Barbell Shrugged - Creating National Champions and How to Manage Intensity in Your Workouts w/ Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Coach Travis Mash Barbell Shrugged #595

Episode Date: July 19, 2021

In this Episode of Barbell Shrugged:   Ryan Grimsland win gold Using Athlete Monitoring to build confidence  How to manage intensity in your workouts Measuring intensity in weightlifting Moderating intensity for aerobic capacity   Anders Varner on Instagram   Doug Larson on Instagram   Coach Travis Mash on Instagram   ————————————————   Diesel Dad Mentorship Application: https://bit.ly/DDMentorshipApp   Diesel Dad Training Programs: http://barbellshrugged.com/dieseldad   Training Programs to Build Muscle: https://bit.ly/34zcGVw   Nutrition Programs to Lose Fat and Build Muscle: https://bit.ly/3eiW8FF   Nutrition and Training Bundles to Save 67%: https://bit.ly/2yaxQxa   Please Support Our Sponsors   Organifi - Save 20% using code: “Shrugged” at organifi.com/shrugged   BiOptimizers Probitotics - Save 10% at bioptimizers.com/shrugged   Garage Gym Equipment and Accessories: https://prxperformance.com/discount/BBS5OFF Save 5% using the coupon code “BBS5OFF”

Shrugged family, this week on Barbell Shrugged, we're talking about measuring intensity in your workouts. Whether it's cardio, whether it's gaining maximum strength, hypertrophy. How do you measure and manage intensity over a training cycle? And, as Coach Travis matches out, smashing the world. We recorded this right after he got back from Nationals, where Ryan Grimson took gold. He also is down in columbia right now and took another gold and it's really badass before we get into today's show i want to thank our sponsors as always to thank our friends over at organifi if you've got a busy schedule it can

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when you visit magbreakthrough.com forward slash shrug. That's M-A-G-B-R-E-A-K-T-H-R-O-U-G-H dot com forward slash shrug. Use the coupon code shrugged10 at checkout to save 10%. magbreakthrough.com forward slash shrug. Let's get into the show. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Anders Varner, Doug Larson, Coach Travis Bass. We have so many things to talk about today. I'm getting leaned. Let's get into the show. You sent us a text. I feel like you've won weightlifting meets with your athletes, and then we find out about it like three weeks later.

Right. You're like, oh, yeah, we won. We found out immediately. You were stoked. Yeah. You put a barbell in that kid's hand for like the first time, what, eight years ago, nine years ago? Let me think about that.

Maybe six or seven. He was doing CrossFit before when he was a teen, right? Yeah, his mom brought him to me. He competed at the Games. Did he compete at the Games? He didn't quite make it. He got second at Waterpalooza and then he missed it by one. He missed the CrossFit Games by one

as a teen and then that's when he decided to go all in weightlifting. Was it obvious to you from day one that you're like, dang, this kid's got talent. Like he could go somewhere. Yep. I literally told his mom.

Yeah. So he was, he's 19 now. He just became a senior. Yes. Which they need to call that United States weightlifting

open or something. No, he's, he's actually a junior still. He's two more years of juniors. It's just, we decided at the, listen, at the last second, I was, I was I was looking I'm like I think he can beat these guys and make a senior

world team so at the last second I'm like look I know we were we were registered as a 73 kilogram junior and then I was like bro let's just go for it and he was like yeah let's go for it so at the last second he decides to bump down and go against the seniors and he was like, yeah, let's go for it. So at the last second, he decides to bump down and go against the seniors. Because I told him to chill and just do a 73, he was way overweight. And so I put him in quite the pickle, and the dude

pulled it out. He came to weigh-ins looking like a skeleton. He literally couldn't talk coherently. He was making no sense. And so, made weight and dominated. He is a straight ball. What were his numbers?

He did, he snatched 133, which is a lifetime PR, and he clean jerked 164 37. Yes, I think so. What's his weight class again? 67 kilograms. So, I think so. What's his weight class again? 67 kilograms.

So he did a 292-pound snatch, and he did 360, I guess, pound clean and jerk at 67. So he weighs 148 pounds. It's like a double bodyweight snatch or just shy of it maybe, and then like a two-and-a-half-times bodyweight clean jerk. Yeah. Crazy stuff. Gangster numbers. And he didn't miss anything all day long.

We went five for five. But then when I noticed we had wrapped it up, then I shut him down when he had taken the sixth attempt. That's how dominating he was. Damn. Yeah. Honestly, I thought when I saw him weigh in, I was like, oh, man, I made a horrible mistake.

You know, like he just looked so poorly. He looked like a skeleton. And then that dude just is a baller. He just is different. He just don't care. He doesn't get caught up in, you know, the weight loss. He just gives himself no excuses but to succeed. When he made that snatch, you can always tell when it's like

really really heavy because when they struggle to stabilize overhead and like actually get out of the hole like when the overhead squat part is actually challenging yeah i feel like that's when you know that shit's really heavy most of the time you can just stand it up i've never really caught a snatch been like whoa what if i'm gonna stand this thing up usually the overhead squats the really easy part it's the uh when you when you see him like struggling to get out of the hole and like get past parallel you're like whoa i think that dude just snatched double body weight i remember watching a video a long time ago of piris demas you know snatching like 175 or 180 something along those lines and something and like and like as he stood up with

it and he was he was standing he was done with the lift but he was like waiting to get the down down signal and he was like convulsing he was just like his whole fucking body was shaking yeah like you think like like when i snatch like when i once i stand up with a snatch and i'm just standing there with with my arms locked out overhead like i don't snatch that much it doesn't feel that bad like it's it's pretty comfortable just to stand there but i was looking at him going oh shit like he is at the limit yeah yeah i'm just gonna like break at half bar is gonna go straight through. The structure is not holding the weight anymore. You know what's funny?

