Dan John: Wandering Weights, Our Epic Journey Through All Things Heavy, Issue # 3
If you're an American football fan, you’ve probably been spending a lot of time lately watching the game. I understand completely; it’s one of my favorite addictions. You see, I get carried away watching football.
Ha! You get it? No? Well, my first DVD attempt was an effort to show my farmer walk series and all the loaded carries we were using in my backyard. So… I titled it Carried Away. Laugh away now.
To try to CARRY that a snicker a little farther, we’ve made you a sneak look into the past. In 2014 loaded carries are pretty much the norm in training, and you will see it even more in 2015, but 10 years ago when Ben Thuma and I put this video together, it was a rare trainer who knew the farmer walk. It’s funny to see people use a name like the Waiter Walk in a training program and have no idea where the term originated. Enjoy.
Justin Grinnell has been on fire lately with a lot of good work. He writes for Muscle and Fitness, but magazines often edit a lot of the life out of author submissions. So, I asked to him to share three of his favorites. His first is an overview of basic human movements.
This one is on finishers for fat loss.
For pure candor, you can’t do much better than this one: Confessions.
I was at a gathering years ago and met two American Olympians who had been to the 1952 and 1956 Olympics. It was wonderful to listen to great athletes from the pre-drug era explaining how fun elite competition used to be back in the day. Watching this video of Tommy Kono still shows how great these athletes were.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK5rnJlZN4I
As long as we’re WANDERING down Memory Lane, have a look at this 1936 Olympic Discus throw.
At the 2:52 mark, Kenny Carpenter’s winning throw is filmed beautifully. He’s throwing in a grass ring, with spikes, but everything he does at the finish of the throw is just lovely.
When I coach the discus, I tell my athletes there are two keys. For a right-hander, driving off the left foot at the back of the ring, and then insure the discus is behind the right foot in the 3B position. Here's a still of Carpenter so you can all see that 'bow and arrow' position. It is absolutely perfect.
If you have no idea what I am talking about, here are some resources to coach the discus.
And… my 12-year-old book, A Contrarian Approach to the Discus Throw, free right here.
As a side note, I love studying the training and techniques of athletes from the black & white era. They often had very short windows of training time and few facilities, but they seemed to know how to maximize things. There’s a lesson right there.
I like articles that offer a simple solution to the question raised. Max Shank does a fun thing here: Test the problem, then try this.
Josh Hillis is on fire lately. It seems he might have a new book out…hmmm?
Sometimes I like to read things that make me think. (I know, I know, this is completely contrary to the American landscape of 2014.) Along those lines, Dave Asprey offers an interesting take on Vitamin D.
Now, Dave is radically contrarian. I ordered his new book, The Bulletproof Diet,which is coming out next week—I haven’t seen it yet, but maybe I'll do a write-up soon.
Until next time, keep learning and keep finding better and easier ways to accomplish your goals.
Dan
DanJohn.net
Click here to get this each Wednesday in your email box.
Click here to see previous issues.