Barbell Shrugged - 141- How to Become a World Champion Weightlifter w/ Travis Mash

Episode Date: September 10, 2014

Travis Mash

This week on Barbell Shrugged, we learn how to become a world champion weightlifter from Travis Mash. Hey, this is Rich Froning. You're listening to Barbell Shrugged. For the video version, go to barbellshrugged.com. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Mike Bledsoe here with Doug Larson and Chris Moore. We have traveled up to New Jersey. We're hanging out in Zach Evanesh's gym. And we're standing here with Travis Mash. We brought him back, folks. We podcast with him a while back.

And a lot of people were like, that was awesome. Get more of that. So, okay, why not? We'll go hang out. We'll hang out with Travis. We'll do it again. We actually got to watch you do your Level 1 seminar in Pennsylvania on Saturday. And on Sunday, we got to watch you do the Level 2 seminar that you put on.

Yeah, at the Underground Strength Gym. So it's been a crazy weekend. Lots of people. I personally enjoy meeting all the different people. It's my favorite thing about the seminars that we do. It was cool having you guys there, though. It was a lot less stressful. I get

nervous. I don't know about you guys, but in front of crowds, no matter how big or small, I still get nervous. Having y'all there, it's like my buddies were there, so I wouldn't... Hanging out with your friends. Yeah. That does make it easier. What I love about Travis is that you can tell

you actually care. The nervousness comes from I want these people to get what I think they can get out of it. Right. If they don't, I'll be sad about it. That's why it's a good seminar.

Yes. It's really honest. You felt even less nervous with the camera there than you did without the camera? It feels like that's the opposite of what most people would feel like. No, I don't know but I guess because it's ctp filming me it's like yeah my buddy

bringing it back team shock about it go watch the last episode with travis that would be much funnier yeah so i mean um nah with him filming me i wasn't thinking about the fact that there'll be like lots episode with Travis and that would be much funnier. Yeah. So, I mean, um, nah, with him filming me, I wasn't thinking about the fact that there'll be like lots of people watching the DVD someday. And so, but it's a familiar character and, and us running out. Yeah.

Yeah. I appreciate it. How, how simplified you made everything. No big fancy words, no, no big over the top jargon. Everything was laid down.

Even at the advanced seminar, even though you did Everything was laid out, even at the advanced seminar. Even though you did a beginner and an advanced, still at the advanced seminar, everything was laid out as simple as it possibly could have been. Especially with the program design, and that's where people start using words that people don't understand or they start writing out these complicated whatever. You've all seen it like someone starts

drawing this thing you're like yeah i kind of grasp what that means they get way too indulgent with the programming i mean you know i could but i think that here's what i i think is that if you're super smart you can make something complicated seem very simple and i think that is the true sign of intelligence if you have to use big words or you know you have to show on the board these mathematical equations that you might be using if you have to do that to make sure that everyone knows that you're above them and smart then you know you're using your pride more than you're really trying to teach exactly i'm taking it takes effort to break it down to be really simple you know you get so used to like reading training books and everyone's using that

same terminology and then you turn around and you just use that terminology well that's right if you're in a coaching game you can't be a good coach if you can't connect with people who don't know what the fuck you're talking about well you gotta think about who your audience is and you know if you're out there talking to other advanced coaches you should use that terminology that way you can get more information out quicker. Right. If you're talking to, like, people who aren't advanced coaches, you should be breaking it down. Like you were saying, like, I think too often people want to impress other coaches maybe.

Right. Now, you could be standing in the room and know, okay, there's five people in here who are advanced coaches. And you know what? I'm going to make sure that they're impressed. Or you could look at the 25, you know, just average Joe athletes, you know, CrossFitters and weightlifters and break it down really, really simple. Right. I'm reading a book right now by Vrshansky on periodization and I read it and man, it's tough. We've all read those crazy. You read it in a Russian accent. Yes. And then, you know, I'll it several times. Like, I'll be honest,

I'm gonna throw this out there, like, reading comprehension, I struggle sometimes. But once, you know, I get it, then it's a wrap.

Yeah. But like, when I finally get it, I'm like, man, that dude could've said the same thing. Yeah.

But it's not your fault, it's his fault. It is. It's his fault. I mean, you know, I'm sure, you know,

he is very smart and that's awesome i i can't imagine having the knowledge in my brain that he does but he could you know he even he could have said the same things a lot simpler but you know i'll never get i went to a verka shansky seminar and the guy was on the thing he goes he goes the key to developing the athlete is to enhance the biological capacity of the organism. You go, biological? Oh, you mean get in shape.

You could just fucking get your work capacity up, do some work. I know, man. That's why Zach gets such good results in here, I think. I don't think he uses that term like sets and reps most of the time. He's like, you're going to get that and drag it over here. You're going to fucking do that. These little kids turn into fucking monsters. Go to wrestling meets and hurt people, crush people.

You don't need all that sometimes. As long as you know what you're going for, those are just words. You know, Zach's gym, to me, is like a piece of art. You look at it, and you just keep looking, and you'll see more and more little tools he uses to beat these kids down. I don't mean it in a bad way. Like the mix and match dumbbells he's acquired, he's carefully selected.

He loves all this shit. This place feels like everything is love. It's not like some guy wrote a check and went to Rogue and it's got all new shit put in there, which is cool. But this is a special kind of cool. This place has got soul. Collectors. Yeah.

He went to gyms that were closing up shop who had really old equipment. To him, it's like collecting antiques, you know, but functional antiques, obviously. I get it, too. Like the old York dumbbells. Like most guys, unless you're kind of from my era, you don't even understand the old York original dumbbells. They don't make shit like that, no. No, man.

They're all one piece, you know. You don't have it screwed on. It's just all one. Half rusted. Yeah, half rusted. I mean, that's how you get You know, you don't have it screwed on. It's just all one. Half rusted. Yeah, half rusted. I mean, that's how you get your iron, you know. No one's ever going to get my 20 kilo fin metal plates from York. No one's ever getting those from my garage gym.

No. I'm not going to have them. We sell a lot of rusted plates at the first gym. I love the pull-up, the little pull-up mechanisms he has. The little balls you got to do pull-ups with. Or the little animals. Yeah, they're hanging right there. Those are impossible.

I'm right on the hard ones. The tubular ones, you cannot fucking do a pull-up on unless you're really monstrous. The balls are hard. The tubular ones are impossible. That's what I've discovered. Unless you're one of Zach's wrestlers.

You can do 20 on those. Yeah, yeah. I did some rows with those over there in the corner. Oh, yeah, I see the row. I'm going to go home, and I'm going to buy those balls, and I'm going to hang them. I want those balls.

They just look cool. They look cool. There will be an Instagram photo with those balls when they come to me. I'm like, eh. We'll all fucking giggle like 15-year-olds at the end. We'll have fun with it. Going to integrate the Snatch Clean Slope in there somehow.

I don't think it'll take much creativity to make that work so with the level one you know what did you guys think about the differences can you pimp could you pinpoint the differences in the one and the two yeah i mean there were obviously different seminars yeah uh level level two i thought was good like you you basically assumed everyone knew how to do the basics of the first pull and the second pull and they knew that you know when when you're going to shrug you're not really trying to lift the weight anymore you're trying to get down get under the weight and right like basics like that but level two you were really going more into

um you know kind of the like all the all the fancy terms that that john has like the the superman pull and things like that fancy super fancy terms that John has, like the Superman pole and things like that. The fancy terms. The super fancy terms. Super fancy. Maybe not fancy, but definitely unique. Unique to John. You kind of went over the details of those, which because they're unique terms, people want to hear more about them.

