Barbell Shrugged - Build a Thick Core and Eliminate Imbalances with Strongman Training w/ Anders Varner, and Doug Larson, and Travis Mash - Barbell Shrugged - #479

Episode Date: June 22, 2020

**This week only, buy a Bundle, get 3 FREE Barbell Shrugged Resistance Bands. Only 135 in stock. Act NOW**   In today’s episode the crew discusses:   Using odd objects to build strength. Unilateral imbalances and how to eliminate them How to incorporate sandbags into your training The benefits of stones Why heavy carries are so important to a strong core Why strongman athletes are so impressive Program design and working in strongman accessories to your current program   And more…   Anders Varner on Instagram   Doug Larson on Instagram   Coach Travis Mash on Instagram   **This week only, buy a Bundle, get 3 FREE Barbell Shrugged Resistance Bands. Only 135 in stock. Act NOW**   ————————————————   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   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”

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supplement I've ever tried. Say goodbye to having to buy seven different models of magnesiums to get the complete dose. Go to www.magbreakthrough.com or use the coupon code SHRUG10 to save up to 40% off select packages and the most full spectrum and effective magnesium product ever. Shrug fans, let's get into the show. Welcome to Barbellug i'm anna's partner doug larson coach travis smash today we're talking about growing a giant back which is radical because i think us dudes we spend a lot of time talking about growing legs because legs are fun to us i feel like the older i get when i was younger remember when people didn't do legs those weird people in the gym they would look at you like you were i never understood that yeah yeah never happened to me yeah well i remember specifically being the only person i'm like squatting 225

and they'd be like why do you do legs you don't need those well then crossfit showed up and i was like this is why i have legs because for the first 10 years i'm gonna crush people and then the real athletes will show up but but um we don't talk about back training nearly as much as growing big legs today is the day um doug larson let's get into some back training when you're thinking about high level high level goals back training um how do you break this up uh it depends on what you're talking about. I say the same thing every time you open the question to me. I go, well, that depends. I always kick it to you for the high-level thing because you're just going to break it down. Right.

That's the goal. I'm tossing you the softball, which is always the hardest thing. It's like, hey, Doug, what do you think about fitness? Where do I go with that? Yeah. I mean, the first thing that I usually go to, like my automatic reaction in my mind is movement patterns. That's just I'm a movement guy. Like I love biomechanics.

I love I love technique. All that's like I almost always go to movement patterns first when I think about anything really related to training. And then then I can move on to how much volume to do and how often and whatever else. This is all assuming I know the goal of somebody. We've already done all that prep work. In CrossFit, it's a very overhead-dominant sport, so I think you need a lot more vertical pulling in CrossFit

than other sports. For a long time, it seemed most CrossFitters were doing way too much vertical pulling or rather maybe not too much vertical pulling but it wasn't really bounced out with enough horizontal pulling like they were they were very skewed on the vertical side on pull-ups skipping pull-ups and everything else and didn't really do a whole lot of horizontal rowing and i think that was to to people's detriment for a long time as far as shoulder health. That seems to have been cleaned up by most high-quality coaches these days. So I think horizontal pulling is super important,

and most people need to incorporate more of that into their training. But it depends. If you're a gymnast, you're not necessarily looking to have the biggest, flashiest back. But they definitely have really strong backs backs and their relative strength is insane but if you're a bodybuilder well you don't necessarily even need to be able to do um you know strict dead hang pull-ups all the way down it's i think you should be able to do that but like you don't need to be able to do that you can get a lot of volume done and get a huge back and all you have to do is just look good on stage. So it's a total goal-dependent question. Yeah. Right.

Mash, pulling 700 pounds off the ground, you have to have a giant back for that. What's like the – how long – or not even how long, but like when you are looking at your athletes or even in your own training um how much are they doing of just pure hypertrophy back training um just because they need a lot of muscle back there to lift 500 pounds off the ground i mean probably four times a week i'm thinking about it you know they do like two days of just like the rowing uh or and or pull-ups you know the they do horizontal and vertical pulling and then they do if you count like good mornings rdls where you're talking about the spinal extensors which a lot of people when they say back they start thinking about the lats and maybe the rhomboids but they leave out like the spinal extensors which is that is really what we're talking about today in my opinion is yeah or that's more the core than the abs The abs really aren't that important for anything,

really. The spinal extension is what keeps you in extension. Because how could something that's in front of you keep you in extension? You can't. No, they support everything. But it's the spinal extension that's, for strength athletes, it's probably, in my opinion, the most important group of muscles. Maybe at least as important as the hips and the knee extensors and the hip extensors. So it's normally the divine factor. Yeah, I actually was going to, you beat me to it a little bit, talking about deadlifts and RDLs. Do you categorize that in your training or with your athletes as like leg or back movements when you're looking at total volume and just breaking out movement patterns for a day it's definitely

like going to count as like i you know there's there's there's uh movements that i count that go directly towards snatch cleanser and like RDLs, good mornings. They're part of that group. You know, like pull-ups are not, rows are not, you know, not that I don't count them towards total volume, but there's this thing called the K value. I think I might have mentioned it. So maybe, I don't know if I did or didn't. Yeah, we talked about it a little bit on Monday, but these shows are going to be so far apart.

You just go from the little bit high level on that. K-value is like this formula that you do to figure out how much volume, how much intensity per repetition you did in that cycle went towards the snatch and clean and jerk. And once you find out that value, then you, like, you can actually then, you know, like, if you total 300 kilograms, you can decide how much per repetition do you have to do to get to 310 or 315 or 20. So it is part of that, you know, the RDLs, the good mornings, because they're so directly related to the snatch and clean and jerk. And powerlifting.

I think that's like as a powerlifter, like that is, or if you want to squat more, normally what will happen, you'll get to the point where your hips and your legs are plenty strong to squat whatever. It will be the back that will be the deciding factor. So it's important. I've never missed a squat because of my legs. Me either. Hardly anybody.

