Barbell Shrugged - How to Effectively Start Strength Training After Quarantine w/ Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Travis Mash - Barbell Shrugged - #471

Episode Date: May 25, 2020

In today’s episode the crew discusses:   Goal Setting Basics How long of a ramp do you need to get back to old pr’s What program should you start training with Getting back into CrossFit How do you build intensity and not get injured What do you do for increasing recovery  What frequency and volume should you train at And more…   Anders Varner on Instagram   Doug Larson on Instagram   Travis Mash on Instagram   ————————————————   Training Programs to Build Muscle: https://bit.ly/34zcGVw   Nutrition Programs to Lose Fat and Build Muscle: https://bit.ly/3eiW8FF   Nutrition and Training Bundles to Save 67%: https://bit.ly/2yaxQxa   Please Support Our Sponsors   Organifi - Save 20% using code: “Shrugged” at organifi.com/shrugged   http://pm03.com/shruggedfree to get a free bottle of PM-O3   http://onelink.to/fittogether -Brand New Fitness Social Media App Fittogether   Purchase our favorite Supplements here and use code “Shrugged” to save 20% on your order: https://bit.ly/2K2Qlq4    Garage Gym Equipment and Accessories: https://bit.ly/3b6GZFj Save 5% using the coupon code “Shrugged”   http://pm03.com/shruggedfree to get a free bottle of PM-O3

Next week, four brand new programs hit the Barbell Shrug store and we're launching all of them inside the Physique Bundle. Shrug Family, Core Durability, that's an ab program, Dumbbell, Kettlebell Physique programs, and then a Physique Training Template in which we set up the training, we set up the systems, the blocks, everything that you need to get strong, lose body fat, and then you get to go in and create your own journey. Pick the exercises based off the equipment you have. Lagging body parts. Things that you specifically want to work on. Weaknesses, strengths. You name it. You get to create inside the template that we provide. The exact workout that you're looking for.

Kettlebell and dumbbell physique. Based on the equipment and aesthetics based training program for just dumbbells or just kettlebells. Or a combination of the two. However you want to set it up. Core durability. That's the accessory ab program that we're launching and all of it is based off the base program of emom aesthetics which has just been flying out of the store in the last two weeks people are loving it short high intensity there's 50 workouts in there big muscle building workouts

in which we basically start each workout with a big functional movement, squats, dead press. Um, and then we added a bunch of single joint bodybuilding movements to round out the program. And it's a much more kind of physique program than our typical Olympic lifting, but it's been a really, really cool to see how many people are digging the EMOM aesthetics program. I've been doing it. Doug's been doing it. We talk about it on the shows all the time. And then we're wrapping it up with Shredded Nutrition, which is a 12-part nutrition course, meal plans, tracking sheets, recipes,

basically teaching you how to lose body fat, gain lean muscle, and then the macronutrient calculator that goes along with it. So you can personalize your nutrition plan to get the body you want. All that retails for $4.29. Seven programs, four brand new programs, two nutrition programs to get you dialed in. For

the first five days, you're going to save 88% using the code FIZZIQ. Super simple, right? Before we get into the show today, I want to talk about a brand new sponsor we have. I've been over on this app. I haven't really talked about it that much. We just started working with them, but for the past two months, I've been playing around with it, getting them feedback. It's a brand new app out of SoCal, combining social media and specific to the fitness industry. So if you're tired of scrolling through your Facebook feed and all you want to watch is people doing deadlifts and people doing squats and snatching and clean jerks and pull-ups things that I like watching you should go to fit together and sign up for an account because that's all it is it's no political rants no people yelling at

each other all it is is super supportive cool community you go post workouts get cool ideas they have little challenges you can do things inside your gym, but get over to Fit Together in the app store, download it, set up your profile, find me at Anders Varner, which is super dope. I'm posting daily workouts in there. And it's super cool. I've never really been at the very beginning of a new app and kind of seen it grow and been a part of it. But for the last couple of months, tons of people have been of it. But for the last couple months, tons of people have been signing up. The engagement's been really cool. And I'm stoked to be a part of it. So get over to the App Store right now. Fit Together, F-I-T-T-O-G-E-T-H-E-R,

Fit Together, and get signed up. Enjoy. Post your workouts. Tag me in them. Get me, you know, send me the friend requests. Get rid of all the political anger and stupid stuff on Facebook. And let's just focus on fitness. So the Fit Together app is where you want to be. And I will see you guys in there. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Anders Varner. Doug Larson.

Coach Travis Mash. I'm hanging out in my chair. Same chair. Same chair. In quarantine today. we're talking about getting back in the gym everybody in the world literally in the entire world has been on lockdown for two whole months now and we're gonna be ready to get back to the gym and for most people that don't have an awesome home gym in their house it's to be a little crazy because you probably never have taken two months off without a barbell.

