Barbell Shrugged - How to Raise Strong, Healthy Kids w/Anders Varner, Doug Larson and Travis Mash #730

Episode Date: January 17, 2024

In today’s episode of Barbell Shrugged, Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Travis dive into the thought process and strategies we use to build a positive conversation around fitness and nutrition. We dig into the proper framing of how to eat, the benefits of specific foods, and the steps we take to ensure our kids are eating well. We also discuss the steps we take to ensure our kids see fitness as a healthy part of life by being outside, seeing us train, and celebrating an active lifestyle. This show will give you insight into a subject we do not dedicate full shows to, however, is something we think about on a daily basis when raising our kids. We hope you enjoy. Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram

Shrug family, this week on Barbell Shrug, Travis Mash, Doug Larson, and myself digging into a subject that is probably the subject in fitness that I think the most about. I have a pretty good understanding of my own health, how to eat, how to work out. All of these systems have been built in my life, I recall it, the last two plus decades,

two and a half decades, where they're just kind of like the things that I do in my life. But now I have two little children in my house, one five and one two. And in that, it's very important to me that I am raising not just good kids, but I want kids to adopt a lot of the strategies to living a healthy life that I have done. And this show is dedicated really to how the three of us implement these things into our kids' lives, whether it's from how to eat, how to talk about eating, the framework in which we discuss specific foods, some of the goals that we have around nutrition and how do we implement

those strategies to how do we get our kids to work out? What do we think is important from them seeing us working out, us working out with our kids, being outside, being around our kids, the ability to play, getting them, like I talk about in the show, like getting them addicted to being outside. It's like something that is just super important to me. Like I feel like I'm addicted to being outside. I built my office in a garage so that I can roll the door open and just see the sunlight all day long, like natural light. Like these things are incredibly just at the core of happiness to me. It's just being outside and playing and running and feeling alive. And I want my kids to have those same, those same feelings and those same habits. And in this show today, we dig into a lot of those strategies and the high level goals, the frameworks that we

present to these things to our kids. And I think it's just something that it may not be like the most normal show of us interviewing a super high level PhD expert in a specific field. But as far as like actionable steps for parents, actual steps for people, coaches that are communicating to their clients, if they're especially if they're coaching kids, I think you're going to learn a lot in this one. And it's just like a very real conversation in the way that we would sit around if we were having a cup of coffee and just being dads together and talking about how we feel. The best case scenario is for building really good habits for people that you clearly care about in your family. And how do you pass on all of these lessons that we've learned in the last two and a half decades of being around fitness, nutrition, and some super high level coaches, how do we go and just implement these base level habits and

strategies and tactics into their lives so that they are able to live a strong, lean, kind of like resilient, healthy life, and not be afraid of fitness and nutrition and really be able to just have the physical freedom and health freedom that we all want. As always, friends, you can head over to rapidhealthreport.com. That is where Dan Garner and Dr. Andy Galpin are doing a free lab, lifestyle, and performance analysis that everybody inside Rapid Health Optimization will receive. As always, friends, you can access that for free over at rapidhealthreport.com. Friends, let's get into the show.

Welcome to Barbell Shrug. I'm Anders Warner, Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mass. Today on Barbell Shrug, we're going to be digging into something near and dear to all of our old, old male dad hearts. How do we keep our kids jacked? Or how do we make them jacked? All the nutrition training, not really training, but how do we how do we instill these habits that um allow them to be strong and healthy um and have them doing this stuff building those habits before they even know but before we do that if you are not following coach travis mash on the internet right now that man has got at least four of six abs right now, if not four and a half. And he's posting shirt-off selfies

like he's 19 back in the dating scene or something like that. It's like Travis Mash rolls to town and he's got DMs coming his way. There's so many abs in these selfies you're taking right now. Dude, what do you got going on? Actually, I did get some DMs.

Did you guys? Did you? hold on a second who cares about this drew know about this emily yes my wife this is the opposite you don't hide it from me you're like you're like yo check this out i'm getting hit up getting hit up by the by the young ladies I'm using that to fuel my wife. Yeah, I don't care. You better stay on your game, girl. I got options.

The DMs are rolling. I married my favorite girl, so if I can use it for fuel, I'll use it for fuel. But did you guys know that gray sweatpants on men is kind of a thing that girls like? Oh, is that a sexy thing?

That's good. I would think that I would have more success in my household because as soon as I'm done working out and the kids get home, I'm 99% gray sweatpants and no shirt. Well, that last picture I posted. Maybe I need to be on Instagram more in the gray sweats. Yeah. I guess. Do you have four in the gray sweats. Yeah. I guess. Do you have four abs? That's the question.

Four abs is probably the thing. I mean, look at Jack. What are you? What are you? Yeah, I got a couple in there. But man, not like you right now. You got 50-year-old man abs. You got strongest man in the world abs, like Thor abs.

That's what's different. People look at me and they're like, look at these little little crossfit abs it's softer than world's strongest man abs like there's no building bricks in there you've been dead lifting a thousand pounds squat a thousand pounds trying to breathe and make all that those are different abs i'm trying you know louis said you can't squat a thousand pounds with a weak stomach so evidently they were under there all along and so just eating good and like training hard i am i am training hard uh after i graduated from lr like i was in the worst shape of my life like mentally physically like had a heart attack something yes i was in the hospital twice i'm like like, am I just dying? I mean, literally, I thought,

okay, this is what it is. I'm at the point in my life where you start to decline. And then I just was like, well, I'm going to try to fight this, at least not go down swinging. I started, well, luckily my wife eats super healthy. And so I just decided to join along. So we just made better choices. I would love to say that I'm on a great, you know, a super duper diet plan, but it's just healthy choices. And I'm working out hard five days a week and I'm doing cardio. Well, let me tell you who inspired me. And this has nothing to do with, I know this is going to sound like I'm advertising for you guys, but Andy on Huberman Podcast, and he talked about the nine attributes of physical fitness.

