Barbell Shrugged - How to Get Strong as a CrossFitter, Dominating the Bottom of the Squat, and Quick GainZ in the Deadlift - The Barbell Life

Episode Date: October 27, 2019

I’ve said it time and time again – these podcasts are my favorites. I love it when we get to answer questions from listeners.   We got to all sorts of questions on this one, and you’ll come out with a take-away regardless of whether you’re a powerlifter, weightlifter, CrossFitter, serious athlete, average Joe, young rookie, or old veteran like me.   And a lot of what we talk about has to do with combining multiple aspects of fitness. It’s 2018, folks! So many people now want to do CrossFit, powerlifting, weightlifting, cardio, bodybuilding – they want to do it all. So check out the podcast to learn a little about combining different types of training… so that you can do what you want.   Travis Mash on Instagram   Please Support Our Sponsors   Savage Barbell Apparel - Save 25% on your first order using the code “Shrugged” at savagebarbell.com/shrugged   Organifi - Save 20% using code: “Shrugged” at organifi.com/shrugged   Join the One Ton Challenge    Registration is LIVE   12 Month Strength training program to increase your snatch, clean, jerk, squat, dead, bench.    Add them up to find your One Ton Total.    The goal is 2,000 pounds for men and 1,200 for women.    http://onetonchallenge.com/join   “What is the One Ton Challenge”   “How Strong is Strong Enough”   “How do I Start the One Ton Challenge”   --------------------------------------------------- Show notes: https://shruggedcollective.com/tbl-qanda ---------------------------------------------------   ► Travel thru Europe with us on the  Shrugged Voyage, more info here: https://www.theshruggedvoyage.com/ ► What is the Shrugged Collective?  Click below for more info: https://youtu.be/iUELlwmn57o ► 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

Two things you need to know that I'm stoked about right now. Europe was gangster. Sweden, a laco. Went to Copenhagen. Went to Paris. Hung out with my wife and the baby under the Eiffel Tower. I saw the Mona Lisa. It's a little bit smaller than I envisioned, but I saw the Mona Lisa.

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Organifi.com forward slash shrugged. Also want to thank our sponsors over at Savage Barbell. Savagebarbell.com forward slash shrugged. You're going to save 25% buying all the freshest gear for the weightlifting. It all says Savage. That means you're strong. That means you're cool. Dave's super legit over there. He was on shrugged a couple weeks back we interviewed him at the crossfit games

he's been killing it with the one ton challenge also make sure you go to their website savagebarbell.com forward slash shrug save yourself 25 on all the fitness gear and friends coach Travis mash on the barbell life right now, answering all the listener questions. Life is good. Happy Sunday. Check the check microphone checker. I'm rapping every day.

Cause I'm the rhyme wrecker. All right, there we go. I was recording that. Oh really? That was pretty good. Actually. Oh, really? That was pretty good, actually. All right, well, we are here on another special edition of the Barbell Life Podcast where you get to do what we love to do,

which is get to questions that our listeners have written in. You can send emails to questions at mashleet.com, and that will get to us so that Coach Crystal and Coach Travis can answer your questions. I'm Loren Penalas, by the way, and I've got Coach Travis here. What's up? And, of course, Coach Crystal. Hello. And we're going to be getting to your questions.

We got a lot of good ones. You guys haven't heard these yet. You always know what the questions are, and we get, like, surprised. I do. I spring it on you. Man, Crystal's got a great rapper name. Crystal Mack, she's bringing it back. There we go. Don't be, don't be, wow. You see how he's still thinking back. There we go. Don't be...

You see how he's still thinking about rap? Five minutes ago we did that. I honestly think that you should answer the first question with a rap. I'll do it. I'll freestyle. Well, speaking of... I'm kidding. I'm sweating. Speaking of cool things that are going on, we just launched

our new e-book about building your squat we're calling it squat gains for days squat gains you can get it at mashlead.com

slash squat gains and it's squat gains is spelled with a Z but you can type in S you can type either one it'll get I want to spell it

with multiple Z's if you're a grammar police you don't have to put the Z at the end but Travis tell us about this book yeah okay so I was in Peru and hanging out and there was lots of free time and so I wrote a book and so it actually started out

as an article that grew I've been talking to T Nation about doing an article for them and then all of a sudden I've got 50 pages in and they're down way too long and I'm like man it's so good but it just doing an article for them, and then all of a sudden I've got 50 pages in, and they're down. They're like, what are you doing? Way too long.

And I'm like, man, it's so good, but when you're talking about the squat, there's just so much information out there. I have a really tough time of just giving a little bit, or just highlights. I'm not good at that anymore. And so it just grew into some of this awesome book about how for sure to get your squat through the roof. Yeah, it was cool because it was like, you know, let's diagnose like what matters in a squat and how you diagnose like where your weak point is. Right.

And then how you can build on that specifically. I mean, it was very, and it's pretty brief. It's a, you know, it's a quick little read. You could read it, I mean, pretty easy in one sitting you know so it's it's not like this this big huge uh monster volume it's gonna take you forever it's short and sweet to the point and it's like bam bam bam bam bam here's what you got to think of and uh it's you know it's pretty fascinating because a lot of people just say hey squat more or you know they'll give you some goofy technique tip like make sure that you you push

your knees out and it's like well duh like you everyone says that like but it was actually you know it was a it was a lot of good content um on on building your squat boosting it up strength coaches i think you know whether you're a strength conditioning coach weightlifting powerlifting uh crossfit coach uh it's going to be good because it's going to get right to the thick of things. And so if you have an athlete who is struggling at the squat or having trouble with their technique, this book is probably going to tell you how to fix it and quickly gets to that point. It makes it pretty simple too. Yeah, and the cool thing about this is we, of course, put programs in it, but they're not like full programs. It's like a squat-specific add-on program that you can add on to your existing work.

