The Art of Manliness - Physical Benchmarks Every Man Should Meet, At Every Age [REBROADCAST]

00:00:00.000 Hey, this is Brett. We're taking a break today from a new episode for some R&R. So we're going

00:00:03.780 to rebroadcast episode number 678, Physical Benchmarks Every Man Should Meet at Every Age

00:00:09.060 with Dan John. It's one of our most popular episodes from 2021. Hope you enjoy it. We'll

00:00:14.020 see you back on Monday with a brand new episode. Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition

00:00:25.340 of the Art of Manliness podcast. As men, we all want to be physically capable. We want to be

00:00:29.620 able to save our life in two ways. First, in the more metaphorical sense of wanting to preserve

00:00:33.700 it in a healthy, fit form for as long as possible. And second, in the more literal sense of being

00:00:38.240 able to make it through an emergency unscathed. How do you know if you possess that kind of

00:00:42.080 life-saving physical capability? Well, it's time to do more than wonder and really check

00:00:46.300 in with yourself. And my guest today has some helpful benchmarks that guys from ages 8 to

00:00:50.480 80 can use to see if they've got an operative level of strength, mobility, and conditioning.

00:00:55.220 His name is Dan John. He's a strength coach and the author of numerous books and articles

00:00:58.320 on health and fitness. Today on the show, Dan walks us through the fitness standards

00:01:01.400 the average male should be able to meet from childhood to old age, beginning with the

00:01:04.940 assessments he gives to those who are 55 years and older, which include carrying their body

00:01:08.920 weight, a long jump, and something Dan calls the toilet test. We then reach back to childhood

00:01:13.040 and Dan discusses the physical skills kids should become adept in, which were inspired by

00:01:16.900 a turn-of-the-20th century physical culturist who thought every individual ought to be able to

00:01:20.900 save his own life. And these skills can be broken down in the following categories,

00:01:24.020 pursuit, escape, and attack. And we enter a conversation with the physical standards,

00:01:27.480 those in the 18 to 55-year-old range, should be able to meet, including how much a man should

00:01:31.580 be able to bench press, squat, and deadlift, and the walking test that's an excellent assessment

00:01:35.460 of your cardiovascular conditioning. After the show's over, check out our show notes at

00:01:39.360 aom.is slash benchmarks.

00:01:50.520 All right, Dan John, welcome back to the show.

00:01:52.720 Hey, well, thanks so much. It's been, it's been, it doesn't seem like it was that terribly long ago.

00:01:59.460 Well, it wasn't that long. It was October. So that was what, three months ago, four months ago.

00:02:03.720 And the reason I brought you back on so soon, because we had a great conversation last time,

00:02:08.540 wide raging, but there was this series of questions I wanted to get to that we couldn't

00:02:12.980 get to because it would, the podcast would have gone on for another hour. But it's based on this

00:02:17.260 article you wrote for T Nation back in 2016. And it's called 10 Things Every Lifter Should Be Able 0.71

00:02:23.680 To Do. And basically, you just kind of laid out some tests that you want lifters to take place.

00:02:30.540 I think this is going to be applicable to just regular guys who want to be healthy, strong,

00:02:35.040 physically fit. But these tests are designed to highlight weaknesses that you can work on to,

00:02:41.300 you know, for longevity, overall strength, flexibility, mobility, et cetera.

00:02:44.900 So let's just start, let me start, let me start with plus 55. Is that okay with my little standards

00:02:51.400 there?

00:02:52.000 Yeah. So you're talking about people who are 55 above.

00:02:55.820 And then let me give you how I assess people. And then let me talk about how you can start with

00:03:01.000 a young person and build these qualities up so that literally for the rest of their life,

00:03:07.080 they have a handle on certain things. How does that sound?

00:03:09.140 Sounds good.

00:03:09.640 So one of the hardest things, I don't know how old you are, but it's weird because you begin to pick

00:03:16.140 up on certain things. You know, I think athletes, the bloom of an athlete is what, 16 to 35.

