Barbell Shrugged - How to Find the Best Back Squat Program for CrossFit and Strength Athletes w/ Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Travis Mash - Barbell Shrugged— Barbell Shrugged #436

Episode Date: January 29, 2020

There are countless programs on the internet to build your back squat. With 80+ years of experience on this podcast, we have done them all. In this episode of Barbell Shrugged, Anders, Doug, and Travis discuss: Finding a goal specific program to increase your squat. 20 Rep Back Squat program for CrossFitters Best back squat program for building a new 1 Rep Max Functional Fitness training programs and squat programs for group classes Accessory training for back squat programs What to expect taking on a new back squat program   And more…   Anders Varner on Instagram   Doug Larson on Instagram   Travis Mash on Instagram   TRAINING PROGRAMS   One Ton Strong - 8 Weeks to PR your snatch, clean, jerk, squat, deadlift, and bench press   20 REP BACK SQUAT PROGRAM - Giant Legs and a Barrell Core   One Ton Challenge    8 Week Snatch Cycle - 8 Weeks to PR you Snatch   Aerobic Monster - 12 week conditioning, long metcons, and pacing strategy   Please Support Our Sponsors   “Save $20 on High Quality Sleep Aid at Momentous livemomentous.com/shrugged us code “SHRUGGED20” at checkout.   US Air Force Special Operations - http://airforce.com/specialops   Organifi - Save 20% using code: “Shrugged” at organifi.com/shrugged   ------------------------------------------------------------------ Show notes at: http://www.shruggedcollective.com/bbs-20repsquat ------------------------------------------------------------------ ► Subscribe to Barbell Shrugged's Channel Here ► Subscribe to Shrugged Collective's Channel Here http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedSubscribe 📲 🎧 Listen to the audio version on the Apple Podcast App or Stitcher for Android Here- http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedApple http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedStitcher Shrugged Collective is a network of fitness, health and performance shows that help people achieve their physical and mental health goals.  Usually in the gym, but outside as well. In 2012 they posted their first Barbell Shrugged podcast and have been putting out weekly free videos and podcasts ever since. Along the way we've created successful online coaching programs including The Shrugged Strength Challenge, The Muscle Gain Challenge, FLIGHT, Barbell Shredded, and Barbell Bikini. We're also dedicated to helping affiliate gym owners grow their businesses and better serve their members by providing owners tools and resources like the Barbell Business Podcast. Find Shrugged Collective and their flagship show Barbell Shrugged here: SUBSCRIBE ON ITUNES ► http://bit.ly/ShruggedCollectiveiTunes WEBSITE ► https://www.ShruggedCollective.com INSTAGRAM ► https://instagram.com/shruggedcollective FACEBOOK ► https://facebook.com/barbellshruggedpodcast TWITTER ► http://twitter.com/barbellshrugged

Shrug family. Three months ago, I put out the coolest, hardest, baddest, most fun squat program of my entire life. The 20 rep back squat program. It's the most important squat program that's ever happened to me in my entire life. I found the book Super Squats. I used to run the program in my gym all the time, every year. All of our athletes at competitive regionals would do the program before the open and once we got really comfortable doing it with all the competitive athletes we started to move it into the gen pop health and fitness programs with massive results super squats was written in 1989 it's been 30 years and the entire crossFit craze has taken over the world. The functional fitness, high intensity, people love the conditioning. And this single program is so

incredibly good for the functional fitness athlete. Yet nobody has put out a definitive program on how to implement 20 rep back squats, which has been around for hundreds of years, into the new functional fitness paradigm. So that's why we wrote it. And even cooler, just to test it out, as soon as I got my brand new PRX Performance Home Gym, it was the perfect place. You have to break your brand new PRX Performance Home Gym in the right way. So what do you do? You do it with the hardest, baddest, coolest squat program in the world. And I really wanted to test myself. My lifetime best was 315. I haven't done the full program, but I've been like building this moment in my head. So I took the PRX Performance squat rack,

which normally sits right on the wall. I pulled it down. It turns into the perfect squat rack. Put my Aliko barbell in there. 315 on the bar, sit down, stand up, three breaths in between each for 20 reps. I hit it. My lifetime best. It was like the coolest lifetime achievement to be able to go and do that program. Hit my lifetime best. Do it on one of the baddest squat racks that I've ever owned in my own garage to break in my brand new home gym, garage gym, PRX Performance gym. It's so awesome. I really enjoy the PRX Home Gym, by the way. And if you go over to prxperformance.com and use the coupon code SHRUGGED, you can save 5%. I love the thing. It's so radical. It fits perfectly in my house. My wife can still park the car in there.

And I've got just a dope home gym to film all kinds of fun stuff. And if you train in your garage on a regular basis, you're going to save a ton of space. So get over to PRX Performance. Use the coupon code SHRUG to save 5%. And if you want to be on the raddest, coolest strength program, squat program, it's going to build massive, massive legs. You're going to build a giant core because the breathing work is so hard to sit down and stand up for 20 reps. Get over to shrugcollective.com forward slash 20. That's shrugcollective.com forward slash 20.

That is where you're going to save 15% by using the coupon code shrugged for all of the shrugged listeners out there. 20 rep back squat program for the functional fitness athlete. Shruggedcollective.com forward slash 20. And if you needed any more reason to go check that program out, we did an entire podcast talking about squat cycles and we spent so much time talking about the 20 rep back squat cycle because it is like the most important squat program that's ever existed in the history. Everyone that loves strength training has done this program and has stories to tell about it. And that's why me and Doug Larson and my boy coach Travis Mash sat down and talked about the best squat programs for you to do to get super jacked right now.

Enjoy the show. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Anders Varner, Doug Larson, Coach Travis MASH. We're a MASH elite of performance. Louisville. We're just going to call it Winston. No, we're going to call it Louisville. Yeah.

This tiny little home. It's time. It's time. We're making a face. Putting Louisville on the map. Dude, there's a guy right here, our boy, Barbell Stories. Will, what's your last name? Bro.

Bro. You were born to be in the gym. B-R-O-U-G-A. You are a true bro. E-A-U-L-T. That is awesome. It's bro spelled cool. Dude, that's like having a last name where you're like a really strong,

potentially strongest man in the world and and your last name's Mash. What do you do? I'm just mashing barbells today. Yes, you are. It's like my kickboxing coach I used to have in Ireland. His name was Mike Fury. Yeah. Fury's a great last name for a kickboxer.

Or a fighter. Fury. Yeah. The first one I went to, the very first regionals that I went to, the emcee was like, Anders Varner. And I was like, he did it. I feel so much stronger. I'm going to at least finish in the top 20. Is that a Swedish name?

Because in Sweden they all – Scandinavian, yeah. I mean, I was named after a hockey player, Anders Hedberg, Anders Keller. But they were all from Norway, Sweden, something like that. Iceland. Every time they took the ice, my dad was like,

yes, that's the one. Is it Iceland? Scandinavian? Scandinavian. I don't think it technically is. Is it? I don't know. No.

Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. Finland. Finland, yeah. You should have gone to Finland. I know. Finland would be dope.

Dude, yo, one of my favorite parts About being here Is the fucking dope anatomy On the wall My wife Yeah It's so cool Yeah

Wait Drew did those Drew did those by hand Oh no way Yes That's rad It was originally in one In another gym It was on one wall

So it made a lot You know We had to do all this craziness To make it fit here. But, yeah, she was one banner. That's super rad. Yeah. Your wife's like a real artist.

Yeah, she's a real deal. She knows what's up. Dude, I want to start the show because somehow we've all been in this game. How long have you been lifting weights? 33 years? 34 years? Since I was 11, 35. 35 years.

Doug, you started lifting when you were 13? 14? Yeah, I started doing barbell stuff when I was 14. I started when I was 13. So combined, if you were to take all the strength on this podcast right now, life under the barbell, you got 35 plus

23 plus 23. That's a lot. I can't even do the math. What is that? 35 and 46. Smart people? Yeah, it's 81. 81 years of lifting weights on this specific podcast. And the guy holding the camera right now, when did you pick up the camera? High school? Oh, yeah.

You're five years into it. Eight years. Eight years into it. And you're just becoming a professional videographer. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, full time. You just now have committed fullographer? Yeah. I mean, like, full-time. You just now have committed full-time.