Today we're going to talk about how to get back into a real training program, what are the best options, how do you do some goal setting, and then what you can expect in your first month. Even if you're a seasoned athlete or you've been training your whole life, you've probably never taken this long of a break. I've never taken this long of a break because I haven't really been taking a break, but I've never been out of a gym this long in my life. So getting back in is going to be an interesting learning curve for a lot of people. And we're going to spend the next 45, 50 minutes talking

about the best strategies for getting back into the gym, kind of what the first month of training should look like and how to set your sights on some new cool goals because goal setting probably hasn't been a part of your life for the last couple months even though maybe the goal was just to keep going. Doug Larson, how long has the longest break in the last 20 years of your life been away from a gym? I know exactly when that was because that was 2004. I did a month-long – me and Andy Galpin did a month-long backpacking trip

through Europe and uh we walked all day every day but we yeah we did very little in the way of actually lifting weights certainly we did some bodyweight exercises and and whatnot but but it was not a priority at all our priority was just exploring every new city that we got to because we got to a new city every couple of days went to like you know 13 countries in 30 days or something like that which is rad on one end but also i don't recommend it it's too much yeah it's too much uh you know spending time on trains and buses and packing and repacking your bags and all that you kind of basically homeless yeah yeah we did horrified we almost ran out of money toward the end too. We had to fudge our Eurail passes and change some dates on some things just to get home.

Pre-internet! How much money did you start with? Man, I don't remember those details, but not much. Actually, now that I'm looking back, I have no idea where that money even came from. How did I have money to afford to be over there at all? I have no idea. I was just a random college kid. I didn't have to get by, though, even though we pretty much ate chicken breasts and spaghetti every night. That's how money works. You can just create it when you need it.

To answer your question, I've never really taken a break from training for as long as i can remember since i started really taking lifting seriously when i was about 14 and part of that i was i was an athlete in many ways but uh but i didn't actually like do squats and deadlifts until i went to a bigger faster stronger seminar like the the opening day of baseball season my freshman year in high school. And I went to a bigger, faster, stronger seminar that day. And that was the first time I saw what a clean was. First time I saw what like heavy squatting looked like. Um, and ever since then, I've pretty much trained in and out every, every week. Um – No big breaks. Have you ever taken a big break?

Yeah. Earlier this year, like when I started school, yeah, I didn't train at all until the coronavirus. Like it was the worst. I told my wife, like this thing sounds terrible, but for me, I'm not saying in general, but for me the coronavirus was like almost a blessing because I was getting crushed. Like, I mean, I almost – you know, I told my wife one day the coronavirus was like almost a blessing because I was getting crushed. Like, I mean, I almost, you know, I told my wife one day, I was like, I'm not sure I will survive this. It was just too much, man.

But then, so now I'm training more than I'm having a very long time. So I feel good. Yeah. I think the longest I've ever taken off really is like maybe 10 days. And that wasn't 10 days. That was like maybe Sweden when we went out there. I think we trained like the first two or three days. And then at best, it was like bad training.

Because, I mean, I would say it was pretty good training. You remember that day that I out-cleaned Travis? Yeah, I knew I was going to say that. Yeah, you did. That was a good day of training. I didn't even have to clean 300 pounds. Yeah. Catch Travis Bash on a downswing.

You have a good night of sleep. Everything works out. You got a good story to tell forever. Forever. It's a beautiful picture I have. Dang it. I didn't even get 300 pounds. I didn't even break the ground.

I couldn't even deadlift 300. I could only clean 286. Just totally missed that whole deadlift. Let's have a virtual front squat contest this week. Yeah. We could do that. He'll get you. Yeah.

But I think that breaks like that, I may have had like, I don't know, three of those in the last 20 years where there's like a 10-day window where I just – I'm traveling or I'm home or my body is just – like I actually can sit there and be happy just thinking like, oh, I'm going to consciously take a full week to 10 days of not doing anything. And even those days, like you're talking about, Doug, there's always a lot of walking, always a lot of hiking. So it's not really a full – taking a break to me really means did I front squat really heavy? Like if you're out hiking, you're still very focused on training. You're just doing it differently. You never stop living a healthy lifestyle.

It's just you're not lifting as much as you can. Right. As long as gyms are available, I generally find a way to get there. Even if it's not as frequent as I would like. Say I'm visiting my family, my parents, and I don't train twice a day or even every day. I might train every two or three days. So it might be a little more infrequent when I'm traveling. Now that I think about travel,

I went to Africa to go on safari and all that in 2012, eight years ago now. And that was three weeks that we didn't. I mean, we were out on safari doing shit all day, every day. There's no gyms around. So we didn't train at all then. Again, aside from just basic calisthenics, we certainly had little met cons where we do push-ups and air squats for fun,

but not real training. That was another window when i when we went on safari for our honeymoon but i was swimming with sharks i was i was wrestling lions maybe not with a barbell but i was out there in the wild being the lion king yeah how's your training been so far i feel like i'm in better shape than i've been recently because i fucking trained twice a day because i have nothing to do but hang out with my kids and my family like they're playing outside scootering and riding bikes i might as well run sprints or lift weights in my garage periodically as as we're playing uh there's been a lot of changes

the track workouts have been really really. I've really enjoyed sprinting. Going fast is awesome. And it's been really fun to get creative and do that. I actually have, outside of meeting at the gym, I've been able to convince almost all of the people that I like training with to meet me at the track on a very consistent basis. So we're out there two three days a week getting after it and um that training's really hard it's not um it's not really it's i've

gotten much more creative actually it's been really cool so track workouts have been great i just started doing this thing um basically you go i go workouts online with people from the audience, which has been really fun. So I get to meet people that listen to the show and follow everything we're doing. And then, I mean, I want to work out with all these people. And now I have an actual reason because there isn't a gym to go to. So we just set up a zoom call and I've been doing that a bunch. And we put it on YouTube and Facebook Live, and everybody has fun. I did some kid from Wales straight up smashed me.

