Barbell Shrugged - Hard Truths from a Lifetime of Training w/ Bryan Boorstein, Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Travis Mash #812

Episode Date: August 27, 2025

Bryan Boorstein has 24 years of training and over 13 years of coaching experience. A 3-time CrossFit Regional athlete and CrossFit Games coach, Bryan holds a Bachelor of Science from JMU (2006) and certifications in CrossFit L-2 and Mobility. As the owner and founder of Evolved Training Systems and Paragon Training Methods, he’s a trusted name in fitness. Bryan’s been featured on ESPN Radio and numerous podcasts, and he hosts the Eat Train Prosper podcast, sharing expert insights on training and nutrition. Visit http://evolvedtrainingsystems.com for more. Work With Us: Arétē by RAPID Health Optimization Links: Bryan Boorstein on Instagram Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram

Shrug family this week on Barrel Shrug. Brian Borstein is coming back. For those of you guys that have been paying attention to this show for a long time, this is like the 11th billionth time we've had Brian on, mainly because he's one of my best friends, and he was the best man in my wedding. And the reason we talk about strength so well or training together so well is him and I have been on this path together for over 20 years, including training, CrossFit athletes, and 70-something. and CrossFit Games athletes and bodybuilding and just getting jacked and trying to be as strong as we possibly can and online coaching. And there's probably nobody on this planet that I have such a parallel experience in when it comes to training. What's so cool about hanging out with Brian, one, it's my homie. But he has a much more like analytical and much more like micro approach to the programs he writes, nuance he brings to things. And I'm much more on like a macro side of things of like, let's just

go work really, really hard. And he's the guy that kind of brings me into his world. I bring him into mine. And what has happened over the last 23 years of our lives that we've been doing this together, both professionally, personally, friends, just always enjoying talking about training together. Is it, our ideas always seem to align, but seen through a different framework. And I think that is something that is very important in understanding, like, how to do this for a very long time. If you are always trying to kind of like be right in this industry or not be able to see things from different perspectives, and I've always just respect Brian's perspective, likely more than anybody else's, just because I know where he's been, I know where he's coming from,

I know what he's chasing, and he really is one of the best brains in this entire industry. There's just, I've talked to hundreds and hundreds of people, maybe thousands of people. And I always kind of come back to, what's Brian up to? What are his thoughts on things? And there's like a source of truth inside what he says because I know how his brain works. So there's always like a backboard person that I can always go to and be like, hey, man, I'm wrestling with this thing. And I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. And that's what we're going to be digging into a ton today.

It's just I love hearing his thoughts on where he's at. that where I'm at and how all of those things align after 30 years of training now. Being into our 40s, having kids, having families, priorities shifting. We clearly are never going to be the strongest people in the world that we once tried to be. And how we get to go play this game of life in the fittest way, playing at the highest level for as long as we possibly can. And that's why I love talking strike the brine. As always, friends, make sure you get over to rapid health report.com.

That is where Dan Garner, Dr. Andy Galpinner, doing a free lab lifestyle and performance analysis. And you can access that at rapid health report.com. Friends, let's get into the show. Welcome to Bobball Shrug. I'm Anders Varner, Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mash. Brian Borstein, the ultimate homie, my best man, gym owner. Oh, dude, I actually already shot the intro for this. And like, the number of things over the last 25 years that you and I have done in,

Lifting weights is insanity. Yeah, it's pretty wild to think that we ended up here from like two college kids drinking beers at JMU like 20 plus years ago. If you're just like hammered at a dive bar singing karaoke in college right now, you too can be slightly above average in the fitness of the tree. Just keep holding on. Just keep trying to get jacked. Hope that was inspiring. Truth. Coach Matt has got an extra decade on us too, man.

We got to keep going. we got to keep this train rolling um dude life update man where's your training at these days i i specifically invited you uh wanted to reach out to get you on because uh we have these awesome awesome conversations sometimes and dms and i'm like why am i just dming you and texting you about the stuff we should do it like professionally and have a podcast dude so professional this is exactly what everyone wants um yeah dude training's going great um um Um, I am still doing all the cardio things, but I've found a much better cadence by alternating days of lifting with days of cardio, whereas I think last time we spoke, I was pretty hard on

the cardio train and I was doing a bunch of double days where I would, you know, lift in the morning and ride in the afternoon or whatever. So now I'm down to, uh, four days of cardio. I do three bike rides and one run, usually. And then lifting three days a week, pretty much. much upper lower upper one week and then lower upper upper lower the next week working through the rotation like that um also found that with the cardio that i'm doing it seems to be very helpful to make my lower body work much more strength based as opposed to hypertrophy based because there's

just so much less fatigue that comes from that like doing you know five sets of three with a six or 8RM is much less fatiguing than four sets of 10 to failure type thing so I've been doing all low reps for my legwork pretty much all below five reps for pretty much everything

even like leg curls and leg extensions and stuff like that. Dude you deadlifted 475 pounds the other day what in the world made you want to first off that's the most I've ever deadlifted in my whole life like back when we're psychotic and willing to like snap our spines in half to try to impress our friends.

