Barbell Shrugged - Building the Endurance Athlete w/ Javier Pineda, Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Travis Mash #793

Episode Date: April 9, 2025

Javier Pineda, endurance coach at RAPID Health Optimization and founder of Endurance Cartel, empowers athletes and professionals to master strength and stamina. With ten Ironman triathlons and two Ironman 70.3 races under his belt, he’s a CHEK Practitioner with top-tier certifications and insights from various mentors across his career. At DBC Fitness in Miami, he’s trained pros, executives, and competitors to hit peak performance. His focused coaching targets endurance-strength integration, precision movement, optimization, recovery, and custom training—driving sustainable, high-impact results. Work With Us: Arétē by RAPID Health Optimization Links: Javier Pineda on Instagram Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram

Shrug Family, this week on Barbell Shrug, Javier Pineda is coming into the show. He is our endurance specialist inside rapid health optimization. So all of the very specific goals for people that want to be going from one place to another in a very, very long distance in between those two places, whether it's on a bike or swimming or running or on a foil board or, who knows what kind of other apparatus, but all of our endurance athletes, they have a specialist that is working with them on all things endurance, and it is awesome having him here.

We really, really enjoy it, and everybody enjoys working with him. And as always, friends, you can head over to rapidhealthreport.com. That is where Dan Garner and Dr. Andy Galpin are doing a free lab lifestyle and performance analysis, and you can access that over at rapidhealthreport.com. That is where Dan Garner and Dr. Andy Galbun are doing a free lab lifestyle and performance analysis. And you can access that over at rapidhealthreport.com. Friends, let's get into the show.

Welcome to Barber Shrugged. I'm Anders Garner, Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mash. Today on Barber Shrugged, Javier Pineda. Javier, you are new to our team and also very awesome in that you speak a language of long distance running, endurance. But what I really want to kick off is when I first met you, you dropped a name of Paul Chek and I immediately wanted to fly down to Miami and just have coffee and talk to you about how that man changed my life. I'd love to hear a little bit of kind of the background on how you got

into where you're at. And then I want to spend a little bit of time talking about Paul check is that guy over like a like a half day genuinely changed my life. And I tell stories about the half day that I spent with him all the time to people. Guys, thank you very much for the invite. And, uh, and there's yeah, man, it's, uh, Paul check. My God. I mean, it's first off, um, yeah, it's a Paul check was his, he's always been, I've been a practitioner for Paul check for the last 20 something years. And still to this day, I still go back and watch his videos and they are still just as impressive as they were when the first time I ever saw him. And they probably are better because you're more

experienced. Exactly and it's kind of like the old book you go back and read it again and the words inside that book change. Yeah. And so it's it kind of I interpret things differently I go back to my it's just I can only have to watch like four four minutes for four to six minutes of a poll check skit and or even just listening to him is kind of like it kind of centers and this is how wise this guy is and he's I've always considered him so ahead of his time and the great thing is that a lot of people are just now starting again to start going to his certifications and the more they can learn from somebody like him as opposed to just

going on social media and getting information from influencers, I feel it's going to be the whole fitness industry is just going to be far better off and not to mention everybody's going to be far healthier. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. One of my first impressions with Paul was like, it's almost fashionable these days to say you're holistic, holistic health, that type of thing. And Paul really is one of the few people that really seems to get health, fitness, wellness,

etc. from like every angle. He understands how all the systems and subsystems fit together. Like he can architect all of all the different things you need to do to improve your total physiological health in a way That is very unique that not many other people can accomplish. He's very intelligent. No, I 100% agree and if You ever look at his questionnaires on his book of how to move how to eat move and be healthy his questionnaires are go very much in detail and a lot of people are like No, really

dude, I mean, you really need to know what my poop looks like. Because that's how much in detail that the questionnaires are. And we're talking back in the day. And I still gave it out. And it's like people are still kind of like, do you still really need to know my poop? I mean, it's, yeah, your poop says a lot about what your gut health is doing. Um, so it's, it's yeah. And, um, not to mention it's the person that recommended me with, uh, with Brian, which is another great, um, uh, connection that we all have. I mean, Brian, Brian McKenzie has, uh, has, has taught a dear place in my heart cause he's, he's, uh, he's been a very good friend.

And, uh, even though it's, uh, I barely see him anymore. Or I'm just, I mean, every once in a while we text and whatnot, but it's, it's great. Is this still in California? Yeah. I love that dude. How can you not love that guy? He's awesome. He's, he's, he's, he has such a big personality that he can just come up

and just basically, it's just the best. And he has that charisma. Yeah. He was actually the one that put us in touch with you when we reached out looking for somebody that could help one of our clients with some Iron Man goals. How long is the long distance endurance coaching side been a part of your kind of like coaching journey?