And so then I wrote this plan for myself that incorporated all of them. So like anaerobic, aerobic, work capacity, I call it. He calls it just long-duration training. Hypertrophy, all the things, strength, speed, power. And I wrote the program and I'm just, man, I haven't done cardio or I haven't done anaerobic training in a long time. And at first it killed me and I hated it. And then all of a sudden you get used to it and now you're starting to beat your records. Like these rowing, you know uh i'm doing

interval training on the rower and so now i'm digging it it's something different i'm still going heavy but it's just not the only priority and so when you have all these different things you're trying to do it makes training so much more fun and so shout out to dr galpin so once again he inspires me so that's what happened really yeah how are you structuring your week right now then that's what i was gonna ask so it's still it's like um it's still a lower upper lower upper and lower so i do three days of lower body and um but one day is mainly focused on the squatting more like you you, Doug. You know how I used to do squatting or hinging or pushing and pulling? More like that, except the middle lower body is unilateral

and multidirectional unilateral. So I'll do a reverse lunge, and then I do a dumbbell lunge where it's three-way, so forward, sideways, back. We're trying to keep my you know try to keep my my hip as healthy as possible as long as possible and um which has been a huge difference and then the so my third day of lower is going to be a hinge and then i do just two different uppers but one is more of a horizontal pressing and pulling and the other one is more vertical Pressing and pulling So it's all the vectors It's horizontal, vertical, lateral

And then rotational So it was well thought out To me, I was working out But to really structure the program Like Andy talked about It's a lot harder You can't just throw that on paper You gotta really think about it

And I want to do it in an hour and 15 minutes at the maximum because I'm a dad like you guys. So we don't have hours on hours. What are you doing all the conditioning on? Rower or the bike called the Airdyne. Yeah. And I live on that thing right now. I've been I've been probably like seven, eight months. Six or seven months. Just crushing it on an air bike.

I've been digging it. I actually enjoy it now. It's a sickening thing when you enjoy that piece of equipment. That means you're spending a lot of time on there. You start feeling like you're getting in flow with an Airdyne. You're mentally not right in the head uh when you can compete for somebody that's what i love is like i haven't competed in something like you know like aerobic

or anaerobic in years with anybody and i'm sure louis is turning over in his grave hearing me say it but i don't care man i don't want to go down like i don't want to be like these other powers because they're dying left and right you know like i want to be in shape and if i die i die but like won't be because i made bad choices as i get older this is the least i've lifted on a weekly basis ever and my body feels phenomenal like this is the most i've spent uh focused purely on like cardiovascular side of things like i run a day of sprints i can't remember the stat that i heard that just like actually changed so much of my mindset of like i want to say it's like 80 plus percent of people after the

age of 18 don't ever run sprints ever again in their life crazy and it may even be a significantly higher number than that it was like a number when i when i it was a number when i heard it i was like oh jesus that is like the exact i do not want to be a part of that x 80 90 percent whatever it is like the and i started running wind sprints immediately that day uh because i was just like no way so now every every monday is uh lots of sprints and then lots of just like vo2 max work on a like sustained high output how long can i go at at a 88 to 9 um rPE and it's painful, but it's awesome. And then two full body days of lifting weights at, at a, you know, a good percentage of whatever max would be considered. Um, but at this stage, I feel like, you know, 27 years of lifting weights, if I can just maintain

right. All the muscle mass and and the science comes back as you can basically to to maintain the strength of the muscle mass it's the six million little hour that that once it's gone it's gone and it right um it it's not coming back like you're it takes a long time to build that i'm gonna fight that though like i want to jump like i you know when my wife met me i entered my last slam dunk competition and like i'm short yeah i'm five six and you know and i was over 200 pounds so it's not very common so it's been a part of my identity is my ability to jump and so i dunked my last dunk was early 40s like 42 years old and so like i don't know if I'll ever dunk again,

but I want to be able to jump and run with my kids. You know, we've been playing basketball. Like I want to do all the things. And so, and like, you're right. Power is the first to go. We talk about so many things and, you know, people are like, well, what does it matter if I have power or not? Well, let me tell you, elasticity.

Shark family, I want to take a quick break. If you are enjoying today's conversation, I want to take a quick break. If you are enjoying today's conversation, I want to invite you to come over to rapidhealthreport.com. When you get to rapidhealthreport.com, you will see an area for you to opt in, in which you can see Dan Garner read through my lab work. Now, you know that we've been working at Rapid Health Optimization on programs for optimizing health.

Now, what does that actually mean? It means in three parts, we're going to be doing a ton of deep dive into your labs. That means the inside out approach. So we're not going to be guessing your macros. We're not going to be guessing the total calories that you need. We're actually going to be doing all the work to uncover everything that you have going on inside you. Nutrition, supplementation, sleep. And then we're going to go through and analyze your lifestyle. Dr. Andy Galpin is going to build out a lifestyle protocol based on the severity of your concerns. And then we're going to also build out all the programs that go into that based on the most severe things first.

This truly is a world-class program. And we invite you to see step one of this process by going over to rapidhealthreport.com. You can see Dan reading my labs, the nutrition and supplementation that he has recommended that has radically shifted the way that I sleep, the energy that I have during the day, my total testosterone level, and my ability to trust and have confidence in my health going forward. I really, really hope that you're able to go over to rapidhealthreport.com,

watch the video of my labs, and see what is possible. And if it is something that you are interested in, please schedule a call with me on that page. Once again, it's rapidhealthreport.com, and let's get back to the show. People are like, well, what does it matter if I have power or not? Well, let me tell you, elasticity, your tendons, you know how like as you get older, you're popping your tricep tendon, you're popping your patella tendon. It's like, I mean, if you don't do things that are elastic in nature, then the tendons

get weak. And so I'm trying to stay elastic. That's exactly how people get hurt is they don't do the running. They don't do the jumping. They're not moving quick. They're not moving laterally or something like that. And then someone invites him to go play pickup basketball or something. And you go,

and they go, I tore my AC or I tore my Achilles. Well, how'd that happen? Yeah. I tried to cross up my best friend, Michael Jordan one afternoon down at the park and pop. It's not good. And he took the ball from me because it's michael jordan so so now you got clown and you're here

you're on the you're on the men for the next eight months and it's all because you just didn't do anything and then decided to go uh practice your high school crossover dribble and it just doesn't it doesn't flow anymore you know i'll tell you even if you don't need to move fast on a regular basis like like there's a great video of a woman who like she stops and like checks her phone or something like that and her her um stroller just starts rolling down the hill toward toward traffic right and then she like goes to like run after it and just like starts to run face plants tries to get up like face plants again she's just not used to moving quickly you could just tell she's not that this person's not athletic it's not used to like not doing burpees full speed getting up and down full speed like