It was one of the most impressive workouts. I got three of them lined up this week. It keeps the barbells moving, and it keeps things really fun, working out with people. I also became the real diesel dad and i push adelaide in the stroller and i go and do my long runs with her which probably is the worst possible thing for my actual running form to have only one arm swinging and pushing a cart a stroller in one arm but that's really cool it's like a little mini sled push through the park um so yeah it's i would say it's been like you said travis i think it's

been a really great thing to have to mix up all the training modalities and get my conditioning in a way that i'm not going to the crossfit gym crossfit's kind of like just my standard um this is gonna sound so weird to people but it's like my easy conditioning because once you learn to go slow that you do better it's really not the hardest thing in the world assuming you're not trying to compete and do all that so if you just move through the moat you go through and just do the exercises without the big story that your whole life depends upon the single workout and you're ready to die for, for points like Mr.

Glassman used to tell us. And I would be soldier number one, be like, people are willing to die for reps. I'll do it, sir. Um, so that whole thing has been really great.

I think that my training has been, if there was like a two or three month block where I wasn't going to be able to go into the CrossFit gym and I wasn't going to be able to do my standard stuff, I think that I've adapted really well. I'm also very lucky in that I have a full gym in my garage with really nice equipment um and i think that most people that have been doing body weight workouts are really in for i don't know maybe like a surprise or they're gonna be they're gonna be shocked to see i don't know how much strength you actually lose in two weeks. I think that the conditioning stuff is going to

probably affect a lot of people, but I don't know, like top end strength doesn't just disappear in two months. Um, it'll be a little bit lower, but I think that what people are really going to, uh, have to, you know, for me and all of us that have done this for a lifetime, it doesn't change too much. We just kind of reorder life and we end up going to the gym more. But I think that people that maybe have not bought into the lifelong pursuit of this, it's going to be an interesting shock to find out like resetting goals your whole vision of fitness has changed over the last two weeks so how do they get back into setting goals um with this new mindset and how do they kind of put a plan together? Because after you go a couple months without banging barbells, you have no other choice but to reframe your value system

on what's important in health and fitness. And I think that that's like a really interesting conversation for a lot of people that are just getting back in the gym. I was just going to say that you probably want to start with accumulation and just like to start accumulating some volume at a, you know, a lower intensity. Um,

at that point, I think that, you know, that the, um, quantity of reps might be a little bit higher and the intensity, the lower to, to get your joints.

You don't want to just jump back into maxing out, even though that's what I do because I'm an idiot to myself. If I were coaching you, I would say, like, let's get some quality reps in at a much lower intensity. Let's get the body moving the way it used to move with a load. And I would start with, like, if you're a weightlifter, I would start with some movements that you're a weightlifter i would start with some movements that aren't exactly snatch and clean and jerk to to get it back into the swing of things if you're

a power lifter you might might be a great time to do some high bar squats front squats and just get that movement going and then slowly get back you know i think you know when we were talking with delphine like he said it you know best When he started on this several-year approach to getting this 1,000 for three on squats, he started with front squats. So he started accumulating reps with something that's slightly different than what he's going to end up doing just to give his body a break. Yeah. I think one thing I've really noticed on kind of social media,

and I'm sure this is everywhere, it's just not – I'm not in everyone's household. But the people that are like very dedicated to strength and conditioning and like being in shape and lifting weights had no problem finding weights almost all of them when you look at when you see the not even top athletes but people that are like somewhat well known everybody had access to weights they found a way to get a barbell in their hands they found a way to get weights um i think it's really the people that are going to struggle are the ones that – going to the gym is like what you're supposed to do after work. And you're doing it because you're supposed to do it, and now your entire life has stopped. It'd be like if you're on this big diet to lose 15, 20 pounds, whatever it is in your new year's goal.

And then on January 1st, they're like, you're not allowed to eat well anymore. So you just binge eat for two months or you just eat whatever you lose. You take your foot off the gas pedal. You're like, you know what? We got this time. I'm just going to relax.

It's no big deal. I'll get back to it in two months. You don't realize that in eight weeks, your entire framework has shifted and your body's not expecting to go to the gym. So you're like up against that inertia again, all of a sudden in that as a beginner, and it's really challenging to find that motivation to, oh, now I have to restart back at zero. And I think that that becomes like one of the bigger questions is like, how do you restart back at zero. And I think that that becomes one of the bigger questions is, how do you restart back at zero?

We have to do this as gym owners and coaches all the time. When someone comes in the gym and they're like, oh, I haven't worked out in two months, or not in two months, but in two years, it's the same question of, okay, where do we start the goal-setting process? How do we get small wins throughout this process? And like, what does an actual timeline look like for success for you?