Yeah. Dude, I think that what you're doing is so radical. When you were telling us the story last night of, like, trying to find barbell clubs, trying to figure out where you're going to live so you can somehow do the thing that you'd like to do for a living. It's like the coolest place in life. You own nothing. You're in a place where it's just all you have to do is go shoot and get reps

and then figure out how to run a business out of the thing you love. Yeah, you do it well. That's the key. I think that's what Gary Vee would tell you. I talk about him way too much. Well, how long did it take before you really felt like you had a foothold in the strength industry where you're like, I actually feel like I can do this for the rest of my life.

I mean, I would say the minute I went to Colorado Springs, I started running a health club while I was getting coached by Wes Barnett. I knew I was good at the industry. I had a natural knack for like helping people get in shape. Yeah. You know, convincing them to need to be in shape. Did you ever think it was going to be an actual gym that you owned or a weightlifting team that you owned? I didn't know. I didn't know I'd ever.

I just assumed I would own a gym. It was a world gym. So it was still my favorite gym to date because it had all the awesome equipment. But then there was a section for weightlifting, a section for powerlifting. There was a rock climbing wall. It was just awesome. Yeah. So I assumed it would be something like that because there wasn't CrossFit then. And so it never even dawned on me that you could own, like, a box-type gym.

Yeah. So I just assumed I would do that. I never thought you could because every time I went to a gym in 24-Hour Fitness or World or whatever it was, I would see the personal trainers and what they were doing, and I was just like, there's no way that I could actually teach that. Like that personal trainer game, there was nothing that inspired me to want to be one of those people until the CrossFit coach showed up, and I was like, oh.

That looks fun. Oh, we get to make this thing awesome, and people are actually going to work hard. This is so cool. Right. Oh, we get to make this thing awesome. And people are actually going to work hard. This is so cool. Right. Oh, there's like an actual way. There's a path that we can follow to do this. And make it fun.

Yeah. Yeah. I liked athletic performance early on. I knew I wanted to work with athletes. I assumed it would be within a gym like that, though. So that was really my first thing. You know, when I first started my own business, it was working with just, like, football, basketball. And I still, I'm 50-50.

Like, I love weightlifting, but I love coaching my athletes too. Like, you know, yesterday Mason, one of my throwers, signed his national letter of intent. There's something awesome always about watching that happen, about seeing a kid, you know, committed his life and did the extra things he needed done and actually made it to where he wanted to go. Letter of intent to go to college.

Yeah, he was going to throw at Wake Forest. He's one of the best throwers in the country. He's an unbelievable athlete. He can pretty much do whatever he wants. He could be a great weightlifter. He could be a great football player. He could definitely be a great powerlifter. He's a big, fucking strong boy. I see him move. Walking player. He could definitely be a great powerlifter. Oh, yeah. He's a big fucking strong boy.

I see him move. Walking in yesterday, I was like, oh, you're an athlete for sure. You're too big. You move with intent. He's that guy. He can do whatever, but that was good. It's good to watch your dudes, like, you know, when you have a guy in the NFL. It's just something feels good to be a part of something like that.

Yo, Travis, have you ever done 20 rep back squats? Have I? Yeah, of course. Like have you done like a consistent training program, 20 rep back squats? Yeah, Chris and I a long time ago set out to do, you know, a 20 rep at 500 pounds. We both did that. You did it? You did do 20 reps at 500 pounds?

Yeah. Too bad there wasn't cameras around then. I know. We didn't think that. Back then it was so different than now. Then you did it because you're trying to get somewhere. Now you do it sometimes because you want people to see you do it. So it's a totally different mindset.

Back then I was just. That's like half a life right now is just doing things so you can post it on the internet. Actually, that brings me to another question. How have you managed that in here? Because there's cameras out all over the place in here. But in the Westside doc, like, Louie seems to be very, very angry about the state of strength conditioning. You just have to roll with it. Yeah.

You can either fight it and become like him. You know, and no one is more of a proponent of Westside Barbell than me. Like, I've written a book, Conjugate, where I'm talking about, you know, weightlifting as it relates to, you know, Westside Barbell than me. Like, I've written a book conjugate where I'm talking about, you know, weightlifting as it relates to, you know, Westside Barbell principles. But he is, I mean, this is a rough one thing to say, but as of right now, unless things change, they're going to become obsolete because they refuse to, you know,

say here's what society says. If you want to go and battle the top 100 people, go right ahead, but you can't say you're a world champion. If you're a world champion, you go wherever the strongest people are and wherever the attention is. And that's just life, man. You can fight it all you want. But that's true.

If you want to be the best football player, go to the NFL. See if you are. You can't go to some other league and say I'm the best football player. No, you're not. You've got to go to the NFL against the best people. Wait, back up. So how did the obsolete comment come in? Because, you know, the equipment. got to go to the NFL against the best people. Wait, back up. How did the obsolete comment come in? Because the equipment.

That's a thing of the past. Man, there's going to be a lot of people mad. It's cool that the WPO is back, but it's not back. When I was doing the WPO... They're fully equipped, right? Fully equipped, and there's no rules. It's as equipped as you want to be.

The squat depth is sometimes. Questionable at best. Yeah. And so like. But just the whole world is going away from equipped lifting. And they just are holding on to it. People can't get past it. Yeah.

And I love him. Dave Hoff is amazing. He'd be a great powerlifter no matter what he does. Yeah. But for people to really say, hey, Dave Hoff, you're the best powerlifter of all time. You got to go beat the guys who are the best in the world. You have to. And you're not going to do it. But what are the best in the world doing now? They're doing raw. Like, I mean, you're the best powerhouse of all time. You've got to go beat the guys who are the best in the world. You have to. And you're not going to do it.

What are the best in the world doing now? They're doing raw. I mean, I think we all – I mean, you see Steffi. Steffi's raw. Yeah. And she goes at it. They go to that big meet in California, the USPA meet, and that's it.

To play devil's advocate, what's wrong with just being the best in the world at the one thing you choose? He's just choosing to do equipped. By all means, you can. But if you want people to acknowledge you as the best in the world at the one thing you choose? He's just choosing to be equipped. By all means, you can. But if you want people to acknowledge you as the best in the world, as the best power lifter in the world, you've got to go where the best power lifters are. What do you think? You can.

By all means, you can call yourself whatever you want. But if you want people to respect you as the best power lifter, you've got to beat the best power lifters. Right? Dude, when you say Dave Hoff has put up a 3,000-plus total three times. 3,100 now, which is amazing. Yeah, it's incredible. What's stopping him outside of some minor form and technique differences of walking in, just taking the suit off, and putting up a 2,800?

I don't think anything, but you've got to do it. Yeah, but I guess I don't understand why the mental battle of staying in your lane so hard when you could just walk in and be like, yeah, here's my easy 2,800. See, that's the problem. I don't think it's going to be an easy 2,800. I think it's going to be some time, and I think year one he may or may not be the top guy, and that's going to be hard for him. That's a hard thing. If you consider yourself the world champion, the best of the best,

and you go in there, you know good and well that you're not going to be. There's going to be some people who give you a heck of a run. Yeah, right. One thing I'm actually sitting across from Morgan last night, he made a comment about this. People, I guess, coaching your athletes through the side of it, if, like, someone might not be as good of a lifter as Morgan, but they're better on social media.

Yeah, yeah. It's a rough one. Like, that has to – he's fucking 16 years old. That can't be an easy pill to swallow where he's like, I'm better than that guy. Like, what is it? Like, you have to manage that stuff as a coach, and, like, it can't be easy. No, it's not easy for even the coach, you know. Yeah.

You see there's a gym down south, we'll say, that is, like, not good at all. But, like, they're doing a really, really good job of some video stuff. And, like, their videos are nice. They got no good lifters. This coach has not produced any good – has not produced one Team USA athlete. But they're getting super popular because they're really good at production. And so I think there's, you know, two ways to go about it. You can either go about things and say,

I'm going to be popular over time because my athletes are destroying everybody in the world. That's one. Or two, I'm going to be popular because time because my athletes are destroying everybody in the world. That's one. Or two, I'm going to be popular because I put on the best production in the world. Or you choose to do a little bit of both, which is my goal. But my number one priority is always going to be I want the best athletes. And I want to be considered a good coach because my athletes are killing it. Not because I'm producing this great video for everyone's enjoyment, which I hope. I want to be considered a good coach because my athletes are killing it yeah not because I'm producing this great like video for everyone's enjoyment which I hope you know I want I want to produce content I want to help teach and grow this community but priority one is like helping my you

know when an athlete comes to you as a coach and they're like hey will you coach me they're putting all their dreams in your hands yeah and if, if your priority is something other than helping them reach their dreams, then, like, I've got to question you as a coach. You know, you've got to be, you know, like when Morgan comes to me, moves, his whole family moves here. I take that seriously. And since I'm going to do whatever I can do to help Morgan get to where he wants to be.

