Latest / The Dan John Podcast / EP 368 - Easy Strength & ABF Rotation, Resistance Bands, Training During Busy Times & More

Transcript

EP 368 - Easy Strength & ABF Rotation, Resistance Bands, Training During Busy Times & More · The Dan John Podcast

0:12
Speaker 1: Hello and welcome back everybody to the DanJohnUniversity.com podcast. I'm
0:17
Speaker 1: Dan John and this is episode 368. I'm bringing this
0:21
Speaker 1: episode to you from Rainbow Beach, Australia. I'm doing my
0:25
Speaker 1: best to keep the podcast going after all these years.
0:29
Speaker 1: 368 podcasts, a lot of podcasts, and I'm proud of it.
0:33
Speaker 1: If you have a question, and by the way, this
0:37
Speaker 1: is viewer-sponsored Q & As, and I'm happy to do it.
0:40
Speaker 1: Please send your questions to this address, and they usually
0:43
Speaker 1: pop up right here, podcast at danjohnuniversity.com. Thank you so much.
0:50
Speaker 1: And let's begin With a question that I actually am
0:55
Speaker 1: glad I spent a lot of time thinking about, and
0:57
Speaker 1: this question comes from Phil. Over the years, I've gotten
1:01
Speaker 1: a lot of benefits from your podcasts and books. I'm
1:04
Speaker 1: a 37-year-old father of four, and your advice on training, nutrition, health,
1:09
Speaker 1: and life for middle-aged men has been invaluable. It is
1:12
Speaker 1: a breath of refreshing, no-nonsense, simple reasonableness in the age
1:17
Speaker 1: of the internet. And thank you, Phil. It means a
1:19
Speaker 1: lot because I tell you, I'll look at I'll look
1:22
Speaker 1: at the answers to I have in my questions and
1:24
Speaker 1: I'll read underneath sometimes the comments. And I don't think
1:28
Speaker 1: people actually, A, listen to anything I said and B,
1:32
Speaker 1: they comment immediately without listening to anything I said. And
1:37
Speaker 1: I try to be reasonable and reasonable is just not popular.
1:40
Speaker 1: So thank you. I want to help my wife into
1:43
Speaker 1: training more as I found that my overall quality of
1:47
Speaker 1: life is so much better when my body works better.
1:51
Speaker 1: but there's a nagging kernel of doubt. She has middle-aged
1:54
Speaker 1: womanhood on the horizon, and I have no idea if
1:57
Speaker 1: anything should change when I relate to her the things
2:00
Speaker 1: I'm learning on my fitness journey as a middle-aged man.
2:05
Speaker 1: Do you have any recommendations for resources for navigating training, nutrition,
2:10
Speaker 1: and overall health in this life stage for women? In
2:13
Speaker 1: other words, who is the Dan John for middle-aged women?
2:17
Speaker 1: The 25th anniversary of 9-11. is upon us, 25 years.
2:23
Speaker 1: And I was thinking about, while I was thinking about
2:27
Speaker 1: that the other day, I thought about Tiffany of blessed memory.
2:31
Speaker 1: You know, everybody knows she was my wife and she
2:35
Speaker 1: was in Manhattan when the planes came in and she
2:41
Speaker 1: saw the second plane strike. A coworker of her screamed
2:46
Speaker 1: because they were at this window when the first one in.
2:49
Speaker 1: And then they all ran to the window and she
2:51
Speaker 1: watched the second one go in. And of course, famously,
2:54
Speaker 1: she called me immediately. We had early cell phones. We
2:58
Speaker 1: had cell phones, but they weren't as good as now.
3:01
Speaker 1: And she said, honey, I'm okay. And I said, good,
3:03
Speaker 1: you know, I'm okay too. And then she asked me
3:07
Speaker 1: to put on the TV and in real time, she
3:11
Speaker 1: watched what I was watching. Why do I bring this up?
3:14
Speaker 1: Because Phil, before 9-11, Tiffany Olympic lifted before 9-11, Tiffany trained.
3:25
Speaker 1: And after 9-11, things changed and things changed hard. I
3:29
Speaker 1: don't want to get into a lot of it, but,
3:34
Speaker 1: you know, not only was she, you know, aging and things,
3:37
Speaker 1: but I didn't mean it like that. What I meant was,
3:42
Speaker 1: you know, her body was changing. She was no longer
3:45
Speaker 1: going to have children and all the rest. But she
3:47
Speaker 1: also had some other emotional issues too. So I decided
3:51
Speaker 1: thinking about that, and the ages work out pretty close
3:54
Speaker 1: actually in this story, that I wanted to make sure
3:57
Speaker 1: I gave you a serious answer. Because sometimes funny isn't funny.
4:03
Speaker 1: So the first thing I want to say is, first off,
4:06
Speaker 1: take care of yourself. Make sure you're staying on your
4:09
Speaker 1: fitness journey. Both of my daughters still exercise very seriously.
