Barbell Shrugged - How The Fast Get Faster and the Strong Get Stronger w/ Coach Kav, Travis Mash, Anders Varner, and Doug Larson- Barbell Shrugged

Episode Date: August 28, 2019

Coach Kavanaugh’s unique approach to training builds on his experience as both an elite athlete and an athlete who has endured a life-changing injury. His programs build strength, flexibility, speed, and teach proper bio-mechanics to increase performance and decrease chance of injury. After becoming a certified speed coach, he tested, trained and evaluated over 50,000 athletes, including stand-outs such as Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow, Kansas City Royals first round pick Eric Hosmer, and Florida’s winningest softball pitcher Stephanie Brombacher. Travis Mash has been strength training for over 21 years and has been working with athletes on their strength, speed, and athletic performance for over 15 years. Travis has worked with athletes and non-athletes of all levels from NFL and Olympic hopefuls, to 7-year-olds just starting out, to a 70-year-old senior seeking increased mobility. Travis is a published author for several strength and conditioning journals and continues to work with several colleges such as University of North Carolina, Wake Forest University, Appalachian State University, and Wofford University. Travis is a current world champion in powerlifting and has held the all-time pound-for-pound world record. He was also an Olympic hopeful in weightlifting and was recruited for the U.S. men’s bobsled team. Having been a world champion, Travis is able to share his champion mentality with his athletes and non-athletes alike. In this episode, the Shrugged crew takes a deep dive in the link between weightlifting, speed, mechanics and hot to create world class speed, power, and strength, Minute Breakdown: 1-10 The hotbed for speed and athleticism in Miami makes you a great coach 11-20 Why lower volume is the key to top performance 21-30 Believing in athletes and keeping their mindset positive 31-40 Fixing disfunction in elite athletes 41-50 The intersection of speed and strength 51-60 The importance of the big toe 61-70 - Focusing on the main thing and training for the sport you are going to be great at. Specificity vs general training. Connect with Coach Kav Connect with Travis Mash Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram Please Support Our Sponsors Savage Barbell Apparel - Save 25% on your first order using the code “SHRUGGED” Organifi - Save 20% using code: “Shrugged” at organifi.com/shrugged WHOOP - Save $30 on 12 or 18 month membership plan using code “SHRUGGED” at checkout One Ton Challenge  Find your 1rm in the snatch, clean, jerk, squat, dead, bench.  Add them up to find your One Ton Total.  The goal is 2,000 pounds for men and 1,200 for women. “What is the One Ton Challenge” “How Strong is Strong Enough” “How do I Start the One Ton Challenge”

Podcaster friends, I'm going to be in Lake Tahoe. You should come hang out with me at the Spartan World Championships. 2019 Spartan World Championships in Lake Tahoe. We're going to Squaw Valley Resort. And there is a three-day media fest going on. Inviting all of the podcasters. We're all going to sit there on microphones and talk to each other. Create all the content you could ever imagine with all the coolest people.

And guess who's hosting the event? Me! Barbell Shrugged, Anders Varner. That's me. You should come hang out. Jump in the old Google machine and Google Spartan World Media Fest. All you need to do is RSVP. Say you're with Anders Varner at Barbell Shrugged, and you're going to get special treatment, which is pretty cool.

I don't know what that special treatment is, but I'm going to be hosting all kinds of panels. Spartan is Spartan up podcast is hosting a bunch of panels. We've got tons of experts coming in that want to talk to you and be on your show. And I highly recommend getting out there. If you have any questions, just slide into my DMS, ask away, and I will get you all the information that you can so head over to at Anders Varner and you can come ask me anything you want about Spartan Media Fest but get RSVP September 26 27 and 28 and we're all going to run the race together 13 to 17 miles something like that depending upon the course you can do it all with all your podcast friends which is super cool

I want to thank our sponsors today. Organifi. Get over to Organifi.com forward slash shrugged. As always, save 20% on the green, the red, the gold juices, the proteins. They've got some probiotics. All the delicious things for your health. Organifi is such a rad company, and we've been working with them for the last two years. There's a reason.

It's because you drink it, I drink it. We all love the green, the red, and the gold. Sunrise to sunset, the shrugs stack. It's because you drink it, I drink it. We all love the green, the red, and the gold. Sunrise to sunset, the Shrugged stack. It's 20% off. Go to Organifi.com forward slash Shrugged. And also, I want to thank our friends at Whoop. I was just up there last week in Boston, hanging out in Whoop. It looks like Facebook took over the fitness world. That's what it looks like. I walked into a back room and there was algorithms written on a whiteboard for heart rate variability, daily strain, all this crazy stuff. The lady walked over to me and she goes, can I help you with anything? I just – in the most dumbfounded face you've ever seen in your life. I was like, very rarely do I choke on my own tongue when someone starts talking to me. I was so confused, so blown away by what's going on at WHOOP. Just, they're phenomenal. I love them. And then we got to go on a tour of Red Sox, Fenway Park.

So thanks, Mikey. Mike Testa, God, crushed it. But WHOOP, they're so phenomenal. We've been up there twice now. I hung out with Kelsey Keel. She watched me lift weights. She was wildly unimpressed. And then I checked my daily strain and my heart rate was higher than normal because Kelsey Keel was watching me. There's a lot of pressure that goes along with

that. Thanks to Whoop, now I know I was nervous. Get over to whoop.com, W-H-O-O-P.com. Use the coupon code shrugged at checkout. You're going to save $30 on a 12 or 18 month subscription. And that's awesome. Whoop.com forward slash shrugged. Use the coupon code. Actually, it's just Whoop.com, not forward slash shrugged. Whoop.com, W-H-O-O-P.com. Use the coupon code Shrugged to save $30 on a 12 or 18month subscription. On the show today, Coach Cav, Travis Mash. Coach Cav is a really badass track coach. We were down in Jamaica with him. He's actually coaching a couple Olympians right now from Jamaica.

I don't want to say their names because it's top secret, but they're really fast. You've seen them on TV. And we sat down and talked about what being a world-class track athlete, how to coach the best in the world, and a lot of the systems that he implements into his training, it's very cool to get down and see track coaches do their thing. We spend a lot of time in gyms, and we don't ever really see how strength and conditioning is applied across many different sports outside of like CrossFit, weightlifting, powerlifting. And Coach Mash was down there.

He was coaching weightlifting to sprinters. I got to see sprint coaches. I got to watch people getting out of the blocks. Just super cool. And, um, you know, get over to stronger experts.com, um, project stronger Jamaica. You can help support the project and the kids down there in Jamaica. Um, let's get into the show friends. J-Cav. J-Cav. Welcome to Marble Shrugged Up. I'm Anders Varner, Doug Larsen, Justin Cavanaugh, Coach Cav, and our boy Travis Mash. We are pretty much poolside. We're at the bar next to the pool in beautiful Kingston, Jamaica.

Our boy Phil Tremblay over there with the phone getting us on the stories invited us down here. He owns Stronger Experts and we are down here helping the fastest or the fast get faster, the strong get stronger. That's why Coach Cav and Travis Mash are in the house and that's what we're going to talk about today. So you have been in the sprint game for a long time, talking to Coach Cav here, and you've been in the weightlifting world. You were just, we're just going to say you're the best weightlifting coach in the sprint game for a long time, talking to Coach Kav here, and you've been in the weightlifting world. You were just, we're just going to say you're the best weight lifting coach in the country. You just left nationals. You were at Pan Ams. You had best female and best male lifter. And I have never sat in and listened to an actual track speed coach

talk about speed. It's beautiful. Until this trip. Until this trip. And I've been just blown away. I mean, we've been sitting at the track and watching people get better every single time they leave the blocks and it's been pretty awesome. And in that I've been writing notes and trying to get to the bottom of what the hell goes on in your world. Well good because I got notes on you running too. I saw that. We got video. But before we get into like how we develop these athletes and how the weightlifting world and the speed world kind of meet in the middle to create these athletes, what's a little bit of your background and where did you get your start finding fast people and making them ridiculously fast? Well, it's really easy to find fast people when you're born in Miami.

Born and raised in Miami, five-sport athlete. I played pretty much anything I could get my hands on. It was really simple. It was like get a job, you know, do dumb shit or play sports. Right. And I didn't like getting beat by my parents. So I chose not to do dumb shit and I didn't like the working aspect. So I decided to play sports, but I love the competitive aspect. Yeah. So I believe like everything's a fight, you know, even if it's for yourself or against somebody else. What five sports? What for me oh football soccer track baseball and i wrestled yeah yeah so basically i was like average in everything uh and my job

every day was just like to suck a little less pretty much which is what i do with most of the general athleticism that's a that's a good one though yeah i mean it's i think the key part is like to figure out something that you're good at and then what like for me it was always like it's i always got to be doing something that's competitive. But the most important thing for me primarily was, like, once I realized that I couldn't be the best at something, I was done, right? So, and I realized that, you know, those other sports that I played, enhanced qualities in an area that was my primary.