Well, you know, it started off in 2001. And back in the day, it's Ironmans were still very, very few people did Ironmans. And not to mention, half Ironmans more than anything, but Ironmans were very much a mistake. It's some, and I kind of was attracted to it, but just the fact that nobody was doing it attracted me. And then I just started looking at, okay, what do you need to do to finish something like this? I mean, we're talking about a 2.4 mile swim. We're talking about a 112 mile bike and then a marathon after all that, all in one day. And to be specific, I guess it was 16 hours back then. Yeah.

It's 1% of the whole population are not even and but nowadays I mean more and more people are going into the Ironmans or the Half Ironmans or marathons or something long distance just because they want to maybe get into the sport or just mark it off as a I did it, which is okay. And, but yeah, it's, it's a, it's a grueling sport. Endurance is can be a very tricky world. And you can navigate a lot of venues and still just benefit from it. You know, certain extent, what was the draw for you specifically because you've done what 10 Ironmans? 10 Ironmans. you've done what, 10 Ironmans?

10 Ironmans, yes. I've done 10 Ironmans and I've also done plenty, plenty of half Ironmans in Olympic distance preparing for those Ironmans. And not to mention that Ironmans are just a grueling sport because they take a lot. It becomes a full-time job when you're training for it. The financial aspect of it, I mean, it's like I remember just spending so much freaking money on

it, on bikes and on gels and on coaches. Not to mention that you go and travel to other countries and you have to pay for your countries and you have to pay for your bike and you have to pay for all your things and there was there was I remember that back in 2004 I think it was it this cartoonish kind of audio tape or something it came up and saying it's this guy trying to get a date with a girl it's all robotic voice this guy trying to get a date with a girl. It's all robotic voice. This guy trying to get a date with a girl and then the girl was like, no man, it's like, how am I going to go out with you? You wake up at four in the morning or something like

that. It's like, because that's what we do. We have no life. We have no social life or whatever. The only social life you have is with the people you train with. Yeah, well you got to put so many hours into the road. That was one of the things that Brian McKenzie I feel like actually made the biggest impact in the, in my opinion, the biggest impact in the endurance space was you don't have to go swim the whole event every day. And you don't have to run the whole event every single day. And really got people away from the endless hours that they were just beating their body down and actually was talking about how strength training

and more high intensity work was beneficial to endurance events. I'd love to understand kind of in your intake process though, like what are the metrics that you're looking for as far as a starting point? What is your, like what data is collected to really be able to find out where people are at and so you know what the next step for them is? Dr. Andy Galpin here. As a listener of the show, you've probably heard us talking about the RTA program, which we're all incredibly proud of. It's a culmination of everything Dan Garner and I have

learned over more than two decades of working with some of the world's most elite performers, award-winning athletes, billionaires, musicians, executives, and frankly, anyone who just wanted to be at their absolute best. Arte is not a normal coaching program. It's not just macros and a workout plan. It's not physique transformation and pre and post pictures. Arte is something completely different. Arte is incredibly comprehensive and designed to uncover your unique molecular signature,

find your performance anchors, and solve them permanently. You'll be working with not one person but rather a full team of elite professionals, each with their own special expertise, to maximize precision, accuracy, and effectiveness of your analysis and optimization plan. Arate isn't about treating symptoms or quick fixes. It's about unlocking your full potential and looking, feeling, and performing at your absolute best, physically and mentally, when the stakes are the highest. To learn more, visit aratelab.com. That's a-r-e-t-e lab.com. Now back to the show. I've fine tuned my approach and just getting more and more specific. And this is something

I've I enjoy working at rapid because of it, because I can apply my skills towards what I am looking for. And for instance, I'm working with this marathoner who wants to break the three hour mark. And there's certain parameters I'm looking for. I'm looking for, okay, does this guy has the speed? Does the leg turnover? Or does this guy has the endurance? So I have a series of distances and a series of measurements that I do to see where he's

lacking and where we can actually increase his training. And it's always great that I wrap it. You're always contributing or collaborating with another strength coach. And that's huge. I mean, because first off, there are no egos and there's no my way or the highway. And we kind of start brainstorming ideas in what could be more beneficial for the athlete or the client. And this is the part I feel that it's a win-win. Because I mean, not that I'm always right. I mean, I may mess up sometimes. I may do the wrong test when it's like, so I feel that sometimes the collaboration of like, maybe we should wait for this and do this at such time. But with depending on what the distance is,

such time but with depending on what the distance is I do certain distance measurements for that. For instance a 10k is not going to be the same test of a half marathoner or if you're training for a marathon I guess a 200 meter test is not going to be any beneficial. So I have certain distances to go along with what the end goal is. Yeah. Do you measure a lot of like VO2 max type efforts? Yeah. And do you have a bunch of that setup in your gym? Yeah. Well, I invested on my... I came with all those things already to the gym and I feel that you can get so much valuable information from the VO2, from the lactate, from even the metabolic assessment.

