Barbell Shrugged - Cardio and Competition for Mature Meatheads w/ Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Travis Mash #803

Episode Date: June 18, 2025

In todays Episode of Barbell Shrugged, Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Travis Mash dive into Mash partnership with Sorinex and the success of Spring Cleaning in April. In addition, Mash is going back to the platform in powerlifting and the team discussed the differences in training and mindset competing in their 40’s and 50’ vs their 20’s. And finally, the deep dive into getting out of the gym, intelligently training cardiovascular system, and how great it feels for overall health being in nature. Enjoy. Work With Us: Arétē by RAPID Health Optimization Links: Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram

Shrugged family this week on Barbell Shrugged. It's me and Mash and Doug Larson. And we're talking about everything that we have going on in our own training. As well as Travis Mash, I hope you guys are paying attention to Sorenex a couple months ago in the month of April. Travis was in charge of spring cleaning,

which was getting thousands and thousands of people around the country, possibly even around the globe, introduced to the clean, 30 days of cleans. He wrote the training program for it. And it was, if you're following him on Instagram, there was like an enormous number of stories that came up of everybody from the beginners to the very experienced, to Olympic athletes,

just a ton of people out there learning. One of my favorite things to do in the gym, which is cleans. It was very cool. And we talk a lot about it, progressions and pieces along those lines, as well as just where we are at in our gym, which is cleans. It was very cool. And we talk a lot about it, progressions and pieces along those lines, as well as just where we are at in our training, the cardio conditioning side of things,

getting out in nature, really how as we have all aged, I say aged, as we have all gotten older, call it maturity, how we have taken the fitness side and used it in a much more experiential way to do the things that we love that are a little bit more challenging that have we not spent so many years in the gym

and so many years learning about exercise science and physiology to be as healthy as we can that we would not be able to enjoy life as much as we currently do. As always friends, make sure you get over to rapidhealthreport.com. That's where Dan Garner and Dr. Andy Galvin are doing a free lab lifestyle and performance analysis.

And you can access that free report at rapidhealthreport.com. Friends, let's get into the show. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged, I'm Anders Warner. Doug Larsen, Coach Travis Mash. Today, the homies are hanging out. Do you know that homies is literally, Mash has showed us his right bicep, his big one. that Just the bros, the homies. Homies has to have a comeback. Dude, you've had a monstrous two months. Everywhere I look, Travis Mash has got 4,000 people

in his Instagram stories, power cleans, squad cleans, just trying to get bars off the ground, onto their shoulders in the most efficient way possible. Yo, I wanna hear how that partnership with Sorenex went in like just a whole month. It looked like you were stuck in a tornado of awesome. Yeah, it was busy, but it was good. I've been wanting to work with Burt forever.

Three years ago, it's just a culture. I want to be a part of what he's doing. Three years ago, I wrote him an email saying, like, I don't know when, I'm in no hurry, but someday I'd like to work with you guys. And then he started doing it all started because he partnered with the Flywheel company. And when I was in doing my masters, I did a lot of research on the Flywheel. And so we wanted to do, inevitably we're going to start doing some courses about the flywheel, about VBT, about all the different things that they sell in that area, as far as sports science goes.

But you wanted to introduce me to your people by doing this, the spring cleaning. So I wrote the whole, you know, they, they're famous for the whole squat Tover. They've done the dead simmer and then I recently did the bench, bench a wary, I guess. And so then the spring, I feel like that's like their big one. Yeah. Well, summer strong is just like where it's just where you go party. Everybody comes together there. It's a, it's's a thing. The other ones are like month long programs. Somebody writes like, you know, the squat over is a month long squat, uh, everyday program that, um, one of their, one of their guys writes. And then, um, then there's the dead simmer that another guy writes and then the benchuary is bench press. So there's like, there's a lip that's highlighted kind of like what we did when we were doing the super total, they highlight one of the elements.

And so they wanted me to highlight the clean, which is, I think, I think that was the hardest one because not everybody cleans everybody squats and bitches and deadlifts. But, but it went, it went better than we even expected. We got a lot of people saying that they cleaned for the first time or for the first time in forever. And so that's the way they did. They did a month of your program and then showed up in person and everybody, everybody competed or tried to hit PRs all together. No, so what we did just a month long on my program and then online everybody did that, you know,

they maxed out, but then no, but then at, um, at, at their, uh, summer strong, we all came together and just hung out. And then what every year at summer strong, they do a squatting and a deadlift party and like, and so all of a sudden out of the, it's out of the blue. I decided to do it. I hadn't back squatted in a decade. I hadn't done any dead lifts the whole year because I had hip surgery in January. Had my other hip replaced. Out of the blue, I decided to do it.