What in the world are you loading a barbell up that heavy for? Well, so it will backtrack to December when I had a really bad back injury and I thought I was never going to deadlift or RDL again. I was just like, you know what, it's not worth it. This injury sucks so bad. I got the injury doing a leg curl of all things. I was under hydrated going into a workout right before we leave for the airport and I was rushing through it final rep of a leg curl pop low back fucked for like i mean it really took

six months before i felt like really confident in it but i was in pain for you know four to six weeks and uh once you know what it was do you know exactly did you ever go get an MRI or anything i didn't get it MRI but i've had a series of QL issues in my life anyways and it felt like exactly you know that's what i figured it would be a QL just from that type of movement because otherwise you know i can't think of the spine you know leg curls normally make this like the spine feel better unless the QL of course yeah well I was doing a seated leg crow and I was doing that forward lean thing you know where you get the extra length in the hamstring and I was trying to get short on the rep at the very

bottom trying to get short and uh it just pop like it just it just happened so um I couldn't even like straighten up to stand erect for like five days it took five days before I could stop walking like a like a hunchback I was sure it helped that you wouldn't got out a plane right after right exactly exactly dude it was not finished it right there it was really hard um so anyway after that injury i thought i was never going to even do an rdl again at about the five month point i was like okay i think i can rdl again uh and then last month i just decided you know what let's see if i can deadlift and the first day i did 315 for a couple triples which was fine i think the next time i did 365 for a couple triples and that was fine then the next time i did a 425 single

and then the next time it was a 425 double. And so, like, six weeks after that, I was just building up the other day. And my plan was to hit a double at 455, but the weight was moving okay. And so I just went up to 475, hit a single there. And I actually think, like, that wasn't the prettiest rep, but I think I have 500 in me.

So at some point in the next, call it three to six weeks, when things are feeling good. I don't like to pre-plan my deadlift maxes anymore. It's like it's got to be a day, where things just feel right. I think I'm going to try to do 500. And given that I think 520 was my most all-time ever, I think breaking 500 would be pretty dope.

Yeah. Well, we started DMing each other because it was like the exact same week, I want to say, that I actually snatched for the first time in, like, COVID maybe. When? Oh, I saw that just the other day. I didn't know if that was like an old video.

Yeah. Yeah. Because the first, my body pulled itself into a full squat, and I had no idea how it happened. It just like- You're super-athletic Anders. You can just always do anything. I was like, man, this is insane. I can snatch a buck 65 for a triple. And by the third one, I went from power snatch, like, sort of power snatch to a full squat.

And I was like, dang, dude, it's still in there. All the wires still moved in the same direction. And like, and no one got hurt. It was incredible. I was impressed because you just talked about you weren't going to do all this lifting anymore and then all of a sudden I see you smashing. I'm like, wait, didn't you say, but no, I, uh, that's why I was, I mean, that's why, in my opinion, I was so stoked on it was because I lift, I lift twice a week for 30 minutes.

Yeah. The supersets and that's just all, all that, I mean, it's all very, very basic stuff. So the fact that I could still, uh, pull myself under a. Bart. We were all joking on the show the other day. It was like talking about snatching. It was like, anybody that thinks that they're like throwing it over their head just needs to do a thousand of them. So they like learn, oh, you're actually, it's like a pole. I get it. And then the light bulb goes off and then you're addicted to Olympic lifting for the next. The snatch is what gets you because it's like such a beautiful thing. Any time you get snatched,

it's like, it just feels cool, you know. And the overhead position I felt like really strong in. And granted, when we were super cool, I used to three position snatch, two and a quarter. That was like the best. And that was like a 165, but it didn't matter. All I wanted to know was, can I still pull under a bar? Can you still do it? Yeah. Anyway, you just do the snatch properly, it's cool, I think.

Yeah, because your body has this weird thing where if it's dangerous, it won't allow you to do it. Right. And if it doesn't trust you, you just don't go under. Like everybody that's ever like Clark the barbell in their life, it's because the weight's too heavy. You pulled it off the floor poorly. You got in a bad position before you're about to jump. And then your body, your brain just goes, you're going to hurt yourself.

Nope. Yeah. And none of that happened. And I was, I thought that I was like, I could not believe after five years that I could still pull myself under a bar. Beautiful. Which is why we, Brian, he was like, dude, look at. you look at you moving around out there i mean i've been talking about how important that explosive

type stuff is and then the snatch just adds an entire other element to the explosiveness piece which is the coordination piece and um and mobility i mean there's a there's a large mobility component too remember when we had the gym and i first start i remember i we'll go back i i put off snatching for the first six months of the time that we own the gym because i was like it's too hard. I don't know how to do this. I'm not going to be good at it. And then one day, like, I don't know what came over me, but I was like, I'm just going to learn to snatch. And then I think I snatched every day for like the next three months at like some varying levels of weight. And I think my backs went up like 60 pounds in two months just from like actually going

from not snatching to snatching. And then it became an obsession. And it's still like to this day, that's the lift that I miss the most from all of the CrossFit stuff. Like I thought it would muscle ups or something like that, but snatching is, snatching is the goat because it just, it makes, it means your whole body is functioning properly if you can even like pull under and get into that position. Dude, I have a full sign on that, dude. I had the shoulder surgery in 2008 and I basically haven't snatched since then.

I do snatch pulls and other variations, but like, that's like of all the movements that I can't do post shoulder surgery, snatching is 100% the one that I miss the most. Dr. Andy Galpin here. As a listener of the show, you've probably heard us talk. talking about the Artei program, which we're all incredibly proud of. It's a culmination of everything Dan Garland and I have learned over more than two decades of working with some of the world's most elite performers, award-winning athletes, billionaires, musicians, executives,

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It's about unlocking your full potential and looking, feeling, and performing at your absolute best, physically and mentally, when the stakes are the highest. To learn more, visit areteelab.com. That's A-R-E-T-E-Lab.com. Now, back to the show. I know I want to work towards it so bad, but I'm like, I don't even know if I want to even start down the road because I feel like this good way to, like, end all this beautiful thing I got going on.

