rep or two more. Three sets
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: of five week one. Week two, add load and do
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: five sets of three. Same volume, same volume, more load.
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: Week three, make that the hard week. Make that the
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: five sets of five week. I've written a lot on it.
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: I know it's over at T Nation. It's also in
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: Never Let Go. I talk about the five by five protocol.
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: There's so many definitions of what it is, but try that.
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: And then week four, That'll be your test week with
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: your three sets of six idea. Month two comes around,
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: three by five, five by three, five by five. Test
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: that three sets of six, even get seven right. I
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: can almost guarantee if you do this, week four is
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: always going to be pretty impressive. Month three, three by five,
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: five by three, five by five. And I can almost guarantee...
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: that you'll be topping out those three sets of eight,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: if not a lot more than when you first started.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: You have a very sensible plan. I like it. If
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: you're going to do a vertical press, vertical pull, horizontal press,
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: horizontal pull, that's probably too much upper body work for most,
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: but I also know she had a hinge in there
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: and a squat. So you might have to make a
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: decision after maybe month three, to just do one or
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: the other vertical horizontal. I would pair it this way.
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: If you're going to do a vertical press, just do
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: a horizontal pull. Do that for a month, two months,
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: three months, then go the opposite with the horizontal push
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: and the vertical pull. And I think you got yourself
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: a template for success there, okay? Thank you. That was
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: a good question. And gentle listeners, if you have a question,
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: please send them to us at this address, podcast at danjohnuniversity.com.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: Each and every week I sit down and answer your questions.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: And until next time, let's all keep on lifting and learning.