Then I did a 550 back squat and a 550 dead lift. All of course, raw, no equipment, none of that mess. And it just, it was fun. It was super fun. For the audience one more time. Like how old are you right now? I'm 52. 52. You're 52. Yeah. Backs spotted seriously in a decade. Both, both hips replaced and you haven't even deadlifted in at least a year and

just went out there and just hit five 50. Yeah. The last time I had back squatted, it was you guys, it was when you got, when you guys came to the farm and we did that whole, um, pulled like 700, 800 on that day. Yeah. Yeah. It was just 700 cold. And I squatted like six something that, you know, that, that weekend. And, uh, but I haven't since I haven't, I've done all front squats just because back squat is a little bit more hip dominant and it bothered my hips forever.

But now it felt great. I mean, so I decided well. Even the days after like after hitting 550, walking around the next day, you felt fine. I felt great, man. I felt great. You know, the only thing that might bother me is my back sometimes, but it's the deadlift. And so like what I've been doing is, you know, the only thing that might bother me is my back sometimes, but it's the deadlift. And so like, what I've been doing is, you know, back in the day,

you know, what I would do is I would just keep fighting through it. Instead, what I do is I find, like I do it off blocks right now, and I've slowly taken it down, I find a high that I can, I can do some volume of deadlifting that doesn't trigger anything. And so and then slowly I take it down. and as long as it doesn't trigger anything, I take it down. But if I, you know, I come to a height where I felt, you know, some low back pain, then I'll stay there for a while. But when it goes away, then I take it down a little bit more. Lane Norton, I know I still do that. And it's, you know, there's always a range of motion you can lift. You can do the pattern, you know, that doesn't hurt.

You just gotta find that range of motion and then slowly get back to normal. So now- And it all felt good enough for your, your thing about competing here in the near future then, huh? Yeah, I feel great. I mean, I'm positive right now I could do in the sixes, you know, squatting and deadlifting.

And so, but I want, you know, what I want to do is in six months, do something to qualify me for a bigger, like a world meet. And then my goal would be seven something squatting, seven something deadlifting, and four something benching. But the key quality is I gotta be physically fit. I wanna, you know, Andy always,

he talked about the, what is it, like the 10 attributes of the physical fitness. I'm still going to do cardiovascular work. I'm going to do anaerobic work. I'm going to make sure I'm working in all the planes of motion, of movement. Mobility is going to be key. So, so far so good. I've never been so healthy, you know, keeping up my step count. So yeah, so far so good. Yeah, man. I know most people are watching this audio only. We don't post the videos these days, but like you come on camera and you're looking lean, looking healthy. Every time I see I go, damn, Ash is looking good. My wife likes it too. So I have a younger wife, trying not to bait and switch. I don't want to be the old guy. Everybody's like, look, his wife's going to leave him

soon. You know, the real motivation over there about the spring cleaning thing and all the people that were posting videos and you were reposting them all is uh called this like a a maturity event all the people some of them move like really really well and lifted some big weights and you could tell some people were just doing the clean for the first time in their life first time right that was like a younger meaner more aggressive anders varner with less uh happiness for other people um i would have been judging so hard on their form and like how all those people, I was so stoked that there was just people jumping with barbells in

their hands and trying, right? Just try right way to get people to just do something for the first time. Like, I'd actually love to know if there was a way of like the number of people that had ever done any Olympic lifting ever in their life, but heard about spring cleaning through Sorenex and they had done like the deadlift one, the squat one, and then saw this one and they're like,

dude, I'm giving it a try. And next thing you know, they got 30 days and 150 total cleans in their life or something like that. And I thought it was so cool. We know a number of people, almost more than like the monsters that you're always posting. Just somebody that was like doing something for inside like the first 10 times in their life.

You could just tell I was like very, very happy how many people were just subtly introduced to like Olympic lifting in a very positive way. Yeah. Yes. And learning this, you know, like for most people when they squat, they're just used to, I got to push as hard as I can. And like learning that, you know, with the clean, it's not necessary. It's like a dance. It's like you're dancing with a barbell and it's about movement and just look at things from a different lens and like how, you know, I was very careful to be positive, you know, because I didn't want to like, you know, to, you know, be the normal Olympic coach and be like, oh, that's a shitty technique. You know, I just wanted to win small wins. 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,

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That's a-r-e-t-e lab.com. Now, back to the show. It's super hard to watch Olympic lifting and not just go, oh, well, if you just do this, it'll be better. Because all of that really is like, is your own ego saying like, I'm smarter than you. and when you were growing up and you're just trying to like learn this new cool thing. And to be able to like watch people do something for, you know, like the first time in a concentrated way with like the goal of getting better at something in 30 days is it was very cool to see

all of them. Yeah, you know, everything in the gym, except weightlifting, there's only one direction, even like throwers that, you know, they're so technical, but it's only one direction. Even like throwers, they're so technical, but it's in one direction. But with weightlifting, you're going up and then on purpose changing direction and going down. And that's the big, I think that's the hardest thing. If you've always just done traditional, like even you might do a push press or a military press,

but it's always concentric, one direction. But learning to extend and then rip under the barbell, it's such a different pattern. But getting them to click into that, it was so much fun. It takes years before you realize that you're pulling yourself down. Yeah. Like the jumping pulling part to getting under the bar, the bar doesn't move like that. No. Like when you're when you're like looking at the physics of it and you're a beginner, you're like, how did they do that? Or like even if you like, like, like the slow what company used to was a hook grip that used to post that maybe they still do the like super slow mo's of Olympians. Yeah. And it's like the bar never moves.

