Barbell Shrugged - Belts, Wraps, and Straps: When, Why and How to Use Equipment for Gaining Strength w/ Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Travis Mash - Barbell Shrugged - Barbell Shrugged #487

Episode Date: July 20, 2020

In this Episode of Barbell Shrugged:   When is the right time to use a belt? Most common pitfalls of suing a belt. Advantages of using knee wraps. When do you use wraps and when is it creating imbalances. Is no equipment better than using equipment? Do straps make you stronger? Hand protection and the importance of taking care of your calluses. Best ways to use equipment without creating imbalances and crutches.   Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram   ————————————————   Training Programs to Build Muscle: https://bit.ly/34zcGVw   Nutrition Programs to Lose Fat and Build Muscle: https://bit.ly/3eiW8FF   Nutrition and Training Bundles to Save 67%: https://bit.ly/2yaxQxa   Please Support Our Sponsors   Shadow Creative Studios - Save $200 + Free Consult to start you podcast using code” “Shrugged” at podcast.shadowstud.io   Organifi - Save 20% using code: “Shrugged” at organifi.com/shrugged   www.magbreakthrough.com/shrugged - use coupon code SHRUGGED10 to save up to 40%   http://onelink.to/fittogether - Brand New Fitness Social Media App Fittogether   Purchase our favorite Supplements here and use code “Shrugged” to save 20% on your order: https://bit.ly/2K2Qlq4    Garage Gym Equipment and Accessories: https://bit.ly/3b6GZFj Save 5% using the coupon code “Shrugged”

Shark family, this week we got a good one. Belt, straps, and wraps. Sometimes you gotta have them. And we're gonna tell you how, when, and why so you can increase your strength and at the same time not develop any of the imbalances that come along with using equipment. Before we get rolling into the show,

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is a blast. Talking about gear. And I will see you guys after the show. Welcome to Barbell Strug. Dom Anders, Varner, Doug Loverson, Coach Travis Bass. Today we are going to be talking about... Oh, you got to see Coach on video. Give it as

freestyle boxing. Today, somebody had to bring are going to be talking about oh you got to see coach on on video give it as um it's freestyle boxing one two punch right today somebody had to bring some intelligence into that boxing combination you just threw yeah today we're talking about equipment in the gym i think one of the biggest questions that i get on either our facebook group on instagram is when people should start using belts um but not only belts. We're going to spend a lot of time doing that, but also talking about lifting shoes, belts, or not belts, wraps, knee sleeves, wrist wraps, all the extra things in equipment and why they exist, what the actual use is, kind of some of the biggest ways that people are not using them properly.

We get into belts. I think the belt is probably the most misunderstood piece of equipment. It's the most used and the most misunderstood of every piece of equipment that is worn. If you put the shoes on, if you're putting lifting shoes on, you automatically get the benefits. You don't have to think about it. But a is you need to know you have to need you need to know how to use it in order for it to be an effective it doesn't just end back pain it doesn't just take over for your abs um how often do you guys use equipment i know you still lift 600 pounds this weekend deadlift 605 605

um doug you're pretty minimalist these days though right yeah i really am i'm not competing in any strength sports so there's there's no i feel like there's no reason for me at this point i'm not since i'm not competing in anything to to use assistive gear i just want to use my body. I want to squat in shorts, t-shirt, and shoes. I'm just using me. That's it. If you guys are out, have these special springy sprint shoes, why do you need those?

Why don't you just practice running? You're not a sprinter. You're not trying to do anything extra special. I love doing the minimal thing. I was telling this the other day. I was like, that's part of the reason that I'm glad that I'm not playing football anymore. It's like you just got to haul around all kinds of gear all the time. You just have all this shit with you.

Hockey's kind of the same way. MMA is awesome. You just show up in shorts and no shoes. You flip flops off and then you go wrestle you got you got little gloves if you're if you're actually punching and all that but like for grappling all you need is you and another person just bring your ass that's all you need that's all you need how long did it take you to to want to go the minimalist route was it like as soon as you stopped competing and weightlifting or oh no i wanted to be like that

all the time oh really if i if i have gear with me it's because i feel like i absolutely need it yeah i've never wanted to bring a bunch of gear around so i have before like i you know i i very often in the past you know especially when i was competing weightlifting i wore weightlifting shoes every day but now that i'm not competing in weightlifting. I wore weightlifting shoes every day. But now that I'm not competing in weightlifting, I rarely wear my weightlifting shoes. You have such good mobility too. Just fine. I have great angle mobility. I don't really need them.

Yeah. But they still are helpful even if you have good mobility. But yeah, these days, it's super minimal. I just want my body to be as strong as my body is. And if there's a limitation that I can't do something

because I don't have the equipment to do it, well, either find something else to do or figure out how to fix that weakness and and then get get to that thing with my own my own body so to speak did you wear a belt when you're competing in weightlifting no rarely rarely some sometimes sometimes for a max um attempt um in the gym but never for a snatch and clean and jerk on the platform in competition um they just never felt good they never felt good to have a belt on while i was trying to do something that's like fast and athletic like occasionally like a you know if i was doing like heavy box squats you know with with chains and and you know i was using a safety bar or whatever else like i would that type of setup that type of scenario on occasion but mostly just to just to feel it know how to use it and be competent with it be

able to to show other athletes how to do it because i was you know coaching a lot more in person back then but never really cared about it for myself I always just felt like like I should just do whatever my body can do and if my body can't do it then I need to figure out a way to make my body do it without relying on some assistance gear. MASH you're still loaded up you got them all don't you? Yes I like uh nobody else still lists 600 pounds 605. Yeah I love my belt just because mainly you you know, I love going heavy and like you're, you're obviously when you put a belt on, it's going, if you use it correctly, like you were saying,

you're going to be able to lift more weight. And so like, you know, when I lift, unfortunately, this is a, this is not something that, you know, I would want anyone to repeat, but like, um, but like I, I compare myself, you know, to me of the past. And so like, you know, without the belt, you know, to me of the past. And so, like, you know, without the belt, you know, I can't go quite as heavy. And so I just like to go as heavy as I possibly can. Minus I'm not going to put on squat suits or any of that stuff. But, you know, I love my big belt.

Plus it's just like it's been with me forever. Like, I've had that belt even when, you know, I was at the Junior World Championships, Junior National Championships. Like, it's been with me. that belt even when you know i was at the junior world championships junior national championships like it's been with me what uh i've had that belt since 1995 so like wow so like it's like i don't know it's part of me i guess so i love having it with me how many pounds of weights have you lifted in that belt is it seven figures have you gotten there you've listed have you lifted in that belt? Is it seven figures? Have you gotten there? Have you lifted a million pounds in that belt? 25 years, probably. I would imagine, yeah.

I'm going to do that math. It's got to be – it has to be close. Yeah, I would do that. I did that math once trying to calculate the number of times I've done a back squat, which equals like two to three days a week for 20 years times at least 25 total reps. You start doing the math, and you're like, my God, the thing I'm the best at is putting something on my back and sitting down. What a skill.