Do you want to overcome the last eight weeks in two weeks of training? Because that's not going to happen. So that process of goal setting is something that everybody should really go into, knowing that this is coming, knowing that you're going to have to get back in the gym and figuring out like what is an actual goal that you would like to have and whether it's nutrition, whether it's training. But I think that's like the at the heart of what it is, whether you've taken the last two months off or you've taken the last two years off, you're starting. Maybe it's a different level of two years off you're starting maybe it's a different

level of zero but you're starting back at zero to refire up the engine to get your body training and moving in the right direction yeah i think it's best to if you're especially if you're coming out of a period of time where you haven't trained at all is to as far as goal setting is concerned pick goals you have control over, kind of more behavior-driven goals. So instead of your goal being, I want to front squat 400 or 500, Travis. Or six.

Maybe your goal is just, I want to squat heavy twice a week. Or I want to train for at least 30 minutes five times a week. Like something more on the order of of setting a schedule for yourself and having the goal of having so much training or or to to accomplish this type of training something to re-establish your habits and your routine because ultimately your consistency your habits your routine that that's what's going to lead to your best outcomes so you can you can still certainly have the goal of front squatting 400 pounds but you also want to have the goal set of training

four days a week or five days a week or whatever makes sense for you i mean that goes along with powerlifters or even weightlifters i tell my i tell my weightlifters to to focus on the process more than necessarily a number or yeah one of the biggest mistakes even my athletes make you know like uh morgan i just had this talk with him about you know instead of having this number in your head that you're going to do today you just get the process in your brain yeah i'm going to do this and i'm also going to focus on this part of my movement or it's like you're a runner I'm going to focus on this part of my gait and you don't focus on the time or you know you do your best for the day yeah you can control that you cannot control where your endocrine system is

where your nervous system is where your you know your peripheral nervous system is you can't control that but you can control your your movement you can improve is you you can't control that but you can't control your your movement you can improve your movement you can go through the process so just focus on the things you can control and let let the rest just happen people who do that tend to do much better than the people who focus on an x number every single day just a quick reminder next monday we are launching the physique bundle seven programs four brand new programs coming out. And you're going to save 88%. I'm going to have the website for you next week.

It'll just be the code Physique. But the ABS program, dumbbell physique, kettlebell physique, the physique training template, and EMOM aesthetics to kick it all off as the base program for everything. And then on top of that, two additional, um, nutrition programs, which is super awesome. So there'll be perfectly tailored to your goals, your body type,

everything. Um, on top of that, uh, I want to thank our sponsors over at Organifi, Organifi.com forward slash shrugged. That's where you save 20%. If you have not been smashing your greens while

you've been in your house seriously you're 10 weeks behind you're just why are you not loading yourself up on organified greens they make your immune system better digestive system better there's no excuses for not having it around it's in your fridge i put it in the fridge because i like a little chili um but i've been taking like two or three of these a day just because it's in your fridge I put it in the fridge because I like a little chilly but I've been taking like two or three of these a day just because it's around all the time and it's so delicious on top of that I'm not getting enough my greens in my real life just life's crazy work and home and training and going straight from business owner to dad in a blink of an eye salads I'm just trying to get food in my face right now that tastes good

um and greens are not happening so uh get over to organifi.com forward slash truck you're gonna save tons of cash and you're gonna get all your greens micros you need them vitamins and minerals you gotta have them ashwagandha it's in there it's in the green one uh organified.com forward slash drugged yeah i think also the people that uh are gonna walk in the ones that are gonna struggle a lot are the ones that's like my front squad was 315 and i was strong and then they took the barbells away and they're gonna come back in and try and be two three months ago strong and not have that longevity to it and just want to come back and just mash themselves. Ooh, you like that? See, mash.

And I think especially for a lot of our audience, the CrossFit people are going to come back in and it's going to be like, let's hit this 40 round workout with, uh, 15 front squats at one 35 for all 40 rounds. And it's just going to be these like torturous sessions because they think that beating the crap out of your body as hard as you can is going to be the way to faster gains and getting back to where you were three months ago. I highly recommend not doing that. The amount of soreness that you're going to carry with you when you do your

first 10 days of CrossFit is going to be significantly higher than two, three months ago when you were training four or five days a week and your body was prepared for that level of volume. I think that if you're able to consciously get into the gym and just think about quality movement and rewiring all the systems that allowed you to be an athlete, I think that that's

the best plan for really the first two weeks is get in. One, the gym's going to feel a little weird. All your perfect squat rack, your favorite platform, all that stuff's foreign to you right now. And it's going to take a little bit to start to feel like that's home again. Like whatever you've been doing for eight weeks is now home. This schedule that I have right now feels awesome. I'm training at one instead of four. It's not rushed. I have like a legit, I have meetings set up with people or like at a location where I just have to be there. So it's a much easier schedule for me than trying to make a class or trying to make it somewhere like i just have to get it done at one o'clock and i have to be done by 145 or baby wakes up and i'm

screwed um so i feel like i feel like even if you're stuck at home even if you're in in new york city in a small apartment and and you can't go anywhere and you're just smashed. I feel like there's really no excuse why you should be doing zero training. Certainly people might choose not to train, but everyone, no matter who you are almost, unless you're working the front lines in the hospital where you're suited up and you're dealing with patients because you're an overwhelmed healthcare worker and you barely even have time to eat, and the second you get your you get out of the hospital like you're going straight to sleep and then straight back to work like some people are absolutely smashed right now but anyone that's like just stuck at home like you you can work from home or you don't have a

