It’s funny how competitions, whether local, national or (occasionally) international have quickly become part of my life and my annual schedule. I still get nervous but it seems natural to be competing and, conversely, it feels weird when I haven’t got a meet to train for.

But due to the very low level of female participation in strength sports, I often find myself competing against very few other women – and in local competitions often against no-one. It’s not unique to women either. Juniors or the upper echelons of the Masters categories can also be in this situation with regularity.

I enjoy getting up and lifting at any occasion (I’m available for birthdays, weddings and barmitzvahs), but I used to feel odd about ‘winning’ a medal in situations where the competition was small or non-existent. I suppose I felt like I hadn’t ‘won’ unless I’d defeated a large number of people.

But even if there is no-one else in your category, in order to win a medal at a meet you have to:

• learn the lifts
• do the training
• get your entry form and payment in on time
• turn up on the day
• make your weight class
• wear the right kit
• get out there on the platform in front of a crowd
• put in at least one good attempt on each lift

There are many points of failure in that list, and over the year or two I have been competing – in other words, not very long – I have seen people fail at every single stage.

At competitions, I have seen people bomb (not get a single good lift) or not be allowed to lift because they haven’t got the correct kit. Plenty of people don’t make their weight – remember the young UK boxer Frankie Gavin who had to go home from the 2008 Olympics without competing because he didn’t make weight?

I’ve known many people who have entered competitions and not managed to turn up on the day. Then there are those who train but get injured and have to pull out. Or those who sit around saying they’d like to do it – but somehow never commit themselves to it.

When I think about all that, I don’t feel so bad about getting a medal in a small field. I trained, I showed up, I lifted. I deserve my medal.

Showing up

My friend Dan John has written recently about showing up. It’s something he talks about often, another example of those simple pieces of wisdom that bear repeating. He wrote on his blog the other day,

“If you want to be a national champion, you really need to get to the stadium on time. If you decide to get married, the ceremony starts at 11. Be there. Showing up is underrated as a life skills success clue.”

He then goes on to say, “Of course, showing up is only step one. Step two is to do something.” He’s right, but in the context of competitions, the fact that you show up on the day, on time, usually indicates that you’ve done a hell of a lot already.

Do you have to be brilliant before you enter your first competition? Of course not. Even the greatest athletes start competing way before they have reached their potential. Competing often helps you to improve overall (although it’s not the only way to improve). Just as you need to practise in the gym to get good at the lifts, you have to practise competing. From controlling your nerves to warming up effectively or getting in the zone, there are circumstances that are unique to the competitive environment and very difficult to reproduce in the gym. So practise them by going to lots of meets and just getting on with it.

Ultimately, who knows what can happen in competition? In the 2002 winter olympics the gold medal in the 1000m short track speed skating was won by the man in last place, Steven Bradbury. Everyone else in the race fell over at the final corner and he was literally the last man standing!

Was he the lame duck who was handed the gold medal on a plate? Or was he the guy who trained hard for years, got selected, showed up, got through to the final and managed to stay on his feet when everyone else fell over?

Being a champion

The other day at the gym, I had abandoned my usual weightlifting training in the snatch and the clean & jerk in order to work on one of the odd lifts. My weightlifting coach, who likes a bit of banter, said, “Wouldn’t you rather get good at something that lots of people do?” I said, “Nah, I want to be champion of being me.”

At the time I meant it as a joke but afterwards I thought that this probably is my overriding aim: to be champion of being me. To be as good as I can be, to ‘win’ over those inner demons and life demands.

If I manage to win at anything else, that’s a bonus.

More from gubernatrix

Scenes from a powerlifting year
Strength revelations: what I’ve learned from strongman

So, an Irishman, an Australian and an American walk into a bar….and among other things they decided to open a gym, Informed Performance in Dublin, and invite coach, athlete, philosopher and all-round good guy Dan John to come and deliver a two-day seminar, download 42 years of strength training wisdom and share a few beers in the process.

As soon as I heard this was happening, I knew that I must go – if I had to sell my grandmother, swim the Irish Sea and sleep in the carcass of a dead sheep to do it.

Dan John has garnered many fans over the years through his straight-talking, insightful articles, recently collected into the book Never Let Go. Every article is an ‘a-ha!’ moment that suddenly makes one’s goals seem clearer and closer. It’s a rare gift and one that Dan has always been keen to share with as many people as possible.