It's like these guys that are like five foot five and the bar doesn't go more than like two feet off the ground. It's basically like a deadlift, but they're so fast. You know, like how did they get that to their shoulders? And then you see the jerk and it's like, the bar goes four inches, but somehow they're underneath it. And what in the world is happening in this?

Like, what is the physics behind this to make it work? four inches, but somehow they're underneath it. It baffles people. What in the world is happening in this? What is the physics behind this to make it work? And that's, you know, like once you've done it a thousand times, you go, oh, I jump and then I pull. Great, I get it. Yeah. It's so obvious. It's just the up and the down, up and the down.

Like, oop-a-loop-a. The first 999 of them, it's a freaking math pro. It's like some science experiment that just doesn't ever make any sense to anybody until you go, I get it. And it's the coolest thing in the world. And when you finally, when you finally just extend and immediately waste no time but to rip under and it seems so effortless. And it's like, we've talked about on the show many times, but like I used to love lifting off blocks so much because I never had to pick it up. It was times, but I used to love lifting off blocks so much

because I never had to pick it up. It was like already there. All I had to do was go under the bar. Move a little bit and go under. I could get it in the perfect spot right away and then I just pulled myself down. It's cheating. So awesome. For great athletes like you, Ryan, they're always so much better off the blocks because

they understand it's gymnastics. It's not weightlifting. It's really is interesting. Like when you hit the sweet spot perfectly right how light it feels just for a moment. It's kind of like if you ever hit a home run, like when you hit a run, like you don't feel the ball hit the bat almost at all. It's like you just blast right through it. And there's like almost no impact like feeling in your hands. And then you see the ball sailing away and getting smaller and smaller into the distance Like I feel like that it's like that when you hit that perfect second pull Like you pull into that and like the hip pocket and the the lever arm gets very short and all of a sudden

It gets really light just for a second and you go. Oh fuck that felt good and then you just rip under Yeah Yeah, those slom of it as you mentioned I hadn't thought much about hook grip in a while, but like hook grip and all things Jim, those guys both used to post those fucking like super high res, super slow most. I just love watching those things. Yeah. Now it's a way of the house. They do a lot of good videos now, but still there. It's just there's a few of those companies now.

I feel like it's that time. We're starting to get back into the the, you know, know, the 2028. Yeah. Here we go again. Ryan and I, Yeah. Yeah. I was going to ask about Ryan. Yeah. What's up with him? He's leading, uh, leading the charge here to the 2028 Olympics. He's in great shape boys. Like he snatched 160 now, 352. Well, I don't know kilos, but he is in great shape and like, I don't know kilos, but he is in great shape and like, and he snatched it with these. I could see him doing, you know, 170 kilo. And this time he'll be 77 kilo class. They switched a little bit.

So it's a little heavier. He'll be like, what's that one? What's 77? Uh, 80 is what 70 like 170 pounds. So it gives him a little extra. And like, he's looking super strong. Like is a jerk. Doug, he jerked 220 kilos, 484 pounds the other day. He's done some fantastic things. What's he playing? About yesterday, 78. So one kilo above that.

You know, he's like, it's so perfect for when you posted the video or the picture of you and him at Summer Strong. I remember this like four years ago when we were talking about I was like, he's not a little boy anymore. No, he's a grown man. Real man now like, he's y'all line. Yeah, it's like he could actually just go fight the UFC tomorrow. Yeah. Well, like that and life of a single person. I feel like I've told you both the story, but that is a terrifying human that was like, I've seen Randy Couture upfront. That scared me too. So what's that Randy Couture look like a, I don't know, like, like it's some kind of morphed something or another. Yeah. But I feel like there's like a, when you're, when you're, how old is he

now? 26, 25? No, 23 still, still young. Yeah. it's like the compounding interest on testosterone when you're that age like when you're when you're practicing very high testosterone things like lifting weights around big strong people every day and trying to like mentally be the biggest and baddest dude in the room all the time. Your body just like develops into this like thing. And he's good. We got to get trading partners this time for him. We got that Aaron, the nice that's with him is he's up. He's just turned 21 and he's going to be a beast as well. He almost cleaned 220 days. He almost cleaned 485 at Soren X. He got, he got 465

easily clean. Yeah. At least. My other favorite, probably my all time favorite match athlete right now is Tank. First off, Tank. Second off, that dude,

I think he wakes up in the morning and just like he's gotta squat 405 before, like he can do anything. Like he can't, if he's in college, there's no ways making it to class without squatting 405 before like he can do anything. Like he can't, if he's in college, there's no ways making it to class without squatting 405 before showing up. Like that guy has one purpose on this planet. To squat the most.