job anymore like there's no excuse you can't do 10 minute amraps of of you know air squats and push-ups if you're kind of a normal person or, um, you know, if you're an experienced athlete, you can do pistols and handstand pushups. You just do five, five, five, five, five, five for 10 minutes and accumulate a bunch of volume. And it's only 10 minutes out of your day. And there's very minimal warmup required. There's no space concerns. There's no equipment. Everyone should be training in some capacity. You know, even if you're just working on your handstands for 10 minutes a day, you know, kicking up on the wall and like just practicing skills, you're not front squatting heavy. Yeah, that's, that's true, but you shouldn't be

deconditioned. You should still be doing something that way. When you do get back to training, all that soreness you were talking about, like, and just the getting back into the rhythm of training, you still have the habits and you and you still have some level of of conditioning where you're not just gonna be totally smashed right out the gate can i give you i want to give a shout out number one to courtney uh haldeman she's one of my athletes cortisil she goes by she's actually in the ic fans only page at Cortizzle. Yeah.

He said something real and we joked right over the top. So Cortizzle, Courtney, is an RN in the COVID ICU at Baptist. Oh my God. Anyway, my point being, number one, she has now become my favorite athlete I coach. And this whole time, she took the time to build her own little platform in her garage. She did. And bought new equipment and continued to work out, even while taking care of COVID patients.

She's the biggest inspiration of all the athletes I coach. I even told her, I was like, I would take her over any athlete any day because that's the true MVP right there. Yes, making it work. She actually took care of my uncle last week. I had an uncle who had a stroke and

it looks just like my dad. He had a massive stroke. No one could go see him obviously. They first, I. And they, they, they first, I guess, evidently they take everyone to the COVID wing first to make sure if you do or don't have it.

Yeah. Me testing negative. Then, you know, so she took care of it. My uncle. And anyway, that's it.

Wow. It was really cool. That's rad. Yeah. I, the number of people, I mean, it's like,

yeah, that's wild. The number of people, she's in New York? Where is she, you said? She's here in Winston-Salem, Forsyth, in the COVID wing at Wake Forest Baptist, which is like one of the biggest hospitals in North Carolina, if not the – I mean, it's a big – several thousand hospital. It's huge. Yeah, the motivated people found a way to get

the weights in their gym and find a barbell and build a platform um i've had so many people just in the gym that i train at here in apex um i think i sold at least 10 PRX performance racks just because everybody saw my setup. I ran a boot camp at the house one Sunday, like the first Sunday when it was okay, when it was only like a little bit questionable to be around people. And they saw the platform and setup that I had built, and all of them the next day went to the store and bought racks um just because they it's it's like is it in winston i mean is it in raleigh the state the prx no they're in north dakota um but the setup's so legit like they are look if you're listening to this we work with them there

you can save money use the code shrug to go buy everything. But they were on Shark Tank and got a deal. And I remember looking at that, watching that one, the night it aired or whatever on rerun the next day on Hulu or whatever. And I remember watching it and going, oh, shit, CrossFit just went on Shark Tank. It was so obviously CrossFit people designing a very specific rig for crossfitters to do uh like kipping pull-ups it was built really well it looked really nice it was flashy so you have like the nice rig and now i'm like legit the coolest guy in my neighborhood because of it like all the dads walk by and

they're like that dude is fucking serious in there and i'm outside i'm outside doing my normal dad things there's just a chance i might snatch two and a quarter in the garage as you walk your dog there's a chance come on by you can walk the street come hang out but every time my wife goes to some someone's house my there whoever she's hanging out with they're like oh your husband's the one with that cool cool garage like yeah totally that's me yeah that's awesome um but yeah dude i think that the people that are uh like the people are motivated, they found a way to get weights. Whether it was dumbbells, I know a lot of people that just went and got a set of 50-pound dumbbells, which you can pretty much do anything you want with a set of dumbbells of that weight, 50s and 35s if you're a lady.

The number of combinations that you can do. Man, even the band stuff, you can make it work with the bands. And then the people that actually went out and found barbells and found weights, if you rented weights from your gym, there isn't like a big gap. I think the biggest, the biggest adjustment for a lot of people is going to be the fact that when COVID hit, it was like, oh, shit, I have to readjust my entire schedule to be able to stay in shape. And then once you're actually in the garage or doing what you're doing, it's not like you're at your same intensity because you're not being pushed by people. The motivation, I've really tried to look at this thing in 30-day chunks of day one through 30.

Everyone is motivated. Motivation's high. You're like, I'm not going to let coronavirus get me. No way. The coaches are on Zoom. They're like, everyone's doing their burpees. They've got their daily challenges at their gym. Everyone's like super high motivation. And then day 31 to 60, it's like, more burpees. I have to do more burpees.