00:03:23.020 And, you know, after that, things in it, you do have a Tom Brady and you have a Drew Brees,

00:03:27.100 certainly George Blandis. But you, and of course, in my world, throwing, you have people

00:03:32.640 stay around a long time. But that's when people are athletes, about 36 to 55 or so,

00:03:39.380 you begin to notice. And it's funny when you talk to someone who's 40 and I'm 63,

00:03:43.280 and they'll say, I feel like I've lost a step in me. I try to be kind. You know, it's like,

00:03:47.280 yeah, trust me, you did. But, you know, after 35, 36, it's when you start having those lean body mass

00:03:55.160 issues. You tend to swell up a little bit. You become softer. Generally, you're trading lean

00:04:02.100 body mass. You might stay the same on a scale, but your lean body mass is going in one direction.

00:04:09.220 Sadly, your fat's going in the other. Your fat's going up and your lean body mass is going down.

00:04:14.720 So, but once you get to 56, then we have to really think about health and longevity. Well,

00:04:23.200 ideally from age 25 to 55, you wore your seatbelt. You didn't smoke. You didn't say, hold my beer and

00:04:32.500 watch this, you know. But once you get to 56, here are the tests I use, okay? First, can you stand on

00:04:38.260 one foot for 10 seconds? Yes or no? If you can't, I send you to a doctor because I want to find out

00:04:44.080 what's going on. In 1991, I was working with this guy, very famous developer here in Utah. And I don't

00:04:51.640 know where he couldn't stand on one foot. Well, it turned out he had prostate cancer. Now, there was

00:04:55.580 no correlation. And don't worry about that. But the fact that I was so insistent he see a doctor

00:05:01.520 saved his life. I work with people with MS. And four days a week, they can stand on one foot.

00:05:09.660 Three days a week, they can't. It would be nice to know if they have MS or whatever the issue is.

00:05:14.120 Does that make sense to you? Number two is I think it's really important to be able to sit down in a

00:05:20.880 deep squat, hold for 30 seconds, then stand up. That's a test of mobility, flexibility, strength.

00:05:28.220 I don't know if you know what the toilet test is, but that's the determining factor about what kind 0.97

00:05:34.000 of elderly care you get. Because if you can't get up and down off the toilet by yourself, you have to

00:05:39.880 have much more care. Here's another one I have. It's odd because men struggle with this one.

00:05:46.160 Hang from a bar for 30 seconds. And I always tell people, if something bad happens and there's a flood

00:05:52.660 or something, that 30 seconds will give me a chance to save your life. Without that, you know,

00:05:58.540 bad things can happen. So stand on one foot, hold the squat, 30 seconds, stand up, hold on to a bar

00:06:04.480 for 30 seconds. Pick up, and it can be any way you want, your body weight and move it. So maybe have

00:06:12.620 really, really high farmer bars, put body weight up, pick it up and be able to move it.

00:06:17.600 Um, that one, a lot of people push back on, but I still stick with it because that's why I still,

00:06:27.300 I'm the guy everyone calls to move couches and I'm 63 because, you know, I have, I'm a good couch

00:06:32.720 mover and I'm very proud of that, you know? And then the next one you can argue with, but I still

00:06:38.480 like it. This is post 55, be able to standing long jump your height. So if a rattlesnake's near your

00:06:45.860 foot, you can leap away. And by the way, you don't have to jump your height. You have to long jump

00:06:51.200 as, as far as you're tall. Okay. So those basic little tests, if, oh, and the final one, I like

00:06:59.000 to observe how you get up and get off the ground, get down on the ground and get back up. I have a

00:07:04.840 drill called the get back up test. And of course there's also the Brazilian get back up test, or you

00:07:10.160 can just do a Turkish get up if you'd like. But that little body of tests, if you can hold on to 1.00

00:07:17.020 those, you're going to have a fairly into, if you can do those at 75, 85, you're going to have a fair

00:07:23.340 amount of independence. So this is, so again, this is for people who are 55 plus that last one, the,

00:07:29.160 uh, the stand up off the ground test. We've written about that. And it's interesting. They've,

00:07:33.920 there's been studies that show that there's a correlation between, yeah, people who can get up

00:07:39.400 off the floor with fewer limbs. So if you can get up off the floor without using your hands or your

00:07:45.080 knees, your, your, your risk of mortality, like, okay, I, everyone always cobbles on that. Well,

00:07:50.640 everyone's going to die. So your mortality rates, 100%, but it's like your, um, your mortality rate

00:07:55.700 is you're more likely to have a healthy, vibrant life. If you can do that compared to someone who