Because my back gives out. Right. Yeah, some people just think you need to make your back stronger. And then I know you've talked with Boyle many times in debates on Twitter and wherever else. But that's like one of his main arguments is that your back is your limiter on bilateral work. And so to fully and completely actually tax your legs to you know as far as they can be taxed if you take the back out of it that's why he one of the many reasons that he you know promotes all the single leg work so heavily with rear fidelity split squats and

whatever whatever else uh what are your thoughts on those two kind of ends of the spectrum where it's either make your back really really strong, or just take your back out of the equation and fully tax your legs. Because the back is more is built for capacity. So that means that like, um, it is built to go high reps. So then if you're talking about, you know, hypertrophy specifically like five or 10, then it will be your legs because your legs will give before your back. If you're talking about one RNs, then it's your back, not your legs, because that your legs, your hips are designed to take that one big repetition. And, but your back is not. Does that make sense?

So like that's designed for high reps. So you can get plenty of hypertrophy, you know, the fives and tens. It's just the one RN that will be the deciding factor in the back. Honestly, I think that all athletes should do unilateral as well. To Boyle's point,

I think that's where his philosophy falls short. If you have a contact athlete like football, rugby, MMA, like the back has to be incredibly strong, and it has to be able to absorb force. So when you run into somebody, like if you can absorb that impact and transfer it the other direction quicker than the other guy,

well, then you just knock somebody out or vice versa. So that's where his falls short is that is his athletes if they run into my athletes are going to get mauled yeah um it's impossible to talk about back training without kind of talking about low back pain as well um just as as a really high level category and and you start hearing as soon as um as soon as anybody talks about lifting weights and the back, it instantly – I mean, it's like 80-something percent of Americans are going to have low back pain in their lives. I used to own a company specifically dedicated to getting people stronger because of low back pain. When you start to think about – Doug, I'll just kick this to you. When you start thinking about low back pain, what are kind of the biggest myths in understanding that?

As far as like a movement pattern and training methodologies for recognizing the difference between like your upper back and its capabilities. And then the low back and why people have so much back pain. Usually when people talk about back pain with respect to lifting, they automatically go to super round back deadlifts performed really poorly or butt winking, that type of thing. Your low back is supposed to have a normal lordotic lumbar curve where it kind of goes forward and then curves back. And if you flex you go the exact opposite way you're bending the back your back the wrong way so to speak that mechanically

there there's a reason that you have an injury like if you if you take the your vertebra and that you squeeze the front part of it together and you tear the back part away from each other something's gonna tear you're gonna tear you're gonna tear ligaments joint capsules you're gonna you're gonna squeeze the you know the annulus the very center piece of your spinal disc you're gonna you're gonna push that through um the disc you know and put pressure on the nerve and then that's where people have like um you know they say they i threw my back out type pain where like they get like big sharp radiating pain through their back and down their legs and that that comes from in many ways comes from just having poor technique or trying to move

the bar further than your range of motion further than the range of motion of your hips ankles etc can can sustain now you're just moving the bar lower but you're bending at the wrong place if you're flexing your low back those little tiny joints are not set up to experience the loads of many hundreds of pounds on your back like like your hips are are you supposed to have a strong low back because there are like a ton of muscles there it's kind of like where those extensors are like it's their insertion point it's not really a spot that's supposed to be you know supposed to look at somebody and go wow the guy's like a jacked low back well it doesn't exist to clarify the question like you are supposed to have a strong low back yeah or even more specifically a stable low back like that's the one the most important piece is that you're you're not moving in the presence of

potential change like you could round your back but you choose not to you can hold the isometric and not you know move into further flex and flexion if you have a flex a flexor moment where your back is moving toward more flexion even if you're hyperextended you're moving toward neutral there's there's there's some um some research out there to suggest that that's even a problem uh which which is kind of counterintuitive like how would that really be a problem but it seems to be. So what was the original question you just asked me a few seconds ago? You said the word, basically.

Oh, you're talking about hypertrophy. You know, a lot of times it comes back, and people are like, oh, I just need to strengthen my lower back. And you go, well, I don't really want you to think about hypertrophy in your low back. What I want you to think about is stability and your ability to push your hips back. And those words get confused. And stability is the word for what you're looking for in your low back.

Not necessarily like, how do I create flexion in my lumbar spine and then flex it so that I grow a big muscle down there. Right. Strength and hypertrophy are not necessarily even synonymous either. A lot of people that have a lot of hypertrophy in their lower back actually might have semi-weak lower backs. The reason they have hypertrophy there is they've been trying to maintain a neutral spine, we'll say, and then as the load pulls them into flexion, they're doing a very high load eccentric, which is a stimulus that is going to grow muscle mass at a much faster rate than just doing true isometrics.

If you're, you can't really get big on isometrics. Like, so if you have a perfect neutral, yeah, you can get very strong with isometrics. You can be very stable. Thatometrics you can you can you can be very stable that's kind of the definition of being stable so you're not moving you're doing an isometric contraction but if you if you have poor technique and as you do your deadlifts or whatever else like you're rounding throughout the movement at any point then you might you might have enough stimulus on those muscles to grow them but it's actually if you see someone with a lot of hypertrophy in their low low low

back that might actually mean they have bad technique and they and they can't maintain a neutral spine even if they're even if they're brutally strong like if someone has really thick spinal erectors lumbar spinal erectors and they deadlift 600 pounds they're obviously not weak but their low back is weak relative to their leg strength because they can't maintain that neutral spine um you know they'd probably have can't maintain that neutral spine um you know they'd probably have to to maintain the neutral spine say they have to do 500 pounds they probably maybe they could do with 500 pounds but they can't do a 600 pounds so now relative to their leg strength their and their hip extension strength their back strength isometrically isn't isn't

equal it's not up to par there's a when you say that that back pain comes mainly from bad movement patterns other than like it's not really from that one thing where you got hurt. If you go to deadlift and you say you threw your back out, you threw your back out because your whole life is spent moving incorrectly. When you bend over, you go into flexion. You bend over to pick up a shirt and you flex, or you bend over to pick up a basket of clothes and you're or you you know you bend over to pick up you know a basket of clothes you know and you're flexing it's more you know if you talk to Stuart McGill which we're about next week to warm it up Chris yeah but so like so but like um he'll tell you that it's really about you know how do the hips move and do they allow the low back to stay stable that is the key and that's

