Barbell Shrugged - Getting Fast and Strong: Weightlifting, Sprinting, and Improving Athleticism w/Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Travis Mash #737

Episode Date: March 6, 2024

In this episode, Doug Larson, Travis Mash and Anders Varner catch up on the Olympic trials, international weightlifting meets, and Anders’ pursuit of a 6-minute mile. Coach Travis Mash has been out for a couple weeks as he has traveled the world for international weightlifting meets leading up to the USA Olympic Qualifiers for weightlifting. We initially discuss Anders' pursuit of the 6-minute mile, with training insights, and move into weight cuts, jet lag, performance and recovery, for athletes. We also dig into the latest research on Olympic weightlifting that offers new insights into speed development vs. top end strength and how Coach Mash is using this in preparation for the Olympic trials. Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram

Shrug family, this week on Barbell Shrug, Travis Mash, Doug Larson, myself. We're digging into all things weightlifting. We haven't had a show with Mash on in a little while because he has been traveling the world with Ryan Grimsland, getting him prepped for the U.S. Olympic trials, which is coming up here very soon. I want to say April or May, then the Olympics are coming up this summer. So we're on the, I feel like we started this journey talking about it four years ago and his olympic hopes but now they're starting to have a very short timeline here which is really cool because their season picks up the weights need to get heavier training's getting really really dialed in as we hit kind of the last quarter of this leading into the trials and on

top of that as as all the the meatheads need to do we got to talk about our own training everything that we're learning things that we're doing updates to just kind of like how we keep this thing fresh and motivating ourselves to just stay in shape after two decades plus now of us all lifting weights and being a part of this game so i hope you enjoy this show as always make sure you get over to rapidhealthreport.com that's where where Dan Garner and Dr. Andy Galpin are doing a free lifestyle and performance analysis that everybody inside Rapid Health Optimization will receive. As always, you can access that free report over at rapidhealthreport.com. Friends, let's get into the show. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Anders Varner, Doug Larsen, Coach Travis Mash.

Today, me and Travis Mash have a little bit of a bickering. I sent you a text about my 624 mile, and I just told you about a pre-show, and you didn't even reply. It was like you were giving me the cold shoulder on text. Was I in Bulgaria? I don't care where you were in the world. They have internet. They got Starlink. Elon Musk sent you the message and said, your boy ran a 624 mile at 40 years old

and you just stiff-armed. You didn't even give me a thumbs-up emoji. Look at him. He's looking up the text message right now. I don't see your... I put it onto you and Doug. It was you and Doug. Oh, man. Oh, got lost. Excuses. There it is right there, fellas. I don't see I don't see your I put it onto you and Doug it was you and Doug oh oh god lost oh excuses there it is right there fellas there it is oh yep yo what was your what was your all-time

best mile time you got 624 as a 40 year old entrepreneur with three kids two kids excuse me two kids and that's your best I think so oh nice um i never really like uh tested mile times i don't think it was ever like i may have in high school run them faster but we always had our hockey test that we did uh for like dry land training was always a two mile time that we needed to do under like 14 or something like that. I want to say it was like 13 and a half. That was like the, the cutoff. Yeah. I was stoked. Six, 36, 30. First year of the pandemic pandemic pandemic one year one. Yeah. That's just loved, loved my, my tech.

That's pretty badass yeah um yeah the uh i would say that that's probably the best mile specific like i i've never really sat down and done just like pure training for it um but i was jacked up man my lungs were on fire you start start turning the corner on lap four and your legs feel like they're in running through sand quick sand you're just sinking into the track it's rough that would be baffling to me how you get through that like do you think you could best that yeah uh i would say i feel like i can get very close to six and it all is just pacing out i probably ran the first quarter in like 115 like i smoked it because i turned uh number three and i was hammered like i was like oh man number three is such a freaking beating um and then four you can just like mentally buckle

down but i think uh yeah i i i smoked number one because you're all fired up you feel alive everything's good it's like first quarter uh and then all of a sudden it's like oh we got three more of these buckle up so you think you'd be better with like a better strategy so maybe if you didn't crush the first one yeah think about think about when you're running that number like i feel like if i could keep a 127 but think about 10 seconds when you're at that pace it's kind of like um it's about a quarter of the track so you slow yourself down a quarter of the track in laps one and two and then you kind of hit the gas pedal in number three to get to four 127s which i think would put you in a good spot if you

could if you could go 127 127 um you leave enough in the tank to be able to like mentally check in on lab three and go. Right. And that's purely just going out and running four hundreds and feeling what it feels like to do that. What did you weigh doing this? How much did you weigh? I'm like one 90 right now. So middle of the day, that's a big dude doing well. That's yeah. There's like, I've, I've also, I feel like I just just this is like maybe

too much of a humble brag but i feel like i have too much muscle mass like it just eats oxygen so much yeah like i'm not i'm not like built like a runner they're long and lean i'm not a long person i'm like a clean and jerk person right it. It's just, that's a big impact. Every time your foot strikes the ground, you know, like those dudes weighing one 51 40 and you're one 90. Yeah. Like it's the ground. That's a lot.