00:07:59.540 can't. Yeah. And the way the Brazilian guy did it, it's, it's an eight out of 10. If you can score 1.00

00:08:04.300 eight out of 10 because of my hips, I have to put one hand down, but at 63, I still score an eight

00:08:11.400 out of 10. And I always do. So on paper, that's what is that? It gives me a 20 year buffer. So

00:08:18.380 yay for me. Yeah. And I think some people don't realize that, like, as you said, as you get older,

00:08:23.540 the thing that often kills people, if you don't get cancer or some other, you know, dementia or

00:08:29.400 Alzheimer's or something like that, they often, you know, you slowly, it slowly kills you. It's

00:08:34.160 like you lose muscle mass. You have, you lose the ability to like, if you fall down, you can't get

00:08:38.820 up off the ground. That can kill you. Statistically in my house for me is the floor. The floor is the

00:08:47.060 most dangerous thing in my home for me at my age. The, the bathtub has about, you know, if I slip in

00:08:53.320 it, you know, obviously it's the floor, it's the floor, it's the floor. And I, and I asked personal

00:08:57.980 trainers when they said, you know, when's the last time you saw your mother or father voluntarily be

00:09:03.220 on the floor. And most people say, I don't even remember that little side, little story, just a

00:09:09.900 small little thing. I read somewhere. Most people never remember the last time they picked up their

00:09:15.940 child. So about a month ago at one of our family parties, I walked over my two daughters and picked

00:09:22.040 them both up just, just so I'd be able to say, that's the last time I picked you up.

00:09:29.820 We also have had, you know, going to this idea of longevity and quality of life as you get older,

00:09:34.680 we had a guest on the podcast, I think it was last year who wrote about longevity. One of the

00:09:40.100 interesting insights he, that he talked about in that podcast or shared was one of the things that

00:09:45.380 you can do to really increase your quality of life as you get older is to keep, make sure you're

00:09:50.360 continuing to walk on complex landscapes. Oh, like on and off a curb. If you live in a

00:09:57.320 neighborhood curb or like go to like the mountain, you know, if you live in a rocky area, go hike a

00:10:01.520 trail because what happens is like, if you, if you stop walking on uneven surfaces, you basically forget

00:10:08.860 how to do it. And so that whenever an old person, when they haven't like the only thing they've walked 0.55

00:10:13.440 on is just really flat surfaces, they encounter that they don't know how to do it. And they,

00:10:17.340 they trip and they fall and they, they break a hip. Exactly. And now, you know, I can even push that

00:10:22.420 farther. We now know that that also is a major factor for issues of the brain. And so do you know

00:10:31.600 what shaker plates are? Dave Asprey, he's the guy that's bulletproof coffee. Okay. And agree or disagree

00:10:37.560 what he talks about, but he really emphasized using the shaker plates. Now I bought a real inexpensive

00:10:43.460 one just to try it out and I fell in love, but staying on a shaker plate and doing one foot 0.98

00:10:49.960 drills, even something as simple as a speed skater or doing a goblet squat or a press on it. So that,

00:10:57.240 okay, if you can't see my hands, but my feet are both shaking. Well, because it's such a complex

00:11:04.500 system, if you're following along, I'm simply doing a one arm press on a shaker plate. But since the

00:11:10.440 complexity is shot to the roof, my brain and my nervous system have to adapt instantly to all that

00:11:17.560 crazy complexity, my bones, by the way, there's a new argument about osteoporosis that by losing

00:11:25.880 complexity is why. So your bones get simpler and simpler and simpler, and then they break.

00:11:31.900 So what you're saying is, is, is tying right into the stuff I've been reading, learning less

00:11:36.640 few months is that the more complexity the world is, the better it is for the, for the aging person.

00:11:44.440 You know, when Thoreau said, simplify, simplify, the correct thing for him to have said was

00:11:49.080 complexity, complexity for long-term survival or something like that, if you will.

00:11:56.560 And just to clarify a shaker plate, is that something you stand on and it vibrates you?

