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EP 365 - Fat Loss, Full Year of Training, Easy Strength, When to Deload, KB Swings & More · The Dan John Podcast

0:12
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back everybody to the Dan John University
0:15
Speaker 1: dot com podcast. I'm Dan John. Each and every week
0:19
Speaker 1: I sit down here and answer your questions. If you
0:21
Speaker 1: have questions, please send them to us at this address
0:25
Speaker 1: and usually you see it right here. Podcast hat dan
0:29
Speaker 1: John University dot com. Well, let's start, because today we've
0:33
Speaker 1: got some we got some fun questions and I enjoyed them.
0:37
Speaker 1: First questions from jam with all the good information you
0:40
Speaker 1: give us, I was wondering, what is your opinion on
0:44
Speaker 1: breathing during workouts and otherwise. I'm a big fan of breathing.
0:48
Speaker 1: I think it keeps you going. Some years ago I
0:51
Speaker 1: found nose breathing and fully believe in its value in
0:55
Speaker 1: heal through the nose, exil slower through the nose, and
0:59
Speaker 1: if intense workouts are aerobic, inhale through the nose and
1:03
Speaker 1: then excel through the mouth. Oh okay, so versus okay?
1:09
Speaker 1: When I walk or dog walk, I have my tongue
1:12
Speaker 1: lightly pushed into the roof of my mouth, mouth close
1:16
Speaker 1: and breathe only through the nose. Do you have any
1:18
Speaker 1: opinions or advice for breathing techniques? Well, you know it's
1:22
Speaker 1: interesting because you know being someone who's involved with the
1:25
Speaker 1: original strength. I mean, that is one of our our
1:28
Speaker 1: We call it closing the loop, and that's when you
1:31
Speaker 1: stick your tongue into the roof of your mouth. But
1:33
Speaker 1: I've been really a fan of breathing since I was
1:36
Speaker 1: first exposed to the coaching of a guy by name
1:39
Speaker 1: a Bud Winter. And this is his great book, Relax
1:42
Speaker 1: and Win. Of course I had the originally I had
1:47
Speaker 1: the copy that he published. I have a number of
1:51
Speaker 1: books from track and field. There was a great period
1:54
Speaker 1: of time in the early seventies, the John Powell mac
1:58
Speaker 1: Wilkins book, the John Powell Linear Book. There's a really
2:04
Speaker 1: good book on high jumping, and of course I have
2:07
Speaker 1: the Triple Jump Encyclopedia back there, and that Relax and Win.
2:11
Speaker 1: And he really did push this concept of concentrating your breathing.
2:18
Speaker 1: There's nothing new under the sun. I went into my
2:21
Speaker 1: library here and all I could find was this one.
2:23
Speaker 1: This is from Sahara rose Katabi's Idiot's Guide to Aravedic Medicine,
2:30
Speaker 1: and in the Aravadic tradition that both your breathing methods
2:35
Speaker 1: show up. But the one I use mostly now is
2:39
Speaker 1: Tim Anderson. And I have two of his books here
2:42
Speaker 1: I like for athletes. I like this one. This is
2:45
Speaker 1: Tim and then Chip Norton and Mark Shropshire Original Strength Performance.
2:51
Speaker 1: And this is when you load resets for example, so
2:56
Speaker 1: much of the loaded carry families in there. But I
2:59
Speaker 1: also do a lot of my sandbag work. I have
3:01
Speaker 1: these very small they almost look like pillows. They were.
3:05
Speaker 1: One weighs twenty pounds, the other weigh twenty five where
3:08
Speaker 1: I do a lot of my stride work with it,
3:10
Speaker 1: and I try to turn myself into a massive rubber band.
3:15
Speaker 1: And of course this book, which I always thought was
3:17
Speaker 1: a fun book, The Becoming Bulletproof Project, Discovering here Within,
3:22
Speaker 1: and this is Tim's ideas on putting together a very
3:26
Speaker 1: extensive program on just using original strength concepts. So Jan,
3:32
Speaker 1: first off, yeah, I do believe in it. So when
3:35
Speaker 1: I can, especially when I'm doing mobility work, original strength work,
3:40
Speaker 1: my strides, my glides, that whole family of gate gaiit
3:44
Speaker 1: work that I do most weeks. I do that on Wednesday.
3:48
Speaker 1: I'm also doing on some Saturdays. Also, I try as
3:51
Speaker 1: hard as I can to keep the tongue in the
3:54
Speaker 1: roof of my mouth and to keep myself calm when
3:58
Speaker 1: I lift. I wish I would have done this more
4:01
Speaker 1: in my career. I've bitten the ends off my tongue
4:05
Speaker 1: so many times lifting. I think I've mentioned the story.
4:09
Speaker 1: One of my dentist one time said that, you know,
4:13
Speaker 1: you left weights, and I was like, you know, yeah, bro,
4:15
Speaker 1: it's because I grind my teeth down so much. He said,
4:19
Speaker 1: I should have always had a mouthguard. And I have
4:23
Speaker 1: noticed that when I do stick my tongue on the
4:25
Speaker 1: roof of my mouth, I don't have the issues with
4:29
Speaker 1: biting my tongue anymore. The question on breathing, there's many
4:36
Speaker 1: different ways to breathe in the weight room. I'll just
4:39
Speaker 1: give you the three basic ones. There's you know, sometimes
4:43
Speaker 1: it's called locomotive breathing like that, and that's pretty good
4:50
Speaker 1: for especially if you can time it right to do
4:53
Speaker 1: like high rep kettlebell swings. I imagine you could pull
4:56
Speaker 1: it off doing high kettlebell snatches. Is that boom boom boom,
5:01
Speaker 1: boom boom boom kind of breathing. Then of course there's
5:04
Speaker 1: that other, the other extreme, which would be those columative,
5:09
Speaker 1: real slow, big stomach breaths. In our gym, we do
5:13
Speaker 1: something we call break the pad breathing. When we do
5:17
Speaker 1: breathing exercises, when I'm laying on my back, I'm going
5:20
Speaker 1: to try to break the pad by pushing my lower
5:24
Speaker 1: back into the ground so hard I break the pad.