When we, uh, when we were in Miami and those guys outside of our, our Airbnb, we were gambling on a, like a 50 yard sprint. Remember that? Oh yeah.

You were like, I'm picking that guy and i was like no man that guy looks more jacked he looks more explosive you're like no no no you want the guy with them bony little legs and big ass and i was like oh that's why i'm slow i don't have the bony legs big big it's the big ass not a good sign when you got those really big blocky calves that everybody wants is a really big sign that they're not going to be fast. Yeah.

So in my experience and most research. Well, you're not really doing that much running though, right? You're doing mostly airdyne work or assault bike work and then running a little bit. Yeah, it's probably – I've only been to the track in the last seven months like three times which is when i kind of like set up doing this goal so i feel yeah i feel like if you just prioritize running a little bit more you could shave 10 15 20 seconds off that mile with like

a little bit a little bit of practice you know yeah getting efficient at the movement right i know i've talked about this uh many times but i have a, my neighborhood has an exactly, it's a 0.97 mile loop around. And then I remember I have a two and a half year old and I could be waking up at six. I could be waking up at seven. I could be waking up at five. You never know. The idea of having a consistent seven minutes a day to go sprint a mile, it's just not possible because I have no idea when i might be waking up seven minutes though like you gotta just tell your wife you're like i i that my poop's coming i gotta i gotta go take care of this it's gonna be bad i'll be back in seven but i really feel like that's like the most efficient way to get better at something like that where it's like

it's not on the clock but i have to go at a good pace i gotta go run it i gotta go run a seven minute mile just and get better running yeah just to put um i it's almost like you can feel the inefficiencies as sure as like all you're like oh god picking my leg up is like hard um but um yeah dude i was stoked i really feel like that's a lifetime pr um 620 for me that's for sure getting after it in my opinion like i don't i'm sure there's a lot of 40 year olds i can run that but i don't know many of them i don't know about a lot you could probably run what would you run a mile doug right now yeah oh man um yeah being somewhere in the sixes i would be probably where i'd land if i was really

putting forth 100 effort but uh i don't i don't really like sprint i don't run like 400 meter sprints or run a lot of sprints these days like it's just like light jogs it's pretty much like all the running that i've done lately at all any any sprinting has been like on assault bikes or where i run stair sprints like it's probably the closest thing to actual running um but my cardio is not amazing at the moment i wouldn't say i've been lifting weights very consistently i still do jiu-jitsu but it's it's not nearly as frequently as i would like it to be so my cardio is not not insanely good right now my my all-time best uh the only one i remember was like 602 i think it was but that was like i was fighting mma and i was running across the gym i was in good shape back then uh that was right about the same time like i remember my my 400

meter time and my and my mile time were very similar it was like a 62 second 400 meter and a 602 um one mile 62 getting it see i don't have that yeah but i was like 205 and muscular back then you know that's i don't have that gear i feel like the mile is like a thing that i can i can be good at because it's it's not um i don't need to have like it's very much like a crossfitter thing it's like long enough that johan isn't running johan's not running a mile um and then the the long the long distance people can't get up and go fast enough to have a great time. Miles is good for you. Yeah, miles like in my wheelhouse where I can just hang out at 90% and stay there.

That's your world, not mine. I'm alactic. 10-meter dash. 10-meter dash. I'll do that all day. Give me three minutes and I'll do it again. 10 meter dash. I'll do that all day. Give me three minutes and I'll do it again. Shark family, I want to take a quick break. If you are enjoying today's conversation, I want to invite you to come over to rapidhealthreport.com.

When you get to rapidhealthreport.com, you will see an area for you to opt in in which you can see Dan Garner read through my lab work. Now, you know that we've been working at Rapid Health Optimization on programs for optimizing health. Now, what does that actually mean? It means in three parts, we're going to be doing a ton of deep dive into your labs. That means the inside-out approach. So we're not going to be guessing your macros. We're not going to be guessing the total calories that you need. We're actually going to be doing all the work to uncover everything that you have going on inside you.

