The Davies Debate

Off Topic
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[quote]Chris Aus wrote:
And if you don’t get winded when playing a game of full court basketball then you are either superhuman or are lazy and don’t run your ass off. Have you even ever played a real game of full court basketball or are you just using your experiences in half cout pick up games?
Being winded and and relying heavily on aerobic metabolism for activity are not the same. As I said in the previous statement if you had read it there are better ways for preparing for events of that nature…

You can show me a thousand scientific studies that say I don’t use my aerobic energy syatem while playing BBall or football and I will still not believe them.
Way to be close minded which coincidentally is the state of mind that many of many of the “renegaders”. So far Slim Jim and BPC are holding the torch of light/discussion/debate on their own amongst a whole heap of “fuck off” and “I dont care about the facts I believe whatever I want” type posts.

“I go out and play these sports and am left sucking major wind during and after the course of play, I consider that aerobic.”
Have you seen 100m metre sprinters after a race? They suck wind! Have you seen a 400m runner after a race??? They breath like there is no tomorrow. Are you going to tell me that they are “aerobic”?

Again, enough of the witch hunt. You are now just spinning as hard as you possibly can to “win” an internet pissing match.
I started out with the intent of defending Francis and also asked a couple of questions. That is it… The rest of my posts have been in discussion and replying to what other people have said…

I am not impressed with your ability to misinterprit a scientific study
What have I misinterpretted?

and I’m sure nobody else gives a crap anymore either.
Then dont read the thread or dont reply, and if there is nothing more stupid said and nothing stated that I would further like to discuss then neither will I. [/quote]

  1. I guarantee you if you came and played full court basketball with us you’d be winded assuming you could hang of course. The Renegade system is perfect for basketball “wind”. How you ask? nonweighted gpp, jump rope, complexes,med ball circuits, etc need me to keep going? Since I just gave you several concrete examples of b-ball preparation now it’s your turn to give me yours if you have any?

  2. By the way, basketball (among other sports and also life in general) are aerobic AND anaerobic. It’s not always one or the other like you keep trying to make it. It’s a variety of energy systems. What? Debate that smart “cut and paste” research guy!!! How old are you, 16 years old or something?

  3. I’m all for scientific research too, however, are you telling me that you only believe something if it’s “proven” by a so-called scientist? You act like Coach Davies and the Renegade concepts are not founded on exercise science principles but sometimes you have to throw science out the window and “just do it” like Nike!

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veg. more than likely the guy on your team that you could beat in the 400 had a lower lactate threshhold. training in high school isn’t usually very optimal as the coaches and assistants (usually) don’t have the know how. there are exceptions though. some high school coaches are well educated and experienced in training, but there aren’t many. i mean, that example you gave is fine, but we don’t know how you trained nor how he trained. i mean, the guy coulda been eatin twinkies and playing video games while you’re out running for cross country for all we know.

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[quote]BPC wrote:

  1. I guarantee you if you came and played full court basketball with us you’d be winded assuming you could hang of course. The Renegade system is perfect for basketball “wind”. How you ask? nonweighted gpp, jump rope, complexes,med ball circuits, etc need me to keep going? Since I just gave you several concrete examples of b-ball preparation now it’s your turn to give me yours if you have any?

  2. By the way, basketball (among other sports and also life in general) are aerobic AND anaerobic. It’s not always one or the other like you keep trying to make it. It’s a variety of energy systems. What? Debate that smart “cut and paste” research guy!!! How old are you, 16 years old or something?

  3. I’m all for scientific research too, however, are you telling me that you only believe something if it’s “proven” by a so-called scientist? You act like Coach Davies and the Renegade concepts are not founded on exercise science principles but sometimes you have to throw science out the window and “just do it” like Nike![/quote]

  4. Listing exercises is not giving training protocols that people can evaluate. When I played rugby my conditioning consisted of intervals, stairs, hills, speed work on the track, and agility drills on the pitch. This is pretty much meaningless without more details, so you post the Renegade basketball conditioning, and I’ll post the DII MARFU champions’ conditiong program, or the winter program for a DI team who beat Penn State and Navy, both top national teams. Free exchange of info that anyone involved in basketball or rugby can see and maybe benefit from. Who do you play ball for?