00:12:00.140 Yeah. And there, and you don't have to buy the $15,000 one. I bought a, I think it was 200 bucks

00:12:07.680 one. But now remember, I think it's my job, Brett, to, I literally think it's my job not to just go,

00:12:14.820 oh, that's a good idea, but actually try it, you know, drink the Kool-Aid, if you will,

00:12:20.360 go deep, and then come on the other side and say, that was a whole lot of nonsense, or

00:12:24.640 that's a game changer. So, but here, but, but I like what you said, you can also do complexity

00:12:31.280 by walking on a balance beam, jumping rope, stepping up and down off the curb, playing

00:12:37.660 hopscotch is probably one of the smartest things you could do, you know, as an adult. So yeah, I,

00:12:45.100 yeah, I agree a hundred percent with that very much.

00:12:48.280 So let's recap these, you know, tests for people who are 55 plus. So the first one is,

00:12:52.660 can you balance on one foot for 10 seconds? Right. Then it was, can you do a squat and hold

00:12:58.800 it for 30 seconds? And then stand up. And then stand up without any assistance. And that's so

00:13:03.940 you can get off the toilet. That's the ideal. Yeah. Right. Then it was also, uh, be able to bend

00:13:09.840 over, pick up something that's your, was it your body weight and then carry it around?

00:13:13.680 Pick up your body weight and move it. Okay. Okay. And then, uh, you, you also talk about the

00:13:17.500 farmer's carry as well. That's, that could be the farm. That could be, obviously it could be

00:13:21.160 the farmer walk, but you could have really, really high trap bar and do it, or have the

00:13:25.720 weight up on blocks. The idea that you can carry your own body weight. That's, that seems to be

00:13:30.560 important. And that comes in handy. Cause like when you're, you're going to have to carry stuff,

00:13:33.360 you're always going to have to carry stuff. Even when you're 50, 67 years old, long jump,

00:13:37.280 your height doesn't mean jump up in vertically your height, but long jump your height and then hang

00:13:41.940 from a bar for 30 seconds. Did I miss any? Yeah. Yeah. You miss getting up and down off the ground.

00:13:46.540 Yeah. Oh yeah. And then getting up off all the ground of assessment of getting up and down off

00:13:51.180 the ground. Yeah. Gotcha. We're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors.

00:13:57.660 And now back to the show. Well, let's, uh, move on to someone who, you know, it's in that

00:14:03.020 18 to, I don't know, 50 range. All right. Does it change as like, and you know, say you're like,

00:14:09.180 right now I'm 38. Yeah. I'm a child spry. Does any of this change for like, is it going to be

00:14:16.380 different for me compared to say a 25 year old? We'll tell you what, you know what, let's,

00:14:22.580 I'm going to give you my full evaluation next. Is that okay? But let's slide back

00:14:27.300 to little Brett as a, as a happy little waif of eight years old. Okay.

00:14:33.240 Well, I wasn't a waif. I was, I was a big kid. I was, I was husky. I had to wear the husky

00:14:37.740 underwear from Sears. Okay. So little Brett wearing his husky underwear from Sears Roebuck.

00:14:42.740 All right. The catalog came out and he went shopping. Okay. Uh, that'll aid you by the way,

00:14:47.420 I would go. So I'm a big believer in the insights of a guy by the name, George Herbert, Herbert in

00:14:54.220 English, Herbert in the French. He came up to a volcano that was blew up an Island and he started

00:15:01.460 saving survivors. Okay. He couldn't help, but notice something about the people who survived.

00:15:08.600 They knew how to climb. They knew how to swim. They knew how to do a couple of different things.

00:15:13.580 And so he started what we would now call physical culture when he went back to France. And even if

00:15:20.360 you've never heard of him, I guarantee you've heard of him. Are you okay with me going down this

00:15:24.400 direction? Yeah, let's go down this road. Yeah, this is good stuff. This is sort of like a,

00:15:27.420 like move natural movement. I think they got their influence from Herbert.

00:15:30.300 So let's just break it down the way he did. And I'll just, and then I'm going to add two things.

00:15:34.100 Okay. Okay. Because I can't help myself. So the first is what he would call pursuit. Okay. And

00:15:41.340 pursuit is walk, run and crawl. And he would expect an eight year old, nine year old to be able to do

00:15:49.680 those. Um, I, I fell in love years ago with, when I found out that this, this Irish school taught

00:15:57.760 proper sprinting techniques to their elementary school kids. I thought to myself,

00:16:02.960 they've got it, but walking, running and crawling. Here's the funny thing. How often you see kids

00:16:08.600 crawl in PE classes. Now, when I taught, when I taught, we did tumbling and everything else

00:16:13.920 and crawling because I, you know, I listened to my hair bearer. So pursuit, walk, run, crawl. Okay.