And that's what develops a lot of the talk on social media and stuff. They're talking about these little terms. Superman pole. And if you really need to worry about it or not well the way i saw you uh teach like archangel and yeah it was in a superman pool it kind of when you when you think about traditional second third pool right kind of doesn't work like like you can't teach second and third pool the same way you teach superman archangel no yeah it's a so it's just different yeah well you know we add, you got the second pull that I say delayed knee bend, which, you know what, not only John, but Greg Everett teaches the same,

trying to delay the double knee bend. It's really, you know, as far as using the hamstrings, as far as efficiency, nothing is better. It's just hard. It's hard to teach and hard to learn. You got to be strong to do that. I remember the day I started using my hamstrings on my lifts. Right.

And things got fast. Real fast. They got real fast. I was like, oh, that's what it's supposed to feel like. And I discovered it on my own. I didn't have a coach pushing my knees back. Right. Yeah.

Yeah, we originally learned that same concept from Brian Schillingilling the first time that we learned to like really push our knees back and get all the way to the top top top of that first pull and he just called it a long first pull right and that was intuitive and it made sense but i think having the the unique term on things makes people really talk about and develops kind of a buzz around that thing and it makes it like a real thing rather than just saying i do that for a little longer next time right yeah they go okay and then they forget about it. Yeah. You know, we, we, uh, break it down into several steps, you know,

bringing the bar from the floor to right at the knee to right above the knee to delayed knee bend to knee bend, which position one, you know, and then arch angel and then back. I think that's the easiest way because people, you know, you'll teach them these movements and then they'll try to do it and it looks terrible. But if they'll just practice that movement pattern over and over and over, and then they just got to go do it and let it happen.

But I think you got to give a, anytime you're changing, especially weightlifting, cause it's such a quick thing, right? You've got to give it a fair amount of time to settle in i've had a lot of people like well let's try it like this like they do one rep and like it doesn't feel better i'm like well you didn't really do it the way you're supposed to yeah what is wrong with me you know if you if you make a change give it a week or two to like start settling down at least yeah settling in at least if you're on your own like sometimes if people start trying to make changes. They're not really changing in the right direction.

I feel like I'm making the right change. What I would do is every time you sit down and stand up, you go, three, two, one. You get down. It's like going down on a toy. You just reverse it. I do this. I do this. I do this.

And I poop. And I poop. You practice it just always. And before you know it, you don't think about it anymore. And then you can start training that lift, right? Oh, man. You know, the coolest thing I learned, I'm going to have to throw this out there, on this whole trip, was Allison, the owner of Keystone CrossFit, the level one that we did,

was the Squatty Potty. You guys know what I mean by the Squatty Potty? I didn't catch the Squatty Potty. She invented that? No. She bought it. Let's get the marketing right now. Seriously. I'm very familiar with the the squatty potty. I didn't catch the squatty potty. She invented that? No. Let's get the marketing right now. Seriously. I'm very familiar with the squatty

potty. I've been debating whether to purchase that. It looks really cool. I don't want to do it. Her and her husband said that now that they've used the squatty potty Oh, they're doing it. I've never talked to anyone who embraced it. Oh, that's the thing. You elevate your feet and you squat down onto your toilet? Yeah, you squat down

onto your toilet and that's how you go to the bathroom. You do number two in a squat position. If you're, yeah. And now they're saying, if you're, yeah. Hey people, I didn't eat breakfast or have coffee and it's 7.30 a.m. on a Monday. Just so you know. We might get silly. So what I'm saying is like now they said they don't like going to the bathroom without the squatty potty.

They said it's like a whole new world. I've heard that what I've read about it is that, you know, you're supposed to squat when you do, when you got produced, man. That's how everybody else in the world and every human ever did it. Like when you sit down, it fucks up the way that things move around in your intestines, your digestion. Like if you do that for a couple weeks,

like supposedly your digestion is just so much better. I guess when you squat, you line up the tubes, man. You line up the tubes when you squat fully. Line up the tubes. Line up the tubes.

You know, the longer I hang around. Very medical explanation by Chris Moore. Very medical. The longer I hang around the CrossFit world, the more hippie I become. It's a good thing. There's a lot of The longer I hang around the CrossFit world, the more hippie I become. It's a good thing.

There's a lot of hippie-ish stuff in CrossFit. Yeah, people would call it cool. I'd say, yeah, probably more hippie-ish. I was on weightlifting talk at the American Open, and we were talking about things I do or don't do. Yeah. You're like a hippie. A little bit. I see myself becoming hippie.

Yeah. It's kind of cool. I mean, I'm from you know the mountains and there's a lot of hippies up there it's all good you know it's like it's funny all those things like i remember growing up and people who shopped at uh you know the health food store yeah the funny one yeah and uh they're like oh you shouldn't do this and you're like it doesn't make any sense to me because that's it goes against everything I've always heard and so like I remember picking up like when I was like 15 I was I was a weird kid picking up like a book you know how to cure anything with herbs you know and at 15 yeah I was like I was like kind of like

I was kind of thinking like no maybe we don't need this medicine like and I would read weird books like that and then I would read the book and I'd go, nah, I think that's kind of silly. Like I would go back and forth. I would learn about it and then kind of go back and forth. And the older I get, the more I'm what's happening. What I see is like a lot of these medical practitioners and scientists are

going, Oh, you know, we just discovered that this thing does. I was like, that guy said that in the herb book when I was 15. I was like, Oh shit. I'm like, I'm like, all right. And then I'm like, that guy said that in the herb book when I was 15. I was like, holy shit.

I'm like, I'm like, all right. And then I'm like, now I'm like way more tuned in. Like when somebody says some hippie dippy shit, I'm like,

not throwing out any babies in the bathwater. I'm like, I'm like, okay, I'm listening. Me too. And then I'll try.

I'm like, you know what? I'm going to give it a try because you know what? I wish I would have like embraced it a little bit more fully when I was younger. Yeah. I would be in a better shape now. That's why I wasn't judging. I was just like, you know what? I wish I would have like embraced it a little bit more fully when I was younger. Yeah.

I would be in a better shape now. That's why I wasn't judging. I was just like, you know, I'm listening to you. I'm like, maybe I should be more hippie. You know, you gave me that beard wax inspiration. What is that beard wax you just gave me? Dude, when Travis Mash goes from like one of the world's strongest people to something, man. Like I'm wearing hemp pants and underwear

you have strong arms but let's all have strong hearts together which we believe in yeah absolutely so you got you got my brief take on like one piece of how the level one and level two were different but you know let's get that straight from the horse's mouth like how are they different like how did you structure level one versus level two i think you uh nailed it level one is simply to introduce them to the sport of weightlifting my goal um is that is to make sure that everybody i come in contact with knows how to do the snatch and clean and jerk safely and proficiently to where they can progress their sport of CrossFit, mainly CrossFit,

or if they're a beginning weightlifter, to make sure they get off onto the right foot. And then level two is a few more advanced steps that we teach with my weightlifters, with John North and some of these rabbits and my crazy weightlifters I have coming up. There's a little bit more advanced techniques. But now I really want to teach. We spend a lot of time teaching on the whiteboard about program design and also the truth about the sport of weightlifting. Like if you go to a competition, here's what you expect,

weigh-ins, how to drop a few kilos. That was a fun discussion. You dropped some knowledge bombs on me for the weight loss stuff. I was familiar with some of the things you were talking about. Sweet tarts. You dropped the sweet tarts bomb. I was like, what? As soon as you said sweet tart, Chris saw my face.

I was like, I just looked in like, what is he talking about? You can easily lose one to two kilos in an hour and a half to two hours with sweet tarts. I mean, I've done it. I have lost two kilos. Want to elaborate on that? Yeah. Be like, I'm going to start crushing sweet tarts. Put sweet tarts in your mouth and you spit? Yeah, you put the sweet tarts in your mouth.