Like he hadn't taken a jump in snatch in maybe a year, and we were consecutively like crushing cleaning jerks, and he was like – and he asked me, he's like, what's wrong with my snatch? And I said, I don't think anything's wrong with your snatch. I said, I'm pretty positive that come game day you're going're gonna snatch PR because he's been doing 130 on the regular and it looked really good and then he snatched 140 off blocks so there was every sign telling me he's about to kill it and so and he sure did he did the thing I saw that 140 off the blocks that was that was

one of the most impressive things I've ever fucking seen, like double body weight off like from above the knee. Was that what it was? Yeah, from above the knee. So like very little room to get anything. Yeah. He can pull more from above the knee off blocks than he can from the floor? Well, I mean, as of right now, I'm curious.

I don't think so. I think we could do it off the floor. It's just, you know, because it's not like – see, a lot of people are like that. If they got like a weak pull, they can pretty much – they can do better off high blocks. But he's quite the opposite. Like he's got a massive pull.

Like, you know, you're talking about a kid who can deadlift 240 kilograms. So he has nothing to do. So he's a 528-pound deadlifter at 148 pounds. So it's not his pull. So it's just a position thing. And I think he figured it out. Like the 133 was super easy. He smashed it.

We didn't even think. We were like, look, let's just stay in the game on the snatch, and then we'll win the clean and jerk. But then he won the snatch. And then I knew that's a bad thing for everyone. If they let Ryan, you know, stay with them, and if they let Ryan beat them in snatch, it's a bad day because he's going to clean and jerk when he needs to clean and jerk

because he's done 172. So you don't want to leave him in the game in the snatch if you're trying to beat him because he's probably going to win. Same with Morgan. You know, if they're anywhere to beat him because he's probably going to win. Same with Morgan. If they're anywhere near you after stats, you are in big trouble. Morgan took second in the clean and jerk. What did he snatch? He had a rough day.

He's been snatching really well. He's been snatching 150, but he just hasn't solidified yet. So he's not opening up quite as high. So he opens at 135, which means if you have a rough, you know, second attempt, third attempt, then you could be stuck with 135. That's what happened. What we did is we jumped. He misses opener.

It's the fluke. Then he crushes it. And so what we did, we jumped to 45 because we wanted to keep him in the game because Morgan was going against seniors as well. He's a first-year junior. So what we did, we jumped to 45 because we wanted to keep him in the game. Because Morgan was going against seniors as well. He's a first-year junior, so he's super young. He's 17 years old competing against 25, 30-year-old males at the prime of their life. So if we had stashed 45, he's in the ballgame to win that thing.

But that was a little aggressive, which is me. Definitely that was like I'm the one who talked his mom into going to 45. But I want to put him in situations where, you know, I don't want to be playing with 40 anymore. He can snatch 50. So I'm trying to put him into those situations as often as possible to know that he can do 45, 50 in competition. So Sarah snatched a hundred,

20 pounds. Yep. Yeah. Anytime a female snatches a hundred, I go, well, here's the difference. Anders, you were just never good at weightlifting. I mean, me, it depends upon what kind of pond you're swimming in but anders you probably just should have been a really average female weightlifter i mean man she killed it because she's never that chick is so damn strong i can't even stand it she hasn't even attempted she had never attempted 100 and even smoked it Smoked it? Smoked it.

We were crazy. I feel like, boys, I feel like that's why I couldn't stop messaging you guys. I just never had my team firing on all cylinders like that, where they were literally just hitting everything. Like, you know, we put it on the trailer trail. Like I said, snatches one, four. I was telling Doug before we started the show and before you got on, and there's Trey Latrell who plays football, Eleanor Ryan. He started weightlifting again.

So he literally trained maybe two or three months post – because, you know, their football season was in the spring. So he'd only been training a couple months, and then the dude snatches 140 kilograms. Snatches 308 with just a couple of months of training. And it just was insane because his best snatch had been.136, which I thought was a long shot that we'd get that. And we decided to open him up at.130,

which is pretty high compared to what most people do. Like, for example, Morgan opened at.135 with a PR of.150. So here he is, Trey, opening at.130, who's only done only done 136 so it's a pretty ballsy move he smoked it smoked 35 go to 40 smoked it it just it just felt like everybody was like on fire yeah that dude just show up in your world with a already having a 500 pound front squat or how did he just two months training you have like a magnetic pull. The universe just brings you 500-pound front squatters. I swear it's like that.

But like this kid, I've known him since he was a baby. Like I remember watching him at the first youth nationals I ever attended. I'm pretty sure it was the first one. It was in St. Joe's, Missouri. It was like – that was when CJ was like 13 years old, if that tells you anything. And the first place I saw CJ, he cleaned 125 kilograms at 13, 275 pounds at 13 years old. And I was amazed.