Nutrition, supplementation, sleep. And then we're going to go through and analyze your lifestyle. Dr. Andy Galpin is going to build out a lifestyle protocol based on the severity of your concerns. And then we're going to also build out all the programs that go into that based on the most severe things first. This truly is a world-class program. And we invite you to see step one of this process by going over to rapidhealthreport.com. You can see Dan reading my labs, the nutrition and supplementation that he has recommended that has radically shifted the way that I sleep, the energy that I have during the day, my total testosterone level, and just my ability to trust and have confidence in my

health going forward. I really, really hope that you're able to go over to rapidhealthreport.com, watch the video of my labs, and see what is possible. And if it is something that you are interested in, please schedule a call with me on that page. Once again, it's rapidhealthreport.com and let's get back to the show. What's your, what's your training update for us here? What are you working on these days? I still be balanced, you know, I'm still obviously strength training, but you know, cardio too. So I'm doing a lot of like the anaerobic stuff, you know, a lot of one minute all outs on the, I love the the rower the road just doesn't hurt me you know like i can do rower as far as i want and like you know plus you can push the

rower you can push it like treadmill sucks because you just set a time but like i like the road doing a minute take a minute off minute on or even go half go as fast as i can 500 meters two minute break to 500 meters two two-minute break. So every once in a while, I'll do like a 15-minute just go, but like a, you know, that zone two. I hate that. That's so boring to me. But I like the anaerobic kill me, like where it can't breathe type stuff. It just feels like it used to feel playing football.

You know, you run wind sprints and you're dying. Like I like that feeling. Reminds me of being an athlete. So a lot of that mobility lots of movement i'm always very happy with myself after i get myself to the point like if i do a 30 second all-out sprint on a salt bike and i do a couple rounds of that and i'm just like yeah just like super out of breath like i always walk away from that going yeah that was good i did a good thing today proud of myself i know get as tired as possible yeah and we fall right in the category of everyone else you know you feel like you got your butt whipped you like you think you did something but what you did at the end of the day like if that's your goal is to fix that

anaerobic capacity which is that's mine man after going when i went with you guys to um down to arkansas and like i was in such bad shape from that moment on i was like i've got to fix that so i need a repeat on that one now i'm ready for round two like on the mountain arkansas yeah i forgot about that you didn't you uh the one you stopped doing a lot of the mountain biking, but you also didn't separate your shoulder. So maybe you won. Maybe I did win, but I felt I was so out of shape, man. That's when I was in school. I was in such bad shape.

But I'm ready for round two of that for sure. Yeah. Dude, where have you been traveling to? We went to Bulgaria, Ryan and I, for the Olympic qualifications. What squad? Yeah, yeah. I didn't the Olympic qualifications. Yeah, yeah. I didn't see anybody doing that, but yeah. You went to Bulgaria and not a single person was doing rear foot?

Not one human. No, no. You didn't even go to the right parts then. I'll say this. When I do that traveling, we don't see much, but we stayed in this really nice hotel. I can't remember the name, but Arnold. There was pictures arnold and sliced alone but it was nice and they had a sweet gym so i worked out there all the time like every day that's all i did was work out you know train

ryan and like but that was fun so i didn't see anybody barely squatting it was very like a frou-frou i was like the only person in there doing like squats and presses but it was it was good for my fitness and like um the mountains are beautiful bergaria was beautiful so but we we um nobody on team usa did really well except for hampton morris who that kid is just an animal i'm just gonna tell you that kid like he'll be the first male uh to medal in america in a long time guaranteed i think the olympics will see that boy come on with the medal he's an animal how do you guys handle all the jet lag and international travel and then being prepared how early do you guys show up the quality yeah well this one we showed up four days prior, but it's a seven hours difference. It wasn't too bad.

Europe is not that bad. Or in South America, obviously, it's not bad at all. Where'd you fly out of? Charlotte? I did. He flew out of Greensboro. I flew out of Charlotte. And we met.

Here's the shitty part. Then we met in Chicago, went backwards. Then Chicago to Munich, and Munich to Bulgaria. Sofia, S-O-F-I-A, however they say it. It was a pretty long journey, but we planned it perfectly. We got there kind of in the evening, went to sleep. It was perfect. That's why you've got to be 25, man, 25-year-olds.