You just eat sweet tarts. That's not a weight loss method. That's what I thought. I used to talk about it in the beginning. I was like, I'm listening. Yeah. No, they're sour, so they make you salivate and you know what everybody tries to come up with new candies but nothing beats sweet tarts so don't even try it go to sweet tarts you put in your mouth swish it around spit in a cup don't eat

it of course and then you know the the sourness just makes you sour. Probably the sweetest spit out there. Yeah. What? Oh, God. So the sweetest spit. People are gagging. It is the grossest thing you'll ever do. But, I mean, if you're trying to lose weight, we're just, you know, we're athletes. Not as gross as what you said about Chris Mason with a sweatsuit. That is real gross.

Yeah. He said, open up his sleeve and it's poured out like a bottle of water. Let me tell you that story. That guy, Chris Mason, you guys might know him as Ox. He was a pro power lifter, too. He was a monster. Yeah, he was a monster. And so we would, driving from North Carolina to the Arnold,

we went there almost every year to compete. He would put those Walmart sauna suits on. And literally, that guy, every hour, hour we would pull over and he would open up the sleeve of that sauna suit and it would look like he was pouring it would be like pouring out a gallon of water I'm not even kidding I would have the same suit on and I would it would just be a little moisture trickle yeah and that dude it would just like he was pouring a bottle of water out man i know so i think one of the things you said uh what i really liked in regard to weight loss was telling people how much weight they could expect to lose right and i think a lot of times i'm working with

my weightlifters and they're like they're like two pounds under their weight class and they're worried i'm like i'm like and they're worried about i'm like oh come on another 10 pounds seriously you know i put i broke it down into girls boys weight classes like you know a guy because with women it's totally different yeah they hold they hold their you know the moisture much more it's the old water in their skin and so like a boy can lose or a man sorry you can lose three to four kilos a girl needs to keep it between one and three kilos you know depending on the girl the lower the weight class the less they should go above their weight class this is why it's important to compete on a regular basis is you don't learn these things until you compete uh you know i i've learned

that i can if i compete at 77, I need to be 79, 80. Right. Somewhere in there. I know how much weight I can lose comfortably. Right. And then put the weight back on very uncomfortably, but still come back and hit good numbers. Right. I'd say for the sake of not creating or encouraging the creation of beef jerky people, we should

say how to get that water back in. Because somebody's like, I'm crushing sweet tarts. Now go lift. We should probably say, how do to get that water back in. Because somebody's like, I'm crushing sweet tarts. Now go lift. We should probably say, hey, how do you get that water back in, Trevor? Yeah, the weigh-ins, you weigh in and then you lift two hours later. So it's not like other sports where you can cut like 20 pounds. No, it's not powerlifting. You can't cut that much because it'll affect your lift.

I mean, I'm going to tell it on the show. If I were you, if you had the right medical people in your corner, I would use an IV if you can. And if you've got to time it, maybe I would do it. It sounds crazy. Right now people are like, what is he saying? But it's safe. It's just safe.

It's what you get if you had the bad flu or something, get dehydrated and you got to the mental med center. Absolutely. You don't waste time with shit. They don't like to drink water if you're gonna be hurt the first time that i went to west side barbell i walked in and the guy was rehab it was at the arnold and a guy was sitting there with an iv in his arm it freaked me out but i'm like wait that totally makes sense and it's totally safe and so if i were you if you can't have the right person to even have the right person to do it because

you don't you don't want to share needles with no no no i mean yeah i guess i better be like clear we shared iv needles gross yeah and unsafe always follow best medical practice right so but you know if you can do that do that if not i would use, you know, make sure, number one, eat some, you know, sodium. You know, eat food that is rich in sodium. And then Pedialyte is the second best. I mean, what do you guys do to rehydrate? I have never cut weight in my life because I'm fat. Every time I cut weight, I say, I'll never cut weight again.

I'm going to diet down to where I need to be. Yeah. So my cuts mainly been for weightlifting lately. And I do, what I do is I just chug. I do a little bit of whey protein. Right. Or BCAAs. It's just kind of, I've been playing around with both.

BCAAs is probably better because it's going to digest much quicker. So you're like BCAAs and some like Gatorade. Right. Just straight up Gatorade. You know, get some sugar in there because the water is going to be attracted to the electrolytes and the sugar. So you need probably, if you've been dieting down too, you know, you're going to start

getting some of that sugar back into your muscles where it belongs. No doubt. So I do a bunch of BCAAs and Gatorade and I almost feel sick doing it. So what I do is I weigh in. I'm like, I sneak, every time I sneak just under and then I'm like chugging. So what I do is I weigh in. I sneak every time. I sneak just under.

And then I'm chugging as much until I get sick. And I feel sick until I start warming up. And then I always start feeling really good. So it's cutting weight and then trying to put it back on for a weightlifting meet is not fun at all. Because you only have that two-hour window. Yeah, that's right. So I know exactly how much I can cut. And then I know how to put... The other part is putting it back on fast enough.

Like if I, I could cut more if I wanted, but then I wouldn't be able to put it back on well enough to compete. And this is why it's practice. It's good to compete frequently because you discover, like I know that on Friday night, what I need to weigh so that I can comfortably put that way back on and perform.

Because if I overcut, I won't be able to put on enough weight and then I won't lift for shit on the platform Doug's got Doug's got way more experience with like big cuts oh yeah with the MMA right yeah it's a little different for MMA like the way I basically did it and the reason that Mike's saying you should capitalize you can do it one time you can say the night before I want to be at this exact weight right and then if you make it and you feel good maybe next time you go well maybe I can be a pound heavier right and then you do it again you go maybe I can be a pound heavier and a pound heavier and you can be as big as possible because you can calibrate like one or two pounds at a time or maybe if you

want to go the other way you could say well I made it maybe five pounds heavier and you like way overshoot it and you don't make weight and then you go okay that was too much and now you can can work your way back opponent hates you because that's what that's what i did the night before now my standard for mma with with a 24 hour weigh-in which this isn't about mma but um if i fight at 170 i try to be 10 above my weight like 187 the day before right but but like i i decided to do that after like trying a bunch of different stuff like i saw the wall one time where i was i was 198 the day before, and I was trying to get to 170, and I only made it to 172,

and I missed weight. But the other guy missed weight too, so he fought at 172, and I was the luckiest person alive that day. But I felt fine during the fight because I had 24 hours, really more, almost like 30 hours to get rehydrated and whatnot. But for weightlifting with only a couple hours, you can't have that big swing like that. A couple of kilos at most is probably all you're going to do

to be able to perform at your best. The biggest mistake that most young weightlifters make, take note of this, is that if you're only one to two kilos, or what I'm saying is two to four pounds if you don't know kilos, above your weight class, please don't worry and don't

message me freaked out because you're good. You are fine. If you're in the three to four kilos above, then I can give you ideas to lose, but if you're only one to two, you'll probably wake up below. So you're fine. Yeah. A lot of times people will say, hey, I weigh this.

I'm like, well, what'd you weigh in the morning? Naked. They're like, well, I weighed 189 today. I'm like, well, what'd you weigh in the morning naked they're like well I weighed 189 today I'm like well what'd you weigh in this morning naked yeah they're like

oh 185 I was like you're good what are we even talking about why are we having this conversation right this all reminds me

of some of the stupidest shit I ever did in my entire life when I like I remember one specific trip going to Columbus to compete at a powerlifting show

I know one of my relatives is going to be really mad at me I don't want to be I don't want to be dehydrated and less than my best, so I got to make sure I have my calories.

For me, I'm a distorted 23, 24, 25 year old. Is this the time you forgot your creatine and freaked out? Well, there's that one time I was like,

I freaked out because I didn't have creatine before. It was my first powerlifting meet ever, which was Dave Tate's IPA Nationals. Yeah.

