Intervention: Course Corrections for the Athlete and Trainer – Dan John

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A Master of Strength and Athletics Breaks Down the Exact Process He Goes Through When He Gets “That Call.” Great coaches seem to know exactly what’s wrong with their athletes, and how to fix their problems.

When smart and experienced coaches like Dan John get consulting calls or have new clients come in, they seem to be able to instantly identify the problems that are holding the clients back, and they know exactly how to get them back on the right path.

Great coaches are able to do this because they draw from decades of experience training thousands of people from all sorts of backgrounds and situations.

But if you don’t have decades of experience to draw from, where does that leave you? How are you able to identify the problem and determine the right path to take with your clients?

There are hundreds of 12-week programs, rep and sets schemes, periodization methods, fitness tools, gurus, forums and advice available. It can be confusing to know exactly what to do in a certain situation.

But with the athletic careers of people in your hands as a trainer or coach, getting this right is hugely important.

Wouldn’t it be nice just to sit back and have a trusted voice cut through all the noise, and provide some basic principles for improving performance?

In this three-hour Intervention workshop, Dan John does just this. Here he gives us the system he has developed over the course of over 30 years training and coaching athletes. His is a system consisting of 10 questions and 5 principles that will completely change the way you train your clients.

Intervention is Dan unpacking what goes through his head when someone calls to ask how to achieve a particular goal.

It’s his process, his philosophy, and his method of meeting people where they are, and coming up with the most effective way of getting them to a unique point B.

Whether you’re a coach or a trainee, Dan John’s Intervention system will help you simplify the complexity, confusion and clutter in the world of strength and athletic performance training. More importantly, it will help you gain a bird’s-eye view of exactly where you are, and what you need to do next.

Get Dan John’s Coaching System

In this engaging live-recorded workshop lecture, Dan explores — 

The Four Quadrants for assessing and training athletes

The impact of age on programming

How to build and progress the five fundamental human movements

Creating a balanced athlete through asymmetrical training

Applying the Intervention system: seven different examples

Programming sets and reps

Fitting correctives and other elements into an athlete’s busy training schedule

Appropriate warmups and much more

You’ll walk away armed with a toolkit that will help you train any client—from sedentary elderly people, to 40-year-old moms, high school athletes, or elite professional athletes.

You’ll learn just about everything you need, from assessments, to rep schemes, to exercise selection—all presented as a logical, coherent step-by-step process.

You’ll finally be able to see exactly what you need (and don’t need), and what to do next.

If you are a serious athlete, coach or fitness professional, this might be the single most important video you’ll ever study.

What’s Covered in the Intervention Video

The Workshop Lecture, a Three-Disc Video 

The main Intervention workshop lecture by Dan John runs for over three hours, across three discs (Disc One is 1 hour 14 minutes; Disc Two is 1 hour 6 minutes; Disc Three is 1 hour 10 minutes). Inside he presents his framework and approach for assessing and programming clients. This DVD video allows you to follow the visuals Dan draws on the whiteboard during the presentation, helping you to better absorb and understand the concepts he presents, as if you were right there at the workshop. In the workshop lecture, he goes through (the page markers are from the included transcript)—

