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Workouts

Strength & Conditioning – Dan John: Week 1, Day 1

Our first week of workouts from world-renown strength coach, Dan John. Start lifting today and get strong.

Dan John

Written by Dan John Last updated on February 20, 2012

Welcome to our first week of workouts designed by Dan John. With a background in track and field, weightlifting, and Highland Games, and having worked with elite athletes for years, Dan knows what it takes to make someone fast and strong.

Three new workouts from Dan will be posted each week, starting on Monday. They can be done on any day you have available.

To learn more about Dan, read our feature interview:

Part 1: The State of the Fitness Union

Part 2: Lineage and Longevity

Part 3: Quadrants and Clients

Week One – Consisting of Three Lifting Workouts

Daily Warm Up:

I suggest you use a Kettlebell or a Dumbbell when you warm up. I start off with a series of walks, easy squats, some planks, and then move up to some lifting movements like the Row and Push Up. If you need to do additional mobility work, do it here, but reserve things like Static Stretching and Foam rolling until after the workout.

  • Waiter Walks/Suitcase Walks
  • Light Goblet Squats / Hip Flexor Stretch “Make Space”
  • Plank (Superman and One Leg Variations)
  • Windmill Movements (Get Up Series)
  • Pushup Position Planks (Superman and One Leg Variations)
  • Scap or Horizontal Shrugs “Relax into Stretch”
  • Three Point One Arm Rows
  • Alligator Push Ups Tic-tock-tic-tock…(Do a Push Up, move a hand forward, Push Up, Move other hand forward…a walking Push Up)
  • Half Turkish Get ups using the elbow as a lever

Workout:

“On the Minute” – Eight Sets of Five

Start a clock and at the top of each minute perform a set of five reps of the following exercises. Perform eight sets of five before moving to the next exercise. Add weight each set, as is appropriate.

  • Front Squats
  • Bench Press
  • Hurdle Walkovers
  • Backward Sled Pulls (20m sled pull, just do one a minute)
  • Deadlifts

Note: For Hurdle Walkovers use a flight of ten hurdles, and just march “High Knee style” over them each minute; it is a hip mobility drill and a bit of a rest. You can sub in High Knees Marching as a variation, if you don’t have all the hurdles.

This is FORTY reps per movement. Start light and don’t add much from set to set.

Post loads to comments below.

Dan John

About Dan John

Dan John has been teaching and coaching for well over thirty years. He is the former Strength Coach and Head Track and Field Coach at Juan Diego Catholic High School in Draper, Utah. He remains a full-time online religious studies instructor for Columbia College of Missouri and contributing writer to Men’s Health. Originally from South San Francisco, Dan came to Utah to throw the discus for Utah State University and recently returned “home” after 35 years away. He currently lives in Burlingame, California.

Dan has Masters degrees in history and in religious education, as well as intensive work at the American University in Cairo, University of Haifa, and Cornell. Dan has written articles for Catechetical Update and Utah Historical Quarterly, as well as being a columnist for the Intermountain Catholic. Dan was also a Fulbright Scholar in 1985.

In addition, Dan writes articles for a variety of strength magazines and publishes a little newsletter called Get Up, which registers up to a quarter of a million hits a month. You can also read his work at magazines like Men’s Health and Outside and his busy forum at Dave Draper. If you sneak over the border into Utah and want to work out, give him a shout.

At home, he is humbled by his lovely wife, Tiffini, whose middle name is not “long suffering” no matter how often it is repeated, and his two daughters, Kelly and Lindsay.

In his athletic career, among many other championships and records, Dan has won the Master Pleasanton Highland Games twice, American Masters Discus Championships several times, the National Masters Weightlifting Championship once and holds the American Record in the Weight Pentathlon.

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