Squatting since I was 11, so 35 years, 36 years. Yeah, it's crazy. I've been squatting longer than you guys have been alive, I think. You're not 36, are you? Seven as of two weekends ago. Okay. Grown-ass man. I'm in my late 30s now.

You were one year old and I was squatting. That's wild. Crazy. Yeah, but you – so what is your – we're going to get to all of them. You wear a belt? You put on lifting shoes? Not when you're dead lifting, but squatting? Yeah, when I'm squatting.

Wraps? No, just knee sleeves. Just knee sleeves? Yeah. Anything else? You load them up with anything else? No. Sometimes wrist straps, but I like to just put tape and really i just like it because it's like it

tells my brain honestly when i tape my wrist it's just my way of like going into that zone yeah it's like my body's arms yeah yeah exactly you tape your thumbs up you're like oh i guess i gotta go pick something up now i got tape on my thumbs it just means it's time to get serious and so since i stopped my my whole decline in using stuff had it's been like almost a challenge of seeing how much of the gap i can close between my old prs and feeling good and not using anything. Like even like I don't use a belt at all. And I used to feel like it was like a safety blanket in that I just put it on because I was so used to putting it on. And then I realized that I could still hit.

Snatching 225 to me is just like I just – whatever I can do to just keep doing that and make myself feel like I'm still strong. Um, it's kind of like squatting 315. Like if I could still do that for eight to 10 reps and feel fine, I'm like, we're there. I'm good. You're already in, you're already stronger than most people people you don't really need to keep squatting um to like set a new pr and when i started to be able to do that without a belt i can squat a 315 for 20 without a belt on and i was like damn it that's awesome like the ability to to be able to do something that was once the hardest thing you'd ever done

and then do it many years later without a belt on or without worrying about like having all the stuff. I mean, when I squatted four and a quarter, that was the most I had ever squatted. It's the most lifetime PR. It was so fired up. And then I kind of look back on, I'm like, well, I had a belt cranked on me like as tight as possible like hanging off the squat rack trying to get it all the way over plus um knee wraps which make a massive difference in your ability to sit down and stand up like that tension and your knees down at the bottom just helps out so much um but since i've stopped competing and it's, I got rid of the knee sleeves or I got rid of the wraps. Those were the first things to go.

Then I got rid of the belt and now I get rid of shoes a lot just because kind of enjoy walking around barefoot and seeing, seeing if I can still be strong. It's very unstable and it's not the smartest thing to do. But at a minimum, just wearing tennis shoes is just – it's like the basic – just like Doug said. You can walk in the gym. You've got shoes on. You should be able to go do everything that you can do and just go be an athlete.

That's like the most fun part of it. Just go be an athlete. See what you can do today. I like doing barefoot training for sure. I think – I have flat feet, so I'm going to do more fun part of it. Just go be an athlete. See what you can do today. I like doing barefoot training for sure. I think I have flat feet, so I'm going to do more and more of that. I was watching a video. I don't know what I was doing, but I can see like my ankle like, you know, like completely collapsed.

I'm like, I have to do more barefoot work. Dude, just walk around the farm barefoot. That's to fix itself so quickly. I have sissy feet in my family in my family you know why yeah because you walk around with shoes on all the time they got to adapt oh man it hurts you think your feet are the only part of your body that don't adapt totally agree with you i'm like my one-year-old daughter is tougher than me like my wife calls me like what she calls me uh i forget something like soft but like yeah it starts with a p yeah yeah exactly i that's like one part of socal that i miss so much

living in pacific beach was i would go to the grocery store no shoes i go to work at the gym no shoes i go to the beach no shoes everywhere you go people just if you were if you had more than like a tank top board shorts and sandals on you were overdressed everywhere you went so it's like that's awesome if you were barefoot in the grocery store nobody looked at you you can't do that out here in suburban north carolina no some redneck would shoot you yeah that definitely was one of the best parts about socal being able to just wear athletic clothes everywhere you go and everyone just thinks it's normal everyone just like yeah that guy exercises we all exercise so that's what we do here fantastic you can like walk into the grocery store no shirt no shoes and like a starbucks coffee and

that was like you were like cliche like you just oh that guy just got out of those guys you didn't bring any clothes with them like um well when we talk about belts though what what is the actual use and and the proper or like the the real reason that people should be using them well if you're going to compete i mean um you're gonna you're gonna you're going to be if you use it properly you're going to be able to lift more weight so definitely if you're if you're a powerlifter, weightlifting can go both ways because, you know, you're not going to ever lift, like, the maximum weight you can control. You should, most people, I shouldn't say that.

There are some people who can clean and jerk as much or sometimes more than a front squat. But, like, most people are going to be able to, you know, clean and jerk way less than their front squat. But it just depends on the person, though. You know, like a lot of heavyweights don't use belts at all, you know. But they got that, you know, they got a belt on. Yeah.

So, but most people use belts. Not many people use it to snatch, you know, nor would I because, you know, it restricts movement a little bit. And so, like, with snatching, that's everything, is being able to move quickly and into the proper position as quickly as you can. But it definitely recruits more. I mean, there are studies out there, cutting to the chase, that definitely with a belt used properly, you're going to recruit more fibers. And so it is going to protect your spine if you use it properly.

Why does it do that? Why does it work? You know, that's a good question. What I have to go with, I know the study, but you have to assume that because you create all that stiffness, you push your, you breathe in and you push your, it's called the Vesalva maneuver. It's like you're trying to exhale, but you don't let it out. And so then your belly pushes out against your belt. And then all that pressure pushes against the spine, making it feel super secure.

And, you know, like Stuart McGill, who was on our show last week, would tell you that proximal stiffness is going to create distal performance and movement and power and everything else. So what is the actual – see, one of the reasons that I feel like it's more effective than the example that I'm going to give, but when you see people walking around with all this like kinesio tape and all this stuff, there's like a tactile thing that your brain recognizes like my shoulder needs to move better. I'm sure there's a lot of science and a lot of things and studies that have shown that it like relieves a couple more percent of pain or whatever, but just having something tactical to be able to push out against while you're squatting or when you're getting set up and you've got something tight there, your brain automatically recognizes that it's there. So it has no – I shouldn't say it has no option. It makes it easier to recognize that you need to brace your core.

And just doing that, I think most people don't understand. So if you're, if you're a beginner or you know, you just bought your first belt and now all of a sudden you put it on, you realize, you recognize significantly more tension there. Totally. And that just instantly becomes maybe the first time you've ever like truly braced your core as you're squatting or deadlifting, but you just may have never actually breathed into your belly and learned how to brace your core. And that just becomes the first time because you've got something pushing against you and your body's automatically fighting to, you know,

to push against it. Right. But even, you know, even someone who can, you know, when they put the belt on still are going to, just because of that, the air pushing out, you know, when you brace and you don't have a belt on, there's nothing that's going to just because of that the air pushing out you know when you brace and you don't have a belt on there's nothing that's going to create that pressure you know like the belt being so tight yeah it's still going to in like yeah the body is always going to recruit more fibers when it feels secure you know like the reason sometimes that you know when it shuts down it's because it doesn't feel secure so it doesn't want to recruit a lot of fibers to, like, give you the ability to produce more power in a joint that is, like, not stable. So when it feels that ultra stability, you know, ultra stability, is that a word?