Yeah. Well, I'm pitching it to Barbell Stories last night on the way home. We're getting him to move here so he can just cover every day of Morgan's training, put a blog out, and show him go win a gold medal or like you know like i'd all be all about having someone like kim if it if it works out you know monetarily to like you know to make really cool educational videos i'm all for that yeah like i want to help everyone that's listening to us right now i want to say hey if you're having this problem do this and i'll fix it i definitely want to do that but you gotta like you to like, you know, my priority is not that.

My priority is to my athletes because they're the ones who trusted me with their entire lives, their dreams. And I know that because I used to be that person. I know what it's like to say I want to be a world champion. I want to be the best in the world. Do you enjoy doing educational videos? I know you like writing your books. You've got a bunch of books. You're a great writer.

Do you like doing the video education piece? Not as much as I do the books. But, yeah, I don't mind. As long as I have somebody. What I don't like is the editing it's just not my number one i'm not good at it and like i don't have a desire to be good at it so like you know if i did i'm sure i would take the time to learn it and i would love it but like it's not like a thing i was like really steep learning curve i like to write you know that's what i that's what i like to do so it's easier to write in your free time. You can do whatever you want to.

For me, it's natural. Whereas video editing is... I've never grown up thinking, man, I really want to get good at... I don't. But I'm so glad he does because it's people like him that are actually bringing the sport to the masses.

At the end of the day, both help the sport. What he does teaches the average person how cool weightlifting is because he tells a story and he shows that story with his video. So then people are like, oh, that's cool. So there's definitely importances to all of it. Yeah. Getting back to Doug brought up the 20-rep back squat program. And what we really wanted to do on this episode is just talk about squat cycles

and how we implement them into, like, seasons, into a quad, into a one-year CrossFit season. Like, best squat programs for increasing 1RM. What's kind of your history, Doug, as far as, like, getting – when did you start to, like – when did you do the 20-rep one, but then just what's, like, the history of when you would find squat cycles, really focusing on hypertrophy or building to a 1RM? I've essentially never siloed squatting as a goal of a program.

I've never been like, I'm doing a squat cycle. I've only done just strength conditioning programs that are total body, and I'm not trying to just get good at one movement. I'm trying to get strong everywhere. But that said, one of the very first things that I ever did as far as big barbell lifts, when I first learned about, you know, heavy squats and cleans and all that, I went to a Bigger, Faster, Stronger seminar back in freshman year of high school. You know, the day before baseball season started.

Now, that was my first exposure to even seeing what a clean was to like doing heavy deadlifts like i hadn't really lifted weights at that point i'd only done gymnastics so i'd done a lot of body weight stuff a lot of upper body stuff great start yeah awesome start good mobility and good upper body strength but but not very not very impressive leg strength at that point i would imagine because i never really focused on it uh so 20 rep back squats was like my first exposure to lifting with a barbell and and it was brutal it was absolutely brutal i did every every monday i'd come in and try and add five pounds from the week before which actually you'd think that only lasts so many weeks but i mean i did that for for a couple months because i started pretty light

and then just kept adding weight and then and then would do – it would basically be forced reps for like reps 15 all the way through 20. Or someone was behind me kind of just like bumping me through my sticking point. Just pushed me just through it like pinkies, pinkies. Or it feels like the last five or six reps or every one of them is a 1RM. It really is. And then you're just fucking sitting there just like, fuck, okay, okay, one more rep. Just do one more. Just do one more.

And I know that I can't fail on it because the guy's going to bump me through my sticking points, so I got to do it. There's no dropping the bar. There's no getting out of it. Yeah. That's a sad place to be. Yeah. And, you know, of course, that made me brutally sore, and those sets were so difficult.

But I felt like that was a really fortunate thing to have done as my very first thing ever because oh yeah ever since then like even to this day like everything's compared against my first experience and so every every set of five that i do or every heavy single i do is like nowhere near as brutal as those fucking that's a good idea ridiculous sets of 20s that i did back then yeah uh. Followed up with a full workout afterward. I didn't know any better. We're just in there training for fucking two hours because we're high school kids. I'm waiting for my parents to come pick me up and I'm just

lifting weights until they get there. I think the best two workouts. Mom, I'm done, but you can stay gone as long as you'd like. I'll just be here squatting. 20 rep max and the 10x10. Those are the two most brutal. 10x10. I've never truly done a real 10 by 10 program.

I bet it is brutal. It's brutal, especially when you put a percentage on it and you have to do. Yeah. Five pounds a week. I've done plenty of 5 by 10 and all that, kind of more normal stuff, but never German volume training straight 10 by 10. It's brutal. Do you follow the rest period, the rest intervals on that when you're doing it?

No, just recovery. Yeah, you're just dying. Yeah. You don't have the, yeah. No, you just recover. Just try to get almost fully recovered. Yeah. Go back at it.

The 20 rep is better, though. I think it's like you just choose one or two. Some people do two sets of 20. Yeah, yeah. We played with both of them in the gym. Sorry, go ahead. 40 heavy loaded squats with that much of a mental battle for the majority of people is just too much. I like doing one, too.

Even for me. You can add the 10 pounds a week, and it's something about doubling it up and adding five pounds per time. It's just, it crushes people. We made bigger jumps. We did. I think we started, the goal being 500 for 20. And we started with 405, and we did it 20. And it went too bad.

Then we went 425, 450, 475. Oh, yeah. 500. So it was only a month or so. That's gnarly, 500. That day was a long day. I was scared. I was.

Yeah. That's the thing about the 20-hour. Nervous all day. We talk about it all the time. You're like, man, I got to do that tonight. God, that's going to suck. If I missed it, I was going to have to do it. I was going to have to do it.

I was going to do that. So it was either do it the first week or the next week. Dude, I put 315 on, which is my lifetime best for 20, like two months ago just to see what I could do. And I hit 15, and I had a moment where I was, like, standing there with 15 where everything went numb, legs, can't feel them, but, you know, you could. And I was like, I could get there,

but I'm going to put this in the rack right now. I would love to know I could do 500 for 15. That would be awesome. So that's pretty cool. Maybe I'll do it this afternoon. I'd love to know I could do 500 for 15. What a great feeling. One.

No chance. yeah i actually so when when i every year i did the 20 rep 12 weeks of it but it was always it was always leading up to the open that was like that was like the the litmus test for are you ready to go through the pain of crossfit pain cave can you get through a full 12 week cycle of the 20 rep program you did that leading up to five years in a row i 20-rep program? You did that leading up to? Five years in a row. I mean, I did it probably every other year leading up to actually structuring out a year. And then I did it every year leading up to the Open with like a month of just getting back into backing the reps down.

Getting after like, which essentially is like a massive hypertrophy phase for squatting. But yeah, I did it every single year. And we put our teams through it every single year going into the Open. It was like, okay, we got really big and strong. And we all PR'd every single lift over the last six months from last games. Now we got to go play the mental game. Like, are you really strong enough in between your years to get through this? I never even thought of it like that.

It's such a different world, CrossFit. Yeah, because it's so painful that, like, it's the only program that I've ever, that I felt like truly was a conditioning strength program that was, like, perfectly written for CrossFit because you have to move when your body is broken. Yeah. And you have to get through it.

It's significant. Like, when are you not strong enough to do a burpee right never you're not so get your ass on the ground and go and the only way you're going to do that is knowing that every third breath you have to sit down with the heaviest weight you can imagine on your back yeah and you've been doing it for 12 straight weeks and it seems like there's no purpose to it whatsoever but when it's game time you're mentally there you take three breaths between each rep is that what you do um no i mean i don't really plan it like that necessarily but you know the first the first eight or ten are pretty casual you know what

are you lifting like fucking 60 or something something hopefully yeah uh but then i i feel like for me you know it's like once i get to like 12, then it's like two breaths. And then when I'm at 15, it's kind of like three or four breaths. And then every rep after that, it's like, okay, now it's like six, seven, eight. And then on the last couple, it's like you're going to stand there for 15 or 20 seconds because you're doing, again, you're just doing one rep maxes over and over and over again. You're just getting just enough rest to just grind out one more one rep max. I count three breaths for every single one of them.

