Tomorrow, Lyndzey will be competing in her first Olympic weightlifting meet at the Georgia Games. She’ll start lifting around 11am. Please come out to support her!! See Wednesday’s post for location.
If you don’t know who Dan John is, google him ASAP. Needless to say, he’s a legend and I’m feeling inspired. So, starting from the beginning, I’m sharing some of his life lessons.
From 40 Years of Insight, by Dan John
I have a box in my storage room that contains all my training journals. Besides sets and reps, I toss in what’s going on in my life. Often, I find long essays about the future, lists about “what works,” and funny little tidbits about my life that I would’ve quickly forgotten had I not wrote them down.
It hit me when I picked up this box the other day that I’ve been recording workouts since 1971, five years after first picking up a weight. That’s forty years! I started to think about the lessons I’ve learned and, before I knew it, I had a list of forty lessons that I had to learn the hard way.
Lesson 1: Keep a journal of some kind.
It makes me smile to see my attempt at neat handwriting in my first journal entries. The bench press workout was 85 x 8/8/4. I noted, “I was supposed to do six on the second set but it was too easy.” In the summer before my freshman year, I benched 100 pounds; my sophomore year, I benched 200 pounds; and I got 300 during my junior year in track season. I would write what I benched as a senior weighing 162 pounds, but you wouldn’t believe it.
I have a few notes about my coach’s son who came to our weight room one afternoon to see if I was “really as strong as my dad said I was.” I told him I’d already lifted and he said something that questioned my lifts. So, I put a low 300-pound lift on the bar and it went up so fast that he told me to stop. “I believe you…wow, I believe you.”
The value of a journal is seeing the progress (and the regress) of your training and training philosophy. I believe a thorough review of your old journals is probably as good as a training session.
Warmup
Jump Rope 3 minutes
4 Sets (8 minute limit)
5 Pull-ups
10 Push-ups
15 Squats
Lift
5 x 2
Clean and Jerk (@ 70%)
4 x 3
Snatch (@ 70%)
Full “squat” version of the lifts.
Conditioning
3 Rounds AFAP
Jump rope 240 turns (2:00 max)
10 KB Clean and Press R/L (24/16)