I feel like even like a like a vegas to raleigh now and i'm just like it's like it's like it's like if i have like i used to be able to have all the beers i wanted and go work out in the morning and then i there was like an age where it's like um that doesn't happen anymore i can't drink i can't have a single drink without it just waxing my next day um i hate drinking now travel's the one that i notice the most now where i'm just like dude this is like a three-day recovery if i go coast to coast it's yeah i'm just getting used to it i feel like plus being in better shape too like it doesn't bother me too much you know even when we went to australia like it didn't phase me at

all coming home got me a little bit but going there it was fine the keys what you got to do is you got to match up uh you got to suffer on the way there and say like you know when am i going to get there if i'm going to get there in the morning i need to sleep on the plane and wake up and stay up all day if i'm gonna get there at night stay up on the plane be super tired get there and go to sleep you just gotta like you gotta match up that first day and then you're fine so you're gonna suffer the first day yeah i was gonna say do you uh specifically with the athletes are you able to get into the gym right

away um and train i always feel like that i don't know if that's scientifically backed but anytime i have any jet lag like like when we went to South Africa, I was in the gym at like 3 AM. I just had to like move and feel my body down in an airplane. And it helps so much. It doesn't like fully set the like circadian rhythm at all, but it just reminds you that you have a body that needs to be moved again there's something about the blood flow and just kind of like sure yeah with a little sweat well when you're

sitting there you're restricting the blood flow returning to the heart so like yeah that's why you get all that swelling in your legs if you don't get up like you're supposed to but yeah when we get there for sure we want to move around and get that blood i mean the way the blood returns to the heart is like muscle they have to contract and so if you're sitting there it's not contracting it's just like you're stopping it and so you got to get there got to move around that helps for sure helps me because i get my ankles will be if i don't move around while i'm flying you know my ankles feel like they got water in them so so like a water balloon. But get there, move around, feel good. So being in shape, that's the key.

Have you ever considered making the shift in training and sleep times prior to actually making the flight and going overseas? If it's a five-hour time difference, like in the two weeks before you fly, you shift your sleep schedule, slip your you shift your training to be whenever they're actually doing the training or competition in the other country you do it then even if it's midnight for you in the states like you train at that time that way when you get over there you're like already synced at some level yeah because we were competing at eight o'clock over there and so which was one o'clock here so we started training one o'clock here and we just

tried to match that up and then we got there it was almost the same exact thing everything was good like um the the thing that we messed up and this is on me is like i wasn't really weighing him in and like and he was getting heavy you know we always debrief but this is my fault i just didn't realize that he might do what he did and like he getting up to 79 kilos, which is a six-kilo cut, man. And as Andy has told us on this show before, when you're losing just over 2%, you start to see a performance. And that is almost like 9%. And then he's telling me, I can't feel my legs.

Well, I'm like, well, no shit. You can't feel my legs well i'm like well no shit you can't feel your legs it's like you know like you lost six you lost almost 14 pounds but like yeah yeah so but when when he's preparing for that too when you're on the plane i and again this may be because i'm 40 i don't remember what travel was like uh when i was 23 years old, does the inflammation and just like eating on the road, how do you guys handle that for weight cuts? He carries his own food now. In that case, he's very professional. You know, the water he drinks, everything.

He just let himself get heavy. I don't know why he thought that was, why I did not think to, I've never had to weigh somebody in before but i'm weighing him in three times a week now so yeah it's just it's not that he i mean he was in great shape like and he hit his openers everything was fine he just didn't have that oomph you know so that's just the weight cut, I think. And we're making some changes too. This Dr. Tim Sugarmill publishes really good paper about forced application is something which I think most weightlifting coaches,

most strength coaches miss. And so, like, instead of always just thinking technique, technique, technique, it was, what is it, Hendricks coach, I love that dude, Kyle Pierce, him and Dr., oh my gosh what's the great one for app state i was there dr uh etsu yes what'd you say mike mike stone mike stone mike stone and um kendrick's coach published this paper talked about like after the first three to five years of an athlete's you know training like the amount that you can change their technique is so insignificant that you're better

off to focus on like force application getting stronger in certain positions wherever you're weak and dr sugar mill the his latest research would agree with that and so we're really going into and it's not his squats he's obviously his squatting is ridiculously strong and he squats 600 pounds weighing 160 but his pulling we're really emphasizing certain positions that we feel he's weak and we're really like pushing that you know like like for example like from the knee to the to the extension like overloading that big time overloading it with weight overload overloading it with bands, overloading it asymmetrically,

using eccentrics to dynamics. We're implementing a lot of new techniques based on this latest research. We'll see. In six weeks, we'll know. This will be it. In six weeks,

the team will be announced so we'll see what happens yeah that was the european championships that was the european because we couldn't go to pan ams because they were in venezuela and venezuela hates us so um i guess we could have but it was dangerous so gotcha wait so all the qualifications for the olympics have have passed now you're just you're just waiting to hear what the team looks like? No, one more. Thailand. Thailand in six weeks is the one that you have to go to. Everyone has to go to that one, even if they just weigh in. But it's like there was like two events. I'm sorry.