I try to start them off by first getting their resting metabolic rate, which is far more important than you're getting your moving or anything. So your resting metabolic rate, there are some individuals that are just so metabolically sick that just sitting there, they're just burning carbohydrate. Just for the listener to understand when you're when I say metabolic assessment, I'm just saying how much at rest you are burning fat as opposed to carbohydrates. If you start burning carbohydrates, there's something going on in your metabolic system. So yeah, how do you test for that? You know, I understand the lactate, I understand the

VO2 max. But what kind of test do you have to run to figure that out? So with the mask, it's the same concept where you're just putting the mask on you and then when the resting metabolic rate, I just keep you there and I just make you breathe for about 10 to 15 minutes. And therefore that's, there's going to be that crossing point of where it is that you're, if any, it's, uh, you're burning carbohydrates at what point in the heart rate. But when I start making you move and I start walking, like I remember the first time my

aunt, who was also a doctor in physiology, she's, she introduced this test on me and she made me walk on this treadmill. And I was like, this is such a slow walk. But in thinking, but she asked me not to speak or anything. So because any type of back and forth on the mask, the gases and everything, it's just like, just keep yourself quiet. And as she starts moving very, very slowly, you can see that my heart rate was going to a point

that I'm almost crossing to that point of carbohydrates and I wasn't even going fast. At least I thought I wasn't even going fast. So based on that test, I understood what really my zone two is, which is where you are really burning fat. And therefore anything above a certain heart rate was going to be not optimal for me if I wanted to create more aerobic engines or expand my aerobic engine, that is. Does that make sense, Matt? To what extent are you using that information to design your or your client's training, as opposed to just assigning distances or assigning a pace for a specific distance?

How are you using that data to craft protocols? So for instance if somebody's wants to just get aerobically fit and they want to just go there because I first I have a chat with them I tell them that this is not a three month program this is not a six month or they can it could even be extend to one year and I make them understand that that this is not like I want to be thin for a wedding or whatever. I mean, this is a process that it's going to take time. It's going to take a lot of collaboration. It's going to take a lot of patience. And it's also going to be a lot of tweaking involved. So therefore, it's imperative to understand that, yes, you're

going to have to come back for testing. You're going to have to readjust certain things because you as an athlete are going to be expanding, going to be supposedly growing. So for testing, you're going to have to readjust certain things because you as an athlete are going to be expanding, you're going to be supposedly growing. So for instance, if I'll take myself an example, my zone two back when I was being tested was I could not go above 130 beats per minute. That was my zone two. So anything above it. So that therefore if my program would say, all right, do what? 200 meters and then recover or walk for twice the time it took you to the 200 meters. It's I got to have my heart rate go all the way down to zone two to 130. So therefore it's the rest that what that started getting me fitter as opposed to me doing the work. And therefore I this is where I understood

when Brian McKenzie whatever will always say that this is one of the first kind of quotes I remember from him that endurance athletes are not overworked they're just under recovered and this is so true in many regards I mean it's like as an endurance athlete you want to do more you want to keep pushing pushing and you see it everywhere I mean it's like you see the countless hours you see all the things they're doing and uh he even stated that it's so true. I mean, if you look at all these pro athletes, they look like they've been in a lab

doing math all this time. And it's freaking apparent, it's so true. Because the more recovered you are, the better you are gonna perform. And that's how you use it. And this is why it takes a long time. It takes a long time for you to adjust to that. the beginning you feel like you're not doing anything and that's an endurance athlete A day off is a day of reckoning

Yeah, how do you find the balance between being properly recovered and Just kind of slacking off so to speak So a lot of guys if you go from like a volume based approach where you're just hitting miles and more miles and more miles and more miles, and then you're like, back it off, don't do anything, take a day off, just run some sprints. People are gonna be like, I feel like I'm doing nothing right now.

It's, can I curse in this podcast? It's a mindfuck. Oh yeah, let it rip. Yeah, man, it's a mindfuck. It's honestly a mindfuck, and it's, and when you treat an athlete or you start talking to an athlete with that type of, right, let's go, man. Let's go.

Let's start putting in those miles. Let's start putting in those sprints. Let's start putting. And you're like, whoa, I mean, but you kind of want to want to give them what they want, but also what they need and just start sprinkling in a little bit more recovery here and there to make them understand that this is what's going to make them faster. It's when you recover, the way you're recovering, if you're recovering fast, okay, then we can nudge it up a bit.

But if the person is not really recovering after each interval, therefore it's like, okay, this is when we have to have a talk because it's, and they're going to feel, it's going to be apparent in what they see. It's like, I'm not hitting the times. For instance, I got this person doing 1K repeats and we're going to actually have a talk later because he was not hitting the times based on the recovery. And there's a person that wanted consistent volume and just wanted to get to work. And so this is where I have to step in.