some other person luckily saves the cart you know before it goes out into traffic and she's basically just like face down on the ground like like fuck like i haven't had to move quickly in probably many years maybe ever in her case so maybe you're not gonna move yeah like you might not have to move quickly very often or like you know old people like you're you're walking to you're walking across the street and you go to walk over the sidewalk you need to take a step up you catch your toe you got to be able to move quickly just to catch yourself that way you don't face plant or fall and break a hip or whatever it is you know that's like way down the line when you're when you're in your 70s or whatever it is so even if you aren't playing football or soccer or or fighting mma or

boxing or whatever it is that you did when you were younger still like you don't want that speed to go away all the way there are times where you may want it in the future no kidding you know and the thing that inspired the you know other than being completely out of shape after little Ryan is I was talking to some of my buddies, we were hanging out and they were talking about all the things they used to do and that how they tell their kids, well, I used to do this and I used to do that. And in my head, I'm listening to them knowing they're embellishing because I was there. And so then I'm like, I don't want to be that dad.

I'm not going to be like yeah your dad one time was the strongest power in the world but that is irrelevant to them they don't know that they weren't there i want them to see me so then when i talk to them like bear and rock i can look them dead in the eye now and i can see this is what it takes if you ask either one of them now what does it take to be successful? They will repeat to you, you got to outwork everyone. And so like, like they see it. And like, if I, if I die right now, I will die smiling because I at least left them with that, you know? Yeah. So yeah, dude, that's good. You're instilling that mindset into them very early,

like transitioning into the conversation about kids uh you know being a role model seems to be like like number one like if you can't just tell your kids to go work out and work hard and then not be doing yourself or they're not going to listen to you they're going to pay way more attention to how you behave than than what you say uh mass i know you you train in front of your kids fairly like regularly uh and with them yeah in that case i train my kids kind of occasionally they see me work out in the garage but most of my training really is when they're not around like i but i very consciously especially on the weekends try to train when they are around they're playing outside on on the driveway or wherever i'm working out in the garage like i try to train intentionally when they are

outside around where i am so they see me working out right um but what do you how do you guys intentionally try to be active role models for your kids uh beyond just kind of the the obvious i do what you do like once a week i train with them and i'll write them a little workout something simple normally they do overhead squats front squats light before everyone freaks out about them being so young like we have a 2.5 and a five kilogram bar so chill and then um they do their pull-ups, their maximal pull-ups. And I realized that my son Bear is intrinsically motivated and my son Rock is extrinsically.

So for both of them, I can't say one, not the other. As soon as they do 10 strict pull-ups, meaning all the way down, chin above the bar, I'm going to get them a $100 Lego set of their choice and so for rock that was that's all he needed now he's crushing but for bear he just sees his dad and all he wants to do is be like me and so it i just did it because i didn't want to do for one not the other but learning about them too and seeing what motivates them is important but then one day a week i just train them like and i i try not to coach them because especially rock gets he doesn't like me to coach him so like i have matt weininger one of my athletes who's been with me since he's 10 he does a lot of it

but once a week i'll go down there and watch them and i'll give input and um but they just like me to sit there they just want me to watch them. And I enjoy it. It's like the best. So that's at least twice a week. They train with me once. I watch them once. But Norton here lately has been a whole lot more than that.

But that's the goal. So much of just the framing of conversation is super important. Like I pretty much only force my kids to eat protein and they can have whatever they want after they eat protein. Like you want to go and eat a muffin after you after you smash some meatballs. What do I care? Like all that's getting burned up somewhere. And throughout the day, like you got a brain to grow and a body to grow. I'm not worried about the muffin. We're're gonna go at least eat a lot of protein every single i agree with you why is that why is it hard to get kids to eat protein nowadays i mean my kids will crush

some broccoli broccoli but like ask them to eat a burger and they're like what in the world i can't wait to grow out of this right i don't i don't actually know why it's challenging outside of it just it's it's it doesn't have the sweetness that all of the other stuff it's not like my kids are like hammering like sweet potatoes like the healthy stuff doesn't have the packaged good deliciousness to it um but you can only win so many battles, but the, the framing of how I, I pretty much only use the adjective of strong. Like if you eat this, you will be strong. I feel like many parents and luckily or whatever,

I don't have like a weight problem, but I would imagine that many kids grow up in a house where their parents are always talking about dieting, um, or they're always talking about like, I got to lose fat. And they hear that stuff. So they just assume that losing fat or being fat as part of a life, a normal life. Like you're always just in this perpetual cycle of like, Oh, don't eat that. You're going to get fat. Don't eat that. You're going to get fat. And you can frame that exact same conversation of going well if you eat this you won't be strong this you're gonna be freaking monstrous like we just talk about getting jacked yeah like you could frame all of those things and the positive and make it so much cooler like my yeah my i think

about my own experience that's why i did it myself like when i was a teenager and i was trying to fucking eat as healthy as possible and sleep as much as possible and and drink a gallon of milk a day i wasn't trying to be healthy that was also kind of in there somewhere i guess but really like the the realistic external motivating factor was i wanted to be fucking jacked i wanted to be stronger yeah yeah i wanted i wanted to be admired by by men and and loved by women and and win at sports and get respect and and look the part like i wanted all those things and yeah i also knew that there were some health benefits but i wasn't really really motivated by those things those are a nice side effect i want to be the whole i feel like my the the thing that i

i notice about call it my my family and comparison to the the eyeballs that i can see like the the kids that like i almost every night do not let my kids inside the house. Like we have to be outside. There is no going in. We don't, we do not pass go. We get out of the car from daycare or you get off the bus and we're only outside. You have to go play games. Even if it's just like playing on a little playground in the back,

but, or you're on the swing and you're not really doing anything. Like I'm pushing you. Like just, I feel like you, me personally, I cannot be inside. And I think 99% of I feel like you, me personally, I cannot be inside. And I think 99% of that is like, one, I was always the kid that was outside playing.

