Dan John is the man.  I just finished reading Dan John’s “Never Let Go“; at least I think so.  You see, Dan’s wonderful book is a collection of writings and I’ve just been skipping from article to article, sometimes reading the same one over and over.  Some of these published works have appeared on T-Nation, and I’ve always appreciated his writing, his simplicity, but reading his articles back to back really has helped me appreciate Dan’s thoughts even more.  Dan has been in the game a long time, longer than I’ve been alive, and he has mastered the art of simplicity.

K.I.S.S. (keep it simple student/stupid) is what beginners are told in every arena, but beginners don’t appeciate simple.  I could argue that it’s not understandable or achievable as a beginner.  I’ve been a beginner in many things, and every time I went for the most complex path straight away.  In playing the drums, I wanted advanced beats, extra cymbals, the most expensive drum kit — who cared if I didn’t know how to hold the sticks just right yet.  In skateboarding it was the same thing; must have a new board, must learn a new trick, before actually making the last one look nice.  In martial arts I wanted backflips, not basic forms.  Every once in a while I’ll try my hand at my father’s craft, photography, I will go for the  crazy compostion, the double exposure, meanwhile he will take a picture of a building dead on and make it look amazing.  As I progressed at playing the drums and skateboarding it was the same thing — make the basic look brilliant.  Why is this concept not understandable as a newbie, why is this not the goal?  Why did I totally forget about this when I got into strength and conditioning?  Boy, I wish someone would have taught me how to squat and deadlift when I was in high school, and to cut out all the silly shit —  I probably would’ve ignored this advice though.  It’s simple, but not easy.  Complex is not easy either though.  Why does every beginner who receives advice from the wise not listen?  I feel like for once in my life I have learned this way so many times that I “get it”, K.I.S.S.  I now truly appreciate simple, but I’m sure I’ll screw it up again.

This past year two of the biggest, highly prasied strength and conditioning books to come out were  ”Wendler’s 5/3/1“ and “Never Let Go”, they both emphasize simple and from the response they received it apprears that they’ve opened a lot of eyes — we do a lot of usless crap.  Both guys have been around long enough to realize that keeping it simple works.  They are both constantly trimming the fat off of their ideas, striving for the “program minimum” as Dan calls it.  Now, I just have to figure out how not to drop 5/3/1 and do every workout in Dan’s book!  Having a leg injury will make it easier for me to stay on task.  Stick to 5/3/1, get stronger.  In the words of Dan John ” The goal is to keep the goal the goal.”  If you love strength and conditioning and learning from the best check out “Never Let Go”.

There are two great seminars coming up, the first is Sports Rehab to Sports Performance Teleseminar – 2010 .  The teleseminar is free and begins next Weds., January 27th at 8pm est.   The first teleseminar will feature Gray Cook and Shirley Sharmann.  There will be  eight teleseminars/interviews,  one will be posted per week for eight weeks( all free).  The speakers are:

Shirley Sahrmann

Gray Cook

Robert Panariello

Dr. Stuart McGill

Dr. Craig Liebenson

Clare Frank

Dr. Michael Reinold

Greg Rose

Michael Boyle

Gary Gray

Eric Cressey

To sign-up click here.

The second seminar unfortunately is not free and you will have to leave your couch to listen.  It is The Summit of Strength and Conditioning and Sports Medicine Leaders , to be held at The University of Louisianna at Monroe on Feb 19 – 20.  This one also has some great speakers including:

Al Vermeil

Dr. Don Chu

Johnny Parker

and once again my very own PT, Robert Panariello

Happy Learning.

Hello and happy Monday.  I apologize for the lack of posts, I have been extremely busy as of late.  I’m realizing that not having deadlines or a boss to answer to here at liftrestrepeat.com doesn’t lessen the level of stress and guilt I feel when I don’t post.  Although I have been busy I managed to read some good articles last week that I’d like to share with you.  Blogging will always come second to reading and continuing my education.   Currently I’m trying to chip away at a monster reading list.  The only problem is each time I cross one book off I add two more.  I’ve pinned my reading/education list above my desk along with the following quote:

“The gap between where you are, and where you want to be – is called FRUSTRATION.

Frustration is eliminated by Education and Action.

So what do you need to know to get to the next level?” – Alwyn Cosgrove

Alwyn blogged about this quote and idea here.

On my gap list, which separates where I am now and my future awesomeness, I have three categories:

• Read (books and articles)

• Watch (DVDs, and observations of other coaches, trainers, pts)

• Attend (Seminars, Certifications)

In my attempt to obtain awesomeness I also do a lot of online reading.  This past week I read some gems.  So without further a do…

Only One Body by Michael Boyle

“Some people say things like “I hate to work out”. Try sitting in the emergency room for a few hours and then get back to me.”