4:13
Speaker 1: And I've always thought one of the reasons my daughters
4:15
Speaker 1: exercise is because they were role models growing up, not
4:19
Speaker 1: just me, but this entire community of people who exercised.
4:23
Speaker 1: I also work with people in my friends and family
4:26
Speaker 1: group who constantly ask me nutrition and diet advice, nutrition, diet, exercise, recovery,
4:33
Speaker 1: sleep advice, and never take any of it. So I
4:38
Speaker 1: feel like I have a foot in the old joke,
4:41
Speaker 1: I got a foot in one canoe and a foot
4:43
Speaker 1: in another canoe, and we're going down the river, And
4:47
Speaker 1: I see the falls coming up. I feel that way
4:50
Speaker 1: when I give people advice. No matter what I say,
4:52
Speaker 1: I'm still going to end up going over the falls.
4:56
Speaker 1: So really, first and foremost, I would say you've got
4:59
Speaker 1: to role model, and I think you're doing the right thing. Second,
5:04
Speaker 1: I would suggest on the nutrition side and the quality
5:07
Speaker 1: of life side, I would start with the two most
5:11
Speaker 1: easy things to bring a partner along with, and that
5:14
Speaker 1: is on the food side and on the recovery side.
5:17
Speaker 1: And recovery means, almost universally to my audience, sleep. So
5:22
Speaker 1: I would suggest coming up with a menu. I would suggest,
5:27
Speaker 1: I loved the menu when we were growing up. I
5:29
Speaker 1: still basically use one, but now things are just so
5:32
Speaker 1: much simpler. I focus on really, I eat the exact
5:36
Speaker 1: same brunch every day. I eat two eggs. Now, there
5:40
Speaker 1: is a difference. I either eat cottage cheese, and I
5:43
Speaker 1: usually do that for a month, and then I eat
5:45
Speaker 1: yogurt for a month. I have a premier protein smoothie
5:50
Speaker 1: with a bunch of berries and then two eggs, the yogurt,
5:54
Speaker 1: premier protein smoothie with eggs. Let me start that again.
5:59
Speaker 1: I have the same brunch every day, two eggs, either
6:04
Speaker 1: yogurt or cottage cheese, and I tend to go both.
6:07
Speaker 1: month to month on that. And I like cottage cheese
6:10
Speaker 1: a lot. And boy, adding berries to it is wonderful.
6:13
Speaker 1: But after about a month, you've had enough. And then
6:15
Speaker 1: I go to yogurt. A premier protein smoothie with added
6:21
Speaker 1: berries and then using an additional piece of fruit. And
6:26
Speaker 1: it comes out the way it's worked out with the
6:30
Speaker 1: portion size. That's under 400 kcals and it's $ 60. grams
6:37
Speaker 1: of protein with my additional protein shake mid-afternoon and then
6:41
Speaker 1: my dinner. That gets me right on that number my
6:44
Speaker 1: coach wants me on, which is 150 grams of protein
6:46
Speaker 1: a day. We use the Tufts and the AARP recommendation
6:52
Speaker 1: of 0.82 grams of protein for every pound or goal
6:58
Speaker 1: body weight. With With the evening meal, it's always generally,
7:05
Speaker 1: I mean, it's very simple, but it's almost always a
7:09
Speaker 1: dedicated protein portion. And that can be chicken, turkey, steak,
7:15
Speaker 1: and many, you know, salmon, whatever, and then veggies. And
7:19
Speaker 1: that works for me really well. So the one thing
7:22
Speaker 1: I'd recommend is maybe trying a menu. It worked really
7:25
Speaker 1: well for us throughout the whole, raising our kids. Basically,
7:31
Speaker 1: we used to do Monday with steak and salad. Tuesday,
7:35
Speaker 1: we called them Viking enchiladas. Wednesday, I made Irish jambalaya.
7:40
Speaker 1: Anything made by Tiffany was Viking. Anything made by me
7:43
Speaker 1: was Irish. Thursday was a great idea, breakfast for dinner,
7:48
Speaker 1: because especially as you got late to school week, sometimes
7:52
Speaker 1: it's nice to have a real simple meal. And then
7:55
Speaker 1: Friday was... Don't worry about Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I've talked
7:59
Speaker 1: about it in my books and everything. But when it
8:02
Speaker 1: comes to sleep, that would be the next thing. I
8:06
Speaker 1: would suggest really trying to get to bed. My mom
8:11
Speaker 1: always said that the hours before midnight were the best
8:13
Speaker 1: sleeping hours. I still agree with that. So if you
8:20
Speaker 1: can get nutrition dialed in and you can get sleep
8:23
Speaker 1: dialed in, and then it opens the door for the
8:26
Speaker 1: next part, which I would recommend this. And this comes from,
8:29
Speaker 1: and I mention the sources all the time, Steve Persol,
8:34
Speaker 1: Stu McGill, Rusty Moore, my coach Scott, they all recommend
8:40
Speaker 1: the idea of eating after a meal and that dedicated
8:46
Speaker 1: half hour walk every day. If you can get yourself
8:50
Speaker 1: in the situation of just simply getting the half hour
8:53
Speaker 1: walk a day, the dedicated half hour, which means, by
8:56
Speaker 1: the way, you can walk the dog. And if you
8:58
Speaker 1: have a dog that sniffs everything, that's still fine. Walk.