Maybe. We'll go with that. Yeah. When you create that incredible stability that comes from the Vassal maneuver and a belt, your body is completely stable. It's completely secure. Therefore, recruiting all the fibers, then, you, then you're able to lift way more weight, especially those big powerlifting belts.

It's a whole other level than the weightlifting belts. It creates some, but the powerlifting belt, when you're pressing out against that thing, it creates – it's magic on your hand. I've never used a powerlifting belt. One of those big, thick four-inchers. I love it. What's the difference? It's just the thickness.

Like big, fat leather ones? More – you know, it covers more area on the body. And it's thicker, so, you know, it's tighter. You know, the leather belts, the little ones are going to – you know, they're not going to be as stable. So when you push out, it's going to give a little bit. When you push out against the pounding belt, there's no give at all. So the pressure is going to come back against the spot even more.

But the way the belt works. The black Velcro one. Yeah, I like this too. The most flexible, easiest, highest return, smallest investment. That leather one is like $150. There isn't enough weight for me to lift for $150. Especially when I know I'm going to lose it. I'm going to leave it in the gym somewhere and be bitter.

I will never lose that belt. Actually, somebody took my belt home with them once. And I almost killed him. Like, I mean, I've won world championships with that belt. And he took my belt home. And I'm like, I was so

mad when I found out, because somebody actually saw it happen. It was an accident. I think he was just like cleaning his stuff up. And he was one of my young athletes too. I'm like, bro, Brester. His name breast his name is breast i was like if you do that again i'm going to kill you i'm like how do you uh how do you explain to somebody the proper way to use because i think one of the things that drives me crazy when I see people online with a belt

is like somebody with like a really tiny waist that clearly hasn't put in the work to develop like a thick core. Yeah. And then they've got a belt on and it's almost like sometimes it looks like, like a little kid wearing their dad's t-shirt. Yeah. There's like a lot of extra, the belt's like a little bit too big. It just looks – I know.

I'm like, oh. You're like, no, you don't need that. You've got like five more years before you should buy that. But how – if somebody's putting it on and they want to make sure that they're doing it the right way, what is the proper technique for actually getting something out of – like they put the belt on. How do you develop that skill to breathe into your belly pushing against where one thing that you see i think also is like people putting the belt like way too low on themselves instead of it being in a place in which they can they can actually brace and where the thickness of their core is um how do you teach people to actually i

mean the people that are coming to mash elite to go to the olympics don't struggle to put on the belt but how do you uh like how what is the proper technique for actually using a belt first off there's like there's two things i want to address in that statement you you will never be it's never going to surprise me now how many people that come to me who are incredibly good, who don't know things like that. Like, um, I was at, uh, it was a team USA. It was a senior, uh, world team camp and there was a guy who'd been lifting 10 years, multiple world team guy who did not know how to brace with a belt. And I was blown away. I'm like, take back my statement. Yeah.

Like I would assume literally that was 2017 up until that point, I would agree with everything you just said. But then 2017, I was like, all right, I'm never going to assume that these young people know anything. And so now I go, I try.

Now I learned to go over every little detail when they come to me, no matter how good they are. So, but then, you know, when I teach them, Andy is very good. Doug, Doug and Doug and Andy and I did a camp once and Andy is really good at teaching the brace. You know, like I teach them by giving them something tactile to press against.

So if you put your, you know, fingers in your belt in the front and you learn to push out against that, then you put it in the sides, you learn to push out against that then you put it in the sides you learn to push out against that and then believe it or not you put it in you know on your lumbar spine and you learn to brace out against that and so it's if you're really good at it you can brace all the way around it's like a tire all the way around your body and then you press out everywhere then you're going to be you'll know it's incredibly it's incredible the amount of pressure you can create yeah you can get i mean you get significantly it's the most important part of squatting you're going to your legs are going not your legs are stronger than your core every single time so if you're trying to back squat as much as possible the weak point is not going to be

can your legs drive the weight up it's going to be is your back going to stay stable is your core going to give out those are the those are the pieces so how much of a percentage do you think it adds has there been any studies to find like a specific range of it's going to give you an extra 10 it's is there a number if you're properly using it and which people can actually kind of expect to know they're, they're doing it right. I'm going to, you know, I don't know that number.

I don't know that a study that says that, but I'm going to have to go with at least 10%. Yeah, that's probably at least I'm running numbers in my head. I feel like I scored a three 75, like not too long ago, probably about three months ago without, without a belt and tennis shoes and I are no belt and

tennis shoes and I'm pretty sure if you add 10% of that 37 pounds yeah it's probably inside my 1rm lifetime right five and that was that was all loaded up on everything so yeah it's probably right about 10% and my spine at my age is just so compromised like it's just you know it's years i'm you know i'm 47 some years of like lifting playing football like yeah dumb stuff and so it just makes me feel more secure it hurts honestly if i lift without a belt no matter how braced i am no matter how long I do it. It hurts. Coach Mash, why wouldn't you back it down to about 60%

of your lifetime 1RMs and stop chasing that dragon and build your core up and brace your spine properly without a belt on? Why would the strongest man in the world not want to go back to 400-pound deadlifts for sets of eight and build your core.

I just told Ash that he had a weak core. I know. Anyone who squatted a thousand pounds does not have a weak core. They have a compromised spine. That's what I have.

There's no weak core. Words are important. It's not that I'm not braced. It's that my spine is degenerative. It's out of beating. There's discs there. In early

2004, this is how I met Stuart McGill, I hurt my spine box squatting. I did the whole... You see a lot of West Siders sit on the box, roll, you know, rock and come up. And then that rocking motion, I think, number one, I think I didn't control the weight on the way down. So there was a plop, a roll, and it really hurt my disc to the point where my orthopedist at the time was my friend

who loved powerlifting and bodybuilding. He goes to Arnold like every year, you know, so he's very, what I'm saying is he's, he's not conservative. He's a liberal doctor who understands the sport. And he said,

Travis, he sat me down in his office. He said, I'm going to be honest with you. If I were you, I'd retire because you're at risk of paralysis. And so it was like, and it was literally, I knew that was about to break this record i was

getting super close i had totaled 2300 and like i was so close to breaking that you know ed cohen's world record and i'm like i can't i can't stop now and so here's what's funny is like it wasn't the paralysis that scared me he said look not only will you be paralyzed, it's going to make you where you can't have sex. I'm like, time out. Then it got serious. It got real. Then I'm like... I can give up the weights. I can't give that up. No chance. What's the point?

What is the point? It's a long life. Then I found Stuart McGill and learned everything I could. His website, everyone should go to backfitpro.com because he's got so much free information. You know, instead of buying his book, well, buy his book too. But you have a year's worth of reading on his website for free.