Squat the most weight. I think his femur is like four inches long. Oh yeah. Oh, his body is just designed to squat. He was put on the surface to squat. He won the Sorenex squat competition. But then the kid Aaron deadlifted 740 and he's a weightlifter. Like he deadlifted like power lifting level, you know,

and no strap, no straps, just regular. He did a hook grip, 740 deadlift and like destroyed everybody. So it was fun. Is he like a weightlifter though? Is he like a long torso, short arms, like vertical weightlifter or like a, it sounds like a guy with a short torso and long arms, like the opposite of what you would want to be for a weightlifter if you're deadlifting 700. Oh, he squats, you know, he squats to seven too.

So he's like, but he might have a little, a little bit longer arms, but no, he's just incredibly strong. Like, you know, he doesn't, he doesn't have the, he's not key locks out at the knee or anything. He's a high lock guy. He just is a brute. That's really, but you know, Ryan, Delis a lot, you know, Ryan Delis is 600 down there, you know, Wayne, nothing. So one 70. Wayne one 70. We put on a show. I don't think that number, like that is so much. I don't think I've ever seen anybody in person pull 600.

Oh yeah, we, it's insanity. Much of them did. Ryan did, Aaron did. So yeah, it was great. We put on a show. Even, we were talking about AJ before the show. I don't even think I watched AJ pull 600 when he was training with us. Oh yeah, that's too bad. I don't even think I watched AJ pull 600 when he was training with us.

Oh yeah, that's too bad. I don't think he ever did, because it was like different goal. Like that's the biggest, strongest person I've ever coached just a bit like raw, I mean, a squat of a thousand plus pounds, like I don't think that even in that time he was doing stuff like that because he was trying to lose weight.

Oh, that's too bad. That's insane. I don't think people realize how freaking heavy 600 pounds is. It is. It's so farly. So I mean it's all relative. You know. What are the biggest pulls you've seen in real life Travis? Straight regular powerlifting bar. Not strongman stuff but like powerlifting. I mean I did 804 with a regular Texas powerlifting bar. It's a raw. Not with a suit on. No a raw. Yeah. No it at 804 with a regular Texas powerlifting bar. It's a raw. But the studon? Not with a studon. No, a raw. I did it at 804 with a regular barbell and it was in competition. It was the USPF

back in the day. But you know, eight cones. When you pull 800 pounds, you got to pull it and it's like a slinky coming off the ground because the bar bends so damn much. Yeah, those new barbells can be, yeah, you can get quite a bit, especially if you, those guys who are really good at sumo, because they can get so much bend that if they have just enough strength to break it free, they've locked it out almost. So that's why the deadlifts have gone through the roof here lately, but I'm not hating, you know, good for them, I guess. Yeah.

I want to dig into you competing these days, which is how long has it been since you competitively stood on a platform? Gosh, man. Like, uh, along 2007, we'll say, but 2007 is when I was done with WPL. Yeah. Yeah. I would imagine the mindset now is probably almost significantly more enjoyable. Yeah.

Oh yeah. It's way more fun. It's not going to obsess me. I'm not going to be obsessed by it. Like it's just, it's fun. Like I look forward to training and I want my kids, really the whole goal is my boys It's not going to obsess me. I'm not going to be obsessed by it. It's fun. I look forward to training. And I want my kids, really, the whole goal is my boys

and my daughter. I want them to see, I don't want to be the dad as well. When I was a kid, I used to do X. And I want them to see me make good, like I haven't been, I've had zero alcohol. So I want them to see me make these good decisions to, you know, to overcome this goal instead of me just saying, well, I used to do this. I used to do that. Here's what I do. You saw it.

So now you know what it takes. Right. Right. So that's all gold. But I want them to see me do it with balance, still loving them, taking away nothing from my family, still being in shape, still being able to move. So yeah, they already see you train like you train with them often. But is that a part of as well as like they can see you compete, but also they see you prepping for the competition in a more serious way than than the normal training you already do with them. Right.