Do you really? Usually. Even for number one every single one of them. Do you really? Usually. Even for number one? Even for number one. Oh, really? Yeah, mainly because I feel like one of the most important pieces of the 20 rep program has nothing to do with your legs. It has everything to do with building your core.

So you think about it. You have 315 on your back. That's a one rep max breath when you start to get to number 11. And you do that three times, and all of a sudden your core, actually the amount of stability and breathing that's going on in there, like you're sore as hell in your intra-abdominals. Not 500 pounds like that. Trying to get through it.

And I feel like that's actually one of the benefits to doing the program that very few people think about. And I only think about it because I've done it so many times. Is that in the book, three breaths between each rep? It's more like Doug said, but we changed it in the gym to get people to be able to breathe under load because it's such a CrossFit thing that you need to be able to do 225-pound front squats for 21 or whatever it is. And you have to be able to stand there and breathe and maintain stability without getting tired.

Like the transfer from the 20 rep program and incorporating the breathing while under super heavy load and the mental thing just transfers into the CrossFit programming so well that we used to hammer people. Like that was was the test. More than the 1RM. Who can do 20 for the heaviest rep? For CrossFit, who cares what your 1RM is?

It's not even the biggest 1RM ever really matters in CrossFit. 20 RM is a much better test. Can you rep? I liked it in grid. One of the testers was 225 clean and then front squat at 20 times.

So you start on the ground, you clean it, and then 20 reps. I mean, that was fun. I like that. Yeah. Any kind of barbell for reps I like, but then nothing else. Was that fairly easy for you? Yeah. Yeah, I did that.

Because it's like one good thing, like if you do get stronger, is that 225 is such a low percentage. So that's like, you know, if at the time I could front squat, let's say, you know, 500, whatever, 500, even 500, it's still less than 50%. Right. So it wasn't too bad. Yeah, if any movement, you should be able to do 20 reps with less than 50% for the most part. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Front squat makes it so much harder, though.

It does because you can't breathe that well sitting on your chest. I made terrible mistakes. I'm not a CrossFitter, so hold my breath for the first 10. Those are fun games to play, though. Yeah, it's fun. If you got out to the XPT stuff and they went and did all the breath work and stuff that they do, it would be super fun because then you could go and test stuff like that under really heavy weight and hold your breath for three minutes,

see how much work you can get done. He's blacked out. He's like, three minutes. I did. Laird Hamilton will get you to a three-minute breath hold, I promise. Shouldered overhead with 245 for 20. Now, that was the hardest thing for me. Wow.

That was brutal. The first day I did it, I held my breath for the first 11, and then I seized up. Yeah? Like, yeah. I dropped it. Like, yeah, like, you know, I dropped it. He's like, all right, take three breaths. And I was like, no, there's no taking three breaths. Like, I was locked up. But then the next week, he taught me the rhythm of the breathing.

It wasn't easy, but I did it 20. But the first day, it was like, there's no chance. That sounds so much harder than 225 or 20 front squats. Yeah. That was like yeah i knew it was gonna be hard just because you know not being a crossfitter knowing how to like cycle and overhead yeah but the clean cycling is easy but the overhead is hard yeah did you ever do any of the like super famous 531 squat cycles small off i've've done 5-1, but I've never done small off.

I've done 5-1, small off. And then what's the great, I totally just went blank, the great Russian penalty coach that went to the West Side and hung out with Louie Simmons. Oh, Chico. Boy, Chico. So I did some of his programming, which is more all of the list. But all of it's pretty good.

I think at the end of the day, like, small off will trump 5-3-1 because of frequency. I think the small off one. Or squatting specifically. Yeah. I've never, shouldn't say never. It's an absolute. Doug teaches me these things.

I very rarely see normal human beings get through the small off program without needing a lot of attention from a specialist on their knees at the end. It's pretty brutal. It is brutal. Yeah. That's one reason I really like the 20 rep program is you don't get into like the super high weights. Right. don't get into like the super high yeah super high weights right you're somewhere in 68 percent which is relatively manageable and it doesn't put like a ton of pressure on your joints it's

it's really like a a core and and legs test and then your brain to get through it's better for general fitness for crossfit like yeah i don't CrossFitter, you see that all the time that you go to a CrossFit gym and you're running a small off. I'm like, why are you running? Why? That is for a power lifter

or a weight lifter who has like a weak spot of a squat. Yeah. And for someone who's used to lots and lots of that movement, it's not for a CrossFitter.

Yeah. Like with her, she's a 48 X, 48 year old X distance runner she doesn't need to do small ever ever ever there's a lot of things they don't need to do but definitely not small off yeah like it was hard for me yeah and i'm that's what i do but yeah i was trying to find that balance between like what people really need and what they think is super cool and they're like excited to do it's like you kind of want to give people what they want to do i'm not thinking about 48 year old mom and that example was was asking to do

small off but like travis i was reading this thing on the internet do you know this small off guy i do i think he's is he is he eastern block is he russian yeah don't do it don't do that but do you think this was written for me? I think any program where it's high frequency, high intensity is going to produce a higher 1RM. But then you've got to think about the benefits of squatting. There's so many different benefits. Like you said, like the core, you know, the strengthening, especially like for football players, you're talking about strengthening, you know, the spinal erectors. So like spinal extensors, whatever.

But like, you know, there's that benefit too. You know, there's a lot more than just that one rm it's the hypertrophy of the muscle groups that you're looking to you know get better at like if you're a football player i've got to have a strong torso when i run into somebody so then you don't need small off all the time because you don't who cares what your one rm is it's like yeah what's your back look like is it strong is it ready for what's about to happen yeah so if you're a crossfitter don't need, you know, like you don't need a 30-pound gain on your 1RM probably. Yeah.

Unless you're just completely, you know, just so weak. Well, I think the 1RM thing too, you can – so I squatted 425. That's my best squat ever. And that single one rep in the grand scheme of everything had very little to do with actual strength. It was purely ego. Yeah. Eight weeks before, I said, I'm going to squat four and a quarter. And no matter what program I was on, I was probably going to squat four and a quarter.

Probably. So the training piece to it is more of a confidence builder. Right. Than like pure strength. Because the next day after I did it or a week later there's no way i was squatting 425 it was just like a check and check box check the box that i did it i said i was going to do it it's kind of a lifetime goal and now i'm done and probably my three five and 20 rep maxes are much more important i actually think like a double if you were to like put your

dollar in the jock bucket and say we're going to battle today think like a double. If you were to like put your dollar in the chalk bucket and say we're going to battle today, I think a double is probably like the best test of pure strength. It would definitely give you better odds with me than doing a single. Like, you know, double is a totally different ballgame for powerlifters. Yeah, and they're not that much different on the numbers. But it will be for me. Yeah, I'm just very good at taking a

weight out and doing it one time yeah even if like a front squat like um it was only it was like 20 weeks after i got hip replacement i did 506 on front squat but like asked me to double that not 10 not a chance you think it's double like 475 i don't know honestly it's a big difference for me it is it is a big i think right now i think now, if I was to test my 1RM, I'd be very happy hitting like 400. Like very happy hitting 400. We're going to take a quick minute to talk about our sponsors. Friends, I'm going to WOD on the waves. I really want you to come on the cruise with us.

I really want you to be a part of it. We're going to be interviewing the coolest people I'm so excited about. I may even get to hang out with Rich Froning. You get to save the cash. You can use the coupon code SHRUGged at wildonthewaves.com to save 5%. Also, you can bring your kids. I don't know if you want to bring your kids. I'm not bringing mine, but you can.

They've got fitness solutions for everybody. You can go train with the coolest kids. I'm not bringing mine, but you can. They've got fitness solutions for everybody. You can go train with the coolest kids. You can get personal training from some of the most famous trainers. Rich Froning is going to be there. I bet Tia is going to be there. I don't really know that. Camille LeBlanc-Bazinet, she's going to be there. There's an unreal number of influencers and really famous CrossFitters hanging out. Um, not to mention some of the bodybuilder crew. So get over to WOD on the waves. Uh, pricing starts at $6.99 per person.

