Never Let Go: A Philosophy of Lifting, Living and Learning

290 Pages·2009·1.11 MB·English

by  Pavel Tsatsouline, Dave Draper, Dan John

Never Let Go
A Philosophy of Lifting, Living and Learning

Dan John

Introduction:
Pavel Tsatsouline
Foreword:
Dave Draper
Preface:
Dan John

On Target Publications
Santa Cruz, California
Never Let Go
A Philosophy of Lifting, Living and Learning
by Dan John
Introduction: Pavel Tsatsouline
Foreword: Dave Draper
Cover photo: Mark Twight
Articles originally published by Testosterone Muscle
Copyright © 2009, Daniel Arthur John
Print book: ISBN-13: 978-1-931046-38-1
First ebook edition: 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form whatsoever without written permission from the author or publisher,
with the exception of the inclusions of brief quotations in articles or reviews.
On Target Publications
P. O. Box 1335
Aptos, CA 95001 USA
[phone]
Contents
Introduction
Foreword
Preface
Free Will and Free Weights
The Rule of Five
The Velocity Diet Experience
The Rest of the Story
The One Lift a Day Program
The Tabata Method — Fat Loss in Four Minutes
A History of Dieting
The Classic Top 10 Tips
Systematic Education for Lifters
5 X 5 Variations
Three Mentors, Lifetime Lessons
Geezer Wisdom
The AIT Formula
Self-Evident Truths
What You Know Versus What You Do
PVC and Presuppositions
The Litvinov Workout
The Gable Method
Strong Eye for the Weak Guy
The Best Exercises
My Secret Coaching Methods
Nautilus, Crossfit and High/High
Blood on the Barbell
A Religious Studies Professor’s Review of HIT
New Associations, New Muscle
Coach Pain’s Slosh Pipe
Lessons from Southwood
Recovery Methods 101
That Guy
Are You Making Progress?
Disdain Medium
The Big Five
Secrets to Long-Term Fitness
One Hard Thing
Principle Lessons
Three Basic Concepts
Goals and Toilet Seats, A Men’s Room Epiphany
Goal-setting for Motivation
The One-dumbbell Workout
The Journey to Excellence
The Philosophy of Physical Capital
Improve Your Fitness Literacy
Afterword
Suggested Reading
About the Author
Introduction
by Pavel Tsatsouline

Any scientist who can’t explain to an eight-year-old what he is doing is a
charlatan.
Kurt Vonnegut could have said the same about strength coaches and
bodybuilding writers.
My publisher, John Du Cane, once told me one chooses Latin words to
impress, not to communicate. A great number of strength authors do just that,
liberally sprinkling their books — pardon me, opera, the plural of opus, Latin for
work — with the likes of transverse plane and transversus abdominis.
Not Dan John. Having reached the deepest understanding of his subject, this
coach extraordinaire has no need to impress, only the desire to teach. A Fulbright
Scholar with advanced degrees in history and religious education, he could have
written his books entirely in Latin, yet he chooses to communicate with strong
and simple Anglo-Saxon words of old England.
Like his language, Dan’s method is simple. Complexity on one level implies
simplicity on another. There is even a scientific term, simplexity, which refers to
the emergence of simple rules from underlying disorder and complexity.
John’s deceptively simple training plans cover a great many fitness attributes,
safely and quickly, and are always a hit with athletes. I am writing this
introduction on a plane on my way back from a Russian Kettlebell course (RKC)
taught to a SEAL team. Using kettlebells no heavier than fifty-three pounds, in
five minutes we safely smoked a group of extremely conditioned and tough men
— while simultaneously developing their hip flexibility, spine stability and
breathing skills... with one of Dan’s “simple” workouts.
John has made an art form out of collecting the highest “interest” on the
strength training his athletes “put in the bank.” His sixteen-year-old girls who
compete in track can deadlift 300 pounds any time — without touching anything
heavier than 150 in training. Boys who train with a measly 35-100 pounds in
Dan’s patented goblet squat can uncork 400 in the back squat any time they feel
like maxing.
The pursuit of the quality Gray Cook calls durability stands out in Dan John’s
training philosophy. He throws farther in his fifties than he ever has and
routinely beats athletes with huge benches and zits. He and his athletes keep
getting stronger without getting injured. If this does not personify coaching
wisdom, I don’t know what does.
The author of this book is open-minded in the best sense of that word. The
majority of strength coaches and athletes fall into two categories. The first
doggedly stick to the old training methods. The second fall for every new fad.
Predictably, the former have limited success and the latter have only soreness to
show for their efforts. Dan John has found the happy medium, that sweet spot
between continuity and evolution. “The art of progress,” wrote Alfred North
Whitehead, “is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid
order.” Dan has been doing exactly that, advancing the cutting edge without
losing his roots.
When it comes to teaching strength, Dan John has no superiors and only a
handful of equals such as Marty Gallagher or Arkady Vorobyev. I have learned a
great deal from Dan over the years I’ve known him, and have become a better
athlete and coach for it. I strongly encourage you to read Never Let Go to do the
same.