But, yeah, I met Trey and his father there. And Trey won. He won there too. But, you know, it's been five years since he's competed because he's, you know, football in college. And, you know, when he got in high school, it became harder for him to compete with weightlifting. But, you know, he just jumped right back in it. You know, so he's been doing it since he was a kid is my point.

And so it wasn't that hard to get him, you know, in shape. Yeah. But he's just a competitor. So are we going to Peru? Oh, yeah, 100%. Oh, yeah. So Ryan, you know, he's ranked number two in the entire country overall. Like, obviously he's number one in 67s,

but now he's two overall just behind CJ, which I was telling Doug I wish I'd taken that – I kind of wish I'd taken that last clean and jerk to see if we could bump CJ. But, you know, we'll do it down there when it counts at the Worlds. Yeah, what – that was the first time you were saying that Ryan's really pushed the weights. That's the first PRs he's set

in a long time. The first time he set the snatch. His cleaning jerk, he's been PRing all the time, but we took a, which is the way it goes. People, because it's like golf, snatching is like golf. You can swing as hard as you want, but, you know, we took a – which is the way it goes. You know, people – because it's like golf. Snatching is like golf. You know, you can swing as hard as you want, but unless you line it up,

it's not going to be that good. And so, same thing with snatching. But now I feel like he's rolling. I feel like what we're going to do for all the coaches listening is, like, now we're not going to focus on clean and jerk much at all because I think we have, you know, seven more kilograms to get from the snatch. I think we can snatch 40 from the floor. Dude, just PR'd and now Matt's putting a 15-pound PR carrot out there

for everybody. Oh, yeah. So just let us compare as much. As if like 15 pounds when you're already snatching double body weights. It's like, eh, I think we got 15 left in us. I do. Yeah. I do. But. I do.

But, you know, but the thing is that we will work less because we won't clean and jerk that often. Because you can maintain a certain number by doing very little volume. So we can maintain that 72 clean and jerk with very little volume. However, we'll put the volume towards snatch and increase it. So it won't be near as hard of a training cycle to get that 40 snatch as it would

for what we just did to get the big clincher and snatch. How do they choose who is the weightlifting coach for Team USA? It's always Gattone and Piros. Before that, it would go by rank. It doesn't change based on you just crushing it at nationals?

No, it used to. It would. And that's why I was team USA coach. In 2016, I was team USA coach four different times because I had all the athletes. Now they've got this team dynamic with Gattone. And I think they wanted got this team, you know, team dynamic with, with a good tone. And I think they don't, they wanted to go away from the individual coaches being like the team coaches because, you know, they thought maybe it was biased, which it wasn't like,

that's how I got a lot of my, like Jordan Cantrell, he became my athlete because he was not mine. And because I worked so hard, you know, to help him, then he left his coach and came to me so yeah yeah I'm definitely not biased when I'm team USA if I'm team USA I'm all in team USA yeah I'm gonna help everybody do the best they can does that yeah I would imagine that creates some issues though I mean you gotta come in and like learn three years of someone's training program and then you can only get them for like four months you gotta see that's the problem because you know like if they do that yes i

only get them for a few months however piros and gatone are constantly like looking at videos calling individual coaches so they have a better idea ongoing of how the person's progressing you almost have to like be coaching everybody before and in contact with the coaches before you even decide to take everybody on. Right. Yeah. I would love, obviously, it was fun getting to be the coach, but, you know, it's much better the situation because they can always be unbiased. You know, if you coach like with me coaching Ryan, there's always going to be a bit of like bias. There's always going to be a bit of like emotional emotion in my decision.

Yeah. So they can be there to say, look, you know, non-emotions, here's what we're seeing. Yeah. So it is good to have that. Dude, you're on a diet. What are you doing? I want to hear about this.

Macros. I've never done macros before, but my wife wanted to really get on top of her nutrition, and I told her I would do it with her. There you go. Yeah. What are you eating? What do you got? What's the goal?

My fitness is barely above 2,000. Damn, Matt's getting shredded. What do you weigh right now? I got to check check I don't know 30, 40 I haven't weighed since I started so it's been like stop that

you gotta do it every day I know but I haven't you're a pretty graph don't go hook you up with a graph yeah what kind of graph I got my MyFitnessPal

that one gets confusing it is a little bit because the lines are so tiny in there yeah that's what I'm only only 2000 what are you trying to get down to how long is this going to be i want to know i'll go on a get shredded contest with you right now definitely want to go until august you know i want to see

but drew and i are doing a trip to jamaica at the end of the month wait to go hang out with uh the crew down there no you're just going out because you like Jamaica so much. And to make sweet love. Helps to have that weight down a little bit. Exactly. You got to look good for the wife. Lots of cardio. Three-minute intervals. That's a kid-free trip then?

That's a kid-free trip. Gangster time. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of three-minute interval training going on down there for you. I'm all about that low-intensity, steady state. You've been to Jamaica many times. What's the appeal to go back to Jamaica another time versus going somewhere new?

You know, I just love the people. I think, you know, I love the culture of being so laid back. They're so opposite of Americans, I think. You know, here we're always like, you know, go push, entrepreneur, be successful. Whereas there, they're just like, hey, let's have a good time right now today. So it's just so laid back. Instantly, when I step off the plane in Jamaica, I feel relaxed. So I love it.

I love that. Dude, that airport when we flew in there, you feel like you're landing right in the middle of the ocean. Right. It's like a runway. It's like the island. I love it. Crazy.

