ARTICLES
Rest: The Definitive Answer
I enjoy the emails that seem to fill my inbox every morning. People ask me about training insights from everything from winter sports to fighting arts. I help as I can. I get emails about my programs quite often usually variations of this question: “Dan, I am doing the One Lift a Day Program. If I add a second lift, will it still be one lift a day?” No.
The questions that I can never get around to answering well deal with “rest.” How many seconds do you rest after a max deadlift? In my experience, three weeks. How long do you rest after a set of 20 reps with 405 in the Back Squat? It seems to be somewhere between ten minutes and three weeks. Of all the topics in training, “rest” is the hardest one for me to get a handle on for others. Me? Oh, I understand it.
An old article about the death of a friend
It has been happening. Just like my coaches and friends warned me about over twenty years ago. In the past year, three of my friends have died. Two of my childhood heroes are shells of men even though they are only in their fifties. In the tiny throwing community, guys who toss the shot, disc, hammer and javelin, the talk of early deaths, heart attacks, and terrible joint problems are becoming as commonplace of a discussion as the weather.
I saw it happening, too. A mediocre thrower would suddenly start dominating local and regional competition. In Olympic lifting, a lifter who had been making the usual progress would within months add forty pounds in the snatch and sometimes more in the clean and jerk. You could see the other effects, too, the bloated self-confidence, the terrible skin traumas, and then the injuries. It seemed that everywhere one looked you saw blown biceps, dislocated elbows, and popped ligaments as the body failed to keep up with the increased load and intensity over such a short amount of time.
And, we all denied it.
The Dick Smith Interviews: Insights on Isometrics and Overtraining
Thanks to Mike Rinaldi, I had the wonderful opportunity of talking with Dick Smith over a series of telephone interviews. Dick’s background includes World War II experiences, a quarter squat over 1000 pounds and a lifetime of funny insights about the world of athletics. Yet, when you begin to look at the roll call of athletes who looked to him for help, his influence is staggering. Where would American lifting be without the names Lee James, Bob Bednarski, Bill March and Lou Riecke? Among hosts of others, over our discussions, we tended to keep coming back to these four, as well as Tommy Kono. As Kono trained in Hawaii and Dick lived in York (the “home” of American Lifting), it was difficult for the two of them to get together much. Whether the discussion turned to mental toughness, intelligent training or courage in the face of obstacles, the same list of names kept coming up.
Ideally, I hope to organize Dick’s pointers. For the record, I noticed that Dick and I both seem to enjoy the “story” as much as the “point of the story.” Unfortunately for me, I was then faced with pages of notes to reread and attempt to connect point “a” to point “b.”
So, forgive me, if you will if a point seems lost or a principle forgotten. However, three overriding principles dominated our conversations and Dick’s insights:
Not overtraining!
Motivation (The mind of a champion)
Flexibility
Dick still laments the loss of isometric work in the USA.
Learn the Olympic Lifts
When I started lifting, the sport of Olympic lifting was king and all the other lifting sports were snickered at for attracting oddballs.
It was January in Utah and as I looked out my garage door, I saw another blanket of snow layer my driveway. As soon as I finished lifting, I would march back into the house, change shoes and scrap the path clean again.
I have been banging plates and lifting weights since the first Nixon administration. When I started lifting, the sport of Olympic lifting was king and all the other lifting sports were snickered at for attracting “oddballs.” Then came the machine age and these expensive and profit heavy behemoths slowly elbowed out barbells and dumbbells out of the gyms (now spas, fitness centers, and “heavens”) and into the cellars and garages. So, that is why, in snowstorms, my neighbors peer out their frosted windows, look at the steam roaring out of my nose, shake their heads, and go back to watching “Must See TV.”
Systematic Education for Lifters
from Never Let Go, excerpt, pages 89-96
It happens every time I write an article or give a workshop. Someone asks me, “So, uh, Dan, do you think I should do it five times a week or should I do it twice a day?” It doesn’t matter what “it” is — one-arm lifts, Tabata front squats, Olympic lifts — I always get the same perplexing response.
I understand perplexity. As the father of two teenagers, being perplexed defines most of my life. Only recently have I understood the issue from both sides of the question. Responses like the above mystify me because I’ve been training since 1967, and I can therefore discern whether or not something works. Perhaps more importantly, I understand the steps needed to take to add something (an exercise, a training protocol, a supplement) to my training.
Some people have no idea how to do this. If you’re one of those, let me give you a hint: You must begin by understanding how we learn.
Imagine asking a five-year-old to figure out how many square yards of burnt-orange shag carpet would be needed in a room.
Issue One: This five-year-old still counts “one-two-free-four-five-uh?”
Issue Two: Not only does this young scholar not know what a yard is, but he thinks a foot is only made for kicking a ball.
Issue Three: Sure, it’s a simple issue of length times width. Says the kiddo, “What’s ‘times’?”
Goals and Toilet Seats
Men’s Room Epiphany
On our way to Montana for the National Weight Pentathlon, my wife Tiffini and I pulled over for a break. It’s a beautiful drive, but I drink a lot of coffee and I’m 49, so we have to pull over for a lot of “breaks.”
As I went into the men’s room, I noticed a funny thing: some time in the past few weeks, a young gangster decided that the men’s room toilet seat was the place to write his name. This is called “tagging” and I guess, “You’re it.”
So, since that day, this young man’s name has had a variety of sweaty, car-seat wrinkled, flabby old man buttcheeks stretched over the second gift his parents gave him after the gift of life. As a bonus, his name proudly sits inches from drying fecal material and a stench that even gagged me… and I’ve used dry toilets in the Middle East (”dry” as in 120 degrees, no water, and mummified poop).
I began wondering about “all this.”
And what is “all this?” You know, all this: the names, the mottos, and the posturing that makes up so much of the Internet and general society today. I’ve been wondering if we should take a step back and rethink our goals through the lens of what we actually believe.
“What?”
I know that’s the question going through your mind. I’ve written about goal setting here at T-Nation before and I tend to ask the question “What are your goals?” more than any person giving advice on the Internet. That is, of course, if my writing “What are your goals?” counts as actual advice.
No matter what I write about or talk about in a workshop, people always ask me questions that need to be answered only through the lens of their goals. Yet there’s always one important element missing in goal setting, and this is what I want to discuss here.
Subscribe via RSS
Loading ...