Can You Go?: Assessments and Program Design for the Active Athlete and Everybody Else

by Dan John

fifth tool. The

Fifth Tool: The Mental Set

Pain motivates people better than any golden ring somewhere in the future. Personally, losing my ability to function normally to both illness and injury has

We’re Not That Disciplined

we need to improve our fitness and health one habit at a time.

make our habit changes even easier than I ever thought possible.

Commit to adding one vegetable a day.

Buy the precut, prewashed veggies. Yes, they’re more expensive, but they’re much easier to just drop into eggs, soups or stews without a second thought.

To some, turning that sip into a glass changes the task from possible to impossible.

It wasn’t my self-discipline marching off to war; I was caught up in the current of people going to practice. For most of us, the day high school ended, so did our training.

“Hey, it’s time to train!”

they just fail to show up.

Trust me, when we just show up, we’ll do more than just a few waves.

Then, they must finish the program.

You see, most people want to tell their stories. They don’t really want to follow my programs or anybody else’s programs; they want to tell me about their programs.

Coaching a group of people takes having a larger system in place than does coaching yourself. As the number of athlete clients rises, the importance of clarity in your programming and coaching rises, too.

hard

Training in community demands clarity, scalability and attention to detail.

Training solo demands a lot of free will and self-discipline, something you might of...

intentional community.

Intentional Community

But intentional communities (ICs) are bigger and deeper than training partners.

the most important gift is showing up.

nothing compares to the quality of having an IC.

Eliminate the Excess

eliminate the excess.

If it’s a home gym, I ask, “What do you use this piece of equipment for? Can you live without it?” I don’t care what it’s used for, but if a person can’t tell me why that piece of equipment is in the gym, we get rid of it.

Barbells

TRX

Kettlebells

the goblet squat, the swing and the Turkish getup.

Mini-Bands

only use forty-five-pound and twenty-five-pound plates.

Workouts with the Goldilocks Effect

just show up and do the work. If there’s a plan, follow it. If there’s a preprinted

SUDS: Show Up, Do Stuff. It’s also the kind of training that builds

Punch the Clock...

Their lifetime best efforts were often the morning after a series of bad decisions at something like a bachelor party.

Expecting nothing, or very little, from a training session or competition often allows one to stretch and expand far beyond the usual constraints.

extraordinary training sessions and days just pop out of nowhere,

Exercise Selection for Movement Inefficient exercise (IE) is fun to think about—What do I do really

badly?

Getting up and down off the ground is good, too, so mixing swings with pushups is a great way to get nowhere—save for fat loss—fast.

Nutrition and caloric restriction Inefficient exercise Strength training Hypertrophy and mobility training—the Fountain of Youth

These two, goals and assessments, live in a feedback loop that keeps you and your clients on the right path.

The 1-2-3-4 Assessment

Clear out basic risks. Highlight problems to address. Outline a programming map.

the bulk of the men we work with will be Twos. They need to do mobility work and they need some inefficient exercise.

Most women will be Fours. They need to be barbell squatting, benching and deadlifting.

what people need to do is rarely what they want to do.