I can't wait. I would move there if I had a chance. I'm going to get in a get shredded contest with you. I have to not put on 16 pounds for baby number two like I did with baby number one. How many have you put on so far? Have you put on minus eight you're minus eight yeah like a boss seven minus seven i came back from uh i want to say i came back from the hospital it says four weeks eight pounds i just don't want to get fat again i got fat last I was born just because your sleep's all jacked up. How did you get fat the first time?

What was the big factor for you? Well, the biggest – I mean it was over like six months, so it wasn't like overnight. My whole life just changed and it was just – we were traveling a lot for Shrugged at the time before. We were down in the water, Palooza. we were gone basically like eight to ten days a month which sounds only like 33 but it feels like 60 because you're just each trip is just you like come home just in time to basically prepare for the next one. And, um, so that was just off cause we were just out eating more, um,

sleeps all jacked up, wildly unprepared for just what was, what was going on. And then dude, I put on 16 pounds. It's gnarly. I got up to two Oh five. And I,

I like, I just remember looking in the mirror and going, this is gross. What is going on? We moved across the country trying to find a house. There was just like all of the lifestyle factors that allow you to not really be focused on and having like any systems in place for eating consistent quality food, like moving, traveling, living in airports,

like all of it, going to Waterpalooza, staying up till 8 a.m. at Club 11, hanging out with Post Malone like a rapper, or Aaron Hines like a rapper, one of the two. There is a girl from my hometown that is obsessed with – she literally – you go to her Facebook. She's a pretty girl from my hometown, and she is in love with Post Malone. She posts about him every day. I'm like –

Really? Yes. She's like your age? She's my age. And she posts about Post Malone? Every day. It's hard. It's hard to really like Post Malone and say that you like,

that you understand Post, like you relate to him because I feel like he's just on pain pills all day long. Like he just wakes up, takes like pain pills, and then drinks Bud Light all day long. He probably does too, so it's perfect, you know. Yeah, I can still see that. I think about that though like when like i hear like an eminem song and i'm double the age now of when i found eminem and i was like yeah slim shady yeah that's my dude i know all the words to this cd and you're like i didn't grow up on eight mile. Not at all.

I listened to the words, and I'm like, wait, I thought this was all. I still know all the words, though. Who doesn't? Yeah. Anybody who's ever worked out knows the words to, yeah. Yeah. I think that Eminem just wrote, like, the anthem for gym owners. Totally. Get one shot still bang right right um bros we're gonna talk about training intensity today i gotta scroll through all these notes that i had of us you kicking ass this uh this weekend um yo i think training intensity is is like a really interesting subject when it comes to um

people going into the gym uh because depending upon what group of people or what methodology you are uh prescribed to or even the methodologies inside the big sports whether it's olympic lifting powerlifting crossfit um or like just how you're training, how do you start to understand what intensity means? How do you tailor it towards your specific goals? And then also working at submaximal intensities and just making sure that we've done multiple shows on kind of overtraining, overreaching, but just making sure that you're not getting burnt out along the way by pushing intensity so hard. When you guys think about just like whether it's your own training or coaching others, what is your highest level thinking

around just that term intensity? I think that's – oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead, Doug. I was going to say right now in this moment you're that term intensity. I think that's, I'm sorry, go ahead, Doug. I was going to say right now in this moment, you're referring to intensity as like how hard the workouts feel or how beat up you get from them or like the more technical term of like, like what percentage of a rep of what a one rep max it is. Like how are you defining it right now? Specifically why we're going to talk about it for the next 45 minutes, because there isn't like a a specific thing people just say i do high intensity

interval training or this is a great topic training at maximum intensity like what does that actually mean and and why did you know why did you just ask me that question? Because it's a confusing topic that I think a lot of people understand. Like, Metcons are high intensity. But if you go to the powerlifting world, how do they define intensity? In Olympic lifting, how do people measure that word based on their own specific goals so that they can move forward and understand how to write a program or use it in their own training. This is a great topic.

I think the vast majority of people, like the average person, they refer to intensity basically in the same light as rate a rate of perceived exertion. Like how hard did that feel? When they get done with the workout, they think like that was super intense because I got, I got really tired and I'm really sore, et cetera. And like, that's, that's what most people think about when they, when they think of intensity. I think, I think athletes and coaches, they think about it a little differently. Like if I went on a really hard 5K run, I wouldn't think of it as being intense, even if it was really hard. I tend to think about intensity as being the closer you are to moving 100% full speed

or 100% full force. That's usually how I define intensity. And then there's a frequency component there too where um you know if you're doing one hour maxes every 10 minutes then you are at maximum intensity but it doesn't feel that intense but if you're doing you know 90 you know every two minutes or whatever it is then that is also high intensity as far as a percentage of one hour max goes but it doesn't and it rather it feels much more difficult because you're you have a high pace associated with it right i'll try what i said how do you think about

intensity 100 just like that i look at you know i'm thinking load when someone says it says something in load so if it's you know weight lifting how much weight is on the bar if it's uh if it's running i'm thinking about you know how fast are they going compared so if it's you know weightlifting how much weight is on the bar if it's uh if it's running i'm thinking about you know how fast are they going compared so if they're if they're a 5k athlete and their maximum 5k is x how close are you to that pace so it would be the way i define it for running you know same thing with cycling or swimming how close are you to maximum speed either at your event or at the event you're practicing so that's exactly um i actually did a a video slash like little podcast uh thing on on training intensities and which i called running high intensity walking because i feel like uh

when i when i think about like all of the activities that you could be doing to move yourself forward when it comes to your fitness um running running seems really hard uh while you're doing it because it's like well like right now it's 400 degrees outside and you're like out of breath so quickly and then you're sweating so much but 15 minutes later your heart rate's completely back down to zero like resting heart rate and yours is yeah now you're on this big diet dude um we'll see hold on bill campbell just put up a quiz question about how fast your your heart rate goes back down to resting heart rate after running. I think I got that one wrong too.