5:27
Speaker 1: It doesn't ever happen, but it's that very calmative when
5:31
Speaker 1: you're trying to bring your breath down. Some people do
5:35
Speaker 1: it with crocodile breathing when you lay in the ground
5:37
Speaker 1: here and inflate your stomach so you kind of rise
5:40
Speaker 1: up and down. And then the third kind of breathing
5:44
Speaker 1: is a kind most of us would do why we lift.
5:47
Speaker 1: I've heard it called eighty percent breathing, which I kind
5:49
Speaker 1: of found because I don't know who the percent is,
5:51
Speaker 1: but it's what you bring in air and you only
5:55
Speaker 1: let up some of it, and that's more the strength breath. Really.
6:04
Speaker 1: Where I'm at my career now, what I should focus
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Speaker 1: on mostly is keeping the connection tongue in the roof
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Speaker 1: of my mouth, trying to stay calm, getting most of
6:15
Speaker 1: my breathing through my nose, which, by the way, thanks
6:18
Speaker 1: to a friend of mine, the late great James Parker,
6:21
Speaker 1: who took care of my right noster, I can now
6:24
Speaker 1: breathe through both nostrils. Thank you. I had a little
6:28
Speaker 1: issue from all the nose breaks I've had, and I
6:33
Speaker 1: breathe in through both nostrils. You strive to breathe out
6:37
Speaker 1: the nose, but you know, once you get into a
6:40
Speaker 1: certain loop, you have to breathe out your mouth, and
6:42
Speaker 1: that's okay. I'm a huge believer in this question. You're
6:46
Speaker 1: asking a lot of people say it's the secret to power.
6:50
Speaker 1: I think it's certainly in that conversation, because you can
6:55
Speaker 1: do amazing things with your breath done correctly. I gave
7:00
Speaker 1: you three examples of breathing techniques. There may be more,
7:04
Speaker 1: I'm sure there is, but those three, the locomotive breath,
7:09
Speaker 1: the calming reflective breath, and then lifting that eighty percent
7:16
Speaker 1: breath have all been great tools in my toolbox my
7:18
Speaker 1: whole career. Our next question today comes from Philippe. After
7:23
Speaker 1: many mostly painful experiences, I sat down and considered which
7:28
Speaker 1: exercises would cause the least joint stress and be self
7:31
Speaker 1: limiting in terms of weight, Exercises which are impossible to
7:36
Speaker 1: overload with poor technique. For those who don't understand the
7:39
Speaker 1: concept of self limiting, basically, think about walking on a
7:42
Speaker 1: narrow beam or jumping rope. If you're walking on a
7:47
Speaker 1: narrow beam, lose your balance and you kind of fall
7:49
Speaker 1: to the side. I don't as a coach have to
7:52
Speaker 1: say you fell off to the side. You know it
7:56
Speaker 1: With jump rope, for example, when you're doing jump rope,
7:59
Speaker 1: if you catch your foot and the rope stop spinning,
8:01
Speaker 1: I don't have to walk over and go, hey, you
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Speaker 1: stepped on the rope or whatever. So that's self limiting.
8:07
Speaker 1: One oh one, I arrived at Turkish get Ups and
8:10
Speaker 1: Loaded Carries, and I'm so grateful for those minutes of reflection,
8:14
Speaker 1: A truly refreshing program that I never expected. I varied
8:18
Speaker 1: the carry variances within each session, but I think this
8:23
Speaker 1: is something I could actually practice for the rest of
8:25
Speaker 1: my life. I would be interested in your thoughts. Well,
8:30
Speaker 1: my first thought is, isn't that funny? I just pulled
8:32
Speaker 1: up these books from Tim Anderson, the original strength books,
8:37
Speaker 1: and one thing he adds to yours is he would
8:42
Speaker 1: also add crawling. I don't know if you can with
8:44
Speaker 1: your injuries that you're mentioning here, but yeah, I think
8:49
Speaker 1: Turkish get ups, loaded carries and crawling you can get
8:54
Speaker 1: a wonderful training program there. You know, you certainly aren't
8:59
Speaker 1: going to get that from consigned monster thing the bodybuilding
9:02
Speaker 1: community would talk about. You know, I don't know what
9:05
Speaker 1: exercise it works, the pecks or anything like that, but yeah,
9:08
Speaker 1: I think it's a really good idea. Turkish get ups
9:12
Speaker 1: and loaded carries as if you know, because your injuries,
9:16
Speaker 1: that's all you can do. Those are two pretty good
9:19
Speaker 1: things you can do now. He asks an additional question.
9:23
Speaker 1: You mentioned you discussed a similar program at the last
9:26
Speaker 1: RKC meeting. Maybe you could share a few details. Well,
9:30
Speaker 1: the details actually are getting rolled out in the new RKC.