From far and wide we came, from Finland and Germany, from Aberdeen and London and from all over Ireland. We were a mixed bunch, from powerlifters to rugby players, personal trainers to enthusiastic amateurs.

But what we all shared – Dan John down to every last participant – was a passion for training, a desire to plumb the depths not just of particular movements but strength training philosophy, programming rationale, maximising nutrition, supplementation and recovery, the emotional landscape – in short, everything that makes the difference between success and failure.

Read on for the full story >>

Christmas has come early here at gubernatrix.co.uk! Coach Dan John answers your training questions below. We got some interesting questions from people with a variety of needs and goals – from military personnel to bodybuilder to rugby player. So even if you didn’t ask a question, there is plenty to think about, try out and inspire.

Carolyn W from Sioux Falls, USA asks:

I’m in training for the USMC Officer Candidates Course for summer ’10. As a female, I have to do a 70-second flexed arm hang, 3 mile run and 100 situps. However, I’m having trouble gaining the upper body strength I need to hang on the bar (I can only hang for about 40 seconds now) and survive OCC. As a former varsity D1 athlete, I learned a variety of lifting techniques, but my progress/gain is so slow I’m frustrated. I need/want to be stronger and I also have the goal of being able to do 25 pullups before I ship in May. How can I accomplish that?

Dan says:

First, focus on what you HAVE to do versus what you want to do. If OCC wants the hang, the run and the situps, that is what we are going to do…now. So, I want you to hang for twenty seconds in groups of five sets. Easy as you can…no stress. Try to do that up to five times a day. When that becomes so easy you can’t believe you are wasting your time doing it, sneak up to 35 seconds. Same plan…lots of submaximal attempts. Then, after about a week or so, test again. I’ll be amazed if you don’t nail the test easy, but if you don’t just keep doing the submax attempts. The situps should be a breeze, but try to do some every day. I suggest sit up “races” where you pound out as many as you can in ten seconds or 15 seconds. That’s how we groove push ups at our school. Once a boy can get twenty push ups in ten seconds, we know he is good for 100.

Running? Well, run. Same idea. Submaximal…easy breathing…don’t get crushed. From here, you can add some pure strength work. If you have the background, do the powerlifts. Learn to stay tight. For the pullups (25?), you will do what I do: whenever you can, you do some easy pullups. I’m up to dozens, if not 100s a day, simply doing 1-5 at a time whenever I pass a bar. But, goal one is goal one.

John Heaton from Wakefield, UK asks:

Hi Dan
I am a Natural Bodybuilder but I am heavily into functional athletic training as opposed to isolated aesthetic exercises. Do you have any good tips for incorporating Olympic lifts and kettlebells into my weekly programme to not only imporve my strength, but also enhance my physique especially hamstrings which is my weak area?
Thanks. Loving the seminar DVD series.

Dan says:

There are thousands of options. Here is a simple one: the first part of your training is ALWAYS going to be an O lift (or variation). Press, Snatch or Jerk. Then, do the “other stuff.” At the end of the workout, use the kettlebell swing or snatch as a finisher. Then, do some Get Ups and go home!

Damien Murphy from Edinburgh, Scotland asks:

I’ve spent nearly a year trying to snatch properly. I’ve tried teaching myself, I’ve been to olympic lifting courses but all I end up doing is having a sore back and stiff shoulders. Do you think some people just shouldn’t do some exercises and if so what would you suggest instead of it?

Dan says:

Damien, you might be on to something. This is going to sound repetitive, but, first, what is your goal? I knew that I HAD (!!!) to learn the O lifts so I was sore and beat up for two years to do it. For others, it is like a cool bar trick. So, maybe the ‘want’ is there, but not the ‘need.’ As much as I love the O lifts, few of the people I work with do them. Few. We can get you from here to there with easier methods, whether kettlebell work or other basic lifts.

Instead of snatches: Vertical and Standing Long Jumps. Kbell swings and snatches (done right). Front Squats with the bar or Double Kettlebells. That’s a pretty good list!

Charlie from Dover, UK asks:

Dear Dan,

I only have time for one gym based strength session per week. I love my powerlifting and squat, deadlift and press every week. How can I best use this one session?

My goal is to be strong and get stronger for rugby.