9:02
Speaker 1: For me to get my 10,000 steps a day, and
9:04
Speaker 1: I know, and please, if one more person posts that
9:09
Speaker 1: it's a name from a Japanese company, oh, great. I
9:14
Speaker 1: like the 10,000 steps a day. That's what my coach
9:16
Speaker 1: tells me to do. If I do that 30-minute walk,
9:19
Speaker 1: I easily get 10,000 steps a day just by going
9:22
Speaker 1: around the house. This isn't my house. But it's easy
9:26
Speaker 1: to do. For your back, Stu McGill tells us that
9:31
Speaker 1: walk is wonderful. For your digestion, it's one of the
9:35
Speaker 1: best things you can do. And also for your blood sugars,
9:38
Speaker 1: it seems to be a really good thing to do.
9:41
Speaker 1: From there, with a dedicated trainer exercise program, I think
9:46
Speaker 1: I would suggest first is find out what she wants
9:49
Speaker 1: to do or likes to do and do that. A
9:52
Speaker 1: lot of women find the weight room not a good
9:55
Speaker 1: place to be. And I've been in a lot of
9:57
Speaker 1: weight rooms and I got to tell you, Phil, I agree.
10:00
Speaker 1: with that. They're not always female friendly. It's miles better
10:05
Speaker 1: than it was 50 years ago. But if it's a
10:12
Speaker 1: gym workout or if it's a yoga thing, a Pilates thing,
10:18
Speaker 1: whatever it is, You know, whatever she wants is the key.
10:22
Speaker 1: I do know that, you know, if you can get
10:25
Speaker 1: a woman to just do a glute exercise and an
10:28
Speaker 1: overhead press exercise. And I learned this when I first
10:31
Speaker 1: came on the internet from this fine group of women
10:35
Speaker 1: who are all Atkins. They call themselves Atkins. They did
10:40
Speaker 1: the Atkins diet and they shared information. And it was
10:43
Speaker 1: interesting because I was on the forum. They allowed me
10:46
Speaker 1: on the forum very kindly. The rule was you had
10:50
Speaker 1: to have lost 100 pounds of body weight to get
10:53
Speaker 1: on the forum. And they let me on. I don't
10:56
Speaker 1: remember why I was, but they talked about the importance of,
10:59
Speaker 1: they found that sparkling waters and non-chloric carbonated drinks, and boy,
11:05
Speaker 1: they talked a lot about crystal light and how that
11:07
Speaker 1: kept them happy. And they had all these ideas about
11:12
Speaker 1: walking and sleeping and all. all these hacks or tweaks,
11:16
Speaker 1: I guess, to the Atkins diet that worked. But for them,
11:21
Speaker 1: the Atkins diet, and the actual Atkins, not the one
11:24
Speaker 1: you think you know, but read the damn book. And
11:28
Speaker 1: then they all agreed that it was almost universally a
11:32
Speaker 1: squat and an overhead press or a deadlift and an
11:35
Speaker 1: overhead press. And I still think for most of the
11:37
Speaker 1: women that I interact with, if you do something for
11:41
Speaker 1: the glutes and something overhead, you're right. Now we have
11:44
Speaker 1: more tools. We've got Brett Contreras with the hip thrust
11:47
Speaker 1: and maybe some other exercises. Hip thrust and overhead press
11:50
Speaker 1: might be a fun workout. I've done it and it
11:55
Speaker 1: can be a lot of fun. Much more difficult than
11:59
Speaker 1: you might think. So Phil, I don't have any way
12:03
Speaker 1: to talk to a person. It's not my skill set.
12:08
Speaker 1: I'm a bit more of a fold your arms kind
12:11
Speaker 1: of coach and Well, you signed up for this kind
12:14
Speaker 1: of guy. I coach American football. I coach up at
12:19
Speaker 1: the university. I love what I do, but everyone kind
12:25
Speaker 1: of signs up for the stuff I ask for. The
12:30
Speaker 1: last thing I'd like, if you could possibly get her
12:33
Speaker 1: involved in a community, I, of course, I'm involved in
12:37
Speaker 1: the Senior Center here in Murray, and I love it.