9:35
Speaker 1: At the hard style of the HKC. We're going to
9:38
Speaker 1: be doing variations of catbelt carries plus the get back up,
9:46
Speaker 1: and those two tools are really helpful. You know, when
9:51
Speaker 1: I do my sandbag carries, which you could also I
9:53
Speaker 1: could also do with the kettlebell, but I like to
9:56
Speaker 1: hold the sand bag just a little lower than I
9:58
Speaker 1: would hold a kettlebell when I do my carries with
10:01
Speaker 1: my sandbag, and I'm trying to turn myself into an
10:04
Speaker 1: enormous set of rubber bands or slings or you know,
10:09
Speaker 1: bow and arrows. You know, when it comes here, I
10:12
Speaker 1: want my body to snap back. That pre stretch. That
10:16
Speaker 1: was a big thing when I was in college. As
10:18
Speaker 1: a thrower, we used to talk about that pre stretch
10:21
Speaker 1: all the time. Just before you jump, you know, you
10:23
Speaker 1: throw your butt back and you pre stretch your body
10:26
Speaker 1: just before you throw. You know, you push your chest ahead,
10:29
Speaker 1: and you're this whole part of your body like a
10:32
Speaker 1: rubber band, snaps forward. So I actually think when I
10:38
Speaker 1: see people putting these into their programs, it's more than
10:41
Speaker 1: just in his body building. But it's more than just
10:45
Speaker 1: trying to add a little mass to a muscle. You're
10:47
Speaker 1: actually trying to get your body and your none of
10:53
Speaker 1: this is correct, correct, but you're trying to remind your
10:56
Speaker 1: body that muscles are more than just things that squeeze.
11:00
Speaker 1: There are also things that snap. In my workshop sometimes
11:05
Speaker 1: I will say that these are the three p's of
11:08
Speaker 1: how what muscles are asked to do. The first is
11:12
Speaker 1: simply to pook, and that would be planks and isometrics.
11:20
Speaker 1: The second is to do this okay, but the real
11:26
Speaker 1: secret to performance is to snap the third p And
11:34
Speaker 1: I can't consciously move my fingers that fast, but when
11:39
Speaker 1: I do, it makes a snapping sound. So one of
11:42
Speaker 1: the things I do like about the exercises you provided
11:46
Speaker 1: us is I think it does remind the body about
11:50
Speaker 1: being an enormous set of rubber bands, which is a
11:52
Speaker 1: really good way to look at performance instead of you know,
11:56
Speaker 1: the deltoid moves, then the peck moves and then the
11:59
Speaker 1: BiCon whatever. Okay, fun questions, and I hope there was
12:03
Speaker 1: some value to that. Thank you. We have a question
12:05
Speaker 1: from Joel. Thanks for all your help you have given
12:08
Speaker 1: me over the past few years since finding you. I
12:11
Speaker 1: really appreciate your podcast, books and everything else you share
12:14
Speaker 1: with us. Well, you're more than welcome. I'm planning on
12:17
Speaker 1: returning to Easy Strength for fat loss. And then he
12:20
Speaker 1: writes availableok bookstore dot and then he gets the address
12:26
Speaker 1: one Dan John University dot com slash bookstore. You were
12:30
Speaker 1: so close to help me get to a healthier bodyweight composition.
12:35
Speaker 1: I've used it in the past and I've had wonderful results.
12:37
Speaker 1: I'm still hovering around the same weight I was when
12:40
Speaker 1: I last finished a program, and to me, that's always
12:44
Speaker 1: the key to a good program is that when you finish,
12:47
Speaker 1: you don't leap back up to those numbers, the bodyweight
12:50
Speaker 1: numbers that you used to have since then I've had
12:53
Speaker 1: a lot of fun with the armor building formula and
12:55
Speaker 1: some of Pat Flynn's programs. But I find your concept
12:59
Speaker 1: of nudging fat loss so true in my case. Hence
13:02
Speaker 1: that's why I'm spinning my wheels in fat loss, and
13:05
Speaker 1: that's why I've been that's interesting. I'm thirty six years old,
13:09
Speaker 1: five foot eight, one hundred and eighty pounds, have two
13:12
Speaker 1: young boys, and work a fairly physical job window cleaning.
13:16
Speaker 1: If I have a morning walk, my steps often exceed
13:18
Speaker 1: fifteen hundred on a work day, and doing too much
13:21
Speaker 1: definitely affects my recovery and my appetite. So to my questions,
13:26
Speaker 1: should I aim for the forty five minute walk on
13:28
Speaker 1: my work days, knowing I'm going to get a lot
13:31
Speaker 1: of steps later in the day. Should I be doing
13:34
Speaker 1: the five x fifteen kettlebell swings to finish the workout?
13:37
Speaker 1: I know you've adjusted the armor building formula for fat loss,
13:42
Speaker 1: So now after a few years, are there any revisions
13:45
Speaker 1: to easy strains for fat loss? You would take so
13:48
Speaker 1: easy strain for fat loss and armor building formula for
13:51
Speaker 1: fat loss have the same basic points. You know, hope
13:55
Speaker 1: you sleep, hope you drink water. I hope you have
13:57
Speaker 1: some concept that the calories you're putting in. I hope
14:00
Speaker 1: you keep an eye on your protein and your fiber,
14:02
Speaker 1: and I hope you walk the thing about any of
14:06
Speaker 1: the workouts you do. And I get this right straight
14:08
Speaker 1: from Rusty More. This is none of my original thought.
14:12
Speaker 1: And just about everybody else wh's smart in the field,
14:16
Speaker 1: I think after every workout you should walk for at
14:18
Speaker 1: least thirty minutes. You mentioned forty five here. The number
14:21
Speaker 1: I used to use was thirty to forty five minutes.
14:24
Speaker 1: Now I'm kind of laying off and just saying just
14:26
Speaker 1: go thirty. I still think there's great value to it.
14:30
Speaker 1: And if you're doing easy strength for fat loss, and
14:34
Speaker 1: you're doing something like this, you're doing an overhead press,
14:38
Speaker 1: an overhead pull chinips, pullups, you're doing a deadlift variation
14:46
Speaker 1: if you do the ab wheel and then you are
14:49
Speaker 1: hanging bentney leg rais, and then you do those five
14:52
Speaker 1: by fifteen swings that I found an interesting you circle
14:57
Speaker 1: that five by fifteen swings. One of those I'm going
15:01
Speaker 1: to give you, because of what you said, an option
15:04
Speaker 1: if you don't have the time or have a busy workday,
15:07
Speaker 1: just do the five by fifteen swings and call it good.