Dan says:

Well, Jim Wendler would tell you to do all three, but why don’t you just be sure to Bench (as it is really hard to mimic that in the real world) and alternate DL and Squat each week. I strongly suggest (strongly!!!) that you do Goblet Squats with a dumbbell or kettlebell each day or as often as you can to keep the movement and that you do organize a home gym or whatever to make sure you are doing something. You can get damn strong on one or two workouts a week, but rugby is going to demand more than minimal work.

John from Stoke on Trent, UK asks:

How you would advise someone when wanting to improve over head pressing strength as mine sucks?

Dan says:

Well, John, (beautiful name) you are one of many with bad pressing strength. The good news? There is a fix. The bad news follows: you MUST press overhead every workout or, better, every day. Pressers press. It doesn’t have to be much…a total of 15-25 reps each workout. So, 3 x 5, 5 x 3, 5 x 5, 2-3-5-10 (my favorite), or any other variation is fine. Go heavy, go less heavy, go medium, it doesn’t matter. The key is to press, press, press. Give it about six weeks of multiple sessions of pressing and get back to me. It should be MILES better. Or, in your case, kilometers.

Mild attempt at international humor…humour. Ah…comedy lost a great one when I decided to go into coaching.

Dan Coats from Suffolk, UK asks:

Two questions – I just brought your excellent DVD which is actually three DVDs in one [this one - ed].  If you were training three times per week would you organize your training like this ie a workout of cleaning and snatching, a workout of pressing, a workout of carrying movements. Alternatively is it better to combine elements of all three lifting movements in one workout.

Secondly I do judo three times a week.  From your work with wrestlers what movements are particularly worth training and how do you ensure they are still fresh enough to grapple?

Dan says:

Wait, a question from a “John” and now a “Dan?” I’m getting set up here. Do a carry EVERY workout. If you want to do it as a warm up, it works very well. We do the Waiter Walk, the Suitcase Walk and the Farmer Walk every day. We used to do the Crosswalk, but the numbers make it hard to have enough equipment. You can snatch three days a week, and probably press three, but the Clean and Jerk, for most non O lifters, is best done once a week.

So,

Day One:

Carries for Warm ups
Snatch
Clean and press
Some kind of squat

Day Two

Carries
Snatch
Press
Serious Farmer Walk as a finisher

Day Three

Press
Snatch
Clean and Jerk
Serious drag, pull or whatever as a finisher

For fighters and wrestlers, you have to really push them to get stronger. They tend to always want to do conditioning stuff, but they will do 10,000 pushups and not be able to Bench 200 (90k). So, I work with them in a different way: get stronger and use the mat for insanity. Again, they can bench 100 for 100 and 115 for a single. It’s odd stuff.

Chris L from Shropshire,England asks:

You mentioned in your review of mike boyles functional training book that “He demands “Olympic style” Front Squats for the same reasons I do”, would you expand a little on this. Reason i ask is that i dont have any power rack or squat stands at moment [money tight] so just have a bar and some of these so front squats are all i can do. You may mention the reasons in your book [which my brother currently has installed as his toilet book].

Dan says:

Well, I beat this question to death in my live presentations, but the Front Squat “insists” on a proper, athletic body position, depth is easy to regulate, and flexibility is a must. As a coach, I teach the squat in this pattern: Goblet Squat, Front Squat, Overhead Squat, Back Squat. I actually don’t teach the BS, I just tell them that is in today’s workout and the kids explain it to the new kids. The FS is one of those lifts that if you improve on it, you tend to improve on what you are doing in the real world. Not always true with the BS…

Gubernatrix from London, UK asks:

I’ve been self-coaching for years, in powerlifting and general strength training. Sometimes I know that in order to progress, I need to do something different, since the old routine or method slows down or stops completely. But I don’t often know what. How would you approach this? How do you know what to do next?

Dan says:

Good question. I approach this one of two ways, either with concentric circles or Pareto’s 80/20 rule. The question is this “what is core?” The inner circle. What is the 20 percent that gives you 80 percent of the stuff?

From this question, it gets simple. I think “core” is this, that and this. So, we can’t ignore that EVER. The outer circles, that is what I switch in and switch out. Okay, inner circle stuff: a squat movement, a snappy full body thing, a push, a pull and a carry or drag. I always keep those. Bizarre little cool ab move? Hmmm, let’s toss it in for six weeks and give it a go!

That is literally the thought process. I’m going to keep Front Squats, Bench Press, Pull ups, deadlifts and some kind of snatch or clean in the program…well, always. The other stuff, we can bring in, test, throw out, keep, whatever.