• A basic outline of the Southwood Training Program. pg.2
• The correct route of training progressions. pg.2
• The best thing you can do for your own health. pg.3
• The difference between fitness and health, and why Dan thinks it’s so important. pg.3-4
• For most people, especially those over the age of 28: The healthiest thing you can do for yourself. pg. pg.4
• The first question you should ask the person you’re coaching. pg.4
• The method Dan uses to help someone with health in any and every stage and situation of life. pg.4
• Whether or not a moderate diet, eight hours of sleep, and a moderate workout is the correct way to go. pg.4-5
• What you should do to stay in great health. pg.6
• The sad thing that happens to many professional athletes within a year of retirement. pg.6
• A tool Dan likes to use in fitness. pg.6
• The greatest tool Dan teaches in Intervention: The concepts of Work, Rest, Play, Pray. pg.7
• What will enable you to work more in training. pg.7
• How you can usually pick the winner in a track meet. pg.8
• The question Dan almost always asks his clients. pg.8
• The sign of a good relationship. pg.9
• The one fitness quality that determines how fast you improve (and maintain) other fitness qualities. pg.10
• One of the things women who achieve and maintain their fat-loss goals have in common. pg.10
• How measurable a strength coach’s impact is. pg.12-13
• The concept of qualities, and how it varies between sports and influences your role and skills as a coach. pg.13
• How important fat loss is for improving sports performance? pg.13
• Dan John’s Four Quadrants—Know where your athletes are and how you should train them. pg.14-15
• The problem in the fitness industry today. pg.15
• The great sprint coach Barry Ross’ method of becoming a faster sprinter. pg.16
• Which of the four quadrants most people are training in, and which quadrant they should ACTUALLY be in. pg.16
• What you should ask the best and brightest if you want to find out some good things. pg.17
• What strength standards you need to meet to have a shot at being an elite discus thrower. pg.17
• How many miles per hour a good strength program can improve pitch speed in high school. pg.18
• Two things you really need to think about when you work out. pg.18
• Why lean body mass is not always a good thing. pg.18
• How the role of hypertrophy changes with age. pg.19
• What kind of training most people should focus on after the age of 27 or 28. pg.20
• The five basic human movements that should be in your training programs, and which you should prioritise for the greatest impact. pg.21
• How to build up competence in the five movements by working on the patterning underlying the movements. pg.22
• Which exercise you should test and build up before you work on the pushup. pg.22
• The exercise that works the basic patterning on the pull (work on this first if you can’t pull ups). pg.23
• The technical mistake you’re making if kettlebell swings hurt your lower back. pg.24
• Why Dan doesn’t teach high school kids good mornings. pg.24
• The most powerful movement the human body can do. pg.24
• The difference between the squatting and hinging movements. pg.24
• Why it may be a bad idea to teach someone to snatch and clean and good morning in the same week. pg.25
• Two methods for cueing and coaching the hip hinge. pg.25-27
• Dan’s Hinge Assessment Tool. pg.26-27
• How to perform a goblet squat, the basic patterning for the squat movement. pg.28-29
• How to do the basic patterning exercise for the loaded carry movement. pg.29
• The slow strength (grinding) move for the hinge. pg.30
• Slow strength (grinding) moves for the squat. pg.31
• Slow strength (grinding) moves for the loaded carry. pg.31
• How strong should you be in your lifts? Dan’s standards for strength. pg.31
• How strong you should be to play in Division 1 football. pg.31
• How strong you need to be to play on the field at USC. pg.31
• How strong women should aim to be according to fat-loss specialist Josh Hillis. pg.31-32
• The problem with using strength standards. pg.32
• The Eagle: One of the greatest workouts Dan knows. pg.32
• How people used to row (the correct way) when Dan was young. pg.33
• Something missing from the sports training world. pg.34
• Dan’s opinion on how much you should be able to one-arm bench press if you want to play high school football. pg.34
• The incorrect way people almost always do one-arm rows. pg.34
• Demonstration of the one-arm row with the TRX. pg.35
• How to increase the intensity on the TRX one-arm row. pg.35
• An asymmetrical exercise for the hinge movement. pg.35
• Two things to look for when coaching the suitcase deadlift. pg.36
• What to do after you’ve gone through the suitcase deadlift with your athlete. pg.36
• A demonstration of Dan’s two favorite movements. pg.36
• One of the workouts Dan gives to people who are on the road or travel a lot. pg.37
• Something valuable that people miss when they try to lose fat by doing the treadmill. pg.37
• The next thing to work on once your athlete has the pattern, the slow strength and can handle asymmetry issues. pg.37-38
• Why women can usually do swings earlier in their training than men. pg.38
• What to work on after you have the hinge, squat and loaded carries locked down. pg.38
• When you should teach Olympic lifts. pg.39
• How often you should test symmetry. pg.39
• How many reps to do for different exercises. pg.39-40
• A good way to push an athlete harder. pg.41
• How many terrible workouts and how many terrific workouts you should expect to have. pg.41
• How much time should be spent playing sport, how much time should be spent in the weight room, and how much time should be spent doing correctives. pg.42-43
• Where you should spend the majority of your time if you’re trying to lose fat. pg.43
• Where in your workout you should add correctives, and when you should leave them out. pg.43-44
• An exercise for thoracic mobility. pg.44-45
• An example of how Dan would program an elite discus thrower who has been injured three times during the last five seasons, and needs to gain a little strength. pg.45-47
• The three movements that most fat-loss clients need. pg.47
• Dan walks through how to create programs for seven different example clients. pg.50-51
• The biggest problem he sees when people are trying to help with a strength program. pg.51
• Dan’s favorite warmup. pg.52
• The hardest person you will ever work with. pg.54