No one's even here. This sucks. I don't want to do it today. And you start to see that the willpower slowly starts to wane. And I'm hoping everything gets back together. It looks like gyms are going to be opening and people can start doing some goal setting and figuring out how to do it. But what's really going to happen is that you're going to have to restructure what was the last eight weeks, which became your new normal and this new system in your life to getting back into restructuring your life around the gym. And you don't know where it is. And one of the first things that always happens

when there's a big change is you stop caring about yourself. You stop prioritizing your own health. You stop prioritizing your own nutrition and, you know, having a solid set of goals, kind of like, you know, you're saying Travis of like, just get back in and practice the reps. Like set, set a goal of not just, are you going to be as cool as you were three months ago? But are you, are you just there three days a week? Are you there five days a week? Are you having fun? the motivation tactics that are actually going to matter in the long run is like getting back with your old friends, making sure they're all at the gym at the same time so that you guys can be

back, get back to being bros and hanging out. Those are the things that people, I think if, if the, if your idea is that you're going to show up and front squat 500 pounds, like Travis is going to do one of these days very soon. Try not to do that. Try not to focus on top-end PRs. Your strength isn't going to go away, but the long-term goal is to be able to accumulate reps, practice movement, and start having fun and getting back into the flow of things versus going in and trying to set a PR on day one. But as far as the coaches, though,

the coaches are the ones that are going to have to deliver this message. Is there like a process that you guys have used that has worked well in the past for goal setting with people and when you're actually in the gym coaching? And a lot of it comes into that, but like the intake of when, I know that I've done this way too many times in the gym, but any success that you guys have had in, like, the intake of athletes that haven't been in the gym for three, four, five months, maybe a year, and saying, like,

here's the process of what's about to happen? I think the key would be getting, you know, into the why of the goal is always important. Because if I come to you and I say, Anders, I want to compete and power the team again, and I want a total X, which is good and fine. But if you want me to sustain that, what you're about to program for me, you got to figure out why is it exactly that I want to do that. Because that is the motivating factor.

The goal itself is not. The goal is the end process. There's got to be a reason why I want to do that because that is the motivating factor. The goal itself is not. The goal is the end process. There's got to be a reason why I want to do X. And so that would be the key. You've got to get deeper. So if someone wants to lose 50 pounds, you've got to know why. And then you've got to ask questions. Let them talk.

It can't be you preaching to the person. It's got to be opening the questions and getting deep into that person's psyche. That's the way you get someone to sustain goals you know when you work with i think goal setting when you work with the you know the top athletes it's that is becomes a huge part of my process yeah you know like morgan ryan you know they want to they want to make the or kindle they want to make the olympics they want to go to the olympics you get you know understanding why you're like what do you want to do with that who do you plan on inspiring like how will the world be different once you get there those are going to be the

questions it's going to give that person to sustain that yeah so yeah back to what i was saying earlier about kind of behavior goals versus outcome goals like Like having somebody focus on the process initially, I think is a good place to start with goals, especially if they're a person that hasn't been in the gym for a long time. I almost always suggest, hey, let's start with just, you know, accumulating a certain amount of time actually training, you know,

whether that goal is, you know, two hours a week or five days a week, or maybe it's even simpler where it's like you walk through the gym door, you know, three days a week. And if you walk through the door, then you can check the box no matter how long you stay there. Where,

uh, I was a guy named James clear. We haven't had on the show yet. He has that book atomic habits. And I didn't interview with him years and years and years ago. And one thing he said on the interview that I remember was, uh, if,

if kind of life starts getting in the way, I was, I was, I was got a copy sitting right there uh he's a great dude uh he he has many many um very well thought out concepts that i that i like and uh and one of them is if you if you are running out of time to train for whatever reason you're driving to the gym and you get stuck behind a car accident so now you're 30 minutes late and you, but you only have, you only had an hour. Now you got 30 minutes left,

but you don't just go, fuck it. I already missed the first half. I'm not going. You don't skip it. Um, I believe he says something along the lines of, um,

change the scope and stick to the schedule. So you like, I ended up doing five days a week for an hour and you, you couldn't do it for whatever reason. You still go, even if you just go for 10 minutes, like you still check the box of, of I showed up today and I,

I worked out today. I did what I could today. Even if you just show up and you do one movement and you're out of there, it's way better than skipping. And then when you skip, you just get out of the habit. So I think focusing on those, those behavior goals initially is the first place to start and then all the other intake stuff that it's kind of more normal you know asking people like you know why they want what they want

you know what their timeline looks like how much time they have available to train what's worked for them in the past what they enjoy what they don't enjoy all these things factor into what the goals are going to be and then ultimately what the program looks like to meet those goals. Yeah. Do you prescribe more to the like set a lofty goal of this is where I want to be in three months and it's okay if we fall short because it was such a lofty goal or do you prescribe – I mean it's clearly probably a person-to-person or here's the bare minimum that I need to hit every week.

And if it's three days a week, did we hit the three days a week? Because if you're underneath that, you're kind of letting yourself down and you're really not doing it. Yeah, you got to be careful with that. Yeah, like in business, I like the concept of having 10-year goals and 90-day goals where it's, we have this big North star. We know we're going, we want to have a hundred locations in 10 years.