15:11
Speaker 1: If you have the time, get the steps in. Okay,
15:16
Speaker 1: whether or not you do the five by fifteen swings
15:18
Speaker 1: every time that asking me something personal. At first, I
15:21
Speaker 1: wouldn't do it. So to remind everybody, he walks a
15:26
Speaker 1: lot with his work, and he's concerned about that daily
15:30
Speaker 1: walk after the lift. Here it is. On the days
15:33
Speaker 1: you know you're gonna walk a lot, do the five
15:35
Speaker 1: by fifteen swings, go to work, go on with your day.
15:39
Speaker 1: On the days you're not going to have all those
15:44
Speaker 1: you know, all those steps and you're gonna go for
15:47
Speaker 1: a walk after the workout. At first, I would say,
15:50
Speaker 1: don't do the swings, but get the half hour forty
15:53
Speaker 1: five minute walk in. And then later if you feel like,
15:56
Speaker 1: oh yeah, this is this is easy, toss it in.
15:59
Speaker 1: But just remember what my coach told me. Don't chase hunger.
16:03
Speaker 1: If you find that those five y fifteen swings is throwing,
16:07
Speaker 1: you're just raving us. When you come back in, you're
16:10
Speaker 1: trying to eat everything in sight. Boy, I remember those
16:13
Speaker 1: days you're working too hard. The concept beside, the concept
16:22
Speaker 1: behind easy strength for fat loss is the idea is
16:25
Speaker 1: that we're gonna nudge ourselves to forty eighty two hundred
16:30
Speaker 1: days in a row of working out a year, two years,
16:34
Speaker 1: slowly building up our strength, slowly building up our muscle mass,
16:39
Speaker 1: slowly knocking down our fat stores. But we're just nudging along.
16:44
Speaker 1: We're just we're doing it so the body never freaks out.
16:47
Speaker 1: So as long as you don't feel like you're you know,
16:51
Speaker 1: you're shaking at the root, you can do those swings.
16:57
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say I've gotten to be anti swing or
17:01
Speaker 1: I've gotten to be a lot easier going in my
17:05
Speaker 1: later years. I just know that a lot of people
17:08
Speaker 1: work too hard in the weight room for very little
17:12
Speaker 1: caloric hit. Certainly, you know there is that delayed you
17:18
Speaker 1: know there's that delay where you lose. You know, your
17:21
Speaker 1: body does stay a little bit running a little bit
17:23
Speaker 1: higher RPMs for a few hours after a workout. Yeah,
17:28
Speaker 1: that's true. And you know neat, it's called it's called neat,
17:33
Speaker 1: but it's minimal. A bag of chips, or it seems
17:39
Speaker 1: like you might be British crisps. One bag of crisps
17:44
Speaker 1: is probably more calories than you'll burn in four normal workouts. Okay,
17:50
Speaker 1: you just don't burn that many calories. So one of
17:52
Speaker 1: the things I want people doing fat loss is don't
17:55
Speaker 1: get hungry, don't get ravenous, don't get angry, as we
17:59
Speaker 1: say in the United States, way too much now. But
18:01
Speaker 1: what you want to do is, Okay, that was a
18:04
Speaker 1: good workout. Now I'm going to have a delicious meal
18:07
Speaker 1: of protein and fiber and fruit. Ya. For me, I
18:10
Speaker 1: hope that helped changes in any fat loss program in
18:16
Speaker 1: the last few years. For me, has mostly been taking
18:22
Speaker 1: more and more of the intensity out, keeping the training going.
18:25
Speaker 1: Of course, the training is important and it's good for
18:27
Speaker 1: a thousand different reasons beyond fat loss. But the idea is,
18:31
Speaker 1: we don't want you hungry. We don't want this to
18:34
Speaker 1: impact your eating. Interesting. I've seen it my own self
18:39
Speaker 1: with travel. If I fly internationally and I get a
18:43
Speaker 1: couple of lousy nights sleep. When I get on the
18:45
Speaker 1: plane and you know I only fly Delta one her
18:48
Speaker 1: first class, she'll offer me chips and most of the time,
18:53
Speaker 1: oh no, thank you. When I'm sleep deprived, I eat
18:56
Speaker 1: the crisps, I eat the chips, I eat the cookie.
19:00
Speaker 1: Because lack of sleep, overtraining, or anything that knocks you
19:06
Speaker 1: into that realm of that's when all those cheap calories
19:11
Speaker 1: get down your throat, and it's much easier long term
19:15
Speaker 1: not to eat those cheap calories than it is to
19:17
Speaker 1: try to get rid of them. Thank you. We have
19:21
Speaker 1: a question from Justin and of course, as tradition, this
19:25
Speaker 1: question came in just in time. I've got another question
19:31
Speaker 1: for you. One thing I never intentionally build into my
19:34
Speaker 1: training is a dload. If anything, I'm reluctant to take
19:38
Speaker 1: time off because I'm worried about losing momentum or compromising
19:43
Speaker 1: some of the progress I've worked hard to build. As
19:46
Speaker 1: a result, I rarely take a week or two away
19:48
Speaker 1: from training unless I'm sick or on holiday without access
19:52
Speaker 1: to equipment. In fact, I recently took a couple of
19:56
Speaker 1: kettlebells on holiday with me. I do the same thing,
20:00
Speaker 1: so I wouldn't miss any sessions. Could you talk a
20:02
Speaker 1: little bit about the role of dloads in long term progress?