Which is not a good decision to do your first meet ever at a national fucking championship. No. So I realized that night eating a pizza at Macaroni Grill, I realized, oh shit, it's been like four or five days since I took creatine. It's like, fuck. You're screwed. I'm going to bomb out. So I crushed like 10 caps of creatine that night. I was like, fuck, I'm going to bomb out. So I crushed like 10 caps of creatine that night.

I was like, fuck, fuck. I was freaking out. But on these drives up, I'm like, I don't want to be dehydrated. Meanwhile, I had no problem. I was fucking 370 pounds. There's no lack of muscle glycogen in your fat ass. I remember driving up in my Jeep, same Jeep I got now, old trusty Jeep I had on the fucking passenger side. I went to Walmart the night before I got a whole gallon of fucking blue Gatorade,

like it was big family Gatorades. I took the whole fucking thing on the drive to Columbus and I had a giant bag of Eminem trail mix. I was just fucking bang, bang. I ate the whole bag of that on like an eight hour drive. And that wasn't my meals. That was, I ate a meal, a Cracker Barrel. I drove, I ate a meal in Nashville. I drove, I ate a meal in Cincinnati. I drove, ate a meal in Columbus. And I drank that in between. At the same time, I'd be like,

I don't understand why I'm three-seated. I don't eat that much. I can't believe I'm talking to a heavyweight about this. You're fine. Eat your chicken. Do whatever you gotta do. You're fine. That's what I said.

If you are like me, the weight cutting discussion is such a novel, interesting discussion here because there was never a concern in your fucking life ever. Let me tell you guys the craziest story

you're ever gonna hear. Oh, I'm ready. So, when I was young and I was competing and I was winning a lot in powerlifting, I had this very extreme view on life.

And so, I'm very ADHD. Like, I mean, if lot in powerlifting, I had this very extreme view on life. And so I'm very ADHD. Like, I mean, if I conquer one thing, then I get bored with it. I want to move on to something else. So I was winning at 220, and at the time, pretty easily. So I'm bored in my room. I'm like, you know what?

I'm going to drop to 198 and break that world record. And so, and for all of you that don't know, like, I was a really lean 220. But you're 5'7", so you're like, oh, I could probably do it. Yeah, but here's what, I thought I could. And so at the time, I was huge, and I was lean, and I thought,

I mean, it should make sense, because when I was younger, I competed in 198. I was really good at it, and I'm thinking, I can get back down. But I just waited too long to lose. What did you compete in weightlifting? In weightlifting, 91 kilos back in the day. It was a different weight class. It was 91s.

Okay. Which was, you know, that's the most athletic. When I'm 91, 94 is when I'm more athletic. Right. But when I'm strong, I'm at 220. But okay, so I try to lose this weight and it's the day before i'm getting fairly close and so i'll just say it in powerlifting we we're extreme this is the wpo so we are using anything goes anything goes so look don't it was just i

was playing by the rules and so i'm using diuretics like crazy. And I've still got lots to go. And I'm in my bathroom sealed up. You know what I mean? I've taken hot towels, sealed up the doorway, put the water on the mirror that Krasilowski stole from me. Started as his own. Sorry. That makes me so mad.

I was like, oh, like Matt used to do. I taught as his own. Sorry. That makes me so mad. And so. I was like, oh, like Matt used to do. I taught him that shit. Yeah. I was spanking Matt when I was doing that.

Hot shower going. I got a hot shower going. It's a makeshift steam room. So I'm sitting there. I'm sitting there. I've got the sauna suit on in this place with a hood on.

You've created a tomb for yourself. A tomb. Yeah. And I'm by myself and then all of a sudden I feel really weird this place with a hood on. You've created a tomb for yourself. A tomb. Yeah. And I'm by myself. And then all of a sudden, I feel really weird. And this bead of sweat drips off my nose and stops.

And then goes real slow to the ground, hits, and like explodes and echoes. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I'm like, man. And all of a sudden, I got cold, and I drop. Heat stroke. Oh, yeah.

I've called my friend, Ox, you know. Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, dude, please come get me. Yeah,

I'm on the floor, like. Dude, I'm gonna die in here. Yeah, exactly. No doubt, I was dying.

Yeah. So, he comes and gets me, takes me to the hospital. You know, it was terrible. I get So he comes and gets me, takes me to the hospital. You know, it was terrible. I get all these bags of IVs, you know, trying to rehydrate me back. You know what's crazy? Probably took like 40 bags of IVs.

Here's what's crazier is that I still competed. No way. Oh, it was so dumb. It was so dumb. So then I had to go, you know, i'd gotten down to like maybe 200 like two pounds above 198 and so then i'm like well i'll go 220 it's such a bad decision it was so horrible like normally like i would open up 950 on squat so i drop it way down to 900 and it's way down to 900 look it is like it i it bends me over the very first rep bends me over, the very first rep.

It bends me over so much, it broke my ribs right out of the gate. I still, somehow, the grace of God come up, got the weight. You break a rib squatting and you make it up. I broke the rib. Wow. People don't get it about powerlifting, man. People see it externally. Yeah.

They go, it's like a circus side show. They cheat with the gear and they cut. They're looking for every advantage. It's that, but really it's more accurate to say these motherfuckers will do anything to be as strong as possible. It's the most extreme of all, intense of all strength sports. You go to powerlifting meet where it's death metal for eight hours a day and it's a bunch of serious motherfuckers who don't want you

to win. They want to crush you at all odds. It's a different thing. Not always fun. No, the back room, were you ever in the back room in the WPO? Every time, yeah. It's no fun and games. We are not friends. Nobody's fucking smiling about anything.

I mean, I was always like, hey, what's up, To Chuck Vogelpool. And he'd be like, he never would respond to me. Like, it was no doubt. He's warming up and his neck is purple. Yeah. And like, it's like, we're all within, and it happens a lot. Fights break out in the back room.

And like, it is no doubt like a boxing match. Like, we hate every, I never could do that though. Like, I would always be like, what's up boys? And they'd be like, I hate you. I'm like a boxing match. Like we hate every, I never could do that though. Like I would always be like, what's up boys? And they'd be like, I hate you. I'm like, all right.

You know, we're all hoping we could beat your ass today. You're not going to, but I'm going to smile about it. You know, as far as you were winning most of the time.

Maybe that's why they hated me, but they would tell us. as far as you, you know, that could be why you were like, oh yeah, I'm going to win today. That's the whole point

I would like to make is like, you know, it's not necessary to be like that. It is not necessary. If I was was gonna compete and power thing all over again i'd have my current attitude which i'm gonna have the most fun possible and be as centered and focused and mindful as possible because that's what's gonna allow me to be efficient when i score no doubt let me give you guys this knowledge bomb now write this down here is when i decided to be here's when i became a world champion when i I was in the back room and I realized what was really happening,

all I'm doing is lifting weights that I love to lift with a bunch of people that love to do it, and that's all. I'm just lifting weights like I love to do. Same thing in weightlifting. I tell all my weightlifters, you are doing nothing but the sport you love with a bunch of people who love it also. That's it. Takes all the pressure away.

You're not changing the world. We are not curing cancer. We are lifting weights. When you can do that, when you can break down sport like that, is when you become a world champion. I tell my NFL football players, we talk about it.

They say yes. They relax. They don't get, you know, in high school, did anybody play football here? I played football for like fucking two, way too long. All right. In high school when everybody gets so geared up and they're so tense and they're just like,

they're going to kill everybody. You can't remember your plays. Yeah, you can't remember. No, you can't remember your plays, but you get tired. You watch an NFL football player before they're playing, they're joking, they're laughing because they get it. That is how you become a world champion. Yeah.