And so I did all that. Then I started contacting him. They started helping me. So then I went on to break all my world records post that injury. I think that that's the biggest misunderstanding of the belt is that people squat, then they get low back pain, whether it's from like a disc issue, which is mostly not the case. It's just somebody with poor movement patterns or they just get a sore back because there are muscles there and they don't know the difference between injury and just having a low back that has muscles that were worked. Um, and then they go and put a belt on without ever fixing the issues of understanding why there was a little bit of problem in their low back to

begin with. And that is the part in which I think people, you don't ever really need it as a kid. You should be building as much, I say a kid, if you're in your first five years of training, you're just not lifting enough weights if your your goal at the time and the program that you're on which everybody should be on in the early years of just add five pounds to the bar and go squat for seriously six to eight reps every single monday don't over come wednesday do deadlifts the same way until you just can't continue doing, you know, lifting weights in that way. Like at some point it will slow down. But there's a long period of time where just adding five pounds is all you need to do.

And when I see people like using the belt in that stage or just they don't have the movement patterns down and they're looking at the belt as a way to instead of fixing the problem just blow past the problem and and just keep adding weight that's when people start to get into like some really big long-term issues because at some point the belt doesn't solve the problem and you're going to either get injured or you know there's something is going to happen in which you have to go back to the basics again and take the belt off and relearn how to brace your core. Then at some point, you'll be able to add it back in.

There's no way to overcome having dysfunctional movement patterns. There's no way that any tool is going to overcome poor movement. You got to be able to squat. You got to be able to brace your spine and you just have to always be able to come back to, um, just moving well and then adding load and then increasing that load. And your core is no different. Like you're, you have to be able to get to a place where you can sit down and stand up

and keep your chest upright, your torso upright. There is a definite point I'd like to make too. When I was younger, even when I was powerlifting, I used to set PRs without the belt. My goal was I thought that by lifting without the belt, that it would create a stronger core, that I would recruit more fibers without the belt. And then all these studies started coming out. They would say, that's not true. You know, like if you, assuming you know how to brace, like you're talking about, if you can brace, you will recruit more fibers, believe it or not

with the belt on. And so when you, because when you take the belt off, your body doesn't feel as stable. I'm just guessing that part. I just know the study. So now I'm assuming why that's true is because when you take the belt off, because you're not as stable, because you won't be. It's impossible because you don't have that pressure pushing back so that your body won't recruit as many fibers. So actually your core does not get stronger without the belt,

assuming you know how to brace. Yeah. There's that. When you're talking about recruiting more fibers, like initially it's pretty well established that more stability leads to a greater ability for prime movers to recruit muscle fibers, to contract as max voluntary contraction, to go to higher levels of fatigue before you shut down,

which is why self-limiting exercises are, are beneficial because you kind of have to shut down once there's any breakdown in technique for with, with the belt. When you were saying that there's studies that show more fiber recruitment again, initially I was thinking you're talking about like in your glutes and quads and whatever else you have a stronger, if you have a more stable spine, so your prime movers would be able to fire harder. But you're saying that the core musculature itself also is firing harder. The core musculature itself.

Even the spinal extensors, the transversus abdominis, which the transversus abdominis, believe it or not, is not recruited that much when you're squatting or snatching or clean and jerking, which is kind of weird, but you use it to brace, you know. I think it's more the pressure than it is the, you know, because, I mean, if you think about it, really, you know, the rectus abdominis, transverse abdominis is more for flexion than it is for extension. So, but there's that.

But yeah, even the spinal extensors were shown to be recruited more at a greater you know at a greater rate as well than uh without the belt and so so like you know i would say this though by what you're saying doug about training without the belt will self-limit you so you're not going to go as a high load which you know allows you to train longer without injury you know because when you put train longer without injury, you know, because when you put the belt on, it'll allow you to use more weight, which then you're going to reach that threshold that we talked about last week with Dr. McGill, like, you know, that point of no return, you're going to get heavier, which could get you hurt quicker. So yeah, yeah, with the belt on as

well, like we, we tend to think about it as being something that protects your low back. It's all like a lumbar spine focus conversation. Without a belt, you can squat 400 pounds, but with a belt, well, now you can squat 475 or whatever it is. Well, your low back is getting some assistance from the belt, but the rest of your body is still experiencing those higher loads. Your quads are still experiencing those higher loads. Right. Like your, your quads are still experiencing those higher loads. Your, your upper, your upper back is still experiencing the,

the, uh, the stress of trying to be fully extended, not folding. And there's no belts around your upper back. It's just, it's only around your lower back. So I think there's a,

there's a lot of, um, of benefits to having a belt for loading all areas of the body, not just, not just protecting your low back. So your legs can extend against a heavier weight, just across the board, you're going to be stronger just because you're,

you're, you're just experiencing a greater degree of stress than you would if you did not have that belt. Totally. And, and then like programming somebody to not wear it is good because like, that is my way of guaranteeing they don't go heavy that day. You'll say that

you squat high frequency. When they have the belt on, assuming they're going to go as heavy as they can based on what you're prescribing, but then if you want a day where you don't want them to go heavy and you want more of the movement and less of the load, a great way to self-limit this person

is say, don't wear a belt that day. Then I don't have to worry about them going too heavy. I think if you're a person who you play a sport and in your sport, you're not going to have that assistance.

If you're a weightlifter, a powerlifter, you have the option. Thank you. You have the option to wear a belt during, I don't know, see that free coffee delivery

that you got? God, that was awesome thank you to my two-year-old for waking up at 4 30 in the morning that way my wife could be here at 6 30 in the morning to bring me coffee yeah um so if you know if you aren't able to wear a belt in competition like weightlifters or powerlifters like if you're just a if you're a football player an mma fighter or especially if you're not like a high high force um high contact sport like you're a soccer player or something like that then you really don't have a whole lot of reasons that you you need to wear a belt again i do think there are some benefits to

it but i think i think like in that situation max maximum, you should be doing it half the time. I agree with you. When you're lifting heavy. You don't need it at all if you're not lifting heavy or going to failure. But if you're doing three rep maxes or heavier, then half the time is about the max that I think you should wear a belt. Because you're not going to have that assistance during the competition and so you don't want to train exclusively with the belt because even though you will get much stronger i think it's good to have at least a 50 50 balance there and when you go heavier too there's the the

risk goes up too so if you're training athletes consider that as well so if you say wear a belt all the time and go to like three rep maxes, one rep maxes, you know, that you're going to get to that high, you know, threshold quicker. And so, you know, don't do that because, you know, rule number one, don't hurt your athlete for heaven's sakes. And I would say rule number two, prepare them not to get hurt. And then three is perform. I think performance is third on that list, personally.

I always try to recommend, uh, and in our group of everyone that's following the programs when they ask like, well, when should I, when should I put it on? Um, inside 90% sweet. Now you're lifting some heavy weights outside of nine or under 90%. Just don't just prepare your body not to do it. That way you're not sitting there with 65% and, you know, strapping a belt on because you feel like you need it.