~Pavel Tsatsouline
Author, Enter the Kettlebell
Foreword
by Dave Draper
Dan John can toss metal, hoist rocks, drag sleds, launch a discus and clean and
jerk loaded Olympic bars with the biggest and best of strongmen. Give him a
kettlebell and he’ll make it dance; give him a hammer and he’ll make it sing.
With one hand, he’ll send a shot put whistling through the air into the next
county. He’s a heavy-weight composer; he’s a worldwide record-holder who
never lets go.
Extraordinary power, marvelous skill and masterful technique have been
earned through years of training and practice and scrutiny, failure and success.
The road Dan traveled is long, the track circuitous and the field weedy and
potholed. No other trek would do. A man doesn’t get from here to there, if there
is somewhere, by taking a shortcut, the easy way, a limo or a mule.
So what, the guy is super-persistent, disciplined, gutsy and powerful? Take
away the aspirin, you’ve got another headache. Not exactly! I’ve just begun to
list Dan John’s attributes.
Get this: He’s intelligent, sharp and creative. He teaches, he coaches, he writes
and he speaks. He has Masters degrees in history and religious education, and
studied in Universities in Cairo and Haifa, as well as in good ole America. His
day job was Head Strength and Track and Field Coach at Juan Diego Catholic
High School in Utah.
How does one so devoted to education spare the time to lift, tug and press?
The same way one who loves to lift and tug finds time to learn. He has blended
the two as one. This brings me to the point of my comments: Dan craves
knowledge and understanding, and is compelled to pass along what he discovers.
Knowing is not enough; applying what he knows helps; instructing makes him
complete.
A generous servant, a giver of gifts, his words come alive with experience and
fact for the reader, the hungry student, the one bound to learn. Dan doesn’t
design a paint-by-number and help you pick out the colors. He draws a picture
and invites you, encourages you, inspires you to become a part of it.
He’s done more research in the physics and mechanics of hefting and heaving,
and knows clearly what makes man a more efficient, enduring and forceful
machine. He’s applied the knowledge to himself, observed it in his colleagues,
shared it with competitors and fine-tuned the learning for his subsequent
applications. Dan’s wrapped, unwrapped and rewrapped knowledge and fact and
theory and invention until they’re his without doubt or missing parts.
Me? I’d rather listen to the ocean than study a thing. I’m nowhere near lazy,
but I want to get down to doing — lifting and living and learning and growing.
Dan takes you to those places in a marvelous journey of words and word pictures
and unfolding truths and bare facts. Further, comprehensive methodology is
barren without philosophy and purpose. These, too, are colorfully, critically
woven into the raw materials of power and might.
Lucky you! You’re about to become bigger, stronger, faster and robustly
entertained.
I haven’t yet mentioned he has a wife, Tiffini, and two daughters, Kelly and
Lindsay, who absolutely love him. This in itself is spectacular for a mound of
muscle throwing imposing objects across a grassy patch of earth for the fun of it.
Let’s go. Never Let Go!
~Dave Draper
Author, Brother Iron Sister Steel