40 Years with a Whistle: Life Lessons from the Field of Play

by Dan John

The Fundamental Human Movements Push Pull Hinge Squat Loaded carries The sixth movement This is everything else, from rolling to half-kneeling work, to lunges and one arm. It also includes torque, twisting and rotational work.

This is a great template for training. Naked Turkish getups (no weight) and bear crawls Half-kneeling presses and half-kneeling chops Bird dogs Humane burpee: swings followed by goblet squats and pushups—see Appendix Three for details Mobility movements from six point and half-kneeling Naked Turkish getups Savasana (yoga term for laying on the back with calm breathing) or crocodile breathing

Turkish getups, bear crawls and general easy mobility work. Slower power work: deadlifts and bench presses Easy dynamic stretching work An Olympic lift—snatches or cleans Hill sprints, sled work or sprints

Deprivation eliminates decisions—a good thing!

Decision fatigue is a major issue in the area of fitness and nutrition.

My best training comes when I have little choice other than to work hard. Put me in a facility with a thousand pieces of high-end equipment and I will probably end up watching TV while walking on a treadmill.

All too often, the words that come out of people’s mouths have little to do with their actions.

Literally, everyone tells me they practice a faith, a belief or some sort of spirituality. After a follow-up question, I discover most people believe they want a cup of coffee.

For vague goals, I don’t really know what to do.

Mythos is the “Why?” and logos is the “How?” Reps and sets and exercise selection and diet and recovery are the “how.” And, yes, these are important, but more important is the “why” behind things. Truthfully, fat loss clients already know the how: some kind of caloric restriction and probably some kind of exercise. Getting them to go all in with a program needs an answer to the question: “Why?”

Unconscious incompetence— You don’t know what you don’t know. Conscious incompetence— You know what can be done, but you can’t do it. Conscious competence— You think your way through the process. Unconscious competence— You automatically apply the techniques.

most people have a mental picture when we say “weightlifting.” The audience hears “bodybuilding.”

For performance, you need something else. Since I couldn’t find a word to describe it, I invented my own (something I tend to do more and more as I age): Snapacity, pronounced “snap ASS city”). Snapacity is when we combine explosive work (snap) with work capacity training. You see…snapacity.

If you are a personal trainer and you convince all your clients to eat protein and veggies at every meal and drink only water for the next two or three years, you will become the most important name in the fitness industry. Your clients will have unparalleled success in body composition.

M)embers of the public are drowned by an unhelpful message about maintaining a ‘healthy weight’ through calorie counting, and many still wrongly believe that obesity is entirely due to lack of exercise. This false perception is rooted in the Food Industry’s Public Relations machinery, which uses tactics chillingly similar to those of big tobacco. The tobacco industry successfully stalled government intervention for 50 years starting from when the first links between smoking and lung cancer were published. This sabotage was achieved using a ‘corporate playbook’ of denial, doubt and confusing the public. “Coca Cola, who spent $3.3 billion on advertising in 2013, pushes a message that ‘all calories count’; they associate their products with sport, suggesting it is ok to consume their drinks as long as you exercise. However science tells us this is misleading and wrong. It is where the calories come from that is crucial. Sugar calories promote fat storage and hunger.”

“Fit” comes from the Old Nordic word “to knit.” I believe strongly that a “fit person” is well knitted. Well knitted in social life, mental health, financial status, and community and personal matters. Fitness is simply the ability to do a task, as we learned from Darwin. If the task is sitting in a chair watching TV, many of us are fit.

Fat accumulation is due to too many food choices too many carbs too many calories, and a business industry and body designed to want to eat more…and more…when food is available. FAT loss happens in the kitchen. FAT loss is not burpees, lunges or “going for the burn.”