So football was my primary, wrestling was my primary, but track enhanced football, right? You know, soccer enhanced, you know, the relationships I have because I did it primarily with my brother. Yeah. And I realized that there was some aspect of the sport that allowed me to become better at what I really wanted. Right.

So I worked in parallel, even though that I had a priority. So my priority was football, was wrestling, and those other things allowed me the opportunity to get better. And I looked at it that way. Yeah. Because it sucks losing. I don't give a shit what anyone says. If you're just in it to play, then don't tell me you're competing.

It's fun when you like to win, but losing sucks. And don't come to me to get coached. Yeah, I just not. I say this all the time. I'm the most selfish coach in America because I really only care about my athletes, and I only care about the women. If you don't want to be with me if you don't believe my

methods work that's fine i have no i have no opinions about that i really don't care i know what i do has worked it's worked for 17 years and the reality of it is is like hey i'll leave that up to my competition because you know you like you say it all the time i'll wave at you on the podium yeah that works really well right and when you win you have a lot of people that don't like what you do because you're beating them yeah that's fine so is that is why you think you're so controversial like you you produce results but people can't explain it or why why are you controversial i think because it's like if you're like in the fitness space like i think people get into fitness right for a lot of reasons they get into it because they you know they want their their brother their their cousin

to get better or like they got into because someone had high blood pressure or if it's a lifestyle thing or confidence like i got into sports to compete right yeah so i'm controversial because it is a competition and i'm going to be better than you and i know a lot of people don't like that because everyone wants to get along like i don't want to get along on game day i'll be your best friend during whatever but i don't want to get along and get i want to beat your ass like i'm sorry but like who gives a shit so you know i think that there's an ethical way that we could compete and make sure that is a uneven playing field yeah ethically i don't know i'm not asking like for you to break the rules but i'm gonna i'm gonna tote that line in every possible way to tap into human performance and

for me if that's part of the mental game that's part of training but that means everything i do needs to actually have an impact to transfer. And if it doesn't have an impact to transfer to sport, then I'm just fucking wasting time. And to me, you know, at some point that's almost offensive, right? Because I don't want to count reps, right? I want to make sure that everything I do works. So for me, everything has been an aggressive learning opportunity for when I failed. And then it's a matter of like, all right, we talked about this, Travis.

I can't see what you see on the Olympic lifting side. I'll never be able to see that. And, yeah, you probably aren't going to see what I see on the speed side with athletes. But I know one thing. If I could borrow your eyes for a little bit on the lifting side, my athletes are going to get better. So all of a sudden, I'm going to get a little secret weapon over here. I'm going to leverage that to my athletes, and I'm going to be okay with it because my athlete's goal is my agenda.

Same as I'm going to do with my strength and conditioning athletes. I already texted Tate and Cam. I hope they listened to it. I told them, I can't wait to get home and use what I'm learning from you to help them. They're football players. They've already been – they're freshmen. Both of them have already been offered the one offer.

So when you say freshman football players, you mean like those are the freaks you were showing me? Yeah. Okay, I just want to establish that. So like you said, there's football players and then there's freaks that you were showing me. These boys are freaks, yeah. That's when I established that. Amazing. And they lift at the same time as my weightlifters, which I think is a great opportunity for them

because, you know, when you're in football, you might think that a 300 clean is good. And so they see their peer Morgan doing 412 pounds. They're sort of like, all right, 300 is what I have to do. Dude, the freakiest part of Morgan, he's been 15 for like three years. At least. That's amazing. You know, I love playing into that whole thing. No.

Nobody believes it. No, I know. You know, literally he turned, and like one month later, someone already started that. He's been 15 for a year. I'm like, bro, he literally just turned 15. We were just down there. He looks like a baby.

He's got no chest. He's got no, like, no abs. He's just a freak. He's just got hips. So imagine what happens when his balls drop. He turns into a dude. A little teenager. When he sits at the dinner, his hair is like in his face.

He's 15. Yeah. He's 100% 15. From the waist down, he's 25. Waist up, he's 12. Yeah. So when we – I mean, you guys are – like you said, you're not really interested in like the fitness scene and making people healthier even though health has a lot to do with performance.

Absolutely. But when you're building rapport and some kid walks in, you're like, oh, wow, you're going to be world class one day. How do we start building that relationship with them? You spent a lot of time yesterday when you just met these kids in Jamaica and we're talking about kids that are running the 100 and sub-11, trying to make them the fastest in the world. You talked a lot about kind of making them comfortable around you

and also poking a lot of buttons of making them comfortable around you and also poking through poking a lot of buttons and seeing how they react to you where their confidence is what is that approach when you're starting to work with new athletes and you know telling the fact that world-class athletes or the future world-class athletes have confidence issues and things like that and really building kids up through your coaching absolutely I think it's with everything so I mean I'll address one thing like I got my career started because of trust I mean I wasn't good at what I did when I started I got thrown into it I didn't say I'm just one day I'm gonna wake up and be a coach I got forced into it early on

you know so before I was ready but at that point like what are you gonna do you know someone's counting on you and their career their life is based upon the fact that hey cav i trust you you can do whatever you can so for me i believe that you can only really build trust if you live in a state of truth so in order to do that i have to make you comfortable around me to where you feel like i you know this guy and hey we're in jamaica let's just be honest i'm a i'm a bald old white dude, right? And they're the fastest country in the world. Exactly. It's like, okay, cool. We're on Usain Bolt track talking to kids,

and then there's just me saying that this guy is going to help you. They have no idea who I am. So I have to, number one, get them to understand, like, hey, I've got to get them a little comfortable, and maybe that's just speaking their language a little bit. One thing I really liked about your approach, too, was it wasn't like you just went in and started dropping names. I see a lot of coaches do that when they come in.

It's like I've coached this, this, this, and this. He can easily say it. Yeah, and yours isn't. At no point did any of that come up. The thing is, at this point in my career, frankly, I have enough of those names that I've either developed from their eighth graders now in the NFL draft to guys that I've had you know you know when they were younger and now all of a sudden they're in the pros and in a

different sport to kids that come to me after their career or in different stages of their career to transition to really get the growth of the gap that they didn't have so I have those names but at this point it becomes a douche right like you just really want to have another name dropper what can I do for you? And if you're not selfish as an athlete, then, then, then I don't want to work with you anyways. So I want to start the conversation with like, I'm here for you. And it's, it's, I live in a world where the athlete's goal is my agenda. And anyone that gets in that way is a problem for me and including the parent, the coach, or the, the freaking handle, which we have to deal

with a lot in all of our sports politics. But number one, I want to make sure that kid's somewhat comfortable. And then number two, again, deliver your truth. I got to make them uncomfortable as possible. And I want to do that, but not like, I don't want to jab them. I want to give them the fucking right hook quick. And I want to get them like, oh, I didn't expect that. Because when you're kind of off your toes a little bit and it's unexpected, that's when you become real.

So I want to really hit you immediately where it hurts, find out how that kid's going to respond in an uncomfortable situation. And pretty much, that's going to tell me how to start. It might not tell me what's going to happen later down the line, but it's going to tell me what's going to happen with that kid from a personality standpoint. Multiple steps down the line. Just a couple hours with them, we've watched some of the kids make a huge transition in their confidence i mean the kid that i was working with akeem today yeah i'm working with i was standing on his block so he didn't blow it out

the back but without you standing on his box they would have slipped and i want you to know that you should get credit right because a lot of coaches like if they just touch somebody they were the reason why they're successful let's establish that but you could see his face just slowly build this confidence, this big smile when he's walking back to the blocks. A lot of times we, as coaches, think that making kids uncomfortable means we have to beat the shit out of them and find out where their physical threshold is. And that's really not the answer for developing world-class athletes.

We've been talking about how little volume there actually has been with these kids trying to find top speed. Like yesterday was, what, three sprints or something. It wasn't much at all. I think a total of six. Yeah. Three at one distance. It was like three at 200, three at 120 or something, 150, 120.

Yeah, and then we pulled them in at 80 and stuff just to see them go. But the overall volume, and, like, we think as coaches, like, I'm going to make you uncomfortable. No, he's just messing with them a little bit. And he shakes them back. Like, today you said something to Williams, you know, Uncle Williams. Well, we got one of the kids who's one of the older guys in the group, and he's not old by any means,

but he has a sense about him that he's got to be the older guy, and he's like this a certain way. And you have kids here that are 15, 16, 17, and they're running, you know, they're on the projector to be at that level. And he understands his window is a little closer, right? So it's like, hey, your new nickname is your Uncle Williams, man, your old man. But what are you doing? I mean, you're training 15-year-olds.