00:16:21.200 Oh, and real quick, just a side note, but especially when I read your site, Brett, this might be a real

00:16:27.980 valuable thing for them. There are probably two games that are older than probably, maybe even

00:16:35.360 language. One is tag, T-A-G tag. And the other one is hide and go seek. Both teach you to be a very 0.97

00:16:44.840 good hunter gatherer. Both teach you to be a very able person in any kind of combat.

00:16:52.980 So to me, when, if you want to do paleo fitness, just go out with a bunch of school kids and play

00:16:59.260 tag and hide and go seek. And you'll see that how, uh, in that pursuit one there, walk, run and crawl,

00:17:06.200 that is hide and go seek and tag. If that's too weird, Brett, just say, Dan, that's too weird.

00:17:11.840 Okay. No, that makes sense. So this is this stuff for like, you're going not even 18 year olds.

00:17:16.800 You're going like eight years for kids. Like if you're a parent, you're, you want your kids

00:17:19.960 doing this stuff. All right. Yeah. Uh, when's the best time to learn to crawl? Probably when you're

00:17:24.840 two. When's the second best time to learn? Probably today, you know? So there you go. And then there's

00:17:31.280 escape. So we had pursuit followed by escape and that's climb, balance drills, jumping and learning how to

00:17:41.160 swim. And it's interesting. I, I, you know, I work a lot with the military. We're going to work.

00:17:46.700 That's all we'll say. But I mean, it's interesting because to get yourself off of almost any major

00:17:54.240 problem spot in the world, if you can get yourself into the ocean, either by swimming or by stealing a

00:18:00.240 boat, that's usually the best route to safety. And it's, that was true forever. So you need to,

00:18:07.780 you need to practice climbing and I call that brachiating. You need to practice balance drills

00:18:12.800 because you know, sometimes you're trying to skate, you're running down a gutter on top of a roof.

00:18:18.440 You got to jump to the next roof. And then of course, swim your way out. And his third area

00:18:23.540 was what he called attack. And this is more my life. Okay. That's throwing, lifting and fighting.

00:18:31.800 And all three of those skills, uh, should have, should be addressed long before they need to be

00:18:38.880 addressed. If you don't mind, let me add two others that he doesn't have. I would include bike riding

00:18:44.820 because I think it's much better to learn how to fall. It's better to fall off a bike at five

00:18:50.000 than at 55. Right. Right. And then the other area I would add is either what I call tumbling,

00:18:55.960 but nowadays it's more, more often called break falling, uh, learning to take a fall.

00:19:02.960 But when I, when I give you this list, walk, run, crawl, climb, balance, jump, swim, throw, lift,

00:19:10.660 fight, bike ride, break falling. You get a sense to see the importance of play in a playground.

00:19:18.580 Yeah. Obviously you need to learn how to swim and learn how to fight and learn how to bike ride.

00:19:22.600 And probably you may even learn how to lift and throw it. It would depend, but how foundational

00:19:28.200 important all this can be to a person's life. If you have all those skills, in fact, it might be

00:19:34.440 worth your time as a, uh, you know, with your site to find people say, Hey, you know, do an article on

00:19:41.300 or do an article on teaching kids how to, you know, this is how you, this is running the sprint

00:19:51.100 mechanics. This is crawl mechanics. This is climbing mechanics. This is how to practice

00:19:55.920 your balance. Here's jumping. Here's, you know, swimming. You probably already have the bulk of

00:20:01.600 it on your site from, from my memory, but it's, it's such a, it's such a gift that you can give

00:20:08.300 your children to be able to have that entire skillset. Yeah. We do have articles on all those

00:20:13.020 things, crawling. We did one on balancing, like a two by four, just like having a two by four in your

00:20:17.880 house. Yeah. I saw the article, the guy that was, that was excellent. Yeah. It's in a super easy.