There was three events you had to go to just to be there to at least get drug tested or you're out automatically. So everyone will be at this one. And so we're going to, there'll be a lot of people going big. So it'll be a fun one. If anyone likes weightlifting, that one would be more fun to watch the Olympics. People are going to be doing crazy stuff. You know, like they're going to be throwing home runs. know we are like yeah we're going big so go big or go home i guess

so what's the what's the the potential probability we'll say of ryan potentially going to the olympics i think super high you know i uh talked to to, unlike other coaches, I tried to get information from everyone. And I talked to Spencer Arnold. I talked to Sean Waxman. And 334 would almost guarantee he gets there. And he's capable of 340. But one other thing we're going to do is I think people in America, we get caught up on a certain number.

And so in training, that's all we think about three 34, three 34. So in last time, you know, three 40 is what we've been talking about. So we totaled three 40 several different times, but I'm going to, why, why go past that? And so Hampton Morris, who's right now by far exceeding everyone has gone well past it now he he gets a little heavy and that's okay you want to get heavy and then go way past those numbers just realizing when you cut down it's going to be lower that's fine that's what he's done so he just

he does astronomically you know astronomically phi numbers and training which is what we're going to shoot for we're going to get back to who i used to be i've kind of like let the the culture of weightlifting like pull me to them it's crazy like i've always been known to like go heavy you know max effort the whole thing and like i've kind of let that slip but not you can ask ryan right now he's crippled so like we're going we're going heavy wait tell me tell me more about that what you let going heavy slip tell me more about that yeah yeah you know like you know i feel like in the culture like you'll you'll hear people say well do you know say if you want to open up at 142 and your goal is 150 snatch the big thing that they'll try to do is like go 142 for three to five singles,

just to feel really confident at your opener. And I'm like, I mean, I just think that's a pretty weak way to go about it. You know, like especially, especially with the latest research, he's like, it's really when, let me give you an example I'm talking about. In this research, there were three different people. There was a group that did traditional weightlifting and it's just on the clean, but the same thing I'm about to tell you was done on the snatch as well. So just on the clean. So they tested everyone's clean and one group did traditional linear periodization. You did some squats, you know, you did some hand cleans, cleans from blocks, the whole thing. And then one group did the same percentages, but they didn't catch.

They just did the pulls, hand clean pulls. One group didn't do the catch at all, but went super heavy on those pulls, like hand clean pulls, pulls from the hip, like pulls from the floor. The group that did the no catch that went super heavy on the poles increased their 1RM by 6%. The group who did the catches, traditional weightlifting, increased by 3%. Now, you might say, well, were these dudes beginners? Nope. These dudes were, on average, could squat two times body weight and had been doing weightlifting two to three years.

And so they were not you know and so and i agree and i damn it it makes me so mad because i even have a lifter ruby you know uh ruby shepherd who i've coached who i just took that you know concept and we pushed her she was uh when she first started with me she snatched 65 kilos and cleaned her 85 one year later she's snatching 85 and the girl could jerk 125 kilograms all she could all she could jerk off the blocks was 85 one year later 125 all we did was force application like heavy jerk dip squats like and i'm like damn it i let. I let them influence me. Like, ah. So now I listen to input, but I also remember what I know to be true. And so we'll see.

Is that just like so many years away from specifically powerlifting and just getting more and more and more into the weightlifting world? It's just a different mindset. Oh, God. It makes me so mad. Yes. it's my fault it's not no one's fault i let the culture absorb me instead of me trying to change the culture but not anymore that's a thing of the past i won't do that ever ever again so maybe for girls i'm not saying because spitzer does really well you know with the females except i

mean well you know kate bombed so i don't know but um i don't know i'm just not going to take that concept you know i mean they're obviously both strength sports and there's you know obvious differences as well but why why do you think that strength is i'll say it's less prioritized than weightlifting than power this is just true raw strength but they're both strength sports like you think strength would be prioritized more or less equally right i think this i think that uh a lot of weightlifting coaches even powerlifting coaches but a lot of them you know don't understand the science and so they use this mystery of the technique like there's just like there's some sensei like you know on karate kid teaching someone to snatch and clean and jerk unlike anyone else can do and if they tell you

