Today’s podcast features coach, writer and educator, Dan John.  Dan is a best-selling author in the field of strength training and fitness, with his most recent work being the “Easy Strength Omni-Book”.  He is known for his ability to transfer complex material into actionable wisdom, has been a many-time guest on the show, and is one of my single greatest influences in the way that I see the process of coaching and training.  As I grow older, coach more populations, and see the field evolve, I view and value Dan’s process and wisdom in new and even more meaningful ways.

One of those tenants of Dan that means more in each coming year is that, at its core, our training and movements are simple… it’s just the years and years of consistent, dedicated immersion in training to fully bring out that simplicity, that “trip up” many people.  So often, we get caught up in the hacks, the shortcuts, and the “3 tips for X” within the social-media fist-fight for eyeballs.

On today’s episode, Dan talks about a few important concepts that any coach or athlete needs to come back to over and over again in their process, including the power of “compression”, the power of less, and the power of withholding.  Dan speaks on this as it relates to cold track seasons (right before the 80 degree conference meet), and how it relates to the spark of coaching intuition that can happen in an environment deprived from one’s typical tools, and even how it can apply to our movement biomechanics.

Dan also gets into the nuts and bolts of “snapacity” (snap + capacity) that defines the core of athletic movement (elasticity and the work capacity to sustain it), and the related key muscle actions he calls “The 3 P’s”.   Throughout the talk, Dan highlights the simple and core principles that drive training progress over time, as well tying in concepts on philosophy and personal growth that transcend training itself.

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Timestamps and Main Points:

2:01 – An update on how Dan’s track season has been, speaking on the upsides of the “compressed” format of his season based on weather

7:25 – Why “compressing and expanding” is such a critical element of one’s athletic performance, as well as life itself

12:13 – The importance of effort-level in human movement, and not “over-striking” a hammer against a nail

18:11 – The “3P’s” of muscle action; on the level of “Point, Poke, and Snap” as applied to explosive sport movement

29:41 – The importance of myth, story and tragedy in sport, life, and re-inventing ourselves”

35:01 – How sport movement, such as the discus or hammer, is like a symphony in nature, and how “over-trying” and imbalance of fluid effort reduces ones results

46:38 – The application and training of the critical athletic trait Dan calls “Snapacity”

1:00:09 – The simplicity, yet patience that the sport of track and field requires in athlete development

Dan John Quotes

“We often say, “what you compress, expands”; that is probably one of the greatest truisms of my coaching career.  If I go into your gym and eliminate 9/10 of the equipment, then I find out how good of a strength coach you are”

“Sometimes taking things away is what makes you great”

“If you hit (the hammer too hard into the nail), it’s going to be worse….you’ve explained track and field, football, and every sport I’ve ever done in my life”

“The 3 P’s (of muscle action), point, poke, and snap”

“I teach discus throwing, javelin throwing that “you are a bag of rubber bands” and what we want to do for elite performance is get you to a place where we stretch those rubber bands, and then the important thing is,