Dan John: Wandering Weights, Our Epic Journey Through All Things Heavy, Issue # 9

Wow, football season is almost over. I really enjoy the game. For off-season training, I think you should watch this.

Now, spend the rest of your day UNwatching it!
 
Every so often, I get reminded about the problems of too much choice. It happens in the fitness industry every day as we can’t decide which press to do since there are 10,000 variations. In Never Let Go, I argue that we have too little free will, but it might also be too many choices. So… a fun piece here on the issue of choice. 

He is right on the money about jeans, by the way.
 
As I often note, intentional community is a nice way to increase free will without having to do too much yourself. This is a nice article from an interview about our training community.

That ties in very well with something that James Clear discussed. I like James' insights on lifting and fasting, but he's best known for the habits-based goal-setting material,which is appropriate right about now.

I always like it when I find someone using my ideas and expanding them far beyond what we do here in the gym. This builds upon choice, free will and community in something as simple as discussing warm-ups. It's a nice explanation and review.
 
Now, for something completely different. I saw this little article on my feed on Facebook and thought it was pretty good. Nothing on the list is going to end world hunger or figure out Warp Speed, but it is a good piece on some simple things that are important.
 
With football on the way out, luckily track season is just starting to warm up. I thought this article was interesting for those of you who want to run faster. Studying sprinting is a challenge as genetics is such a factor, but one can learn a lot about other activities by looking at pure speed.

Be sure to read the comments.
 
I was interested to hear that a lot of young shot putters are now using a “third” technique beyond the glide and rotation. For the basic throwing techniques, just see this.
 
This “other” technique has been around for a while—Glenn Passey at Utah State used it in the early 1960s and Brian Oldfield dubbed it “The Chicago Shuffle.” It's always nice to see people thinking about the process of improvement.

As a follow-up, here's how to train the shot, with David Storl. It’s amazing to see all thedifferent ways he looks to improve the throw.

This article didn't make a big splash when it came out a while ago, but it's worth reading. In my workshops, I tell people there are few ways to get a goal. One is the full-out blitz attack, and that works for some. The more gentle, habit-based approach is what Josh Hillis uses, and you can see it in his recent book, Fat Loss Happens on Monday. 

A great line from the linked article: “Jason’s ace in the hole, in my opinion, was compliance and consistency.”  

To which we all reply, “Of course.”

Going from “of course” to compliance is the problem.

Too much choice and too little free will are probably the bookends for many of our issues. I like having multiple tools for every problem, but sometimes our job as coaches and trainers is to find the best tool—the hammer for the nail—and begin pounding away.

One of my goals with Wandering Weights is to get these conversations started.

Dan
DanJohn.net

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