Dan John: Wandering Weights, Our Epic Journey Through All Things Heavy, Issue # 15

The Oscars were last night. I was reminded of a good lesson as I watched: I'd put Lady Gaga aside as just another pop star in a long line of “Here today, gone tomorrow” buzzwords. She amazed me with her Oscar performance. That's a lot like the fitness industry: Sometimes I've dismissed an idea out of hand, and then ate a few slices of humble pie while discovering, again, that I am an idiot.

 

Some examples?

Well, I need to apologize to Charles Staley because I couldn’t grasp Escalating Density Training (EDT) until Mike and Mindy had me do the workout. Don’t judge this one on the first session!

 

I came late to the party on farmer walks, too. What bugs me in hindsight is that I KNEW about them from the way “the guys” trained when I was growing up. But, I didn’t see these in the muscle mags, so they couldn’t work!

 

I hated sprinting, too. The video below of Brian Oldfield and Lynn Swann shows why I missed the boat on sprinting, too. Look for the cocker spaniel.

 

In 1980 at the Olympic Training Center, I was shown the hip thrust, and I laughed at it. I kept bumping into hip thrusts year after year, and ignored them. I was wrong. Here you go: Bret Contreras on the hip thrust. 

 

Speaking of Bret, I loved this post that I understand caused a lot of pain. I read the list saying: “Yep, that’s me…and that one…oh, and this one…”

 

I like the discussion and practice of intermittent fasting. As we move into the second week of Lent, I think this has particular value. These two articles give some good insight.

 

 

As many of you know, I love the openculture site. This is worth a minute (ha!) of your time and it might help you understand your issues with sleep at night.

 

They also brought this new workout to my attention. This might surpass Prancercize as my “go to” training program.

 

My friend, Mike Rosenberg, sent this along. I think ALL of it is right! It's worth reviewing and rethinking this list.

 

Finally, I've added about thirty new videos to my YouTube channel in prep for my upcoming book, Can You Go?” Enjoy these—Dan John Youtube Channel

 

My quiet period of the year ends tomorrow and I start flying again every week. I'll be posting about many of my upcoming trips on my Facebook page.

 

Until next week.

 

 

Dan John

Publisher’s note: Dan's new book, Can You Go?, heads into typesetting tomorrow. You can expect to see it in May.
Meanwhile, we're releasing a new DVD next week called
Hacking the Hinge, by Charlie Weingroff and Mark Cheng.
We'll get you some preview clips in next week's edition of Wandering Weights.