So me saying that is really me reinforcing that in my own brain that it takes like 15 to 30 minutes. It's this individual thing. Not everybody goes to zero. You would like that. If you're running wind sprints, I think it stays more elevated. Like that's more metabolically demanding. So that's what I was trying to get to is like, how do we actually, when I think about intensity and this is, uh, this is like way post CrossFit and kind of like how I tried to communicate

to people that were coaching about like, um, what, what is like the longterm like metabolic effect of the thing you're doing? Like a walk is a very low level, low intensity thing. If you're going to be running, that's going to be much higher intensity currently, but not as intense as like lifting weights and that your body is going to have to continue to burn calories in order to build muscle, repair itself to rebuild itself um and obviously anything that is going to be um higher on the the higher reps higher weights closer to one rep max a lot of that it obviously is going to be higher intensity efforts in order just to complete the list but um when i when i one of my like big things that I geek out on now is how many

like medium to high level or high intensity level efforts can I piece together in a single day? Um, and then over a single week, um, whether it's like 15 minutes to go walk a mile or 25 minutes to lift weights and do like EMOM aesthetics and just get as much worked on as in pot as possible and in a 20 minute period but i'm i'm very rarely if ever going to be tapping into like unless i'm sitting in your basement mash i'm not one rep maxing anything so like my general intensity i think when i when i and what i want people to think about when they when they are viewing how much energy they're putting into something is like creating a really broad spectrum all the way from

like walking maybe even like meditating sitting as still as possible all the way up to the highest level intensities or what feels like absolute death trying to test the 2RM and creating as many opportunities along that spectrum from sitting still, like walking, running, wind sprints, 8RM, 3RM, 2RM, 1RM, and combining as many of those into short like workout periods throughout the day. Or if they can, and most ideally, accumulate as many of those in like, as Doug was saying, in like an RPE, the perceived exertion of like somewhere in like an 85%, something that's like very recoverable. You can repeat that effort as many times as you'd like, really.

You're not going to burn out by, you know, hitting 85 at and and feeling like an eight on the rpe it just it allows for continuous effort to be able to get there um in in like the pure academic definition it's it's obviously the percent of one rm i think when um that's why met cons get so so much love when they're um when people do them because it pushes their heart rate so high so fast that they feel like this has to be the answer to to solving their their problems which is getting in shape losing weight they think that you know guarantee must have happened because I'm about to throw up. So, so. Even though it's not like 100%

the right answer to the problem. Like most of the time, it should just be lifting weights and having a lot of movement throughout the day. That really is, is eating less than that in the energy expenditure. That's just it, you know. When did you ever,

when did you find like high intensity weightlifting interval weight training? Um, so like you're talking about like, I can't remember who, who like started talking about interval weight training first. Well, I think Penn Lane talked a lot about it, about doing every minute on the minute type stuff.

He did a lot of EMOMs. Yeah. I think he took it from Louie Simmons because, you know, Louie Simmons does a lot of EMOMs with deadlifting especially. So I think Coach Penlay started doing that with snatching, and he found that, you know, lo and behold, people can – number one, if you do like at least – I would prefer like 60 seconds rest versus EMOM

because you can – I'm not trying to – it's not seeing if someone can survive. I want perfect technique. But you'll find that you can go a relatively high intensity if you do it, if you give yourself 60 seconds rest, and the technique will get better and better because people will get more efficient. They'll stop thinking so much. They'll just kind of get in a flow uh in a flow state so doing emoms like that is actually one of my favorite things to do i just yesterday i did um a 12 round emom of three front squats on minute one and then and then five clap push-ups on on minute two for for 12 rounds of each oh yes

beautiful yeah dude that's like my go-to training, especially if I'm kind of like not feeling like training. Because even though that definitely can be high intensity depending on how you're defining it, it's not like doing EMOM Aesthetics or some other Metcon where it's just you're doing AMRAPs and maximum reps where you're going to be really tired, heart rate really high, sweating, muscles burning, et cetera. It's, it's actually like a fairly casual experience depending on the

weight you use. I was, I was, I got a poor groin right now. So I'm kind of just coming back into bilateral, um, you know, squatting type exercises. So it was, I use 135 and it was, it was really, really easy. But, but that, that's type of workout that I like to do because it seems to be more mentally tolerable than other types of training. But I still feel like I get a lot of athleticism benefits from it because I'm moving full speed the whole time with good technique like you were talking about. It's basically a dynamic effort method, but just broken up into two different movements. Totally. So I think it's it's brilliant you know i like to do the same thing if i'm not feeling like training if i do plus i know it's going to