So, the “science” is knowing what to keep, but the “art” is knowing what to tease in and out of the program. The core stuff is what really works, but the other stuff supports and gives your brain some excitement.

More Dan John stuff

• Dan John DVDs
• Review of A Philosophy of Strength Training
• Review of Everything’s Over My Head

Often trying something new can make certain movements, concepts or sensations really click for you. Recently I had a go at a Strength & Power event – inspired by strongman but scaled for all weight classes. I turned out to be the only female in the event, competing against the guys in the sub-75kg weight class.

Aside from being a fun day, I discovered in the training and then on the day itself  a number of things I’d never fully grasped before about strength. Part of the fun in fact was these ‘light bulb’ moments, things that perhaps people have told you or you’ve read about, but until you actually experience them you don’t really grok what they mean.

So here are some of my strength revelations from that day.

Pushing through the sticking point

There are events in strongman – and in powerlifting – where, when you start pulling, the load just does not move. It’s tempting to give up at this point and think that you are not able to move it, but if you keep pulling you can eventually overcome that inertia and get it to shift.

I had never before experienced so completely the difference between pulling hard for a second or two and pulling hard for several seconds, despite the fact that I’ve been deadlifting for years.

It is similar to the experience of learning to push through the pain barrier when running. Years ago when I first started going for runs, I would basically run until I got really out of breath and felt like I couldn’t run any more and then I’d stop. The point at which I got really out of breath got further and further away, so I thought I was doing okay. Only when I started training with British Military Fitness did I learn how to keep running past the point that I thought I couldn’t possibly continue.

The mind always gives out before the body. You’ll pass out before you die.

The same applies to lifting very heavy weights. Most people, naturally enough, will try to lift a weight and if they can’t shift it within a second or two of trying they will assume that it is too heavy. But it takes time to develop the kind of force you need to shift that weight. You don’t have access to it instantly.

One of the starkest examples of this is in the truck pull. Overcoming inertia and getting that truck moving is one of the most prolonged efforts in strength sports. You dig your toes into the ground and push and strain for what seems like an age and just when you think you are never going to manage it, someone calls out – oh joy! – “It’s moving!” and you have that Beethoven’s Fifth moment at last (towards the end of the 3rd movement going into the 4th movement; listen from when it goes really quiet and you’ll see what I mean: it’s the orchestral expression of a truck pull).

A max deadlift is also a perfect lesson in this force-time curve. There is the isometric phase, where you are exerting force but the load remains static, then eventually it starts moving.

I realised that I hardly ever pull for long enough in the deadlift.

Travelling with weight

This is something I discovered while training for this event and I’ve mentioned it recently. Moving from A to B with a heavy load is an awesome workout. What it does to your heart and lungs is akin to hill sprints – I kid you not.

Shouldering a very heavy sandbag (close to bodyweight, if not more) and running even a few metres is punishing.

How many times do we actually travel with weight in the gym? We tend to do all our lifting rooted to the ground like ancient trees. Become Ents! Start moving.

Incidentally, how many times do we actually travel with weight in everyday life? All the time! We rarely pick something up only to put it back down again in exactly the same place. I mean, where’s the use in that?

So is strongman starting to make sense now? Dan John has been talking about this for years but it sounds a bit strange and a bit too simple so most people, including me, have ignored it. Dan’s “things that I believe can help anyone improve on the road to health and fitness” are:

1. Pick stuff off the ground
2. Put stuff overhead
3. Carry stuff for time and distance

I’d gradually made forays into the first two but for me, number three was the missing link.

Here’s an important point though. This stuff has to be heavy. Picking up a sandbag that weighs the same as your briefcase and running with it won’t have the same effect. That’s just like commuting. We’re all at different stages along the road of strength but don’t be afraid to make it challenging. You won’t die, really.

(There’s a fun workout on Bodytribe’s Strength Rituals DVD that involves shouldering a sandbag filled with your bodyweight from a prone position, then standing up with it and running across the room. Really tough, and a great lesson in how conditioning workouts don’t have to be ‘light’.)

Your deadlift isn’t your biggest lift

Most people think that the most they can lift off the floor is what they can deadlift – right? Well, that’s what I used to think anyway. But the powerlifting deadlift is not the strongest position for the body to be in.