this certain cue you're gonna magically do this thing and it's bullshit is what it is it's not but that's their that's their way of like feeling good about what they're doing it's like a prerequisite it's like there's you got to have adequate range of motion to do the technique properly you have to learn how to do the technique so you can do it at all and then after that it's just getting stronger and stronger and stronger and stronger and stronger you're correct and they can we can argue all we want but you're correct and you can go by heroes you can go by lou yeah ilia any name any of the greatest weightlifters in the world those dudes were freaking strong yeah we had a uh we had a runner uh he was a d1 college runner

large large college very good at what he does and uh his coach started programming like tons of volume just longer and longer and longer and more miles and more miles every week. And he was like, I'm not getting beat up. Like I can recover, but I'm not getting better. It was like, yeah, you stopped running fast. Like, right. You don't need to run 90 miles a week. You need to run really high quality, very fast miles, or you need to run really high quality very fast miles or you need to look really heavy weight really well really heavy weights and it's like uh i bet thor when he does a clean and jerk it doesn't have beautiful technique but i bet it's heavy i bet it's heavier than everybody else and he probably doesn't get his elbows around the bar and he probably presses it a little bit

and it probably doesn't look great. But I bet it's over 400 pounds just because. You guys know Ryan. Oh, my gosh. He's like the greatest thrower that's ever been. He's a shot putter. Anyway, later I'll send you the notes. That guy, he was at Sore Necks last year.

That guy, you should see him lift. His technique is like preposterous. But he moves weight, big weight, really fast. And like, it's crazy. But it's just force application. It's all he's doing too. What I mean by that is like knowing at what you know joint angle you need to produce the most force and or looking at where am i lacking the ability to produce high amounts of force at a high rate you know like because you you know like if you go from the hip

it's still you can produce a lot of force at a really high rate because you're such an advantageous joint angle and like why we don't overload that i don't know but we are we are and so anyway even technique breakdown oftentimes is just a lack of strength like if you can do if you can do it correctly with 60 kilos and then you break down to 90 kilos it's because you it's like we weren't strong enough to do it with 90 kilos and if you're just much stronger all of a sudden whatever you know say say 100 kilos is your max so 60 kilos is 60 well if you make 90 kilos you're 60 all of a sudden your technique flaws will will just vanish they'll go away because you're strong to do it without without breaking down i know i know man you know you guys met me early in my weightlifting

as a coaching career and like i was saying everything you're saying right there somehow i let them change me like and i didn't even know it and all of a sudden i found myself repeating the stuff they're saying ryan krauser is that guy's name right he's like set the world record like 100 times in the shop but he's amazing ain't drug free super smart guy but you should go look his lifting it's like not beautiful but it's amazing he's amazing um and comparing uh like clean pulls going back to that study do you feel like the same results would have happened if it was like a back squat or do you think there's something specific to pulling um which is for many people going to be heavier weights uh with those

movement patterns specifically that allow clean poles, snatch poles to, to have a bigger effect on. Because that's what, that's what, you know, creates the most force and the highest rate of force. Every meathead Olympic weightlifting coach is like,

you got to squat every day, every day. And you do. And we do, but our squad is ridiculously strong. Like, you know, it's like,

we're good, but like it's um he's not it's funny but like when uh from the say from the blocks like a lot of a lot of weightlifters can clean a ton from the blocks like um me i always thought it was a party trick cleaning yeah it is for a lot of people right below below the knee. It's just a little party trick. Load your hamstrings and go. Same Nathan. Nathan, you know, Damron could just do a ton. But Ryan does not create a lot past the knee.

And it's crazy. And now we've already started making the changes and it's already happening. I've always been, I mean, I've thought that the the first place that i would set a pr would be off the blocks just below my knees because you can put the bar in the right spot every time and yeah always for me they always went bad coming off the floor you start pulling something that's just like five kilos heavier and all of a sudden you're just a little bit forward and by the time you're a little bit forward off the floor by the time it gets to your hip you might as well just have your you're just see this is my point where you're saying get to the bar this is my point where you're saying

is like the you know if i feel like the pool is an afterthought for most weightlifting coaches but not the chinese those dudes pull massive loads but like in America, we just play with that. I feel like it's like, all right, now do some clean pulls. But like, it's so important to be able, like Doug was saying, if you can do 60 kilos with beautiful technique and at 90, you break down, there's a weakness. But by doing the pulls, you're really, that's the thing. You got to stay over the bar. So when you're squatting, you're vertical.