It's like, this is where you have to go back a notch. You cannot just go because, oh, well, you're for instance, it was a two minute rest and he was already just cramming. Just like two minutes felt eternal. Yeah. What is it about the endurance? I feel like this may be my uninformed opinion, but many times I see people jumping into long distance sports almost in a way of I want to go be an athlete and everybody can run.

So all of a sudden we're doing a marathon. I'd love to understand kind of like your process of understanding like, here's the starting point, here's how we get better. And then maybe a little bit down the road here, we can do 26 of these miles in a row. And I hate to be the person that kind of like makes fun of slash like I'm always rooting for people to increase their fitness. But I also feel like running is like the single sport that is that like you just need two legs and you need to walk faster. so let's go run a marathon and not really understanding the actual skill set that goes

along with running properly, maintaining good form, like so you don't get injured and have to wear all the funky knee things as you're as you're trying to complete this goal. Bleed from your nipple. Yeah, like that's a that's a dumb one. Nipple tape, you have to wear it, right? Yeah, it's crazy. How do you incorporate and balance the, I wanna go run a marathon and I wanna train hard every day and feel like my, like a superhero with,

you don't really have the strength to keep your knees from caving in every time your foot hits the ground? Oh, man. It's a tricky question. It's a tricky situation, in all honesty. I'm such a... I'm very perfectionist when it comes down to, okay, let's do it through what... how it should be, okay? First, let's take a look at your structure. Let's take a look at your gate. Let's take a look at how you are composed on. A lot of the people that run marathons have the lattice speed possible that their knees just cave in there. They're wearing orthotics or shoe companies are selling orthotics like if it's candy now when it's

statistically speaking only seven percent of the whole population should be wearing orthotics but therefore orthotics are everywhere now and this is just states the where the industry has gone. And I had, I've had a few clients and one in particular who, he's a very dear friend. He's 6'6 and he's, he wanted to run a marathon. He was just like, I run the one that won this marathon. I want to put a big check mark. And I was like, all right, cool. So when was the last time you run it was with you two years ago and two years ago was in the San Francisco half marathon I'm like shit okay so so when do we start I'm like alright so let's take it piece by piece and this is a guy that I mean honestly when once he sets his mind

on something all right we're gonna go and get it. And he was gonna find a way to do this marathon. Yes or yes. So I'm like, you know what, if this guy is this, I want to be responsible for this guy. I want to take care of this guy. So all right, we're gonna do the marathon. I'm gonna look over it. And so I was I started planning for this

guy and this guy was just, we started running at a pace at like a 14 minute pace, which was or some 13 and a half 14 minute pace and three miles felt internal. And I really, it, I mean, it's something that I've, it's almost like a fast walk for me, but therefore this guy was working and then his doctor on top of that told me he cannot go above 149 heart rate. I might do he's six six. He's I mean if he was he was almost 300 pounds too. Yeah. And he's lost a lot. He's like 250 now.

But still and the longer and it was during, it was in 2019, it was the longer the rungs came, I mean, sometimes I would come home and my wife would be like, oh, you look like shit. I mean, it's like, because we were been running like six miles took like almost half a marathon. But we finished it. And by the time that we got to the New York City Marathon, it was crazy because this, he went from a 13 minute miles to he was right, we he ran the marathon at 915, nine, nine minutes 15. Because his aerobic engine got so so well, so well developed, he did not get hurt. And I was so freaking pleased, man then but therefore

he wanted me to carry all his water. So I had to carry 20 pounds with me a water on the vest. And he did not take one sip of that one too. One sip. I told him about the aid stations everything going on. No, no, no, no. Forget the A-section. Okay, now you're carrying that shit. Not one step. But yeah, go back to questions. I mean, it's very tricky to tell somebody that, yeah, it's, you got to learn how to process the information. It just kind of like, start with a 5K. Start getting, get to know, okay, can you run first of all? Are you not going to get hurt? Yeah. All these little things, are your feet adequate for running? Are you, is your body adequate for running? So you got to answer, answer yourself all those questions. Yeah, you mentioned

GATE and I know that there is, there's an assessment that you do. How do you start to analyze that and kind of what are you looking for in a natural slash mechanically sound running? Yeah, so I'm looking for certain things. First off is the person heel striking and how much, mind you, it's not that there's nothing wrong with heel striking. Yeah, I was about to say, did heel striking come back?

There was like a whole internet movement. What was it? Was it Romanov? Yeah, well, I'm a Romanov kind of guy. Romanov came in and told everybody on the internet for a little while, if you could decipher what he was saying, heel striking's out. Now I think it's like a little heel strike we're okay with. But here's, yeah, here's, I mean,

it's not that heel striking is bad. It's just when you start running and you start consistently going for like, you were saying people that are heel strikers and then they start, oh, you know what? I'm just gonna go for a marathon. And then they, you start looking at their knees, why their knees all patched up all of a sudden

and then because of course if you heel strike you're just bringing up chain or up your upstream all that friction know that you're hitting the pavement consistently with your heel going up your knee low back and it just starts messing with you. It's like you're putting the brakes on every single time you run because your leg is forward and therefore you're off your center of mass. Your general center of mass is where you're standing. So anything, anything that you're doing moving forward. So for instance, your own body weight is going to move forward. forward. You gotta have your feet going underneath you, just keeping your center of mass.