Which I think a lot of people will appreciate because a lot of people have programs they enjoy. And so if you're a weightlifter, you probably snatch and clean your X amount. So this is just a good way to boost it. For a lot of you weightlifters, that's the big reason why you're not winning probably. It's just a matter of how strong you are. If you look at it, you know, we're about to do the world championships here in a few weeks. I don't know of a gold medalist who does not squat a ton. Lou Josh, he's strong.

Like Tintau, they're strong. And so, you know, you can talk efficiency all you want, but the fact is the stats will tell you that, you know, the stronger guy is going to win. Yeah. And everyone, you were talking earlier about everyone loves a squat. I mean, it doesn't matter if you're a football player or you're a hockey player or you're a power lifter or you're a weight lifter or you're a strong man or you're CrossFit.

It brings us together. Yeah. Everyone loves a squat. Or you just want to look good. You want to look good in jeans. You want to fill out those jeans. It makes us all want to hold hands and sing Kumbaya. That's right.

That's right. so check it out mashley.com slash squat gains with a z you can spell with an s though it's got gains so now the point of the part that everyone is uh is waiting for travis is going to answer this first one with a rap no i'm not all right i'm sweating just thinking just thinking about that hey my hat's off to you eminem i can't do it that's right i'm gonna freestyle this i'll out squat you but i'm not gonna out rap you roham nadiri is asking about mobility in the squat he says my biggest struggle in my short career so far has been my mobility i have the mobility of a 75 year old man you won't believe me until you see a video of me trying to squat it's hysterical not even gonna lie about it i've been struggling to go below parallel even getting to

parallel has been a struggle for me and that has been my number one goal since i started this sport i would love your knowledge and expertise on how i can get myself to get below parallel on my squat and get into the hole and the snatch and the clean and jerk. That's easy. I would give you three pointers. And so everyone get your pencil out. One, frequency. Squat more often. You know, if you want to get better at something, squat more often.

Two, as Crystal knows, Crystal's got good mobility. It's just not great, which makes her a great powerlifter. As a powerlifter you don't want great mobility you want to be just enough to get below parallel but so um we have her do breathing squats where you get into the bottom and you do breaths um that's made a huge difference well you stay down there for like 30 seconds or something no it just like well i mean he'll say just to like build to a one rep max or three rep max where you breathe like take three big breaths in the bottom so you just you just sit and you just breathe in the bottom so you're not

going very heavy but every time you take a breath you sink a little bit lower you sink a little bit lower yeah so and another the third would be squat bottoms and uh squat bottoms is just where you go all the way down you stay down you come up maybe six to eight inches and go back down. And you do that for the prescribed reps. So on here I would say do, you know, three sets of six to eight reps. And the reps are just those six to eight inch, come up, go down. And you just get really comfortable in the bottom and you get the rhythm of the squat. Like every great squatter has a really good rhythm to it.

Like if you watch Morgan or Nathan. Nathan is probably my favorite squatter ever. He's a weightlifter. But I love, I watch him squat and I'm never not in awe of watching him. Because he makes weights like say 600 pounds. It's not the fact that he can do it. I've done way more than that. It's just the way he does it.

It looks so easy. He has such a nice rhythm in the bottom. Anyway, squat bottoms will help you with that. So to wrap it up, three things. Frequency, breathing in the bottom anyway squat bottoms will help you with that so to wrap it up three things frequency um breathing in the bottom and squat bottoms yes and it's interesting because i'm sure a lot of you would say stretch you know but it's like no no i mean you know i if you want stretching go to you know kelly stirrat and it's my boy i love him but you know the truth is every great weightlifting coach will tell you if you want to you know, Kelly Starrett. It's my boy. I love him. But, you know, the truth is every great weightlifting coach will tell you, if you want to, you know, get better mobility with squatting, squat.

And so nothing, nothing helps mobility more than something with a load. Truth. I mean, I would add to that, too. We don't know his history. Has he, you know, had knee issues? Has he broken an ankle in the past? Whatever to know. Like, he might need to address,

like if he has zero ankle mobility or whatever. But, you know, I mean, I have zero ankle mobility and I can still squat below parallel. It's just taken a lot of time. Sasha Heinzman says, how can I develop my physique and achieve aesthetic goals while also maintaining strength? I hate feeling like I always have to choose one or the other.

I would think all the latest research would tell you that you absolutely don't. You know, like I think there was a time when, say, when I was younger and I was reading all the bodybuilding magazines where we felt that we always had to do like eight to 12 reps to add muscle. And that's just not the case. The truth is this is that the number one way to to add muscle is yes, go to failure, but it can be three reps and five reps. So you're still in that absolute strength.

As a matter of fact, if you're going to near failure for triples, then dang, that is the epitome of absolute strength. So you don't have to choose. It's just knowing that. But if you want to get into the metabolic stress, which is that pump you feel, all the metabolites getting trapped into your muscles and just getting bigger and bigger, you could do this. Do your squat at three reps and then do your accessory rep at those 10 reps.

Do your lunges, hack squats. In this book, we even talk about doing some leg presses and hack squats, which I have to admit, I like that Globo Gym stuff. Is this me coming out of the closet? I really like Globo Gym. This whole time, yeah. Yeah, anyway, there you go. I would also say nutrition plays a huge part, too, because aesthetics are not – they're helped by the gym, but they're made in what you eat.

Absolutely. So I would take a look at your nutrition as well i think our athletes need to listen to that including your son so tell him to listen to this segment brian serrett says hey i'm 55 200 pounds and still pretty strong but i can't lift heavy without a tendon popping because uh causing me downtime which i don't have i can squat 405 but i know on the wrong day it will pop in the lower butt area. My bench was at 330 about a year ago, but I'm still working through a shoulder injury in the front where pectoral and shoulders come together.