And they see me like the my nutrition is way more strict already. They're watching me take sleeping way more seriously, you know, like, um, luckily being with you guys with the rapid, I get to learn a lot, you know, like I get to hang out with Mike Lane and hear his advice to our athletes and like, I'm taking it. So, so like, you know, he's given us the latest on sleep and uh, it's really, that's really helped or even just getting to hang around with Chris, uh, what's his, uh, what's the last name? Um,

Perry. Yes, that dude, his, his work on sleep is outrageous, like understanding that it's more important to go to bed at the same time and get up at the same time is more important than how much you sleep. And that's key. He's totally right. He's like locking those times in. It totally messes me up if I don't. Yeah, I'm feeling it right now, man. I'm freaking Edmonton Oilers are in the Stanley Cup finals. I'm up till like 1130 at night. I woke up. The other day, I woke up. No alarm. Just sleeping as late as I needed to. Woke up. Felt like someone hit me in the

head with a baseball bat the night before. Like it. Just two, three hour difference. It just absolutely destroys you. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I don't. I don't. I just don't do it. You know, my wife and I just went on our sixteenth uh anniversary trip to the beach and we did everything correct. We worked out the entire time. We, you know, still getting in my, I'm really digging like endurance now. And like I'm getting to the point I'm going to start like, you know, adding in running a little bit or rucking. I'm probably going to do more rucking. Like the guy, you know, the older guy that we had on our show,

rucking. I'm probably going to do more rucking like the guy, you know, the older guy that we had on our show, the 70 some year old that dude motivated pissed out of me. That dude's I bought his book, you know. Yeah. Yeah. I haven't bought a shoes out, but I'm going to like I'm all about it. I want to be helped. I want because I wasn't I was so when I competed before I was I mean I watched my nutrition, but I you know, I was, I mean, I watched my nutrition, but I, you know, sleep was like always disrupted and I never really thought about sleep that much, but you know, I just, I was so grumpy all the time and you know, like I cut off friendships and you know, I just won't be like that. So I want to, I want to know that I can do this without that.

Say what? Artios the maturity play. Yeah. You don't realize ito is the maturity play. Yeah. You don't realize it and you just feel so much better. I'm like one total hour of lifting weights a week, two 30 minute sessions. And probably due to muscle memory and just like being wired relatively well, I still get stronger with that little bit. And I don't even know if it's actually stronger,

but increasing the weights and things like that. But it's like, you just feel so much better when you're doing four or five minutes of cardio in some capacity on a daily basis. It just, it, I think it's like a, it's hard. I always think about it as just a, it's hard. I always think about it as just like, I'm just pushing clean blood through my body.

And it- Right. Yes, man. I don't have that. Like the last time I got blood drawn, I sat down and she took my blood and she goes, you've got bright red blood. And I went, no one's ever said that to me.

Is that good? I hope that's good. Yeah. She goes, oh no, it's really good. It means you have clean blood. And I went, no one's ever said that to me. Is that good? I hope that's good. Yeah, she goes, oh no, it's really good. It means you have clean blood. And I went, oh great. I was like, wait, what does not clean blood look like? She goes, some people come in here and they have like white blood,

which means they're not moving, they're eating bad food. And it's like, it's not red. And I was like, people have not red blood. Holy crap, that's so gross. No. It makes me wanna cut my arm real quick and check. Make sure they're not near me. I don't want them. These white blooded people. But she was like, yeah, it's like their blood just doesn't filter. It doesn't, it's not clean. And I was like, I didn't know it would actually show up. I thought that was like a totally random thought that I had that I was like, by going out and doing conditioning type things

and just moving regularly that you actually are you like cleaning the blood in your body and bro matters and I was like, when she told me that I was like, this is a real thing you can't you got to go flush the blood and get your heart to clean it all out. Yeah. I mean, I love doing mainly right now. I'm doing this low intensity steady state, but like I want to definitely start adding in more like anaerobic, you know, hard, like, you know, Andy always talks about it, like, you know, pushing the gas a little bit more.

And so I just want to make sure I'm at a firm level of low intensity, which I feel like I am now. So like my heart, my resting heart rate is lower than it's been like I'm normally around 58, which is pretty good for me. You know, it's not like, it's not in the 40s or anything, like some of the fighters are, but, but it's, it's lower. Like when I tell you what, like when we went to Oklahoma and I was such out of shape, that's really what triggered it too. Like I was like, man, I can't keep up with these guys. I was so mad. But right then it was in the high sixties. It was bad. And it was so stressed from

being back in school. And so I feel like now I could get it even, I could get a little bit lower. Do you wear an O-ring or do you track your sleep at all? I got my Garmin. I wear my Garar ring or do you track your sleep at all? I got my garment. I wear my garment. Does that one do your breath rate? Yeah. Yeah. Does my breath rate.

So normally, normally 13. So, so pretty good. That's okay. So I'm doing, I'm doing more and more breath work too. Like, uh, one of our, you know, Ben Johns, the pickleball player, like he and I compete to see who does breath work more often. So I tied him this week. So tied him.

Finally. He's competitive. Back squats 1000 plus pounds competing with a pickleball player. Dude, he's the coolest dude. That's my favorite athlete. Maybe. Our first real sponsored athlete here soon. I love that guy. He is. Oh really? Well, he's the best guy when we could have shown he's he is so compliant. He does

everything and he loves to lift like he sends me videos of him doing cleans and like normally I know we don't I don't even have our athletes do cleans but he likes it so I was like all right we'll do the compete about breath work. He was beating me till finally I tied in this week. So, yeah, everybody here loves him. Just nothing but good things to say about that guy. You know, as far as the, the rucking goes, dude, I'm totally on board with rucking now as well. It's like I always try to go hiking in the summertime, especially because I, I grew up in the Pacific Northwest and Oregon and Washington. It's just, it's beautiful. And so I always go back and visit my parents and my brother and I'll try to get some hikes in. And then this year we're going to Yosemite and we got a permits to hike Haftam as well.