  5. Almost all sports DO consist of more than 1 energy system, but this means you train all of them in the correct ratio. The aerobic component in basketball isn’t so significant that you should do a couple 8 mile runs a week, because you’re neglecting a more important component. And offensive linemen, who are pretty much always done with their part of the play in under 10 seconds and have @30s rest, shouldn’t spend a huge amount of training for the possibility of a 20-minute drive that is conducted with the work:rest ratio of the two-minute drill. That’s why people are complaining about overtraining

  6. In a Tudor Bompa book (I believe) there was a chart which listed % of muscular activation in response to different exercises, for all the different muscle groups. For hamstrings, a variation of the leg curl was the greatest, in the mid-90s, and the deadlift was the lowest at 70-something-%. Now I’m not gonna immediately drop deadlifts and substitute leg curls just because of that study, many years of many lifters’ experience says that deadlifts are infinitely more productive…but it was also those dumb studies by ‘so-called scientists,’ who came up with the concept of using low-percentage lifts for power and bar speed, scheduled rest weeks, and so forth. Where do Berardi and Lowery, a couple nerds with no real lifting experience (sarcasm), develop their nutrition tips? Science. So while ignoring one study is understandable, ignoring 6 or 7 that Cressey cited (which I doubt you read) is a little short-sighted.

I won’t debate Renegade Training because, as Matt Slaymaker said, no long-term workouts have been made public. Well, whose fault is that? Davies first posted on T-mag 4-5 years ago, so I doubt this is a question of ‘the right time.’ If anything, now would be the best time to see long-term Renegade Training. Well Matt, you’ve done it for a couple years, and your profile shows you’re not lacking for size (common knock against RT), so give up the goods. You send me some PDF’s and I’ll type them out, every detail, and post them so we can see what a long-term Renegade Plan is. And some people who don’t like Davies may hate him even more, and some may decide to go Renegade themselves. But defending a performance-based program without saying which teams and elite athletes use it…or saying RT doesn’t contradict exercise science, without giving a real program (not the 4-6 week-rs, are pretty weak defenses.

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[quote]boondoc holiday wrote:
veg. more than likely the guy on your team that you could beat in the 400 had a lower lactate threshhold. training in high school isn’t usually very optimal as the coaches and assistants (usually) don’t have the know how. there are exceptions though. some high school coaches are well educated and experienced in training, but there aren’t many. i mean, that example you gave is fine, but we don’t know how you trained nor how he trained. i mean, the guy coulda been eatin twinkies and playing video games while you’re out running for cross country for all we know.[/quote]

Genetics man, down to the genes. If all other factors…ie training etc (should be at top level, or any guven level), the individuals genes will be the determining factor, regardless .

But, not with twinky eating fatsos, and college level athletes. I think this better/worse thing is getting old. CD hasn’t posted. why? cause he is getting on. Next, it 'll be like shug knight and puffy, and i will get one of my homies to cap yer ass.

I am sure that peole are proud of their loyalties, and that they will defend their mentors/inspirations etc to the hilt and that is worthy of applause, but sometimes it does take stepping out of the bask of that light to have some clarity, on either side of any divide.

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how cute.

if you’re gonna reference siff’s work, you best know how to apply it. and clearly he states that if maximal or near maximal work is not utilized fairly frequently, dynamic work is fairly useless. and in most Davies programs i’ve seen, i see no maximal work or very little. so you want to work on many different things at once, that’s fine. do not leave out near maximal or maximal work. your comment about close to 1RM work is highly inaccurate and completely contradicts siff’s work since you mentioned it above. those that use a conjugate system can tell you that working to a 1-3 RM weekly is highly doable and highly successful. so i think we “get it”.

this is a completely ridiculous and unfounded statement.

ha! yeah it really sounds like i’m following some “guru” with my training, and my mind is more closed than a nun’s legs on sunday. i’ve done nearly every type of training under the sun and if you want to go with results, i’ve done much better with some of the other coaches’ works even on here than any kind of protocol davies has come up with. my training evolves constantly and isn’t married to one camp or guru or whatever. how ironic your above statement is because it actually makes you sound like the “follower” of a guru. don’t get me wrong, if it works for you fine.

you still haven’t answered any questions i’ve posed in former posts other than throwing out terms and contradict yourself.