Street hockey was like the Stanley Cup every single day when I was a kid. It was like the first business that I feel like I almost thought about starting when I was like eight. I was like, well, I think that my cul-de-sac and my friends are better than every other cul-de-sac. So I'm going to start a street hockey league and started going and like recruiting street hockey people, other neighborhoods to play us in street hockey. That's the New England thing right there. What's that? Andrew started a gang.

That's the New England thing right there. Hockey gang. I just needed to know. Like I needed to know if I just, am i good for my block or do we dominate all the neighborhoods like i needed to know and that was just the next step like we got to go find other people to play and but there's we're not allowed inside it is right and once i start once after living in socal too holy crap did that exponentially take off like i can't be inside at all. I'm so dependent on fresh air being in front of the sun. It is like the real power source, uh, for, for just happiness. Like I view

all of these things though, like, especially with, with kids, like what size cage are we playing in today? Because we can go to the soccer field and that's a big cage and everybody can run and I'm faster than everyone. We can just go play and it's a big cage and everybody can run and i'm faster than everyone we can just go play and it's free and you can roll but if you go inside the house that's a small cage things get broken but it's going to be the same energy output same everything so we just got to be outside and i totally agree we do not go inside until it's time to go eat dinner and many times um i might need my priorities changed a little bit but i mean we were talking when we're talking to kelly and juliet it's like a lot of times we don't have

family dinners because i'm the one that's like outside and and forcing the kids to just run and play more well that's more important than the the dinner for sure yes and it's not every single night like you know there's there's times where we have to sit down as a family and do that but um it the trade-off and i think that that's where so many people get into like a lot of issues it's like they think that they have to do all of the things like you have to have a family dinner you have to do there's not enough time you don't have to do anything yeah you've got kids if you're if you're done the kids get home at four and you train and from four to five and the kids are in the garage doing it or in your basement and then we go directly outside once uh the little man gets home from daycare it's like now we've got three hours that we get

to go play and family dinner is the third on my list. And I don't even know what number two is. But playing is number one. Yeah, man. Those conversations I have with my kids are more important than anything downstairs. When my sons are looking me in the eye and I'm telling them life lessons, that trumps what you're going to talk about at dinner anytime. Yeah.

I was going to say, you're basically replacing it. Like, like that's what family dinner is for. So you can like, that might be the only time some people really sit down and ever talk to their family members throughout the day. But if you're doing that, cause you're training with your kids and they're actually more attentive and engaged and conversational during training compared to the dinner table. Like, like I rarely have sit down family dinners with my kids.

Like it's, it's, it's tough. It's kind of like, it's kind of like FaceTime with FaceTiming with like a four-year-old. It's like, you're only going to have so much conversation like that really. It's like, but family dinners probably will become more valuable as we get older. Like it's different having a family dinner with like, you know, a 12 year old, a 15 year old and a 17 year old. Like that's a different dynamic than right now. My kids have had birthdays two of them have birthdays in february so they'll be six seven and nine so like right they're they're on the younger side of things um now we're like we're like just starting to really have like family dinners where we actually are able to talk to each other and get anything accomplished without them um you know either not staying in their seat

or throwing food at each other or fighting or whatever the hell they're going to do. Um, I'll probably add those in more as I go, but that hasn't like been a big part of my existence today. No. I think the one thing that I said earlier, I'm sorry. Is that about, you know, about how they grow up and they see their, their parents, the struggle with eating getting overweight and the training is this chore like you don't want to frame being healthy in a negative light like i have to train because i'm overweight instead of i get to train those are very different things is like we go play downstairs even for me like all of a sudden, I've made it fun again. I'm excited to go downstairs.

I want to go do it. Dude, that's phenomenal. I want to go to the batting cages. Let's go. Right. I want to go do all the things. The last time I was at the batting cages was for your birthday party, like seven years ago or something like that.

Remember that? I've been celebrating me becoming a dad. Was it birthday or dad life? Whatever it was. Maybe that's what it was. Dude, I've been to the batting cages like a dad was it birthday or dad dad life whatever it was maybe that's what it was yeah dude i've been to the batting cages like three times with the two-year-old he's just all i want him to do is just watch kids working hard practicing just being around it right right and seeing it's fun you know that's the key match that's a phenomenal thing you said a second ago like how kids will notice how you talk about

whatever you're talking about in this case training like if they see you regularly be like oh fuck i gotta go train oh right and they can just see that you're just like bummed about it but they'll be like oh yeah training is something we don't enjoy doing and if they if they hear you say like oh god i missed i missed the gym today damn it god i just want i wish i could train today i don't have time oh they see that you're bummed for not going to the gym or you go to the gym and you come back and you go, man, I feel so much better after training. I love training. Like they're going to pick all that up.

And in our case, like obviously, obviously we like training. That's people are listening to the show because they know that we like training. It's like a big part of our lives, but it's not like that for everybody. It's like, if you're listening to this right now and your kids in the room and they, they see your demeanor related to eating healthy food and they see your demeanor related to working out and exercising and spending time outdoors and getting enough sleep, like they pick up all that stuff. They, they, they'll hear you tell them, Oh, it's so good for you to eat these vegetables, Johnny. But then they see you go, ah, I don't want this shit. Yeah, we don't do that.

These are gross. I got you. Now I know what's going on. I have one of our one of our coaches, Nicole Fisher. Shout out to Cole Fisher. She's awesome. But she loves giving me crap because I have this special meal that I've been eating for like 20 years of my life labeled beef in a bowl. And what you do is you make a lot of beef on Sunday and then like six or seven pounds. And then every day you just

eat the beef in a bowl and you put like ketchup on it. And that's how you guarantee you're going to get 200 grams of protein every day as you eat a pound of beef for breakfast. Then the rest of the day, it's easy and it's not that hard. So what do I do to teach my kid, especially the two-year-old little dude? I go, Anson, today we're eating beef in a bowl, buddy. You want me to send you beef in a bowl to breakfast? He thinks beef in a bowl is like the secret to like. It sounds cool.

Death and life, man. Yeah, dude dude we have turned beef in a bowl into a trophy like it is i i send more i put more hype into him just eating ground beef in a bowl with ketchup like he will grow up having no idea that this is like the same thing i ate when i was completely poor in college like oh we're just gonna put this beef in a bowl because I only have $4. I just had beef in a bowl before we got on this show right here. Beef in a bowl is the greatest. With some rice. Beef and rice. And here's how you hear.

