Pat and Dan John venture into the wayback machine to explore fitness lessons from the olden days! How does fitness advice now differ from (say) 1970? What knowledge has been gained or lost?
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Old School Fitness Lessons w/ Dan John
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I read a lot of older strength books. I have been cobbling together my collection since 1967 and I occasionally find that I get lost in some of the concepts. Sometimes, when I read other people’s work, NOT yours certainly, this happens:
I don’t always understand what people “mean” by what they say in the articles and books.
Or forum posts. Or questions.
When I see something as simple as “reps and sets,” it might not mean what I think it means. Like an Olympic lifter talking to a kettlebeller, words like snatch, clean, jerk and squat don’t mean what I think it means. To fix this, I have learned what I call “The Art of the Follow Up Question:”
What do YOU mean by that?
When it comes to older strength books, for example, there were no real reps and sets as I know them in this millennium. One can argue that Thomas DeLorme invented the modern idea of reps and sets in his book, Progressive Resistance Exercise. A set is a group of reps, right? Well, yes.
The answer is also “no.”
In the older books, and this takes some time to figure out, the progressions were based on equipment that didn’t always PROGRESS as we have in today’s gyms. A barbell could be just a hunk of two pieces of iron with a rod connecting them… with no options to add or subtract weights.
Think kettlebells. Then shove a stick between the two connecting them.
So, progression was adding reps until the barbell needed to be swapped out with someone else’s equipment.
So, when we read the older books, we must be sure to “hear” the author in the author’s time….and the author’s available equipment. I have always launched my history courses with this quote:
“Nothing is more unfair than to judge men of the past by the ideas of the present.”
Denys Winstanley
For the record, I stopped using this quote. A female student raised her hand and asked why Denys didn’t use a gender-neutral term.
No judgement zone. Unless we are judging.
One of the most common ways to train was to begin with six reps and progress to twelve (or fifteen). Over the days, weeks, or months, one would lift the weight six or more times, put the load on the ground and move to the next exercise.
The exercise selection was universally basic in these training programs.
Harry Paschall, a writer and cartoonist famous for his lifter “Bosco,” died the week after I was born. Because of the quality of his writing, his work still lives on. His programs were simple and to the point and probably are still better than most of the nonsense we see today. His “Program Two” was:
- High Pull and Press (also known as the “Continuous Clean and Press): a warmup movement
- Curl
- Rowing
- Bench Press
- Squat
- Deadlift
By the way, in the first Strength and Health Magazine that I was ever given (not bought at the corner pharmacy where I usually picked these up), I found this quote: “As the late Harry Paschall put it, “The strength of the lower back and hips determines one’s ability to run, twist, jump, throw or lift, whichever the particular sport requires.””
Luck, Accident or Plan
Paul Flick
Strength and Health Magazine, May 1964 (Pages 58-59)
I spent my career agreeing with Paschall and ignoring those who felt we need to build up power by doing stuff other than the basics of Olympic and power lifting.
Even though others moved into different systems, especially bodybuilders, this idea of building up athletes through the single set method held on for a while. The National Varsity Club (basically a tool for encouraging people to join the US Army) came out with a series of pamphlets called “Conditioning for a Purpose. In 1972, they gave us Sam Adams’ program for weightlifting…with SENSIBLE guidelines (I am simply quoting what Sam said).
Nonsensible would not work.
The NVC Basic Weight Training Program:
- Arm Curl: One set of 6-12 Reps with 1/3 Bodyweight
- Military Press: One set of 6-12 Reps with ½ Bodyweight
- Stiff-leg deadlift: One set of 6-12 Reps with 1/3 Bodyweight
- Pull-over and Bench Press: One set of 6-12 Reps with 1/3 Bodyweight
- Side to Side Bend: One set of 6-12 Reps with 1/4 Bodyweight
- Jump Squat: One set of 6-12 Reps with 1/4 Bodyweight
- Bench Press: One set of 6-12 Reps with 1/3 Bodyweight
- Clean: One set of 6-12 Reps with 1/3 Bodyweight
- Toe Raise: One set of 6-12 Reps with 1/3 Bodyweight
- Bent-Over Row: One set of 6-12 Reps with 1/3 Bodyweight
- Bent-Leg Deadlift: One set of 6-12 Reps with 1/2 Bodyweight
- Squat: One set of 6-12 Reps with 1/2 Bodyweight
It included a conditioning program mixing running in place with various drills from the era like Propellors and Sidewinders. Of course, naming things with military applications seems part of the mission of the NVC.
The emphasis on doing a lot of various movements still intrigues me.
Just as a note: I think these are really good workout ideas. I trained much like this throughout my secondary school years and didn’t really train much differently until I started Olympic lifting with Dick Notmeyer.
My first “real” training book, body building and self-defense, by Myles Callum (written in 1962) included nearly every exercise we see in Adams’ work. I followed Callum’s Basic Six:
Bench Press
Regular (Military Press)
Squats
Rowing Motion
Curls
Deadlifts
I’m pretty sure this is what I did when I first got serious, in 1971, with the barbell. I used a piece of wood and five bricks to make a bench and I “cleaned” the weights up to my chest, popped them onto my back and squatting away. Just between us: this was probably better than most of my years in the weightroom.
Oddly, I KNEW this already. In my book, 40 Years with a Whistle, and the workshops I gave with it, I use this slide:
If you blink your eyes, you will see the template for Easy Strength. In 1965, I was given the program that would change my life. It just took me until the early 2000s to “get it.”
I was also reading John Jesse at this point. His book, Wrestling Physical Conditioning Encyclopedia (1974), which I read at a local library (yes, things have changed) told me to do the following:
1) Three sessions of strength development and injury prevention, with near maximum loads.
2) Three sessions of flexibility exercises.
3) Three sessions of endurance training.
4) The strength development, injury prevention work, and flexibility exercises should be done one day and the endurance training on another.
5) The strength development, injury prevention work, and flexibility exercises will slowly increase to an hour and a half a day, and the endurance work to one hour. This will total seven-and-a-half hours training time each week.
That’s great advice. It’s all great advice. The secret, as always, is in the doing.
“Do. Or don’t do. There is no try.”
And thank you. Coach Yoda nailed the secret right here: it’s in the doing. There are no perfect programs. I settle for pretty good most of the time.
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