what people need to you know are my hips moving are they internally externally rotating or abducting abducting are they flexing extending extending you know and is the low back remaining neutral the whole time that's the key i'm so glad you said that because i think that uh we started the show talking about all three of us like to talk about getting jacked because it's we have the movement patterns down and we don't have to worry about our hips pushing back but if you're a coach or you're an athlete and you're slightly concerned about having low back pain and back training or every time you you lean over and do a barbell row your back's on fire uh that you have to go and look at what's happening in your pelvis and your ability to to load and push your hips back and if as a movement screen if you just bend over and the movement for a hinge

initiates with your chest going forward versus your hips going back we're at a bad place. And that is the assessment number one of either, you know, this is why having a mirror in your gym is awesome if you're training by yourself or you just want to watch yourself move and the importance of really having a coach if things start to get weird. But if your hips are not the initiator of the movement, you're just headed down the wrong road. And you got to get that issue. Before we start worrying about adding tons of muscle,

we don't want to add tons of muscle to a bunch of dysfunctional movement. And getting your hips back is going to be primary goal number one. And then we can start layering on lots of movements, lots of volume, and lots of hypertrophy work so we can start building muscle and and really uh getting into the the conversation of how do you get strong as hell

and i think this is a real like if there is a community that does it more than anybody one of my favorite parts about the west side documentary is louis when he was talking about the first time he uh jacked his back up and he was like i thought i was unbreakable i didn't think there was a chance that i could blow my back out and next thing you know boom doing a good morning because he probably let the air out a little too early on a good morning and it was probably like 700 pounds or something that he was trying to good morning at the time but um inside powerlifting gyms like like how important is it, um, to be just constantly putting in all the accessory work and, and how do you, how is that structured when you're,

you know, one of the strongest people in the world and, and having a back and deadlifting seven, 800 pounds is, is a reality. You have to have a giant set of back muscles to be able to stabilize your spine. From the neck down, it needs to be too. There needs to be like, I have yet to see a great strength athlete, whether it's a weightlifter or a powerlifter who did not have an amazing back. You look at Piros Dimas, you look at his old uh pictures i mean his back or lou zhaozhong i don't even know if i ever say that right does anybody but like yeah yeah good but his back if you just say lou yeah people just say if you just say lou

no one really knows but if you just say like you lose your year everybody knows oh you're talking about the guy from china yeah oh that really strong guy does squat jerks yeah that bomb at iwf worlds bam should have done split now he just won this last year though yeah he's a savage he won the last two years so how great does he move lou zhao zhang i think i think every chinese person i've ever watched lift moves like a, you know, like a ballet dancer. Beautiful.

Unreal. Yeah. They're movement patterns. Like, it's just like, like a ballerina. It's just beautiful. Like if you guys ever watched,

I know this is telling a secret about me, but like, I actually follow worldwide ballet because like Doug, I love movement. Movement is what intrigues me. That's why I choose weightlifting over powerlifting is the movement. It's beautiful. Look at all the Chinese.

It's a genetic trait. I feel like I've yet to meet someone from China who, even their worst mobile, the least mobile person in China still moves better mobile the least mobile person in China still moves better than the most mobile person in America like they just move beautifully like you know that their hips the way they sit in a squat their most always super vertical that they just you know their their ankles are completely mobile and like that's why a squat jerk would work because they can move to the right planes. However, still not 100% on that squat jerk.

But anyway. That's why I find myself on Instagram watching like hook grip, the slow-mo videos. And I'm like, they make it look – like if you just showed that to somebody walking down the street, they'd be like, cool. And then they'd keep walking and you'd go, no, no, no that's 450 pounds do you know how much that is that's incredible like the bar doesn't move they just move themselves around it i mean i feel like anybody's like if you can do a squat dirt you should because if you're really stable in that position because like you have to move the bar the least amount of distance. And so it's – in theory, it's the way to go.

It's just that most people, they're so, like, unstable in that, you know, close grip overhead squat position. Yeah. When you were training, though, like, what – I guess, like, really training to, you know, to be the strongest man in the world. Oh, yeah. how I guess like really training to, you know, to be the strongest man in the world, the, what was like the, how much volume and how did you kind of, um, I think one of the interesting things is how do you, when you're putting that much volume and clearly you're, you're eating and everything in your life is, is tailored to that specific goal so it's not um you're you're getting the recovery or whatever you need but um how much is like rdl stability exercises extensor exercises um you know deadlift rdl bent rows versus like pure bodybuilding hypertrophy, like upper trap, lower trap, stuff like that.

How did you guys break it out? Because you can't just sit there and RDL and good morning every single day at heavy weights. I would do good mornings at least once a week, sometimes twice. I would do RDLs once a week. I would do reverse hypers twice a week. I would do reverse hypers twice a week. I would do pull-ups twice a week. I would do rows twice a week. I would do, you know, and then I would do some accessory. Like I even started towards the end when you're trying to just keep going a little bit longer. I would do a lot of that, you know, low to mid trapeziusus work a lot of rhomboid work trying to stabilize the scapula

but so it was a lot and like the good mornings was a big reason like when i was younger and i was squatting like 600 and then i did good mornings for you know solid it was like six months maybe and it went from like i was very weak when i started doing good mornings and then i got to where i could do 405 for sets of five. And then my squat went from that 600 to 700. And it was 100%. The only thing I changed was adding good mornings. And then I stayed with it.

Probably then took it way too far. That was the problem. You know, there's a tipping point. But Stuart will tell us when he's on the show that there's a biological tipping point for every movement. That eventually you go too far, which I did. Of course, that's who I am. I'm going to take it too far. So, yeah, it was a lot.

It was as much – I probably did more direct back work than I – I'm sure I did – than I did direct quad work. Yeah. Did you find that good mornings were better for you than RDLs? And if so, it kind of sounds like they were for creating just like a higher squat. Like why do you think those two? Is it just because that's where the bar sits more and low back to kind of finalize the movement? Well, I think good morning starts so high is that it's going to get the erectors. You know, like if you look at where the bar is whereas like in the rdl it's it's always going to be over you know if you

do it correctly it's going to be always over your center of mass and it's much easier to maintain that yeah so your your erectors are not going to your spinal extensors are not going to be working near as much but but i will say this the rd were better. I felt that I'm positive they were better for my deadlifting, obviously. I mean, it mimics the movement more. So like good mornings were for both, but mainly for squatting. RDLs were both, but mainly for deadlifting. The RDLs were the opposite. Like what they did is I did one cycle.