20:06
Speaker 1: How important are they for strength, performance and recovery? And
20:10
Speaker 1: are there situations where they're less necessary? Well? Oh, and
20:16
Speaker 1: also he says, also for those of us who struggled
20:19
Speaker 1: mensely with easing off, how would you recommend appreciating d
20:23
Speaker 1: loads in a way that feels productive rather than like
20:27
Speaker 1: we're moving backwards. Well, you know, you know, I gotta
20:34
Speaker 1: be careful. I was about to say something that's hard
20:36
Speaker 1: to prove and maybe a little full of myself, but
20:39
Speaker 1: I have rarely trained with anybody who worked harder than me,
20:42
Speaker 1: Okay rarely. In high school. I went to every training session.
20:48
Speaker 1: I went to every worthless seven on seven game. I
20:52
Speaker 1: went to everything coached young coach Ashby asked. When I
20:57
Speaker 1: was at the Skyline College, trained way too many hours
21:01
Speaker 1: with coach Lahati and then trained way too many hours
21:03
Speaker 1: with Dick Nautmeer. I overtrained. I overtrained it when I
21:07
Speaker 1: went off to Utah State my junior year. I kept
21:10
Speaker 1: it up the day I got back, I mean the
21:14
Speaker 1: day I got back from college. I went and picked
21:19
Speaker 1: right up on our Olympic lifting program with Dick Natmyer
21:21
Speaker 1: five days a week, never took time off. Then probably
21:28
Speaker 1: saved my career as I got hit in the head
21:30
Speaker 1: with the discuss and it probably should have killed me.
21:32
Speaker 1: And I'm not exaggerating. It's it's it's a famous story,
21:37
Speaker 1: a lot of press, a lot of coverage on it,
21:40
Speaker 1: and you know it was. It was bad. I had
21:43
Speaker 1: a massive concussion. Well what happened is when I got home.
21:48
Speaker 1: I don't want, I don't want to tell you every detail,
21:50
Speaker 1: but I really struggled training with Dick in the gang
21:54
Speaker 1: at the Pacific Barbera Club because this guy, one of
21:58
Speaker 1: the other guys there, not Eric and Pete and not Dick,
22:01
Speaker 1: somebody else just kept getting on me about things. And
22:05
Speaker 1: I was really struggling with this concussion and memory loss,
22:09
Speaker 1: and I just said, you know, jeez, gosh, darn it.
22:14
Speaker 1: And I quit going for a while, and I quit
22:16
Speaker 1: lifting weights, and I quit doing a lot of things,
22:19
Speaker 1: and I got a job. I had two or three jobs. Really,
22:24
Speaker 1: I was a bouncer, bartender. I moved venue machines, and
22:29
Speaker 1: then I just did a lot, just a bunch of labor,
22:32
Speaker 1: like pulling trees, and I didn't lift weights. I didn't
22:36
Speaker 1: throw and somewhere in October that year, if I had
22:41
Speaker 1: my journal, I could show you. But it's like I
22:44
Speaker 1: woke back up. I made a lot of bad decisions,
22:46
Speaker 1: and I woke back up, and I went back to
22:49
Speaker 1: the Pacific Barbier Club. I started training again. When I
22:54
Speaker 1: went back to Utah State, I started noticing something about
22:59
Speaker 1: my throats that I didn't need to throw very much,
23:03
Speaker 1: and I noticed something about my lifting. I was really strong.
23:06
Speaker 1: I didn't need to lift very much, and I kind
23:08
Speaker 1: of sat down. I remember thinking, I don't need a bench.
23:11
Speaker 1: I'm stronger than everybody else. I don't like backsquatting. I
23:15
Speaker 1: wasn't very good at it, so only did twenty pounds
23:17
Speaker 1: more than I can clean the yerk and I like
23:20
Speaker 1: snatches and I like power clean. So that's basically all
23:23
Speaker 1: I did, with a little bit of here and there
23:25
Speaker 1: other stuff. Obviously, I mean I wasn't sane, but I
23:29
Speaker 1: remember a couple of weeks there in the middle of
23:31
Speaker 1: track season just doing three sets of ten on the
23:33
Speaker 1: Universe machine because I felt like I had been throwing
23:38
Speaker 1: well and I just needed a break. When I look
23:41
Speaker 1: back now, and by the way, that season, I had
23:44
Speaker 1: what coach Rolfmond said, the finest season of any track
23:47
Speaker 1: and field athlete in Utah State's history. Now that's big
23:50
Speaker 1: because we've had Olympians compete there, National champions compete there.
23:54
Speaker 1: But he told the press that my season was the best,
23:58
Speaker 1: and I really think think part of it was because
24:02
Speaker 1: I had been pulling that rubber band and pulling that
24:04
Speaker 1: rubber band and pulling it again until I literally broke.
24:08
Speaker 1: And I learned that season to pull the rubber band
24:12
Speaker 1: and let it go and it snapped across the room
24:15
Speaker 1: and hit Rita Harrington in the back of the head.
24:19
Speaker 1: So what dloads do is give you a practice at
24:24
Speaker 1: letting go of the rubber band. And with Jim Wendler's
24:30
Speaker 1: five three to one, it's every fourth week. I like,
24:34
Speaker 1: if you do armor building formula, it's two weeks of
24:37
Speaker 1: just testing things, about fourish weeks of ramping up, two
24:44
Speaker 1: hard weeks, and then if you do it again, it's
24:46
Speaker 1: two weeks we just check in again. You shouldn't train hard,
24:51
Speaker 1: you should test things. You should dload. I think deloading
24:55
Speaker 1: when I was growing up was a natural thing. I
24:58
Speaker 1: played American football in the fall, wrestled in the winter.
25:02
Speaker 1: Track season came around discus and hurdles, summer came around
25:07
Speaker 1: soccer and basketball, And yeah, I lifted throughout the year.
25:11
Speaker 1: But you know, in wrestling season, the last thing you
25:14
Speaker 1: want to do when you get home is lift weights.