Am I through lifting heavy, or is there a way to improve my tendon health? Well, I mean, if I were you, number one, that is something where you need to have a really good you know practitioner so i would uh find your go-to dude whether it's a chiropractor you know my obviously dr gray has always been my go-to he's never let me wrong he's told me when i needed surgery he told me when i needed to back up he told me when i needed to add you know accessory work so one thing i can say for you know tendon and ligament health would be you know that's a higher rep thing and so that is when

like cory gregory's you know lunges for days thing that i think that's a good time when i would add that in there and like do lots of you know the higher reps and we do that we do the body weight lunges for high reps we also for the bench press we do like um lighter weights where it's a 10 10 10 so it's a pretty sure that was in the squad every day book too but like 95 pounds yeah 95 pounds you know like i'm just obviously that's a very universal weight could be heavier or lighter for people but doing uh you know 10 close grip 10 medium 10 wide and you know all in one sitting for three to five sets. Talk about getting a pump.

Yeah, you get a pump and you get, you know, healthy, you know, ligaments and tendons. And you change your variation too. You can do it like incline, flat, decline. Right. And a solid warm-up too, you know, like, you know, and I'm not just talking about stretching. Actually, I'm not talking about stretching at all. It's like don't rush. So, like, you know, and I'm not just talking about stretching. Actually, I'm not talking about stretching at all. It's like don't rush. So, like, you know, I don't know this guy.

I don't know, like, what's really causing it. Maybe there's something. That's why I say go to a practitioner and get, you know, an MRI. But, you know, are you warming up, man? You know, like, and by warming up, I mean, you know, blood flowing, body temperature up, you know, a couple degrees, and, like, you know, actually sweating before you're starting to work out. So if you don't, definitely do that.

Could be, too. I think a lot of times if you move very poorly, your tendons and ligaments have to, you know, compensate where there's something else going on in the movement chain somewhere that is wonky. Go check out my boy, Supple Leopard. All right. George Castrunas says, Right now my biggest problem with training is working around my job from May until October. I caddy at a golf course.

I put a lot of miles on my body during the week, so recovery is an issue. So how do you train around, number one, a physically demanding job, but number two is how would you train differently if you're like him where there's a season where you're busy and a season where you're not? You just got to take into consideration that stress is stress, man. It's like if I go from working 30 hours to 60 hours, I just double that amount of volume, that stress volume. And stress is not necessarily just lifting stuff. You know, are you stressing out at home? Like I had a one time i had a girl and she'll know we're still we're buddies so it's fine but she calls me she's like you know i was coaching her online and she was struggling she's

like i haven't pr in a while so i said um you know have as your relationships changed job changed ask her a series of questions anyway come to come to find out, she had recently been divorced, had a new relationship, and a new job. And she was struggling to sleep at night. So I'm like, man, dang. You're probably not going to PR for a minute. You better get through these crises first. So for you, man, just know this,

is that during those five months that you're going to be a caddy, you need to back it up. And that's okay. I know, let me give you a great example when i'm talking about like uh we have uh nathan damron who started um you know that he lost his stipend and um now that so he got a job and now he's kept that job because he enjoys it but he works at the what's the place next door the restore he works yeah he works at the restore which is. Oh, the ReStore. He works at the store. He works at the ReStore, which is a nonprofit doing good things, helping people. But he's got to do heavy lifting. So he has to load furniture sometimes.

And through that, his lifting has gone through the roof because his work capacity went up. He's gotten stronger. His core has gotten stronger. He got farm strong. Yeah, he did. Yeah, he did get farm strong. He'll tell you that. So just take that into consideration, man,

and know that your volume has to drop, but be super specific. In this book, there's lots of options, and I actually talk about, you know, when's a good time to choose, like, a lighter volume, you know, workout. And, like, just know, be specific. Like, maybe instead of squatting,

leg press, lunges, and leg squatting leg press lunges and leg curls you just do squats and leg curls and you'll be fine as long as you stick to that main core lift and understand that specificity is that that's that's the 20 that gets you the 80 of your gains you know focus on that you'll be fine yeah and then the other part of the equation is recovery is important, but potentially even more important when you've got more going on. Eat and sleep. Yeah, make sure you treat yourself right.

Yeah, man. Make sure that you get your sleep. And here's another thing. Let me just tell all of you this. If you have a day where all of a sudden your sleep is crushed and you've got two hours of sleep, know that. And that's okay. That workout the next day of sleep know that and that's okay that's okay that workout the next day is not the one workout that's going to make or break the rest of your

life just know that you should back up that next day and it's fine it's like everyone thinks that the day that they're in makes or breaks their future whether it's uh to be a great weight lifter or a power lifter or you know for someone for someone, you know, like Lauren, who's, you know, like you just, you just love to work out and get in shape. That one workout doesn't mean much in the big scheme of things. So, but if you get hurt because you're an idiot and you still go hard when you only had two hours of sleep, well, that could. So use your brain, boys and girls. That's why you write stuff down.

Like we were just, I just read an article from Dane Miller about this, talking about write down your workouts, write down your warmups, write down how you feel about it, write down how you're, you know, the stressors for the day. So you can go back and look, because quite honestly, you know, even Morgan will say, oh, well, today was bad. And then you go back and ask him, you know, what have you eaten? How did you sleep? Blah, blah, blah.

I mean, like people don't realize that just those small changes can affect your training and you just have to be realistic about it. Right. Mari Demeo says, squatting has always been a weakness of mine and focusing on it. I have seen a huge improvement in confidence. However, my proficiency at higher volume grinding is still showing. I can do a 20 rep back squat at 80% while I have a hard time hitting three reps at 90%. I've started focusing in on 85 to 90% efforts over the past month. I read your advice relating to post-activation potentiation

and funny enough, I've been using it for the past year. Any additional thoughts or insights? So what would you say to someone who's amazing at 80% but then falls apart once they're at 90? I would give you two choices. I would be like, and you can implement them both the same. You can either do either or. No, I don't want to say either or. I say either and.