The back is not near into play. When you're vertical the back is not is not near into play when you're doing a pull it is and so is your hips and your back are more of a of a player than in the squat where's your quads and hips and not much the back at all and so i can always feel too when i pulled it off the floor i knew within like an inch of the bar being off the floor if i was going to make it because when you pull off the floor it just if like an inch of the bar being off the floor if i was going to make it because when you pull off the floor it just if it pulls back in the way it's supposed to you just go oh this is done it's not gonna happen right but if it if you feel your big toe dig in just a little bit more than it should no chance you might're out of position.

It's like, and same with him, but not this time. He is doing more pulls than he's ever in from so many positions. So it's going to be good. It's already happening. You were saying the, the Chinese do heavy pulls. I've seen that many times where it looks like they're,

they're basically doing deads. It's barely moving. And then they, they do it, you know, some variation of a jump shrug where they, they, they give a little acceleration in the second pull and drop it on the

ground. And it's like, you know, the bumpers are all the way out to the very end of the bar. Um, if you do stuff like that and, or I've also seen, uh,

you know, they'll, they'll have 700 pounds racks and they'll, they'll get into a front rack position. They'll lift it off in a front rack position where they're like like they're about to jerk but they're just holding 700 pounds and then they just put it back in the rack they're just getting used to holding heavy weight in a front rack position like do you do things like that as well oh yeah and with with ruby because of her you know

jerk was the problem we did a ton of that we did the holds we did the jerk dip squats this is where you literally go super, super heavy. Surely go to like, you know, the position you're going to do your jerk from, which is like that power position. You bend the knees a few inches, the hips a few inches. And so, and you load. And then we started using bands.

So we really taught her to accelerate through the top of the movement. Like, and that we did, we also did isometrics into blocks from that position like the same thing we're doing right now every angle of the pull we're going to strengthen and like and he's adapting quick to it you know like everyone thinks the pull will kill you but the squat won't which makes no i mean why i don't understand that it's less of a range of motion so um you know when you're doing pulls from the thigh there's not much

range of motion happening so you're not going to get a big breakdown but he's he's adapting quick and so and he likes it too he likes to go heavy and like he's happy with the changes i think he finally told me he's like i've wondered where you've been he told me i'm like okay because you're going to find out so so you guys are going big in thailand man we're going to go big man and like you know yep we're going to go super big and it will be if we don't make it it will not be because we went light or that we didn't go hard or that we didn't emphasize every single thing we're gonna was it jim windler said you gotta pretend this is in reference to the deadlift but i'm talking about in reference

to weightlifting you got to pretend that you're in this rock quarry and there's a million rocks out there and under one of them is a million dollars you turn over every single rock until you find it you know and that's we're going to turn over every rock there will be no more rocks in the quarry when this is over in six weeks jim wendler quote there you go so guys Doug where is your training at these days I'm

sending you this we've been talking a lot about my sauna and I don't know if you guys do the regular sauna but Matt you gotta get in on this buddy I don't do any sauna guys do the regular sauna, but Matt, you've got to get in on this, buddy. I don't do any sauna, but tell me about this sauna thing. Well, it's not like I'm inventing saunas, first and foremost. Just the regular sauna or are you talking to the infrared?

No, the infrared, even the one that I have in the garage. I'm not even saying the name of the company because it literally has turned into large boxes from Costco storage unit. Because it just doesn't get hot enough. I put a heater inside my sauna. Did you? Yeah, a portable heater. Like you plug it in with an extension cord, plug it in the wall, outside.

100%. In your infrared? Yeah, I put it inside my infrared sauna a portable heater and i run that in conjunction with the sauna itself and it really does help i'm very happy about i use my sauna so much more after doing that it sounds ridiculous but you need to do that but it's great yeah dude last time we had evan demarco on here he said he put uh because i think he had the same brand one that we do um and he said he installed like five of those red lights that they keep like the french fries warm at the cafeteria

in there so he would like cook himself from all different for the four different corners of the plane to get it up to i love him and his girl they're crazy but i love them man they're awesome they fit they fit my wife and i so they're crazy i should say that maybe so yeah yeah you know what though let me just tell you when i look myself now in the screen i feel so much better about myself i remember when we were doing shows when i was at lr and i was thinking man are you dying i remember looking at the same screen i'm looking at thinking are you dying i look so bad you show up with a big red face and be like damn that dude's hot yeah i look hot um if i were a

girl i would want me for sure right now so right now too um thank you bring up the uh the sauna so i've been in there like twice a week and i go as long as i can at like 200 degrees and i kid you not it has made my body feel i've always thought of the sauna as like i'll just go in there hang out for a little bit without doing the consistent like doing it like actually making it a part of the training routine. And my body feels so freaking awesome going in there and sweating hardcore for. And if you look down at your watch, it's kind of like going for a walk. I'm just humming it like 130 beats a minute while my body is just trying to expel all of the water from itself. And I feel so freaking good from it.