I did think that was an interesting piece of the level one seminar that you gave when you were talking about program design at the very end. Right before you really dug into the program design side of it, you did talk about how to be a world champion, not just for health and to get stronger, but if you want to be a champion, you've got to have a group stronger but like if you want to be a champion you got to have a group you got to have training partners you got to have a coach you got to have people there to support you you can't do it by yourself no doubt you know i love my garage warriors and you know you can get really good but if you want

to be a world we're talking about an elite world champion you know or in america make a world team if you want to be the best of the best you've got to lift around others they're trying to do the same because it's contagious and you'll feed off each other you know um that's this is coming from donnie shankle too you know in his uh uh ivan you know abba david jf butcher yeah yeah abba jf so i tried to bring away with the coach's name yeah that bulgarian the best the most world-renowned weightlifting coach. He himself tells me how to pronounce his name. I'm never going to have an accurate idea.

Exactly. I hear it a million different ways. We'll call him Ivan. And so it was coming from him. He's talking about learning your minimums, which is like at any given day what you'll hit when you walk in the gym. And then knowing your maximums like what's your best as of right now group you know having that awesome group atmosphere

and then mindset which well really what it is Ivan would tell you PEDs I take the yeah performance and drugs medicine yeah all the Europeans call it medicine. That's exactly what Ivan would say. You guys know the story like when he walks in when he first comes to America. Okay, so he's like, oh, your athletes, they're very good, very good.

That's a good accent. Very fit. But where are my pink pills? And they're not. This is where the pink, you know, we joke about pink pills but that's this is where it came from and so well fuck i can't coach these guys and then he's like you

know wait it gets better so then they're like i mean you know we're drug tested we have usada you know all our athletes are clean and he's like hmm what what is the point? I hope I didn't get anybody in trouble, but you know, whatever. There's no secret, man. At my seminars, I take the whole PDs out of it. But now I guess they're in there. I just told the world. So I replace it with mindset because that should be in there. It's also equally as important.

No doubt. If you don't have- If you get hung up on the stairway thing. You got that right. If you don't have that, you can take all the drugs you want, man. If you don't have that mindset, that killer mindset, that fearless mindset, you're screwed. You can go to any fucking gym around here. Yeah.

Any of these little globo gyms, like your gold gym in any hometown, there's going to be everybody in there. Maybe half those meatheads are on some kind of drug and not lifters most people on drugs aren't champions they're not fucking lifters no 99 of them are not champions yeah so that's a really easy thing to say and everyone probably agrees with that but how does how does something develop a really good mindset to be a world champion like how does that even how does that happen is that something you're innately born with? Or can you develop it? Or is it a combination of the two?

How does that work? I think it's a combination of the two. Here's the way I give people hope. We believe in paradigm shifts. A paradigm is what you believe is reality. So if you think, Doug, that you could make the Nationals, that you're going to qualify for the nationals in weightlifting. As your coach, I'm trying to shift that up.

Like I'm thinking top 10 or maybe podium. And so if I say that enough over and over, you start to believe that. I believe as humans, our minds are very strong, and we don't use them enough. But at, you know, at MASH, what we do at my gym is we are constantly shifting all of our athletes up a notch. And then it's so strange in that little town. You guys have been there.

It's a little in the middle of nowhere town. We have over 50 Division I recruited athletes, and I believe it's because we built that culture. It's because when they come in as say when they're in seventh grade and their parents bring them to me right away i'm up front i'm like you know this is what to expect we train champions we will get the best out of your son and or daughter and if that is not what you're expecting i will tell them other gyms to go to i'm not being mean i'm just like you know this is the culture we have formed.

Right. And so from that point on, we're talking nothing but collegiate, pro, whatever. I'm shifting this kid's view up. I have a kid, Cade Carney. He's already got four Division I offers, and that was in his freshman year. Oh, damn. And this is football. Yeah, he's no joke.

That's a good sign. He's no joke. So now I'm over talking about college. We're already talking about NFL because, you know, I train the NFL players. Well, this kid is as good as them. I'm telling you, I know because I know how fast they are and how fast he is. So in his brain, if he starts to see that when he's in college, that's his expectation. That's exactly right, dude.

Right. I think that's one of the main benefits of having the group is that if you're lifting with a group of people and the best squatter in the room squats 400, that's the standard. That's as high as the expectations go. That's advisory. Right.

And so if you're, I heard a good quote one time about leadership. They were saying that one of the best qualities of a leader is when you have a vision of the future that's bigger than the vision that whoever you're leading has for themselves. So if you have a bunch of athletes and the highest squat is 1,200, tip-top in the world, well, now that's the standard, and that's what you're chasing. The higher the expectation, the higher people are going to go just naturally. You don't have to force it no doubt because if the high squad is 1200 when you get to 1100 you're not like you're like okay that all that is is a stepping stone to

get to where you want to be it's not like a big deal you know what i mean like you're not like oh as soon as that guy noticed like this this kid as soon as he realized like dude there are people who have made the nfl because they worked really hard have less talent than me as soon as he realized, like, dude, there are people who have made it to the NFL because they worked really hard, have less talent than me. As soon as he gets it, he's like, fuck it, I'm going. I'm going. Now it's just a matter of him just executing and continuing. As long as he doesn't stop, he might get there. No doubt.

This kid, you know, barring any injury, as long as he has the right mindset, no doubt he will. And so the paradigm shift for him is all the way from he's only a 10th grader in high school. I'm already seeing NFL. And he's like, you're right. He believes school i'm already seeing nfl and he's like right he believes me yeah maybe right coach yeah well they know that i won't tell them something i'm just going to shift it one step at a time and when i shift it up one and then they reach that you know that shift then we shift it up again and so it don't bite off more than you can chew yeah i don't want to like you know if a kid like, obviously if he's going to be lucky at this point to get a Division I scholarship,

I'm not going to talk NFL because it's overwhelming. You know what I mean? You don't say this out loud. You're not like, hey, man, if you keep this up, you got an NFL future. What about me, coach? You doing good? Hey, man, you're working hard. If you go too high, it almost seems like you're lying and you're bullshitting them.

You're going to be the best NFL linebacker ever. And the kid's like 125 pounds. He's like a freshman in high school. I would never even say it like that. I would never say you're going to be. I'm like, if you commit yourself to eating right. We call it being a master. I think last time I told you master of the mundane.

I think, I don't know, but like if you do these little things, if you really commit yourself to the program, this is where you're going to be. But it's up to you. I like how you focus on like what it takes to get there instead of like just being there. Right. Because I think a lot of people...

You got to have the steps built in. A lot of people are like, I'm going to be a college athlete. I'm just going to do it. It's like, well, you're like, well, if you do these things then you can do that.

That's exactly. That's what doing it represents. Right. When someone, and I get it a lot because now that everybody knows that this is the place to be to get to here.

So when they come in they're like, I'm going to play Division I, you know, whatever. I'm like, awesome. I'm like, what are you planning on doing to get there? And I let them talk and they're like, I'm going to play Division I, you know, whatever. I'm like, awesome. I'm like, what are you planning on doing to get there?

And I let them talk. And they're like, I'm like, don't worry about it. That's where I come in. I'll give you the steps. Right. So then I give them a reality check. They haven't even thought it through at all. You know, I'm like, let's make some steps of how to get there.

Yeah. All right, we're going to take a break real quick. When we come back, we're going to find out the steps it takes to become a world champion. All right. Probably not. This is Andrea Ager, and you're listening to Barbell Shrug. For the video version, go to barbellshrug.com. Barbell Shrug is brought to you by you.

To learn more about how you can support the show, go to barbellshrug.com and sign up for the newsletter. CTP's keeping us on track. Is that truly what just happened? And we're back. That is just what happened. Travis never knows if we're really back or not back. I know. I'm allowing you to lock your door so no one can have smooth.

Oh, yeah. You remember that last time? When I go lock the door, he goes, no. He goes, really? Yeah. On the last episode. No. That last time. I go lock the door. He goes, no. He goes, really? Yeah. On the last episode. No. Episode 97.