Anyway. Both and. Yeah, both and. And so you can do undulated periodization, meaning even in the periods where you might be doing your 20s and 10s where you're trying to gain some muscle hypertrophy, you know, still do your triples on another day. So, like, you know, like you could do Monday triples, Wednesday, like, you know, moderate intensity, moderate weight, say fives, and then, you know, Saturdays or Fridays doidays do your you know high volume 20s and 10s or and or you could do um you know do your triples with your 10s or i don't know if i do triples with 20s nope i'd only do 20s for a couple weeks personally you know yeah if i did 20s you know which i haven't done you know we've done the 10 by 10 and i will say this is that that is the one that is the one squat

workout i've done where so far it's 100 of my people have you know have um have uh pr'd their late it was like they would do the 10 by 10s take a couple weeks and then they were pr so um but i would still do it with the triples on one day. All right. James West says, I consistently get bad doms in my adductors from squatting. Doms for the listeners, obviously that's a delayed onset muscle soreness. Even with very low training volumes,

no other part of my legs are sore, but it's pretty crippling in the adductors. I have tried a variety of stances, but I was wondering if a narrow stance high bar squat would be a good option. The other potential option I thought of was a squat every day program to try and keep the daily volume lower.

I have both your squat every day eBooks. I'm a power lifter in case that makes a difference. And thanks. So what would you say to someone whose adductors are unbelievably sore? You know, it sounds like your adductors is kind of taking over and so like um you know you definitely one thing is really try to strengthen the abductors you know and um you know that would be the the first thing i do but yeah i'd probably just do you know lower

volume i'd like to see a video of him squatting you know like um i would make sure to let's start at the beginning like this is one time where i'd make sure that i grabbed my grab the floor with my big toe little toe and my heel pretend it's like actually like a root and take the ground and turn it and you know turn it out you know externally rotate and what that'll do is really activate the abductors and so it'll kind of actually at that point you know kind of like at least take some of the brunt you know it sounds like i'd like to see it but i'm assuming this guy probably has you know a lot of like valgus going on because uh if not you know then you know the the adductor is staying pretty neutral you know

but you know it does i will say this is that the especially the adductor magnus you know if you talk greg knuckles absolutely loves that sounds what a nerd i feel like right now so like um but absolutely loves the adductor magnus talking about how um it's a big uh hip extensor so so there is that part but it shouldn't be at the point where it's like that sore like um yeah now why would you strengthen the abductors as opposed to say the glutes or the hamstrings or the quads or because it's the opposite you know adductors pulling in abductors what's abductor is the glute yes that's one of okay it's actually the biggest abductor so you hit the nail on the head so i could say glutes but um it's just

the opposite of the adductor and so it helps to track the knee so there's not a lot of i guess so it's a right knee track so for the same reason that you know you would want you know strengthen the glutes to avoid valgus you know it's to balance out the adductors so that makes sense he also asked about if i wonder like he says a video how he's um performing his squats because he says what if he brought his stance in and he did high bar so like he may be doing a low bar with um a wide stance and his knees may not be tracking his toes you know what i'm saying like if he's wider i don't know yeah yeah i will say this when you do like the really wide,

like Westside Barbells, you're probably going to feel a lot more in your adductors. Number one, you're already stressing them because you're lengthening the crap out of them when you go super wide. So obviously when you come in, there's not as lengthened, so there's a lot less stress on them.

Especially when you go super wide like them, I mean, now you're stretching them under load, which go super wide like them i mean now you know you're stretching them under load which is kind of like rdls so that very well could be that's a great point crystal so that very well could be the entire answer but that would take a video to see yeah jose hernandez uh says my name is jose hernandez and i'm a college athlete dedicated to the throwing events especially the hammer throw I've only started weight training in the last year and a half, and even though my strength has increased by bounds, I know there's a lot more.

My question for you is should I structure my off-season training around powerlifting or weightlifting or a combination of both? And if it's weightlifting, what drills do you recommend for learning the technique for cleans and snatches? I've done power cleans, but I can never get depth in my catch catch and i get aches in my lower back when i go up and wait you know number one i'm gonna say if you're a collegiate thrower and you've only been strength training for a year and a half i want to be your coach because you must be a naturally powerful athlete and i just i'm curious and i want to meet you now because that's

awesome but um you know i will say this is uh knowing what i know uh if you used velocity based training you could you could get away with just the powerless um especially if you don't have a coach to teach you and you're trying to learn by video or something like that i would just say this i would say because you need to be throwing now you're you're trying to learn by video or something like that i would just say this i would say because you need to be throwing now you're you're in college already so i don't want you to spend six months trying to learn and getting hurt because you're saying obviously you're not doing it correctly because your back is hurting and i'll say this i don't think that you need to it's good you know doing some hand cleans would be great for you but like if you

don't have a good coach near you or you can't afford maybe to go online and seek out someone like myself or a Dane Miller even, then I would just do the powerless and just really look at the velocity. I'm just telling you, I would go get bar speed and understand how you can use that one tool to probably do everything you need to increase your throwing. That's what I would do.

Joshua Berry says, My squats have hit a wall and I cannot progress any further. Attempting a mere 5 to 10 pound PR crushes me. How do you bust through a plateau like that? By squat gains. There you go. Next question. The Z.

No, I'm just kidding. There's a lot. It depends. You'd have to look at his technique. One. Two, how often is he squatting? Could be too much or too little. In the book, I explain how to diagnose.

Are you a guy like Morgan and or and or nathan who needs to do high intensity low volume high frequency or are you someone like um tom suma who absolutely has to get smashed basically you need to take a sledgehammer to their legs and then they'll get stronger like you need to know who you are because um if i tell you how nathan dameron squats it probably won't work for you and it may or may not work for you if i tell you how nathan dameron squats it probably won't work for you and it may or may not work for you if i tell you the way tom suma squats so uh learning to diagnose that which the book explains in a very simple way then you know that's what i would do figure out like there's definitely a reason you know andrick fournier says my biggest struggle

with training is to improve my absolute strength while doing CrossFit classes. I'm always afraid about doing too much heavy work in combination with volume in the classes. What do you think about doing a strength program in combination with CrossFit? By squat gains with a Z. Just kidding.