So make sure you're getting over there. I can't wait for this. It's going to be the coolest thing ever. Also want to thank our friends over at Momentous. Um, you haven't seen me on Instagram posting about the protein. Well, you should follow me because I post about it all the time. It's part of my post workout. I love the protein. I love how clean it is. I had no idea how contaminated the majority of protein powders are. That's why so many people test. This one is NSF, uh, approved, which means it's a third party

outside testing source. Um, and you can get over to momentousentous.com forward slash shrug. That's L-I-V-E-M-O-M-E-N-T-O-U-S.com forward slash shrug. And you can save 20% on your first order of $50 or more. Also go and check out the podcast with Sarah Hendershot. She was just awesome and broke down how much protein you need, why you need a high quality protein. It was awesome. So livemomentous.com forward slash shrugged and the Navy seals of probiotics. You know that 99% of over the counter probiotics do not colonize in your gut as claimed. Well, it's true.

And this one says it does. Uh, you probably heard me talk about P3OM before. Uh, that's why I'm excited to tell you about the free bottle that you can get at BiOptimizers. What makes their strength different is that it is proteolytic. I mean, to digest protein. It's antiviral, antivitrovial, and eliminates pathogens and wastes, and is maintainable in the human digestive system. It's not meant to colonize. Once in your body, P3OM, super strength doubles every 20 minutes and helps get rid of the bad guys. That's the Navy SEAL part. Get rid of the bad guys, then it leaves your body in three to four days. It uses just one proven probiotic strain that's so affected, it's been patented. What it does do better than any other strain is fight the bad guys.

It also enhances fat loss and improves digestion. Now, here's the crazy part. This is the crazy part. You can get a bottle for free. That's the crazy part. Get over to P3OM.com forward slash shrugged free. That's P3OM.com forward slash shrugged free. All one word.

You'll automatically get access to your unique coupon code to claim your free bottle limit one per household let's get back to talking about the real thing squats but i think i could double 365 and feel fairly confident that i could do it it makes sense you're just a way more in shape adly with a much more you know efficient way yeah system than me way i'm built yeah so you swim like a mile or whatever in jamaica yeah uh yo if you at a weightlifting meet if you miss and then you have to follow yourself what's the time for that is that two minutes well unless someone takes your clock normally yeah two minutes yeah with no fuckery yeah you've got two minutes. Right. You ever thought about having that as a max, like a max to test in your gym? We do that.

Like what can you hit and then two-minute break and then hit again? We do that. Yeah? Yeah, I do a lot of – like I do a lot of sports with specific programming. Like we'll do waves, for example, because, you know, a lot of times you'll do your opener and then you'll go up three, five kilos, whatever it is, and now you're 12 out. So now if you sit there, you're going to be cold and you're definitely going to miss. So you've got to start all over.

So you get – and some athletes, if they're not conditioned, will freak out because they think they'll get too tired. So we practice that. Then we practice E-moms every – or E-2 mom, you know, every two minutes on the minute. So to do – and then we say work up at the end. I give them three or four sets to work up every two minutes on the minute. Then we say work up at the end. I give them three or four sets to work up with two minutes. How much time do you have in between

on powerlifting? A long time. Day and a half. I'll be back at 9 p.m. tonight, guys. Everyone takes their opening squats, starting from the lowest to the highest. Everybody takes second attempts, lowest to highest, third attempt.

Oh, it goes by attempt. It doesn't even matter what your number is. It does. Oh, man. I mean, like if you do your first attempt, whoever's got the lowest first attempt starts. Yeah. But they go all the first attempts.

Then all the second. So they unload the bar. Yeah. The bar doesn't just keep going up. It gets unloaded. Not good for me. Because I they unload the bar. Yeah. The bar doesn't just keep going up. It gets unloaded. Not good for me. Because I like to train faster. Yeah.

I hate that. I love the IWF World Championships. It moves real fast. They don't mess. Their loader's like, you know. Yeah. It was like we were done with the whole competition. It was like two or three hours total.

Yeah. Wow. I crushed. It was like, you know, that was that was like a peel at the time for me um when you're incorporating uh do you even focus on having like a squat heavy cycle in training or is or do you just general strength no i do definitely uh squatting is much more is a good indicator if someone's gonna get better better at weightlifting. You know, pulling is too, but squatting is going to be more of an indicator. So, like, if I have 20 weeks, you know,

we're going to try to peak the squat at week 12, giving eight weeks to, you know, at that point, you know, I don't focus as much on the 1RM. I focus more on power, production, and speed. And then I focus on 1RM and the snatch and clean and jerk. Yeah. So, yeah, so we, you know, I know if someone, like, I know if Ryan's squat goes up, which it has, that snatch and clean and jerk is about to fall, and it has. And I said, you know, it's pretty easy.

When Morgan's squat goes up, so it is. Yeah. And it has. Well, on the One Time Challenge program, we use the front squat as, like, actually as the big lift. Do you do that with most of your lifters? Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Front squatting is especially, is just much more much more like specific to weightlifting yeah so yeah like morgan just hit that 227 that's 500 for you counting at home 500 pounds at 16 and so which means a big clean injects coming tonight hopefully so yeah so those are big you know pulling is important too it is especially if you got somebody who's way off. So, like, if their squat is 500 and their pull is 400, you need to, like, have a cycle where that's addressed. That's too far. You know, 10%, like, you know, sometimes there's a lot of ways

that there's out there who can squat more than they can pull. Like Morgan, that's just a common trait. And so, but if they get more than 10%, if their squat becomes 10% more than their deadlift, you need to focus. His squat, what's his best pull? Now they're pretty same. It's like he deadlifts 550 and he squats 584.

It's just like. Yeah. How much of that do you just can't? I mean, we talked about it yesterday a little bit, and his snatch being a much lower percentage, or lower percentage than it would be on average for many lifters than his clean and jerk. Do you just look at that? You're like, look, let's just keep getting strong and stop worrying about shit like that.

No, no, I address it. Like, you know, we spent six months addressing that, you know, which now he's setting these PRs and snatch. And now his clean and jerk is kind of like he's still going, but it's like a kilo at a time. But now he's having these big five-kilo jumps on snatching. So, yeah, we went way backwards because I don't want to be that coach who just says, I got this freak athlete. He's going to be awesome no matter what I do, so I'm just going to go forwards.

I want him to, you know, because, number one, better form, better technique is going to be safer in the long run. I think a couple of the mistakes that some of these other coaches have made or some of these other athletes have made that were really good, that were better, faster, you know, younger, is that they didn't pay attention to the technique. So we went way backwards. I listened to Gattone and Pio Zdimas.

You know, a lot of coaches don't do this, but, you know, you need to put your pride aside. Listen to three-time gold medalist. He knows. He knows. Yeah, he's not. You don't become a three-time gold medalist. He's got gold medals and wisdom.

I feel like it would be easy to put your pride aside. Like, this guy obviously is better than anyone you've ever met. Let this quote me on this. The biggest problem at this point with American weightlifting is prideful coaching. And that's a fact. Like, it's coaches who it's so important to them that you guys in the world think that they're the best coach. They would rather you believe that. Well, their careers are going to disintegrate.

More than they would like to say, oh, I bet I could learn something from P.O. Stimos. They would rather say, you guys think that they're like the guru. Here's what I'm about. I'm about doing whatever I have to do to help my athletes get to where they need to be. If that means I need to listen to a whole other coach about everything, I will. Yeah, I feel like the coaches that are actually doing it. I mean, Waxman's such an awesome dude. Bergner was like the first guy that came out and just started teaching everybody.

Yeah. And then, like always, the first guy that busts through the door. People are like, Bergner warm-up is fucking stupid. We don't need. And it was like, dude, the guy's just teaching weightlifting. Calm down. He's got 75 people at his seminar every weekend. I think he's doing okay.

I've even had mentors that would have said that. But I'm like, you need to know the context behind what he's doing. If you sit down and talk to Waxman or Bergner and you ask them why they do certain things, you'll understand. I have. Luckily, I was never the guy. You know, my earlier mentors thought that, you know, you never worry about trying to pull up high. The goal is to open the hips and then get under the bar, which I agree.