00:20:23.600 And, and there's another thing as a parent, what you can do is like, you know, make sure you're

00:20:26.840 paying attention to what your kids are doing in PE. And if they're not doing those things, well, you

00:20:31.000 know, join the PTA and, you know, use your public speaking skills to persuade them. Maybe we should do

00:20:36.220 some of this stuff, but if they're not getting that, make sure they're outside playing. One thing my

00:20:39.800 wife and I have done is we found a guy here in Tulsa who does parkour and like, he does, he's like,

00:20:46.860 he's, I think he's done some move nat stuff. Anyways, he, we take him to the park with our

00:20:51.580 kids and he goes through things like roles, like how to fall sort of the, he gets, he's a coach and

00:20:57.480 he's able, it's been really fun to see our kids take to it and the skills they've been learning from

00:21:01.620 that. And then, you know, on the area of throwing, I mean, you, I don't want your kid necessarily to be

00:21:07.380 a major league baseball pitcher, but it'd be nice to know all the throwing arts, be able to do the

00:21:12.940 basics of lifting, the Olympic lifts, the power lifts, kettlebells, you know, the kettlebell basics,

00:21:17.860 the calisthenic basics. And you can push back on fighting until it's time to fight. You can agree

00:21:25.060 or disagree, gentle listener. You can agree or disagree. Last week, a bunch of thugs took over

00:21:30.100 our Capitol and one of our congressmen is a former ranger started gathering things like pens and stuff

00:21:36.880 like that to defend his fellow congressmen. And to me, you never know when it might be your time

00:21:43.860 to defend those you love. I'm not a psychopath. I'm not, but there are bad people in this world.

00:21:51.820 And it's the job of those of us who are fast twitch monsters to protect, to protect them.

00:22:00.060 All right. So we've talked about guys who are over 55. We've talked about kids who you say should only 0.96

00:22:05.540 be doing basic skills, the George hair bear type of stuff to about age 15. You argue that kids

00:22:10.420 really shouldn't be doing any specialized training before that age. So let's turn now to the guys in

00:22:16.280 between, guys between the ages of 18 and 55. So I know as an introductory assessment, you want people

00:22:21.840 in this range to do the same kind of tests you do with the older guys. Stand on one leg for 10 seconds,

00:22:26.340 standing long jump, farmer's walk with body weight, the get back up test. And you do these same sorts of

00:22:31.640 tests to see where they're at before you start training them.

00:22:34.120 Well, you know what? I don't want to give you too many kudos because I don't want you to head

00:22:38.180 this well. But the one thing I like about your site is this vision from youth. Well, youth to death,

00:22:44.940 right? Right. So if you decide to follow the teaching, if you did a hair bear youth and then 0.93

00:22:52.520 had an elite, like for myself, I had a hair bear youth. And then I became a discus store Highland

00:22:58.460 gamer. And I retired July 24th, 2010, 11 years ago now. That's amazing. 10 and a half years ago.

00:23:06.920 And now, but all that stuff I did then, I can hang from, I can hang for up to two minutes. I can,

00:23:14.960 you know, you know what I'm saying? If you have the foundations and build it up,

00:23:19.360 you should have the same basic test core your whole life.

00:23:23.560 Right. Okay. Let's say, let's say someone, um, you find, you do these assessments on say a 35 year

00:23:31.280 old and you decide it's a man and they're ready to focus on strength and mobility and you get some

00:23:37.840 programming going for them. At a certain point, you'll want to assess again, see how they're doing

00:23:42.560 and see if they're reaching, you know, if they're getting strong. So do you have assessments for that

00:23:47.300 as well? Like, do you have metrics or benchmarks you like? Oh yeah. I mean, okay. Let's go through

00:23:52.680 the ones that are in my book that start off in my book intervention, but now, I mean, I have them in

00:23:58.740 a bunch. I have about a thousand different ones, but let's go through from that. I expect a man to

00:24:03.940 be able to bench press his body. Okay. I expect a man to be able to do five pull-ups. I expect a man

00:24:10.600 to be able to deadlift 150% body weight. Okay. Got that. You weigh 200, you got to be able to do

00:24:17.280 300, right? That's not very much at all. I expect to be able to body weight squat. Okay. And I expect

00:24:25.400 to be able to do a former walk with your body weight. Okay. Oh, one other thing. If you work

00:24:31.040 with me, I expect to be able to do a Turkish getup, both left and right with a Dixie cup half filled