So, well, that would be a good squat workout. You know, the basically squat gains is going to be everything that you need to get your legs strong so that would definitely help with most of everything in crossfit however you guys obviously need uh upper body too yeah you basically need to be jacked every single play in your big toe in crossfit but um definitely toe gains that's our

next book right toe gains but yeah um you, something that Crystal's working on now is an accessory strength workout for CrossFit specific. So be on the outlook for that. But you could also get a MASH system and look at the way we program and learn how we do it. And then probably could design something for yourself with that book. So yeah, definitely it's a good idea i think a lot of people a lot of crossfit is going to that we have um you know people who are currently in crossfit who are on our online team you know like for example nathan clifton who was fourth overall at the cross at the teenage crossfit games and so um and you're working with

um david bradley who just won the CrossFit Games. So having a good, you know, accessory, you know, strength program for CrossFit is ultra important, especially in the early years. Because, you know, developing that base. Look at the main, who's the champion in the CrossFit, you know, stud right now? Matt Frazier. Yeah, like he was, you know, he was a on Team USA for a junior world team So by the time he got up there and he developed that work capacity and he already had that basis strength So it's important. I would say he also said that he was doing just CrossFit classes So he's doing general population which you know programming for general population. They're trying to hit all these different

Energy systems they can only they probably squatting once a week. They're probably only doing like Olympic lifts, possibly just once a week, sometimes just in a Metcon. So it is finding a supplemental program. If you want to get better at something, the frequency is going to be what's going to do that. So like how I'm working with David is we're doing more frequency with Olympic lifting,

not heavy, but technique work and more squatting because, I mean, it's, GPP is much different than a structured program for a competitive athlete. Right. Nathan DeJesus says, I'm not gonna lie, although I'm very far off and very young in the sport,

only one year, I have huge goals. I want to make the Junior Worlds team in 2020 and was wondering if I did a bodybuilding session outside of programming Is that okay? It depends man. Like, um, you know, I know I've seen people do that and it did not work well for them and i've seen people do that and it worked great for them For example, uh morgan does a lot of that and it's worked really well

Like um, because he's got the man I mean, he's got the legs of a full-grown stud man and he's got the upper body of a young boy and so um we've changed that recently he just benched 250 feel very good about that and so um so it depends you know are you naturally tighter you know like like less mobile than other people if so then you should really be careful with that you know but um you know assuming that your mobility is in line with everyone else's, then I think it's a great thing. Because, you know, in our book, No Weaknesses, we talk about diagnosing your accessory movements and choosing what's good for you and actually give you an awesome formula for that very thing. And even in our new book, Squat Gains, we talk about all the accessory work that goes along with targeting the weaknesses that one might have. We actually, in the book, talk about how do you know?

Is it your back, hips, or quads? Because there's going to be one of the three, because that's the three joints that's important to squatting, is the knee extensors, hip extensors, and then the spinal extensors. So knowing what you need to overcome is important. Mike Lloyd asks, he says, Hi, my name is Mike Lloyd. I'm a 28-year Air Force veteran, 52 years old. My biggest struggle is my weight.

I'm 5'11", 280. My one question is, what is a good off-season routine? I feel like the past three years have been one meat prep after another without a lot of progress. My current squat is 475, bench 370, deadlift 480. Yeah, I mean, I will say it would definitely help you to add some muscle. You know, getting hypertrophy always seems to work. You know, and, yeah, meat prep all the time for powerlifting is a terrible idea.

It's like I know, gosh, advice. And I'm not being mean to you because I'm talking to myself right now, really. Ed Cohen told me years ago that I should choose two meats per year. He would do the Nationals, World Championships, off-season. And obviously it worked. His career was way longer than mine and um so i'm just i'm preaching to the choir man this is you're obviously doing what i used to do and it doesn't work out for very long you'll find yourself at a plateau and then you'll find

yourself hurt so i would just pick two important meets you know um find the two most important meets to you and target those and like spend off season doing lots of bodybuilding if you look at ed cohen's old off-season program it was a bodybuilding it was high bar squats it was lots of rows uh straight up muscle and fitness it was it was that's why he was in um it was either iron man or muscle fitness it was him it was i remember like yesterday dorian dorian yates and like they were side by side comparing the two and i remember you know i loved ed going like i can't even begin to tell you like when i first met him like i threw up because i got so nervous true you can ask chris and so like i

saw him and i started shaking because it was just like here he was you know but um but listening to his advice man you know taking off season like. In theory, you should get stronger every time you do a powerlifting program if you do it wisely. Ed Cohn did for a long time. He went up, up, up, up. Yeah, and there's 52 weeks in a year. So don't do two meets like eight weeks apart. Break it up to where you actually have a good 20 weeks between or something and build i mean i only do two meets a year and i've only ever done two meets a year because um i'm

i'm not about that i made that huge mistake i made a huge mistake what about mike is 52 would that change anything would you want a year definitely two no oh yeah i hear you're saying yeah either either one or two you know but definitely no more than two you know was it dave ricks who's in his 50s right now killing people he's actually competing at the senior world level as a 50 some year old so you know like you can still get after it you know like it assuming you didn't do what i did in your 30s where you tried to absolutely destroy your body, in your 50s you can still get after it and keep going and get better and better. But, you know, one or two.

You know, because the thing is if he's able to get up there and, you know, compete at the world level, he'll have to do two. You know, he'll have to qualify at the world and then go on and do the world championships. So, you know, like, yeah, if you don't have the world championships to worry about, one is good. The thing is, is certain people, like, it's tougher than the train, you know, 52 weeks for that one meet. It gets pretty boring.

