What does this product claim?
| Product Description The Everything’s Over My Head section One of Dan’s primary concerns for his athletes is shoulder health, and in this dvd, Dan offers all his tips for strengthening the rotator cuff and supportive shoulder girdle muscles for ultimate shoulder protection. He’ll also show you his techniques for wrist health and flexibility, and in addition to brute strength, he’s got a plan on how to make your training just plain fun! |
Who is the author?
| Dan John is the Strength Coach and Head Track and Field Coach at Juan Diego Catholic High School in Draper, Utah and a full-time on-line religious studies instructor for Columbia College of Missouri. Originally from South San Francisco, Dan came to Utah to throw the discus for Utah State University and never left. 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. 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. Dan has been teaching for over twenty-five years. |
Where can I get it and how much does it cost?
$40.00
Review:
The DVD is broken down into three chapters. Video and sound quality are quite good throughout. Clarity is 100% all the time and outside of a few minor editing errors, is very well done quality wise. The pacing is a little sporadic and feels rushed at times (mainly the second chapter) but over all smoothly enough without any dead time or confusion.
Chapter 1: Carried Away
Starts off with a brief example of a couple of stretches then provides guided demonstrations of nine exercises in three phases giving examples of elevating difficulty. All are movement based with a GPP style approach to building strength and conditioning with minimal equipment.
Chapter 2: From the Ground Up
The meat and potatoes of this chapter covers the basics of the clean and the snatch. Several brief sections introducing different positions and the right and wrongs of different positions. Also included are a handful of mobility and preparatory exercises.
Chapter 3: Every thing’s Over My Head
Demonstrations of 13 moves with the first third covering more shoulder saver approach and then moving into big ugly training pushing and holding a variety of heavy things over your head.
Commentary:
All three videos combined cover about 80min worth of instruction. The first and third chapters are essentially the same format consisting primarily of exercise demonstrations without a ton of explanation or commentary. The “Carried Away” section consists of 9 movements, and then those same 9 made harder, and then harder still. The progressions themselves are pretty static, so after you watch the first example of how things are getting harder you have a pretty good idea of what are going to happen over the next 8. That’s not really a good or bad thing, it just left me with a very itchy fast forward finger. “Every Thing’s Over My Head” keeps things more fresh with more legitimate variety. Both chapters cover training from a very practical perspective taking a real person and getting them healthy and ready to move heavy things.
From the ground up covers a lot of demonstrations and explanations. The material is covered very briefly per section so you’ll probably find yourself going back frequently if you’re trying to take notes. With no previous knowledge of the Olympic lifts myself I feel pretty confident that I can move from the heels position to the up position with some semblance of proper form. Unfortunately there isn’t a lot of commentary on what to do after you get to that point, but what are I’ll look sexy holding the bar.
It’s odd that in this series that amounts to essentially exercise demonstrations that Dan John himself is really the star of the show. He’s infinitely enjoyable to watch and listen to and provides some solid guidance with an integrity and eagerness to share if you’re smart enough to listen. I watched this series in one sitting the other night and started off fairly disappointed. Then I went to the gym and sort of puttered around doing some of the things that Dan showed…a couple snatches…a carry here and there. I reflected on my personal training adventures. What I’ve done right and wrong and areas that needed improvement. Wouldn’t you know that a lot of misc thoughts that I had running through my head were answered by little comments on trainee’s acting like retards. Damn it.
As far as a recommendation goes, no strong feelings one way or the other. If you’re looking for something specific, a program, or other concrete advice that will change your life then it’s probably a pass. I personally like Dan John’s teachings (can be found at DanJohn.org, T-nation and if all else fails google) and got enough out of the DVD to feel that I can apply it towards my training philosophy. If you’re interesting in lifting heavy things and working hard, then perhaps there’s some value to be found here.