But we'll see. I started overhead squatting, so we'll see what happens. Yeah, it felt so good. I actually woke up this morning. Because Ashton, my wife, has been traveling like a ton this month. So getting to the gym or like even getting into the woods and chopping trees down and doing all my fun stuff out there, I like can't be away from the kids that far. So like while they're sleeping, this morning I woke up and I was like, I want to do snatch balances. I wonder if I can get like two and a quarter on a snatch balance because that was like my like outside of snatching off blocks and just doing like the athletic part.

of snatching. That was the thing that I enjoyed, like the exercise and training Olympic lifting that I really enjoyed the most of how much weight when you kind of like just chuck up in the air and just dive under it and dive under it. Yeah. Ryan Grimblen is like, this is his trick lift. He can do a 180, you can do a 400 pound snatch balance and he weighs 160 or whatever he weighs. I know, he's got, he's got a few movements. It's literally, it's just like a trick thing. nobody on earth can beat him i'm pretty sure no matter what that way it's like that's not i mean just to be able to swat the weight up to like stand up with that weight is crazy not to mention like the commitment to the catch you know oh he does it so easily so crazy yeah just hold on it overhead

yeah right you mentioned the the speed and power thing are you doing any specific like speed and power work these days um i am doing skipping so i skip uh once a week i I go out for a long skip or an interval skip or something like that. I usually incorporate it into my runs. I do high poles now because I don't have room in my basement gym to put anything overhead. So I do like clean high poles, snatch high pulls, kind of like Doug was saying. Yeah, that's power. Yeah, that's power based.

And then sometimes I'll take a dumbbell out front and I'll relive my glory days of dumbbell snatching. I don't know how we ever did 40 reps with the 100 pound dumbbell for that regional's workout because the 100 pound dumbbell is really heavy right now. You just have to like commit to it so hard. It's almost like deadlifting. Like you just got to like grip and rip. Yeah. You have to place people's opinion of cheering for you over your labrum health. That's really good. But I do I do stuff like that. I would really like to incorporate snatching specifically. So maybe this at some point I'll bring a barbell into my front yard and snatch since I can't do it in the basement.

But I also don't have bumper plates. So that's a bit of a mitigating factor. Yeah. I mean, a second ago, when you started talking about heavy deadlust, I was actually like, oh, I thought he was going to say lighter deadless. Because didn't you say you were doing like triple like a six or eight RM type weight where you're also like doing velocity based training like like mass is super into? So for a lot of my squat, I am, like for pendulum squat, hacks, squat, stuff like that.

I'm doing, yeah, like, you know, five sets of three and an 8RM or something like that. But for the deadlift, yeah, I actually alternate days. So one day I do like a 5 by 3 in an 8RM, which is, you know, that 365-ish for me, which is a perfect weight where like form is crisp, but it's also heavy. That's brutal, yeah.

And but then when I feel good, I'll go ahead and, you know, as I said, try that single. So my base plan is to limit fatigue as much as possible, but on the rare occasion that things are clicking and I'm feeling good at 43 years old, I need to go ahead and go ahead. That's the mass method. I'm going to do triples and 8RM speed reps.

Or maybe I'll just do one at max this. Maybe we'll switch this up in the moment. I never have this true speed day. It always ends up into a max. And then I go back down and hit a few sets and I call it speed. but still even now even i'm 52 and i still do the same thing at least i have velocity to keep me from killing i i've yet i've yet to have a missed wrap so far so far so good yeah just like you know i know you know i know what and what velocity i'm going to miss it's you know

if i miss now it's complete arrogance it's me you know trying to miss so so far so good um dude you mentioned your your back pain earlier and it was something that uh was we talked about for the first time like in my life i've ever had i wouldn't even call it back pain but like an acknowledgement of discomfort of like in in my low back mostly probably because i just talk into this computer all day long yeah i also think though uh is over the last call it two is years i have used almost no barbells in my squatting pattern um whether there's been hack squats or a dumbbell one i love hacksquots it's uh by the way yeah they're fantastic i love them i've been doing for like two years straight literally um but now that i uh like the

the day that i was snatching that was also the first barbell squat front squats i've done in forever one thought they look beautiful thanks for not judging me internet um and but also i've wondered and since you are back to pulling really heavy after a back issue, I feel like the number of machines that I've been using has actually led to like a much weaker core of just the, I've never experienced back pain before. And now two years after not doing any barbell squats or like big bracing exercises,

heavy deadlifts, things like that, like having it now makes me really wonder how important, or how important those big compound lifts really are to just overall one core strength, but two, like the breathing under the barbell, like all of that stuff that you can kind of like get away with not doing for a while. It's kind of coming back to bite me in the ass because I just don't have, I just haven't been lifting heavy and doing that just like that grunting, like breathing stuff that happens when you're underneath heavy load. Yeah, I, uh, for me personally, I don't find that like

loading my body with a back squat feels great on my back. Like I know exactly what you mean about that bracing being important. And so I also have screwed around with front squats a little bit recently and that felt good on my back. And the deadlift feels good too. I think because the spine isn't like you're loading the spine, but you're not compressing the spine when you, when you deadlift. And so that's felt better for me. too but uh even though i've biased most of my training to machines and things like that much like you guys or you i mash i guess um i always would still do like heavy dumbbell lunges uh before my back injury there would still be like single leg uh rdl variations and things like that so i was

still getting kind of like some of that anti rotation and stability breathing bracing stuff that you're talking about without having to load the spine. And I'm not sure if those are the same or if that, yeah, I don't, I don't know what the answer is there, but I think whatever it is that we need to do as we get older to protect the low back, I know for myself and many others who have been doing this for a long time, that tends to be the kryptonite. Yeah, I agree with you. Anders, are you doing other direct forward?

You're doing like strict hanging leg raises or one-arm farmer's walks or any other, like, direct He's lift trees. Yeah, there you go. I've actually really made an aggressive approach over the last 30 summers of lifting weights to never specifically do abs. You're one ab cramp away from feeling like just total crap and not breathing. And after one, you just go, maybe I don't, maybe I don't need to have those abs. I don't know. But no, I do not.