I'll tell you the secret, buddy. If you want to go on a bulking cycle too, the only difference between beef in a bowl to get lean or stay at your body weight and beef in a bowl to get bulky? Guacamole. Guacamole and cheese. If you put guacamole and cheese in it, it almost doubles the calories. You will get so jacked eating beef in a bowl with guac and cheese. I'm hoping my days of bulking are over.

Like I've bulked my whole life. I think I'm going to spend the rest of my life cutting. You're going to go, Emily, take the cheese and the guacamole off the shopping list right now. I don't need the bulk. I'm trying to spend a lot of bulking years, son. It's time to cut for a while. To your point, all I want him to do is love eating red meat. So we hype him up so much. And Ashton's, my wife is like significantly better at making real meals and like preparing

quality stuff. And always makes these like little like meatloaf concoctions that are awesome and loaded with veggies and all that stuff and just like sneak it in. And dude, if you can just get, if you can find that one meal that they like and you can make it awesome and it's loaded with, if you can get four ounces of ground beef into your kid in the morning, you are 25 grams of protein ahead

of every other kid eating a bagel. Beef in a bowl. Beef in a bowl, man. Let's get it going. I love that. Tonight, I'm going to see my kids eat beef in a bowl. I'm like, I got a surprise for you. Dude, I'll show see my kids like beef in a bowl i'm like i got a surprise for you i'll show up to meetings yeah i'll show up to meet coaches meetings and i'll be eating beef in a bowl and our coach nicole she will look at me and go what are you doing you eat like a child

i go if i if my child is eating beef in a bowl we are on the right track this is how we mb baby beef in a bowl yeah i mean i originally got that from uh just like giving kids protein essentially only uh from john brardy when he was on the show he was like dude kids are carb seeking machines like they're gonna find carbohydrates like if you have any carbs in your house like they're gonna seek them out uh you know processed carbs especially uh they're not they're not gonna you know make mashed potatoes but if there's any chips around they're gonna go eat them etc right so just he just made he just makes sure that there's some some protein and ideally some type of healthy fat on their plate and then carbs are kind of take care of themselves so

that's been a very you know that's actually been very uh um convenient and enlightening for me as a parent like it's it's convenient to not have to make like a full meal for my kids. Just make them some meat, put it on a plate. My kids love ketchup. Like basically probably all kids do just put some, put some meatballs. Like you mentioned earlier,

Anderson, some ketchup, and then they can take care of the rest themselves. They can go, they can go to the pantry and dig up any additional calories they want after they eat their protein. You know, what might be better in ketchup is uh chick-fil-a

sauce on beef adults don't go for that if you're a kid eat the chick-fil-a sauce if you're an adult you're gonna be on a cut phase coming up in about three months it's so good it is uh i used to uh anytime the other half is out of town for work, I will, I gotta, I gotta take the kids to Chick-fil-A cause they got a playground in there. It's like parent cheating. And again, three hack. I hate that word,

but yeah, it's a hack. Three, three 12 piece grilled nuggets for, for dinner for me. And then I was just hammering the Chick-fil-A sauce with it. Cause it's so delicious then i went and googled the nutrition facts going why did you do that chick-fil-a

little did i know again it's like adding it's like adding cheese and guacamole to your beef in a bowl it like doubles the calories don't tell me that it's like i've never it's pure canola oil which you can go get the honey mustard one it's just as good and it's like i've never it's pure canola oil which you can go get the honey mustard one it's just as good and it's like 40 calories okay there you go i'll go to honey mustard secret part how much worse is it than ketchup ketchup is just sugar i guess it's just sugar it's the it's the it's the canola oil that gets your guts all weird okay that makes me so sad i know it's delicious right my daughter calls it daddy sauce that's what i'm talking about daddy sauce it's a terrible term you got you have the whole thing you have that you have like the the full bottle in the i do have a full bottle

in my m i literally had it on my beef in a bowl right before this. I purposely never looked it up because I didn't want to know what you just told me. I knew it had to be something terrible. Nothing that good can be good for you. Go with the honey mustard. You're good, man. Honey mustard it is. Yo, Mash, I know you train with your kids and that works out really well for you. My kids are fairly resistant to like, hey, you want to go go in the garage and go work out or we're going in the garage to go work out like whether i'm asking

them or telling them there's there's going to be resistance coming my way like basically guaranteed uh if we're out somewhere like if i bring a kid to jujitsu and they maybe they don't want to do jujitsu for whatever reason and i go you want to work out they go oh sure and we'll go do it and then we're at we're at a different location and they'll do it uh but at and when my wife takes them to a crossfit gym they almost always participate no problem but like getting them to work out in my garage when they have other options uh seems to be very difficult to do unless and they you know they watch uh youtube kids and things like that where uh youtube stars are always doing like challenges they do like the sour candy challenge and whatever other challenges many challenges that they see so they respond really well to that terminology.

If I say, hey, like the other day, two days ago, we're in my house. It's nighttime. It's dark out. It's cold outside. And I asked them if they wanted to do the two bed challenge. And they were like, what's that? I can see like the intrigue between my kids. I go, you start on this rug right here.

You run up the stairs. You touch Ryder's bed. You run back down. You touch the carpet. run up the stairs you touch rider's bed you run back down you touch the carpet you run upstairs you touch river's bed you come back down and you hit the stop button so i have a phone out where they can see the clock running profit style they're basically doing little mini mini sprint met cons they hit the start button they run they hit the lap button when they come back and then they hit the stop button when they come back so they can see their their split times and their lap times and all my kids are you know i have three boys within three years of each other so like they're they're they're close in age and they're all boys and i'll be you know if i get one of them to do it

almost guaranteed i can get the other ones to do it be like oh dude rider did in 37 seconds you think you can beat rider 37 seconds challenge and then then it's not working out at all but they are running stairs you know like it's brilliant i do the same thing variations of that just endlessly as long as as long as i frame it like that i don't even talk about working out i just talk about like winning and getting a good time and all that like just taking lessons from the crossfit type space of of just compete against the clock and it makes people work really hard that works really well even for little kids i do the same same exact thing i have