be over soon i know that if i do that then i'm going to get in and out in like 12 minutes or whatever it is and so it helps me get through it you know to know it's this will only take 12 minutes i'm gonna be done and then i can go on about my day so it's definitely one of my favorite things to go downstairs and set a clock as well that was like the first it was a t nation article i think that i i was the first time i heard of any interval type weightlifting training i can't remember who wrote the article but i went on like a six month program but i was doing it with like lat pull downs and seated rows, or just go back and forth. Basically in a way like EMOM aesthetics, there would be some days where I'd have kind of like a circuit of six machines, but I was doing all bodybuilding training, but realizing that

like in the middle of the bodybuilding, like type training that I was doing that I wasn't really lifting like that heavy. I was doing like really big sets. So how do I increase the intensity inside kind of like the exercises that I wanted to do, which I was kind of relegated to like gold's gym machines and things like that. Um, I read an article,

the guy was like, we set clocks and we do as many reps as we possibly can in one minute and then we go to the next machine and we go do as many as possible and it's kind of like the exact same thing that we're doing now uh we just do it a lot more with like barbells and more compound movements but um i i've always thought that i shouldn't say always going through the CrossFit thing for a decade, lifting at intensity, not just percent of one rep max, but also doing it with elevated heart rate and combining as many of those elements as possible that always suited like the way that I enjoyed training and thinking that I was still being very athletic

and challenging myself in as many ways as possible without having to like, just be one RM. We've all done, I'm going to go one rep max like every day because I just, in a way I wasn't smart enough to know that you shouldn't do that. There there's like a stage where you go on monday i'm going to max out my back squat on tuesday i'll max out my snatch and then uh that's a very short-lived training cycle to be at 100 intensity every single day can't i mean the book i mean yes you can bulgarians did it but you know you need a little assistance to do that. It's not. There's no long-term game plan in that. I also think it's important for people to understand, though, that it doesn't need to just be weightlifting or Metcons.

It's so easy for people. You can redline so hard, so fast when you're doing a Metcon. But if you think about intensity of just like where you're at on the spectrum of what is possible, like when you're doing aerobic intervals, that is like some of the hardest, most gut-wrenching work that you can possibly do. And I think that when people think about intensity they always go directly to metcons and like how fast can i get this worked on or percent of one rep max but very rarely think about it as like a a training tool of how long can you stay at like 90 of your one rep max on

intervals um and and training training that side of of intensity where like interval one's going to be relatively simple thing you're going to be able to keep your 500 meter pace or whatever it is for uh your thousand meter pace on a 500 for three rounds once you get to round five six seven all of a sudden you may not be at a max heart rate. You may not be at maximum intensity of what you could be, but you're going to be in a serious amount of pain training long aerobic intervals. And then you're also going to be burning a ton of calories too because you can withstand it a little bit longer.

You can withstand the mental side of it. Yeah yeah so more than you could be going completely so you're talking about doing like a 10k pace as a 5k is that what you're saying yeah yeah um i mean if you can sit on there and row 20 minute 5ks for more than one at a time congratulations because you're sick in the head and you're sick in the head and you're trying to compete at something and i'm not right one of those is enough for me but um yeah those those efforts are absolutely brutal i think when when i just as like an overall concept it's like opening up the ability to be able to train in so many different ways and test,

uh, test people's, um, testing those levels without having to just turn the clock on and do Fran as fast as possible. There's so many ways to, to be able to achieve a goal without having to redline or like just hit the gas pedal every single day

uh to be able to to get where you're going i'm like sweating in my garage right now do you know that it's so hot it's like 100 degrees outside you need an indoor office that's what ashton gets she got the whole thing um yeah she's getting it yeah yeah a few minutes ago you were talking about uh being able to do a 500 meter pace it's nice when you have a display like that where it's telling you exactly how fast you're going as opposed to just going out for a jog in your in your neighborhood one of my favorite things to do there regarding intensity with either either on an assault bike or a rower or a skier or anywhere, anywhere where I have some, some easy readout, even on, even on treadmill, but I just use those less often, um, is to go

a hundred percent full speed and, you know, say you're on an assault bike, a hundred percent full speed. And you look and you see how many RPMs you're doing, um, at a hundred percent, you know, maybe, maybe, maybe for simplicity's sake we'll say it's 100 rpms per minute and then you do just go 90 of that number so 90 rpms and you just hold it as long as you possibly can and then and that that's those are your intervals you're not you're not doing it for a specific amount of time you're just holding on to a specific percentage of your capability for as long as you possibly can yeah those are those are awesome intervals but the lower that number gets the the more painful those intervals become so it's like doing like 95 or 90

it's like pretty tolerable for mobile reps but if if you like stay at above you know 70 well now you're going to be on these like hellacious um definitely physical, but really more mental toughness required than physical toughness. But yeah, 90%, those are awesome intervals. I love doing those. Yeah, they're super brutal. I enjoy doing that stuff while I'm trying to run as well. I think one of the best, it still is like my favorite hotel workout, hopping on the treadmill and doing the Body for Life interval workout,

and increasing the RPE or whatever it is. It's actually, if you could just go 7, 8, 9, 10 for each of the minutes, walk a minute, 7, 8, 9, 10 miles per hour, and being able to maintain those paces throughout a 20-minute interval or 20-minute workout, one of my favorites. I think if we you know it's also if you talk about like um one of the biggest conversations that swift coaches will have will be like when can you push you know your strength work when can you push your power work and so

like can you can you pr your squat at the same time as your stats or cleans? Say you're an athletic performance coach. Can you peak your squat and pulls and bench press at the same time as you can the stats or push press? And so the same thing would go in weightlifting. Or I guess you could say even powerlifting, but even though powerlifting can care less about true power, They care about the 1RM and the lifts. But the conversation we get all the time is that, is how do you push the intensities? How can you have your athlete ready to be strong and powerful at the same time? Which I feel like is the most complex question that we're all trying to answer.