Just like if you're lifting weights, you're not gonna have a snatch going forward, right, Max? I mean, it's- So no, no, but my point, I have a question. What you're saying basically would be the same for sprinting. I just did this 25 page article all about sprinting and like the bondomechanics of what

happens in a sprint. But it's the same. They're saying they want to strike center of mass underneath the body. However, they would also, most people would agree that some form of heel strike eventually happens regardless. I mean, the ball of the foot strikes and then a little bit of the heel goes down after that. What are your thoughts? No, 100%. 100%.

There are some times that you are going to heel strike, and I'm not saying it's not, again, it's not that it's bad or it's... But if you can keep, even you're saying both, I mean, if you analyze and you just see how amazing his... No, I did. I did. I talked about it in my article. Amazing. Yes. For Johan Blake fans.

We are Johan Blake fans, but, but even both of them actually analyze both of their running, running styles and then the acceleration phase, a hundred percent that he'll didn't touch at all. But at the end, towards the end of the 100 meter, both of them, eventually there was a little bit, I mean the whole point would be to minimize breaking towards the end, but. Well there, when they run that 100 meters,

that's pure acceleration, probably 80 of it. Yeah, no, well about, you know, some people would say that Usain might have done up to 60, but you know, 30 to 40, and then they're gonnaain might have done up to 60, but, um, you know, 30 to 40, and then they're going to try to hold max velocity to 80 and then 80 to a hundred is trying to not decelerate as much, which Usain is the king of is like, you know, Johan is his acceleration is better, but then Usain just keeps getting faster. It seems like, no, you're saying if you look at back to his videos He would even slow down even on the final. Yeah, slow down like five meters before or something

Celebrating he was celebrating. He was already don't do that and but he was already in his element and I feel that he could have run so much faster and Break so much. I'm gonna break the record so far none. It's just, um, even when you're on sit the second fastest of all time at the end, he's like waving. I'm like, man, why don't you guys run through it and see what happens? You know, like how fast are you really? You know, but he was, he was, I mean,

he's one of the most, he was one of the most exciting runners. And this is why the 100 meter was such an ordeal. And the 200 meter, because you're witnessing something that you have never seen before. This guy was just that powerful and that fast. Totally. Javier, I was just reading, it was actually yesterday, about plyometrics, but for endurance athletes. And there was this big study Brian Mann was talking

about and how when endurance athletes went through a period of plyometrics specifically doing what you're saying, trying to learn to create a little bit more tightness around the ankle, it created more running efficiency. So they burn less calories because they weren't breaking, because they weren't heel striking in front of them causing this massive breaking. What are your thoughts about plyometrics for endurance? Well I think it's great as long as you can have your your your your biomechanics in order and by that I mean you have to properly squat you have to properly bend you have to do all the primal movements that project talks about which is bend push pull gait lunge squat and if you do all

these things properly then of course I'm all for plyometrics but here's the caveat dr. Romanoff he talks about having giving you to bunny hop and so by that I mean yeah jumping rope so and so this is by you jumping rope alone It can teach you of you landing on the ball of the foot with a kiss of the heel as opposed to just landing because I see I sometimes I cringe I see a lot of runners or all over here in Miami and they and they try so hard I can see when they're that these people are trying when they're just landing on their tippies. And then they ask why they're having a lot of calf problems, or their calves

are just acting up all of a sudden. It's them going and not have just completely on the ball foot without the heel kissing the ground. The heel has to kiss the ground. Yeah, that's my point. Right. It's just a kind of like a quick reaction off the ground. Right. You move's just a kind of like a quick reaction off the ground. Right. And you're moving forward without a lot of vertical oscillation. By vertical oscillation, I mean, if you're running and you're doing like a big squat jump,

we're just going up and down huge. No good. Wasting a lot of energy. Right. Therefore, if you're just going and running, like if there's a ceiling right above your head, and you're running and you're not able to touch that ceiling, that's you going in a just pure bouncing. I'm just like, touch and go, touch and go.

Just touch and go. That's what they talked a lot. You know, on and the same boat, like the height never changed almost at all. Crazy. I can talk about bio-cancer running now forever. Like I spent the last month reading everything there's to read.