You've got two best weightlifters in the country. You've got 15-year-olds. Ryan Grimsland is also a youth number one in the world. 17, 17, 23, 25. It's a really sensitive time to be poking at kids in a way. Like you're their coach, and there's a fine line between really, in a way, like hammering that confidence that they need to be building and kind of going too far.

Yeah, I'm just trying to like find out where I stand. That's where we're trying to do like brett bartholomew you know trying to find out each person's little archetype you know so like that's what i'm trying to do i'm sure it's what he's trying to do and that way i can like figure out what i need to do to get through to my athletes the most like i don't coach any of my athletes the same like hannah my 15 yearyear-old girl, totally different. Yeah. Always positive, always loving. You know, like Ryan, I probably, you know, poke and prod Ryan more than even Morgan. And so, like, we just have that relationship. Morgan, super positive, you know.

I joke with him a little bit, but, you know. Yeah. You know, more positive, talking about world records. Yeah. Tends to work for him. When you're kind of like the kid we were, Uncle William. Who's Jack? Who's this?

Yeah, I mean, when that guy walks. Well, by the way, strength doesn't really help for speed. Well, he just blew everyone away, right? He's like fucking walking around with like a six-pack and traps and shit. Yeah, well, that's part of it. He walks onto the track and everybody sees like, oh, that's the one. So who's going to take the shot at him? Who's going to knock him down off his pedestal?

You still have to try and rebuild that kid all the time to reinstill that confidence. And I think that was, like, beautifully done today, yesterday, to, like, how do you, you know, there's little tricks that you're doing as a coach, like, with their start times and and cadence that you're throwing at them to well i was i was screwing with them a little bit you know i mean of course if i see somebody who's a little antsy at the line and i know that like i want to get those other kids to compete that are a little bit more calm i'm gonna i'm gonna go ahead and

adjust the cadence to set it up i want to i want to set it up to where it's not fair because i want that kid who's always learning that's always winning i want to i want to set it up to where it's not fair because I want that kid who's always learning, that's always winning, I want to teach them and have them taste what it's like to lose. But I don't want them to become a baseball player. And I know a lot of people in this podcast are going to hate that for baseball fans. But baseball players know how to lose because they lose all the time. They lose on the mound. They lose, you know, it's 7 out of 10 times.

You freaking hit, you know, 20%, 30% of the time in your career, you're a Hall of Famer. I know. And so that means you learn how to lose. I don't want to teach you how to lose. I don't want you to get comfortable losing at all. Baseball players are a little bit more comfortable than I could handle personally. Right. Right?

So I want them to taste it a little bit. And if I could artificially create that a little bit by getting other people a little bit more confidence, I could start to build that kind of what becomes instead of cockiness, but swag. Right. And that allows them to have confidence, but it's also within clarity too. So if I look at my model for me coaching, if I look at the idea, like it's mind, body, spirit, right? And we understand like the bodies, like train, fuel, recover.

We all have different methodologies and processes in which we go through with our athlete development. But in the mind, right, which I think we're really diving into right now, which I love is I call it the mic, right? If you want to like speak on this mic and you want to be on this platform and share your voice, you have to have a mic. So it's M stands for mastery. And this is at any level. I don't care if you're eight years old, 18, you know, just starting to go through this whole like, you know, qualifying and what this whole process is like, or, you know, 28 and you're trying to like hang on to your career right you have to master something and when i say mastery i'm not talking about dabbing i'm talking about like literally

understanding every little thing about the whole thing so you could self-regulate it and get to the point where you know it before your coach knows it and you could feel it and then you could have that person that really drives you the i stands for image and that's self-image that's the way you view yourself because if you don't view yourself a certain way, then you're always relying on the way someone else views you to build the C, which is your confidence. Confidence is about the way other people view you and still knowing who you are as a man.

And if that's shaken, then you'll lose everything you've ever developed from a mastery standpoint. Because that's just your skill. That's your tactical component. Yeah. I think they were talking about Johohan and like you're saying johan beats you saying and then you're saying starts to like poke and prod and get in a little bit and then that you know it was jay was pretty confident that's exactly what beat you know blake is that you know that you're saying stole his heart and just get you know he would like eat something and saying would be like oh why are you eating that, man?

And then he said Yohan would just drop his head. And those things, like those subtleties, right, we do it every day and we don't know it. But I think more importantly, right, it's other people competing with you because those are teammates and they're doing it in a lot of ways to, like, rub elbows and do that stuff, but they're all trying to get in your heads. Here's the worst part. They're trying to win, too, whether or not. So here's the thing. So here's the thing. Are but they're all trying to get in your heads here's the worst part trying to win too exactly or not but so here's the thing so here's the thing are you willing to let someone else get in your head no or are you more interested on the person

who's talking to yourself what about the six inches between your own ears because i'll tell you right now these kids that have confidence problems and the kids that don't know who they are and they talk shit about themselves they don't think they're good enough man if i talk like that to somebody else the way I talk to myself, I'm about to get in a fight. Think about it. Imagine the people that are going through, whether it be depression or the people that are not having the confidence when they grab a barbell

because they're not sure what they did in the training. The stuff that they told themselves from a self-doubt standpoint, if you told that to somebody else, man, you're in a street fight. And if you're not, you're just soft. You might as well just quit right now uh well a lot of that stuff brings up what this this term that you were talking about the athlete's signature and the way that they are the way that they carry themselves and how they express their their natural athleticism that kind of that that talent that's in inside them and our ability as coaches to just let them go be them and shed all

the shit that goes on in between their brain or what they're dealing with outside and just let them go how do we get to that point where we can just say go like what is that athlete signature we want we want to extract athleticism as every every second that we can right and the only way to do that the only way to do that in my opinion is have a strong awareness of that athlete but we can't do that if we force our biases as a coach onto that athlete like i'm this way therefore he has to be this way or i'm this way therefore he has to kind of be the opposite right yin and yang you have to like truly be able to assess who that athlete is what pushes

them what drives them right and then you have to know who you are as a coach, and you have to be able to play that kind of, like, game back and forth, right, with them to adjust. Because if you don't, now all of a sudden you're really holding that kid back. Now there's a way to, like, periodize peaking to where you could, like, hold them back for performance. But if we're going to hold it back, we want to load it. We don't want to just hold. We don't want a brick on our ankles. We want a rubber band. We want to pull that thing back, we want to load it. We don't want to just hold. We don't want a brick on our ankles.

We want a rubber band. We want to pull that thing back, load it, load it, load it, and then slingshot it because when it's ready. So a coach that's constantly razzing these kids and being a certain way, and they're like, oh, man, Coach Kaz is super hard, or like, man, Travis has just basically shit on me these last couple weeks. Like, what's going on? I can't really get my clean.

And then all of a sudden, Coach goes up to him and goes, holy shit, man, I've never seen that shit move that fast before. Look at the gym wear. Look at this number. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Then all of a sudden, that's artificially infusing confidence. And this kid's over there like at the block saying, listen, nobody could beat me. I could run my race.

When you run other people's races, when you run other people, like, you know, you guys are in the CrossFit space, which, you know, you want to have a fun conversation. Let's go there. But if you're in that space, you want to really know how to lose CrossFit right now and get hurt? Run somebody else's race. You'll get hurt right now. Because there's somebody that's better than you in an aspect of that WOD. There's somebody that's better than you in an aspect of that race, whether it be the start or whether it be the transition.

Whether it be the mental game. So how do you do that? How do you get that out of the athlete? Right? Number one is you better assess yourself as a coach. Right? And not put your agenda on the kid. And then number two, and when I say kid, I'm talking about millionaires.

That's the crazy part. Because they might be kids, but they're millionaires. Right. Yeah. Let's put that. So they don't even know how to handle the maturity of the finances. And that's another stress on their life because there are a whole bunch of people around them that want something from them. Right.

Right. And then what I want to do is i want to pull that thing i want to pull that rubber band back load load load load load and when i get to let it go i infuse it with confidence i infuse it with technique i infuse it with a level of mastery where nothing could shake them when it matters yeah because i want to shake the shit out of them in training well you have like your when we were hanging out at mashley performance it sounds weird saying your name and all of it at the same time um but yeah when we were in winston-salem like the community you've created is i mean it's just filled with love yeah like the the training

hall in there like everybody is just so on the same page it's like yeah which is something they've created here in a way with everybody sleeping in bunk beds together. I know, I love that. There's a super cool vibe with the guys. But creating that vibe that everyone is driving in the same direction and we're all here supporting each other takes a lot of love to build that culture within your space. Well, you've got to get them to trust you.