So I've been rucking lately cause we're hiking Haftam. And then we also got permits to summit Mount St. Helens in July. And so I've been going on like, going on rucks on at a minimum on the weekends, you know, for a couple of hours. And in addition to just like the physical prep to do some, some bigger hikes, I found to be like incredibly peaceful to

like go for a two plus hour long hike. And then along the way, like I typically don't listen to music or audio books or anything. I typically take my headphones out of my, out of my head and put them in my pocket for a little while. And anything though, I'll just brain dump while I'm out there. I'll have an open Google Doc

and I'll just dictate notes into my phone. I can just brain dump every area of my life and just make this long, completely unorganized list. And then I'm totally prepared for my entire week. That way, when I start my day Monday morning, all my thoughts are already documented in a very simple way and a very stressful way. Because I got two hours just to, as thoughts come to me,

just to take them into my phone. In the sunlight, in nature, totally. Oh yeah, I'm at Shelby Farms Park here in Memphis, which is an enormous city park that has 18 lakes. It's a big place. And so I'm just in a beautiful spot for the entire time hiking on actual trails. And I found to be in addition to all the physical benefits, just incredibly good for my kind of my mental spiritual health, so to speak. Because it's just it's like, it just gives me time to just relax. How heavy of a rock? Beyond this training. What size?

Like how much do you add to the rock like you like you know it's not crazy it's like 30 pounds yeah I'm just thinking about where to start with it like yeah I think I might start even lighter just so you know I just want to add a little bit of but I don't want to run per se because I don't think I'm skilled enough because you know Andy talks a lot about like the sometimes the worst decision you can make is I'm gonna go out and start running and you don't have a good, you don't have a gate. And I know my gate is not awesome anymore.

And so like, so I see him keeping a foot on the ground. It was probably the wiser thing, but I think it was rocking. I started to add a little bit more intensity to my cardio, but it like without getting hurt. You know, I do like, I think it's a more profitable. I do think it's a more profitable decision for you, like given your, given your, your history and your body type and your, your recent hip replacements, et cetera, it's like running will give you some cardiovascular

benefits and there's upside there. But also I do think it'll just beat you up and it's, it's unnecessary for you specifically to go, to go run, to go jogging. Just put a pack on, go run, it's better on your body. You still get many similar benefits even if the cardio side of it really isn't as intense, you can handle that in other ways. Sure, I think I might do some like heel sprints, but that would be the only running I would per se do.

It's safer, you know, it keeps you, you know, it's when you get upright, you run the risk of that hamstring blowing. I'm not trying to do that. So I'm trying to be super wise using velocity too, like, and I really stick to my cutoffs. You know, back in the day, like I'm just, you know, I might tell myself work up to a three RM, eight RPE, but it's going to be a max out. But now I'm very strict on my cutoff, my velocity cutoffs. So if I say 0.4, it's 0.4 days and it's kept me I have been zero misses so far since I've been back and I'm still climbing nice and steady like, you know, like now I'm, you know, I don't know if I'm max now, it would definitely be in the sixes on both deadlifting and

know if I'm max now, it would definitely be in the sixes on both deadlifting and squatting, you know, but so it's, it's definitely coming. No doubt. I'll be in the sevens, just how far is it be, you know, and then my wife, I do question one thing, look, when I do this thing, and if I do get to seven, four and seven, am I going to say, well, or if I get a 754, Am I going to say, well, or if I get a 754, you know, will it start again? I hope not. Yeah. I know this. Here's what I know is if it interrupts my family or my time with my friends, it'll be a hard stop that that I do know.

Like I won't. Going into these things with like appreciation changes that you get to like, you're not doing it for numbers. No, or to prove. That's the main difference of it is you just go, it's actually like one of the things that stops me from doing an enormous number of like weightlifting things is I just like the other day I had like a, so it was down in Cancun like a month ago with

Brian, the guy that owned the gym. Yeah. And it was, it was actually so awesome just because we talked about like how much we've progressed and you sit down with somebody for like three days and you just actually get through all of it versus like a phone call for an hour podcast or whatever. No doubt. And I got back and I was doing flat bench dumbbells and I texted them as soon as I left the gym and I was doing flat bench dumbbells and I texted him as soon as I left the gym and I went, hey bud, after hanging out with you, I think that was the last day I'm pressing the hundreds, man.