What is this? What would this be? Episode 97. Who knows? We actually have no idea. Well, we'll figure it out. We're not sure when we're going to post. No promises.

By the time you're watching this, it could have been years. It won't be. That'd be crazy. What were we going to talk about i i mean the level made this crazy claim oh yeah you didn't claim that we're gonna talk about how to be a world champion so but uh i think we're pretty much all the secrets yeah minus the peds you know i think we gave the mindset being the most well you're gonna have to next let's be serious i mean with me independent on next for the sport that you intend on,

being a world champion. That's right. You're not going to go be a world champion at basketball. No, I'm not. Even though I was really good. Even if you do all the mundane. He's like, I could have been. There's a balance between what's possible

and then the mundane execution of a plan and then the genetic potential and then having everything. Maybe if you yeah then the genetic potential then yes having everything yes maybe if you're 5'7 you can squat a thousand pounds you probably jump pretty good i can jump really good yeah oh yeah we need it we need some ctp cam photos of him dunking a basketball i gotta get warmed up i just you know believe it or not he was 40 yeah i know but look this is a true story i lost a lot of weight got down to like the 207, maybe, when was it? Three or four months ago, and I dunked again.

Oh, really? At 40 years old. I know what I did. Okay, I'm going to do it again just so I can get that on video. You got a video. Yeah, yeah. What do you mean regulation high, man? Yeah.

You can't say I dunked a ball and let that be like eight, nine feet. Nine feet, that's gay. I can dunk on a 10-footer if I have a trampoline. That's pretty good. I can touch the bottom of the net when I jump. So, here to bring us back on track, talking about your seminar and whatnot. Everyone likes to hear about programming. Right.

And in the level one and in level two, you covered a few things that were the same and some things that were a little more advanced on the advanced seminar. Right. But the things that you covered on both, maybe you could talk about those and specifically how you kind of stagger your volume and intensity over that four week cycle. Right. Well, let me make it, gosh, it's going to be cool like on a podcast to simplify it. What really we do, you take a, number one, you got to know your volume.

So if you don't know your volume, then this is not going to make any sense. So if you don't know it, here's how you get it. You got to take, you know, your poundage times the reps times the sets of everything you do throughout the entire week. So if you don't know it now, go figure it out. So then you take your normal volume week one. Week two, you purposely take it too high. So if you don't know it now, go figure it out. So then you take your normal volume week one. Week two, you purposely take it too high. You know, let's say that I'm just going to throw an easy number.

Say you're at 10,000 for the week. Purposely take it to 12,000. Something crazy. You know, overtrain. I don't like the word overtrain, but you're going to beat yourself down. You're not going to feel good in week two. Week three, you're going to drop the volume. Keep the intensity high, meaning you're going to beat yourself down. You're not going to feel good in week two. Week three, you're going to drop the volume, keep the intensity high, meaning you're going to go heavy.

Week four, deload. Week five, you're going to come back to week one plus a little. There you have it. That makes sense. That's really it. And then over time, that just continues to climb. So you're going to have more volume week five than week one? Right. Just a little. If you start out 10,000, 10,500.

Over a year's time, you've increased your volume a ton. But that's your body breaking down or feeling tired or whatever. For deload, you drop the intensity and the volume? No, here's the thing. With deload, you know, used to I would drop everything down. Like I would drop the snatches and clean jerks below 85 and the squats to like crazy like 50 and 60 you know and i found that most of my athletes when they came back their cns systems were just and unlearned some of the exercises kind of leaves that edge you get untuned

you do get untuned well here's the thinguned. Well, here's the thing. With weightlifting, because it's so fast, anything, there's research that says, anything below 85%, the CNS perceives that as something totally different. You know, it is used to doing 85% and above. And so we don't drop, even deload, below below 85 to 90% on the snatch cleanser and the squats. We might drop it to 80% or 85, but we don't drop this significant, you know, like the 50, 60%. It just stay at home. The biggest mistake people make is that they take a, they either drop everything down,

like you said, or they drop the weight down and they let the reps stay still high. Like in a bench maybe okay well i hit it i hit it hit it now i'm gonna take a break i'll just do like this much for a couple sets of 20 or whatever like you're doing actually you can come away from that more tired than more volume it's more volume the reps you gotta take down that would be heavy that would be a rookie who doesn't understand volume you You know, like, yeah. We're going to drop the percentage down, but we're going to do more reps. Is that math equation? Dude, 200 times 20.

It's a lot. You know? It's a lot more than 300 times 3. But anyway. So that's how we drop it down. So week one is your normal volume. Week two, you're basically overtraining. On purpose.

For the most part. At the end of week two, you should pretty much feel like shit. You should feel like you did too much. Yeah, you should feel beat down. John, his appetite, it will start to have trouble eating. You might have trouble sleeping. What I would recommend during week two is try to help your body adapt to this. Here's what we're trying to do.

We're trying to cause adaptation. So, like, you know, increase what you're eating, increase the sleep that you're getting, you know, increase the soft tissue work that you might be getting. Like, we use the heck out of ART, Graston. Our chiropractor, Dr. Gray, is a Mac daddy. He's been mine. He was mine even when i was going to

the wpo championships he would come with me to the arnold classic anyway so he he is our chiropractor on staff you know helping my guys recover so you gotta up that too during week two and so okay so week one normal week two extra high and then week three you're dropping the volume way down but keeping the weights heavy, the intensity high. Snatch and clean above 85%. But then on squats, do you drop below 85% and do anything? How do you work with the squats on week three? On week three, no, we're going heavy.

Week three, everything's heavy. Volume is low, but intensity's high. So we're going to go heavy on everything. So you use the 85% rule for squats as well as the cleans right so okay no no no no no sorry the 85 rule does not apply to squat because it's slower so like um for example since it's slower the body perceives it whether it's 60 or whether it's 90 as a squat okay yeah that was a leading question question. I thought I heard you all wrong in your seminar. No, yeah.

No, no, no. Yeah, you got me there. Okay. No. No, you can drop the weight down on the squats. I still don't go on deload week really low. I just might do 80% for three singles. You know what I mean?

I never find a heavy squat to be that fatiguing. No. If you're doing five by five, you get crushed. If you work up to a heavy single and stop, to me, I do that most of the time as a warm-up, actually. Right. I get moving and I do that. That deload thing, that extreme deload thing,

came from the powerlifting, the geared powerlifting. You do need a break. It's a beatdown, dude. You put on that squat suit and you're trying to do 1,000, 1,100 pounds. You need a break. But not with you. We were just watching that video 30 seconds ago right before we started the second half of the show where it took like four guys to wrap his knees.

The guy that just set that record. He just squatted 1,000 audience. You can YouTube this lift. He just squatted with just the bar on his back and a singlet, no and some but some knee wraps they posted mark bell posted a video of three grown men all guys you probably benched six seven hundred pounds pulling up that knee wrap and laying it over like they're with all they had with all they had all these guys are world-class pilots i don't know how his legs weren't just like you know cut right in half i never did that that that is one thing i never did i always wrapped my own knees i didn't want i hated that yeah so yeah that just that i can just feel the pain of that guy like knee wraps hurt worse than anything oh yeah yeah people say oh

i haven't thought quite off because i still wear them every time i do anything but i wrap them very loose like a knee sleeve because i don't like knee sleeves because they don't fit well right but when people see that go oh go, oh, you're cheating. If you can walk for more than 30 seconds in knee sleeves, you're not really cheating. You're not doing a very stiff-legged walk. Yeah. If they're doing what they're supposed to be doing, you can tell because you get a zombie walk. The face will not be pleasured.