You know, that's a key. Like, as soon as the athlete trusts you as a coach, you you know then you can really make some good leaps and jumps in their training and letting them be confident in their movement patterns in the in their abilities you know then you can do things like we had um it was when meredith owen was going against uh kate and maddie and uh she missed her last warm-up pretty bad pretty badly i'm like oh perfect you saved your energy you're looking great today yeah deep down I'm like, oh, perfect. You saved your energy. You're looking great today. Deep down, I'm like, oh, shit.

And she believed me. She was like, oh, okay. And she goes out there and smashes it. Or like when Hunter hits that 121 at the AO3 to make the world team, she missed her last two warm-ups. I'm like, ah, you're good. You're good. You look fine.

You're just rough back here. You'll do great on the platform. Deep down, I'm like, you're good. You look fine. You're just rough back here. You'll do great on the platform. Deep down, I'm like, we're screwed. But we've developed trust. And so if she believes me, then she's like, okay. And she goes out there and crushes it. So once they're confident in their movement and their abilities, they trust you that you're in their corner

and that everything you've done has led them to this point, you can get away with a lot. And that trust that they have in you as a coach comes from the work that you put on with them oh yeah you know way before when you need it right so you gotta be able to pull that back and then use it when you need it use it only when you need it you know in practice when they miss like that you're like all right let's chill but then you save it for that big event where we can't chill we don't have that option it's time to go and you're like oh, oh, you look great.

You saved your energy. Yeah. I mean, you guys are working together right now. You're a world-class speed guy. You're a world-class strength guy. Right. Regarding speed specifically, I'd imagine a point of diminishing returns with just getting stronger and stronger and stronger.

But you certainly need to be strong to be fast at some level. How do you know when strength specifically is the problem? So, I mean, it's a great question. And I think that the most important thing is to understand that there's phases of sprinting, right, that need more strength than in others. And one of the things that people need to understand is the fact that, you know, sprinting is not a mass sport. Like, I'm a football guy, right?

Well, the bigger, the stronger, the faster the guy is going to win, right? You know, 150, 175 pounds hits me, I'm 240. Like, it's not, I don't care how fast you are. You're going to hit, yeah, it's not going to feel good for you. Just look at the guy that ran into Arnold Schwarzenegger last week. Did it feel good for him? Fucking bounced off a seven-year-old. Why?

He looked like a fly. It was like something bit him. He was just like, oh, shit. Like, what was that? Everything okay? Arnold was like, what happened? It was like some kid drop kicked himself. Yeah.

Then a 300-pound monster fucking swarmed that kid. He's like, I'm going to teach you a lesson. I wonder if that kid's still alive. Size matters. I think that dude just disappeared. But look at the quality. If you think about it, let's just be very frank here. If another person Arnold's age gets hit like that,

you're talking about potential surgery like or dead no i'm serious like that's a serious issue so we talk about strength not being a a factor for long-term health like something is missed out like people die when they start to like atrophy that's basically what happens to muscle this happens to the body so there's a lot of like validity and just understanding the value of strength from a human health standpoint. From a performance standpoint, there's aspects of sprinting that need more strength than others. Track is not a mass sport. It's a point A to point B, right?

And if weight is going to slow us down, then it's a problem. So at any point that strength does not produce speed, it's a problem. But at any point that an athlete is not able to maintain a posture that is able to develop that's able to produce power on the track there's probably a lack of strength quality that is needed so for instance i identify energy leaks on the track i identify where their posture breaks down because joint joint position dictates muscle function and if they can't get in the proper joint position on the track because they lack the strength to support it, we need to fix it in the weight room. And if we don't, then what happens is we're now trying to overcoach a cue that is never

going to fix it at full speed. Because they don't have the strength to fix it. You're asking to put a kid in a technical position that his body can adequately support. Like this kid right now, we can't put him in the blocks at the angle we want today we had a kid he's a he's a great kid i love him but at the end of the day like we can't get him to do what i wanted him to do today so i had to kind of like work him back and go okay now there's a training process right so i got to put him in a technique today that i know needs to change over time the technique actually needs to change because he doesn't have the adequate technique he doesn't have the adequate strength

to support that technique you know martin rooney used to talk about, do you know him? Yeah, Martin's awesome, dude. Yeah, he lives in North Carolina. So he was talking about the five keys of speed, you know, one being technique, obviously, number one. Number two is relative strength. Number three, then, is absolute strength, coming after relative strength because relative strength's not there.

Absolute is irrelevant. And then it's confidence, and I forget the fifth one, but those are four. Anyway, oh, mobility. You've got to say it like Martin, too. You're like, number one is this. Number two is this. It will change your life. No, Martin's awesome.

Then you've got to go, rawr. But if you look at Martin's athletes, I don't care what anyone says. If you look at Martin's athletes over the years, they look good. Yeah. They look fast. And I'll tell you what. It's really easy to identify speed when you look at it. When you see it, you're like, wow.

I don't care what the clock says. That looks good. It will be good on the clock. Just like Williams. Yeah. Looking bad. A bad lift is a bad lift. Right.

You might muscle that up, but the joints won't be able to support that long term. You're not going to muscle up much. Yeah. But you could muscle up 70%, 80% of your max. Could you muscle up a world record? No. That's the problem. So if you're trying to be world class and you're trying to break records,

then cut the bullshit that bad technique is acceptable in your life. Right. And that's the same thing on the track that it is in the weight room. Martin used to say, Steve, I'm curious what you think here. He used to tell me that a pull-up is a great way to judge relative strength. It's a fantastic way. And actually, you know, Martin's chin-up test is actually one of the tests that I could use to identify how well they understand how to use their entire body in sprinting. People don't know this because Martin's really devoted his life now to really helping the general population and kind of grow and build confidence with training for warriors.

But Martin's one of the best speed coaches in my opinion that are out there i really don't weigh too much we got i was a little pissed i thought that you know part of my thing with travis is like all right i want to fuck up this meathead a little bit let's have some conversation i know he started talking about the hip thrust we'll get there we'll get there well that's dumb everyone listen everybody makes mistakes in life you can't all be perfect i mean it's i don't want to say that. I like Brett. I'm just going to leave it alone.

We'll come back. Yeah, we'll come back to it. Hey, respect the person. Just not the lift. So taking really good athletes to being great athletes, take someone who's a 10-6, you're trying to get them down to sub-10. In your experience, what are the most common things that are the issue with getting to sub 10

from someone who's already pretty damn fast? If you're sub 11, you're pretty fast. But sub 10 is world class. How do you get somebody to that next level? I'm going to use the acronym F.A.S.T. I learned this from Jim Quick, and I just applied it. He does a lot of memory coaching. I just applied it to speed.

So it's like you've got to think fast. Number one F is forget. You've got to forget everything you know currently about speed because if you go into there with a bias, you're now bringing all your baggage, right? To uncoach a kid is really hard, right? The A is for attitude, right? You've got to make sure that you come in and you approach it with a good attitude. Because if you're not having fun, like if you saw those kids, they started to change the minute they had a better attitude.

And the S stands for state. The state can't be changed unless you address the attitude, right? So the S is for state. The state can't be changed unless you address the attitude, right? So the S is for state. You got to get them in a state that is ready, both from a warmup standpoint, physiologically, and also from a mental standpoint, right? And the T is for timing. And this is what's interesting, right? Training wise, it's all about timing. It's all about dose. So we might be able to have a great program, but if we deliver it at the wrong time, that's a problem. In most cases, these kids get hurt before they could actually reach their full potential. Hey friends, we're going to take a quick break. Want to thank our friends over at Savage Barbell. Savage Barbell has been the official apparel

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Save 25% on all or on your first purchase. We're going to get back to the show. Thank you. I think it's interesting that we learned this weekend that most athletes in high school aren't near as good. The ones who aren't near as good end up being the Olympic champions, except for a few anomalies. But most of the ones who are actually winning, they end up not.

But from what I've heard and listening, it sounds like really what happens is they just, you know, they beat themselves up so early they get injured. It's not that they couldn't have gone on to be amazing. It's just, you know, you wore them out and then they're done. Well, it's part of the process too, right? Like they, here, champs is their Super Bowl. Yeah. And then no one cares what happens to them after high school. True.

And you guys want to get them to the Olympics. I mean, these kids, there's so much talent. There's a 12-year gap in those two numbers. There's so much talent at Champs that is being destroyed. And it's not meant that it's like Champs is bad because it's a cultural thing and we like that idea, right? Like high school football matters, right? You're not going to get paid, but high school football matters.