Uh, I, the only like specific ab things that I do, um, it's like weighted, uh, like knee raises, leg, leg raises, like hip flexor stuff. Yeah, yeah. Because I've, uh, I have pulled a hip flexor sprinting and it is awful. Um, and that actually like really freaked me out that I was that I like really did some damage until, um, I kind of figured out what was going on and why it was happening. and then I went, oh, I probably need to do that. Like, that's why those exercises exist. So I do that weekly now, haven't had any issues. But yeah, I want to, I want, now that I have done some Olympic lifting, just a little bit to like, oh, I can still do this.

And gotten a little bit back to a barbell and just like feeling good. I actually really want to see how much, probably not heavy back squats, but actually just like front squats. only um seem to like keep my chest more upright feel better in general squats feel to me better i mean i back squat now but um and not back squat heavy but front squats are still my favorite yeah there's something to just putting the bar in a less advantageous place that requires you to just move better which is really the ultimate goal um but yeah i i'm interested to see and i equals one day of course but I did notice that there was like no discomfort for the next couple days

probably only because I was talking to you about it and like over aware because of our conversation but I do think that there is something to that like I think people like for some reason like squatting on the internet I can't even pay attention to it when people like they got to like yell in one way or the other and it's like well what about all this incredible stuff

that goes on that has nothing to do with one RM back squat Not now, man. A rep max anything back squat. Like, how about just sitting underweight and breathing is, like, one of the hardest things. And one of the best things for stability and movement. What else are you going to build all of those deep core muscles that there's just nothing else that I've ever, like, you mentioned lunges. Sure. You're definitely out of breath.

They're really freaking hard, but not like that, like, bracing, gasping for air. Well, I mean, if I'm, so I do them for like sets of eight, you know, with like 100 pound dumbbells in each hand, where it's like four, four per leg. That's right now. Yeah, I should buy it 120s. I'd use those, you know? No, but I do think, like, you can turn lunges into whatever you want them to be. Like, they can be in as a 4RM per leg, like I'm doing type thing for a couple sets. And then the bracing component is real.

Like, if you're not bracing properly, then you get all thrown around by the dumbbells as you're trying to lun. and you lose your balance and all that. Let me give the, I would shake to all of you as an older guy. And like Kelly Surrett told me a long time ago because we were having come to epidemic on our team of like back injuries. And so we eliminated by adding doing like, you know, mainly split squats, but the key would be making more upright. So we're really trying to make sure that we're loading the hip and extension.

So you think the back leg. And if you're upright, you're really lengthening, that, you know, the back hip flexor, the rectus for Morris, under load. And like, so doing that on a regular basis, and I do it all the time for me. And like almost every single day, I wake up, I go downstairs and I do isometric holds in that position. And like, it's, it's been magic for my back. It's like the couch stretch, like Kelly's couch stretch or whatever. It's beautiful.

Yeah. I feel like I, and I love both, you know, Stuart McGill, I love his stuff too. But I feel like that one thing helped me the most of any advice I've ever been given. Yeah. Do you feel like the hip flexor lengthening doing that directly helps low back pain? Because I've noticed similar when I do it. Yeah, because it originates in the lower lumbar and even to the sacrum. So like, yes, 100%.

And like, you know, and just stretching it, I feel like causes more issues. But when you're keeping that isometric in a hold, you're strengthening it under low. And that becomes more of a, because you want that motion with stability. That's the thing. I feel like when you just stretch, stretch, stretch, and you weaken it. But if you strengthen it and while you're lifting it, it becomes a beautiful thing. Yeah. That's the one thing that's allowing me to do this whole comeback.

And, you know, I do, and the better I get it, the whole, that position, the more I can start to deadlift without the pain. Because you're right, you know, Andrews is like, my body won't let me pull very hard if my back is hurting. you know no matter what i do and so but just this past weekend i was finally like normal again it was able to lift some heavy heavy weight you know so yeah about that was the first time you pulled pain free in a while pain free and like heavy and just like felt way myself and felt like yes i could do 700 again so yeah so we're talking about like 500 here and he's like oh maybe i'll do 700 different sports a second warm up set 10 years older than us different at least i know think about it when i met you i was your age and i was and i felt i felt

i was old and so now i feel old but you're my age back then and so crazy um you know i want to now that we uh we were talking about this pre-show but like what are some of the called them constants that no matter i feel like uh of the four of us there probably isn't a single training program that has not been completed that has ever existed uh i But where do you feel like you, no matter what you're doing, whatever the goal is, like what are those like core concepts, do you feel like you just always come back to that you just know those things are the truth? It's a broad question, but yeah, I like it.

I think for me, staying under eight reps a set is kind of become like a core truth. I think that that's been maybe for like four or five years at this point. I was like, why am I training with 12 to 15 plus? reps on anything like i can get everything i need for a for under eight reps and the first eight just don't even matter right exactly it's like you're just getting tired so you can have harder reps later like the work yeah um so i think that's certainly like the first one that comes to mind um maybe a semi controversial one would be that i think that dumbbell flies are probably the greatest chest movement ever but i think that that also comes with some limitations

and that, you know, everyone has their own individual shoulder mechanics and issues that might present, that prevent them from getting the most out of a dumbbell fly. But I think that I can contribute that to, like, the most chest development that I've gotten over my life when people ask me about that. I think three workouts. I don't think that's controversial at all. No, I mean, it is a deep stretch type thing. Look at the fibers in the way that they, you know, where it originates and attaches.

