BOOK REVIEW: DAN JOHN’S EASY STRENGTH OMNIBOOK

**INTRO**

 

Dan John has been teasing the release of his Easy Strength Omnibook for months now over various podcasts and I’m just going to flat out say: it was worth the wait.  Folks: buy this book.  I’ll go into details shortly, but I want to lead with the conclusion.  I pre-ordered this book as soon as it was available and was able to download it on Christmas Eve and could not put it down until it was finished.  This is Dan in top form.

Here is where you can get it

https://danjohnuniversity.com/bookstore

 

**WHAT IS THE BOOK ABOUT?**

Almost...

 

Fundamentally, this is a 300+ page e-book on the Easy Strength program, which, in turn, is a program comprised of 5 sentences from Pavel Tsastouline relayed to Dan John a few decades ago.

 

“For the next forty workouts, pick five lifts. Do them every workout. Never miss a rep, in fact, never even get close to struggling. Go as light as you need to go and don’t go over ten reps for any of the movements in a workout. It is going to seem easy. When the weights feel light, simply add more weight.”

 

That Dan is able to write 300 pages on 5 sentences speaks to a few different qualities.  One is that Pavel is amazingly talented at taking a complex idea and boiling it down into a simple executable plan, and Dan, in turn, is amazingly talented at taking simple executable plans and digging VERY deep into the “whys” and “hows”.  Alongside that, it speaks to how, it doesn’t matter HOW simple you make the plan: people will STILL screw it up.  And Dan admits to doing just that a few times while running this on his own, going too heavy sometimes, too high in volume on swings, the many many MANY failed attempts to include squats into the program, etc.  And he does a great job of detailing all these adventures, and many more discoveries, through the book.

 

**WHAT THE BOOK ISN’T ABOUT**

This shouldn't be happening

Unlike Mass Made Simple (another fantastic read), this is not a book about putting on mass.  It’s not a book about maximizing conditioning.  It’s not a book about improving sports skills. 

 

Easy Strength, the program, is about doing exactly what is needed to ensure one has the necessary strength TO PERFORM.  One must remember that Dan coaches ATHLETES: not lifters.  And yes: you can lift AS an athletic activity (and Dan DOES have an Easy Strength with Olympic Lifting program in the book), but one has to approach the book and program with the understanding that lifting is the MEANS: NOT the end.  And strength, in turn, is a means to an end in the whole spectrum of how Dan approaches training.

 

As much as I (and many of you) would love to be superhuman strong, it’s worth appreciating that, for sports, there comes a point where enough strength IS enough, and the benefit of pushing strength further will not be worth the opportunity cost that comes with spending that time and energy in other venues (specifically, doing those things that get us BETTER at the sport).

 

By Dan’s admission (and demonstration), and Easy Strength workout takes about 15 minutes.  This is the amount of time dedicated in a whole athlete program toward the specific goal of developing strength to support athletics.  This does not necessarily mean that the athlete’s WORKOUT is only 15 minutes: it means we’ve streamlined the process of strength building down to its most essential elements so that we can now spend MORE of our time improving ourselves at sports.

 

**HOW WOULD I APPLY THIS?**

Keep in mind my track record...

 

I am not reviewing the Easy Strength program, because I have not done it.  What I am writing is merely my understanding, and a “what I WOULD do” approach.

 

But say you were an MMA athlete.  You have a demand to improve your conditioning, striking skills, grappling skills, and strength.  That’s a LOT of demands, and many struggle trying to balance all of them.

 

With Easy Strength, you could start your daily training with a 15 minute EASY workout that achieves the objectives of building strength to support MMA.  Dan picks basic, fundamental human movements for his 5 here (upper body push, upper body pull, hinge, ab wheel and loaded carry), which will cover all the basis of strength needed for an athlete.  As trendy as it is to have some sort of incredibly complicated and overly specific strength training protocol with bosu balls and stability training, those qualities can be developed through the actual ATHLETIC training of the athlete.  Here: we’re just making ourselves stronger.

 

After those 15 minutes, one can then move on to whatever objective needs covering that day.  Striking, conditioning, grappling, etc etc.

No

 

And, of course, you can see how to extrapolate that to other athletic realms. As a Strongman competitor, I could start my training day off with an Easy Strength workout to make sure I am strong ENOUGH for my sport, and from there spend time doing conditioning drills, working technique on the implements, or even turn it around and do some muscle building work if I’m in an off season.

 

The other application of Easy Strength would be in line with Dan John’s “bus bench-park bench” protocol, along with his discussions on minimalism.  Easy Strength is a “minimalist” program: it’s the lowest dose needed to still get results.  These protocols are great to follow after periods of MAXIMAL training: were we’ve been pushing the volume and intensity hard in order to accomplish some sort of radical physical transformation.  This is balance, it’s duality, it’s basic periodization.  And, typically, after that really intense training, a program like this allows us to REALIZE all that we’ve built, which is just a fantastic experience.

 

One could easily do this with some of Dan’s programs.  6 weeks of Mass Made Simple, 2 months of Easy Strength, 4 weeks of the 10k swing challenge, 2 months of Easy Strength, etc.  Dan even lays out a schedule just like this in the book. 

 

**WHY I LIKE THE BOOK**

 

It wasn't just the slick marketing

Dan John personifies signal-to-noise ratio and this book is in top form for it.  At 300+ pages, there is no filler.  Points get repeated, yes, but differently enough that they ENHANCE the understanding of the reader, compared to Stuart McRobert in “Beyond Brawn” who is just brow beating the reader with the same point, or Brooks Kubrik in Dinosaur Training (a book I have STARTED multiple times and simply cannot get through because of the writing style).  I never wanted to put this book down, and I was sad when it was over.  As soon as I’d finish a chapter, I’d see the title of the next one and think “Oh damn, THIS chapter is going to be even better than the last!”, and I’d get sucked in and discover I was right.

 

And I say all this as someone with no intention of running the program in the near future.  I was the same way with Mass Made Simple.  And I re-read that book constantly too.  That’s because Dan is able to take local lessons and apply them on a global level.  SO many of the lessons on Easy Strength that Dan shares are lessons that can easily be applied outside of that specific arena, to include training for athletes, balancing of workloads, an appreciation for what qualities matter and what don’t, talks on nutrition and fat loss, a fantastic discussion on what makes the squat a great mass building movement whereas the deadlift is more a strength building movement, etc. 

 

Dan took 40+ years of coaching experience and put it into 300+ pages of written word, broken down into easy to read and digest 2-4 page chapters that are laser focused and hard hitting.  This book is a gift to humanity. 

 

**WHO WON’T LIKE IT**

These people

 

If the only reason you read training books is for a spreadsheet and photos demonstrating how to do exercises, you will not enjoy this.  If you want a book on extreme transformation, you will not like this.  If you do not like to read in general, you will not like this.

 

**SHOULD YOU BUY IT?**

 

Yes.  100% yes.  It’s currently in e-book format: get it as an e-book.  If it gets a hard release: get that too. 

 

Be happy to field questions about my experience reading it.