And then, Doug, this is the other part. I'm reading real books again, Mash. Like words on a paper while I'm in there, right? Not even an audio book. I do both, but don't hate on audio books. I do both. I read audio and I read. I listen to audio and I read, yeah.

I'm ditching all things technology for real this time except the maps on my phone because i don't know how to go i don't know how to get anywhere but i'm tired of people yelling at me in my ears like yeah i always have these airpods in and i'm always at like 2x speed consuming as many bullet points from a book or youtube or something about a specific subject and then i sit down in that thing and i just at like two X speed consuming as many bullet points from a book or YouTube or something about a specific subject. And then I sit down in that thing and I just cook myself and actually read a book. And I walk out and I feel like 30 minutes later,

I literally like almost every time I do it, I'm like, I feel freaking amazing right now. Does the book get grosser that you spent on the book? No, you can, you can, the book no you can you can you can you can hold your hands away from your face a little bit okay so that you're not just dripping sweat into it's that's manageable yeah my wife only likes to read like books like she's i like kindle too she doesn't like kindle or she likes to read a book a real life so do i i mean i have mine right here but it really is that much more peaceful than trying to read a book for real life so do i i mean i have mine right here but it really is that

much more peaceful than trying to read something on technology it's like technology gets distracted you get distracted even if you don't have notifications to pop up from whatever else like being forced into your world still you know you're on your phone you know you you could check your text real quick and whatever else like just having just a book is just way more peaceful i have found yeah i agree with you i'm gonna get just a book is just way more peaceful i have found yeah i agree with you i'm gonna get just a book yeah i do like audiobooks so when i'm driving there like i'm not hating on audio like i like um what is it a week at least oh yeah like that's madness that's like 15 hours of somebody in your ear yeah you know i listen to any stuff over and over and over like to try to

like like you know like physiology like i'm more of a biomechanics guy like so like physiology i feel like is like where i still need to focus so i listen to any stuff mom driving over and over i can almost quote his darn youtubes really i like that yeah so he's such a good teacher too like not because he's your boy or I like him but he's he's just a great teacher dude your boy Michael Boyle

today on Twitter just said listening to Andy Galpin talk is just pleasurable like it's oh did he okay good I gotta go

like that it's easy to listen to Andy Galpin Mike and I have gotten to be friends ever since our little disagreement about bilateral,

you know, squat, which is silly, but yeah, I like him. I'm a big fan of boil. Well, it's great.

Me too. Legends over here, bickering over back squats. What can you do? I was arguing over like minor points. I agree with him on 99% of things that he says. Me too. That's all I'm saying is all I,

all I was asking was just don't demonize back squat. I was like, I agree. If you don't want to, don't. You'll be fine. But don't say that they'll hurt you. I'm like, come on, man. That's all I'm saying. What happens is we all just get old.

Just because you like blondes don't mean you got to throw out the brunettes. You don't have to choose between the two. They both have value. You got to have dessert. Mash, I feel like you wouldn't be my friend anymore if I told you how long it's been since I back-squatted more than 255 pounds. The reason that bar stays right there is because that's set one and set five and maybe every other week.

It just doesn't. do you not warm up you just put that on your back and go what do i need to it's 255 it's no big deal yeah i don't back squat at all i just front squat here's my new trick grab the hundreds flat bench get eight can you do it i bet you can you're a big strong man i know i can't my my bench is strong right now matter of fact a funny story in bulgaria um the french coach he's a really jacked muscular um weightlifting coach to mention me but he didn't win so like there was a like there was a question i know ryan said where can people find you oh masterly.com if you guys are local to the triad area north carolina rise indoor sports check out my articles though on gymwear.com yeah dude all your uh all the new video stuff you're

putting out too i see i see it on twitter i don't i don't get on many other platforms. I love my dudes at GymAware. They've been so good to me. All that stuff looks great. Doug Larson. Thank you. I'm on Instagram. Doug Larson. And I am Anders Varner at Anders Varner and we are Barbell Shrugged at Barbell underscore Shrugged. Make sure you get over to RapidHealthReport.com. That's where Dan Garner and Dr. Andy Galpin are doing

a free lab lifestyle and performance analysis that everybody inside Rapid Health Optimization will receive. You can access that free report over at Rapididhealthreport.com. Friends, we will see you guys next week.