like a you know where they run around the house then they have a shorter spread then they run around the house four times which it's not a mile but it's a lot and we time it and they just try to beat their own time but then now rock and bear is starting to they're starting to compete so you can do it the most and it's just fun though yeah that's the key yo how do you uh i i would imagine magnolia is all about art you're wrong she's gonna be probably the best adly of the three see my daughter my daughter is like she can sit down and do like even Saturday, this past Saturday, I must have done eight straight hours of cutting and gluing and coloring and one art project turned into a mosaic of art projects and all that stuff's rad that's not it is harder to get her to go to like i can look at my little dude and go you want to go hit the hockey puck and he's like let's roll dude right now when i go when i when i do the same thing to her she's like how about we color and i'm like well i remember

magnolia has two older brothers so she's chasing she's's trying to beat them. My four-year-old can do a pull-up already, Magnolia. And I mean strict, chin above the bar. Her overhead squats are amazing. Her front squats are amazing. I really believe she might, of all the ones, I still think Brock is my most athletic. Bear is going to be my tank. But Magnolia, she might be the best of the three.

She just naturally moves better than all three of them. But she's not as brave, which I'm glad. Rock will do crazy stuff. He'll do crazy stuff. He climbed a tree, and he was so high. I was so frightened that I was afraid to shot at him because I was afraid he would fall and get killed. Magnolia's got some sense to her but as far as movement her movement is incredible she dances they're all they're all though they're all artistic you know they're they have a good mix

you know their mom is mia too but she's artistic i have no artistic whatsoever ability i like to write but like so they all have a little bit but they're all they love it the key is just playing my whole bat my whole downstairs is their playroom is a workout room they have the pegboards rock climbing wall jungle gyms it's just playing speaking of that show uh with kelly i went and bought for them in quotations, them one of those little slack lines and they just rad. You see me a picture of that. Yeah. I got it over there.

Here's it sits right in my gym, which is it's mainly for me. But I got the one that has spaceships and planets and it looks like a kid toy. So they like it that's rad that that is like one thing i think she really likes that because dance and gymnastics she actually really enjoys dancing more than all of it uh i was like if you hang out on this slack line you're going to be so good at dance like this is this is the way you're going to have you balance

um i can i can i could go yeah i don't know what good means like you're good at everything i'm not good at everything if if you pop on youtube and hit slackline i'm not doing anything that those people are but i can walk if that makes sense i can i can i can hang out i can do the one-legged thing and that just basic balance, but I'm not, I'm not doing it. I'm getting a slack line today. Like it's like 150 bucks and it is rad. It looks like a, it looks like a snowboard with a slack line across it and it's perfect for the

house. It's, it's really cool. I like it a lot and I can actually really see how beneficial it's perfect for the house. It's really cool. I like it a lot. And I can actually really see how beneficial it would be. But like a slack line is too much. So if you go put a slack line in your backyard, the kids will play on it, but they're not going to win. Like you got to get them wins. And this thing is small enough and tight enough that they can actually do it. Like you can hold their hand and then let them go

and they'll be able to do it for a little bit and i think you can like hold count whatever whatever it is um and it's just easier to set up like it's a it's a i think my son rock is like you anders like he can do anything like we bought him uh what's it called it's not a certain he can skateboard but we bought him it's like a skateboard but it's only got two wheels it's like um it's like what it's called something and the dude it took him 10 minutes to master it he can cut like one of the little like back and forth like things oh yeah kind of like that but it's like little thin line it's like really it's like i'll just i'll send you a video of it it's the craziest he can like he can like make sharp turns downstairs and if you go back and forth it goes faster like you can swivel your hips and it goes

faster it's crazy and like that dude took him 10 minutes or um not roller skates, but inline skates. Took him like 10 minutes. It's like Bear and I, it would take days. We would do it, but it would take days. Yeah. You know, but Rock's like you, man. He gets surfing. I think you'll have to teach him.

Like I, you have to teach us both. Fly me out. Let's roll. I'm ready. Come down to the beach house.'s like oh yeah two foot waves we will we will we'll have fun i put it when you're yeah i was gonna say when you're downstairs uh hey what does that full setup look like for yourself and your kids and then how do you structure their workouts and how how like written down is it ahead of time versus just kind of loose in the moment see what they respond to well they have a workout that they

do every day for in the morning and then they have a workout they do in the in the afternoon for monday through friday but then downstairs with me it's loose it's like it's like uh it's always going to be some type of overhead squat, some type of front squat, clean snatching might be in there, but definitely overhead squat and front squat. They're always going to do pull-ups. They're always going to do push-ups. And now they're starting to do the unilateral squats. Or what is it in CrossFit they're called?

What? Like where you do a… A lateral lunge or a cross-hack squat? Pistols. Pistols. Pistols. Yeah, they'll do pistol squats. called what like we do uh a lunge or a crosshack squat uh pistols uh pistols pistols yeah yeah they'll do pistol squats rock has done a pistol squat with an overhead like holding the bar of rent so he's done an overhead pistol get that slack line rolling man that's that was like the uh that was like my first uh the kids started playing on it and i was like oh yeah well you want to see a cool trick how about i do a pistol on this thing? They were like, damn, dad is a gangster. Dad knows how to do things.

You go and do single leg deadlift, like whatever. I don't even know what they would call it in yoga, but weightless bend over, touch your toes on one leg on the slack line. Your kids will love it. They're at like a good age. That's awesome. My two-year-old

can't really do it but you're oh yeah it's totally for us um but you're uh your boys would love it well as far as how it's set up it's like half of it is you know i have my rack and i have a reverse hyper and i have a ghd and a trx and then they have they have everything they have their own squat rack with their own they have they have everything they have their own squat rack with their own they have two different bars they can choose from they got their bumper plates they got their jungle gym you know they have their egg board they have rock climbing wall like they have the crash mats like they have everything that and they get they we have they have their bicycles and the other skateboards and that thing i can't

i don't even know what it is they do that downstairs so it's it's about 20 minutes of some structure i throw out for them and then they play but then the plane they do it themselves like the you know they do the jungle gyms and the pull-ups and and bear likes to lift and so he'll do all this stuff yeah do you have a rope down there? Is that part of it? Yeah, climbing rope. Do you have a small one? It's like a climbing rope you would get.