And here's another idiot thing I look back. So I did this cycle of RDLs where I did look back but like so i did this cycle um of rdls where i did it from a deficit but with tons of bands and so and that's i would do one day of that and one day of like dynamic deadlifting and my squat went from 7 30 it was at low 7 30 that was the first time in that short period of time that i went 800 it was a it was the biggest like is the biggest like pr i'd ever set. And then I stopped doing it. Like, good thing.

Like, why did I not keep doing it? Anyway, but, you know, idiot. I think that I'm telling you right now that I'm going to do more good mornings just for you. Yeah. You changed my squat. Yeah, well, I don i'm what the goal would be um but i i changed the first squatting around to having a full grip on the bar

and i really the other day yeah i really liked it a lot um mainly just because it is a like we've kind of talked about but closing the chain at the top makes me feel more connected it just feels like a much stronger position and the mobility piece, which I'm always trying to get just like the low-hanging fruit that I'm not thinking about over and over and over again. Better mobility in there. But we talked about this last time. We were all out at MASH Elite.

And good mornings have just always felt so weird to me. And one, it's because I don't practice them. I, they feel weird. And then I'm like, all right, cool. The other part is they just wreck my whole posterior chain so much that like

it leaves me just trashed for a couple of days. There's a reason though, you know, you do them like anything else that you'll adapt. But if that's the case, you for sure need to do them. Like if you need, now let me be clear to everybody listening of all the movements, in if that's the case, you for sure need to do them. Now, let me be clear to everybody listening.

Of all the movements, in my opinion, in my experience, I would say be very careful in the way you load a good morning and look at it as a very long-term. I would start 20% to 25% of my back squat, honestly. So that is also why I haven't done them because I've never had such a long term approach to it is RDLs. You can just load up and go. Yeah. Cause the bars is in such a good spot.

It's kind of like the mile time, right? Like anytime I go run, I go run sprints. I like go run sprints. I feel super winded. And I'm like, okay, I'll be back in a month, maybe. Maybe a year. I don't know. Right. Like I'm not sticking with it or committing to the long-term thing. So now that I've been at the track three days a week, I'm like, oh,

this is what real track training feels like. So I need to do it with a good morning. I'm committing. I'm going to start doing it with an empty bar. How do you think people should go about, say you squat 300, 400 pounds, somewhere in that range, empty bar, 10s, 12s, 15s? I want to thank our brand new sponsor

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make sure you get to Fit Together, the brand new social media app just for the fitness people trust me between new spikes in covid19 between riots and an election year the last place i want to spend any of my time right now is facebook and Instagram is getting there. All of the politics, all that crap, get it away from me. I'm here for the fitness. I want to see people working out. I want to see cool workouts. I want to see new movements. I want to see people walking, hiking. I want to see it and it's all happening over at Fit Together. So here is what you need to do. You need to go to your app store right now on all of your devices, Fit Together.

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Download it in your app store today. Let's get back to the show. I mean, like, if you squat 400, you can start at, like, you know, 100 pounds, 95 pounds. Yeah, something super light. Yeah, super light. And then, uh, you know, do, I would start with fives in like it's a manageable low, like four by five is good. And then the next week add like 2%, 2%.

It's that slow. I would let you do what you want, but I would do that and look at it as like, I'm going to get my good morning up a year from now, not in 12 weeks or six months, slowly over time. And then next thing you know, you'll be able to good morning like what most people squat is like where it took it. Like I ended up – I could do a set of five with over 600 pounds, very strict, to where my back was parallel to the ground. Yeah. That's where I probably took it too far. I remember a story with John Wellborn, who now just saying that name,

I want to reach out to him and have him on, where I want to say it was like Kelly Starrett and him got under squat rack at like 405 and Kelly Starrett. I want to say it was Kelly Starrett because Kelly's really strong. Yeah. And Kelly was squatting and felt like he was really cool. And then Wellborn came over and was like, I'm just going to match you rep for rep on Good Mornings at 4.05.

And Wellborn's just such a tank and such a big human being. And I remember hearing that and being like a 405 pound good morning. Like how in the world do you even attempt something like that? Doug, how often are you, I guess, you know, even thinking about kind of movement patterns, like going RDL, like the big ones, RDL, good morning, row, bent row, and then adding the accessory stuff on top of that, like single arm stuff. But if you were to lay out like total volume, you know, going from the bigger lifts with the barbell

to the accessory side, how do you structure that? Again, many ways to do that. I tend to right now, I'm on kind of like an upper-lower split. I'm doing EMOM aesthetics right now. So it's kind of like squat heavy on day one, like squat and knee extension heavy on day one. And then day three has some Olympic stuff and some kind of light single leg work like step ups or, uh, or like tempo pistols. And then, uh, day four of each week, uh, is more of a hinge dominant

hamstring dominant day. So there'll be some type of deadlift and then some type of RDL or, and, or hamstring curl like GHD, um, or glute ham raises rather. Uh, so right now for me, hinging specifically is only kind of twice a week i count the cleans or snatches as as a light hinge and then heavy deads and rdls as a uh as my heavier or slash volume hinging days but then i mean regarding low back strength and stability is still on the squatting days i'm doing front squats back squats any types of heavy reverse lunges or whatever it is so my back's getting a good isometric stimulus at least, at least three days a week. Yeah. As far as your back goes, like you can,

you can maintain high, high volume. If all you're doing is isometrics, you can do isometrics all the time because they don't really beat you up too much. So right now I'm about three days a week on, on heavy isometrics for my low back. Upper body volume, like for pulls and whatnot, I'm twice a week on that too. Again, I'm doing kind of an upper-lower split. Whenever I think about volume, I tend to think, you want to get 10 to 20 sets-ish per week of good quality sets.