But then you sit down and talk to Sean and talk to Bergner. They would agree, you know, that it's not necessarily how high. It's about, you know, peaking it and going, you know. It's about perfect timing. And, you know, they do this drill to strengthen the muscles they're used to pull under. how high it's about peaking it and going. It's about perfect timing. They do this drill to strengthen the muscles they're used to pull under. So when you start to contextualize what they're saying, you're like, oh. That's another thing.

They get so damn cocky. You made me cuss now, but they get so arrogant that they won't sit down and ask. They'd rather just go on some message board and spout off about Bergen or Wexman without knowing why they say what they say. You were talking about absolutes a minute ago, and then you made the example about the Bergen warm-up saying, like, it sucks. Like, anytime I hear, like, these all-or-nothing statements. I hate that. Absolutes, like, that thing sucks.

I'm like, what? Really? Like, okay, I kind of know where you're getting at, but, like, what are the pros and cons in all these different situations? Like, if you can't look at something and say, but what are the pros and cons in all these different situations? If you can't look at something and say, well, it'll probably work in this situation with these types of people, but not really in this other situation.

I like this about it, but I don't like that about it. If you can't break it down into this nuanced analysis, then you don't really know what you're talking about at the higher levels. Most people don't, dude. I just want to ask, all you've got to do is this. Hasbergner and Haswaxman produced results with their athletes? Absolutely. 100%. 100%.

Dude, Bergner's doing it in the middle of the desert in the same way that you're doing it here in the middle of Lewisville. In his garage. Dude, when we used to go out there. I love training in his garage. His garage is the best. I wish I had his garage. I know. There's like the first time I went there, I visited San Diego,

and it was like I borrowed a friend's car to drive an hour out to his place just because it was like I reached the Mecca. Like I made it. I'm in the middle of the desert overlooking these gorgeous hills, and it's like this is just where Olympians train. I'm slamming bars with – I did it. I made it.

It was the coolest experience ever. And Bergner, you walk up, you can't not work out hard there because at 9 a.m. every day those old dudes show up and will make you look bad. He's got the old geezers training in there at 9 a.m. every day getting after it, sprinting hills,

rolling wheelbarrows up hills, hitting the battle ropes. They're crushing it in there and then the kids show up and start slinging weights around dude he's an absolute role model in that respect like i fucking totally hope when i'm like in my 70s that i have like my six or eight like other 70 year old bros coming over to fucking do like broken weightlifting yeah in in my garage with me and we're all just hanging out having having a good time. Stay in the shape. This is his term.

He calls that group the geezers. He's like the geezer weightlifting club. They got T-shirts for the whole thing. Like, what a fucking cool thing. You're still training with your buddies when you're 70 years old? That's awesome. I just don't think there's any coach out there that I can't learn something from. And if their athletes are getting better, whatever they're doing is working.

I don't believe there's – you i talked to um to aaron from squat uh university yes yeah and um we talked we talked about this very thing about absolutes i just don't think there are that many only absolutes i can really think about would be like when you squat clean or snatch you need to keep your spine extended and when and in a perfect world you probably try to not have knee valgus at least at least under um the sub maximal loads you should yeah other than that like i don't know i mean some ideas are better than others and it's okay to say that are they like maybe it depends on the person i think what you said is right is like depends on who's teaching like if someone okay for example um i have hannah who's amazing who's like all of a sudden blowing up like if you taught

her the burgner warm-up it would mess her up because she already spends way too much time at the top yeah so you probably want to avoid that for a minute until she understands the rhythm and the time then you could probably give it to her and be no problem so there that would be the thing right is it like it's like the individual. Well, yeah. And where did the Bergner warm-up most likely come from? Well, he was a P.E. teacher teaching 50 kids with a broomstick how to do a snatch. How are you going to get 50 people to move in the same direction

without creating, like, a little dance with it? Right. And get across 90-plus percent of the points and the positions and get people's elbows high and outside. How are you going to get them there? It's genius. I'm with you. But, yeah, if you walked up to Morgan or anyone that's an elite weightlifter. Morgan and Ryan would be perfect for it because they are already very good at timing

and their speed underneath the bar is excellent. I think Morgan and Ryan would be perfect for it because they are already very good at timing, and their speed underneath the bar is excellent. So you start teaching them, all it might do is get them ready to pull under and activate those muscles they're going to use. You're not going to mess up their speed under the bar. It's awesome. The other thing I think that's so genius about stuff like that is you may be able to argue right or wrong with him on it but when you can simplify complex things to something like the bergner warm-up that you can do in 30 seconds and get across the if no if somebody walked in this room right now that had no idea what weightlifting was and you handed him a pvc pipe

you could get them to do yeah 80 of the movement relatively well in under five minutes. I agree. You have stripped away all the complexity. You've gotten rid of all the weights that are scary to people. There's no barbells, so they're not even associating it with working out. It's genius. I agree. It's like just the fact that, like, I think the smartest people in the world strip away all the crap.

It's like we have this great idea, and then let's simplify this thing down. And then let's simplify that idea. And then let's simplify that idea. And what it turns into is like dip, drive, elbows high and outside. Okay. Well, what is that position? That's just like an archetype, something we're looking for so that you can get your elbows around or you can push up on the bar.

I'm with you. And it's really simple. It's not for everybody, but it's probably for about 90-plus percent of the people. I would say it's for the majority. I think it's a great way to teach. I think my mentor, Don McCauley, God rest his soul, he just passed away, but he did not like that. He loved Bergner and respected him beyond.

We had this picture of all of us together. But he did not like the scarecrow, and he would make fun of it and say it was terrible. But his way of explaining it, you've got to stop what you're doing and listen. The pitchers are all of us together. But he did not like the scarecrow, and he would make fun of it and say it was terrible. But his way of explaining it, you've got to stop what you're doing and listen to understand it because it's more complex. So it's really good for people who want to be really good at the sport. But if you're teaching masses or CrossFit, it would be impossible to implement in a class setting with a bunch of people who may or may not love the sport. I was told that from day one about Bergener. Like, my weightlifting coach back when I was in high school and still a good friend of mine to this day,

awesome coach, but he learned weightlifting from Bergener. He was a powerlifter that learned weightlifting from Bergener. So I was lucky to have the two perspectives, you know, from day one. But that was one thing that he said about Coach Bergener from, you know from even as far back as me being 14 years old, entering high school, was that one of the things that he liked about him was that my coach was mostly coaching high school kids. Most high school kids don't know how to do any weightlifting at all when they're entering as a freshman in high school. He has a large group of football players, whoever he's trying to teach, mostly cleans, but some snatches as well too, squatting and whatnot. And he always said that Coach Berger, one of the things he did best was coaching large groups of people to do the lifts pretty damn well in a big group setting in a simplistic way yeah like it's super it's like the military

it's like super organized like big group people like barking orders and at the troops and the troops are just following directions and and he took that from bergner and applied it to coaching his own high school large groups of high school kids. And Mark is phenomenally good at doing just that now, years later. There's a few schools that have done really well. In Beaufort, Georgia, there's a coach, Stanley Trail, who is amazing. So their whole school does snatch, clean and jerk. They basically do weightlifting as their strength and conditioning.

And they're also in the best programs in the country. It's like unbeatable. And, you know, because everyone, the big thing about not doing it is like, oh, it's too hard to teach, but it's all about the system. They start in seventh grade. So every seventh and eighth grader do overhead squats and front squats, which makes it super easy to then, ninth grade year, teach them how to do a power snatch. Power snatch, they already have

the movement they already they're already stable overhead so it's easy they are you know they already have the the mobility yeah the movement so it's super cool that you're able to teach kids like now um did you mention don just a little bit ago and i don't think we've done a show or i don't know if you specifically have done a show on barbell life uh and not to make it sad or anything, but we've lost a bunch of people in the weightlifting world. It's been rough, yeah. And personally, I have never met any of those people. Oh, yeah. And hanging out in the circle that we all hang out with, I actually don't have any emotional connection to many of the people.

But they're people that I just assumed I would meet and hang out with and have a great relationship with in my career. Because they're the best in the world at what they do. And I guess as far as your career and your relationship with them, like where are you at with these – sitting with all this? It's been the hardest year of my entire life. You know, seeing Glenn Penlay and Don pass away. You know, they were my mentors, those two, and they're very different. So it was very good for me that I had two, you know, very different coaches in the same room so I could learn both perspectives.