12:42
Speaker 1: Being around guys like Merrill, who's 94, 95, eyewitness to
12:47
Speaker 1: the atomic bomb blast and 88 missions over North Vietnam
12:53
Speaker 1: during the war. You talk to a guy like that
12:55
Speaker 1: about lifelong fitness, you get some real good clues. If
12:59
Speaker 1: you can get her involved in any kind of community
13:01
Speaker 1: that supports health, well-being, the word, it's funny, health and well-being,
13:08
Speaker 1: the answer would be for me, would be community on
13:10
Speaker 1: both of those. So those are some ideas I had.
13:13
Speaker 1: And thank you. Thank you. And thank you for asking
13:17
Speaker 1: a question like this. I appreciate it. So our first
13:22
Speaker 1: question was from Phil. And our second question was from Philip.
13:26
Speaker 1: This is kind of fun. I love that so many
13:28
Speaker 1: people in your audience are new parents because I can't
13:31
Speaker 1: imagine a busier period in someone's life. Hey, I've done
13:35
Speaker 1: a lot of things in my life and I've never
13:36
Speaker 1: been busier than with newborns and two-year-olds. Your understanding of
13:40
Speaker 1: how much time and energy that stage demands is one
13:43
Speaker 1: of the reasons your advice is so valuable to me.
13:46
Speaker 1: I'm not a parent myself, but I'll soon be very
13:49
Speaker 1: short on both time and space while preparing for my
13:52
Speaker 1: residency final exam. Well, good for you too. Last week,
13:56
Speaker 1: I completed the 30-minute double kettlebell armor-building complex every minute
14:01
Speaker 1: on the minute from armor-building formula. He uses all the abbreviations,
14:07
Speaker 1: so a sentence this big took me this long to say.
14:10
Speaker 1: using the 20 kilo bells, good, and 16 kilo bells.
14:13
Speaker 1: This week, I'm aiming for the 100 rep military press
14:17
Speaker 1: session in 30 minutes. That's good work. After that, I'll
14:20
Speaker 1: be traveling for two weeks and plan to train with
14:23
Speaker 1: loop resistance bands. Once I'm back, I'll either repeat the
14:26
Speaker 1: armor building formula or start a new program. I may
14:30
Speaker 1: also order a 24 kilo kettlebell in the meantime. I
14:34
Speaker 1: started with a single 16K kettlebell For context, I'm 33
14:39
Speaker 1: years old, 100 kilos, 220 from my American friends, 192
14:45
Speaker 1: centimeters tall, 6'2 and change, 6'3. I've done some circuit
14:51
Speaker 1: style classes in yoga, but I don't have a significant
14:55
Speaker 1: athletic background. During my first run through armor building formula,
15:00
Speaker 1: I added quite a lot to each session, swings, push-ups,
15:03
Speaker 1: floor presses, curls, tricep extensions, carries, crunches, and planks, all
15:08
Speaker 1: alongside the prescribed armor building formula exercises. I plan to
15:12
Speaker 1: simplify things during the second round, although I still like
15:16
Speaker 1: to keep carries and a small amount of chest work
15:19
Speaker 1: for aesthetic reasons. And you'll find that information in armor
15:22
Speaker 1: building formula where I will supplement that. Do you have
15:27
Speaker 1: any recommendations for a two-week resistance band routine that will
15:32
Speaker 1: help prepare me for the second round of armor building formula. Okay,
15:36
Speaker 1: so resistance bands come in two styles. There's the full
15:41
Speaker 1: loop style, which I find more difficult. No, hang on.
15:45
Speaker 1: I think it's great if you stick it to a
15:48
Speaker 1: doorknob or loop it around a pole and you do
15:51
Speaker 1: exercises there. I think there's real value in that. When
15:55
Speaker 1: I'm teaching a kettlebell certification with the RKC, I like
15:59
Speaker 1: that sometimes to put a loop around someone especially if
16:03
Speaker 1: they have a kind of a weak finish, you know,
16:05
Speaker 1: kind of a floppy finish. You put a resistance band
16:08
Speaker 1: on there, you have them hold it, and then they'll
16:10
Speaker 1: nod over. And you can just see that like their
16:14
Speaker 1: whole body, their nervous system had a conversation with their
16:16
Speaker 1: brain and they said, ah, that's it. The kind I
16:20
Speaker 1: like better for the question you have are the ones
16:23
Speaker 1: with the handles. And I have, I had three pairs
16:28
Speaker 1: of them in different, uh, uh, The black bands ones
16:32
Speaker 1: were really hard. The blue bands were more of a medium.
16:36
Speaker 1: And I think the red band, there might have been
16:39
Speaker 1: four originally, but it doesn't matter because someone left them
16:43
Speaker 1: out and I drove my car over the plastic handles
16:46
Speaker 1: on one of those two and we can't use them anymore.