It doesn't have like five feet of – how big is it? The ceiling is like normal 10-foot ceiling down there. Yeah, about 10-foot ceiling. So it's just – yeah, it's not – it's like 10 feet. But they can go up and down, and down which they do sometimes i'll write like a little like race for them so they'll do like a rope climb pull up you know then they'll do the jungle gyms they'll do drop on the crash mat do like a forward roll then they'll do a snatch like you know we just have fun but i'm just trying to get all the functional movement patterns in there you know and like relative relative strength is still

the most important at this age like how can they handle their own body weight they can do that they're ahead of the game do you have them in organized sports slash gymnastics. Basketball, gymnastics, jiu-jitsu, wrestling. So where I'm at at Rise, it's half the year it's jiu-jitsu and half the year it's wrestling for the young kids. So they do that. So, yeah, they do all the sports. And Magnolia is now getting – she can dance. Like, it's in her blood.

She can straight – I don't know how she got it because her mom and I aren't dancers, but she gets straight, get it. So, but yeah, they all, they're all in sports and it, you know,

we're lucky at rise. You can choose. There's so many things to choose from. Yeah. That place is basketball, volleyball, lacrosse. They have all this stuff.

Soccer. That's like the best. That's, that's one of the things I, uh, wouldn't call it like a regret, but like miss the most about having a gym it's like your kids could just grow up in that like being in rise they can do anything

they've got like the perfect amount of coaching where they're sitting there playing yeah but they're also watching ryan lift weights they're watching they're watching the best volleyball player in the country. They're watching basketball playing. Right. It's it's a real thing that I feel like a lot of people don't. Just it's it's like it's like absorbing all of that education without it being this like direct like you're not going to school to learn it. You're just watching what an Olympic weightlifter,

like an Olympian weightlifter looks like. Lift weights. We even have the best baseball player in the country. Arguably he's the number one shortstop and he's in the top five overall. And so he's like literally, arguably the only four people that they might be ahead of him

are the sons of like former major league baseball players so it's a little bit biased but so wherever they look whatever sport they see they have some of the best athletes in the entire country doing that thing and so they won't see bad movement and like i won't let them watch anybody bad movement either like watch that guy just do what he does right yeah don't follow that guy don't follow his knee the other guy just do what he does right yeah don't follow that guy don't follow his other guy turn a blind eye to him like encourage him but don't watch him yeah um yeah the uh that that scenario really is like the dream the dream state to be able to have kids in that um thing where it's it's a much more passive uh way to learn to learn than the forced active side of it.

I always wonder how much instruction, where is the balance between the passive and the active? Do I really need to tell my five-year-old if she squats on this little slant board over here? It looks okay. Sometimes her knees come in in but most importantly she's like having fun hanging out with me it's like i don't want to ruin that by trying to be coach right it's like one of the things that i like i'm kind of terrified i know that it's the time is coming and i'm most likely going to be coaching some sport but i just want kids out running like i just want them to run i don't as fast as they can yeah nature will figure it out like this is like when i go kick a soccer ball uh or like i'm playing baseball or something like

outside i don't want to be like okay like hold the bat like this i know man no how about this try and hit this thing as hard as you freaking can it's hard as you can the only thing we care about for like the next 12 years is swinging that piece of metal as hard as you possibly can and like we'll worry about that other stuff later like you talk about the the framing of um of like uh eating just to be strong or to get jacked anytime we're doing something like you need to do that harder and then if they kick the soccer ball one time and they just light it up like that's the one you just keep doing that who cares where it goes we are going to just get yes we got to get jacked and the only way to do that is practice swinging this damn thing as hard as you possibly can yeah man when they're young their neurological

neuromuscular system is developing at such a high rate so like let them move quickly because there's certain moments in time where like if you don't let them do that you will have wasted opportunities so right now swing away swing as far as you can as fast you can there's a good book i can't remember it talks about the different stages in life i got it from louis i just don't have it it's at rise i'll text you guys what it is but it has it frames it right now i'm like swing away as fast and hard as you can because if they learn to move real quickly at an early age that doesn't go away like that stays with them we can worry about technique later like there's seven and nine

who cares there i i feel like that is a um you know we were talking about kind of like the the parents that uh frame things and like i need to lose weight or you're going to if you eat that you get fat, like things like that. It's on the play side to like the long tail of not being outside and not playing at such a young age and just being comfortable like inside even if it's like not sitting or playing in a playroom but like i i feel like i i really want to get my kids just addicted to playing and chasing those endorphins that come along with like i think it's like jordan peterson like i will watch that that video of Jordan Peterson talking about like your number one role in raising little boys is to get them exhausted every single day.

Like so tired. We all learn that very quickly. Yeah. And like, I feel like I'm still chasing that. Like that is like my ideal day. If I am just playing all day and I'm like, I got to go in.

I'm tired. Time to go sit on the couch i swear bear will work until he'll play until he like you'll just look and he's asleep he just he'll find him a pillow and go to sleep he's so tired we left the batting cage that's why i like as an adult like if i hike a mountain and i'm carrying a pack and I'm out for 10 hours or whatever, like, especially if I'm with friends, which I usually am, if I'm doing a big, long hike like that, I'm with someone that I care about more than likely. And I'm having good conversation. I ended up being physically exhausted and emotionally rejuvenated, which is kind of the opposite of like, like a shitty corporate desk job leaves you where you're like physically

like antsy. Cause you haven't done anything all day and you're like emotionally exhausted. And so, yeah, if you can do that with your kids as well just leave them physically tired at the end of the day like they're they're going to be mentally healthy healthier as well you know it was christian thibodeau we need to get him on the show yeah he and i've been talking about doing um something bigger with the kids but he told me years ago, and I've stuck to what I'm about to tell you, is my goal and my job as a dad is to create as many opportunities as possible for my children. Like introduce them to as many things as possible and then let nature take its course.

When they find their thing, encourage it. And like instead of like, you know, you got to be very careful as a parent not to push them into like what you love like me is weightlifting like uh they're getting a lot of opportunities to do weightlifting but i'm gonna let them choose it and if they love like you know i can see rock doing more extreme type sports i then i'm going to encourage it i'm like you learn you find this thing that you're willing to do whatever it takes to be as good as you can. That's your job as a dad.