25:17
Speaker 1: I think all you want to do when you get
25:18
Speaker 1: home is eat and go to bed. During track season,
25:21
Speaker 1: I could lift weights a lot, and I really enjoyed it.
25:24
Speaker 1: In the summer, we had a lifting class three days
25:27
Speaker 1: a week. In the mornings, I would do some extra
25:30
Speaker 1: inclients and some extra work at home, but the rest
25:33
Speaker 1: of the time, nobody was blowing whistles at me referees.
25:38
Speaker 1: But deloading has a value, but you have to set
25:42
Speaker 1: it up. What you'll notice with most people who've been
25:46
Speaker 1: in gym's for a long time. You know, everyone who
25:50
Speaker 1: goes to a gym knows who I'm talking about. They're
25:52
Speaker 1: the guys you see at the gym three five days
25:54
Speaker 1: a week and you never see any changes. And there's
25:58
Speaker 1: two reasons for that. One is that a lot of
26:00
Speaker 1: people just go to the gym just to go to
26:02
Speaker 1: the gym. But the other reason is is once you
26:07
Speaker 1: hit certain levels, you hit that plateau, you stay on
26:11
Speaker 1: that plateau and you either change something radically or what
26:17
Speaker 1: I think a dload is you back off, you breathe.
26:21
Speaker 1: You know, spring becomes summer, summer becomes fall, fall becomes winter.
26:26
Speaker 1: You ease up, you let things happen, you change a
26:30
Speaker 1: few things, and then when you go back to what
26:32
Speaker 1: you're doing, you get that little boost. I am a
26:35
Speaker 1: huge believer in deloading. Having said that there's something wrong
26:40
Speaker 1: with me, folks. I really struggle with deloading. I really
26:44
Speaker 1: struggle with it. In the last year or so with
26:49
Speaker 1: my coach, Scott, my coach, I've gotten real good about. Like,
26:55
Speaker 1: for example, I'll do a hard Fridays when I do
26:59
Speaker 1: my chaps. Okay, so you know, I'm up to twenty
27:01
Speaker 1: ya for me and by the time this comes out,
27:03
Speaker 1: maybe be twenty one. I do a hard high rep
27:07
Speaker 1: chin up workout one Friday. Next Friday, I do a
27:13
Speaker 1: hard heavy chin up day. Last time I did twenty
27:16
Speaker 1: four kilos for eight which I thought was pretty good.
27:21
Speaker 1: The next week I'll chase the you know, the high
27:24
Speaker 1: rep body weight again. The next week the heavy the
27:27
Speaker 1: heavy bells. But I've noticed the next week I just
27:31
Speaker 1: walk in and go, I don't got it. I used
27:34
Speaker 1: to go, oh, push through. Now I do this. Okay,
27:37
Speaker 1: Let's just do three sets of chin ups. Try to
27:41
Speaker 1: add them up to a good number. You know, if
27:43
Speaker 1: you do a set of if you do a set
27:46
Speaker 1: of thirteen chin ups and eight chin ups, that's twenty
27:50
Speaker 1: one chin ups and that's one more than twenty yay
27:52
Speaker 1: for you. Move on. So that occasional d load For me,
27:58
Speaker 1: is really helps me up here between my ears, but
28:01
Speaker 1: I also think that it helps me bounce back for
28:03
Speaker 1: bigger lifts later on. With my body weight and even
28:09
Speaker 1: my waistline, I use bumpers. My body weight bumpers are
28:13
Speaker 1: one ninety six to two oh six, and as long
28:15
Speaker 1: as I'm within those two numbers, I'm fine. For those
28:20
Speaker 1: you who struggle with, you know, trying to body composition,
28:24
Speaker 1: one of the things that hurts is that every day
28:27
Speaker 1: you try to be a lower number on the scale
28:29
Speaker 1: and fewer centimeters on the waistline, I just ain't gonna happen.
28:32
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I mean, if your waistline is
28:36
Speaker 1: ninety centimeters, which is not a bad waistline at all,
28:40
Speaker 1: and you lose a centimeter a day, you'll be disappeared
28:44
Speaker 1: in ninety days, in three months. Okay, it's a jokeish
28:47
Speaker 1: kind of thing, but it's reality. So if you have
28:51
Speaker 1: a range where okay, there are times where I'm one
28:54
Speaker 1: ninety six and that's good, and then a wedding will
28:58
Speaker 1: come up, or you know, something will have happen, and
29:01
Speaker 1: maybe a couple days of something happening, and then I'll
29:04
Speaker 1: be back up to two o six okay, bing bing bing,
29:07
Speaker 1: Let's let's get back to work. But the nice thing
29:10
Speaker 1: is about having a range like that with chin ups,
29:14
Speaker 1: with waistline, with body weight, with your lifting is when
29:19
Speaker 1: you start to feel yourself getting to the edge either
29:22
Speaker 1: way up or down, depending what you're doing, you just say, Okay,
29:26
Speaker 1: let's clamp down and do a better job, or we're
29:29
Speaker 1: doing fine, let's ease up. I think easing up reloading
29:34
Speaker 1: is an art form. I struggle with it. I wish
29:37
Speaker 1: I was better at it. But you know, I am
29:40
Speaker 1: an American, and one of the problems of being an
29:43
Speaker 1: American athlete is everybody and the stands thinks every time
29:48
Speaker 1: you compete, you should break the world record, and next
29:52
Speaker 1: week break it again, and break it again, you know.
29:55
Speaker 1: And I think it was I think when Wilt Chamberlain
29:57
Speaker 1: scored one hundred points in a basketball game, I think
30:00
Speaker 1: the next game he only scored sixty. How horrible was that. No,
30:05
Speaker 1: it's we're funny about sports and success here in the
30:09
Speaker 1: United States, and I think that deloading is a really
30:13
Speaker 1: smart way to improve your athletes. I said this before.