16:50
Speaker 1: But I like the handled resistance bands best. Now, I'm
16:53
Speaker 1: going to teach that now because you can get a
16:56
Speaker 1: really good workout with resistance bands on the road. Now,
17:00
Speaker 1: they are bigger than you think. When you have them
17:03
Speaker 1: in the bag, they don't look so big, but when
17:05
Speaker 1: you go to pack them in a suitcase, they're weirdly
17:08
Speaker 1: bigger than you think. It's kind of like packing swim fins.
17:12
Speaker 1: They're much bigger in a suitcase than they are in
17:15
Speaker 1: real life. So one of my favorite things about the
17:18
Speaker 1: resistance bands that I have is that if I stand
17:23
Speaker 1: with my feet together, feet together, standing on the band,
17:26
Speaker 1: and I press, That's fairly easy. If I widen my
17:30
Speaker 1: feet out, you'll have to figure out how to do it.
17:32
Speaker 1: I just did it naturally there, but I can't really
17:34
Speaker 1: show you. It gets harder. If you widen your feet
17:37
Speaker 1: out even more, it gets really hard. The upside on
17:41
Speaker 1: resistance bands is as you press them up, it gets
17:45
Speaker 1: harder and harder and harder. Very much like the Universal Machines,
17:49
Speaker 1: their second generation, when they had that lever arm on them,
17:52
Speaker 1: that got harder and harder. I thought there was value
17:55
Speaker 1: to that. So the nice thing about resistance bands, just
17:58
Speaker 1: like chains and putting bands on a barbell, is that
18:01
Speaker 1: you are naturally teaching yourself to overcome resistance. There's no
18:06
Speaker 1: place to float with resistance bands. Exercises I would recommend,
18:11
Speaker 1: obviously the overhead press. I think that's marvelous. Now, even
18:15
Speaker 1: though this isn't an exercise that a lot of people like,
18:18
Speaker 1: one exercise I do like, and we did this a
18:20
Speaker 1: lot in high school, is if you put a resistance band,
18:23
Speaker 1: this is on the road, so I'm standing up for
18:25
Speaker 1: the military press do a normal workout with that. But
18:28
Speaker 1: the side bend I think is really valuable with the
18:31
Speaker 1: resistance bands. I like that exercise. Again, we did it
18:35
Speaker 1: in high school, so maybe I just like it better.
18:39
Speaker 1: A weird hybrid. Now you might have to step on
18:42
Speaker 1: the bands and figure out how to do it, but
18:45
Speaker 1: you can do a trap bar-ish squatty deadlift with resistance
18:51
Speaker 1: bands and you can get a lot of high reps. Now,
18:54
Speaker 1: When you're on the road and you're going to work
18:56
Speaker 1: your legs, working your legs on the road is always,
18:59
Speaker 1: I like to go for long walks, but you can
19:01
Speaker 1: do things like members of lunge family. You can also
19:05
Speaker 1: do body weight squats, but sometimes without load, by the way,
19:11
Speaker 1: where I'm at, there's plenty of hills right now. So
19:14
Speaker 1: hill sprints are better, but if you're trying to do
19:17
Speaker 1: a hotel workout, body weight squats in that, you'll know
19:22
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about when you get to So I'm
19:24
Speaker 1: straight arm. It's kind of like a trap bar deadlift.
19:27
Speaker 1: It's kind of squatty. It's in the middle of a
19:30
Speaker 1: couple of things, but you could probably knock out some
19:33
Speaker 1: high reps with that and get a pretty decent leg
19:38
Speaker 1: lower back workout with that. But to me, the king
19:41
Speaker 1: of the resistance band exercise is the military press. Try
19:44
Speaker 1: that trap bar idea. Try the suitcase carry. And of course,
19:48
Speaker 1: you can also do the curl family, but you're going
19:52
Speaker 1: to find that the resistance bands tend to want to
19:55
Speaker 1: snap back into a vertical alignment. So you may have
20:00
Speaker 1: to experiment with some different grips. And I would suggest
20:05
Speaker 1: anytime you wear resistance bands, well, at least, and maybe
20:08
Speaker 1: it's just for me, I would suggest keeping an eye
20:11
Speaker 1: on your leg hair because they always seem to kind
20:14
Speaker 1: of rip off on them. But I would say the
20:17
Speaker 1: king of resistance bands exercises, in my experience, I'd go
20:21
Speaker 1: military press, overhead press, and it's all of its variations.
20:26
Speaker 1: If you can make it work one-handed, it's actually a
20:28
Speaker 1: great way to do kettlebell presses. I like the side
20:32
Speaker 1: bend shockingly a lot with the resistance bands. That trap
20:36
Speaker 1: bar squat deadlifty thing. Um, it'll make sense why I'm not,
20:41
Speaker 1: I'm being vague about exactly what it is when you
20:43
Speaker 1: do it. And then if you can get some curls
20:46
Speaker 1: in and don't forget, you know, you can always do pushups.