And like, it was brilliant advice. Unless you live in North Carolina and you love ice hockey, because then you're, no matter what, you're going to suck. You're going to be terrible at ice hockey. Yeah. You're just a really, really small pond,

like a really, really little pond. One day you're going to find out there's some kid in Canada that started a decade earlier and does it every day. Every day. Like nine straight months, right in his backyard. And that gap, you can't overcome it. So let's go play lacrosse. Well, Mass, isn't that like an old Mark Twain quote

where kids are cursed with the unfulfilled dreams of their parents yeah like you want them to go do the thing that you didn't fully get to do be like be like like i used to fight mma but i didn't really take it very far and or i didn't play i played football in college but i really didn't take it very far and so now i got like my kid fucking has to do it i'm gonna make him do it because he has the opportunity that i didn't have and i'm gonna like just beat him over the head with it and he's gonna fucking hate it like i think matt h Matt Hughes is a great example, actually like UFC champion.

They actually asked him one time, like after a fight, he was like in the cage, fight, fight is fights over on, on pay-per-view or whatever. Uh, they were talking about this kid.

I don't remember how I got brought up, but he basically was like, dude, like whatever he wants to do, like he's got to find out what he's passionate about. If he's passionate about it, like I'm, isn't the fight MMA doesn't have to,

this is my thing. I want to find his thing, whatever that is. And I's passionate about it, like, isn't the fight MMA? He doesn't have to. This is my thing. I want to find his thing, whatever that is. And I'm going to help him do that. I'm going to find the best coaches for him. I'm going to help him out however he wants to do it for his thing, for his life. I'm just here to support. I saw that.

I was like, dude, like, I totally respect that dude. Me too. That was before I even had kids. I was like, dude, when I'm a dad, I'm going to fucking be like that. I did my thing. I feel like one thing I can I did my thing like I don't need them to fulfill something I

did everything I could do I got played football at Appalachia State I took Olympic weightlifting to the Olympic Training Center I'm pretty sure as far as I was gonna go and I did powerlifting at the highest level I did I did my thing I laid everything I had in my body out there it's i did

it so now you do what you want like yeah you don't have to do anything that i didn't do yeah uh boyle has like an awesome uh it has to have been maybe in a book that i read of his or not a book at all but twitter somewhere in in all of that literature he has put out. He was saying that he sees the most success in athleticism from kids that play a lot and do gymnastics until they're like seven or eight years old. And then their parents throw them into every single sport that exists for the next four years. They're playing winter're playing winter spring summer and fall something and then we do there's some sport in there that they just like and then once they actually start to develop into call it teenagers testosterone hits they start being able to actually uh perform

in that thing then that's the sport that you go specialize in but you don't even think about it until you've developed like the largest broadest base of fitness and athleticism and then you layer the skill sets on top of it um and on top of their passion it's something they want to do and then you find the thing that they want to go all in and you just it the base is already built. Yes. You just provide opportunities. Dads should just provide opportunities.

Yeah. Like, you know, I watch every day. I watch dads pushing and I see kids miserable and I can, I just want so bad to tell the dad you're ruining every chance of this kid being great. You are. And so someday you're going to have to own that. Yeah. I mean, when you, when you talk, when you joke around slash, I'm always happy. It makes me,

I love it because I'm 40 years old and you think you think I'm an awesome athlete. All of that really is because the way I grew up, like I lived in the cul-de-sac and every day was the super bowl. It's like, we are going to go outside today and see who is the man. And my cousins would come to play and I'd walk inside and I'd just be drenched in sweat. And I specifically remember my aunts and uncles looking at me and going, what is going on out there?

Like, why are you? And like, we're playing home run derby in the backyard. And I don't know about you, but if I lose, I got to deal with that all night long. So we're going to play this game today and figure out who's going to win. And luckily I just grew up in a place where like, my whole neighborhood was ready to throw down that day.

Everyone was outside. I remember like skateboarding, home run derby. We'd make games up and throw a tennis ball against the curb and see if you can get it all the way to the other side, and that was a home run. It just doesn't matter. We had a ball, and we were going to figure out how to win and who was going to be the best that day.

Basketball and football were life where I grew up. I remember being downtown with my best friend KJ that we were talking about, and we were arguing with the other high school about who's better in basketball and that night that very night we go to a park and we got you know downer high schools going at it it was so much fun talk about talk about getting crazy that was i had so much fun dunking on those boys but anyway that you can dunk at five six by the way that's well played my my friend it was i would love to do it one more time that is my if i could do one more athletic thing one more time that would be

it so we'll see what happens right wrap it all up. Get your kids outside. Get them playing all the sports. Make them run until they're exhausted every single night. And then wrap it up with a big old plate of beef in a bowl. Not a plate. Let them have fun. Beef in a bowl. Have some fun. This show is beef in a bowl.

And every time they eat beef in a bowl, make them feel like they just won the World Series because then they'll eat more beef in a bowl, and that's how you get jacked. They'll get jacked. Travis Mash, tell the people where they can find you uh mashley.com we just did a whole reef rebrand of the whole website so it's good or if you're if you're near me go to rise indoor sports and come out and work out with us hell yeah see what see what we've done you guys moved back home-ish no No, not yet. But, yeah, we're definitely planning to for sure.

Oh, let me do one thing. I want to give my son, Rock, a shout-out. It's long past his birthday. It was October. But we have this podcast we listen to. I'm not even going to talk this lady's name because I want her to fade away. And so she, like, gives everyone shout-outs that writes her, and she didn't give Rock.

And it crushed him. Shout-out to my son, Rock Mash. I give a shout-out to Rock Mash, too, man. Yeah. That guy slays. Yeah, that's my boy. I can't wait to let him hear this. There you go.

I love it. Doug Larson. All right. Very cool. I'm on the scram. Doug will see Larson. There we go. I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner, and we are Barbell Shrugged at Barbell underscore Shrugged. And make sure you get over to RapidHealthReport.com. That's

where Dan Garner and Dr. Andy Galpin are doing a free lab lifestyle and performance analysis that everybody inside Rapid Health Optimization will receive. You can access that free report over at RapidHealthReport.com. Friends, see you guys next week.