30:17
Speaker 1: If I could do it all over again, I would
30:20
Speaker 1: have taken a month or two off every year, hung
30:25
Speaker 1: out on the beach, ben a nuisance in the neighborhood,
30:29
Speaker 1: gone to movies. Had you know, had my mom saying
30:32
Speaker 1: for God says go get out of the house, do something,
30:36
Speaker 1: because I think long term that would have helped me
30:38
Speaker 1: both on the platform and on the discuss ring. So
30:42
Speaker 1: that was fun and thank you for that question, and
30:45
Speaker 1: I really did like it a lot. Thank you. Okay,
30:47
Speaker 1: we have a question from Ajaj says this, I have
30:51
Speaker 1: a question about hanging knee raises. I'm training for power
30:56
Speaker 1: and general strength that also translates to boxing. I feel
31:00
Speaker 1: training like a thrower will give me great results. I've
31:03
Speaker 1: been doing straight leg raises at the top of a
31:05
Speaker 1: dip position. Oh yeah, like a parallet's yeah, and I
31:09
Speaker 1: feel stronger and able to perform the exercise in an
31:12
Speaker 1: explosive fashion, where as if I'm in a hanging position,
31:15
Speaker 1: it's much more about stabilizing and the reps are much slower.
31:20
Speaker 1: I think that's a very good observation, and I do
31:22
Speaker 1: have a number of things to say about this. Should
31:25
Speaker 1: I train both or is it okay to continue my
31:27
Speaker 1: preferred way on the dip bars. Side note, I think
31:31
Speaker 1: everyone should train suitcase carry as someone with a history
31:35
Speaker 1: of lower back pain, I have never felt better since
31:38
Speaker 1: I started training them every day, he says, thank you
31:41
Speaker 1: so much for this. Well, first off, I got that.
31:46
Speaker 1: I got this thing you're telling me from Rob Wolf.
31:49
Speaker 1: Rob Wolf years ago told me that as a thrower
31:51
Speaker 1: one of the best things I could do. Now, I
31:53
Speaker 1: don't use them on the dip bar. I use those
31:55
Speaker 1: parallet bars. I have a wooden set and I have
31:58
Speaker 1: a PVC set, but I to ones. So basically, I'm
32:01
Speaker 1: about what about that far off the ground and sit
32:05
Speaker 1: on the I sit on the ground, lock my elbows up,
32:08
Speaker 1: and then bring my heels, button everything up, and I
32:12
Speaker 1: tell you there's a number of good exercises. Max had
32:17
Speaker 1: some good stuff in his book. I built up to
32:21
Speaker 1: that one where you go from the L sit in
32:24
Speaker 1: the parallels to a handstand. And I have to say
32:28
Speaker 1: this clearing my heels out. So I'm only this far
32:34
Speaker 1: off the ground. So I'm in the L sit and
32:38
Speaker 1: you bring your heels underneath you and you're driving your
32:41
Speaker 1: heels this way to a handstand. There is a moment
32:45
Speaker 1: where you have to really be in this locked out
32:48
Speaker 1: position where you're trying to clear a path for your feet.
32:51
Speaker 1: I don't know if I've ever done any more stimulating
32:54
Speaker 1: ab work out of my life. I like what you
32:56
Speaker 1: said here. I think there's some wisdom here about having
33:01
Speaker 1: both variations in your program. I think, okay, now you
33:06
Speaker 1: mentioned the suitcase carry for your back, but I think
33:09
Speaker 1: from my back health, the hanging bent knee leg rays
33:13
Speaker 1: is really good because I get that weird traction in
33:17
Speaker 1: my lower back, I get that weird traction in my shoulders,
33:20
Speaker 1: and then as I grind my knees to my chest,
33:24
Speaker 1: my back even gets it comes forward and underneath like this.
33:28
Speaker 1: I think that really helps me. Having said that, that
33:31
Speaker 1: dip l sit is a marvelous exercise, one little thing
33:36
Speaker 1: we tried, and I like it. If you can you
33:40
Speaker 1: might not be able to do with a dip wreck,
33:42
Speaker 1: but with parallettes. We have a white brick wall in
33:45
Speaker 1: my gym, and what you can do is you're getting
33:49
Speaker 1: that parallets. It'll take a few seconds to adjust, but
33:53
Speaker 1: you put your heels on the wall and you can
33:56
Speaker 1: do little shimmy walks up the wall. And it's because
34:00
Speaker 1: you can put some weight on there, especially as you go.
34:03
Speaker 1: And what's funny is that you sort of train your
34:07
Speaker 1: ab wall to what you're going to expect under the
34:10
Speaker 1: big load of your straight legs. Fun question. I enjoyed it.
34:14
Speaker 1: I hope you could use some of the information. Thank you. Well,
34:18
Speaker 1: we have a question from Justin. Been a fall of
34:20
Speaker 1: yours since the early teenage days, back when farmer walks
34:24
Speaker 1: and functional training we're not in vogue. Oh yeah, I
34:27
Speaker 1: know everybody's an expert on this stuff. Now where are
34:30
Speaker 1: we in twenty years at twenty five years ago? Yeah,
34:33
Speaker 1: thank you for all the years of expertise. If you
34:36
Speaker 1: could plan a twelve month cycle of your training programs
34:39
Speaker 1: leaving out Olympic left size unable to do them, taking
34:43
Speaker 1: an account the mid Atlantic weather and trying to be
34:46
Speaker 1: leaner during the summer, what would you plan? This would
34:51
Speaker 1: This would be to keep up fitness levels as I
34:53
Speaker 1: age and as you say, be able to pick up
34:56
Speaker 1: my grand kids one day with ease and be the
34:59
Speaker 1: guy in the neighborhoo. But everyone comes to when they
35:02
Speaker 1: need some help programming things. Well, you know, it's interesting
35:05
Speaker 1: you say this because you know in my inner circle
35:10
Speaker 1: that's what most people want. You're asking for what most
35:13
Speaker 1: people want. When I do my one on one calls
35:17
Speaker 1: this is what most people want. So let's just give
35:20
Speaker 1: you the basics. I think I've mentioned before here, but
35:25
Speaker 1: let's just break the year out. I like organized plans
35:28
Speaker 1: in the fall here in the United States. You know,
35:30
Speaker 1: we have American football. It's back to school time. Organized
35:34
Speaker 1: programs seem to work well in the fall. Winter it's cold.