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[quote]boondoc holiday wrote:
veg. more than likely the guy on your team that you could beat in the 400 had a lower lactate threshhold. training in high school isn’t usually very optimal as the coaches and assistants (usually) don’t have the know how. there are exceptions though. some high school coaches are well educated and experienced in training, but there aren’t many. i mean, that example you gave is fine, but we don’t know how you trained nor how he trained. i mean, the guy coulda been eatin twinkies and playing video games while you’re out running for cross country for all we know.[/quote]

Fair enough, our track and field training was top notch, we have been a dominant track and cross country team in NY for a long time, In fact Minus the NYC teams, there was only one team in NYS that beat us as a whole, and they were class A and we were class C. We frequently beat teams who had multiple people and multiple teams in every single event, when most of the time we could field only 2 per event and one relay team. Our coaches are very competent, and minus some really good nutritional plan, the training regimen is actually very very good.

Also the sprinter in question played football while I was running CC, He was our starting tailback and have several very good years. He was not a couch potato.

Now to the fact that I handled lactic acid better than he did? Well I wonder why that would be? Probably because I trained in situations where I would get great lactic acid buildup, i.e. more aerobic training.

Now, let me throw this one at you, the sprinter from above, was very naturtally fast. On a scale from 1-100 with regards to human population he is probably in the top 95 pecent as far as speed goes. he is probably somewhere in the 40-50 range as far as aerobic capacity. Similarly to having a newbie make great gains in the gym, He would make a crapload of progress in his aerobic condition with only minimal effort on that system, Like maybe 3 days a week of moderate aerobic work. Whereas he would have to put in hours and hours and hours of intense work to jump up even a few percent in his anerobic capacity. Doesn’t it make sense that in a game that isn’t over in 10 seconds, nor 30 seconds, nor one hour, that an althete with a composition or score of 85 aerobic, 94 anerobic would preform better for the duration of the game than an athlete with a composition or scor of 50 aerobic and 96 anerobic?

Again, I cannot quote any hardcore scientific studies, all I can do is apply my general knowledge of sports and nutrition, the information I have learned over the years on this and other sites, and my personal experience. I guess one of the appeals of GPP and why it is so useful is that it is relatively easy to get into much better shape if you are untrained in aerobic type activities.

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I still don’t see where balancing on a swiss ball while doing squats, doing all your oly lifts one handed, and some of the various other things makes you a better athlete. I get like 10 e-mails a week from the Davies site, and it all seems like a marketing ploy to me. I’m not against anyone making a decent living, I just don’t think Davies has anything for myself or my athletes that is better than what I’m currently using.

And as for the anaerobic vs. aerobic and all that jazz debate, so what? Davies isn’t the only coach out there who advocates hard work and getting in “basic shape” and most of the online Renegade programs and protocols I’ve seen look like the focus is making you TIRED, not faster, stronger, or more explosive.

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[quote]john p wrote:
… I’ll post the DII MARFU champions’ conditiong program, or the winter program for a DI team who beat Penn State and Navy, both top national teams. …
quote]

I would love to see those programs.

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[quote]Vegita wrote:

Now to the fact that I handled lactic acid better than he did? Well I wonder why that would be? Probably because I trained in situations where I would get great lactic acid buildup, i.e. more aerobic training.

[/quote]

You may want to rethink that particular statement.

Lactic acid (yeah we’ll leave it at that) is a byproduct (or possibly an intentional one, the research is still coming in) of glycolosis which is anaerobic (without oxygen).

Aerobic work doesn’t build up substantial lactic acid.

STU

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[quote]H factor wrote:
I still don’t see where balancing on a swiss ball while doing squats, doing all your oly lifts one handed, and some of the various other things makes you a better athlete. I get like 10 e-mails a week from the Davies site, and it all seems like a marketing ploy to me. I’m not against anyone making a decent living, I just don’t think Davies has anything for myself or my athletes that is better than what I’m currently using.

And as for the anaerobic vs. aerobic and all that jazz debate, so what? Davies isn’t the only coach out there who advocates hard work and getting in “basic shape” and most of the online Renegade programs and protocols I’ve seen look like the focus is making you TIRED, not faster, stronger, or more explosive. [/quote]

Aren’t Davies philosophies on training like 99% of football coaches in America? So what is it again that makes him exceptional? Being tough is all I heard in high school. Blah, blah, blah…

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BP, i decided to compile all the questions i asked you throughout the thread since you couldn’t find them or didn’t read them.

really? then where do you think it fits best in a healthy athlete’s regimen?

then when would a healthy athlete or everday joe place this in his or her overall training plan? after a peaking phase? before a speed strength phase? where? and for how long??

notice you’ve avoided this question twice.