Yeah, I just get so much more out of them than any pressing movements. It's just what they. It's what the chest does. It's what the picked trust. Especially pick major, that's what it does. Yeah, yeah. So that's a truth. I think you probably don't really ever need to train more than three days a week,

not that you can't train in the gym more than three days a week and design programs that are effective that train more than three days a week. But most people should be able to maximize their results in at least a hypertrophy pursuit strength. You know, you may have more of a skill component that needs to be trained a little more consistently. But I think three days a week for hypertrophy is probably like a pretty. common truth. What do you guys have? What did I miss? I mean, I would say with the three days would be distinct. You know, for general population, 100% agree. You know, obviously, someone wants to be a bodybuilder. They're going to have to, you know, to get in the, what is it, the optimal

amounts of sets, especially for this bigger is going to be between what 12, all the way, some people, 20 sets. Well, it depends, right? Individual variance in that too. Yeah. Who responds to what? Like, if you look at the breakdown, I think there's even, in the was it the data driven strength guys just came out with an individual variation meta or something and some like

the general trend was that yeah more volume is better for hypertrophy looking at it that way but breaking down into the individual data you see that some people responded best to like four weekly sets and some people responded best to eight weekly sets and the guy that actually responded the best

was somebody that was only doing like four sets and the guy that responded the worst was doing like 30 sets but still the average showed that you know more was better across the board but that's not super helpful if you're just random person in there and you're like well what do i respond best to it's like you kind of got to figure it out on your own you know i would say 10 to 12 would be me you know as far as if i'm trying to get bigger but stronger the frequency would be you know the thing about if i say if i'm a spend that athlete i might need more frequency like you're you said that if it's a skill so wait if you're doing weight lifting you need more than three because you got to practice you know I would say even for power of the thing I would

need you know four days is like is all I need though but I can get away with three but four days is where it's optimal for if I want to be really good though so it just depends another another core truth I'd add would be that everyone should be doing some form of breathing getting their heart rate elevated something we all have kind of changed our minds on over the years but but man like the we talked about this on prior episodes but just to reiterate like the ease at which you can move about the world when you have a decent cardiovascular system is just so enhanced and it improves every aspect of life and so um if that means hey you have to cut back a weight training session so that you can add a cardio session then I think that trade off is well worth it I agree yeah if even

specific on that i find myself regularly telling people to try to touch max heart rate at least once a week yeah so you're not just going to do a cardio session but doing a cardio session that's hard enough intervals or what have you where you actually get to whatever your peak heart rate is and just just touch it you don't need to stay there you don't need to fucking dig yourself into the ground you don't need to throw up but just get your heart to work as hard as it can once per week and then touch it and then go about you do you find it relative like relatively consistent that people can you know touch their top heart rate because I mean for me personally like my top heart rate that I've seen in the last year is 187 but like and I'll regularly get to 179 180 181 but like fuck I haven't

seen 187 since I set that a year ago you know what I mean sure sure yeah I mean I'd imagine most people I'm telling this too they're not really actually truly even measuring their their heart rate they're just I'm really all I'm encouraging them to do is to fucking go 100% full speed for as long as you can tolerate until you're really, really, really, really out of breath. Yeah, that makes sense. And that's, that, that is generally enough. Or for most people, most of the time, like, they're going to get a pretty good benefit from that.

You can't go wrong doing that once a week, even if you don't technically on paper hit your max heart rate and the data doesn't show that. Most people just in their regular life, they go for a light jog, they lift some weights, but they don't get like all the way out of breath. Yeah. Not like you just did like a 10-minute jiu-jitzy match at 100%. and you're just like, right, right.

You didn't catch an interception in the end zone and run 150 yards, dodging people, doing agility, like 100% full speed. And then you're just like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. Like, doing that once a week is a, is a good practice in my mind. Yeah, I totally agree. CO2, you know, tolerance.

There's so many benefits by doing that, too. And you start getting scared. You know, at first you'll get scared. And then you get, you start getting used to it. You know, I'm going to breathe again. Just relax. Yeah. Yeah.

I think the prescription of one really hard, get out of breath as much as you can session, and then one like lower intensity duration session and then one somewhere in the middle is a pretty good prescription for someone to get started with cardio. Yeah. Even to that, I think that the weight lifting side, like, no matter what exercises you're doing, like getting to essentially like one rep and reserve and you can get so much done. If you, even if it's your first, like if you do three sets, sets or two sets, but you just go as hard as you can in those, you can get so much done

in so little time. I remember I used to do like pyramid sets, be like 10, 8, 6, 4, 2, and trying to increase the weight and like overthinking all this stuff and following like bodybuilding.com. And when the truth is, is like, find a weight that's like pretty heavy and just go do it as much as possible smash yourself and then be done after three sets and move on to the next thing and do a different angle of the same muscle group and do it three sets as hard as you can um and there's there's like many pieces to that like this is like the old man wisdom i think many times because it's like i can wake up at any hour of the day and go be strong because i have the neurological

wiring to be able to get up and just go lift weights um if you're if you're new to it sure, you should probably go squat a little bit and like grease the groove and feel better and make sure everything's like moving in the right direction. But when you can get yourself to a place where it's like you just feel comfortable lifting certain amounts of weight without really thinking about it, just grab the dumbbells and get after it. Like just go. And you can get so much done in so little time.

It's very similar to the cardio where it's like just get on the bike and go as hard as you can, see what happens. And then as soon as you get tired, rest a little bit until your heart comes. down and go hard again and if you do that three times it's probably going to be called VO2 max you don't have to worry about all of the nuanced detail things you can just you could just put a really good workout together by just going hard and and having a mindset of just pushing which I think is something you just have to like grow as well I've always loved Dorian Yates, you know, like there's a poll, like, you know, he's kind of like the Mike

Minster one set, but he, you know, he, normally he would do like one, one, warm-up set, then one all-out set of several different movements. I personally like that. Like, I would just go and just absolutely destroy myself. And like, I recover from that fine, so, and like you get done quicker. There's a diminishing returns on sets, right? Like, all the data will show us that you get 70-ish percent of the benefit from the first set, and then you can do, like, three sets gets you 90 percent of the benefit.

and then you can get the rest by going up to like six sets. But if you can get 70% of all the benefit from the first set, and then you can go off and hit the muscle from a different angle and do one set there as well that I think overall you're probably better off than allocating that time with the diminution returns of doing multiple sets. It's more fun too. It's not so boring.