You know, squat, bench deadlift, squat, bench deadlift without that, you know, payoff of a meet. Steve Countess says, the thing I struggle with most in regards to training is maintaining a high level of motivation I like to work out for a couple hours in the gym after work every day some days it's just hard to find the motivation to get there I've gone through workout partners like paper plates they say my workouts are too intense and they can't move for a week after they work out with me my question for you is this How can I tell that I need to stop pain versus I need to push through it type of pain? So if you feel pain, when do you push through?

When do you stop? How do you know which type of pain is which? That's an easy one. Number one, go to the doctor if it's bad. But if your pain goes away once you start warming up, it's fine. This is part of training. If it doesn't and you're continuing to feel pain while you train,

then that's a problem. And so that's the body's way of telling you you're hurt, man. Like, don't be crazy. Like, this guy sounds like Chuck Vogelpoel, which is a compliment. I'm not. But, like, you know, they just trains himself until he killed himself. Plus, he killed a million training partners like that. Plus, another thing, don't make your training partners do what you do.

When I was in my prime, I used to do that. I'm like, why? That's not fair to them. I trained since I was 11 years old. And so that would be like, Lauren, when you started with me, I'm like, making you do my program, that would hurt you. It would have worked for about a day. A day.

And I'll never come back. I'd have been in the ER. And I'd have been writing about all my train partners quitting me. That's because I made them do what I do. So get them just to be in the gym with you. They don't have to do. Once I learned that, it was way more. People wanted to be with me then.

Even Chris, who has been my partner since college, he wouldn't do what he'll tell you. He was he's not full. You know, he wouldn't try to do what I did. And so but we were in there together. And that's the key right there. Brett Boatwright says, I have been training for about three years now. I enjoy all the power lifts and the Olympic lifts. I focus all of my personal programming around those exercises.

For a while now, my squat weight has not increased. When I first started squatting, I could get well into the 300s without any issues. Now it feels like when I put 275 plus on my back that I have problems lifting it. The question I would love for you to answer, how do you push yourself out of a long plateau when it occurs? I have tried rest different programming and others but nothing seems to work well i mean it could be several things um the good thing and this is definitely me not trying to i'm going to try to teach you

while saying look yeah buy the book and i'll give you lots of ways you can break the plateau but um you know i'd have to look has your lifestyle changed you know of ways you can break the plateau. But, you know, I'd have to look, has your lifestyle changed? You know, ask yourself, you know, have I gone from working, you know, 30 hours to 50 hours? You know, are you struggling with the relationship? Because if you used to squat in the 300s easily, now it's 275. It sounds like something has happened because that's a big drop in a movement that in theory should not go backwards.

It should keep going forward. So are you eating the same? Does your body weight change? happen because that's a big drop in a movement that in theory should not go backwards it should keep going forward so um are you eating the same does your body weight change so like you know if if you answered yes to any of those questions then handle that you know handle your life right now and so worry more about that than you know with the weight you're lifting and everyone should like know to adjust you know the training volume with lifestyle changes you know like weight you're lifting and everyone should like know to adjust you know the training volume with lifestyle changes you know like if you're going through a divorce which i hope you're not you know but if you are you're probably going to want to chill out with the training a little bit like and realize you're probably not gonna pr you know unless it was a terrible relationship

and then you're happy but but um but like which once again i hope you're not, but so I would look at that and then I would look at do you need a complete change? Like frequency seems to always work. Rarely do two people start to squat more often and then they go backwards. But, you know, diagnosing who you are be important. Are you a Tom Suma? Are you a Morgan McCullough? I know.

Who are you? What, what person are you? And just because like a lot of times when people increase their frequency, they go from squatting once a week and they're like, oh, I'll squat, you know, five times a week or whatever. That's, you know, you want to if you're squatting once, maybe add a second day in. If you're squatting twice, maybe add a third day in. And then also know that when you increase your frequency or you change

anything about the stimulus of your program you're going to be sore so just be aware of that and then the next week your body's going to adapt a little bit more you're not going to be near a sore but don't stop doing something just because you're sore because if you do you are going to go backwards yeah that's all goes back to that question of like you know is it are you hurt or are you just sore you know like if you start to warm up and the pain goes away it's just part of the process that's just your body adapting crystal is like probably of all the people i coach is probably the best at at um auto regulation like she's not crazy like she's not going to try to kill herself week one she knows it's going to be a long you know 12 to 20 weeks and so she's very

wise and so but i feel like in the though, you call me a sandbagger. You just did that the other day. I do do that. That's me still being the same crazy Adelie. Sometimes I'm still that same crazy dude. No, I'm just kidding. I'm like, I know my body and I know I don't need to go up. But yeah.

That's funny. I know. All right. Joseph Clare says, I'd like to squat and deadlift more, but adding sets and reps seems to hurt my lower back and knees. I'm 42 years old. I can back squat 405 by 10 with a belt, and I can pull 550 on a good day. I've tried replacing a squat workout with heavy explosive sled pushes and pulls,

which has helped some with back and knee irritation. So how would you advise someone to continue to drive their squat and their deadlift up if they're having knee and back issues maybe don't add sets sets and reps add days you know once again frequency is you know this this honestly was a tough I came to a fork in the road where I'd always you know twice a week you know that was like i always squatted twice a week and then um all of a sudden i met cory gregory and he talked did you just go straight to seven you know i did you know i never went to seven i went to six and maybe seven so what i would do i wouldn't do necessarily squat i would do a thruster you know

so like an overhead squad or a cluster we clean it yeah yeah yeah so i'd do that just for fun but um yeah i did go from like twice to six i did do that and and at first you know so much for adding a day gradually yeah yeah so but but it worked for the first few weeks i know week two or three i started getting crushed week four got better week five got better and then my body felt better. You know, like I moved better. I squatted deeper. You know, my technique was better. Best it had ever been.

