Dan John Never Let Go

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.I have a bookshelf atwork, three at home, and a storage closet of liquor boxesfilled with books, magazines and articles.(The amazingthing about all of this is finding enough liquor boxes in Utahto hold my collection.)You have an astounding amount of information at yourfingertips, but the ability to discern what s right and what scrap is rarely considered.Sure, you may have typed thissux at the end of one my articles (and that hurt myfeelings), but what tools do you use to determine whether ornot an article, a workout or a diet is worthy of giving it a try?In other words, what is your fitness literacy? How doyou decide, literally? How do you cut through the crap?What s worthy of further reading and experimentation? Asyou go from one book telling you ninety-five percent of yourdiet should be carbs, to the next book that says fivepercent, how do you comprehend this?I d like to share how I go through the volumes ofpages I read in a typical year, but first there s an importantside note: Reading all this stuff is great, but acting on it isgreater.No one has said this better than the philosopher,Jerry Seinfeld: In a lot of ways, that s what a bookstore is.It s a smarter than you store.And that s why people areintimidated.Because to walk into a bookstore, you have toadmit there s something you don t know. And the worst part is you don t even know where it is.You go in the bookstore and ask people, Where is this?Where is that? Not only do I lack knowledge, I don t evenknow where to get it! So just to walk into a bookstore you readmitting to the world, I m not so bright. It s prettyimpressive, really. But the pressure is on you now.This book is filledwith funny ideas, but you have to provide the delivery.Sowhen you read it, remember: timing, inflection, attitude.That s comedy.I ve done my part.The performance is up toyou. (Jerry Seinfield, Sein Language, page 3)I speak for every strength coach when I say we vedone our parts.The performance is up to you.All those programs, workouts, diets and supplementsyou read about are all very good to excellent.Theperformance is up to you.How should you read an article, book or forumdiscussion? First off, let s look at how you should read anarticle.Here s a quote from one of my articles, which youread earlier assuming you didn t skip ahead: One of my favorite books has a title that caught myeye immediately when I saw it in the bookstore.It s GreatBooks by David Denby.Seriously, when you re lookingaround the bookstore for a new book to read and you seeone called Great Books, how can you pass on it?That s what it said; now let s add how I read it: One of my favorite books (How often does this guyuse I, my, and me?) has a title that caught my eyeimmediately when I saw it in the bookstore.(Bookstore? Isthis guy so dumb he has to go to bookstores?) It s GreatBooks by David Denby.(What the hell is he talking aboutnow? Why can t he just get to the point and tell us what healways talks about.whatever the hell that is) Seriously,when you re looking around the bookstore for a new bookto read and you see one called Great Books, how can youpass on it? (I m amazed he thinks this is funny).The problem with most readers and there sactually research to back this up is they aren t activereaders; when I read an article, I literally talk with the authoras I go through the points.When a writer states, I don tknow why I m writing another article about X, I nearlyalways agree.Seriously, how many times does the samething have to be hashed again?But then, as I read the weightlifting forum posts aboutmy article, The One Lift a Day Program, I m stunned tocontinue to find people asking if two lifts a day are thesame as one lift.I can t do the math, either.If you only read opinions that agree with your opinionon everything, you ll just be a head-nodder.One of the bestways to expand your active reading skills is to read theopposite of what you tend to think.With the fitness wave caused by the movie, 300, itwas funny to find some guys writing in forums they wishedMark Twight would ve trained the Spartans like Arnoldinstead of training them like warriors.Aside to thosepeople: Please go back to your pirated copy of Hercules inNew York and leave the rest of us alone.For my opposite reading, I go to pro-vegetarianwebsites, general fitness sites, and the HIT-Jedi websites.There are places on the net where everybody kneelsbefore the great training Oz and nods at their master svoice.But when you meet these people, they rarely look likethey ever lifted a weight.As I remind people all the time:PVC pipe is great for learning the movement or practicingsomething specific; it is not a workout weight.The next little technique I use to read strength-relatedmaterials is actually a tad arrogant, but true: I figure myneeds are more important than the author s needs.In otherwords, I don t care what order the author wrote an article,I m going to skim, pick and choose, skip, and jump and hopall over the article to discover whatever gems I can steal.That s right, I steal ideas from other coaches.Theamazing thing is I m the only strength coach in the history oflifting to ever actually steal from others.As you can see, Isteal and lie.It s not my fault; my parents were in the ironand steel business.My mother ironed and my father stole.Old joke.I skim articles quickly.Part of the reason I have somany liquor boxes besides the obvious reason is Ilike to come back to articles to catch what I missed.It sfunny how sometimes I ll come back a decade later anddiscover the answer to an issue that s plagued me foryears.I m not saying I m a genius, but I usually find the rightanswer in thirty years or so.Feeling free to skim relates to the next key point, onethat s really important.How do you handle the vocabulary?Seriously, when someone writes an exercise as close-grip narrow-stance accelerating front pulls to therack position, how do you go about performing the lift? Icall this move the clean, and you might find that as difficultto understand, too [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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