00:24:38.160 with water on your fist instead of weight, the Dixie cup. Cause that means if you can do the water,

00:24:46.220 we always joke when you get hit by the water, we call it baptized, but that shows mobility and

00:24:52.560 flexibility far better. Okay. Is that okay? That makes sense. It sounds like something you'd

00:24:57.780 see in a karate movie from the 1980s. Yeah. And it's a good one. So we've been talking a lot

00:25:04.000 of strength stuff. I know you're a big proponent of walking and hiking. Do you have similar metrics

00:25:09.460 or tests that you like to put your clients through for, should they be able to walk without load in a

00:25:16.180 certain amount of time or with load, et cetera? Now, I'm a fan of Phil Maffetone on this. So

00:25:23.160 when we do this, it's going to be a little bit more complicated. Don't take what I'm about to say

00:25:28.960 wrong, but I think you have to have some other things set. So I'm a big believer in what's called

00:25:34.360 the MAF test. Okay. So it's, it's, it's a three mile walk. Okay. All right. So do you mind if I

00:25:42.940 explain it real quick? Yeah, go into it. This is new to me. So I'd like to hear about it. Okay. So

00:25:46.460 Maffetone numbers are 180 minus your age is the top end for the test. And 160 minus your age is the

00:25:55.960 low end for the test. Now what you have to get to do to get your heart rate in those numbers,

00:26:00.540 I don't know. For me, it's really easy. If I put on five pound ankle weights on both feet and I

00:26:06.820 carry six pound heavy hands, my heart rate gets in that zone very easily. Okay. Because you know,

00:26:13.220 I'm 63, so it's not that hard. Okay. So mentally you got to figure out those numbers and your job

00:26:19.960 is to stay between those numbers, the entire test, not above at all. And don't cheat by running. Okay.

00:26:28.040 And what you're going to do is at the end of every mile, you're going to log the time you went

00:26:33.880 through. So do you see how many factors are going on here? Yeah. So it's going to be for us, it's a,

00:26:41.280 for us, we do a 12 lap test. I keep my heart rate right inside those Maffetone numbers. Fortunately,

00:26:48.380 I have a nice heart rate monitor that can tell me when I go above it. Um, and I've got it set that

00:26:55.380 every few minutes. It says, you know, whatever heart rate, 112, whatever. So when I do the first

00:27:01.260 mile, say it takes me 19 minutes, second mile takes me 21, third mile takes me 29, just staying

00:27:08.860 in my heart rate numbers. I train for a couple of months. I do the MAF test again, and my numbers are

00:27:15.540 17, 19, 24 for the mile splits. What we can guess from this is that my conditioning has improved

00:27:29.620 because my mile splits have dropped with my heart rate in the same zone.

00:27:37.800 Right. Okay. So you can go faster without having your body, your heart having to work harder.

00:27:44.000 Yes. You follow. Okay. Excellent. Now I'm a track and field coach, so I don't care what your heart

00:27:49.340 rate is in the 400 meters. I don't care. That sounds horrible. But if you start off the first day I had

00:27:55.520 you, I trained you, Brett, and you ran a 75, six weeks later, you run a 55. And the next year you come

00:28:02.280 back and you run a 48. I don't care what your heart rate is. You've improved. You got that?

00:28:06.440 Right. And that's great for track and field, but it's not great for

00:28:09.740 lifelong cardiovascular training. That's why I like the narrow step-by-step of this. Does that

00:28:18.860 make sense? You know what I'm saying? I like the fact that you have the heart rate, that narrow

00:28:25.280 window of heart rate as a standard, the exact same test if you can do it, and then watch the numbers

00:28:35.080 come down. One follow-up question with this assessments, like how often should you assess

00:28:40.380 yourself? I mean, I imagine if you do it too frequently, you're going to get a lot of noise.

00:28:46.160 I don't know even to keep the test.

00:28:47.640 Right. Yeah. But if you don't do enough, then you can't see a trend line. So what's the sweet spot?