You know, this was well into my 40s. 2015 is when I did that. And so, but, you know, maybe what I would say is this. If you squat once or twice at a day and, like, don't add, keep the volume the same. So let's assume that you do, you know, I don't know. Let's just say five sets same so let's assume that you do you know i don't just say five sets of five right so you do five by five like so do you know do three by five one day and two by five you know on another day or you know so you do 25 total reps divide those 25 up into three days you know it was um this would be a good time to to say this you know shout out to glenn pinley

you know uh by now you know you guys probably know he's already you know he's passed away and he's a big influence on me and the whole world and so anyway so i'd like to give some of his advice right now is this is like one day at 11 p.m he calls me out of the blue and says uh which that was when I'd first gotten to know him so I was super excited I showed my wife my it's Clint Pinlay you know I mean uh but he was he's a big deal he's still a big deal you know like you know there's Pinlay on weights in our gym right now you know and so I get up at 11 and you know he's just he has something he wanted to tell me it was amazing my first phone call from him and he starts telling me about this research project that he had you

know that he had been a part of where they took mice and they they put them on a you know on a resisted wheel and so they um they measured their absolute strength i forget how they did that and then they measured their um obviously they did did hypertrophy whether the you know their cross sections had changed at all and so anyway he took it took one group of mice and had them do x amount of volume in three days he took another group of mice and he had them do the same volume but split it up over every day and the group that did it every day even though it was the same improved a lot not only did they get stronger stronger, their hypertrophy was way bigger. And so he had this theory of taking his athletes and, you know,

at Muscle Driver we trained, let's see, it was twice, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and then once on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. So that was, what, six, seven, nine times. And so his theory was trained way more times than that with the same amount of volume so for example like money was in Friday you might train five or six times but for 20 minutes each so literally people would come to muscle driver with their food and everything they would train so they would do say snatch clean snatch, clean and jerk, squat, rest for like an hour. Power snatch, power clean.

Anyway, it was like 20. They would work up to X amount, like 80-something percent or whatever he gave them. And anyway, so. You said that was his theory, like people actually did that? That's what he did. He had the guys at Muscle Driver. It took a period where they were far away from a meet and just experimented. They could play, yeah.

And Mike Zella improved a ton. He was the only one. But my theory is that I don't think they did it long enough. So people started complaining, and they didn't allow for adaptation. It was so out there that – Whalers just hate change. Some mice in the experiment didn't complain. Yeah, they did what they had to do.

But my theory is that it probably would have worked if they would have allowed for adaptation and maybe assume that like the bigger guys can't do quite as much maybe divide it up a little bit but in my experience i do know this is that frequency normally wins i'm not saying train six times six times a day yeah that would be that would be it takes a unusual person to to want to do that that's my shout out to Coach Penlay there but basically

what you're saying long story short to practically apply that take the same amount of volume which is you know rep sets weight all that and spread it out

if you get 75% 5x5 being 25 reps spread those 25 reps out over 2 or 3 days yeah don't let one squat session crush you. Right.

Steven Nelson says, what is the best way to maintain strength during weight loss? During my training, whenever I start to drop weight, my strength seems to leave me. Well, I mean, you need to be strategic when you do that. Here's what I've, here's what I've learned in the last one year. Some people do better with like just a huge water cut the last two or three days before training. And some people, you know, have to do it longer.

So that's knowing your body, you know, really crystal is the expert in that department. What would you think? Yeah. Well, I mean, like, it depends on like, I don't know, are you working with a nutritionist? Are you doing it on your own? What kind of caloric deficit are you in and how long are you staying in that caloric deficit? Depending on how big the deficit is, it's probably going to be the bigger thing. You might not have enough energy to, you know, get through your workouts. So if you're not somebody who's trying to lose weight for a meat or whatever, and you're

just trying to lose weight for overall health, maybe increase your calories to be in a smaller caloric deficit and lose weight, you know, at a slower amount so that you know, you can your body can adjust a little bit better. But if you're losing 1015 pounds a month, and you're trying to back squat, I mean mean you're gonna lose strength yeah but then once you get to that weight and you start building your strength base back up you know it's just a calorie is a calorie and if you're not taking in enough calories your body's gonna feel it so yeah that's energy man that's how you have your energy to perform the task that you're asking it to perform.

Is it something to be concerned about if your strength is dropping when you cut weight? I'm not cut weight for a competition, but let's say you're trying to lose some body fat and your strength goes down. I mean, is that something to be concerned about? Because I would think that's, from what I've heard, once you go back to maintaining your weight or maybe trying to put on some more muscle, your strength will bounce back. Yeah. Well, I mean, Hunter and I were talking about this the other day. She did like a triple back squat or something.

And she was like, oh, I remember when my squat was 175. And I said, but if you think about it, at a 59, you're still your strength ratio for your body weight is the same so overall his strength might go down like the number might go down but the number on the scale versus what he's lifting might you know right come out to be the same so you have to look at it at that way and especially if you are actively losing weight um it's going to be affected on the strength side now technically you know on the olympic lifting side you might actually get better because you're more you know you're faster if

you're proficient at the lift so it just kind of depends on yeah i mean there are two ways to control like getting stronger and that's like that's hypertrophy you know the size of your muscles and then there's efficiency getting better at the movement and so when you're in that caloric deficit and you're losing weight you're losing some muscle too like that's just part of the process so like getting down there and then yes then working back up and getting more efficient now with the muscle that you have building muscle there and see every time you build and cut build and cut you're adding. You're becoming leaner and leaner and leaner. Visually, you'll build it back

depending on how much you cut. Obviously, if you go from 350 pounds down to 220, you're probably not ever going to be as strong at 220 as you were at 350. You can start to understand this is healthier for me. 220 is. I'm going to get as strong as I can

for 220. Exactly. Yeah, if you're trying to cut from huge down to small, don't worry about strength. If I were you, I wouldn't even try to max out. I would go with RPE and not even think about a number and get healthy. That's more important. Yeah.