I'm not sure that, you know, that's the difference. Some people get it right, some people don't, and that's the difference in winning and losing. That very question right there. Well, when it comes to and some people don't, and that's the difference in winning and losing. That very question right there. Well, when it comes to Olympic lifting, there's so many additional skills and things going on, but can you test that with just raw power output of a vertical jump? Yeah, or you can look at velocity all the time, which is what I do.

I look at like 80%. Normally, 85% is better, but if you can look at 85% ongoing of a snatch or a clean or even a squat because that's what I do. With Ryan, we didn't go heavy. We were heavy one time in the entire cycle in APR. So we just look at how fast is he pushing X intensity. So another look at intensity zones.

How often are you using that flex unit and measuring velocity with your athletes? It's a daily thing? Every day, especially. Like for the next two years, it's going to be every day because that's everything my PhD is going to be about. So now we're just getting all these things lined up. But I've already started some of it. Just so when we go full blast, I'll know what I'm doing, but you know,

but every day with Ryan, you know, Hannah, and then I'm asking, I'm going to ask Jim Ware for some more units just so I can get a few more people on it. And so, cause I'm going to write it. Obviously it'll be in there for them. I'm going to be writing a ton of research and posting about it all the time because it's all I'm going to be writing a ton of research and posting about it all the time because it's all I'm going to be doing. I think having an ability to PR a 60% snatch because you can PR on velocity makes athletes that maybe don't want to lift light, they just want to lift heavy all the time, but they're beating themselves up.

It gives them a reason to do lighter weights. Even if it's just technique reps. Like, you know, you're teaching a new athlete and, you know, they feel silly because they only have 40 kilos on the bar or whatever it is. And you can say, whoa, on that one, you know, you're 0.2 meters per second faster or whatever it is. And they go, oh, cool, I'm progressing even though the weights are light. Totally. You know, like, is when you're teaching technique too. So like when you teach to keep the bar closer to you, for example, you'll go faster when you do it correctly because it's not as hard on the specific joints. So if I keep the bar closer, I'm going to move it quicker. So you can, you can tell them, do you feel it? And then you can show them, like,

do you see it? You know, you show them, like, do you see it? You know, you just move the bar 0.1, 0.2 meters per second faster than you did on the previous one by doing it correctly. So there's a lot of things, you know, a lot of advantages. Intensities are very important. It's like if you add velocity to it, there's not an intensity out there that's not important. They're all important.

Do your athletes, like, immediately go and check the velocity when they're lifting? So they know that they're in range or is it kind of just – They hear it. So, like, you know, it beeps. I don't have the unit, so. It's awesome. So you can set it to where there's a prescribed and they do. So like, for example, yesterday they worked up to like 85% for one. And I call that my potentiation set.

Then they go to 70% for five doubles, and they were supposed to do that. The goal was 0.7 or higher, and they were well above it. So they can hear bing and dings. So, yeah. higher and they were well above it so they could hear ding dings so yeah uh does that velocity piece make you feel more confident like going to nationals knowing oh yeah that ryan has is moving specific weights specific speeds and that it's faster than it should be so setting a pr at nationals is like a much more likely thing to happen. Right.

Most coaches are just going to be like, Hey, it looks good. Now I was able to say specific numbers to say, no, it looks, this is why it's going to happen. I looked him dead in the eye the week of I'm like, I have done my job. You were strong and powerful. Here's what the data says. Now you go do your job i was that's how confident it makes me like he was peaked so if he failed it's on him you know like i did my job he was a coach can only their job is to have the athlete peaked and ready to go at the time of

competition that's all we can do but the athlete says to walk out there and do the list. But I was able to – I could say it without a shadow of a doubt. You, Ryan Grimson, are ready to do more than everyone else. But now you've got to go out there and do it. That gives them a lot of confidence because that's saying you are ready. The data says you are ready. You are ready. You can't cheat velocity. How do we make the velocity thing easier to get into regular gyms than for

athletes that are trying like that, that the equipment's just tough to get ahold of. Well, now, I mean, you can buy it obviously, but most gyms are going to be able to like deck out the Lenore Rhine gym like you have.

Right. Well, you can get the, the flex unit that Doug and I have for 500 bucks. Well, a little bit less if you use code MASH5. Or Shrug5. Or Shrug5.