One of the events in this Strength & Power competition was a farmer’s walk with 65kg in each hand. This was more than twice my bodyweight and equivalent to my lifetime best deadlift (which I had not done for several months) and not only did I have to pick it up but I had to carry it 15 metres.

I honestly thought I would not even be able to pick these bad boys off the ground, and I approached the event with this attitude in my head.

But lo and behold, that farmers walk position is way stronger than the deadlift position. Dare I say it, it was easy carrying over two times my bodyweight across a car park! Or at least, by far not the most difficult thing I did that day.

It is in fact possible to deadlift more with one hand than half of your two handed deadlift – something else I’ve mentioned recently. And great fun to try!

The one handed deadlift used to be a popular competition lift and is still done in some circles. In fact in the days when feats of strength were popular spectator sports, all kinds of lifts were performed which makes today’s range of standard lifts look extremely limited. One handed lifting is hardly ever done and yet it is possible to move a great deal of weight if one has the training and the technique. One handed lifts of over 1000 lbs have been recorded.

The secret of core stability

Well, one of them anyway. If you aren’t sure where your core is, stand up and press something heavy overhead. Your torso will either engage or collapse. That’s your ‘core’.

Once again, I refer you to Dan John’s three pillars above.

Strongwomen?

If there’s one strength sport even more male-dominated than powerlifting, it’s strongman. The name says it all.

I don’t particularly mind about the name (Germaine Greer strike me down for saying so!). Just because its known as ‘strongman’ doesn’t mean it’s not for girls; strongman is just a technical term. I’m not even that bothered about using the term ‘strongwoman’ since this could imply that its something different from ‘strongman’.

In his latest DVD, Dan John says “There’s no right and wrong; never put a moral dimension on strength training”. I’ll add to that by saying “never put a gender distinction on strength training either”.

My recent event was called a ‘Strength & Power Invitational’ and I competed against the guys in the appropriate weight class. Gender wasn’t an issue at any point. Long may it continue.

More from gubernatrix

• Review: Everything’s Over My Head by Dan John
• Testing your one rep max
• Assistance exercises
• How competitive are you?

Photo credits: All photos by Emmie Bates apart from the first photo which is by Chris Barclay

Gubernatrix sneaks a go with the 100kg sleeper

Hey, this functional training stuff really works! I’ve just spend the weekend moving house and apart from some help unloading  (including from my awesome 80-year-old aunty who is of a generation that could actually do stuff) I basically did it all myself.

I was expecting to feel very tired and achey afterwards but this didn’t happen. I put it down to the fact that as well as good ol’ powerlifting training I’ve been doing a lot more lifting and carrying recently. Inspired by the great DVDs from my main men Dan John and Chip Conrad and the world of strongman, I’ve been incorporating more overhead work, farmer’s walks, super heavy holds and the like into my workouts and it is definitely having an effect.

Of course the real test will come in the Crossfit Reading/FKUK strongman event that will see me strutting my heavy stuff on November 21st but in the meantime, I shall continue to shift things around as I try to fit my life into ever smaller spaces.

If you’re not incorporating the lifting and carrying of heavy objects into your training, I highly recommend it. It will make your life easier (believe me) and it’s a lot of fun.

Farmer’s walk

Here’s a tip if you are short of space in your gym for walking and carrying: use the stairs. Going up and down the stairs a few times carrying a set of heavy dumbbells will burn your legs and fry your grip. Not unlike my cooking.

Use farmer’s walks at the end of a workout as a bit of GPP and grip training combined.

One-handed deadlift

One-handed deadlift

Have you ever tried a one-handed deadlift? This classic used to be a popular competition lift – and is still practised by fans of the old time or ‘odd’ lifts. Indeed a Left Handed Deadlift was the BWLA Lift of the Quarter last quarter.

It is possible to lift with one hand more than half of your regular two-handed deadlift and you might surprise yourself with what you can achieve. Standing astride the bar (below) is allowed, as well as the normal straight-on stance shown to the right.

Steve Angell with a 200kg+ one-handed deadlift

Suitcase deadlift

A great idea for core training: get up off that mat and do a suitcase carry instead. Simply carry a heavy weight in one hand while keeping your body perfectly perpendicular to the ground and feel how much the muscles of your torso need to engage to keep you from collapsing sideways.

If 80-year-old Aunty Olga can pick up my 14kg kettlebell in one hand, you can too.