Gina Kinley says, what are some of the best rotator cuff warm-up exercises to do for a previous strain that gets irritated with dips which she doesn't do anymore but what's a good rotator cuff warm-up exercise for someone who's had shoulder issues I like doing the

dumbbell power cleans it's a great external rotator you know warm-up I'm glad she said warm-up because a lot of people you know I've seen people like actually do a rotator cuff workout and then bench press or dip oh gosh yeah so it's like asking for it that's asking for trouble so like because you're you know when you work out you're actually beating your muscles up and making them weaker and then you're then you're asking to do something heavy so doing a nice little power clean you know dumbbell power clean where you really focus on the

external rotation versus you know actually a power clean you're actually gonna bring your elbows up keep them up and rotate but no more of you're still getting a little momentum in there you know but but they're warming up and so that's what I used to do and I've been spreads work really well I still do that you know I heard of um I think Dave Tate did this you basically take your hands and you stand up to a wall and you kind of do like a spider-man walk up the wall but but you put bands on your from wrist to wrist so it gives you some resistance oh yeah so like you know you cuz the rotator cuffs are weird little buggers and they multiple planes

and and you know to probably warm up effectively you got to hit them a bunch of different ways. Absolutely. I think it's a great, that's a great idea. All right. Let me see. I'm going to, I'm going to end with this one because I put this on, I'm like, this is going to get him riled up.

All right. Let's finish this off. That's right. My name is Kirk Bruner. I'm an ACE, CPT and strength coach. While I'm new to training others, I have nearly 40 years of experience being an athlete, ex-military and construction worker. I was an endurance athlete CPT, and strength coach. While I'm new to training others, I have nearly 40 years of experience being an athlete, ex-military, and construction worker.

I was an endurance athlete when I was younger, primarily as a swimmer and doing cross-country. I later wrestled and did triathlons. When I got into my 40s, I had gained a lot of extra weight and turned to strength training and boot camp-style bodyweight calisthenics to lose weight. I used that knowledge to train others over the last few years. Now I've gone back to college for a degree in kinesthesiology and business, got certified and trained people part-time with plans to go into fitness full-time and get my master's in athletic training. So far, my biggest challenge has been trying to convince women

that they need to lift heavy and often to get the tone and looks that they seek. Most women are still hung up on cardio and lightweights, if any at all. I mean, let them like watch the girls like, you know, go look at Hunter and say, you know, do you really not want to look like that? Because if you don't, I mean, I don't something wrong with you. Or look at Sarah, like Sarah. She was the magazine she was just featured in. Oh, it was the Women's Health of UK or something like that.

Oh, really? I didn't know that. They did a whole spread on athletes in the UK from different sports, different sizes, different body structure, everything. Yeah. Now, it was a little risque, so parental guidance is suggested. Yeah. Plus, look at Sarah.

She's a beauty queen and a weightlifter. So obviously it works. Show them reality. Show them what these girls do. Introduce them to the Hunters and the Sarahs of the world. And let them see that strong and athletic is... It's funny how people want to look like Hunter and Sarah, but they want to go do something different to get there.

People want to look like a sprinter, but then they'll go run a marathon. They don't understand the science behind it. That's the other thing. Print out, I promise you, I had to do this the other day. I feel like I answered this guy's question when he sent it in, and I think I did, I had to do this the other day. I feel like I answered this guy's question on, um, on when he sent it in.

And I think I did because like look up strength training and bone density and especially in women and how important it is for them to have resistance training in their programs because it helps, you know, increases bone density, which your bones aren't brittle. If your bones are dense, which means that you have less likely to have, you know, osteoporoporosis and you want to start it young you know you don't want to wait until you're in your 70s or 60s to start doing that so it's like just for your overall health and it's also said that you know you know while um cardiovascular um training is really good it needs to be coupled with resistance training because um the more muscle mass you have, the better heart health because your heart is a muscle.

Right. So, yeah, I think a lot of it comes down to women don't want to get like bodybuilder bulky, but like drugs. And I don't think they realize how hard that is. Or like if for some reason you woke up and found yourself there,

you could probably just stop lifting heavy for like a month or two and you'd be i've never ever ever seen a woman crying saying that i i worked out too much and i got bulky and there's nothing i can do about it oh well you know somebody i mean i should tell you something i mean i get this somebody's like i don't want to be bulky like you well i promise you if you don't want to to to look like me then you won't because you won't put the work in that it takes right i mean body if you don't want to look like me then you won't because you won't put the work in that it takes right I mean bodybuilders don't just get that that look overnight they put in a lot of hours right yeah that's like saying like I don't want to learn how to play guitar because like I'm afraid I'll

be this big rock star and I can't go anywhere with my picture taken I don't want to start this lemonade stand because I might turn into a billionaire and like, you know, all the stress that comes with that.

It's kind of like, yeah, don't worry about that. Yeah, you know, look at what people need to do if you're a female out there. Go look at yourself

in the mirror and realize if you work for the next 10 years, you'll add a little muscle. So like, unless you're already really jacked, you're going to be

alright. Well, alright. Well, that wraps up another awesome series of Q&A podcasts. Thanks Travis and Crystal for answering all your questions. Guys, if you want to ask us some questions, questions at mashleet.com.

You can email us there. And of course, we just dropped the new e-book, which will help you drive your squat through the roof, this cool little add-on program you can add on to your existing work. And it is Squat Gains. You can get it at www.mashleet.com slash squatgains. So thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time. Well, I hope that you guys enjoyed this podcast.

To listen to more free podcast episodes just like this one, or to check out our free articles, and of course, we've got our e-books and coaching for you as well. All of that can be found over at mashelite.com. That's mashelite.com. Well, thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time. Travis Mash, love it. Q&A, listener questions, dig it. Make sure you go over and support our sponsors, Organifi.com, forward slash shrugged. Save 20% on the greens and reds and gold.

And if you don't get the pumpkin spice, you're letting me down. And then our friends over at Savage Barbell, savagebarbell.com, forward slash shrugged. Save 25%. That's 2-5%. 25%, savagebarbell.com, forward slash shrugged. Friends, we'll see you on Wednesday. Shrugged coming.