Um, but anytime you're inside 90%, you're going to have to be thinking about the amount of weight you're moving around. Um, and you're probably, it's, it's just a safer bet to use it to be stronger.

Um, but if you're, if you're below 90%, you should be able to hit those reps. Um, and, and there's a good chance you're not inside, you're, you're not doing working weight yet. So you're not at your top sets for the day. Um, so there's, there's really no reason, um, you might as well get all the core stability and ab engagement that you can possibly get out of having those reps while you're in the 85, 88% range. I totally agree.

And one of the things that that study did not say, you know, bracing without a belt is a different skill than bracing, you know, with a belt. You know, with a belt, you're pushing out. And without a belt, you're bracing down. And so there are two different skills. And when you're playing football or even soccer or basketball or whatever, you're not going to have a belt to press out against. So if you're about to come in contact with someone,

you want to teach your body to be able to brace without it, which comes from the cerebellum, FYI. But anyway, that's a different topic. Masses up late at night learning about the brain boy that was a that was a rabbit hole for sure did drew roll over and she's like please go to sleep cut the light off go to sleep i was downstairs i didn't do it to her like i stayed in my office you know it's still right here my book is in all my research is right beside me still. I love it. The next book is the book spark all about why,

how exercise influences your ability to learn. So it's a fantastic book. We need to get that, the author on the show, one of these up on Twitter, I'm going to start badgering him on Twitter. I'm going to reach out to him and beg him because, you know,

and I want him on this show because I want, this guy needs the biggest exposure because it's an awesome book. Yeah. The next piece I think that everybody asks about is lifting shoes. They're just a little bit more expensive by a lot. So not as many people are going to spend 150 or 130 bucks whatever a lifting shoe costs these days to to invest in that when a belt can be purchased for 25 bucks but what uh travis if you all when was the first pair of lifting shoes that you bought um it was 19 before we get too far down the rabbit hole on lifting shoes, they are called weightlifting shoes, right?

They're not lifters. These new kids and their damn lifters. I can't even stand it. If you use lifters, you automatically can't be strong. They're weightlifting shoes. You wear them to lift the weights. You're not lifting yourself. You're not trying to get calf engagement for your Instagram post.

They're not lifters. That's marketing. They're weightlifting shoes. You put them on so you can flex your ankles a little bit more so you can sit deeper in a squat to lift the weights, not lifters. You know, a lot of weightlifting coaches get super benachated because, for example, it's not Olympic lifting. It is weightlifting.

And they'll get mad at, what are some of the things? Lifters, they get mad at that. And at first, I was on their side. And then I started thinking about it. I'm like, CrossFit has done so much for my sport. There's actual marketing involved. Yeah, I'm like, lifters it is, man. Or Olympic lifting, whatever you want to call ollie i don't care yeah ollie is what they

really get mad about but i'm like call it what you want i'm so thankful to i call them ollie shoes i'm part of the the second wave of anger that they had towards people but the lifters i draw a line at lifters i've i put the post the Instagrams the other day, a long time ago now. But it was like all of my tapered sweatpants, I call them joggers because that's what the cool kids. But I refuse to call them lifters. I just cannot. It makes me feel like I'm not that strong.

Everybody wears lifters. They got Reebok lifters. I just can't. I'm not buying into that. On Twitter, people always – somebody will comment to me, and they'll say, like, holy or lifters. And then inevitably somebody else will be like, you can't say that to Coach Max.

And I'll be like, bro, I don't care. Like, I do not take this that seriously. But anyway. One of the beautiful pet peeves. Yeah. People have these rules. I don't have on a video the other day i have my beautiful aleko barbell here i got yelled at for uh kicking the bar but i went back and i was like i kicked my barbell who who kicks their barbell no it was me

scooting it away from myself with my foot oh that, that's a – okay, that's a rule now. Do you know that? Oh, really? That's red lights. That's an automatic free rent. Yeah. Just move the barbell away with your foot? In some countries, that's like – they would say that's disrespectful.

Yeah, that's what the guy yelled at me for. He was like, don't kick your barbell. I was like, dude, I have like a $1,500 barbell that was shipped from a Lego to my house. That I built. You think I'm disrespecting it? That I built it. I can't. This thing is a trophy that I get to use every day.

Yes. It's got my daughter's name on it. Yes. This is your bar in your house. I'm disrespecting it. Dude, i just hate those rules so bad i am so opposite of those coaches like you know like uh if you want to slam it slam it kick it if you want to like you know if you want ryan grimsley wouldn't be ryan grimsley without slamming the shit out of a three x his body weight whatever and. I love watching him slam bars.

One of the coaches, we were at a competition and he dropped a barbell from up here, and somebody got so mad at him, they yelled at him and I yelled at them. I was like,

you don't know shit about a bar, man. I've been to Laco and they said you can drop it from a skyscraper. It won't hurt it. So shut your mouth, you know? That's so good. I talked to the owner. I talked to the guy that designed that bar. And they said drop it, you know?

And so if the owner says drop it, you shut your mouth. He wants you to drop it. Yes. So, like, I just hate those rules and like because you feel a certain way you feel like you need to interject it to the world nobody cares your opinion man i hadn't even heard the kicking the bar i had to go back and watch the video because i was like where did i kick the bar i would never just one i would just hurt my foot two what is he talking about and then i saw I – to get the bar into the right position

because my floor is like got an eighth inch – like it rolls a certain way to drain. I was like, I can't. I'm done. People act like the bars have a soul. They're an intimate object, man. Like they don't move. They don't breathe. There's no heartbeat. They do not care

but tell me about your first pair of lifters it was in 1997 i bought my first pair and like um wes barnett was my first weightlifting coach and he's the one so i asked him there was back then it was only adidas that made them and there was only two kinds that's it and uh i was like there was a cheaper kind it was like 90 bucks and then there was like you know mac daddy 160 pair and you know i was like which one should i buy he's like he said buy the cheap ones he said it's all the same and so now i find it funny when i see the young athletes who've probably been doing the sport like a week and they're you know talking about they're gonna buy like the most expensive way. I'm not bro. Just, just get, borrow somebody's shoes. It's not going to help you, you know, like, but anyway, so I bought the shoes.

