Dan John: Wandering Weights, Issue # 48
As a type this I am flying cross country and then off to Galway, Ireland. Adrian Cradock, one of my former interns, is getting married and I am thrilled to be going. I also just finished the three-day Art of Coaching workshop and I need a day of rest.
I won’t get one.
I did get a great book recommendation: Spring Chicken (Stay Young Forever of Die Trying) by Bill Gifford. It’s a fun book in the same vein as A. J. Jacob’s books. So far, so good. Let’s look at the web this week.
This article at t-nation by Doctor John Rusin reminded me of what Greg O’Gallagher has been discussing on his blog and books for a while. For a brief insight into Greg’s ideas, go here.
I was at the University of Utah football practice in 1982 and had a talk with a guy who told me that overtraining is the curse of American training. And, he went on, I am the poster boy of overtraining. Smarter training tends to trump lots of garbage work. It was funny to read this and see my name, but this is the best way to do practically anything and everything.
“As a coach, my focus is always on the long game for my clients. I want them not only to lose weight but to keep it off for good. The actual reason why I am still the size I am today is a product of the things that most of my clients would call small successes. So when a client tells me about one of these decisions and tries to brush it off like it’s “no big deal”, I make sure to let them know how very important of a deal it is. For someone like me with the long view, I know that she is doing exactly what needs to get done.”
Swim, dips, chins, jumps and sprints. Why not?
Mental Floss is a great site. You can scroll around here for a while and waste lots of time as “you can’t have too much of a good thing.” It turns out that I enjoy quoting Shakespeare.
While we are on the subject of words, let’s see how sophisticated you are.
Your family tree is much more “tree” than we thought!
““Homo naledi feet are like yours and mine in so many ways, it is easier to just point out the subtle differences,” noted study co-author Jeremy DeSilva of Dartmouth College to Gizmodo. “The heel appears to be a bit less robust than ours, the arch is a tad flatter, and the toes are a bit more curved. Other than those relatively minor differences, Homo naledi had the most human-like foot of any known early humans except for Neanderthals. Based on the foot, and anatomies of the leg and knee, we can tell that Homo naledi walked a lot like humans do today.”
What’s more, the Naledi foot featured a strength and load capacity similar to modern humans, but distinct from chimpanzees—again, another clue that this species was, in the words of the researchers, “capable of efficient weight transfer through to a terrestrial substrate,” i.e. bipedalism.”
Well, I like James Clear and I especially like it when he quotes me!
“In other words, in the beginning you need to get comfortable with feeling stupid, uncertain, and unskilled. You’re not allowed to be disappointed by your amateur performance because you haven’t developed the skills of a professional yet. It’s only the professionals that are allowed to be disappointed because they have put in the work to be better.”
“ J.K Rowling is allowed to be disappointed if she writes a bad book because she put in twenty years of work to get good.”
“Kobe Bryant is allowed to be disappointed if he plays a bad game because he put in twenty years of work to become amazing.”
“When he was alive, Jack LaLanne was allowed to be disappointed with a bad workout because he trained for sixty years to stay fit.”
MLB rises again! Not Major League Baseball but Meat, Leaves and Berries. Stan is on a roll lately (Ha! A roll. Not on this diet! I crack myself up).
“The plan as written would not work for me. I need my morning coffee with cream and sugar and also need my Friday night pizza and popcorn with my family. Based upon this I executed as follows:
Eat as much meat and as many leaves and fruits and berries as I want to.
No eating after 7pm (except on Friday).
Cream and sugar are allowed in my morning coffee.
On Fridays I eat pizza and popcorn with my family.
Walk for 45 minutes upon waking and prior to consuming anything with a caloric value.
Do 100 two-handed kettlebell swings with a 24kg kettlebell following the walk. I did this by four sets of 25 repetitions.”
Frankly, I love this. This is reasonable, doable, repeatable. And smart.
Diet and Easy Strength? Josh Hillis does it again.
“Doing frequent practice and never going to failure is what makes for amazing, even unbelievable long term success. People totally overestimate what they can do in a month or three mont…but they totally underestimate what they could do in a year. You can get really lean, and really strong. You can be unrecognizably lean and athletic looking in a year. What’s even more amazing, is that the habits will be ingrained, and it will actually be even easier to stay lean and athletic looking, a year from now.”
Cheers from Ireland!
Dan
DanJohn.net
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