20:49
Speaker 1: You can always do body weight squats, uh, and there's
20:51
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with that. Okay. A fun question. I hope
20:55
Speaker 1: it helps. Um, since you're talking about getting yourself ready
20:58
Speaker 1: to come back to the armor building formula, you know,
21:01
Speaker 1: maybe make those two weeks, uh, press side suitcase, uh,
21:08
Speaker 1: take the presses series, take the side bend series, and
21:12
Speaker 1: maybe some body weight squat series. But again, don't forget,
21:16
Speaker 1: get your walking in and just maybe even enjoy an
21:19
Speaker 1: easier two weeks, okay? Good question, Phillip, and thank you.
21:22
Speaker 1: So Kyle follows up, and this makes me very happy.
21:26
Speaker 1: Since my last question, I'm a new dad to my
21:29
Speaker 1: wonderful nine-month-old daughter, and we train in my garage five
21:33
Speaker 1: days a week. My schedule's unpredictable due to sleep, work,
21:36
Speaker 1: and having her with me most mornings. I've had to
21:39
Speaker 1: drop strict programming, right, for my sanity, and I just
21:43
Speaker 1: train thoughtfully with whatever energy I time to have. So
21:47
Speaker 1: he calls this the aimless strength building formula made simple.
21:52
Speaker 1: I think, quick, copyright that name, Kyle, the aimless strength
21:59
Speaker 1: building formula made simple. I love it, because that's really
22:02
Speaker 1: how you train when you have a baby. Every other Saturday,
22:06
Speaker 1: I get a longer block of uninterrupted time and would
22:09
Speaker 1: like to use it well. I'd really like a training
22:12
Speaker 1: day where I feel like I'm ready to leave the
22:14
Speaker 1: gym rather than feeling rushed out of it. I heard
22:18
Speaker 1: you mention on a recent podcast about the time when
22:21
Speaker 1: you were teaching while still training as an athlete, spending
22:24
Speaker 1: hours daily in the gym. What did a longer training
22:28
Speaker 1: day look like for you then? And for a well-trained
22:31
Speaker 1: non-athlete in a chaotic schedule like mine, Would a longer
22:35
Speaker 1: training session on those free Saturdays be a good idea
22:39
Speaker 1: or ill-advised? That's a tough question. Thank you for all
22:43
Speaker 1: you do. You've coached me from afar for almost five
22:46
Speaker 1: years now, and I'm a much more capable husband and
22:49
Speaker 1: father because of it. One of these days, we'll get
22:52
Speaker 1: back to one rabbit at a time. Well, so when
22:57
Speaker 1: I was at my busiest in my whole career, I
22:59
Speaker 1: lucked into a couple of things. The first off, famously
23:02
Speaker 1: breaking my wrist was such a gift. because it got
23:05
Speaker 1: me into loaded carries. And I took, thank you, Mike Rosenberg.
23:10
Speaker 1: You know, he's the one that really convinced me to
23:13
Speaker 1: try these ideas. He sent out some metal, some very
23:17
Speaker 1: heavy pieces of metal for me to train with. He
23:20
Speaker 1: came up with this very interesting bar that was about
23:23
Speaker 1: this long that had four different handles. And I fought
23:27
Speaker 1: my way back. My doctor said I'd never lift weights
23:30
Speaker 1: again because I'd never be able to do that again.
23:31
Speaker 1: And look, there you go. Thank you, Mike, and thank
23:34
Speaker 1: you for all my friends who supported me during that time.
23:37
Speaker 1: The other thing I did is I started training with
23:39
Speaker 1: the Easy Strength Method, where I started lifting five days
23:42
Speaker 1: a week for about 10 or 15 minutes. Now, here's
23:47
Speaker 1: where the ideas are going to cross-sect. So I did
23:50
Speaker 1: what I could, when I could, in the weight room.
23:54
Speaker 1: If it was a crazy day, it became an easy workout.
23:57
Speaker 1: If I had a little bit more time, it became
24:00
Speaker 1: a Maybe medium or medium-heavy day in easy strength. The
24:07
Speaker 1: day I inclined benched 315 for a double was a
24:11
Speaker 1: good day. The kids were calm and quiet. It was
24:15
Speaker 1: right around Christmas time, so obviously they were being good
24:18
Speaker 1: for Santa. But the thing I would recommend is kind
24:23
Speaker 1: of do what we did at the time. Every Saturday morning,
24:25
Speaker 1: very much like you, it was called a meat fest,
24:28
Speaker 1: and it was only later on I realized what it was.
24:30
Speaker 1: kind of bad idea that name was, but M-E-A-T Fest.
24:35
Speaker 1: And what we did is everyone brought steak or pork
24:40
Speaker 1: or chicken or whatever, and we started a barbecue. And
24:44
Speaker 1: we used to have at least one person volunteer to
24:46
Speaker 1: watch the barbecue. Usually someone didn't want to work out.