It was, it's a huge difference. It just, you know, and a funny thing too, is like, I only realized maybe in the last six months why those shoes help other than, you know, I know they raise the heels and i know they allow me to sit more vertical i didn't really know why and i started thinking about it is because they increase the angle at the at the uh ankle and so therefore the range of motion you have a longer range of motion at the ankle you basically sit like a catcher yeah well not that much but you're you're mimicking how a catcher sits and it's a much more like athletic stance as well it's not just the angle i think that that position is a much

stronger sitting back on your heels or in that like flat foot is not i would love to actually know the answer to this i'm kind of talking i feel more athletic in that stance, but I also wonder if there's something to being more athletic, like in the way a catcher sits. If you're sitting in a full squat with your heels on the ground and you were a catcher that needed to move or be more athletic, I don't think you can be as athletic in that stance. It's more of like a resting position sitting all the way back like that. Being a bit more forward is is a much more athletic stance well just when you do the sitting back um you're going to limit the range of you know if you do that over time eventually your ankles are going to get used to that position and yeah you know they're they're going to be limited and then then yes that's a bad thing even coach cav you know the sprint guy at stronger experts you know he's like

so big on like complete range of motion at the ankles so the body can move the way it should during its cycles of sprinting. You know, and over and over, he's like, you know, your ankles are too tight, your ankles are too tight. So just by, you know, doing weightlifting properly, you know, you would handle that and you wouldn't have to do all the calf stretching that he's talking about so yeah definitely important more functional i would say doug you're about to say something i wanted to hear what you when i was talking about the the athleticism of having your heels off the ground there yeah yeah i think what you're talking about is accurate like if you are a catcher and you need to you need to pop up and and throw uh to you know second base or whatever because somebody's stealing um then being on your toes and having your knees a little bit forward and having that vertical torso having that super vertical torso where you can you can grab the ball and stand up and and have a good view of the field

and all that like i think being on your toes a little bit really helps in that scenario it's kind of like the difference between throwing a baseball now we're using baseball analogies between throwing a baseball and throwing a shot put if the baseball is really light there's a there's a proper way to throw it as fast as possible that's radically different than if than if you have a 16 pound shot and there's a different way to throw that as fast as possible you got to change your mechanics a little bit for the heavier object. So I feel like with the baseball catching analogy, it's completely unloaded. It's kind of like doing plyos. Like you're, if you're, you're bounding on your toes, you're running sprints, you're bounding on your toes, but you never do that when you're lifting really, really heavy. And so if it's, if it's

heavy weight, then it makes sense to have the most, the most stability pushing through your heels, you know, or kind of mid foot, not being on your toes is going to be the kind of the strongest from a raw strength perspective but if you want to move quickly then then i do think uh being on your toes is the most agile place to be which is yeah all running and jumping is basically done on your toes yeah i wonder i would love to hear like the history of the designing. I wonder if they were just created. Cause this is what I used to do before Olympic lifting shoes. Just put a five pound plate on the ground and stand on it on each side. That was how I squatted for from 13 to Jesus,

26 years old. I didn't own old, like only shoes. See that I didn't own weightlifting shoes until I was 27, 28 28 when I like really committed to trying to be good at CrossFit. I think one of the also the coolest benefits of that is like when you get to a point in which you are training for something, it's good to not wear your like street clothes or your street tennis shoes or whatever you're wearing, your athletic wear. It's good to mentally just check in and know you're doing something different. Like having proper tools for the job that you're trying to do makes a massive difference.

I think that like going back to the belt, like having a belt, but knowing how to use it like if you're walking in and you're wearing your like street nobles and you don't have the that like just five minutes of lacing up your new shoes like there's something mentally about checking in and having the proper tools to go and do it. I think that most people though, if you're just chasing fitness and having complete range of motion and like the healthiest way to do it, anytime you add some sort of tool, you're taking away from what your body should be doing. So if you just want to squat an average amount and be strong enough that you live a healthy life, the most effective way would probably be to figure out how to do that barefoot, have strong feet, have great ankle mobility. And then when you start to get into actual strength training, thinking of that time as actual training and stepping into some

sort of an office and what you're going to work. And there's a reason people in corporate America or whatever it is, they, they dress a specific way. It's almost like putting on your suit of doing the job the right way. Um, it's, I remember every time I ever competed in weightlifting, I would train up until about like three weeks out in my regular workout clothes. And then, um, inside three weeks, I would always train in a singlet because you're stepping into the, the role mentally of like what it's going to feel like on game day and where you're going to like all the little pieces, um, just in preparation for whatever it is you're going to, like all the little pieces, just in preparation for whatever it is you're going to be doing. And wearing shoes, I think, is just more than anything.

Like I've snatched roughly the same amount of weight wearing shoes that I've worn, that I've snatched wearing untied no balls. Like I can do all I snatched two 25 in untied tennis shoes twice in the last three months. It doesn't really matter, but it matters a lot to me. If I bring my shoes, I know that I'm going to move some weights around that day. You know, it's funny. Uh, I know that I'm going to move some weights around that day. You know, it's funny. Coach Ken was talking about you. I was hanging out with Coach Ken, the Carolina Panther strength coach,

and Brandon Oregon, the strength coach for Wake Forest football. But Coach Ken was talking about you. He's like, that haters guy is very athletic, isn't he? I'm like, yeah, he's super athletic. Because he was watching you do your movements in tennis shoes and watching you. You can do pretty much everything there is. We were bragging on your athleticism.

Sick! I know. I'm going to shut the show down right now. Yeah. That guy's having a lot of NFL players. He thinks I am like McCaffrey is what you're trying to say. He didn't say that, but he said you're very athletic. Like, that Anders guy sure is athletic for all the unathletic people out there.

No, he was like, Anders is really athletic, isn't he? I'm like, yeah, he really is. Tell him to come race me down to Jamaica. We'll hop in the ocean. I found out real quick that's a bad thing to do with you. You spanked our boy Jay. I was like, oh, man. Spanked in your own country by a white guy.

Yeah, that was awesome. He threw it out there. Does anybody want to go swim? I was already gone. He wasn't ready. Yeah, he was not ready for you. You're swimming his own point. Travis, did you ever meet Tommy Kona?

Yes, I meet. I've seen him now, even actually recently. Like, he's been writing. No, sorry. I'm thinking of, no, I did not meet Tommy Kona. I was thinking of what's the great coach who trained under Kona who's in California. It doesn't matter. But anyway, yeah, no, I did not meet Tommy Kono from Hawaii.

Yeah, the gold medalist, American gold medalist. I didn't meet him. I wish I had him before he passed away, but yeah. Yeah. I met him a couple times, mostly at NCAA conferences. He'd be over at the Aleko booth hanging out back when i was you know late teens early 20s yeah and uh you know passed away a couple years ago he was you know he was a star like in the 50s like he was an older guy uh great guy really really super nice and uh but one

thing that uh i remember him talking about was you should only use assistance gear you know even even including things like hook grip, like anything that helps you. He's like, you train without, without anything. And then like in the weeks leading up to competition, then you can like,

you know, get some practice on your hook grip and wearing your belt and wraps and all that. But he said the rest of the time, like you just, you go without everything. That way competition feels really easy, but you have to have

enough practice to be competent with the changes so that was that was his perspective i could see that for sure and like i i definitely like in powerlifting was more like that like i didn't want to use like the monolift all the time you know like i only at the very end you know that's when i was wpl obviously when i was ipf and usL, but you didn't have that option, the monolith. But I didn't like always using this awesome squat bar with this awesome monolith. I didn't like using perfect scenarios. I wanted to make it harder. So I agree with him.