Yeah, I mean, this fits in well with what you're saying here. Like, you can do both, like, very common for my workouts. I might do like four exercises where I'll do four sets of four exercises. And then at the end of the day, like as like a finisher, I'll do, I'll do five different sets of or five single sets of exercises or 10 exercises just for a single set each. And I'll just knock out a bunch of assistance work, one single set on 10 different things. And then I'll close it up and, you know, go about my day. Yeah.

So you can kind of do both. Big movements, kind of normal strength training. And then and then add in single sets just like for a bunch of auxiliary work just to finish it out. Yeah. Brian, do you still geek out? like on the super nuanced side of your programming? Or is it more broad now that you've done everything that exists on this planet? Sounds like he still geeks out.

Like keeping out part is different than the like extreme nuance pieces to it. I think that I geek out on it more on the one-on-one client basis because I have the ability to know that client and what they want. And therefore I can use the final one or two percent. to get them to those goals. But yeah, when I'm writing general programs now, I understand that the big rocks need to be hit. And I mean, you can go as nuanced and contextual

as you want into that. But it's lift heavy weights with sufficient volume, recover, and eat a bunch food and sleep well. And like you do those things and like how you're actually training. As long as it's hard enough with sufficient volume, That's mostly it. And then from there, you can worry about the last like five or 10%.

Yeah. I actually, I'm glad I got to ask that because I've wondered that because everything that used to like when we had all of our remote clients, like it almost used to drive me crazy because every single person got like a 100% to the rep, to the set, to the time that you wanted them. And I'd be like, just write the program. They just have to go work hard. And over time, how that evolves kind of in your own thing, but that's awesome that you're still

like doing all of that for all your clients. It's very cool. Well, I only have three one-on-one clients at a time now because I mostly just spend time with the general programs and the group program stuff and, you know, helping those people out. So the one-on-one clients, I take three at a time on and they're people that I like really want to work with because I'm excited about their mission and their passion and their goals and all of that. So for me, that's the part where I get to geek out, and then for my general messaging to whoever follows me still on Instagram, it's, you know, hit the basics, work out three times a week, train hard, train heavy for the most part, recover, eat food, sleep. I heard some while, I heard someone a while back

joking about, like, when you first start out training, it's like, it's very simple. It's just like lift weights, eat protein. And then you like get really into it. It starts get really detailed, really nuanced and like all the different forms and styles and nuances here. And then after you've been doing it for 10 years and you're like, oh, you just lift weights and eat protein. It is. It's easy. It all works.

Yeah. How long do you spend thinking like, oh, I'm no longer a beginner? I'm like elite. None of the beginner normal stuff works for me anymore. And then one day you're like, you know, like, squat, like three sets really hard. And then I'm going to do some pushing like three sets really hard. And you realize that's the same program that you would have written for yourself like on day one. and now it's at the beginning

and you're still oh that's actually all the stuff in the middle was just me and my ego talking to each other when I could have just kept doing this basic thing I would have the one big thing that I've changed of late is this is that before if I had pain which I always always did you know I would just lift through it

and now I think I was it was Lane Norton who talked about with his back when he gets like a little we tweak something let's say instead of trying to lift through it he will find the range of motion that doesn't bother it and he will slowly bring the range of motion back

to where it has to be and like that was been the key for me because deadlifting is that you know back squatting does not trigger me nothing but deadlifting will trigger my back and so like I started with high you know blocks now gradually brought it down even started working with some

sumo type movements because, you know, I assume it doesn't hurt your back near as bad, but now, you know, like I said, as this past weekend, I was able to go a full range of motion and from the floor and it felt great just by gradually preparing those joints. And then meanwhile, accessory movements, you know, gradually bringing those joints that were in pain up to, you know, getting them stronger, making sure they're moving through a range of motion, but. Yeah.

Tying what you're saying into, like what we just said about lift way to, you know, proteins like when you get back to the the second phase of lift weight to eat protein there's so much baked into what you think lifting weights is at that point where mass to your point like now if you have it an achy this or an achy that you're backwards and you know how to lift weights and so you can easily switch from conventional deadlifts to sumo deadl or or go to do kickstand RDLs or just go do leg curls or you got you're gonna you have so many more options where you're like subconsciously even you're not even like thinking about it consciously you just know oh that's that's not going to work I'm going to switch over to this new thing in order to keep yourself healthy.

Like the principle of if it hurts, don't do it, is idealizing a little bit, especially if you're a competitor in a sport. But now that I've gotten older and I'm not competing in anything, it's still even difficult for me to do it. It's like, this hurts my elbows. I'm going to do it anyway because I enjoy training. I still have to force myself to like go, like, you know, alter my exercise selection to find something that will give me a similar, if, benefit without actually causing

as much damage or exacerbating any existing pain that I have. Well, the thing about having this experience to at this point is I know with the deadlift is like I cannot work it and it will get strong. If my squad is going up and my doing good mornings and my back is getting stronger, I don't necessarily have to death it to get stronger. And so like, as long as I'm kind of doing the movement a little bit and I'm doing these other things, and it did, you know, like I said, like I hadn't really done anything from the floor until this weekend.

it had gotten a lot stronger since the last time I'd gone from the floor. And so now, in the back of the day, I wouldn't have believed that. I wouldn't have, I can't even be rational about it. And so now I'm older, I can be more rational and be like, you don't have to deadlift. It's not that hard of a movement. Yeah, I tend these days to think almost exclusively in muscle groups and movement patterns. And so, like, deadlift is just, it's a hinge, it's a hole from the floor. Like, you have many options to train those same muscle groups or train that same movement pattern.

and it's a large category, really. And so there's so many other things you can do to get a similar benefit. You might have your preferences. You might love your dumbbell flies that you were talking about earlier, Brian. But if that's hurting for some reason, it's just killing your shoulders. Like, you know so many other things you can do to get, again, a similar-ish benefit. Maybe it's not your favorite. But it's like the next, there's like the next tier down that you can do to still make sure,

make sure you can get a good training session in. And you're not just not doing anything, of course, or continuing to hurt your shoulders unnecessarily. Yeah. That's also also understanding your body type. Like I've always, I feel like I've always, maybe not better squatter, Brian, but like it's anatomically more correct for me to be squatting.