[oh really???] this in brackets is what i asked. what i meant was do you honestly believe that doing a set of 12-15 reps is going to “improve the groove”? because as fatigue sets in, the “groove” is going to be altered, so that’s not really perfect practice and not greasing anything, all that’s doing is getting you tired. and why do we even want to “grease the groove” for an athlete playing a ball or a board sport? isn’t that more of a powerlifting/olympic lifting thing for efficiency of movement?

but in response to your last paragraph since we can’t use lifts as a means of measuring improved performance, why should we now use other measurable things like sprint and punch force that you just mentioned? is the hardest puncher gonna win the fight? is the fastest sprinter gonna get in the end zone more often?

and again, i never said that benching big means anything. hell, if i didn’t compete in it, i wouldn’t even do it very often.

this is not what i’m asking en*s. i’m asking the how much, not the why i know why. i’ve got the football book too.

so how much and when do we do all these chutes and ladders?

[quote]what about your rotational strength?
Do you enhance that powerlifting? NO![/quote]

and what does that have to do with this here discussion? take a look at many powerlifters logs as well as my own and you will see movements like landmines and russian twists. i even carry around a tractor trailer tire in the back of my truck and beat it with a sledgehammer from time to time. not to mention in my boxing training i hit the heavy bag once a week. how’s that for rotational strength?[/quote]

and finally (my favorite)…

[quote]what i wrote
errr…how many lumberjacks and construction workers do you see that aren’t half broken down by the time they’re 50? [/quote]

[quote]what you wrote
A lot! You are telling me that good old fashioned hard work is bad for you? What a concept? Most construction workers/lumberjacks are much stronger than most bodybuilders and don’t even touch weights.[/quote]

that one had me crackin up. “A lot!” and do you really know any honest to goodness lumberjacks?? because if you do that might make your cool factor go up a little.

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[quote]Sturat wrote:
Vegita wrote:

Now to the fact that I handled lactic acid better than he did? Well I wonder why that would be? Probably because I trained in situations where I would get great lactic acid buildup, i.e. more aerobic training.

You may want to rethink that particular statement.

Lactic acid (yeah we’ll leave it at that) is a byproduct (or possibly an intentional one, the research is still coming in) of glycolosis which is anaerobic (without oxygen).

Aerobic work doesn’t build up substantial lactic acid.

STU[/quote]

yeah stu’s right. veg i like your thought process and i kinda know where you’re comin from.

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Lets see about that shall we

Dude the 50% dynamic effort thing to increase power and maximal strength applies to non ballisitic exercises or exercises that are not inherintly dynamic… Doing powercleans at 50% will NOT increase strength OR power in anyone but the weakest individual… This is because dynamic effort work relies on maximal acceleration… If you try to powerclean 50% maximally it would go over your head therefor NOT be a powerclean… If you tried to Power Snatch 50% maximally it would either hit the roof of cause bad form… The Power Snatch is a balistic exercise which involves lighter loading inherintly… To use 50% with okay form you need to be slower and place LESS force to the bar… Siff has stated this, Christian T has stated this on this very site, its been mentioned in a recent article, but more importantly its just plain obvious.
Also how much power-endurance are you going to gain with sets of only 5.
How many things is he accomplishing at once now? sounds like nothing to me…

Is this a joke. It must be a joke… Amongst the real world of strength and conditioning he is one of the most respected… Did you see the quote that Yuri Verkhoshansky made about him? it was posted earlier… Check it out… He has influenced the training directly or indirectly of most sprinters. Tim Montgomery and Marion Jones also dumped their coach and went to be coached by Francis but were told they would lose millions in endorsements by nike. ie people still respect him enough to risk bad publicity… and not just anyone the dominant female athlete of the last 10 years…

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Why are you attacking me? I could be a marathoner, a pro ball player, I could be a sumo wrestler, you dont know a thing about me… I have no idea what condition in. How would I know whether id be winded or not…

Mate, this is getting stupid. You want me to debate that there are multiple energy systems in play during life? Ofcourse im not going to, its one of the few things you have said that is true… I will say however that preparing optimally for an event is different to being optimally prepared for every aspect of fitness…

Im not saying that at all, just that I would like Davies stuff to be supported by soemthing other than heresay… BTW most of the “sports science” that has been referred to has not been done by “scientists” but by observing effective training protocols…

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The top 95% hey? what a select group that must be being faster than only 5% of the population :slight_smile:
haha

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[quote]Vegita wrote:
Fair enough, our track and field training was top notch, we have been a dominant track and cross country team in NY for a long time, In fact Minus the NYC teams, there was only one team in NYS that beat us as a whole, and they were class A and we were class C. We frequently beat teams who had multiple people and multiple teams in every single event, when most of the time we could field only 2 per event and one relay team. Our coaches are very competent, and minus some really good nutritional plan, the training regimen is actually very very good.