But again, there's so many athletes. Always to the local high school. Yeah, there's so many athletes that, you know, what next in line? Like the guy that knows himself will learn how to navigate the environment to win. So in this situation, there's so much cultural pressure around speed, right, and around like what matters to them, which is champs. And if you think about it, right, in the last ten years,

sprinting in Jamaica has been the same three to five guys. Name somebody else. Can't do it. I only got two. And guess what? I got three. Safa Powell, Johan Blake, and then saying you're saying and and yes guess what they still have to run like a four by four and a four by one and we don't know the other guy and it's not that he's not fast he's real fast but guess what there's probably been a whole bunch of talent underneath those guys that

have basically tried to chase the guy at their peak when they're not ready yet so instead of them being a slingshot and pulling back they've been a brick on their leg so they try to do too much too soon and that's the timing side of both program design right and from the training that they need so for me one of the things i really like to do is like some kids get strong too soon right or they get strong in the wrong area and what i think would be more williams yeah can't move his upper body this is a great example of like how poor programming he a kid still likes to be in the weight room right but poor programming is now making your job a little harder right so now you know what we're going to

do over the next couple days with you and the program is going to change that kid tremendously just because of his mobility and the positioning and the balance components of his upper body it's going to be rough because he's got some major dysfunction. And those ankles, I don't know. I mean, like, you can improve it, but you're never probably going to get that kid optimal. And that's the thing is there is inefficient, there's, like, deficient where now we have a problem,

and there's optimal performance. He walks on his toes. And he walks on the side of his feet. What is that? Like, not pronated. It's his version. So he's basically rolling on the outside. And when you look at, like, a run like that, well, it's interesting because his contact point is bigger, right?

So we're getting into, like, the technical components of speed, right? When the foot is turned out, right, you're in a more power position, right? Let's just talk about, like, lifting, right? Would you want your athletes, your lifters to be on the inside balls of their feet? Definitely not. I mean, that's going to be a really bad thing for that day. I really want them personally to be talking about grounding, like, you know, digging in.

I love it. Dive into it. Like, tell me more. So, like, instead of, like, really pushing out, like you might have heard at Westside Barbell, like we don't talk about that because that's going to cause, you know, not valgus but varus, you know, varus. Varus.

I don't know how everyone would pronounce it. Sounds better the way you do it, though. Varus. I'm not French.. Varus. I don't know how to pronounce it. Sounds better the way you do it, though. Varus. I'm not French. It's exotic. I'm not French. But, you know, so it causes other problems. Could you shave and just do the French mustache?

Varus. I hope my wife's listening. She's right down there. She's down there shaking her head. So, but, like, you want to, like, grab the ground with your feet and, like, you know, take your, you know, your big toe, little toe, and, like, dig it. Like, pretend you're rooted in the ground,

and then you, instead instead you torque out. And you want to create that rotation, which creates torque. Even though you're not moving, that torque gets driven all the way up into the hip and allows your hips to come up and forward, right? Right. Great. So we agree on this, which is good. Again, another thing that pisses me off because I want to argue with you.

See, you said we started the whole thing about Cav being controversial. This sucks. Give me somebody who's dumb. You know, get more dumb. You're controversial amongst bad coaches. I agree. I'm kind of the soft. The two.

So, like, the two together. So, I believe in, like, if I was teaching a kid how to squat, right, which, again, is kind of almost offensive that I'm doing it with him on the platform. But if I'm telling a kid to put his foot on the ground, I want him to grab the ground, and I want him to pretend he's on a plate, and I want him to pretend to spin. But that spinning of the plate, I want him to pretend to spin but that that that spinning of the plate i want to create tension all the way from that foot like the

whole foot too not just like a piece of it all the way up and then let the hip come forward as you come up so anyways that is great for power but in speed that is a large surface right if i was trying to strike the ground if i want to break the glass right i want to use a center punch i want to use just a pinpoint so that when you strike the ground you strike the ground on the outside part of the midfoot you curl your foot underneath and then you toe off but if your foot is out why then because he's doing exactly that so he's that's how he's learning how to generate force the problem is he's in such external rotation it's a wide base so he's doing it right but he's releasing

the tension through the foot instead of through the big toe so with programming we could probably help get more internal rotation correct and make him neutral and if you look at the start a lot of people will teach like when you push a prowler right or you push a sled forward they're trying to like drive the knee move that knee straight and you see the kid's knee move in then up well here's the problem with that when you move the the knee straight forward, right, you want the adductor to actually pull it forward and then move the knee up. And that allows it to drive back. So that's the speed out of the gate. If you look at the best athletes, when you watch them front on, because we're talking about, you know, coaching perspective now, right?

So I think when you coach somebody, there's three things you need. You need, number one, perspective, coach's eye. You need attention. You need to be able to have that communication, that clarity in conversation. And then you need to have direction, clearly, concise, deliver what you need. You need, number one, perspective, coach's eye. You need attention. You need to be able to have that communication, that clarity in conversation. And then you need to have direction, clearly, concise, deliver what you want. In order for me to see something, I need a perspective of forward on that athlete in order to see this. So I want the knee to come in and then forward, crossing the midline, meeting it, and then driving straight back. Now, once the leg gets into a elliptical motion, meaning that the body and the hip is transitioning,

that's when it's actually completely straight and there's a true elliptical motion. But in acceleration, that knee comes in and then forward. So we do want to create a little bit more of that internal rotational strength. But what's going to create that extension is the glutes. And that's what happens. He's using more of that, but he's also using so much in his back. And we want to make sure that he learns how to, instead of release that tension by spinning his foot, because we don't want that foot to move when it's on the ground.

We want that tension to go back into the ground. The track could punch us, or we could punch the ground. Which one? And what happens is when his ground contact time is so long, the track's punching him. Because all that energy is going back into his body and releasing through his spine, and all those different facet joints are moving. Versus an athlete that's now running on top of the track versus running on the track. And wouldn't you say when it's externally rotated like that, too,

it's going to slow the whole process of bringing the recovery phase. The hip extension back and the length of the cycle. Yeah, because the glutes can't release, which is what you want. Like weightlifting, you want to create force, release, create force, release. And it's like sprinting is like a strobe light. It's on and off as fast as you can. It's like, right? It's turning things on and off.

So you have to learn to like punch and relax, punch and relax, right? So that's all you're doing. So if you think about like sprinting is literally just the upper body punch, right? You're just basically, you know, bringing it forward and then contracting right at the point of contact and then relaxing and bringing it back. But what happens is if there's a different motion every time you do it, just like in the lift, right, now all of a sudden these kids' patterns become problematic. But in sprinting, it's a max effort lift every time they do it. So imagine if your kid's max effort in the gym with a different technique every lift

because you saw it today. They had a different technique every day. Well, that's how we're programming and that's why we're peaking too soon. So that gets into the next point of, like, what's the prescription in the gym when you see i mean yesterday we just do a simple squat test with six different guys we've got six different squats some of them are hyper mobile and their ass goes all the way to the ground you got some kids whose ankles don't move and they can barely get to parallel right yet they're all world class you know or going to be all world class. I would do what they can do.

You know, like, number one, you know, you don't want to, like, these kids are having some major, like, tail tucking going on. And so, like, you know, I don't want to put them at risk in the gym, which is what I told you all yesterday. So, first, don't hurt them. Two, prepare them not to get hurt. And then three is performance. This is the way all good strength coaches do it.

Yeah, but what you say, you say, like, you know, meet them where they are. How many coaches meet kids where they want to be versus where that kid is? And that's why the timing gets all screwed up. I mean, you just like, you know, meet them where they are. How many coaches meet kids where they want to be versus where that kid is? And that's why the timing gets all screwed up. You just said it, like, meet them where they are. And then if you think about it, if you meet a kid where he is and you say this is what you could become, make an individual game plan for that. But stop trying to fit kids into your program. You're breaking them.

And now that kid is a product of the volume of kids through the program instead of the product of the programming itself. Can you provide an example of meeting someone where they're at? That's a great concept, but for someone who's a beginner and doesn't really know what that means, what's a practical example? So if the kid does not have the adequate range of motion in his hip to be able to do something, and then forcing them into your box squat programming is just going to create more issues in the lower back and if a kid we saw today who had very poor ankle mobility yesterday that we were going through in

the new and the squat stuff programming a box squat where you're sitting back versus programming a box squat for exactly so now you're enhancing poor behavior and that movement engram that you're creating is going to be expressed as we about, athlete's signature in every other aspect of their life. And it sure as hell is going to be expressed on the track. So a lot of these kids, they save their legs by walking funny with a different movement. They save their bodies because they have to walk. These kids are walking five miles to the track. Yeah.

Every day. They're sleeping on a piece of plywood. Yep. Right? And the sweetest kids. They're amazing. They get it. But they're also like, hey, they're a little hesitant piece of plywood. Yep. Right? And the sweetest kids. They're amazing. Like, they get it. But they're also like, hey, they're a little hesitant.

Like, who's this dude? Like, this motherfucker's big. He's strong. I feel like we all broke through a little bit today. Yeah. It's such a difference between the first interaction and now day one. Right? What I would do in the gym with that, you know, the guy he's talking about, like, no ankles.