And you've always been better pulling things off the floor. Yeah. MASH clearly is a much better squatter than all of us. There's like, there's like body type things that over time, I just don't really like deadlifting really heavy. And I'm always, I'm like for real jealous of like the manliness

when I see people that are pulling like extra that have like long arms and they're pulling just giant amounts of weight for like eight reps and like you look at their back and it's just erectors are like from their neck all the way down to their ass and you're just like how do I do that? And then I go grab like a medium amount of weight

and do six and I'm like oh that just sucked. Like I don't want to do that. Like I'm never going to be as cool as that guy. but there's just like things that just no matter how tight your form is and how well you move like they just they just feel not as smooth um and i some people are just not meant to deadlift i'm certain of that i've i've even told when i was training with mike nelson i was like let's do lots of deadless like i want to be the guy with the big erectors and it just isn't possible like i just can't commit to pulling heavy big reps over and over i'm like always

I was so impressed with those people. It's like the coolest thing, but I'm like a squatting guy. I got a little femurs, I guess. I don't know. And your arms are good for weightlifting, though. They're very good for, you know, snatching, cleaning. But like, a lot of times people are really good at weightlifting. If they're really good, aren't going to be good at pulling because their arms are going

to be optimal size. They're not going to be midget short, but they're not going to be long. That's for sure. Because the long arm will mess you up in weightlifting. And so. Yeah. but yeah you actually have to pull so far under the bar if you're going to be able to get there just the bars too far you're like color color and it's still way way far yeah like um yeah

i i wish i could i really do but it's just not possible i don't have or i don't have the mental fortitude i'm just not willing to risk it i and i would believe it's you you're just not anatomically you know designed for like there's a guy jason cocker who's unbelievable squatter, unbelievable bencher, and just, he's at West Side, and he could never get his deadlift going. He just, you know, if he deadlifted, 600, it's amazing, you know, so, you know, and you're talking about a guy who can squat at 1,000, bench 900, and then 600 deadlift. It's just not going to happen. Every night, he goes to bed.

He's just like, why? But they still got a 2,400 total, so it's like, he's like, whatever, you know what I mean? You want to go, guy? Yeah, he don't care. And he's, yeah, but he's just. just and I have trained with him before and like it doesn't matter he's not ever going to have a good deadlift this is the way it is so now some people of all the movements yeah that's the one uh Brian as far as uh big goals anything do you have any more races coming up like cardio stuff

no yeah you're actually doing bike races I did two bike races uh in back-to-back years yeah I think It was like 23 and 24. No, nothing this year. I would say I have two potential experiments that I'm considering. One is to get my body weight down to like 180 and try to make that my homeostasis, which sounds extremely challenging and daunting. But I think that life would be easier at 180 than it is at 195. He's going to start shipping you chocolate chip covered almonds.

It's like an overnight package every night. So I just finished a six-month experiment where I was trying to eat as much sugar as I could and see what happened to my blood work. And basically nothing happened. I guess my HBA1C went up by like 0.1. But other than that, like nothing changed. So I'm always thinking of these like new experiments that I can do. So now I want to do this like, let's not do sugar and try.

to like get really lean for three months and see what that does to my blood work and kind of like compare and contrast like being a hedonistic eater compared to a more frugal eater. So I'm thinking about that. And then have you guys, I know you guys know Beardsley, but have you been apprised of any of like the new stuff he's talking about on muscle fiber specific training? Yeah. Okay. So I wrote a post of-

I love, I love Beards. Chris Beardsley is that you're talking about. So I wrote a post on my Instagram page pushing back on this idea a couple weeks ago. But basically this new idea he's putting forward, which I believe is mostly based on mechanistic data, is that it's not enough to just train each muscle group multiple times a week. You must be training the same fibers of that muscle multiple times a week or else atrophy occurs. so my big pushback was like well then how are people getting jacked on bro splits all these years and all this atrophy is occurring and so the pushback then their response was more like

okay well in the bro split you might be going like three steps forward but you're taking one step back each week because you have this period of time where you're atrophying and then um their their idea to kind of mitigate that is that you train the same muscle fiber across each session during the week so for example if you're training back you know you would not do a wide pull-up one day, a narrow row, another day, and then like a one-arm lap pull down the next day, because now you have like some upper back stuff, you have some mid-back stuff, you have some lat stuff, and you're not actually training the same muscle fibers. So that would be an ineffective way of programming your backwork. Instead, you would

need to have each day have some movement that is along the same muscle fiber line. So maybe it would be like all neutral grip vertical pulling or all pronated wide grip pull. or something along those lines where you're hitting the same muscle- Is he talking about is he talking about to match the penation angle of the muscle fibers? No, it's simply that muscle fibers

must be trained to not atrophy. And so the idea is that if you're doing a row that's an upper back-focused row, your lats actually aren't getting stimulated, or at least not sufficiently. Similarly, another way they framed it is that if you want your rec fem to grow,

you need to train your rec feme every single session that you train legs. You can't have a day that's squatting and another day that's lunging and then another day where you do leg extensions. You need to essentially be doing leg extensions every single day

or else your rec femal atrophy. I can go read this, yeah. So anyway, yeah, go check it out. It's like the new stuff that he and this guy, Jake Doleshall, are putting out. And so I've been pushing back on it. But as I push back on it,