35:38
Speaker 1: I like go heavy, go hard, go home, the three
35:42
Speaker 1: g hs, So more of a powerlifting focus. In spring,
35:47
Speaker 1: you know, spring, get outside, start enjoying the world. It's
35:52
Speaker 1: you know, it's track season. It's here in America baseball.
35:55
Speaker 1: In the summer, you should play, have fun, go to
35:59
Speaker 1: the pool, go to the beach, get that sun, you know,
36:03
Speaker 1: roll around your thong or your bikini or whatever you're
36:06
Speaker 1: gonna wear this year, your speedo, look good, feel good,
36:09
Speaker 1: move good. And then fall focused training program a couple
36:15
Speaker 1: things with it. The other thing I also believe in.
36:17
Speaker 1: I do think you should eat with the seasons. Now.
36:20
Speaker 1: I think in the fall that's a great time to
36:22
Speaker 1: have meal prep programs. Either you buy them or you say, Okay,
36:26
Speaker 1: I'm gonna this is what we're gonna eat. In the winter,
36:30
Speaker 1: I think soups and stews and homemade Bread take Over.
36:33
Speaker 1: I got to tell you, folks, I have a bread maker,
36:36
Speaker 1: and there is something about the smell of fresh bread
36:40
Speaker 1: that just treats you right. It's interesting. We have very
36:44
Speaker 1: few ingredients in our bread, three to five at most.
36:49
Speaker 1: You know, we use honey instead of sugar, which I'm
36:52
Speaker 1: sure doesn't change anything. But you know, the honey comes
36:55
Speaker 1: from my bees right over here. Fresh baked bread with
37:02
Speaker 1: backyard honey with stew or soups is the best. Two
37:07
Speaker 1: of my favorite books. I think the guy's name is
37:09
Speaker 1: Rick Riley. A Jesuits Guide to Bread Making A Jesuits
37:12
Speaker 1: Guide to Soup Making. There's something magic about bread and
37:16
Speaker 1: soup and stews in the winter months when spring comes around,
37:22
Speaker 1: especially if you're from the If you're Christian, you know
37:26
Speaker 1: you got lent. Lent's a good time to clean up things.
37:30
Speaker 1: Lent means Lengthen the season's Lengthen you should eat all
37:33
Speaker 1: that meat at Carnival, which basically means the feast of meat.
37:39
Speaker 1: You should maybe think about, you know, dropping a few
37:42
Speaker 1: bad habits in your life. Get outside, explore. Might be
37:47
Speaker 1: a real good time to experiment and spring with you know,
37:51
Speaker 1: new things to eat. Then there's summer, and summer is
37:53
Speaker 1: when the fruits and berries all show up, and that's
37:56
Speaker 1: a good time to focus on fruits and berries. You know,
38:00
Speaker 1: if any a blessed memory and I used to have
38:01
Speaker 1: a thing that we would always focus on in season
38:05
Speaker 1: fruit entry. Here in Utah, citrus fruit is in season
38:10
Speaker 1: in winter. Apples are in season in fall, I think,
38:15
Speaker 1: and if you go out of that, the fruit tastes terrible.
38:20
Speaker 1: So eating only in season fruit was a real fun
38:24
Speaker 1: little addition back in the day when I really focused
38:29
Speaker 1: a lot more on eating, you know, basically one step
38:32
Speaker 1: from the ground, which I still that's fine. I still
38:36
Speaker 1: think that's my foundation. Though I eat a lot more
38:38
Speaker 1: seafood now, a lot more fish. But you know, combining
38:43
Speaker 1: an eating program and a training program that's complementary the seasons,
38:47
Speaker 1: I think is a really good idea. So using my
38:51
Speaker 1: materials armor building fourmula in the fall, easy strength for
38:56
Speaker 1: fat loss in the winter, try to get a half
38:59
Speaker 1: hour walk is bad. You can maybe as a maybe
39:06
Speaker 1: one month in the winter, get some friends together and
39:10
Speaker 1: you do the ten thousand swing challenge. When it starts
39:14
Speaker 1: to dry up a little bit, get the bar bell out.
39:17
Speaker 1: Oh you said not to do Olympic lyft. I don't know,
39:21
Speaker 1: you know, maybe do one lift today with the I
39:24
Speaker 1: was going to tell you to do my barbell transformation program,
39:26
Speaker 1: but you know, one lift to day. Maybe get a
39:30
Speaker 1: little bit of a running in, get a little bit
39:31
Speaker 1: of biking in, and then when summer gets in, sign
39:35
Speaker 1: up for a kickball league and a track and field meet,
39:39
Speaker 1: go for hikes, and go for swims and lakes and oceans,
39:42
Speaker 1: and enjoy life and repeat until you meet all your
39:46
Speaker 1: goals in life. A fun question. I enjoyed it. In fact,
39:51
Speaker 1: I thought all the questions today were really good. So
39:53
Speaker 1: thank you so much, gentle listeners. Remember if you have questions,
39:56
Speaker 1: please send them to the podcast at this address podcast
40:00
Speaker 1: at Danjohnuniversity dot com. And until next time, let's all
40:06
Speaker 1: keep on lifting and learning. Thank you,