Yeah. 10 to 20 sets a week. Some people are going to need more volume than that. Hey, bud, you going to need more volume than that. Hey, bud. You going to watch TV? It was that dude. It was Chris Beardsley. He was talking about, it was like just what you just said. He was talking about like when they looked at hyper-DV, it was that 10

to 20 and anything above that was like, it was just nothing extra happened. Anything below that, not as much happened. So that's like the sweet spot, he said. So it's ironic that you said 10 to 20 is like perfect. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, so you want to kind of fluctuate your training within that range for the most part. You want to just do, okay, 20 is the top end of the range. I'm going to do 20 sets of everything all the time. No fluctuations. You know, you might have one week where it's 12 sets and then another week where it's 16, then 14 then 18 and then and then 14 then 20 that might be like kind of how you you stair step your your six weeks okay hold on bud okay i'm gonna i'm gonna turn on tv for this little three-year-old

man right here i was this dude when he shows up mash that back that little man's got on him it's gonna be thick one day everybody let's listen listening on podcast right now can't see. When Ryder shows up, Ryder had a back on day one. That dude had a thick back. He was picking up bowling balls, like, on the day that he was able to walk. He had, like, an eight-pound stone carry on day one. Yeah. That's how he walks.

Like Eddie Hall. Yeah. He's got a huge ass and a huge, like, power belly. Shoulders are huge perfect that's so funny when he watching it when he was just like two years old brute um dude when y'all dog and i used to train at this uh super bodybuilding gym in san diego called world gym i think they renamed it uh like the gym the gym that's right the gym what a great place i'm going to the gym and then own that name um and when you would walk in there like i think that one of the things people miss out on

a lot in functional fitness training facilities is that the fact that machines are really expensive so they're not in there and it like the the idea like we get really hung up that the fact that machines are really expensive so they're not in there and it like the the idea like we get really hung up on the idea that like functional training is the only way to do it like but it limits a lot specifically it it limits a lot in leg growth but you can you can kind of like get through a lot of it with squats, deadlifts, some lateral movements, stuff like that, and legs. But specifically in back training and the number of angles that you can pull from, it's really, really challenging to do a full back training the way that it can be done very well, much like bodybuilders. Like you see those guys stand on stage and their wings are ridiculous.

Amazing. And you walk into a pure bodybuilding gym and there's not one back machine that everybody is using. They go over and they do bent rows. They do their good mornings. They do their RDLs. And then they go and spend the next 90 minutes walking down the line of the 15 different back machines and they're pulling from

a 45 they're pulling from 90 they're pulling from 15 like they have every single machine that you need to pull from every single different angle. And there's such a benefit to having those machines around to be able to actually train the muscles. And I think many people that have not been a part of a bodybuilding specific gym or spent a lot of time on those machines really miss the ability to locate some of the musculature, like finding your lower traps. The ability to just actually hit all of those areas is a really challenging thing. And you can try to mimic it. I've actually been doing, I'm going to do a post on today. Look at that. I'm going to go to the gym downstairs. I'm going to set all the bands up. But one of the things that I've really been digging with the band training is that I can put the band anywhere I want on the bar and pull.

So like a cool drop set, I'm making this up right now. This is how creativity happens. You can start with a straight-up pull-down on the band and then just knock it down five inches. And you're in a completely different, uh, pulling angle. You're going to have fresh muscles and just work your way all the way down until you're doing basically a single arm row off the bottom of the pole. Um, there isn't like a big question coming out of it. How do you guys think about, you know, where people need to be, um, and their ability, like everybody wants a big

back so how can they get all of those accessories in when most people that are listening to the show are limited to uh you know only having dumbbells and barbells at their disposal i think you said it man to me it'd be like the bands you know if you're not going to be in a globo gym or be in a functional facility that maybe – you could really just buy a cable machine and you could get a ton of what you just said. But if you don't have it, then bands. Then there's lots of different angles. If you use dumbbells or kettlebells, you could use chest supported. You could get a bench and be chest supported at different angles.

However, to get the pull down, that's, you know, that would be tough other than, you know, you could do pull-ups at different angles. So you can put like your feet supported at different angles. You could do that. So you can be creative, but honestly, like there's nothing more fun. If you're a true meathead, this is where you got to be a true meathead to go into a global gym and hit all those different machines like you just said and walk down that i used to love that i'm

it's my be a liar to say yeah man like i mean anyone who i feel like most people who got into this who love it like we do like have all been through the phase of like bodybuilding and then i feel like then you go away from it and then you come back to it yeah i really love jack yeah here's pro tip go get straps too because your hands are going to get tired and when your hands get tired that's usually when you stop your set but guess what's not tired you're back so if you go get some straps and you load them up on a machine you have no reason not to go hit just giant sets of real it's just so much fun one of my favorite things to do is to just sit on the seated cable row and just go there is no amount of pulling that you can do

that's gonna like on the seated cable row that isn't going to be the most fun day of your entire training you're just cranking on that thing all you can sit there for an hour change up all the different grip widths so it's like one of the most fun i'm gonna go to the globo gym as soon as it opens just to go do some back training i miss like that stuff is so awesome but when i when i moved back down here and i joined the the globo gym that was like the the most fun thing getting back into the globo gym scene was that i had a full cable setup and i could just do all the seated rows you could just crank on weights on that thing agreed man the best part about the limit training center is that when that

when weightlifting was at the otc is like in one room it was weightlifting so you had everything all the nice bars of course all the nice plates blocks you know the jerk blocks everything you could want for weightlifting right on the other side of the room walk through the door and then there was the strength conditioning facility and then you had all the machines you could want so like all the true meatheads would go over there after they were done doing weightlifting and get their pump on yeah it was a it was like a beautiful thing yeah and no matter the machines are awesome for a couple reasons one they they put your body in a

specific position so that you have to hit a specific muscle group that or the specific muscle group that the machine's designed for the other other thing is like, you can't, unless you have something that is like a band and the proper tension and you've got the experience or you're willing to play with those tensions, it's really challenging to find that exact position to work on whatever you're doing. But the machine is so rad because you are actually in a place where pulling, finding the proper tension. But if you have a dumbbell or a barbell, that weight, because of gravity, is going to go straight to the ground. You can't hold a weight, no matter if you're doing like croc rows seal rows that there's

no hand position and body position you just can't get there and have enough like if you grab an 80 pound dumbbell and you're gonna just row that thing forever you're just not gonna be able to get it into a like a 45 degree angle and be able to hold that thing there and pull and actually be able to do the reps. So you have to be able to train those muscles in that specific way. And just without having a machine that is designed for that specific thing, it's just really, really hard to do. And now I'm fired up and I want to go to the Globo gym.

I'm ready for them to unlock down so I can go get my back pump on. I guess you could do like a, a handstand hold, you know, like at different angles. I mean, but like, hell with that.

