Body Armor

Legendary strength coach, Dan John, used to talk about body armor training. He was talking in the context of contact sports. You would want to build up a rugged body that can handle the brutality of the sport so you could perform well and come away uninjured.

Specifically, he was talking about kettlebell complexes, sled variations, crawling, carrying heavy objects and barbell movements. In everyday life, building armor is more important than you think. Building muscle, or armor can be the difference maker between a minor fall and a major one. Stack your chances on getting away from a car accident, bailing on a bike or handling a freak accident.

We can learn from extreme situations and distill the important information down to what really matters or what will help the average person. You may have heard, Alex fell through the ceiling a couple weeks back. A misstep while on the storage platform caused him to drop 10 feet to the ground below. He walked away unscathed and I can’t stop thinking that if he didn’t train the way he did it would have ended in a much different situation.

You don’t need to pile on slabs of muscle like Alex. Remember, we’re learning from the extreme. He has lots of muscle that he's trained hard for. He also took a 10 foot fall like nothing. Doing some squats, deadlifts and push ups a couple times a week will probably be enough to make you more resilient. Getting strong and building some lean body mass (aka muscle) may be the difference maker between a minor fall and a major one.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach