Dan John
Dan John has spent more than sixty years lifting heavy things and coaching lifting.
“I thought for a long time it was an all-out war. You went after it. You did the velocity diet. You did the tough stuff. And the weight came off. But like dropping a bowling ball off the Empire State Building, there's that bounce.”
Two Percent with Michael Easter · Health & Longevity · November 2026
Context
Asked what he believed about strength and fitness at 30 that he now thinks is wrong, Dan starts with body composition: crash approaches worked in the short term, but the weight came back.
Transcript
Yeah.
What's something that you believed about strength or lifting when you were, say, 30 years old that you think is wrong today?
Okay. Get out a big piece of paper. It's not a small piece. Okay. So let's just, we can just, I'll try to do it in parts if you don't mind. So the biggest mistakes I think you make, well, first, the biggest mistake is letting yourself, it's kind of like getting in debt in the financial thing. You know, I would say in debt in our world is accumulating fat. So the first thing I'd recommend anybody, do your best to not get in debt and don't get fat. Okay. Let's just take those two things and go. Okay. Those are the two truths. Okay. When it came to things like body composition, I thought I thought and I thought for a long time it was an all-out war. You went after it. You did the velocity diet. You did the tough stuff. And it did. The weight came off. But like dropping a bowling ball off the Empire State Building, there's that bounce. When it comes to weightlifting at 30, and I'm glad you picked that age. I was already sliding over into the ideas that are right. But famously, I wrote in my journal in 1992, when I…
There's not a ton of bells and whistles. Your stuff is very approachable and very simple. And it's sort of, I can't remember the phrase you used. It's like easy and often over the long haul. So talk to us about that. Like, how has that shaped you? Because I do feel like there's today there's more…
place. Yeah, I got that from Coach Ralph Mond. First day I go to his office, I come campus, I say, I'm so excited to get going. And he's more like, take it easy. And he told me the secret, two secrets. One of the first things out of his mouth was little and often over the long haul. What's funny…
heard that at one point you were, I believe it was the Olympic Training Center you were training, and they told you to max everything out, eat as much as possible, gain weight. And you said that wrecked you. And you actually had better results when you weren't lifting as hard as often and when you…
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