Like I just, like I would rather have a jerk. Yeah. Yeah. But I would rather just like go to the Glo Global Gym and go to that 15 pieces of pack. They're the best, right? Yeah, I totally agree. If you could get to the machines, these are the best ones.

If you can get to the Hammer Strength where they have the – you can go bilateral, but most of them are designed so that you can go single arm movement. Those are the best. Alternating, going back and forth left right load them up with some straps there's you could you could do a jillion reps with that stuff not that i want you to stay in between 10s and 20s you know do the right thing but it's just so much fun to go do legit back training and it's when you're in a functional fitness facility and there's only barbells maybe maybe dumbbells and kettlebells,

it's just really hard to actually hit all of that stuff. So I, you know, pay the 30 bucks, get a year long membership just for one day a week to go in and do cable rows, find all of the different grips. Like,

you know, the wide, when you know, the pull down one, I'm getting so excited. I almost came out of my chair. I set my coffee down and everything. The lat pull-down machine is the other one that gets me so stoked.

Lat pull-downs are so much fun. I didn't do a lat pull-down for like seven years. That's a crime. I should not be put in a position where I can't do a lat pull-down for that long. It just feels so good. And you can do different grips, neutral grip. Yeah. Yeah.

Pro native, super native. Like every time you change anything, it totally feels different. And like you get that massive pump. And like every bodybuilder, every – I think most people's favorite bodybuilders always have – they feel like the differentiator is the back. Like Dorian Yates, I love Dorian Yates because his back was just incredible.

And then if you look at strength athletes, like if you look at Ed Cohn and his heyday, his back was absolutely, it looked like one time in Flex magazine, I'm pretty sure it's Flex, but we'll go with Flex. They had a comparison of Ed Cohn versus Dorian Yatesates and honestly their

backs look super similar minus ed was pasty white you know but he didn't pan but like their backs both amazing and that is just you know when someone's got a huge back you know you look at them you're like that dude is strong and probably i should mess with him you know but like a lot of people get the big chest and they might get some abs and then they turn you know you see their back it looks awful kind of like legs it's like legs and back that's the difference here in in men and boys you know i go in i do some pump my chest up in my arms you're a boy but you have a massive back and and legs that's real that's real man stuff yeah i have have a real theory that for the rest of my life, all I need to train is legs and back.

Everything else is fine. It's not like I'm not going to be able to bench a lot or enough. But if you can just keep growing your back forever and you keep getting strong in your legs, you got 99% of the bases covered. And as long as you got some wings when you raise your arms up who cares you're ready to rock you go to the pool flying away um doug we were talking about training volume earlier i think for horizontal rowing i really think you

can take the the number of sets higher than 20. Like there's some movement patterns that just don't beat you up very much. And horizontal rowing, I feel like is one of those things that it's hard to get really sore from it. And it doesn't really seem to be very stressful on any of your joints. You know, like pressing tends to be more stressful on joints than pulling uh with right with kind of the traction you get from uh from the pulling exercise as opposed to like the approximation at the joint from the pressing exercises that's squeezing the joint together seems to be more stressful on joints so having having horizontal rowing put in your program

you know maybe your back day is kind of two days a week but you horizontal row three or four days a week it's just like you do three sets at the end of multiple training sessions that you can add volume to your back training um add stability to your to your scapula etc but it won't really beat you up too much so if you're looking to add volume i think that's that's one area that most people can add volume without really having any big downsides yeah yeah um Yeah. On the angles of that, I think it's also, yeah, if you start doing much higher rows

into much more scap retraction there instead of in a much stronger position with the elbows in tight, I think there's just some angles that you got to play with

in there and find find the sweet spot for you like if you're doing more like face pull stuff just realizing that's probably a little bit more on joint health and and hitting much tinier muscle groups than if you're just sitting there and doing some really heavy seated cable rows um doug i wanted to talk to you about the t-bar rows do you have any setup in that because those are dude when we wanted to talk to you about the T-Bar rows. Do you have any set up in that? Because those are – dude, when we used to go to Worlds, that was like the first thing that we always went to was to go hit the T-Bar.

Of course. Oh, yeah. I mean, I have a membership at Lifetime Fitness here that's never going to open again. And they – That's not needed. 15,000 members. That's, that's going to be tough to get that gym back open again. But, uh, yeah, but they have a T-bar row and I, it's a total go-to, uh, we'll call it a

machine. It's a type of machine. It's a go-to machine, man. I think most CrossFit gyms, functional fitness facilities, strength, conditioning, performance facilities, like everyone, everyone could use a T-bar row. Like that's, that it just is a beneficial movement for all athletes it's very simple to set up i like the fact that your your upper back is completely fixed or like your your torso is fixed you have to row with just your arms as opposed to you know

doing doing bro rows with a bent row with a barbell like you can always kind of row rows you can kind of uh use momentum to to get to eke out more reps and all that which not that's not only a bad thing but but i do like the fact that it it stabilizes you where you have to do all the pulling with your arms you don't get that in in other settings yeah i like you know that a lot have you ever you guys ever heard of um the kettlebell batwing rows where like the goal is to you know, your chest is supported on, like, an incline bench. You know, so, like, most gyms have what we're about to talk about. So, but, like, this is, oh, Dan John, I'm totally stealing this from him, which we'll hear from him next week, too.

But, like, your goal is to pull your thumb into your armpits is the key. And so you're really going to hit, you know, obviously your lats, but, you know, your rhomboids. Because it's only that last little bit of contraction that where you're actually going to really, you know, I guess recruit the rhomboids. And they're so important. Like, you know, I have a theory.