24:49
Speaker 1: And we would go into my way back at my house,
24:52
Speaker 1: and we would do sled drags, backward sled drags, farmer walks,
24:57
Speaker 1: bag walks, And we would just put together these carry,
25:00
Speaker 1: these ideas for carries. We did all kinds of things.
25:04
Speaker 1: If you have a dedicated day, I would suggest try
25:09
Speaker 1: this loaded carry idea. Now, the nice thing about loaded
25:12
Speaker 1: carries is that the day after loaded carries, you might
25:17
Speaker 1: be sore in funny places, but you're not destroyed. You know,
25:22
Speaker 1: if I'm doing sandbag carries like here, the next day
25:24
Speaker 1: I might notice, whew, that, you know, I, you know,
25:28
Speaker 1: But you can still work. You can still be on task.
25:33
Speaker 1: Farmer walks, sled carries. Farmer walks with sled carries. Sandbag carries.
25:37
Speaker 1: Cover and never let go. Sandbag carry, drag in the sled.
25:42
Speaker 1: Just come up with a whole bunch of ideas and
25:43
Speaker 1: do loaded carries. If that's not enough for you, toss
25:48
Speaker 1: in some calisthenics. One of my personal trainers a couple
25:53
Speaker 1: years ago, we used to do this really nice workout
25:56
Speaker 1: where I would do goblet squats, push a sled, push-ups.
26:01
Speaker 1: Goblet squat, push the sled back, push-ups. So the workout
26:08
Speaker 1: was this. Eight goblet squats, one 20-meter sled push, eight push-ups.
26:15
Speaker 1: And we worked up to 20 rounds of that. And
26:20
Speaker 1: that's how I recovered from that second total hip replacement.
26:24
Speaker 1: That's 160 push-ups and 160 goblet squats And 20 times
26:30
Speaker 1: 20 is a 400 meter sled push. And that was
26:33
Speaker 1: the workout of the day. Folks, I got to tell you,
26:36
Speaker 1: I loved it and I really enjoyed it. And it
26:38
Speaker 1: meant the world to me. So maybe you could put
26:40
Speaker 1: together a medley like that with pushups, goblet squats, and
26:44
Speaker 1: farmer walks or something, but make it fun, make it different.
26:48
Speaker 1: But one thing I want to make sure I emphasize
26:50
Speaker 1: for you, and it's really important, and it's a good question, Kyle,
26:54
Speaker 1: is make sure You don't take so much out of
26:57
Speaker 1: the tank. You can't keep performing as a parent for
27:00
Speaker 1: the rest of the week. Okay. Fun question. And thank
27:04
Speaker 1: you so much. Okay. I appreciate it. Okay. Our next
27:06
Speaker 1: question is from James. And I think we've discussed this before,
27:10
Speaker 1: but it's a question that comes up so often it
27:13
Speaker 1: never hurts. He says, love the podcast and all the
27:16
Speaker 1: help you provide to everyone. I turn 50 in November
27:20
Speaker 1: and I'm setting the goal of completing a decathlon next summer.
27:24
Speaker 1: I've competed in one in my 20s, so I'd like
27:26
Speaker 1: to get back in the master's track competitions. For the
27:30
Speaker 1: past 10 months, I've been alternating between easy strength for
27:32
Speaker 1: fat loss for eight weeks and the armor building formula
27:35
Speaker 1: for eight. I've dropped from 205, 210 to 197, 203,
27:38
Speaker 1: he's 6'1. That's a lot of weight for a pole
27:44
Speaker 1: vaulter and high jumper. I am currently finishing the armor
27:48
Speaker 1: building formula with double 20 kilogram bells, then plan to
27:52
Speaker 1: repeat while mixing in the double 24s. Love it. After that,
27:56
Speaker 1: I plan to return to easy strength, sumo deadlift, incline press, pull-ups,
28:01
Speaker 1: kettlebell snatches, and carries. I like that very much. Do
28:05
Speaker 1: you think rotating between the armor-building formula and easy strength
28:10
Speaker 1: for eight-week increments is a good plan while I begin
28:14
Speaker 1: preparing for the events of the decathlon? Do you have
28:16
Speaker 1: any other suggestions to help with my goal? Listen, everybody,
28:21
Speaker 1: everybody listening. Uh, I love the idea of alternating eight
28:25
Speaker 1: week blocks of armor building formula and easy strength for
28:29
Speaker 1: weight loss. If I was just going to give you
28:31
Speaker 1: all a blanket, do this, that would be the one
28:34
Speaker 1: I'd give you. However, James is also decathlete. Um, and
28:40
Speaker 1: so the only thing I do want to make sure
28:42
Speaker 1: you start to do, don't, don't put off your decathlon
28:46
Speaker 1: training any longer. Uh, whether you take, maybe you can
28:51
Speaker 1: just kind of think about what are my weak events,
28:54
Speaker 1: but I would like to see you as soon as
28:57
Speaker 1: you can, you know, start practicing your turn, the discus,
29:02
Speaker 1: maybe long jump is an event that's freakishly hard because
29:08
Speaker 1: of the hip. But there is one or two, there's
29:13
Speaker 1: one or two events in decathlon, I think carry over
29:16
Speaker 1: to all of them. The first I think is the
29:19
Speaker 1: high hurdles. So my first thought is make sure as
29:24
Speaker 1: best you can do some high hurdle work. Now, my
29:27
Speaker 1: brother Richard was an outstanding high hurdle coach and I
29:30
Speaker 1: asked him for help one time and he had an
29:33
Speaker 1: interesting thing. He said that the mistake hurdlers always make
29:36
Speaker 1: is they only practice the first three hurdles. One thing
29:39
Speaker 1: you might want to do, and you don't even need
29:41
Speaker 1: to use hurdles. It's funny because one time I had
29:46
Speaker 1: just strips of athletic tape on hurdles 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,
29:52
Speaker 1: and 10. And I had athletes stumble basically over tape.