And then you don't sell like, you know, seven year, five year, three year and one year goals. Cause just everything's going to fucking change. So set the big lofty goal. So,

you know, the direction you're going, you know, maybe say I want to go to the Olympics in 2028, right? Whatever it is. Okay. Now, you know, it's what's happening. Okay. For the next 90 days, what's the, what's the,

the easiest way to, to make the most progress? What's, what's the best way to make the most progress and focus on that, that 90 day block. Those 90 day goals should be at least psychologically very achievable. Uh, I like John Berardi for many reasons, but one thing that he says is that as far as goal setting goes, after you set a goal with somebody, you want to ask them, you know, scale of one to 10, how much do you think you are going to accomplish this goal? How good do you feel about your ability to accomplish this goal? And if they say anything less than nine, if they say nine or 10, you're good. If they say less than nine or 10, then you want to change the goal to where they go. I can definitely do that. Yeah. That way they're like, okay, like I have, I have something tangible and achievable. They go, they go accomplish it. And then you move on to the next domino. And so those,

those little mini goals, I think just kind of pull people along. Yeah. I think the language thing in this one also plays a massive role in the success as it does with everything. But in the way people perceive what they're getting ready to do in the goal setting, it's like, I am going to go to the gym three days a week versus like, I hope I make it three days a week. Oh, yeah. three days a week versus like, I hope I make it three days a week. You know, Mark England is one of our buddies and he's really influenced all of us and how we think and talk, especially to ourselves. But I noticed that a lot with people as I'm talking to them in this process where they

haven't had access. So that becomes the really easy way. It's like, oh, I just can't, I don't have equipment. Instead of saying I'm going to, I just have to figure it out. And that simple change is just reframing everything from what is a negative situation of you not having equipment to a positive of you're going to make it happen no matter what. And finding an ability to reframe your goals and the positive versus thinking about how difficult they're going to be to achieve is going to make a massive difference. I think that 90 day goal is, is a really important one because it's going to take, you know, if you haven't been really training during this captivity time period,

um, it's going to take three to four weeks just to start feeling good. The next three to four weeks is going to be really good training. And then the three to four weeks after that is going to be something where you can actually really set your sights on achieving whatever it is you set out in 90 days. It's not going to be a very simple process of just changing your life a little bit. There's going to be an adjustment period. Not only that, your family's going to have to kind of buy in and figure out what that new schedule is. There's just a lot of shifting going on that's going to happen. As everybody saw when we first went into our houses of like, okay, I got to find equipment. What am I going to do for eating? Is this coronavirus thing something that's really going to come attack our family? Like there's a lot of things up in the air

and all that stuff is going to resurface again as soon as we start to get back to some form of new life, whether that's getting back to your desk job, get back to some form of new life, whether that's getting back to your desk job, getting back to some form of corporate America, figuring out your schedules and daycares and things along those lines. The system is always the thing that lets you down. Everybody would like to get to the gym three to five days a week. If you were to ask everybody in the world, do you want to work out five days a week? They'd be like, of course, that sounds awesome. But it's the systems and the structure that always hinders people. It's like, oh, well, that meeting ran late, so I just didn't make it. Oh, well, I got to go pick the kids up. Oh, well, I got to go do this. And there's's always an excuse so if you can reframe the entire

all of that negativity that you can't control into a couple things like doug was saying earlier into the things that you can control and reframe them into the positive of like i'm going to go do this and you just have to make it happen versus thinking about all the negative things that are stacked against you that are going to make it incredible like thinking about all the negative things that are stacked against you that are going to make it incredible like you only need two or three things stacked on top of each other before you just on your couch eating poor food and watching tiger king you know i think everybody already watched tiger king who am i kidding i haven't watched it i watched one episode i'm like come on bro i only watched'm like, man, this is anyway.

I think a thing, if you're back to Spartacus, Spartacus is the bomb. I've been thinking about going to watch that again, but I need to start watching that. You're a person that has kids super busy. That's when, you know, doing a workout first thing in the morning before all the stuff starts is going to be your best bet i think you know people like corey gregory uh even i'm considering you know starting to do more first thing in the morning simply because of like the benefits like if you guys read spark that book um shout out gabriel once again who gave me that

book spark but it's it's pretty i haven't read it give me give me the synopsis sell me well it talks a lot about the show by the way now that we're all virtual but it might be easy yeah that's a good idea but um the thing about spark is talking about the benefits of exercise like not he totally doesn't really talk about the physical as more as like what it does for the brain. So like there's a, there's some really good research that, you know, talks about obviously the serotonin, the norepinephrine, you know, the, there was norepinephrine. Anyway, like the neurotransmitters, the release. And so it just makes the brain fire in a much faster and more efficient way. Like it creates more synapses. And so that therefore you can learn at a much quicker rate.

You can, you can retain that, that knowledge at a much higher level. And so I'm thinking about doing more exercise in the morning just to get that going. So a lot of kids, Oh, here, here's a big one. They did this study in Naperville in Chicago, near Chicago. It's a little support. I used to live in Naperville. And so a few of the schools did this research and what they did is they had kids, they, you know, were P's kind of gone away because you know, a lot of schools didn't like the fact that, you know,

kids were getting left behind. So some kids were getting smashed by the dodge ball. Right. The other kids were smashing them. It doesn't create equality. What they did is they started focusing on fitness instead of PE. So instead of teaching dodgeball, kickball, baseball, they started focusing on fitness. And so their test scores skyrocketed. And so they started destroying everybody in America.