“Core” Stability “Training” by Mark Rippetoe

“I guess you might believe that Multi-Directional Lunges and Seated Marching on the Physioball are the best ways to wake up your sleeping “core”.  These types of extremely submaximally-loaded odd movements are roughly equivalent to the stresses encountered when taking the groceries out of the back seat, or walking through a crowded bar without spilling your beer.”

Incremental Increases by Mark Rippetoe

“The majority of the human race is composed of lazy slobs that are prodded through their miserable existences by the media, preconceived notions and prejudices, rumor/hearsay/innuendo, bad advice from fools, and the hope for an easy way to do everything. So it’s okay if they pay us our enrollment fees and some dues, come a few times and then disappear. It’s not our fault. Right?”

The Truth About Kids and Resistance Training by Eric Cressey

“While the proximal humeral growth plate might mature at 19, the distal (down by the elbow) physis is finished between ages 10 and 16.  The proximal and distal radius plates might mature anywhere between 14 and 23.  Meanwhile, the clavicle matures at ages 22-25, and the scapula generally matures by age 22.  How many of you have ever heard of a college football being held out of weight training for all four years of his participation because all that bench pressing might stunt the growth of his clavicles and scapulae?”

8 Grams by Jon Feinstein

Visions of Fast Food by Jon Feinstein “There’s this weird relationship that we as Americans have with fast food,” says Feinstein, who titled each image with the given item’s fat content, in grams. “I made a project where the food mostly looks disgusting, yet some of it is still strangely enticing—probably because the branding is so embedded in our psyches.”

Crossfit for Baseball? by Eric Cressey “The randomness of the “workout of the day” is simply not appropriate for a sport that has quite possibly the most specific sport-imposed asymmetries in the world of athletics.”

Clean Eating Gone Wrong by John Berardi “What if I told you that a diet of 1/2 cup oats, 4 egg
whites, 5 ounces of chicken, and 1/2 cup broccoli could be a recipe for getting fat?  Hard to believe?  Well, in this week’s update, you’ll find out how even the cleanest of diets can lead to weight gain…”

USC RB Johnson recovering from weights accident by Gregg Beacham                 If you haven’t heard USC RB Stafon Johnson crushed his Larynx the other day while bench pressing.  He is thankfully expected to make a full recovery. I don’t believe this is necessarily a “must read”, but more of a wake-up call.  This is an extremely rare accident, but it can happen.  Always make sure you use a spotter you know, like your workout buddy (if you don’t have one get one), and most importantly use your thumbs.

Tomorrow I will be attending the Anatomy Trains for Personal Training Seminar by Thomas Myers and I’m psyched!  This will be the first time Mr. Myers will be speaking specifically to the personal training field about his concept, anatomy trains.  If you are in the field and haven’t heard about Myers work or read his book get on it, I’ll have some more links for you below, if you’re too busy to read because you are trying to make it as an actor please get a new job.

Myers is the manual therapist who is responsible for changing the way we perceive fascia, “Fascia (făsh’ē-ə), pl. fas·ci·ae (făsh’ē-ē), adj. fascial (făsh’ē-əl) (from latin: a band) is the soft tissue component of the connective tissue system that permeates the human body. It interpenetrates and surrounds muscles, bones, organs, nerves, blood vessels and other structures. Fascia is an uninterrupted, three-dimensional web of tissue that extends from head to toe, from front to back, from interior to exterior.” -Wikipedia

In my early days as a trainer I’d mention fascia from time to time, but with an extremely limited knowledge I would usually just spout off, “it’s a web-like structure that surrounds your muscles, bones, joints, etc and just…you know holds everything together”  I also knew it felt good to massage it.  Apparently not many other folks were paying much attention to this stuff either, everybody just wanted to know about muscles.  This is where Myers made his breakthrough, maybe there is more to this stuff he thought, in a new Men’s Heath article which you can read here Myers describes “The anatomists he was working with were slicing right through it(fascia) because they wanted a good, unobstructed view of the muscle underneath. …”all I had to do was turn my scalpel sideways”, Myers recalls.  Instead of slicing through the gunk, he sliced along it, gently freeing it from the bone.”

In doing so Myers revealed  that  multiple muscle groups were linked via fascia.  He demonstrated this by removing very large pieces of fascia, often times running from head to toe.  This was eye-opening and has changed the way a lot of people view injury and anatomy.  No longer do the educated only look at the injury/pain site for the cure, but also above and below in part thanks to Tom Myers work with dead people.

For more images, information, and practitioners in your area check out Anatomytrains.com .  I also must mention that I will be attending this seminar with none other than my good friend Michael Wolf, who has pointed out to me on many occasion that he often is mentioned in my blog simply as “friend”.  Sorry Michael.  Also, I intended to include more links and demonstrate how Myer’s work has influenced the personal training/strength coach industry, but I’m out of words, I’ve been told I must keep these posts at 500 words, which sounds good to me because I’ve got some weights to lift.  Stay tuned for more.