Richard used to put wraps on me. I would do a little bit of power lifting. He's like, let's try out these knee wraps. I'm like, oh, God. Yeah. Richard would put them on me. I would do a little bit of power lifting. He's like, let's try out these knee wraps. I'm like, oh, God. Richard would put them on me, big power lifting guy. He just strapped them on me, and he's like shaking, putting them on. I'm like, I do my squat. I'm like, get them off, get them off.

I'm trying to rip them off. But, you know, for weightlifting, I say, you know what? I would wear a springy, stretchy knee wrap when I do my heavy squats. You just tighten them up to get a little support, but you can still get down all the way. You don't take them off between sets. I think it's a very good thing to have. No doubt.

Yeah, John uses Ace Bandage when he does his squats. You can't make them too excessive, but it gives you a little support, a little confidence. A little support. You're going to lift more mostly because you feel protected. Yeah, and the compression. He's been weightlifting for eight years now, so his knees, you know, there's a little inflammation in his knees,

so that support takes it away. Yeah, and look at all the best lifters in the world, like Isaac Klokoff, whatever. They're all going to use some tools to help them feel better, so they can keep training. Like wrist straps, if your wrists get beat up from 10, 20 years of lifting, it's not a bad thing to brace that wrist. No, I know, man.

People are like, my wrist hurts today. I'm going to take the day off. Take your wrist, man. I mean, you know what? Like a guy like that, if someone says things like that to me,

hear this if you want to be on my weightlifting team. If you're going to cry about your wrist and there's nothing on it, you're not trying to work through it, don't come work out.

Don't try to be on my team. Gold's Gym is down the street. Seriously. And there's other weightlifting teams that that's cool. Not in mine. I'm like, you're gay. Get out of here, you know? So, yeah.

Yeah. All right, I'm curious about one thing that we missed, which was during week three, how you say the intensity is high. Right. Are we going 100% on that? No, I mean, yeah, we might drop it was during week three, how you say the intensity is high. Right. Are we going 100% on that? No, I mean, yeah, we might drop it to, you know, bring it up to heavy singles. Or we do a lot of rep maxes. So maybe a three rep, two rep max, depending on where we're at, you know. So we do, we don't use percentages as much except downsets.

So we'll go to like you might people in my programming this happens during like week two week one and week two you're fighting rep maxes as well right yeah we're rep maxing but they're okay yeah but they're just you know like let's say that on week two if we're going like three rep max and then we might be doing a downside of negative five and a downside of negative 10 well in week four we might just be going straight three rep max and now i'm letting my lifters focus on that three rep max you know what i mean like yeah if if you know all you have to do is that one three rep max we all know we're gonna go for it and we're gonna do more yeah but if we know we got two downsets coming you're gonna pull it a little

short i mean we're human and that's And that's okay. And that's okay. You build that into the plan and you'll be all right. Yeah. You know that the next week is where we're really going to test it. You're probably going to leave a little bit in the tank. Maybe not. So what happens on week four? I am programming for human nature.

There you go. That's exactly right. You have to. What happens on week four? Week four, the deload week, is just real chill. We'll probably go to somewhere between 85% and 90% on snatch and clean and jerk. And then on the squats, we'll go right around 80%. You know, three reps on the squats, maybe one to two on the snatch, clean and jerk.

Nice and easy. Not a lot of sets take let the body recover lots and lots of soft tissue that week active recovery too we do a lot of a lot of sled pulling all my guys you know pull sleds as active recovery so you keep using percentages in your examples but when you're riding you're programming or you're ridingM, 2RM, and then on the deload week, are you riding 3RM, or are you just riding 80% for three? On the deload week, I'm probably going to use a percent. That's a great question. Then I'm going to go X percent because then I want to make sure I keep them below.

Because if you put an RM, it's going to be an RM. I'm trying to keep them. These guys won't control themselves. No. They're going to go for it. No. They feel like shit. They'll try to go for it.

So that is the one week we will use um percentages so are you writing full four week blocks all in one stretch you write the next four weeks and then you follow it or you write you know you know how you're gonna stagger it right but you wait till each week completes and then you write next week's workouts no workouts based on what's happening that week. Actually, for John, I have his entire workout written until 2020, which took me forever. Sounds time-consuming. It sounds crazy, doesn't it? Do you alter it all the time, adjust it and tweak it? Yes.

You just kind of know where you're heading. You've got to know where on the map you're trying to get to, but then you adjust the trip as you go right what we learned for example monday sucked for him because he does a lot of the seminars so i'm not going to be i know that his coaches of the past used to fight him on it i'm not going to fight him on taking care of his family so what i'll do is on mondays the volume will be a little lower than like wednesdays and so i'm just anticipating what's going to happen so yeah i had I had to like switch the game plan right there. It will constantly be if we see a weakness.

Like who would have thought that, you know, that with John, his thoracic spine and upper back, there would be a weakness. You'd think he snatches 166 kilos, that his back's going to be perfect. But we found that weakness. So guess what? We added things to address that.

So all my athletes, it's a living document. You know, it's going to, like, change as they change and as injuries come. So John North, he's talking about John North. Oh, yeah. You are John North's coach. Yeah, I am John North's coach. There you go. So if someone comes to you and they say, I got a hurt wrist,

you don't just say, well, quit being a pussy and just go do whatever was already programmed. Do you, do you make little changes to maybe spare their wrist a little bit? Depends on how hurt it is. You know, like, you know, you have to learn your athletes. I won't name any names, but like, I know certain athletes, their idea of a hurt wrist is it's just aching and I want to be like, shut up, you know? But then I also know like if John, if something i want to be like shut up you know but then i also know like if john if something's hurting something's hurt you know like then i'm like going to be

my eyes are going to open up a little wider and i'm gonna be like uh-oh you know but so you got to know your athlete but like like i said if they have a major wrist yeah we'll work around it like you know one of my younger athletes has got an issue right now with wrists. So if I have to, we'll go away from the clean. You know, we'll do clean pulls and, like, front squats if we can do front squats. So, yeah, we'll work around it. But, you know, I want them to do whatever, like, use tape to wrists, use wrist wraps, use whatever you can to, like, go through that. So coming out of a powerlifting background,

powerlifters use a lot of assistance movements on top of the big three lifts right did you incorporate that into the training of the weightlifters as well you guys do a lot of assistance movements yeah i think that you know i learned a lot from louis simmons um i don't agree with everything he says about weightlifting but i definitely agree with like if i see a weakness i'm going to target it it only makes sense you know look at the chinese they do a ton of assistance and guess what they're kicking everyone's butt so maybe laugh it up we're doing the extensions all you want but they get a result whatever they're winning yeah we're not so maybe instead of laughing we should take note that's what i do you know a lot of people gave louis simmons a hard time but maybe instead of giving such a hard time they should, can we learn something from him? Because no doubt, if you're around that man for any amount of time,

you're going to learn things. He's happy to teach you. Dude, yeah, he's happy to teach you. And that guy, as far as targeting weaknesses, is brilliant. And, you know, like a lot of weightlifting coaches need to take note. So obviously what we've done over the last several years, we haven't gotten any medals so let's change and adapt instead of like you know here's another thing for american coaches instead

of looking at other you know countries maybe why don't we for once be proactive and think for ourselves and try to go advanced past them instead of copying everybody's got this fucking attitude where if if a coach says one thing you don't agree with somehow you think you'll just throw the baby out with a fucking bath water nothing he says must be right look at louis he'll say like i always say he'll say one thing that is just oh yeah i agree one thing that's crazy as shit one thing that is really insightful no he's not filthy he's just like maybe this maybe this maybe this and yeah you don't have to do reverse band power cleans right if you don't want to maybe that's not a good idea. Right.

