The Dan John 40 Day Program runs for 40 workouts, ideally five days a week, so about eight weeks start to finish. You do the same five movements every session: a push, a pull, a hinge, a squat, and a loaded carry. Most days are just two easy sets of five, and only a handful of wave days mix in a 5-3-2, six singles, or a light set of ten.

This is Dan John’s Even Easier Strength, his free write-up of the Easy Strength method he built with Pavel Tsatsouline. The idea is to treat strength like a skill: train it often, keep the weights light, never miss a rep, and never grind. You add load only when the bar starts to feel light, so you finish each session feeling better than when you walked in.

It’s a good fit if you’re busy or in-season and want to hold or slowly build strength without the fatigue of a hard program. If you’re after size or a peak for a meet, skip it and run something like Dan John’s Mass Made Simple instead. The light, never-grind setup here is built for clean practice, not max effort.

[Read more…]