So instead of, like, squatting and putting a bar on his back, I would do split squats, you know, do Mike Boyle's squats. He got you. But I would do, but then I would do goblet squats, and I would only use the box to like say, okay, how low can you go? It's a measurement tool. I don't do the box squats like, you know, like Louie would prescribe. In this instance, I'm not knocking on box squats either,

but, like, you don't want to encourage that terrible ankle mobility. You want them to learn to squat functionally so they can have good mobility. So get them to sit down, you know, like you would in a front squat with a gauntlet squat. But then measure where does he start to have, you know, flexion in the spine. When he does, stop there and you do your range of motion there. But I would also encourage frequency too. Like, you know, if you get them three times, do that three times. And like your body will start to adapt to proper movement patterns.

And then you can bring the box lower, lower, lower, and then you get rid of it. You know, when they can squat, they can squat. But I love too getting into the next stage is like once you've got them developed and you've got that general physical preparedness, you know, maybe they're squatting two times their body weight or whatever it is. But then getting specificity is what uh is what i dig is because you know you look at the joint angles that they do during sprinting and you think about well maybe i don't need to squat full depth maybe sometimes i think we talked about it you know doing once a

week full depth but maybe focusing on velocity but then the other time loading like a higher squat because that's a more to the ankles, which is what you're talking about. Exactly. And then one of the things I think is really unique is the idea that you take a kid, and again, medium where he is, if you have a kid who doesn't have the adequate ankle range of motion and we program box squats,

we're keeping that vertical shin ankle. I know. It's crazy. Exactly. But what happens is the kid's sitting back. We're strengthening the ankle with the vertical shin, right? So it's already stiffening that already going up. We want the first one to go back down on the ground.

Right. So we can't get the range under load, and that's what coaches are trying to do. They feel that we could get you more mobility by squatting you under a heavy load. Load should not dictate rage. Load should not dictate rage. Because if it is, now something's going to break. Yeah, you put them at risk when you've got a dysfunctional movement pattern and you're loading it.

You know, you can use, like, a load is different than, like, going heavy. So using that goblet squat, all it really does is it makes the, you know, spinal extensors, you know, activate. Yeah, but you can't max effort with a goblet squat. So it's a perfect limitation. See, it's a perfect limitation to provide a kid an opportunity to still get the result you want. And when you do split squat work, right,

so I'm not a fan of heavy, heavy split squat work personally. I think that even to call it bilateral is a is a is a misnomer because it's not because you still have you hear that right i mean you call it unilateral yeah i mean yeah do you mean to call it unilaterals is a misnomer because it's still a bilateral load because what we've looked at is if you look at the force on the back foot right there's still 30 percent of that force load on the back foot sometimes more in different ranges so all that's doing is making the athlete right compensate when he gets to a certain range.

So for instance, if I'm putting very little load on my back foot, let's say it's 20% in the down part of the lower part of the split squat. And then as I extend the knee and the hip comes up and the angle opens up and now I don't have the strength there to be able to continue to do that my back leg now puts 50 percent back on that load yeah not to mention like a lot of those high higher loaded unilateral squats ends up as you know such a forward lean of the torso which is definitely not what they're wanting yet yesterday you're talking about they couldn't bring their knees up to optimal level a lot of it is the pelvis position yeah

and so like you're encouraging that bad pelvis when you're really loading that thing. You watch every single, when you see those 400-pound unilateral squats, which is no big deal. I could do that. It's not a problem, but I'm just happy for it. But the problem is that you're...

I like how he says, I could do that. You're also one of the strongest fuckers in the world. That's not fair. Even me. It's like, even me, I could lift that. I'm old. That's cute. It's causing bad movement patterns. And that's where Kelly. Even me. It's like, even me. I could lift that. I'm old. Okay, that's cute. It's causing bad movement patterns.

And that's where Kelly Starrett, we talked about it. When this whole thing happened, I asked him. We talked about it. It's just encouraging. For athletes, that's not good. It's causing a forward lean, more anterior pelvic tilt, and you're causing too much shearing at that sacrum level too. We talked about this. The splaying of the hip and maximally load is just going to open that up

and that's going to loosen the ligaments and tendons that are keeping that together. And that's why you start to deal with hernia issues. So people that maximally load unilaterally in a split squat position, you're going to deal with potentially hernia issues. You're going to deal with low back problems. It's really one of those things like you'll see a lot of SI joint issues. So it's like I always want to look at like, okay, post this awesome programming lift, why are we having problems then?

Because shouldn't that address all of those things the entire time? But if you're dealing with these kids breaking down, right, I mean, you know, we have people that have like a history of these same problems happening with a very low level of performance. Then what that means is we're performing in the gym, not on the competition field. So meeting where they're at is that, is like, you know, kids not ready to squat. I'm not going to have them do full cleans, you know. I might not ever have any of these, you know, at this level, too, they're 19.

And so now, like, you know, the window is, you know, they're like weightlifters. It's not huge. They don't have until they're 40. So I'm like, I'm not going to spend months and months trying to teach them how to snatch full depth or clean full depth. If they naturally get it, perfect. There's some advantages, you know. Right. But, like, just doing, like, a hang clean is great.

Or even, I think for, actually for sprinting, I think cleans from blocks where the bar is at the knee is perfect because it would mimic more of the start out of the game. You were talking about hex bar jumps yesterday, too. Say that again? You were mentioning hex bar jumps yesterday as well. Oh, yeah, I love trap bar, hex bar jumps. There's a lot of studies that show that it might be a little bit better, depending on what we're talking about.

When you're talking about pure force or power development, the trial bar might win. So there's two things that I really want to kind of pick out of what you said. Number one is not putting the athlete at risk, right? Because we want them to run fast. We don't put them at a risk in the weight room, right? If we want them to lift heavy, we have to at least understand that that is their track, right? So it's a little different, but still being safe. And then number two is pulling from a block,

you're simulating the exact static position that they're going to be in this so you could take the joint angle You could strengthen that and all of a sudden the the joint tension if the joint tension line is where you want it to be Now it's about the muscle tendon relationship And if you get the muscle tendon relationship it to where you want to be these guys are gonna be elastic and powerful in the joints So what you need them to be but if weightlifting caught and if you get, so like we had today, we had a kid explosive out of the block, right, on this first step, and then would, like, stumble. And then we had another kid who, I mean, he can't even get out of the gate, and the main reason is because he's so weak statically.

He's cycling. Yeah, he was cycling to get out, mainly because what happens is he needs to change the angle just to support his weight. He doesn't have enough strength to support that first step land and if you don't have enough strength to support that first step land you sure as hell can't push something you can't absorb one of the things that i wanted to think about or like when we think about sprinting it's we're going straight forward sure we're standing in a gym everything's linear we're standing two feet on the ground or even if it's unilateral stuff but we're facing forward right

where does like general athleticism and getting these kids to go and play soccer with their friends or just getting out and playing at the age of, say, 19, when it's time to turn this thing on and make this a pro sport for them, do we want to just be in this lane and let's just stay here? I'm hoping by 19, I mean, we'll see if we agree on this, I'm hoping by 19 that GPP has been done. Yeah. I mean, we can do a little, but they really, specificity.

You think about, okay, it takes this much volume to get them where I want them to go. So, like, when they go play soccer, that is volume. You can't discount that. So, like, I'm hoping by the time they're 19 that they've done a ton of things. Everything's wired. Yeah, like, that's why Morgan has done, I still, I let him do the do the crossfit open last year you know because i want him to develop all of these you know i want him to do all the you know the plane i want the transverse the sagittal the frontal planes but you know when it comes time when it's olympic time which olympics are next year now it's

time to really focus on what you're doing and like you know do i want them out playing soccer and risking injury probably not that's what i'm thinking um and i agree so for me it's really at this point right anything that takes away from our end goal at this point yeah is is a distraction playing soccer maybe just as bad as them like you know you know doing dumb shit on the side yeah seriously it might be just as bad and dancing exactly it might be dancing. Exactly. It might be just as bad. The reason it came up is I was watching these kids, and they're playing around with each other. I still want them to be kids, but at the same time, it's a business, right?

There's a lot of lazy sprinters, and guess what? Those guys don't normally have the medals. Millions behind it. Stay in your lane and go straight. But I do want to bring up this performance point, which is when your foot strikes the ground, there's a lot of lateral stabilizers that are needed. So if you are only working linear, you are missing the component

when the foot strikes the ground and the force that's being produced that is shaking that foot, right? Those are lateral stabilizers. Those are anti-rotators. And if they're not being strengthened, right, that foot's going to collapse. Agreed. And then you won't be able to go linearly because you can't support lateral movement. You spend a lot of time looking at people's feet, touching people's feet.