Also the sprinter in question played football while I was running CC, He was our starting tailback and have several very good years. He was not a couch potato.

Now to the fact that I handled lactic acid better than he did? Well I wonder why that would be? Probably because I trained in situations where I would get great lactic acid buildup, i.e. more aerobic training.

Now, let me throw this one at you, the sprinter from above, was very naturtally fast. On a scale from 1-100 with regards to human population he is probably in the top 95 pecent as far as speed goes. he is probably somewhere in the 40-50 range as far as aerobic capacity. Similarly to having a newbie make great gains in the gym, He would make a crapload of progress in his aerobic condition with only minimal effort on that system, Like maybe 3 days a week of moderate aerobic work. Whereas he would have to put in hours and hours and hours of intense work to jump up even a few percent in his anerobic capacity. Doesn’t it make sense that in a game that isn’t over in 10 seconds, nor 30 seconds, nor one hour, that an althete with a composition or score of 85 aerobic, 94 anerobic would preform better for the duration of the game than an athlete with a composition or scor of 50 aerobic and 96 anerobic?

Again, I cannot quote any hardcore scientific studies, all I can do is apply my general knowledge of sports and nutrition, the information I have learned over the years on this and other sites, and my personal experience. I guess one of the appeals of GPP and why it is so useful is that it is relatively easy to get into much better shape if you are untrained in aerobic type activities.
[/quote]

  1. Lactic acid is formed from anaerobic metabolism…
  2. You could be better than him at the 400 because of a billion reasons.
  3. Having an acceptable level of CV endurance is a good foundation for anything… it doesnt mean that you need to train the incorrect energy systems however, that will only jeopardise things.
  4. The 94 anaerobic 85 aerobic will most likely be better than the 95 - 50, but this is a silly hypothesis… what if i had just switched the numbers… and the guys are natually fit…
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BPC the supertraining search engine isnt the best at the moment and I cant find the article here, but here is CTs opinion… The others do exist (as well as it just making sense) I just cant find them at the moment…

[quote]The actual intensity to use is greatly influenced by the type of exercise you are using. Using 60% on the squat will probably be a breeze while it will probably get you killed if you use the same load on the jump squat.


Its no different for the olympic lifts. What is a good percentage for power development on the olympic lifts is not the same as for proper development of power on classic exercises. For one thing the olympic lifts are power movements in nature, meaning that even if you use a relatively heavy load the power produced will still be high.


For calssic lifts the best range to shoot for power work (not strength or hypertrophy work) is 50-65% (a la Westside), for the quick lifts (olympic lifts) 70-85% is best while for ballistic lifts (jump squat, ballistic bench…) 10-20% of the corresponding full lift (squat, bench…) is best. [/quote]

Think of a powerclean or powersnatch as a dynamic deadlift if you will. You will now understand that if 50-60% of deadlift 1Rm is optimal for building power that the % will need to be higher than 50% of an powerclean or powersnatch… please tell me you understand this…

I know that their are errors in the comparison - (technique etc) but you get the picture

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This statement really annoyed me which is why im adressing it twice…

Since im the “cut and paste” guy I thought Id cut and paste a little more…

[quote]Olympic sprint champion Marion Jones has reluctantly parted ways with controversial Canadian track coach Charlie Francis, acknowledging she had understimated the firestorm the partnership would cause.
Francis is “the No. 1 technician in the world,” said Jones, adding said he “never once” brought up drugs during their two-month relationship.
Their conversations were confined to her technique, which she said he improved “more in a few months than the past three or four years, and that’s not to take anything away from (former coach) Trevor Graham.” [/quote]

I really should be able to say something like “nuff said” right here, but I looooove cutting and pasting

[quote]The other day, when Marion Jones announced to the Los Angeles Times that she was disassociating herself from Francis, she happened to call him “the best technician in the world.”

“Every major track and field coach in the world consults with this man,” she said. “I know that for a fact. Whether on a monthly basis or a weekly basis, all over the world, top-notch coaches call him and pay for his services … Top coaches go to him to get their questions answered and have their athletes analyzed, so why should I have competitors getting this extra information that everybody covets in the sport of track and field and one of the top athletes in the world can’t get that information? That was my reasoning.” [/quote]

I know its long and in that pasty grey colour so I will sumarize… The worlds greatest female athlete says that she knows for a fact that pretty much every sprint coach consults with Charlie…

a possible reason (other than ignorance) that you may not know what Francis is doing ATM.