I start thinking like, maybe there is like some sense to this. Like if someone were to want to maximize hyperchurchase, hypertrophy and you're not actually stimulating a fiber as often as you think you are because you're calling it back instead of calling it lower lats and midlats and bumper back and whatever then maybe there is something to that so this is my other thought on an experiment to do the the split they recommend to to make it as easy as possible is simply an a b full body so you do like a full body on monday a full body on wednesday and then on friday you go back to monday's

full body and then on the following on Friday Monday you go back to the Wednesday workout you know what I mean so you're just alternating an A and a B workout and then that way you're making sure that you're hitting the same muscle fibers in each session and it's super easy whereas if people are programming

different workouts each session then they're risking potentially not stimulating the fibers properly so anyway that is I always want to know what is the training age of the people that they're doing this on like where is their homeostasis because sure the atrophies in my opinion probably just from what you've said

is going to be much uh the atrophy is going to happen much quicker if the person's been training for like two years their natural homeostasis is not with muscles but 30 years later or 20 years later where your natural homeostasis is muscle muscle and well trained you probably don't I can't imagine lose that much muscle right now. Sometimes I actually wonder, like, if I ate like 50 grams of protein, would I ever lose muscle if I'm just lifting? Because your body becomes so efficient at eating and have,

like, it's just natural to have the muscle tissue. Well, they actually, they would push back and say that atrophy actually occurs faster in people that are well trained because you've conditioned your body to have to get that, like, stimulus more often. Yeah. And that if you are newer, then the anabolic signal is stronger and lasts a little bit longer than it does as you're more trained where the catabolic signal comes up faster.

So they say 48 to 72 hours, you need to be training the exact same muscle fiber again. Well, there's three years a week. So maybe he's right. Well, they're talking about like to absolutely optimize hyperboatsy. That's what they're talking about. They're not saying you can't put on muscle. They're not saying like, there's no mystery that, like, CrossFit athletes aren't jacked from doing something relatively different each day,

not following like a super systematic weekly structure where they do the exact same thing every Monday and the exact thing thing every Thursday or gymnasts or anyone else that's like super jacks. Like you can put on muscle many different ways, but they're saying to absolutely optimize in their opinion, you need to do this new method. Yeah, I mean, I think it's honestly like I think it's mostly based on mechanistic data. I don't know that there's actually our. CTs that are testing this specifically.

And my pushback really is just that I think, A, you know, people have been getting yoked on bro splits forever and B, that at some point across your training journey, whether that's at 10 years, 15 years or 20 years, you reach genetic potential or close enough to it as you're going to get. And so whether you are super dialed in and optimize everything, shouldn't make a difference. as long as the net trend is still,

I'm training, you know, weekly and I'm still training hard and eating. None of the best bodybuilders in the world have ever done this, have ever done what he's talking about. And like, they're, does he say they'd actually get bigger

during Yates, we'd get bigger if they did that. I mean, that literally is the theory is that, you know, if people were truly optimizing and training their muscle fibers every 48 to 72 hours

like they're supposed to. Ronnie, Ronnie, you fool, Ronnie, Ronnie, Ronnie, you should have done it. Yeah, anyway. Yeah. So anyway, go check it out, MASH, because I think you'd be interested in at least, like, like, I'd be curious on your thoughts.

I'm curious. I'm curious. I've never disagreed with them. I'm curious. You overcome all of this if from the age of like 17 to 32, you're just an absolute lunatic about lifting weights. Just go hard. Just do it as hard as you can with your best friends and just grunt and sweat. Go hard, go heavy. Don't be a, never mind. All of that, all of that will even at. out if you just from those ages when you are just loaded with the good juice just have a bunch of

friends beat the crap out of each other all day long in the gym I will say this if you guys seen that thing apex athlete it's like the sport is being an athlete it's like they did um see okay they did a vertical leap they did a one mile run they did a 40 yard dash they did a broad jump they did all these athletic events and that was the that was the competition I'm like that intrigued me. So, like, I think I want to do this power of the thing and maybe bodybuild for a year two, and then I would love to try that. That sounds

that sounds like fun. Like, you know, anyway. Yeah, dude, every time I take my kids to gymnastics and I see them, I'm like, why don't adults do this? A single adult in the whole place. If I could just be...

Why don't be out there and get killed? Yeah. If I could be a gymnast and a track athlete at 42 years old, and like, do it just somewhat. but well and have people to train with. That would be like the most fun. Gymnas do some crazy stuff though, man. I feel like I get killed, you know, at the States.

Yeah. You would be fun. When we had Kelly Starrett on, I joked about how I really wanted to be a gymnast. And he was like, no, you just want to do backflips. You don't want to sit there and do all the progressions for two years to be able to learn. I was like, no, no, no. I want to do like Will Ferrell, like all the flips into a muscle up and all the things on day one. Gentlemen, I got to exit.

I got to go meet with one of our rapid athletes. There I go. I got to work. All the people. Where can people find you? Brian Borstein on Instagram, Paragon Training Methods, Evolve Training Systems, two podcasts. I got a new podcast called Life Reflected, where I talk about life.

It's not so much fitness-based, but if you want to hear me talk about life, I don't really sound that smart. You can check out Life Reflected, or you can check me out talking about fitness on Eat, prosper you're an elementary philosopher that's right there it is coach davis mash go to masslead dot com you check out we've got all kinds of new things on the website now so thanks uh now i got to go to work for you guys there you go i love it right you bet that's a lot you bet i'm on instagram uh mr borsen i was good to happen my friend i didn't know about the new uh philosophy life podcast i'm gonna check that out for sure but appreciate you being here thanks boys there you go

Anders Varner at Anders Varner and we are barbell shrug to barbell underscore shrug to make sure get over to Rapid HealthReport.com where Dan Garner, Dr. Andy Alpin, are doing a free lifestyle and performance analysis. You can access that at rapidhealthreport.com. Friends, see you guys next week.