I don't know about the hook grip, though. The only thing about not using hook grip, people will start to, like, you know, naturally when you clamp down, you're going to, clamp down, I feel like it engages your arms. It can cause you to arm pull. But maybe, I don't know. He's obviously a gold medalist. He's pretty smart. Well, yeah, I mean, if you're probably at his level

and you've done it a specific way so many times, you've tried to become as well-rounded. It's probably like Gpp training to him because he's still gonna snatch and clean and jerk but it just becomes gpp that i just i'm just gonna pick this weight up and put it over my head and as many disadvantageous ways as possible and then that way when i put the hook grip on and then i I put shoes on, and then I put a belt on, he feels like a superhero that can go be the strongest man in the world. I don't know.

I'm not a gold medalist. I don't know. Oh, by the way, I was Takano. Oh, Bob Takano? Yeah, Takano is who I was thinking of. Yeah. Wait, you've never met Takano?

Yeah, but I haven't met him. Bob Takano. I have met him, but I have not met – I did not meet Tommy Kono. Gotcha. Last two things we're going to touch on here. The difference between – or like why people wear knee sleeves and why they think they're wearing them and what they're actually doing when they put knee sleeves on.

And then kind of like the knee sleeves that get all ramped up into actual performance and wraps. Are wraps allowed in weightlifting? They are? Yeah, even powerlifting wraps, yeah. Oh, wow. I feel like they're less regulated in weightlifting than they are in powerlifting. I've never seen someone measure somebody's knee wraps.

The only thing is that if you get too much knee wrap, it's going to slow your descent, which is the last thing you want. So it's like a fine line. I've seen people put on knee sleeves and then knee wraps on top of knee sleeve in weightlifting, not in powerlifting. Well, the difference being a knee sleeve, and I'm going to generalize because this is what I thought I was buying when I bought my first set of knee sleeves, was I thought that I was buying knee wraps. and what I was really purchasing was the ability to keep my knees sweating and warm for as long as possible there's very little if any benefit to having just knee sleeves outside just keeps

your knees warm well I would agree with you up until the last like five years when raw power thing got so big again and like um you know if you buy certain knee sleeves from say mark smelly bell which we're going to talk to this week i think anyway next week yeah next week yeah those things will help you they're like so thick and so tight that yeah they will definitely aid you you know 30 pounds on a squat like they're pretty legit. But yeah, the majority of these sleeves that you see weightlifters wear are like they don't help much at all other than keep your knees warm. Like your general blue Ray-Ban, those are just – it's a wetsuit.

Just a little tiny piece of a wetsuit that goes over your knee so they stay nice and warm and you feel flexible. And in between sets, um, your, your knees don't get cold. Right. It's basically the, uh, but knee wraps make a giant difference. I don't think I, when I was, uh, when I squatted four 25, I was on like a, I, I walked into that 12 weeks knowing that in 12 weeks, this is what I was going to do.

And the goal was 425 and it was the most I'd ever done. And it was the first time that I ever used knee wraps. I could not believe how much stronger I was wearing wraps. Just being able to stabilize your knee and use that tension that those things create to pop out of the hole is life changing. I had never, ever thought you could get that much of a performance by just strengthening or, you know, basically strengthening your knee joint in a squat. Yeah. You just basically putting on a massive tendon is what you are. You know, like, yeah.

It's like you talk about attachments and why people are strong and like that's doing it for you, you know, and then, you know, the higher, as long as you can get the same amount of tension, the better, just like, you know, if my tendon attaches, you know, three millimeters higher than your, or three centimeters higher than yours, then I'm going to be way stronger. It's a small distance, but just the way that physics works. And the tighter you wrap them, it becomes even more.

That was like the first time I put them on, I was like, wow, that felt really good. And then I started cranking on them and i was like wow it feels really good i'm gonna be the strongest person in the world it's gonna be incredible some of these powers is like they'll cut your leg off they put it so tight you know i wrap my own knee you know you watch if you go to most powerlifting competitions they'll use uh knee wraps you'll all normally you'll see somebody one of their training partners or coach will wrap their knees for them i never i were only well number one i watched ed cohen and he wrapped his own so i'm

like i'm wrapping my own because he wraps her own and so um yeah i wrap my own knees but i've seen i have watched people get over 100 pounds from knee wraps i've watched it. It doesn't surprise me. Yeah. I think that there's more performance-enhancing benefit to knee wraps than wearing a belt. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Without a doubt. Absolutely. I can get a ton more from a knee wrap than I can a belt. Absolutely.

I feel like the belt just gets you to 100%. But if you put some wraps on, you're taking like a really small joint and turning it into a really strong, massive joint all of a sudden. Yes. Like take your knee and like basically turn it into a hip all of a sudden. Like you got two hips on this squat. It's a beast. So, yeah, especially now, you know, they make three-meter wraps

or even longer and then they're thicker. It's just, you know, know man it hurts so bad like when when you get i've had i've let someone wrap my knees once and i felt like my knee was going to cut in half and i'm like i'll do myself i don't need i'm good i don't need all that yeah i'll win without that so like yeah i uh yeah dude what, so like, it gets really weird in a powerlifting meet with somebody that misses a lift and they can't get out of the way of the bar because they have way too tight of knee sleeves on. And then they're just trapped.

Dude, if you didn't have those things taped up so much, you wouldn't have to worry about all that, but they can't move. They're just, they like waddle up to the rack and then they miss and that thing just crushes them there's nowhere to go except that bar is going straight through your body and you can't move because they're so tight powerly me you know they tell them to stay with it like they don't know how uh in weightlifting we teach the way the lifter to dump it which is really the safer way i think yeah which brings me that's a whole nother topic people get mad at people who who don't rack the way after they've done squatting which is really the safer way, I think. Which brings me – that's a whole other topic. People get mad at people who don't rack the way after they've done squatting, which is – it's just a culture thing.

Anyway, but like, yeah, power of the thing, you can't. You're not – if you were to get out of the way, like you said, they would actually throw you out of the meet. Whoa. Yeah, they'll kick you out because it puts the spotters at risk. If you were to dump it, you hurt somebody in the spotting. So you have to stay with it. Yeah, I guess when there's 800-plus pounds on the bar.

I tore my quad. Listen to this story. The first time I had any kind of an injury, I was like in my – I might have been 30 years old before I suffered my first injury at all. And I was squatting, and I felt what I thought was my singlet tearing. And then when I started, I got to the bottom. It was 930 pounds. I got to the bottom, and I was starting the motion of the concentric contraction.

And I realized it was me that had torn. It was my quad. I'm stuck in the bottom with 930 pounds crushing me guys i think i tore my singlet no that was your body yeah it was my quad that's so much weight it was built to do so much it was a scary thing. Yeah. Talk about biological tipping point. I reached it. That's, man, whatever you end up choosing to do, just make sure that your body moves well first. I think that's the biggest point of all of this, whether you're putting a belt, grabbing

shoes or wrapping your knees up to go set world records. I think that just the ability to get all of your joints moving through a proper range of motion and being strong throughout that range of motion is step one. If you're in the beginning piece of your weightlifting career or just getting into the gym, try to learn all of the techniques without gear first. Try and learn as much as you can. Use the barbell as much as possible without belts, without shoes, without all this stuff. Be as minimalist as possible.