00:28:54.680 When I fold clothes and do dishes, I practice standing on foot. I actually even do it sometimes

00:29:01.020 when I have an electric toothbrush and I'll just stand on one foot. So I do try to cheat the balance

00:29:06.420 test because I feel like that's one of those tests that's, well, because if I'm doing my teeth,

00:29:14.180 I'm adding a ton of complexity to my teeth brushing, which I think is good for my brain and maybe who

00:29:21.860 knows, even for my bones. Okay. So the standing long jump, I see no issue with that monthly,

00:29:28.640 every six weeks. The farmer walk monthly, every six weeks. And the get back up probably should be

00:29:34.920 part of your warmup anyway. So yeah, the full test, let's say every three months,

00:29:40.160 pieces of it, you know, is appropriate. That's kind of a fun little thing.

00:29:45.660 No, it's something like you can do with your kids too. Like we do the get up test. Like whenever

00:29:50.260 we're bored, great fallback activity is, well, see if you can get up off the ground without using

00:29:55.600 your feet or, and find different ways you can do it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Dan, this has been a great

00:30:00.000 conversation. We've covered a lot of ground. Is there someplace people can go to, you know,

00:30:03.940 find these assessments and learn more about them and the complexities and nuances of them?

00:30:08.960 Well, I have a YouTube video going through it. Yeah. So go to YouTube, find coach Dan, John,

00:30:15.620 good luck. It's there's, I have, I don't know, a thousand videos, 10, 15, um,

00:30:21.480 workshops. It's an honor to have, to, I give them away free. Cause I just, I love what I do now.

00:30:27.660 I have a website called Dan, John.net, which my God, if, if you, if you decide to print it off,

00:30:34.720 good luck, there's 3000 pages. Okay. Of stuff to print off. And then I have my pay site and I'm

00:30:41.640 sorry about that, but I have to pay people for doing all this other stuff called Dan, John,

00:30:46.120 university.com. Okay. And tell you what, let me give you a code right now, make it,

00:30:52.140 let's do this art of man. Okay. Art of man. And so gentle listeners, you'll get, um,

00:31:00.280 what it's usually 29 bucks a month. You'll get, you'll get for 29 bucks you get for three months

00:31:04.980 and happy new year to you. Okay. Here's the thing I think I like best about it, Brett. If you haven't

00:31:10.400 been on the site, it's called the workout generator. You press what equipment you have. You press how many

00:31:16.100 days a week you want to work out the intensity level and then you press a button and it gives you this

00:31:20.980 wonderful spreadsheet with every, uh, it's once you, you just got to play with it. You may never,

00:31:28.740 ever use another. I know this sounds crazy, Brett, cause it's, it is in, it's my brain.

00:31:34.380 I can't coach as well as the workout generator coaches. Okay. All right. Well, fantastic. Well,

00:31:42.020 Dan, John, thanks for your time. It's been a pleasure. Hey, and if you don't mind, and I've

00:31:45.820 said this before, I don't know if you guys realize what a great site you have. I'm not

00:31:52.360 blowing smoke at all. Your site is, it's an absolute, and I mean this, it's an absolute honor to be part of

00:31:59.900 it. The quality of work that you guys have on there, the insights, I wish I would have come

00:32:04.720 up with your idea. Cause I think it's just brilliant. I mean, uh, so there's a little

00:32:08.300 bit of jealousy there, but it is really a phenomenal place and I recommend it constantly. Okay.

00:32:14.040 Well, thanks so much. We really appreciate that. You bet.

00:32:17.360 My guest there is Dan John. He's the author of several books. They're all available on amazon.com.

00:32:21.500 Just check it out. Just search for Dan John. You find out more information about his work at

00:32:24.560 his website, danjohn.net, as well as danjohnuniversity.com. Also check out our show notes

00:32:29.260 at aom.is slash benchmarks, where you find links to resources where you can delve deeper into this

00:32:33.660 topic. Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast. Check out our website at

00:32:44.260 artofmanless.com, where you find our podcast archives, as well as thousands of articles written

00:32:47.920 over the years about pretty much anything you think of. And if you'd like to enjoy ad-free

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00:32:58.580 you're signed up, download the Stitcher app on Android or iOS, and you can start enjoying

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00:33:11.420 friend or family member who you think will get something out of it. As always, thank you

00:33:14.720 for the continued support. Until next time, this is Brett McKay. Remind you, not only listen

00:33:17.760 to the AOM podcast, but put what you've heard into action.

00:33:24.220 Thank you.

The Art of Manliness - July 27, 2022

Physical Benchmarks Every Man Should Meet, At Every Age [REBROADCAST]

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