Like if you get the rhomboids strong and you get your serratus anterior strong and you get your lats strong, when you anchor that scapula into a good neutral position, it makes it so much easier to keep the entire spine in a neutral position. Because once the scapula wings out, I feel like it's just a chain reaction where the whole thing just gives. So if you can start and build that top part, it's a much better chance. Because think about this. How many times do you see somebody maintain a neutral spine in the thoracic spine, in the scapulate region, but yet they don't maintain a lumbar spine? It's very rare. So if you can really stabilize that position, then it's much easier, which

makes strength training much safer and stronger which is another reason you got to go around the seat of the cable row because if you go grab one of the coolest things that doesn't exist in any functional fitness facility is the split rope if you can do rows if you just grab the towel and do that those are the best i mean a towel is probably the easiest way if you have a um if you're in like a crossfit gym to mimic that but you know if you can go grab the rope on the seated cable row and get that because one of the biggest limiting factors and what you're talking about is that people row with the barbell and the barbell is going to hit your chest or if

you're laying on a bench and you're doing seal rows it stops it too early you never actually get the full range of motion so there's right you could train your back as much as you want but there's still a weak link in the chain because you're just not getting that last three inches which is the most important part of you know keeping your scap locked down if you guys ever heard of like you know i call it face busters so it's a rope you can use a rope or a towel and you pull it like you're saying, but then you rotate, so you get external rotate. Oh man. I think every power lifter guaranteed should do this because, you know, we're so internally rotated for the most part because you bench, you bench, you bench.

So your next thing you know, you're walking like this, but like, so if you like pull to a face buster, so you pull back so you retract the scapula and then boom then you externally rotate as well i think it's just a super healthy movement for you know most athletes actually just yeah i asked you about those with the dumbbells that i i'd never seen that actually and it's like a seated dumbbell clean and jerk looking oh yeah muscle clean and muscle clean rotate. But I thought it was all for like rotator cuff external rotation. I didn't know that there was like a – that you could –

Well, it's different. I didn't even think about doing it with ropes and towels. Right. Yeah, because it's totally different because then with the rope, you get the rhomboid thing too. But, you know, when you're doing it with the seated power cleans, it's just – you know, it's mainly just the external rotation. So it's mostly the infraspinatus.

Yeah. Yeah. And I don't want to go too far down this rabbit hole, but I think that sometimes segregating some of the, like, shoulder work that you could do actually is really awesome back workouts. Like reverse flies um stuff kind of like you're talking about that looks a lot like shoulder work actually is really good at strengthening um the stability in the spine which then turns into back work totally if you look at

like the shoulders and back i mean like it's hard to work one without the other really. Uh, and you can say the same thing, I guess, with shoulders and even pressing, you know, you're going to work a lot of anterior deltoids when you do pressing, but you know, back, you're definitely going to work a lot, especially if you look at the traps, the shoulder work, then guaranteed, I think you're going to work a lot of that with me do back for sure yeah i think that that's been uh as a part of my like just waking up and going straight to the gym has been a really cool thing i've been doing is just trying to get like 50 to 100 like reverse flies in the morning i know and you can't do it like you're always going to be using what eight ten pound weights like nobody has a one rep

max reverse fly with like a two second contraction at the top like it just doesn't exist so like the you can just go and hit there's there's no amount of reverse flies with a set of 10 pound weights or dumbbells that like you're going to do too much of. You can always have a better position there and you can always do a set of 10, 20, 30, whatever it is, and just moving your scap at a good position and stabilizing your back. Like you should just always either, you know, do it as a warm-up, just accumulate reps. Do it at the end of your workout just to accumulate reps. If you've got 10 minutes in your day, go find a 10 10 pound dumbbell or a couple 10 pound dumbbells and and do them like i think that that's something we've talked we've talked about the bodybuilding community and how many things they get right when

it comes to back training but like when you see some of those people like not only are their backs giant but there's no way to just do bent rows and get ridiculously defined the smaller muscle groups that are around there. You have to go create a stimulus that's going to grow those muscles that just aren't used as much. Did you guys ever have Charles Pullikin on your show? Of course, he's passed away now. Never had him. Let me tell you something I saw with my own eyes. You guys, do you ever

remember hearing of an old-time, old-school, not old-time, old-school bodybuilder named Boyer Co.? He was massive. He was even in Arnold's day. In the 90s, he was making a comeback, and he did, he looked awesome. I saw with my own eyes, Charles Polk and take this guy.

And what he did is he like, he assessed him and he found every single weakness, every little, I'm talking about, you know, Terrace major, Terrace Meyer, every serenity, every single little bitty muscle that he found that was weak or underdeveloped and he put 20 pounds on a bodybuilder who had been lifting his whole life just by doing what you just said by pinpointing those little bitty muscles and the it was amazing the way he looked after before and after with charles so like yeah you know that was one of the did i knew that this

dude was different like charles was like you know people some people are you know they're always going to hate on anybody who's you know people hate to think that there's somebody out there that much better than them but the truth is he's that much better he's just incredible yeah i think that that like doug when you put out the hunter amraPs or 100 bodyweight AMRAPs it like re-got me thinking about how just getting the low-hanging fruit is so important for you know just getting getting all those pieces in because typically we have like what 45 to 60 minutes to go train hard and what are you always going to do you're going to squat clean and jerk snatch bench you're going to hit yeah all the big rocks but if you could find these little little 10 minute spots go and you know do some isolation

stuff or just accumulate as many reps as possible and i think back training is just one of the best like it's actually something that just in the last six, seven weeks of doing these little 10 minute sessions that I've just it. It's reinvigorated a lot because I'm spending a lot of time at the track for my 45 to 60 minutes. So I don't have that like those big training sessions four or five days a week like normal. So now I can just go to the garage and hit 10 minutes and reverse flies, like just all banded work. All of that stuff is just really just like finding as much of the low-hanging fruit as possible to get a huge pump, get a ton of volume in with really low

weights that I'm still growing. It's just different. And what is your schedule? How often do you get to squat and things like that? I'm still growing. It's just different. Anders, what is your schedule? How often do you get to squat and things like that? I'm actually running the mile today and retesting, which is awesome. Let's go. Go, Anders.

Right. So I'm up at 5.30. I'm in the gym at maybe 6 o'clock. So I turned the coffee on. I say I'm up at five 30. The alarm goes off at five 30. I'm up at five 45, go downstairs, turn the coffee on. Um,

I'm, I'm in the gym at six. I do a hundred reps of something. Typically like it's, it's flies today. Today was 50 weight, uh, 50 muscle clean to push press with an empty bar and banded rows.

I love it. Then I'm on here with you guys. Typically, I go get coffee and muffins with my daughter every day. So we walk two miles together, which is rad. And then I usually right before we go, I go to the gym and do another 10 minutes of just something. So there's two 10 minute blocks there of lifting. 20 minutes of pump on.