I don't know what our code is. I want to say it's just Shrug. Sorry, Gem Aware. I'm pretty sure it's just Shrug. See, they don't know, guys, so MASH5 is the guarantee. Use MASH5. So, look, but, like, if you do that that now they're making the flex units where they're compatible to the gym aware cloud so used to you can only have like three athletes per flex unit now you can use it just like the gym where you can have you know 100 yeah a little

so now for a very you know i know it's, but well, a little bit less than 500, but, but still it's, it's so worth it. If you want, I'm not saying it's worth it for, you know, the average everyday CrossFit, but it really is if you're coaching master athletes, but if you're going to coach elites, you have to figure a way to buy it, you know, or don't coach them. So. For the record, I just looked it up. It's barbell shrugged. That's one, one one word no space five percent yeah yeah so that's we barely make any money off it off that stuff i just really

like the unit like this this is definitely one thing that that i i'm happy to promote just because i think it's fucking awesome it's awesome it's not a money maker for us at all we're just we're just helping more people get their hands on them cause they're great. Yeah, it is for me. I'll be honest. So it's interesting because Sarah posted a video. Um, what the athletes that I watch lift weights that are on your team or like go

to their page and just see how they're doing. Um, they've all been using it and they all did really well at Nationals this year. Sarah's another one that it's just isn't – it's not that it's uncommon, but it's less likely that you're going to just PR or have the confidence in front of all those people like at Nationals on a big stage,

and you're just going to walk out and go smoke a PR, like hit a hundred key. Not only is Sarah snatching two 20, a hundred, a hundred kg, like, uh, just insanely strong,

but to be able to do it on the national stage is like, it's, it's rad. Right. And, and having the numbers behind you to do that. Like I've, I've seen her posting about

uh i think you guys are doing it with like the the breakaway plates what was oh yeah i know she's been doing it and and plate releasers yeah yeah um like i know she's been using that system um and tracking velocity and doing all that work so um i think it's been using that system and tracking velocity and doing all that work. So I think it's really cool that they all had the confidence. I shouldn't say all of them, but many of them had the confidence to be getting in there and like doing, doing the work at home, using the machines, using the data and feeling confident enough to go out into the national,

national stage and go smoke PRs. I've never PR'd on a platform. You know, we had – I didn't even think about it until you just said it. But we had Lifetime PRs, Ryan Grimsland, Sarah, Trey Luttrell. Oh, dude, I'm totally blank. This new guy, Cameron. We had – I mean, I have to go back and look. We had multiple people with Lif lifetime PRs at the competition, definitely more than we've ever had.

I didn't even think about it until you said it. Yeah, we had multiple. Morgan did a lifetime PR clean and jerk. So, yeah, it's a ton. And these are elites. It's easy. Obviously, if you're coaching youth, you're going to get lifetime PRs a lot. Yeah.

Youth and your skin is stronger. But when you have these elite athletes who have been doing it for a while, it's hard to get that many lifetime PRs in one session. We had tons. Yeah. It's really hard. I mean, I think the most people I've probably ever, like, stood on a platform in front of, maybe like 100.

There's such a difference between a hundred people watching you and hanging out with your bros at the gym like it's kind of terrifying when you walk out there most of the time you're snatching in a gym that's like 2 000 square foot and nobody's looking at you and you've got the same eyesight that has always been your eyesight like you train in the same square on the same platform every single day until one day now all of a sudden you're in front of 100 people and they're all looking at you and on top of that you've lost your eyesight like that whole thing is gone it's like the easiest place to bonk the first time you go out there and like you realize all these people are

staring at you and they're like you're in the middle of, like, an auditorium, and you have no idea where to look. You have no idea what's going on up there. We teach our athletes after they get caught, you know, they always call them up for introductions. But before they come back to the back to finish warming up, we have them walk up on the platform and look and see where they're going to. Because you don't want to, like, be, you know, you don't want it to be, okay, your

first snatch, I got to go up there and find my focal point because you're so nervous. So you want to find it so you know what to do. That's a very important, all experienced coaches have their athletes do that. So for all of you rookie coaches or, you know, are planning to do it in the future, have them find the focal point before the session. Yeah. I just, uh, the, the one girl that I coached, uh, on the national stage, the one time when she, we flew all the way out to Salt Lake city and she'd missed all three snatches. Um, I, of all of the,

like the number of things that could have gone better, including her having a much better coach than me that had actually coached at a national-level event before, in addition having somebody be able to say, hey, find something out there that you can stare at besides all these people because your coach is going to screw up in the back, rush you all the way out to the stage, and then you're going to get out there and go, ooh, this is a big stage out here.

Where do I look? Where do I look? What do I do? Anybody, all of you CrossFit coaches who plan on taking an athlete, you know, you should really consider, you know, either asking a coach to help you or pay them to, you know, mentor you. It's worth it. So,

yeah, I would agree. Yeah. I walked up to Waxman right after and said, I need you to help me. He would have, if you'd asked him first. Yeah.

She was the last one. Yeah. Too late then. Yeah. But now people listening, you know, so now if you do that, you have no excuses.

Yeah. Told you. Coach Travis, what's your, what's your your goal weight i'm holding you to it 210 i want to lose 10 pounds you know and then we'll see but 210 is what my immediate goal and well i haven't been 210 a long time i'll race you to 185 oh my god i can't imagine being 185 no no me oh you get to 185 185. Oh my God. I can't imagine being 185. No, no me. Oh, you get the one 85. I haven't been 185 since I, since I stood on a plat. It was 187.

The last time I weighed in, I might try to break 200. Let me get a two 10 first. And I'll tell you that. One, one 87 was the last time I, uh, the last time I touched one 85 was,

um, 2015 regionals. Yeah. And the last time I weighed 187 was the 85-kilogram class, the last time I competed in weightlifting. Maybe we'll get it again when they restructure things again. So who knows? Where can people find you?

Matchthelead.com. Thanks for everyone who sent us awesome messages. Appreciate it. It was great. Doug Larson. I'm on Instagram. Doug Larson. I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner.

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