Like there's just no ROI anymore for me waking up in the morning at 630 a.m. with no warmup, pushing a hundred pound dumbbells for eight. Like that's like an ego thing in the morning that I do all the time. And I'm like, and he goes, oh yeah, I'm like on the eighties now, man. He's like, I don't, he's like slow, full range of motion, make sure I'm doing everything I need to do. Like there's just no need.

And I couldn't even, it's like, I couldn't even imagine going back and doing a CrossFit competition or something like that. Because I just know I'd get hurt. I just know that something would happen. Like some tipping pull-up thing and I would just go, that was so dumb. Or I would, in the middle of the event, I'd just pull myself and go, hey guys, I'm out. Like I'm not doing this. My shoulder's like, it's just not happening.

Oh yeah. That's why I'm using the velocity. Like I don't want to come anywhere near. And if I start to feel that elbow pain or knee pain, I'm not going to ignore it. Cause that's me. That's my body saying I'm about to snap. So I'm not going to ignore any of those things.

So I'm going to be wise. Yeah. Most of my big lifts are like velocity based these days. If I'm front squatting and deadlifting at some level, I'm doing velocity based training, even if even if I don't have some type of device hooked up to the bar, telling me my exact my exact meters per second. But most of my big lifts are velocity based. And then then, as you guys know, like a lot of my training these days is really

just trying to stay as healthy as possible for Jiu Jitsu. I just want to be able to go Jiu Jitsu, have my body not hurt and be able to like, be confident I can go to the next practice because I didn't, I didn't ding myself up in one way or another. So for all my assistance work, there's a lot of like 15 RMs with one rep, with one rep in reserve in my life right now. It's like, it's like the majority of my sessions are relatively light these days.

Well, it's still great. I perjury, it's still the same. I perjury you're going to get doing five. So it's great. days. Well, it's still great. Perjury, it's still the same. My Perjury, you're going to get doing five. So it's great. Yeah, dude, it's been great. I've actually responded very well to it. Like, you know, I feel fortunate to say I've got a lot of people like coming up to me, like commenting on how like I look like I'm stronger or am more jacked than last time

they saw me. Like I've made a tangible difference in my physique doing higher reps, you know, over the last, you know, probably at least a year now, and for jujitsu, isn't that more important muscular endurance than being like per se strong for five reps, because it's not the way jujitsu works. Like it's endurance. It's a muscular endurance support. And so I feel like that makes way more sense. Sure.

Yeah. And typically maximum strength is not the constraint in the system to your progression in Jiu Jitsu. So if you put 30 pounds on your max, like your Jiu Jitsu doesn't really change that much. Not at all, man. Not really. No, no.

No, those dudes like look at Royce Gracie. Like he didn't look, you know, he was not strong. He's not gonna win, but he's gonna beat my ass, you know? Cause he's gonna put me, he's gonna wear me down and put me some kind of like chokehold before I know it, like some kind of Python. But yeah, man. No, it's not the win-all, but yeah.

You guys are talking about all the cardio and the rucking. I just wanna let you guys know, if you want to come hang out with me at 6.30 in the morning and go chop a bunch of trees down. I do want to do that with you. The spot that has replaced all of the cardio in my life these days. Just my wife was telling me she's been watching your videos, cutting down. Are you building your own log cabin?

Yeah. Are you? Are you? How close? I mean, how long is this going to take? Once I get all the trees chopped down, it's not that bad. It's been like a giant progression. So when I moved here, there's a giant woodshed that I need to go fill. And I was like, I like, I could go grab the chainsaw and go do it, but that sounds like

I'm not going to be working out that much or like confronting nature in a very raw way. So I just grabbed an axe and start chopping trees down. So I chopped down like 400 foot a tree with an axe, not a chainsaw, and then cut it all into like two foot logs with an axe and then chopped it into and then split it four ways with an axe and then chopped it into and then split it four ways with an axe and I filled the whole Thing up so like chopped down like four hundred ish foot trees That's what Doug needs to come out some rocky Balboa stuff right there and then From there. I'll be out there in like two weeks. We're gonna do it. Yeah, and then from there. I just wanted me to

make flower beds and like vegetable gardens like made out of logs so I just started chopping them down and like notching them together and then if you do this enough you find yourself on YouTube watching people out in the middle of the woods making log cabins to sleep and camp in. And I was like, I want a log cabin that I can go camping with the kids in out in the middle of the woods. And so I started chopping 10 foot logs. So that's you're gonna build your log cabin from YouTube. Yeah. Wow. That's the most baddest thing I've ever heard of. So I have probably like 300 foot of tree that is already chopped down and like

the bark is shaved off and I probably have like 300 foot of tree to go. And then I can just start stacking them together and notching the wood out. And it's all by hand. Like the baddest part is that you lay a tree down and then you cut it into 10 foot long lengths and then you got to go clean a tree. Like get it off the ground and stand it up and move it by yourself. That's hard. That's some pilgrim stuff right there.