And then as your performance or as you're testing more in front of people on a stage or on a platform somewhere, then you can start to bring that stuff in when you're really testing performance versus health and longevity and just enjoying lifting weights. And then once you get into some really crazy stuff, use some knee wraps. Get after it. Coach Travis Mash, where can people find you? Go to mashalead.com or you can go to LinkedIn.

This is Travis Mash. LinkedIn is awesome. There it is. I would add to what you said. Let it be something that just helps. Not a crutch. Yeah. That's what I would say with lifting gear.

Doug Larson. You bet. Find me on Instagram. Douglas C. Larson. I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner. We're barbell shrugged at barbell underscore shrug. You can catch us at barbell shrug.com forward slash store programs,

courses, eBooks, nutrition, training, email, mass aesthetics, tearing it up. Doug Larson. Doug Larson smashing 20-minute EMOMs.

It's crushing. I started doing a mash. You started doing it too? I just didn't have a choice. It just happened. And I started to feel so much better. Look how jacked Doug's getting. I know, right?

Yeah. I feel so good. I'm putting on muscle mass. All my joints feel fantastic, which is partially – I partially attribute that to not going to jujitsu for the last two months. I feel so good. All my joints feel normal. Yeah, that EMOM aesthetics program is fantastic.

I've done the first seven weeks of it,. I wake up every day excited to do it. I wrote some other ones also, like some different versions and variations that I'm experimenting with right now that I'm stoked to put out in the future too. That's your TV. You look like a linebacker right now. Yeah.

Kid's thick. Who knew that you'd be 36, 37 years old and put on 15 pounds of muscle? did it it looks good his neck is getting all thick too man looks good yeah dude actually how much muscle do you think you put on these days like how long does it take you to put on five pounds of muscle we're gonna run a whole nother show back now that totally depends on if you if you've had that five pounds of muscle before or if that's a brand new five pounds of muscle before or if that's brand new five pounds of muscle. Brand new muscle, very tough.

For me to get back to where I'm at right now, 205, 206, 207, I've been there many times. And so it's easy to get back there. But, yeah, if I'm trying to get back to, like, 215, like, you know, I was a linebacker in college for a small college you know trying to get back to like 215 i've only been there for a handful of on a handful of times back when i was in my mid-20s it'd be tough to get back there to get beyond that into like a healthy lean 220 like a new weight that i've never touched before 216

the highs i've ever been well now that that now that's a whole different story trying to get those new pounds. Yeah. Travis, what are your thoughts? I would agree with everything you said. You know, I think to gain like one or two pounds of brand new hypertrophy, like, it's a lot of work. It's like, you know, it's not in a 12-week, if you train 12 weeks of hypertrophy, you might gain one to two, maybe three pounds of quality muscle that you're going to keep. Because some of that weight gain you're going to get is going to be like, you know, it's going to be fat and that's all right. But it's definitely, you're not going to get, if anybody says, look, do my program and gain, you know, 15 pounds of muscle, it's a lie.

So unless you're on steroids, you know, that's a different ball game but well the the reason i actually am super curious about this because i've never been 37 before i can only do it one one year of my life um is do you guys like chase i shouldn't say chase but you have like numbers in your brain like i always competed in weightlifting at 187 and i always for the four years i competed in crossfit uh stepped on the regional floor at 185 that was like i'm still strong i'm still fast i'm as light as i can possibly be which helps a lot when you're doing all the body weight things, but I can still be strong. I'm just dieted down to, to be as lean as possible while still being strong. And now I clearly there's additional body fat,

but there, but like, I feel like one 85 is like, it's, it's almost like that's like the, the, not like the goal weight, but that would be 10% away.

I always want to be like within just two weeks out. Like if I really hammered my diet for two weeks, I could get back to wherever it is. Um, that is a good philosophy. And if I were to do that now, though, I feel like one 85 is way too little because believe it or not,

that was five or six years ago. And I've probably put on X percent of additional muscle and just pure hypertrophy of just lifting weights every day for the last five years in an actually more hypertrophy-focused way than doing all the conditioning all the time and multiple workouts a day. So, um, I don't know, I don't have like an in-body scanner and I can't go back to find out what my body fat was back then. Um, but it's an interesting thing. Like even at our age, do we still put on like two to three pounds of muscle or do we just get more efficient at lifting weights? Still gaining muscle.

Yeah. Like men still like produce testosterone you know for a long time so yeah you start you don't gain it as quickly as like say morgan ryan but you gain it so yeah yeah i just wonder do you think we could put on two pounds of lean muscle a year oh yeah i think so so our weight yeah if you maintain the same 12% to 15% body fat, like probably 10% was the lowest I ever like really got. And I'm probably about 15% right now. I wonder if that 15%, if your weight just continues,

like now 195 would actually be like, or like 192 or 93 would be like fighting weight, competing weight versus – I wonder what I would compete in weightlifting at in old weightlifting categories. If I would still feel strong coming in as an 85. Well, it's 89 now. I think that – I bet that would be perfect for you now, which is 196. Well, going off the old ones, when I was competing, how would I feel at 187? I bet I would feel very weak at this point. Yeah, probably.

Because I've put on an additional, call it five pounds of lean muscle. And you'll keep gaining, but eventually what's going to happen is you're going to reach where you're at a caloric deficit. Because if you keep lifting, keep lifting, adding muscle, then what's happening, eventually you reach that where you won't gain until you start eating more. Because you can't just keep eating the exact same amount and keep gaining muscle. There has to be extra fuel to get the extra muscle. So you've got to go into it. Otherwise, if you're in a hypertrophy stage, a caloric surplus is where you want to be.

Yeah. Well, I've been fluctuating those whether I want to or not just because of life. Like I got up to 205 at some point last year and then got down to 190, and now I hover like 95 to 97. That's pretty typical. The reason I even really think about this is because at 90, I thought that i was like really shredded for me so yeah you've gained like man i don't even think i could get down to 85

without feeling like shit i would just be so drained and maybe i could go get like a tan and look like cory gregory but i would feel. I'm going to try next year to compete again in powerlifting. I want to go to 198, to 90 kilos. I don't know if I can. Right now, I'm justifying the way I'm eating. Yeah, I would be lean because I'm like 228 right now.

But I'm fat. I want to get someone like Corey or maybe Andy to help me. I'm going to hit Corey up again. Did you guys ever do a show on him on his Like I want to get someone like Corey or like maybe Andy to help me keep me in check. Did you guys ever do a show on him on his anabolic fasting, Doug? No, not specifically. I'm certain it's been brought up during episodes, but not exclusively on that topic.

I'm going to hit him up. I'd like to talk to him about that because we talked about it. He's got an interesting, you know, he eats most of his carbs at night. Yeah. That's the animal fasting protocol that he has that he follows. Yeah. And then he just smashes carbs and carbohydrates before he goes to bed. And it helps him sleep better, he says. And his sleep quality is like almost inhuman.

Yeah. It's like He can sleep five hours And get more quality sleep than if I sleep 20 hours it's like crazy Alright boys Alright bros Later

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