29:57
Speaker 1: So even if you just start practicing, I don't know
30:00
Speaker 1: if you're going to do three steps or five or, well,
30:02
Speaker 1: I guess you could also do four, but get out
30:05
Speaker 1: there and start practicing doing the whole 110, I think
30:10
Speaker 1: 110 for masters too at your age group. But even
30:14
Speaker 1: if you just put, I mean, honestly, a piece of
30:18
Speaker 1: tape or a piece of string. So you practice boom, boom, boom, boom,
30:22
Speaker 1: and attack with a knee, boom, boom, boom, attack with
30:24
Speaker 1: a knee, boom, boom, boom, boom, attack with a knee.
30:26
Speaker 1: Just do that. And the reason I'm saying that is
30:29
Speaker 1: because the hurdles will carry over into the sprint, the
30:33
Speaker 1: 100 and the 400. The hurdles will help you with
30:36
Speaker 1: the high jump because you attack with the knee as
30:41
Speaker 1: you hit that curve on the flop. It'll help you
30:45
Speaker 1: with the pole vault as you attack with the knee. Boy,
30:48
Speaker 1: it could even help you with the javelin as you
30:50
Speaker 1: attack with the knee. So maybe I would like to
30:52
Speaker 1: see you starting out maybe some practice with the high hurdles.
30:56
Speaker 1: as a foundational event. I think the long jump would
31:02
Speaker 1: be a nice thing to get ready for, because it
31:04
Speaker 1: is a big hit on that left leg, but that'll
31:07
Speaker 1: also prepare you for the other jumping events. And then
31:10
Speaker 1: pick one of the throws, figure out which one you
31:13
Speaker 1: need the most work on. Generally, when I've ever worked
31:16
Speaker 1: with a decathlete, it's always the discus. Brian Clay, the
31:22
Speaker 1: was amazing because Brian Clay, the discus thrower, weighed 180
31:28
Speaker 1: pounds and threw 180 feet. So he threw 55 meters
31:34
Speaker 1: at 81 kilos. The discus is a real free area
31:45
Speaker 1: to get good points in over your competition because many Masters,
31:50
Speaker 1: discus throwers do a standing throw, and I don't think
31:52
Speaker 1: that's an efficient way to score points. So I would
31:56
Speaker 1: pick a couple of events early as you can in
31:58
Speaker 1: the year and start practicing them and see if you
32:02
Speaker 1: can get them to carry on into the other events.
32:04
Speaker 1: Try to get yourself a model that when I do
32:08
Speaker 1: this in the hurdles, this is what I'm doing in
32:11
Speaker 1: the high jump. This is something that we call the
32:14
Speaker 1: X in discus throwing, but the X in discus throwing
32:17
Speaker 1: and shot putting and javelin is all the same. So
32:20
Speaker 1: in the offseason, I'm going to work on the X.
32:23
Speaker 1: Medicine ball throws are really good for that kind of thing.
32:25
Speaker 1: But yes, I do think that's enough for a Masters
32:28
Speaker 1: athlete to compete. I don't know how many hours a
32:34
Speaker 1: week you have to train, but figuring out a way
32:37
Speaker 1: to get to the 10 events and the decathlon, you're
32:40
Speaker 1: going to have to start early and figure out a
32:45
Speaker 1: system to take care of it. I hope that helped,
32:48
Speaker 1: and thank you so much. Well, that was it, folks.
32:50
Speaker 1: That was a pretty simple podcast today. I really appreciate it. Remember,
32:55
Speaker 1: if you have a question, please send it to our
32:57
Speaker 1: podcast at this address, podcast at danjohnuniversity.com. Each and every week,
33:04
Speaker 1: I sit down here and I answer your questions, no
33:07
Speaker 1: matter where I am in the world. And until next time,
33:11
Speaker 1: let's all keep on lifting and learning. Thank you.