It's like fascinating. Yes. And if you look at it, swimmers as well. Swimmers, I mean, you see Michael Phelps, how pure he is and he would just, it was something great just witnessing him swim because there was no, you could see his head always consistently going forward. His body would turn in such a way that it, I mean, there was never any energy leak, which is a lot of what Romanoff would talk about, all these energy leaks that we would just with the vertical oscillation

with a lot of movement from the arms or letting the legs do the work when it's just your whole body just creates a perfect movement. What about using like, you know, the different reflexes of the body, you know, the cross extensor reflex is called where when the it's the thing that when you fall, when the knee, when the hip flexes, the one foot strike, you know, the striking leg extends more violently. But like the more you use like the stretch, shortness cycle, the more you use the reflexes, the stretch, you know, all the more efficient running

becomes and the more effortless it seems. Right. Thoughts. Yeah, and it's what post method, and you can callless it seems. Right. And it's yeah and it's what post method and you can call it pulse method you can call it natural gait running or there were so many types of methods of running but it's in its purest form you have to be using your hamstrings as opposed to just your flexors and there's by that I mean it's like when you're falling there's a certain angle that you can fall and there's a certain angle that you can fall and there's a certain angle that you can just jog

There's a certain angle you can sprint you same boats angle for sprinting was I mean I mean, I don't wanna I'm gonna guesstimate here about I mean this guy was just like 30 or something but it's like all you need is a slight edge of angle of falling. And therefore, when you have those feet underneath your ground, underneath the ground, it's like you having this cable. Like I always tell my students is like, just pretend that from your hip to your ankle, you have a cable. from that cable you're just pulling that ankle or that heel up to your butt okay so therefore how how much of a pull that's going to be it's they depend on how much your fall is going to go so if you're falling more yeah so if you're falling more you're going

to have more pull as opposed to if you're just jogging you're just keeping those i mean the pool is not going to be that big when you say that they kind of you know the whether you're just jogging, you're just keeping those. I mean, the pool is not going to be that big. When you say that they kind of, you know, the whether you're talking about hip flexion or knee flexion, they go hand in hand because they're biotechular muscles. So like when the hamstring flexes, you know, when you finish the what is it the drive phase and you're starting into the swing phase, even though the knee is flexing, that's also going to create hip flexion as well and so they all work together it's so beautiful you know it's a hundred percent and it's Romanov has

this a the concept that you have like everybody goes through figure four I mean when you're running everybody has that figure four and but then again both knees have to be slightly bent and this is where I go back and it's like heel striking. Heel striking is you have that knee fully extended and that ankle just cramps. That's how you get hurt. Right. And this is where you get hurt and this is and again if you're not a runner and you're just healed it's okay. I mean it's but it's something that to to pay attention to because there is a line your gate there is something that we can do to to Get get yourself better because at some point in time that thing is gonna bite you up the ass

Totally so you don't really like when you're teaching people running. This is I'm having so much fun. So you don't teach them to like You know a lot of people will teach them to fully extend and to really punch that foot into the ground, causing I think too much at the back end mechanics and causing the need to go straight towards the end because I noticed nor the Usain or Johan neither one of their knees extended completely upon the, you know, the extension part. So do you, how do you teach? What is the most important part of whether it's the swing phase, drive phase, what do you preach the most?

Well, here's the thing. I mean, everybody's going to be in a little different phase of it because there are some people that if you notice, some people will run like soldiers and just never fall. And they're just so stiff and therefore it's- Michael Johnson, remember Michael Johnson? Lean back, crazy. Here's the thing, if you look at Michael Johnson's videos, he's still leaning forward. There was a lot of forward lean on him.

The thing is you would see him just going up, but there was a lot of forward lean on him. But the thing about is he was amazing at the 200 meters. Therefore he did not need that big forward lean like the same boat would do. But Michael Johnson was always leaning forward. The thing is it was, I remember very peculiar, why is he so upright? No, it was still that forwardly. He was just like a straight line. If you look at just pauses his, uh, his form. But where do I start when I just like, for instance, I remember when I was working with Brian across the endurance, we would film so many people and through that filming process, we would see all different types of, okay, this is where you're going to start.

So more people than anything have trouble with just, okay, let's just have gravity take over. Let's just fall. Everybody try to just fall. And that drill of just having to fall would scare the shit out of people. Not scare the shit out of people, but like, holy shit. I mean, they start bending at the waist, which is something that you're not going to be able to do in running. Because if you're bending at the waist, what happens is your low back is going to suck.

Yeah. Not to mention that would eliminate the amount of hip flexion you could create then too. If you're leaning forward, your knee can't come high enough, correct? Exactly. Exactly. And when I'm using the Trueform runner or any type of running device where your treadmill is not moving underneath you, but you got to be moving the treadmill, I usually put like a band, like near the, so the person can kind of cue to where to have their hips open. Because I cue them to have their hips open, because if you start bend flexing at the hip and just bending, therefore you're, there's not going to be any forward lean, there's not going to be any gravity. So because you're just chances are you're going to start heel striking. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. So you cannot