And I've always been super open-minded to everyone you know west side like I still like Louie Simmons most way that coaches are 100% against that yeah so but like having those two together was awesome uh obviously I lean more towards Don like we had a better relationship you know Glenn is kind of a you know uh introvert and so but but he was you know he would call me at 11 a.m. at night to have this great idea about. He had done a research project when he was at Kansas doing his master's with mice where they took groups of mice. This is a great story. At 11 p.m. he calls me.

I'm in bed with my wife. I'm like, I should probably answer this. This was before I was at Muscle Driver, but I wanted to be there. So I get up. These groups of mice, they took the same amount of volume it was like putting these mice on these these flywheels to do x loads you know like they were pulling like you know a certain amount of load anyway so like you know some of the mice trained three days a week for x amount of hours per day the other ones trained every single day for the same amount of volume and overall time, but they did it every day, broken out throughout the day.

And then at the end of the research, the mice who did it every single day had gotten stronger and more approachable, quite a pretty big of a difference than the ones who only did it three days a week. So frequency became his thing. So he tried this experiment of he took the athletes at Muscle Driver and had them train like six days every day, six times a day every day. And it crushed him, though. It didn't work. I mean, like short term, you probably can get some growth and strength out of that.

But I feel like joint pain-wise, you're setting yourself up for failure long term. You'd have to have a bunch of athletes that are going to buy in and say, okay, I'm going to keep doing it. Take that are going to buy in and like say, okay, I'm going to keep doing it. Take a two hour nap every day. Sleep 10 hours a night. And understand that you might go backwards

until you adapt. But I would, I would like to guess after 12 weeks of that, you probably get a big job. You just want a mental break. You would be, one dude got better,

a lot better. So one, the little guy, Mike Zella got a lot better. Yeah. But anyway, so the reason I tell you this just you know losing these dudes is so impactful has been scary because you know some of them like glenn you know that they die and they you know they some of them are not you know they don't have families like don's family was his weightlifters you know and like

weightlifting and you know he didn't have all all – he had been married, but they were divorced. He had no kids. Glenn was – you know, had a kid, but, you know, didn't see him that often. And, like – and then I'm like, wait, am I heading down the same road? So it definitely led me to make a lot of changes in my own life. Like, I'm not going – I'm not that. Like, I am not married to a weightlifter. I love it, and I love my athletes, but I love my family more.

Yeah, I think that reflects in a lot of decisions you've been making over the last couple months too. Yes, a bunch of the decisions. Family being kind of at the forefront of all that. The priority. And then you see Justin, you know, our friend Justin from Missouri that hung himself in his own gym. I'm like, all this has just wrecked me mentally

and made me question everything about my life. Like, what's important to me is the gym so important that if things don't go well then i'm gonna hang myself if that's the case then i need to stop now and like go do something else so it just definitely made me question everything it made me make decisions instead of saying it definitely made me stop putting things off there's certain things i want to do in my life like there's a cool announcement soon any minute i'm about to make but you know like you made me decide let's do this now let's don't wait anymore and like you know let's don't wait till next year to spend more time with my kids yeah so yeah what are some of your bucket list items right now you don't have to announce the thing you just said but it's other other big things you want to accomplish well i mean you know

i want to get my phd you know uh the the announcement will be whether or not I'm going to do that. I'll just say that. But so Ph.D. would be one. You know, another one would be to set a legacy, another legacy for weightlifting to produce another university program. But a very successful one. So that would be two now i want to um i want to make sure all my you know kids when i'm gone will have a place to go to school for free or almost free and that that way when i'm done with weightlifting i will leave that legacy forever i'll be like you know i'll

start this program and then you know even if i want to do something else you know i still did plenty for the sport and i can move on and so that'll be another thing eventually making you know more time to be with my family to, you know, the things I love. I love weightlifting. Yeah. And I love coaching, you know, but, you know, I love my family more and I love to write. And, you know, I feel like I affect more people through writing and videos

and other things I do than just coaching. And so you get to, you know, when I coach, I get to affect, you know, maybe eight people that are in the room, right? And so, but when I write or video or podcast, it's thousands. And so, I want to do more. And it's less time. It's less time every single day. And so, I can be with my, I can still help people.

I can still, you know, help people reach their dreams. And I can be with my family. Yeah. So, that's. Did you ever think that academia was a part of your future? Yeah. Yeah, I knew. I liked it.

You know, even though i know people i come across as this super meathead and but i i really like to read and learn and you know i like to write my books probably more because of the research that goes into it that's more it's just as much fun probably more fun it's like learning about the topic i'm about to write about like when i wrote um mass jack is that it's a book all about hypertrophy. So, you know, going and reading all these things from, you know, Chris Beardsley and all these other people who produced it is just as much fun as writing the book.

Yeah. Do you have any aspirations to put out like a more mainstream big publisher book that you can just buy at the airport type thing? Yeah. If you're at the airport, dude, I'll be slaying in your books in every city we stop in. We're like, dude, dude, get the Masked Jack book.

Get the Masked Jack book. Get out of the fiction section. This is real life. I would like to write a book to kind of lay out what I've done and to kind of like, here are the things I messed up on. Do this. But then I'd also like to write just a novel. And so it has nothing to do,

maybe or may or may not have anything to do with weightlifting but a novel that I want to write a novel that I don't care if you read it or not you could do like historical fiction type of thing where it's kind of true but not all the way true it's based on reality I think those are the best novels anyway

it's like something that's almost kind of true it's like that's more fun to write about I think it's easier to write about too. That's what I want to do. I want to write a book and I don't care if you read it or not. Hopefully it will be good because it's something I like, everyone else will like, but I want to write. Those ones usually I feel like

do better. This is what I want to do. Yeah. I want to write something I would want to read. Do what I want. That's right. How do you not sell those shirts still? I don't know why I don't. You're crazy. Can't do everything.

That was one of my favorite shirts. I know. One of the many shirts that I used to have that was my favorite shirt that I have no fucking idea where it is. Where did my shirts go? I got left in a hotel in Amsterdam. He would be on a video or a picture with a shirt on, and I'd always sell like a ton. I should have sent him some. Bro, keep bringing that shirt.

You got an affiliate fee? I got it in hot pink, green, black, all of them. I remember we did a podcast in Miami and it was like, that was a podcast that changed everything. They gave me scotch and so I just kind of opened up. Oh, there we go. Get this coffee out of his hand. That's the trick.

That was the trick. There's no coffee in up. Oh, there we go. Get this coffee out of his hand. That's the trick. That was the trick. There's no coffee in here. This is all scotch. I was on the beach and they dropped the show and then my phone, because I have it, it comes to my email,

it tells me when people buy stuff and it just was like, brrrr. I'm like, okay, I'm changing my life right now. This sounds a lot easier than running this gym. So that was a life changing.

That's the sweet spot right there. If you can run a gym and you got all your friends there, all your buddies around all the time, and then you're making like little extra money online to supplement you hanging out with your bros all day. That's a sweet spot. Yeah. Or like if you have a situation where, you know,

your gym doesn't cost you any money, but you make your money online. That's beautiful. Like you don't really care. Like you're not like worried when you walk into your gym doesn't cost you any money, but you make your money online. That's beautiful. So you don't really care. You're not worried when you walk into your gym, oh, God, why is there nobody in here? I don't care. Don't come. It's paying the bills. I'm happy.

But I'm making a living online, so it's like perfect. That's the perfect spot. Yeah, it's the best coaches can find. You'll be found. Right. Because otherwise, if you come in the gym and you're trying to coach your team, but you're worried about, like, oh, shit, I'm not paying my bills, that would suck. Yeah.

If you were to go do the Ph.D. program, like, what would your Ph.D. be in? Like biomechanics. Of anything specific or? Like bar path, you know, the barbell, you know, like, how the body moves, you know, the physics of how the bar moves. Yeah. That's what I did my senior project on in college, biomechanics of snatching. Yeah.

It was fun as fuck. I felt like I was, like, duping the system. I literally, at the time, was waiting for someone to come up to me and be like, hey, that's way too easy. You can't do that. But everyone thought it was, it was really difficult and cool. It is. But for me, it was so fun that I felt like I was going to get in trouble.