DVD inspiration

I pimp these DVDs because I love them and they demonstrate a great variety of lifts and workouts with a strength bias.

Everything’s Over My Head from Dan John has, as the name suggests, a lot of olympic lifting-inspired overhead work but my favourite part is Carried Away which features every possible combination of carrying you can think of. Seriously, when was the last time you actually lifted a weight and moved around with it? We tend to do all our lifting rooted to the ground like ancient trees. Let’s make like the Forest of Fangorn and start moving.
Read the full review here.

Strength Rituals from Bodytribe features an exciting array of odd and one-handed lifts. Windmills, bent press, one-handed snatchs and turkish get ups sit alongside one-handed work with clubs and kettlebells. It’s all heavy and therefore all good. There is also an explanation of how such lifts can usefully be incorporated into a workout programme.
Read the full review here.

Get these DVDs together at a 15% discount! See here for details.

A shout out for The Tight Tan Slacks of Dezso Ban, whence I obtained the black and white one-handed deadlift picture above, a wonderful compendium of old time lifting and physical culture. And also to Steve Angell, many times champion in All Around lifting, who let me use his straddle one handed deadlift pic.

Dan John is a wonderful public speaker, a very knowledgeable strength coach and a warm, generous person. I can’t think of a better combination for a training seminar.

Although he loves to experiment and to learn himself, Dan John is in fact the opposite of faddy. He has this uncanny ability to pick out the eternal, simple truths from whatever system or method he is discussing.

I don’t think there’s much point my going into the details of what he talks about (but see end of this post anyway!). This sounds odd but it’s not really relevant. Saying Dan John covers ‘goal management’ and ‘phasic and tonic muscles’ in his lecture is like saying that Shakespeare covers ‘bereavement’ and ‘fencing’ in Hamlet. Technically this is true, but that doesn’t explain what the lecture is about or what you will get out of it.

It is worth saying however that, although much of Dan John’s experience is in coaching athletes, he does have a lot to say to people who are simply training for muscle building and/or fat loss and their long term physical health. His advice isn’t sports specific, it is general and applicable to a number of different scenarios (including one that seems to have been inspired by Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion. I’m not asking any questions…).

So this DVD is for anyone who has been strength training for a while and who wants to carry on training for the rest of their life. In other words, for people who take their training seriously, even if it’s just a hobby. I think it is particularly useful for people who coach themselves as it will equip you with methods and concepts that can be drawn on throughout your training life.

Dan John makes me want to dedicate myself to training for life, or reinforces that desire. I am sure he could also instill that desire in some people, but this is not the DVD where he does that. I think you have to have the desire already, but even if it is dormant or intermittent, this DVD will bring it out and rejuvenate it.

The premise of this movie is ‘point camera at Dan John and let him talk for over two hours’. I could have listened to two hours more – heck, two days more. The good news for me, and all of you, is that there is more! This is only part one of a four part series filmed over two days. My cup is gonna runneth over, I can tell you.

This DVD is now on sale in the shop. Get it here. Sign up to my newsletter to hear about more new products as they come in stock.

Watch clips from the DVD:

• Dan on goal setting
• Dan on the role of the strength coach

What’s on the DVD:

Erm, having said there’s no point telling you exactly what’s on the DVD, here is a list of topics covered in case you really want to know.

• The role of the strength coach
• Levels of strength coaching
• How a home trainer becomes his own coach
• The influence of strength coaching on performance
• Strength and athletic performance
• How to narrow your training focus
• Systematic learning
• Setting a non-competitive training goal
• Phasic vs tonic muscles
• How to stay youthful while aging
• Movements not muscles
• Dan’s hip displacement continuum

More Dan John

• Dan John’s earlier DVD Everything’s Over My Head
• The wisdom of Dan John

For me this is like watching old Bones Brigade movies. You can giggle at the low budget, dated production values for about two seconds before the content takes over and you are mesmerised.

Carried Away is the first film on the DVD and it is mainly about walking with weights. It doesn’t get simpler and it doesn’t get harder than this. I just wrote a lengthy and detailed post about assistance exercises; I’m thinking about deleting it and writing “do everything in Carried Away”.

If you work out at home and you love the low tech, you will be particularly inspired by this short film. I was also gobsmacked by the mountains in the background (we don’t have anything like that in the UK).