have that K at any point. So this is where I have to be teaching my students how to fall. And there's many different drills in the impose and natural gate running is like you learning how to just kind of slightly fall. And if you just, you can do it after we hang out, but I mean that just slightly get yourself to put all the weight of your body and just start forward like more pressure on the ball of your feet and your heels kind of start lifting that's how much of a movement you need for you to start falling for you to start more creating a movement does that make sense yeah I have a question for you I notice a lot of people would debate

about you know, with the backside mechanics, never to show the bottom of your foot to the sky. But I'm looking at Usain and inevitably he for sure did. But like, so what are your thoughts? You know, they wanted you to, once you extend to, you know, to create more of the fore, like you're talking about where the, where the, the foot never, the bottom of the foot never points up, but points back more. What are your thoughts? No, a hundred percent. But I mean, it's that takes care of itself. And when, if you're just having your ankle relax and let the body just, when you're just hitting the ground, the body, you're going to pronate or supinate,

which people don't know pronate Pronate means the ankle rolls inside and supinate goes outside, but everybody pronates and supinates, some more than others. And this is where the over pronation and over supination terms come in, but everybody pronates and supinates. That's kind of like how the ankle kind of supports itself when you land. Now it's going to create differently if there's some deficiency going that your body's telling you. So when you kind of,

people with a lot of, with flat feet will be supernating a lot. Yeah, that's me. And some people with high arches will be supernating a lot. Sure. And this is where, okay, so I mean,

this is where you gotta be paying attention. It's like, okay, maybe these are people with candidate in the meantime for type of type of insult or anything like that. Some of them, not all of them, because some flat feet, you can correct, you can get the curvature of your foot to go in. But to answer your question, there's a drill of that you can just stand near a wall like with your back against the wall and you want to be pulling your leg like I was telling you like having that ankle like

from your hip to your ankle and just kind of pull and if you start touching the wall therefore your it's the the pull it's the delay of the pull is somewhat you got a master that it's like okay keep it under your center of mass anything outside your center of mass something is going to go off there's a cool draw so that you can just go like it's um you're holding on to a person in the front kind of like done by their shoulders keeping them. And then somebody else holds you on the back. So basically you're pulling at the same time. And if you're, you cannot, you cannot do a late pull because if you pull late,

you're hitting another one in the nuts. So yeah, so it's got, that's a very cool drill, but at the same time, you've got to be careful in being a little bit of a mastery before you start jumping in their drill like this. You're the only, you know, I've heard only one other person ever mentioned that four position. There's a guy local, he is a master of getting people faster is William Bradley. He's mainly for sprinting, but like you're the second person I've ever heard even mentioned that. But like it's, it is a game changer. I've watched him because we work hand in hand. Like I'll take a lot of his athletes and we'll do, you know, strength

training that benefits that individual. He'll take my athletes and like, he'll dial in their technique on sprinting. But that dude is like a wizard. It spends a couple of days with the, my athletes will spend two days with him. Next thing you know, they're faster because they're learning how to use more, uh, um more knee flexion in the way that for sprinting. And also to add to your what you just said it's when you're properly running and there's there is I say properly because there is a standard for running and there is a standard for for swimming as there's the standard for cycling but the fact that that there is no standard, you can just go and put your sneakers on and run a marathon.

I mean, that is something it's like it in a less, uh, impact on phase of, okay, let's, let's just put my Olympic lifts and let's go do snatching. Nobody's ever going to do something like that, but some people in the endurance was like, Oh, it's almost the same thing. They, but they do it anyway. But I totally agree. I would never do that until someone like you fix my gate. No way.

Exactly. But they don't think of it like that. They think it's like, it's harmless and they don't want to waste time because everybody wants to be it's, um, I can't remember that. I think it was Fitzgerald, the owner of OPEX, he said something I remember him talking with him a long time ago. He said that a lot of people, we were talking about the CrossFit community back then and how the CrossFit community, they brought in all these people that were into fitness, but they all of a

sudden they started snatching and they started doing Olympic lifts and everything. And so therefore, people that should have been like right here in the bottom starting off their fitness journey, they were already in the middle. So once in the middle, their technique was all messed up already. So they're ruined. Yeah. So this, this is where a lot of injuries started just escalating. I totally agree with you. Yeah. If people would just get, if you want to do weightlifting, get with someone like me early. If you want to, if you want to run well, get with someone like you early, because once you mess it up, you know, I might never get it to where I could have had you come to me early. You know, I can fix it, but it may get it to where I could have. It had you come to me early, you know, I can fix it, but it may never get to where it could have been because you know,

your body is so brilliant. Like once it learns something, it's very hard to unlearn it because it passes that information onto a deeper part of the brain. The super hard to erase. A hundred percent. And I agree with you because it's, and also it's also just a lot of maintenance and it comes second nature your technique becomes second nature and I read an article of like before COVID I remember that there was this person just trying to kind of like saying that the post method did not work because of you focusing a lot on your running technique as opposed to you just running freely. But if you go back to something like, okay, let's take this a step backwards and okay, let's go back because this person was saying, okay, if you run barefoot, then you're going to have your natural gait and everything. Yes, it's true. After a few times of you,