Maybe we wouldn't do that. But we would target thoracic spine issue with a certain goofy exercise. It's all it's doing is trying to get that point because you're not going to get that just by your squats. No doubt. You're not going to get that just by your clean. No doubt. It's going to have one or two things in your program every once in a while where you're

like, I'm not sure if this is really going to work. But I'm doing all these other things right. 98% of my program I know is going to work. It's like that reality of you. This other 2% is going to probably work and I'm going to test it. You don't think it's going to work, but I'm doing all these other things right. 98% of my program I know is going to work. It's like that reality of you. This other 2% is going to probably work and I'm going to test it. You don't think it's going to work, but how the fuck do you know?

You haven't tried it. That's the attitude I like about Louie's. It's experiment. We'll see. Maybe we'll do 100 hamstring curls. If it makes our hamstrings tougher, maybe we can train harder on it. No doubt.

If it works, you're going to wait around for an NSCA study on it to start incorporating it. I mean, no, you're not. You're going to try to play with something and see what you get a result. Absolutely. You're five, ten years behind all the time. That does not go on enough in weightlifting to where you just literally try new things and see if they work.

In 2006, I did a total west side view with Olympic lifting. And there's a crazy video of me doing snatches with bands, cleans with chains. I think I remember that. Yeah, insane. I did overhead squats with chains. I did overhead squats with dangling kettlebells. It was insane. Holy shit.

I don't know what I was thinking. Like, I look back, I was in a very mantic state. And so I lost my mind. But I will tell you this, I got strong really fast. So whatever. You can say whatever you want about the efficacy of that. I'm not a scientific perspective. I got strong.

It's fun as shit. And if it's fun as shit, you're going to train hard. You're going to train hard. You're going to get stronger. I got an athlete I'm thinking right now. I'm going to hang kettlebells with a band on a bar. Come on, you sons of bitches. Let's get wild.

Let's do it. Yeah. That's a big part of the novelty like chris just said the fact that it's new and it's fun like that's that's a big part of motivation for a lot of guys especially the guys that aren't trying to be world champions they give a shit what happens they're going they're going this way they're gonna live heavy and hard every single day no matter what those people maybe they don't need it but for regular people that they're they've been training for a while and they're kind of getting to like the

grind of training and they just want they want to have some like unique experience every once in a while that's fun and it re-engages them and makes them a little more motivated to come in on that one particular day. Yeah, like doing something new and novel, even if the research doesn't back it up once in a while is a good thing. I would recommend a balance. Like the periodization rules that I would abide by would say the younger you are, the more things should be a little constant because you got to adapt to something because if you're

too variable and like you're squatting, maybe you won't get good at squatting. But if there's consistency there in your building, you've got to bake in randomness. Like Zach's guys, these students here, these little kids, you wouldn't say variation will work for them, but they're young, 80-D crazy kids who are untrained. If they're having fun and mixing up here,

they're dragging a different sled every day. He's doing things like the sled is always there. The pull-ups are always there. The squats are going to be there. The carry and drag is going to be there. But the deadlift bar will change. The kind of thing they drag will change. The grips on the pull-ups will change.

You can't just have them do pull-ups, pull-ups, pull-ups, pull-ups, pull-ups. Same grip. They're going to just get bored. And these are wrestlers. Yeah. They have strange strengths anyway just like you you mma guys that grip strength is ridiculous i don't know what i don't even know what that is but you know you you've got to change it up and make it hard for these guys because wrestling for

example changes all the time like how long it's going to last you know you might pin a guy in 30 seconds so you use a whole different strength system right there but like if it lasts the the whole three rounds i mean it's all you don't know what's gonna happen a guy might throw you gotta you know you gotta roll ready for things that aren't planned right and so zach's planning is you don't know what you're getting into i bet his athletes as they walk in the door i bet they're like all right you know he's got this great video you showed us on his cell phone Where there's this one Like that You guys

He's this jack Fucking little game 18 year old guy He's like yeah come on Who wants to wrestle And all these kids are like I didn't wrestle man They're all sitting on the curb

Going man This guy's got his shirt off He's pacing around He's like ready for it And Zach's like come on Who wants to wrestle this guy Come on let's go He's trying to get the energy up

Come on guys you know what Let's do it The guy's like skinnier He guys, you know what? Let's do it. The guy's like skinnier. He's like, you know what? Fuck it. He goes for it. They mix it up. They mix it up.

He ends up pinning the guy. And all of a sudden, these kids get up. What? And they're all like in his face going, yeah. But the energy, boom, is different. Now, all these guys have, like, if you just have a periodization plan with these kids, oh, I'm going to do this carefully. You're not going to get a fucking result out of these kids.

No. It's better than not doing anything. But that's the kind of thing that fun thing that random thing cracks open the possibilities for these guys now they start mixing it up now they're gonna drag that sled with another fucking 45 245s extra on it right that's what you need this place so what are like the what are like the big three weaknesses you've seen over the years and what what assistance movements have you used successfully to fix those weaknesses oh i think um the thoracic spine being able to stabilize the spine especially in the scapula so we've used what we call plate extensions where we're you know we're hinged at the hip and we're you know we're flexing i guess like let me demonstrate yeah go and demo it sure like

pretend pretend there's a plate in my hand. It's what Travis is doing sort of like in a bent-over row position, and he's sort of rounding the shoulder blades forward and rounding up. So he's not like actually doing a bent row. You're holding it, you know. You're holding the plate bent over, and you're kind of shrugging up, back, and down. How strong is strong enough in that movement? It doesn't necessarily.

Because, you know, like guys with John, you've got to be able to stabilize the spine as you you know that really wide grip of the snatch with you know 300 and almost 70 pounds or some people are stronger are you throwing that into guys warm-ups and having them just no 45 or in 15 reps are you having them like like stack up some plates and do like triples with that like or and when and how are you doing we're doing it at the end because you know i don't want to you know because you're gonna get weak it's gonna crush your back so i don't want to weaken their their spine you know what i mean before they get ready to do their big

lifts and so uh it's it's at the end and we it's like for several it's hypertrophy we're trying to build a little muscle a little stimulation you know and the main thing is the time that you hold and because these are these are uh isometric contractions that you have to hold during the lift. You're right. Yeah, you don't just rep it out. You're going to hold it five, three seconds in between each rep. How much weight are they doing? Just to play.

Just 45? You know, like John would use a red 55-pound. So 55 pounds. Yeah. But probably if you're going to do it start off as large as you want because that's not what the weight

is not important just doing I think with assistance work people do it because they feel like I got to do it

like I'll just do some glute ham I'll just do this that but not really think about what they need to get out of it like what's the

purpose of the purpose is not to see how much you can shrug back with your shoulder blades right so the purpose is I got to feel how

I'm moving I got to hold it and i slowly progress that up right you're not the ego will get in the way and you end up popping your back if you try to row a hundred pound plate because you think that's that's what's going to give you the result i think the if i could give you your audience the biggest nugget to be a game changer would be this the front squat pauses that we do Now I'm going to explain it quickly and here's how it goes. Well, first of all, let me tell you that our lifter, Easy, went from being the weakest guy

on our team to a nationally ranked weightlifter over the course of him doing this, what I'm about to tell you. So you do, you take a front squat, you walk it out. You squat it in the bottom. Hold it seven seconds. Come up. Hold it 15 seconds. Rack it. You work up to a max single like that. Do a few drop sets doing the same exact. Seven and 15.

Seven and 15. Then you do like a three weeks wave of that. Then you drop it to five and 12. Then you do for three weeks. And then you do the last wave is for three and 10. If you do that guaranteed, number one, not only will your squat go up,

but the weight, the stabilization that you have throughout the lifts will go up and you will get stronger. That is your nugget for the day. Awesome. Thanks. I think we'll close with that. All right. Appreciate it.

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There you go. I'm right down as front squat tips. I've got to get my front squat moving. That is the nuggets. I'm just going to text you later. All right. Write down all those nuggets I made you do. I'll give it to you, brother. You can totally watch this episode whenever you want, by the way.

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