Really hard. It totally absorbs all of my energy. It's awesome. It's so much fun. I would rather do something like that as opposed to like, you know, that's where I want my cardio to progress to. Is this work, you know, working, being in nature.

Well, that's like, that's an enormous amount of just, if you're doing the, just like working, you're gonna do, you're doing the cardio. Like if you're working hard, you're cardio. Yeah. Yeah. You're, you're doing it. Yeah. That's why people live a long time back in the day because they were working. Like my grandfather would be 96 because he worked hard. He showed up every day and had to go do stuff. Had to walk, had to work. Yeah. Yeah. Now we sit in this little desk. If we don't, we're all going to die. I'm just going to be sitting here, you know, getting fat. Yeah.

Stressed out. Yeah. Not going to do it. So I like being able to communicate and do things, teach people with what we do. But also I want to be healthy. I want my kids to see me being healthy, too. That's key. I want them to see me.

What are I going to go? I had it all get. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. My whole family is super strict now. Like where I mean, when I say super strict, like, you know, well, we've never been in one where you're not going to find like coke or anything. Obviously, like it's never been a thing. But even more now, it's just water.

And now I've started doing no dairy, too. So like my one weakness would have been ice cream. But of late, I decided to cut out dairy just because I felt like I kept having allergy issues. I'm just trying. And like my wife suggested it. I didn't want to do it, but I didn't want it to be right. But it helped. And so now I'm like trying and like it and my wife suggested it. I didn't want to do it but I didn't want it to be right but it helped and so now I'm like dang it so I guess no dairy but uh no as a family

and we we go on walks together we all work out together all my kids now are doing you know weightlifting yeah so it's been a it's been a more of a family thing than anything so it's It's been a more of a family thing than anything. So it's going the exact direction I want it to go. So yeah, we go to family walk every day. I love it. I come home, we all walk to the, there's a spot in the lake that we want to, and they swim, the kids get in the water a little bit.

It's just great. Yeah. Yeah. I want to stay that way. My kids aren't there yet. I was along with the frustrations of it. I'll tell you the cool parts of it. I have my little dude just started jujitsu. Oh, yeah. It's like the first I'm very excited about it for many reasons that nobody on the show cares about of having just like an aggressive little four year old.

I mean, I'm very stoked for him to like, I feel like that is one of the disciplines in life that it's just like, it serves so many awesome purposes of winning and losing and realizing actions also have consequences. Right. The right thing you might win and if you do the wrong thing, you're guaranteed to lose

in a bad way. Yeah. And just like, I think that there's a, I was actually talking to a buddy. Now I call him a buddy down in Costa Rica. This past weekend of just like the, there's like a physiological state of like looking somebody in the eye and saying like we're going to go figure out who wins right now. Right. And like a lot of sports have that.

But I don't think any of them have that to the degree that like Jiu Jitsu has it like or wrestling that one on one going to choke you. Right. Yeah. Right. I love it. If you win a battle in hockey, you might end up in a fight,

but most likely it's just like you hit someone really hard and they go, oh, that hurt. Like, the winner chokes the other person out or breaks their arm. Like that's a very decisive victory. It's not like a question on who actually got there. Yeah, the idea of we're going to do this until one of us admits defeat. Yeah, it's interesting.

Not just like you scored some. I mean, there are points in jujitsu and in non-submission only competitions, but like, but the essence of jujitsu is we're going to do this until one of us says you win. I agree. You did it. Yeah, yeah. So what a great moment for us as fathers to be able to put our arm around the sun and like say now what?

So you got to be, how does it make you feel? What do you intend on doing about it? You know, like, you know, do you, would you rather not be in this position? Now, of course you don't want to be. So like, what are you going on doing about it? You know, like, you know, do you, would you rather not be in this position? Now, of course you don't want to be, so like, what are you going to do about it? It's great. There's many parts where I'm like, dying. I'm pushing Adelaide probably more than I should

on doing it. One, there's like the self-defense side of it, but also like she does dance and gymnastics right now, which I'm like very cool with when it comes to like understanding how your body moves and all of that, but where's the losing part? There's no, there's no losing in those sports. Uh, it's just you, you go practice the skills.

Right. Um, I'm, I'm very excited about, I never had any jujitsu or any of that stuff in my life, so I'm like very, very stoked for them. Me too. Travis Mash, where can the people find you? In mashelite.com is, check out my new website. We got a lot of cool new offerings on there. Oh, I'm gonna go to that right now.

Mashelite.com. Mashelite.com. That's where you go get Super Jack. Doug Larson. You bet, I'm on the screen. Douglas E.com Ashley.com. That's where you go get super Jack Doug Larson. You bet, I'm on Instagram, Douglas E Larson. And I am Anders Varner at Anders Varner and we are Barbell Shrugged, Barbell underscore shrugged and you can watch a free lab lifestyle and performance analysis by Dr. Andy Galpin and Dan Garner. You can access that free report at rapidhealthreport.com. Friends, we'll see you guys next week.