I do. And the foot is like an amazing piece of machinery. I have questions about that. What else are we running off of? What else is going to really be the first and last thing that strikes the ground? The only other time your hands are on the ground, hopefully, is when you start. Right. Right? I mean, that's it. Or you fail and that strikes the ground. The only other time your hands are on the ground, hopefully, is when you start. Right. Right?

I mean, that's it. So the feet are super flat. Or you fail and that's a wrap. Oh, you're screwed there. Then your face is on the ground. Now you're on ESPN for not the right reasons. I know. That's like Michael Jordan postered.

Right? I always wanted to be in a poster. Not to get dunked on. But what questions do you have about the feet? I mean, I like the feet. I think it's super important. I don't have a foot fetish like some people talk about it. The first one being you talk about kind of how the foot lands,

and we roll to the big toe, and the springiness kind of all. I'm really interested in the big toe is like a giant piece of athletic. That's my first thing. So if you notice, all of these kids have good big toes, all of them. Now what they don't have, they all have pretty good good arches what they don't have is great ankle mobility but in normal or normal meaning not these world-class kids not these kids that are just get it um because what's funny is like some of these kids we look at and like yeah they're they're not that fast they're like mids you know 10 5s but that's today at 16 17 years old but they're so

faster than every nfl. Not that good. You know what I mean? I didn't think that. But, so I think that's interesting because it's like, well, they're still faster than every other sport athlete. Yeah, faster than I ever was. But they all have great big toes and great arches, right?

What they don't have, some of them, is ankle mobility issue. Ankle mobility. They need better range in their ankles. And what you'll normally see is an athlete that has great ankle stuff, but yet he's still having a problem with his feet, he doesn't have a big toe range. So range is the most important thing first, right? And then it's tension.

So I want to look at the big toe, I want to look at the arc in the foot, and I want to look at the ankle. And if they have those three things, man, you're good. What if they don't have an arc? There was a guy, this may be an anomaly, but at Appalachian, a guy ran a 10-200 at flat foot. Skinny flat foot. Ah, see, this gets fun.

So now we're starting to look at the size, right? So skinny flat foot, that athlete is basically going to power through with more range. So if the foot is turned out, right, and you push forward, right, plantar flex, you are, if it's turned out right external rotation and plantar flex versus turned in big off the big toe and plantar flex which one has greater distance covered turn straight straight ahead exactly so a kid that has a narrow foot is like a ski and now becomes a pad that he's smacking on the ground and he's he's storing his energy probably in the big toe and the Achilles

versus in most kids that are more a little bit balanced, they're storing their energy in their arc. So it's contact ground, the front ball of the foot, big toe goes through full range, springs, pushes. Arc stores that energy. Achilles stores that energy, and then it pushes it back into the ground off the big toe. Is there some mild benefit to having maybe not too much range of motion at the ankle where you get that plyometric

effect so i want range but i want the muscle tendon relationships to be right where the the the stretch reflex needs to be so for that athlete we're looking at at that point we're looking at strength and amortization phase as like the quality that i'm assessing at that point so now i'm looking at if a kid has a long ground contact time you know it's normally because he doesn't have the adequate strength but if you're looking at like stiffness stiffness is different than the range of motion right because we're looking at we're looking at two different things we're looking at passively is the joint go through the range of motion versus it being loaded and i want once the athlete is able to load that the tension's where it needs to be to store and then push it back into the ground where we

where we want it which is somebody who's springy and he's got really good stiffness what we talk about what about you know strengthening the foot you know i know you've talked about it it's kind of you say it's overplayed like do you do any yeah so we do a ton of foot strengthening but then there's a point where it now is diminishing returns all right so if you make the foot yeah if you make the so one of the first things that we do is we use toe spacers to really you know make sure that that we are able to get the range that we want and then align the foot a little bit better but what happens is if we live like that we're living with our feet spread now i've never seen a duck run fast yeah so what we're doing is we're taking that webbing and we're moving our feet out, like Vibram Five Fingers.

Yeah. Those are great shoes. I live in them. I love them. They're awesome from a health standpoint. They're great if you're trying to produce power. But if you're trying to produce one of the fastest athletes in the world, every time their foot strikes the ground, it's foot training. Right.

So we have, like, different levels of capacity. And the general population is at a much lower level than these Olympic sprinters. Right. So we have different levels of capacity, and the general population is at a much lower level than these Olympic sprinters. Right. So, again, you're taking away from that. And at that point, if you strengthen the foot to where they could grab and claw the ground, which is great for power, it will diminish the ability for speed because it's going to make a wider base and a wider foot contact. It's going to spread these things back.

If you've ever grabbed a Nike shoe, Nike football shoe you cannot bend it right you ever grab a soccer cleat you could bend it and fold it and do all that stuff which one has more injuries would like for ankles soccer of course because the foots people run and then the foot moves around does that make sense so that's the ability of that so the the shoe I know it's beating up our feet from a health standpoint, but from a performance standpoint, it's protecting you so that you can manage the velocities that you're running in sport and you're cutting. So should you do any kind of, like, just barefoot training?

Absolutely. Yeah, I'm a big fan. I like where you're talking about the isometric, you know, like one-legged stuff, like just bouncing, standing. Tell me more about that because I do a lot of, like, just simply bouncing, standing, like tell me more about that. Because I do a lot of like just simply bouncing, you know, well, through ranges of motion, but like on one leg. Isometrics is what I'm saying. Oh, so isometrics.

So, yeah. So, I mean, if I want to see where an athlete breaks down. Right. So wherever I think that there's a weakness in full speed, I want to slow it down and have them hold that position. Right. Because that's a strength issue. Right.

Right. Because once I strengthen that and there's no weakness to the relative body strength, then I could actually manage the stretch reflex. Then I could actually manage basically the muscle tendon relationship and how far and where I want that. And that comes down to like ranges, exercise lifts like that we choose from a program design point. And that also comes down to like the velocity in which we move those lifts. So the muscle, so speed of movement is super important sounds like you know if you're a strength coach out there that doing some isometric work would really be beneficial for you know sprinting it's

the base of early stage development and it's like not only if there's a weak joint angle there's nothing better in the whole entire world than an isometric contraction stay there and get strong to strengthen that specific angle of a joint and a little bit above and a little bit below i completely agree because what happens is is it's not so much how they get in it it's how they get out of it right and if they don't have it they're gonna get it somewhere else that poor guy that you know couldn't get out of blocks who happened to be a 200 so it wasn't so bad of course but it could make him better if he got better at that but but the thing for me is like these kids right they are they're doing the best they can with what they have they don't have the resources they don't have the eyes that we have you know jay's doing an incredible job of both like just the full development and yet where we are i think

we have so many luxuries that we forget about like like kind of the drive yeah we forget about like how what it's like to work hard it's amazing these kids are these kids are they're comfortable but they want to get the hell out yeah yeah yeah there's just like like this is life this is who they are they understand what what it is but they want to get the hell out they want to do it for the right reasons i asked asked Williams today, I was like, man, you've got to come visit me in America. He says, man, if I can just get to the top, I would love it. Meaning there's no way of him visiting America unless he gets to the top of his sport. I just, man, these kids have broken my heart this week.

It's a different feel, man. You ask them, what are you willing to do? And their response is anything. Anything. What are you willing? Are you willing to sacrifice? They're looking at you like, that's, you know, what are you willing to do? And their response is anything. Anything. What are you willing? Are you willing to sacrifice? They're looking at you like, that's a dumb question, Coach. They look at you like it's a dumb question.

If there's an American listening right now, that is y'all's problem. It's like, you have too many options. Ah, track doesn't work out. I guess I'll go back to college. Or, yeah, if college doesn't work out, I'll go live with my mom and dad. You know, that is why you guys are getting beat. You know, it's like, you've got to look at whatever you're doing as if there is nothing else. This is it.

In about two weeks, it's going to be 105 degrees here every day for the next three months, and they're sleeping on basically cots. It's plywood and an egg crate in a cement little building. When you think about it, because of that in a lot of ways and because of their lifestyle and because of what they have access to, they have to get on the track at 5 a.m. to work. I mean, we did a 5 a.m. track session, and then we're going to come back at 3 and 4 and lift, you know,

because that's when they have available. And if not, it bakes them. Dude, my athletes are so, like, when I get home. I ain't doing 5 a.m. workouts. You guys are listening right now. If you bitch about anything, I'll slap your face. These poor guys. I mean, these are the kids.