[quote]And in the midst of it all, the sponsors who supported the world’s best female athlete, sponsors such as Nike, didn’t like having Francis’ name associated with their product.

They don’t care so long as the public doesn’t know. They don’t care if they utilize slave labour in Third World countries. Just don’t associate your product with Charlie Francis, criminal for life. We can’t have that.

But apparently it’s okay for teams in the NBA and NFL and NHL to consult with Francis regularly. It’s okay for Tie Domi to see him when he needs to work on getting the most from his body. It’s okay, so long as it’s all done secretly.[/quote]

Charlie also developed Tim Montgomerys track program when he broke 9.8 and became the fastest runner ever…

Ian King does seminars with him.
Christian T has long been reading Francis writings. Defranco listed the Charlie Francis training system as a “MUST READ BOOK”. The guys at Dave Tates site all have a lot of respect for him, and value his writings. At thsi site John Paul Catanzaro has said that Francis is a great Strength coach. So has Berardi. Hes been considered expert enough to give seminars at the Swiss Symposium. Consult all sorts of teams. Mel Siff liked and respected him… Charles Staley periodization model is remarkably similar and Staley is highly regarded so something obvsiouly works…

Now with all of this respect and adulation from real coaches and real athletes why would he need to grab some attention?

Now who copies and emulates Davies again? Unless you can say something more powerful than “every elite sprint coach in the world” im afraid that Im calling BS on point 2 above…

Also just consider for a second that none of the above existed, he quotes from Yuri Verkhoshansky and Marion Jones and wasnt consulting with most elite sprint coaches in a world, NFL, NBA and NHL teams… It still doesnt make any sense… consider for a second that the comments were going on on his private forum a forum you need to sign up to get membership of. Everybody that was reading what was posted already had his attention… It makes no sense to attempt to grab the attention of people that you already have the attention of, its ludicrous…

279

I would say if you’ve coached two of the if not “the two” greatest sprinters ever, it is fairly safe to say that you may just be the greatest csprint oach ever.

Scandals make some careers (think Hugh Grant), and destroy others (what’s Ben Johnson doing now?) If you’re not hearing about somebody, it doesn’t mean that they’re not doing something, it may just be that you’re not ‘supposed’ to hear about them.

280

It’s the thread that never ends,
it goes on and on my friend,
somebody starting posting it not knowing what it was,
and we’ll continuing posting it forever just because,
it’s the thread that never ends…

I wasn’t going to look at this thread for another few days, but I’m compulsive by nature and couldn’t hold out any longer.

Since we’re drawing lines in the sand[that was sarcasm,] it looks like my side has slide down a slippery slope here of late.

Chris Aus that wasn’t fair, I don’t even want to get into a debate over accolades or accomplishments for respective coaches. I don’t know why that statement about Davies being more published was made. I did go back over one of your previous posts, and I see that I was misinterpreting what you were saying about the ladder drills. I thought you were advocating something else, but your point was valid. I really cannot comment without seeing an entire program, but maybe he has his athletes do ladders in an anaerobic fashion later on, and the aerobic nature he advocates for this is to build a repetitive link with the agility drills. That is, so that near the end of the game when they are tired, they are still able to perform near peak levels.

I don’t know if I’ll continue to be a part of this discussion since I really don’t know enough of Renegade training methodology, but if it keeps interesting, I’ll probably throw my 2 cents in…not that any of you want to hear it.

Again, I’ve only used one of Coach D’s programs, but one last note: The thing that Davies advocates that really goes to the core of who I am as an athlete, is his desire to acheive through hard work, as cliche as it sounds. I’m familiar with the literature on overtraining and I am by no means advocating it or even practicing it at this point, but when I started lifting, the overtraining info was still a few years off from getting mainstream and the first book I learned weightlifting from was Arnold’s encyclopedia. I did those two hour workouts and felt great when I got up the next morning barely able to walk. There is something to be said for striving to excell by outdoing, especially when it comes to competition and you know you’ll win because you’ve done more to get yourself there. I’m not trying to get all philisophical on you guys, but an athlete needs to know that he can dig deeper than the other guy and win, because he’s been to the edge of his threshold before and overcome it. One of you asked before what John brought to the table; if a coach can instill this mentallity in any gifted athlete, I’d say they’d done their job.