And then they did this other group they started working out first thing in the morning and then that group's test scores went way higher than everyone else's and so um anyway i gotta finish the book i just started this weekend i've had it gabriel's gonna kill me now that he's hearing this live but uh i've had the book for like two or three years and to get Gabriel on here too. Yeah. Man, man hits me up every time we talk about him on the show. Yeah. He's such a good dude.

He's an awesome guy. So that book is just now it's changed the way I'm going to parent. Actually. Yeah. I should have Gabriel. I should have read your book sooner. I'm sorry. Next time I'll read it.

Read it first thing. Well, that's what Mr. Joe to say that does. He's got his kids up at 5 a.m i think out there rolling on mats doing burpees out in the middle of the snow and frozen ass vermont and pushing sleds in the dark i've been up there to joe's place at 5 a.m in his barn doing burpees and like his at the time his kids were uh probably 10 12 something like that but 5 a.m they were in that barn like with their kung fu coach and then

after kung fu coach left at 6 a.m wrestling coach shows up and that's just that's just how they think life is they wake up and they they train early yeah i saw a video just one state or something like that for wrestling like his kids are fucking badass yeah i saw a video of i i'm not like i don't know wrestling moves so i assume this is like just the fundamentals of like crawling and rolling and they they brought a camera into his house one morning. And the kids were like, ah, I don't want to do this. Like, I don't want to do burpees in the snow.

Like, I'm tired of pushing this sled. And he was just like, look, my job is not to be their friend. I need to teach them that the world is hard and that we're going to train for it at five o'clock in the morning. So they show the kid out there just like grinding away on a sled.

And then they go in the garage and he's out there doing whatever roles and crab walks and duck walks. And he's not going to have to worry about how to create good habits. That's, that's just in him already. Um, so, um, fellas, we're going to wrap this thing up the um i think the big takeaway is like really if you can set up a a system in which you you have some lofty goals that we were talking about but really look at the next getting back into the gym in like a 90-day window i think that the you know three pieces being like, get back, get comfortable, get reacquainted with heavyweights, get reacquainted with the intensity of what may be your CrossFit workouts or any intensity that you have lacked over the last couple of

months. It's going to be much different doing thrusters with 95 pound barbells, um, than doing them with milk jugs in your house. if that's really what you've been doing backpack yeah um yeah backpack there's just going to be a different level of intensity that's coming your way even if you've been working out with your friends on zoom through your crossfit classes and your coaches have been there like you're just there's a there's a human interaction that happens when two people look at each other in the eye and they're about to throw down in a workout. That level of intensity just has not been a part of your life. So, um, you know, take two, three, four weeks to, to get reacquainted to that, turn all the muscles back on, make sure you're moving very well. Um, and

then in that 90 day goal period, like month two is going to be really good for training. And then month three, really be able to hone in on the specifics of what you need to attain that goal. I think that it's a really good thing for coaches to be able to sit down. So many gym owners and coaches have gone to this model of having a very high-level, one-on-one remote service, and they should probably continue having that inside the gym just so you are able to ask what Travis was saying, like what is the why to being able to do this and provide a little bit deeper meaning to why those people are coming back,

and then the schedule and the systems that you're going to be creating you're going to be starting from scratch again you've just gotten acquainted and accustomed to being in your house and finding workout times and now you're going to be doing that all over again with a whole new set of demands and it's going to be a little crazy for a month so So figure out that system. If you've got to wake up at 5 a.m., that's something that I've been doing to hang out with you guys in the morning, and I hope to be able to keep it because 5.30 a.m. has been really awesome for me.

Travis Mash, where can they find you, my man? Go to mashlead.com, Instagram, Mashlead Performance. Boom. Douglas E. Larson, tell them where to find you. You bet. Find me on Boom. Douglas E. Larson. Tell them where to find you. You bet. Find me on Instagram at Douglas E. Larson. I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner. We're Barbell Shrugged at barbell underscore shrug.

Get over to barbellshrug.com. Free resources, all the programs, barbellshrug.com forward slash store. And then, of course, one-tonchallenge.com forward slash join. We can get you super jacked on the snatch, clean jerk, squat, deadlift, and bench press with the lifelong pursuit of strength for you to hit a total of 2000 pounds, 1200 for you ladies. One ton challenge.com forward slash join. We'll see you guys next week. That's a wrap. Make sure you're getting into the physique bundle next week. 88% two programs for the price or seven programs for the price to buy to get by free. That's crazy. Um, yeah, you're going to save a ton of cash. Buy two, get five free. That's crazy.

Yeah, you're going to save a ton of cash. We're going to get you super jacked. It's going to be great. That'll be up in the store next week. We'll have a show coming out about everything that is going into it. Additionally, I want to thank our friends over at Fit Together. Make sure you get into the app store today. Download Fit Together.

Come and find me. Search for Anders Rarner. I'm'm in there i've been posted for about two months it's awesome um and then our friends at organifi organifi.com forward slash drugged save yourself 20 on the greens the reds and the golds we will see you guys on wednesday