Yeah. Yeah. One at one o'clock I go to the track. Typically in the afternoon we're outside playing and i'll just be in the gym doing something um three days a week i'm at the track and then i actually only get like one to two big training sessions like squat um deadlift stuff like that like actual big things and i'm And I'm not lifting heavy at all. 275 front squat for 5x2 the other day was like the biggest session I've probably had as far as lifting heavy in six,

seven weeks since we went into captivity. I love your outlook. That's why I reposted your thing on Barbell Shrug yesterday. I'm like, I love your outlook. And I want so badly to get there mentally where i i'm training to enjoy and it's like almost impossible for me to lift without wanting to go heavy and like i don't know why that is like i can't quite get past that but like i want to get to where i'm just like enjoying it and having fun and like you know doing different

things like being okay with with letting my squat go down to go do a mile, running a mile. I envy your approach. I would say that I still love lifting. The reason I'm testing my mile today

is because I woke up on Wednesday and for the first time in seven weeks, I thought I don't want to fucking run today and I went oh it's time to go test I'm ready to go on and move on to the next thing like I just get really bored doing not like training in a way I just like to go play so the the gym is just the playground. Like I say this all the time, but if my neighbors wanted to get after it and play kickball, I would fucking smash them in kickball.

This is great. And I don't mean that to be rude. I would just be, I have an ability to just, Oh, you want to play kickball? Like that'll be fun, but I'm going to crush you.

Yeah. I just want to go play and I'm not that'll be fun. But I'm going to crush you. Yeah. I just want to go play. And I'm not going to go play just because I just want to, like, go, eh, let's do it. Like, I, like, really love finding out, like, at some point in this game, it might be inning two, it might be inning five, it might be inning nine, but at some point someone has to win. And in order for somebody to win, we're going to have to look at each other and go, all right, point someone has to win and in order for somebody to win we're gonna have

to look at each other and go all right someone's got to win not all i have to do is be one percent more committed to winning than everybody else and i'm gonna win i'm with you on that one for sure that's why i mainly pick things that i'm really really good at like if i'm if i'm challenging you i know something you don't know. Like basketball. Like most people would look at me and be like, yeah. Yeah, I feel like we've all, like, think about Doug. He's not going to talk about it.

But do you think Doug doesn't walk around knowing that he could fucking kill you at any second? Yeah. Think about that. Like at any moment in time time if you really wanted to if like if there was a moment where it was like no right now we're gonna do this doug would just turn his little brain on and go well i'm gonna choke the fuck out of you right now how's that sound yeah you're going to sleep yeah you're gonna go to sleep you don't know if you're lucky i'll let go when you're asleep and if not not, I'll just kill you.

But your life will be in my hands. Yeah, like I own you. And that's everybody. There isn't a single person in the grocery store right now that can protect themselves against Doug. No, they're going to sleep. And they're maybe dying if he wants to kill them. He owns them. And it's not a bad thing it's just we all should walk around confidently knowing

like at some point if we really want to play this game i'm gonna get you and i just like to do it across as many domains as possible knowing that you might be more athletic you might be more uh like have a better skill set but at some point being stronger is more important and i'm just gonna get there and you still might beat me and i'm still gonna have a lot of fun and we're still gonna be friends at the end of this thing but look at some point we're gonna have to decide who wins and it's just right i love that moment it's always fun it's always a game we're all playing we're all on the same team the goal is fun but at some point if we're playing golf in my front yard at some point we're gonna have to figure out who won the game today. And that's important to me. I love it.

Yeah. Me too. I thought bowling, I went bowling with my wife and my kids and like, it was, they didn't know this, but deep down I was like, no damn way.

Somebody's beating me. Right. Yeah. I think it's rude. Like if you just said this to your neighbor, they'd be like, dude, you're a fucking crackhead. Like why are you so like,

imagine I'm speaking 100 for doug but imagine if he was like he walked up to his neighbor and he was like look you know we're super friends but if this coronavirus thing gets too crazy i'm gonna choke you out and take all your food just so you know like you can't say that to people he could but in day 150 all of a sudden doug hasn't shaved in three months he looks more gorilla like the food shuts down who do you think's getting choked out not doug no doug is not getting choked out by his neighbor his neighbor's out of luck yeah you better have a gun his neighbor just lost all his peanut butter that's where it's at. I'm like, I don't know. Guns, guns are playing into this a lot.

Yeah. Even for me. No, I think, I think it's, yeah, it's like a, it's like a mentality and,

uh, it's, we've done this our whole lives. You've put yourself in a position. It's not, it's not really about overtaking your neighbor. It's about building confidence. And it's why the gym is so radical, right?

You should be able, like, I've been speaking for Doug a lot. He does, there's there's a piece of this where it's like i love mma i love lifting weights i love playing sports you love being the strongest man in the world but why why does it matter what's well like look it's really hard to find specific places to overcome adversity that build confidence in your life. And the gym is a really good one. You can play it on your own. You can go in there and you can, you build confidence. You go, I can do this. And we have all done it. Like you, you go and learn MMA because you're, you're constantly facing an opponent that is going to choke you out

and you continually survive. you continually get better, you continually get stronger. I don't know how to fight anybody. That's one where I'm going to lose all the time. But most people don't walk around trusting their physical capacity in any sense of the word. And most people, because they don't trust their physical capacity, they lack the mental grit and toughness to get through things. At some point, it's just a really, really simple way to develop toughness. Just go to the gym and add five pounds to the bar. And sooner or later, it's going to be freaking heavy. And you either lift it or you don't. And then it becomes a mental battle. And then after you've gotten to the point where you know you can overcome things,

then it becomes a spiritual battle and that we all are here chasing this higher power of being our greatest self. And now you've gone from, can I get stronger to how do I develop mental toughness to how do I find this higher being in myself? And you get into the spiritual battle of why do I do all this? Why am I chasing this thing? And it stops being about can I get girls? Can I be good at sports? And can I overcome obstacles? And now it's how do I be my greatest self?

And that's the perseverance. Yes. What we're all really, if you're in it long enough, why this all matters that was good that was good where can I find you Travis Mash? good place to end it

mashalee.com check us out there or LinkedIn you just Travis Mash Doug Larson find me on Instagram I'm Anders Varner Travis Smash. There it is. Doug Larson. Right on. Find me on Instagram at Douglas E. Larson. I'm Anders Varder at Anders Varder.

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