That's exactly where you want to be. Doug, I don't think you should be doing this. You're going to get in trouble. And everyone else is like, you're a genius. That's how I felt about Shrugged, especially after running the gym and then Shrugged got big. Like 2013 to 15, I felt like I was on summer vacation for, like, three years in a row. And, like, I kept feeling like someone was going to come in and be like, yo, you're not on summer vacation anymore.

Back in class. Get back in line. Back to your job. Get back in line. Yeah, that's exactly what this whole world is. That's how you know if you're doing it right. Yeah, totally. But, you know, if you explain the bomb kicks of, kicks of a snatch to the normal person,

it's going to blow their brains. If you talk about the center of mass and what happens if your butt comes up first and the bar moves forward, if you explain that to the normal person, they're going to be like, what are you talking about? I actually am running a seminar this weekend, and it's going to be very interesting to ask you this question. How do you get – I shouldn't say how do you do. I have my approach, but the group of people that I'm going to be teaching,

just because we have numbers that we can talk about training age on the One Ton Challenge, it's like an intro seminar to the One Ton Challenge. And the average lift in there is probably, or the average lifter is probably between a 900 and a 1200 which is probably roughly a two year training but not like a very they haven't really done like a strength training program like a very not like lift skill conditioning go home you put 80 into all of it and got good results but you're not really on a strength program right where would you start a lot of those uh start your seminar snatch clean jerk if i uh on like how would i teach those people yeah well first off you're gonna you know i would see should they be

doing it so i'm gonna like i would start with like assessing them like i would have them do air squat and then i would start talking about regressions because i guaranteed in that class there's gonna be several people who should not be doing it yeah and he's gotta be straight with you know i cannot lie just to make money so i will not say yeah that's cool what you're doing i will cannot and won't do that yeah so like there's gonna be a group of that bro like you could but it's gonna take you some time here's what you should do this is a great place to start yeah move from there to another squat then at that point you say okay perfect you guys are capable of this then i would move forward but that's where i would start is like most people should not be doing it i actually feel like i'm going to start with learning how to breathe

embracing their spine i think that's a very basic great place to you know because i think they're coming in thinking we're going to lift a lot of weights and i just want to change the conversation right away of like here's actually how we can get all six lifts better. Cause I only got like three hours for six lifts. It's not possible. So teaching, like starting with a piece that is going to make everything else better. If you can learn how to do it, stabilizing your spine, bracing, breathing into your belly, and then teaching, teaching balance, I think is the, is the next piece. Like, I feel like you get people's attention very well when you can do that, like, standing on one leg and then make them close their eyes. And they, like, feel the balance, like, freak out in their body.

And you're like, okay, well, you clearly, we need to work on balance. Before we start throwing things over our head, like, we should be able to feel the floor. So there you go. So you're, like, you're starting somewhere way before, you going to the barbell yeah so i agree you should start way before like yeah most of these people can't brace can't breathe can't move can't squat can't overhead squat but they're wanting to learn how to snatch but bro you need yeah i'm actually super excited about it because i haven't uh run a seminar in a long time. And any time I ran a seminar before that, it was two relatively strong athletes that were very interested in going to compete at regionals or compete locally or something along those lines.

And it's not like all of them are weak. There's a very different approach to I'm doing a CrossFit class, and now I'm on a real strength program, which I'm so stoked to see them all be a'm on a real strength program which i'm so stoked to see them all be a part of a real strength program way more than a crossfit program i mean nothing against crossfit is just like most basic people just need to learn how to move and like you know getting very basic with uh you know snatching cleaning or even the squatting benching deadlifting would be yeah a better place to start just how do you move you know basic functional movement yeah

and i in running a crossfit gym for a very long time the event is usually the metcon at the end of the day right that's what people get stoked for so you put in a 5rm back squat no one's really testing the back squat because they know that the event and the thing that they're going to put on the board with the time on the board is going to be the Metcon. Right. So they're like, yeah,

that was like a heavy five when it should be built to a heavy five for today. Then we're going to do some split squats. Then we're going to do some RDLs. Yeah. Then we're going to finish with a Airdyne on the bike and then you get to go home. Yes. Um,

so much more healthy than the Metcon. Yeah. So getting them healthy than Metcon. Yeah. So getting them on a real strength program, I'm so stoked because they're either going to hate it or they're going to love it. They might hate it. Yeah. But just the fact that we can get them on

a really structured actual program is going to be really dope. Right. So, dude, where can they find you? Mashley.com. You can get Instagram, Mashley Performance. TikTok? On TikTok.com you can get instagram mashally performance tiktok on tiktok soon i'm just waiting i wonder how long the tiktok joke will last until we're just like what's your tiktok and are you doing uh do you guys think tiktok will take off i think

it's kind of taking off right now yeah there's there's millions of users right now that are just i i just they just started tracking me on the fitness side of it and there's a massive opportunity on the fitness side because there's not many people doing what we do on fitness all right on tiktok right now but it's also like a it's a strange platform of teaching is going to put you in your take you out of your comfort zone because it's not like instagram where you get like, you can like teach over a minute and really talk about a specific thing or you have like a long caption where you can talk about that specific thing.

It's a very short caption and the creativity of like a 15 or 60 second video has to be in line with their platform where Instagram I think is like really just like a – it's very open of how – Yeah, how it is, especially with the IGTV and everything. Yeah. You can put any – YouTube and the IGTV are direct competitors.

You don't really want to go past 10 minutes on most YouTube videos. Right. But I actually really like IGTV. I use that more than I do the regular thing now. Yeah, it does way better. Yeah. And I think the long tail of that is probably much better. I noticed that those videos last longer than regular posts.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Wait, sorry. Which ones? The IGTV stuff. As far as like getting attention. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Yeah, I think that over, call it a month, Instagram pushes IGTV to people because it's their new thing.

Right. And they want to grow it. So if you're doing the long form videos, because they're trying to take stuff away from YouTube, and that's their long term goal. Yeah, I think that they just prioritize that stuff in the search functions more. But what do I know? It's an algorithm. It'll change tomorrow, and who cares? But TikTok for now.

TikTok's going to be, I don't know. I think that there's like, dude, you have to think like a 15-year-old, though, that's making music videos. That's going to be the challenging part of how do you take weightlifting and make it cool while you're – as always, just go find Corey Gregory on there. He's crushing it. He is.

He's doing cool stuff. On TikTok? I can see that. Of course he is. Just because he's out there. And he's funny like that. That's perfect for him. He's great at that stuff.

Yeah. Of course. Doug Larson. Where can they find you on TikTok? Find me on TikTok. Doug underscore Larson. And then on Instagram at Douglas E. Larson. We got to get those lined up.

I tried. Someone took it. We'll buy that TikTok. I just wanted Doug Larson. Yeah. Some other Doug Larson already took it. Yeah. Probably some motivational speaker somewhere.

He's the guy with all the quotes online that get attributed to me that I don't tell people that are not mine. I take credit, though. Yeah, I said that. Was it cool? Totally. It was me. It wasn't? Not me.

I get tagged on those quotes all the time. They're like in my DMs. I send people thumbs ups. That's me. Thank you. I appreciate it. I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner. We're the Shrug Collective at Shrug Collective.

OneTonChallenge.com forward slash stronger. Making strong people stronger. Six lifts, snatch, clean, jerk, squat, deadlift, and bench. The goal is 2,000 pounds for men, 1,200 for you ladies. You can download the free 97-page e-book at OneTonChallenge.com forward slash stronger. Our goal, make strong people stronger. We'll see you guys next week. That's a wrap, friends. Make sure you get over to PRXPerformance.com.

Use the coupon code SHRUG to get brand new home gym, garage gym, baddest gym. I got it. I love it. I'm in it all the time. I do all my filming in there. I run and fight my good friends, my real friends. Not all the friends, just the really good ones. PRXPerformance.com.

Use the coupon code SHRUG. You're going to save 5%, which comes out to about $500 or $600 when you buy the base home gym. Buy optimizers. P3OM.com forward slash SHRUGGED free. Get a free bottle of P3OM. And our friends at LiveMomentous.com forward slash SHRUGGED to save $20 on a $50 or more order. And WOD on the waves. Use the coupon code SHRUG to save 5%. Stoked to hang out, friends. Next week, we have two shows of Shrugged coming out.

The future is here.