Travis is bringing it. He's bringing it. These kids are – this is what Usain Bolt went through. Usain did not – he did not have all these luxuries. He did not have an air conditioning facility like we have back in North Carolina. So, like, when you guys whine about, oh, this bar is like a fraction bent, shut your mouth yeah shut your mouth well that's something that also stuck out a lot to me yesterday was when you were talking

about the the hustle to get to the top and then how hard it is to stay there once you're there because now all of a sudden life gets easy yeah it's like oh shit i made it now i have a house now i've got air conditioning now i'm not on a cot why why do you think those guys don't go to certain places as well? They have their house. They're living in their country. They're living in certain places. They actually don't go to the beautiful facilities anymore

because they know that that's going to lose their competitive edge. That's going to take that dog out of them. Now, the cool part is you could go there and still be a pro, right? You just better understand that you know you got to know that you're not living on the line anymore these guys are like in boxing coach bruce babashian's a great dude he bruce talks about like living on the line where you got one thing that you're doing you know most people go they go home they go to they go to work they go to school then they go like they go train that's living on a box you go then you have the kids that go home

to school and then they go train. So that's a triangle. To live on the line is to want it, and basically everything has to be what I call work-life integration, not work-life balance from a performance standpoint. Because balance, I've never seen an athlete that is balanced and is successful. You better have something out of balance to be successful because you're sacrificing something. Right. So with track and field and athletes trying to to go to olympics you know would you say it's okay to take you know some college classes like one two semester or or you want

them all in 100 i mean it depends on the level um i i think in a place like this there's very limited opportunities like that from an academic standpoint in the u.s i mean there's a college development system that is pretty clean i think the thing that i would i would advise for a kid that wants to go to the olympics and the track side is that you need to like parallel your priorities meaning that you have things that you're working on that don't take away right from the things that are your priority. No, I agree 100%. Because, I mean, like I could – a good example is high school football players that want to play at the next level, right, that happen to play another sport.

I'm all about multi-sport athletes. But a high school football player that plays another sport that stops training for football is doing a huge disservice to his goal. So if you're saying, like, hey, if you're a basketball player, a baseball player, and a and a football player or you run track but my track codes doesn't want me to do x while i'm in track i'm sorry but is your priority trackers your priority football and for an american football player that wants to go to college which is like kind of my wheelhouse today i want them like you better be lifting in conjunction to your other sport because that is your primary thing so you better show up a different animal in the spring that you do because versus just having like a 10 edge because

you put another sport honestly you know the whole like you know multiple sport thing i have never seen an athlete who decided to not do multiple sports but i'm talking about high school now freshman year and they can when they commit to football i've never seen it it not go well. I've never seen it backfire or be a bad thing. No, it backs fire because what happens is the opportunity cost of going to playing to multiple goals, it's really hard to hit a target. You can't catch

two rabbits at the same time. It's a darn lie. So some of the coaches out there are saying, you guys need to be playing. Maybe, if you're this elite athlete, like if you're Bo Jackson, you do what you want. You don't have to listen to it. I mean, maybe, like, if you're this elite athlete, like, if you're Bo Jackson, you do what you want. Yeah. You know, like, you don't have to listen to it. There's only one of those. Yeah.

Or Deion. Deion Sanders, yeah. So, like, if you're them, do what you want, man. Prom time. But if you want to be. The bad wish. Not quite. Like, me, I had to focus.

Like, you know, I'm a 5'7 wide dude, man. Like, I had to really focus on football and make it my entire life. And it was my life and so that was my only chance and it worked out and so like you know if you're really wanting to do it i mean if you're not bo jackson which you're not probably if you're listening so like you need to focus if you are listening this is what i have to tell you because i've worked with thousands of athletes and i've seen a lot of success there's something that you have that is holding you back in the sense that you don't hit the perfect profile.

You're not strong enough. You're not tall enough. You're not fast enough. You don't have the right grades. You don't have the right character. Whatever it may be. You can't have two of those. You can only have one.

I agree. So you could be short, but don't be weak. Don't be slow. You know what I mean? You could have the – if you have the profile, life's easy. Yeah. Because coaches and their ego could say, hey, I could train that. But if you don you have the profile, life's easy. Yeah. Because coaches and their ego could say, hey, I could train that. But if you don't have the profile, there's something.

You don't have the strength. You don't have the speed. Go get it. You have the resources. Like, if you're listening to this already and your podcast, guys, come on. They have the resources. They're already listening. They're already getting more education than we ever got before they got started.

And it doesn't matter to me if you're 17 or 27 or 37, just talking about, like, lifestyle and performance. Like, you have the resources. I mean, one of the things I love doing right now is, like, now I get to bring the people that mentored me back into the equation with my athletes for, like, one or two conversations to give them just, like, the one little, like, precise prescription or dose of, like, the best nutrition coaching in the world

or the best, you the world or the best you know or the best like training for like like i said we're gonna have this like olympic lifting talk because like that's not my strength and i don't want to coach something half-ass yeah and if i'm coaching i'm damn good at what i do like if i'm coaching you i'm gonna coach you something that i know that like i don't give a shit who's watching the guy who invented this could come right here and he's gonna go start taking damn notes But if I'm coaching stuff that I got Travis, you know, IME, I don't think I'm competent enough to be able to say, hey, let's give this to my athletes. Speed, like, you know, I have a dude, William Bradley, I was telling you about, who, like, we work really well together. I can teach speed, but I'm not you, you know.

And, like, I'm sure you can teach strength, but you're not me. So when you put the two of us together, you have something amazing. That's a good-looking dude if you put the two of us together. Think about it. Yeah, I mean, I want his hair. I think that's also a piece of, like, the ease to access, though. But what really separates you guys apart is there's 60 years of getting after it and on this podcast right now.

Thank you for reminding me. I appreciate it. Like, I mean, I was talking to some of the kids yesterday, like not just us coaching athletes, but we have a bunch of coaches here as well. They were like, what was the thing? I was 13

when we started. You were 11. That's just what it is. You've got to put the time into doing it. He said he wanted to be the guy that people are asking to do podcasts. Man, dude, I don't know. I was 11 and I'm 46, so put 35 years in. The easiest way to get on a podcast is

have the best male and female lifter in the country and be the best coach. Be the fastest and be the guy that's going to get everyone as fast as possible. Be the guy. Find something you really, really love and become the absolute best at it and then people ask you to be on the podcast. Look at me. We weren't made here to be average. God has given us so much talent and we just have to find it and be aware about it so we can talk about it.

I think that there's a lot of people that are content with things. And people ask me all the time, like, are you content? And I tell people, when I told my mom when she used to get frustrated because she used to see that I wasn't happy if I wasn't content. I said, Mom, I'm not content with where I am, but I'm content with the path that I'm on. Because if you're not content with the path that you're on, go get a fucking different path. Change. But if you're not content with where you are, and if you are content with where you are, you're going to get lazy. Exactly.

This has been an awesome event so far. We're going to go hang out with Johan Blake. I'm going to race that dude. I can't wait. About to get smoked. But Project Stronger Jamaica, make sure you get over to Stronger Experts and StrongerExperts.com and make sure you just check it out. It's a super cool project.

They're going to be setting up a way to donate money because literally these kids are living in on cops. We've got to send pictures. It's almost unreal. Their hustle is super cool. The coaching, just getting the resources down here requires money, and we're selling T-shirts and all kinds of stuff to help Phil grow this thing. So thank you to them.

Where can people find you, Travis? Masterlead.com, and I'm going to give a shout-out to Stronger Experts, too. Plus, we're on it. Yes, we are. Yeah. I'm going to learn a lot. I think what Phil's done, which is a lot like what you guys have done in regards to your space, is you've done a better job than 99%

of the people out there by filtering bullshit. Yeah. So now if you want to get better, all of a sudden I could try to filter it myself and kind of bank on the idea that I'm good at what I do to filter and I have a good bullshit meter, or I could trust the fact that you guys have done an amazing job to interview some of the best people in the world and now just learn directly through that platform. And that's what stronger experts has is phil's done an amazing job of filtering that yeah very similar right on where can people find you uh coach cav.com kav or um the train ssi.com the sport and speed institute go to his instagram check out his jack son too what thomas thomas is jacked and i'm super proud of that that's'm going to coach that boy. Let's go.

It's an investment property is what I talk about. People have houses and 401Ks. I just look at athletes and go, oh, that's my portfolio. And you wrote a book as well? I did, Man Up, Five Areas of Athlete Success. Basically, it's, you know, in my opinion, it's like a come-to-Jesus meeting with a kid. You read it, it's all about, like, growing some balls, balance, accountability, less love, and sacrifice and sacrifice there you go go read that one doug larson you bet you find me on instagram at douglas c larson and everything's drug collective um i'm anders varner at anders varner inside the

shrug collective at shrug collective make sure you get over to the one ton challenge squat clean jerk squat dead bench we're gonna make you yoked 2 000 pounds 1200 for you ladies gotta get on the leaderboard yeah get on the leaderboard. Yeah, get on the leaderboard. TheOneTonChallenge.com. We will see you on Wednesday. Friends, that's a wrap. As always, get over to OneTonChallenge.com. Enter your scores.

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Friends, that's it for Shrugged. We'll see you guys on Wednesday.