RUNGA Radio 013 | Dan John - Living with Integrity & Strength
Stacked 013 - Living with Integrity & Strength with Dan John
Dan John is an icon in the world of…well, pick one: Olympic lifting, throwing, academia, Highland Games, coaching, instructional fitness writing - the list goes on. After becoming an All-American discus thrower and competing at the top levels of Olympic weightlifting, Dan started coaching the next generations of athletes. Over 40 years later, he’s still going strong.
“The word ‘integrity’ comes from the word ‘integer.’ It means ‘one.’ You should be basically the same person in every situation.”
Dan and I sat down during our lunch break at the RKC II to talk about mortality, building a legacy, and how your goals might be tanking your health. We discuss the differences between resume-building and eulogy-writing, evaluate the characters we’ve encountered at high school reunions, and take some shots at conventional health and fitness beliefs.
“Will this make a difference? You need to have some kind of mission statement.”
- Dan John is a legendary strength and conditioning coach…but that’s just the beginning (1:00)
- The higher you go, the fresher the air…and the nicer the people (6:30)
- Let’s talk about life and death (not taxes though) (8:30)
- Olympic medals don’t make you a good person, and other life lessons (16:30)
- The 10,000-hour rule is actually bullshit, and there’s always someone better, hungrier, meaner than you (19:00)
- 15-20 pushes, squats, pulls, is all you really need in a workout (24:00)
- You can’t have Christmas every day: how to set goals you can accomplish without sacrificing your wellbeing (25:30)
- What do recovery and wedding planning have in common? (28:00)
- The most important practices for longevity: you’ll reap later in life what you’re sowing right now (33:00)
Find Dan
Mentioned in This Episode
- Dan’s Books
- Dan’s Workout Plans
- Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein
- The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance
- Spring Chicken: Stay Young Forever (or Die Trying) by Bill Gifford
- RKC / HKC
Proudly Sponsored By
A mushroom a day keeps the doctor away… no, really! Four Sigmatic has a wide variety of delicious superfood (and super-good-for-you) beverages made with medicinal mushrooms. Their Mushroom Coffee with Lion’s Mane is my go-to choice when on the road, and at home, I like to start every workday with a double dose of pure Lion’s Mane.
To receive 15% off your Four Sigmatic purchase, visit Four Sigmatic and use discount code RUNGA at check-out.
Before every show, I find a quiet place, grab my noise-canceling headphones and head over to my brain.fm app. With brain.fm you can decide how you want to spend the next few hours of your day—focus, productivity, relaxation—and they will play music that has been scientifically engineered to shift your brain in that direction. (See