your heel touching the ground. Yeah, you are going to start fixing your gait a bit, but it all comes down to the same thing. It's you relearning the process of taking the time and okay, this is how gait should be. This is how I'm not going to have any energy leaks because that's what it is. If you're not having any energy leaks,

you are going to become faster because there is more energy to push 100% there's so many beautiful ways to help people get more efficient in running if you know what you're doing It becomes I think I'm now probably more well definitely equal Equally as fascinated with running as I am with weightlifting now that I I'm starting to understand the biomechanics more and more, it becomes fascinating, just like weightlifting. So if I do this little tweak, like a millimeter changes everything. It's like, it's beautiful.

And it's, I love running. I don't love running as I used to, that, I mean, going the distance, I mean, but I enjoy a good run. I just enjoy having, enjoy with this, the gorgeous weather that everybody, the whole country is gonna have now. It's just nice to go out and enjoy a nice little run

without knowing that you're gonna be hurt or anything. Yeah. Yeah, that's when you do it enough. And I actually learned this, you know, it's kind of one of those things you've known your whole life, but until you really wanna put in like a year into running and actually have a long game plan for getting better at the skill of it.

But once you put in the time, all of a sudden, it's really fun. Yeah, it becomes a commuter. You want to see how many RPMs you can run the Ferrari at. And that's a very fun process. I almost and I guess there's no like right entry point. But having a long term game plan and looking at it as skill development and something that just really helped me kind of over the year and then realizing like once you get somewhat efficient at the actual movement, you're not sitting there just

like fighting yourself over every single day where you're just climbing uphill. You can actually see and feel yourself get better, which is in the end, like the feeling that we are all chasing, no matter what you're doing. I just want to know that I'm getting better. And it comes with all of those those good feelings. Once you actually like the skill stops being the thing holding you back. The only thing like weightlifting, like if you do it right, it feels like you didn't do anything. Right.

You know, it's like, whoa. The easiest lift of my life was the PR. If you watch it on video, because you do everything right in order to do that. It feels weightless. Yeah. And it's, and again, if you go, okay, so let's, let's take a, go back to the, what the whole philosophy of CrossFit Endurance was.

And I, and I was telling Andrew's list that it was crazy that at some point in time, I remember our seminars at CrossFit Endurance being sold out way in advance and more even than the level ones at the time, which we're talking 2011. And when the cross was still kind of booming, but with with the CrossFit endurance was that we put technique as the forefront, then intensity, and then volume. When the traditional endurance method comes in and says, okay, let's do the volume first, then the intensity, and then if we have time, the technique. When it's always been, you gotta have that technique.

It's true in weightlifting as it is true in every sport. Everything beautiful in athletics, agree. And so, I mean, it's not like it was cross-fitted during this thing, but it's, it's called true in all, in all sense of the word, in all sports. There's always has to be a master of technique before the intensity and before even the volume. Yeah. Javier, we need to have you back here again soon, man. I'd love to. Man, I love this. I love this. Thank you guys for having me.

It was a true pleasure, man. I honestly was looking forward to this. I woke up like if it was Christmas morning. Fired up, I love it. Where can the people find you? And find out about yourself. Usually in Instagram, I add endurance cartel. Such a friendly person you are,

but the last word of cartel in the back. I love it. I'm not sure if you can tell. It's such a friendly person. You are but the last last word of cartel in the back. I love it. I know, right? I love it. That's a great name. That over. I was like, I don't know. I was expecting like a an

endurance guy with like a full body tattoo like I have. I love it. That makes me for sure. I want to get to know him. him, yeah. My kind of people. Travis Mast. Thank you. Mastlead.com you guys. Read if you guys, if you want to read my latest article on sprinting, go to jimway.com.

I'm gonna go read it right now, man. Yeah, I would love to see what you think. Yeah, man. Doug Larson. You bet. On Instagram, Douglas E. Larson. Javier, dude, stoked to have you on the show. I was looking forward to this conversation

and love having you here on the team at Rapid. You serve a very similar role as Mash again, where you kind of help out as an extra coach. All clients get their kind of standard strength coach, but then anyone that needs extra endurance specific help, we assign you to those guys accounts, just like people that need extra strength specific help. We assign Mr. Travis Mash to jump in and help out.

So, yeah, it's a lot of value bringing you on the team. So we love having you and appreciate you coming on the show. So much. I appreciate you guys for the invite. Thank you very much guys. And I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner and we are Barbell Shrugged, barbell underscore shrugged to make sure you get over

to rapidhealthreport.com. That is where you can find Daniel Varner, Dr. Andy Galpin doing a free lab lifestyle and performance analysis that everybody will receive inside Rapid Health Optimization. As always, you can access that over at RapidHealthReport.com. Friends, we'll see you guys next week.