The next film is From The Ground Up. Some people will recognise the title as also being that of Dan John’s free ebook on olympic weightlifting. Personally I think the third film follows on more naturally from Carried Away but there you go. From The Ground Up is a family affair in the backyard. Mom and Dad do Olympic lifting in the garden while teenage daughters look on indulgently.

Coach Dan John, back in the day

If you coach athletes (and that includes you – if you train yourself at home you are Head Coach of Team You) this film will be useful, giving very sensible drills, progressions and coaching cues. I don’t know enough about Olympic weightlifting to know whether it is ‘good’ but it all makes sense to me.

There are exercises in here that I have seen popping up in various other contexts, including Crossfit workouts, so I’m not the only one who thinks, “darn that looks useful”. If you’ve done little or no Olympic lifting before, this film will get you putting stuff over your head with confidence.

The third film is Everything’s Over My Head, which continues the milieu of the first movie – outdoor training at home, very low tech, but focussing on overhead, Olympic lifting-inspired training.

Throughout the films, Dan John’s delivery – mostly in voiceover, sometimes to camera – is perfect: funny, clear, authoritative, warm-hearted. Anyone who has read his articles or his book will know what to expect. Simple, sensible, inspirational advice. Stuff that you know isn’t going to go out of fashion.

Carried Away might well be genius. It’s so simple, you almost wonder why Dan John even made a DVD of it, because most people wouldn’t even recognise it as ‘training’. But once you see people actually doing it, it makes sense and that is possibly the genius part.

Recently a lot of people have been catching onto this idea. Olympic lifting and sprints? Dan John has been talking about it for years – go straight to the source.

More Dan John

I am happy to say that I now have the Everything’s Over My Head DVD for sale in my shop. Get your copy here.

Unfortunately I don’t have a clip from Everything’s Over my Head to show you but if you are unfamiliar with Dan John’s teaching style or you just want to watch something cool, take a look at this clip of Dan teaching the turkish get up from one of the new DVDs (which I will be getting in stock soon!).

Review of A Philosophy of Strength Training DVD from Dan John

My post on The wisdom of Dan John

What’s on the DVD

Here’s an overview of what you’ll learn from Everything’s Over My Head DVD:

Dan John is one of the few strength pundits who is both teacher and pupil. He has a clear, engaging prose style and everything he writes is ‘big picture’. When you read a Dan John article, you understand what it’s all about and why do it in the first place.

I like Dan’s approach because he is first and foremost a sportsman (field events, Olympic lifting, highland games etc) and therefore more performance-oriented than size-oriented. He is also a straight talking kind of guy who has no desire to make things sound more complex or esoteric than they actually are, just to boost his own ego. As the man himself puts it:

“I feel good about things like helping people with a clear goal, strength training, winning things and defeating evil.”

So naturally when I wanted some help and inspiration for my latest programme, I looked up some of Dan John’s articles. I was not disappointed! Here are the ones that resonated the most with me:

The Philosophy of Physical Capital

This article is about finding the right training programme and adapting it for your own use. What is refreshing about John’s approach is that, rather than looking at training programmes from the outside, he shows that you first need to be honest about your own abilities and commitment (physical capital) and find a programme that fits those aspects.

He discusses his ‘highly scientific’ terms for the concept of the max lift: Sorta Max, Max, Max Max and Max Max Max. I have no hesitation in saying that his explanation will change the way you think about your “max” lift forever!

Nautilus, Crossfit and “Hihi”

This is one of the best of John’s teacher-as-pupil articles. He talks about his different training experiences over the years and what he has learnt from them. He admits that he gets ‘sucked in’ but says that he enjoys trying out new ideas or new pieces of equipment.

There is a tendency in the fitness world to elevate people who espouse a single idea constituting their life’s mission, and to be suspicious of those who have changed their minds or tried different systems. Politicians have the same problem: they can never change their minds for fear of being accused of flip-flopping or u-turning.

This, of course, is nonsense. As the body of knowledge ‘out there’ grows and changes, we ought to grow and change with it. And in case you were wondering, Dan John does eventually boil his years of learning into a useful concept that you can take away and apply to your own training.

Two tips on goal setting

If you’ve read the above articles, you will understand where Dan John is coming from in these two pithy tips about goal setting.

Goals v Behaviours by Dan John

Two goal setting tips by Dan John

Read more

• Dan John’s Q&A forum
• List of articles by Dan John
• From the Ground up – Dan John’s ebook on olympic weightlifting