Barbell Shrugged - How to Squat Over 400 (225) Pounds - The One Ton Challenge Ep. 2 with Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Travis Mash — Barbell Shrugged #393

Episode Date: May 13, 2019

In this episode of Barbell Shrugged we talk about building confidence in the One Ton Challenge, what the squat says about your other lifts, the mental challenge of squatting, the realization phase, how to know when to go for it, the base of all strength training,  why your anatomy matters when deciding how to squat, and the details of the 8 week squat cycle. Enjoy!   - Anders and Doug   Episode Breakdown   0-10: Building confidence in the One Ton Challenge, why the squat will knock off a big chunk of 2,000 pounds, and what the squat says about your other lifts 11-20: The importance of a squat cycle, the mental challenge of squatting, lifetime goals, the realization phase, and high bar vs. low bar back squat 21-30: Perfect mechanics, how to know when to go for it, the base of all strength training, funky mechanics in the squat, and tempo squats 31-40: Why your anatomy matters when deciding how to squat, toes forward as an assessment, squatting tips that will make all the difference in your life, and the details of the 8 week squat cycle 41-50: Your starting numbers, the One Ton training plan, the end of the year test, the One Ton Club handshake, and how to register for the One Ton Challenge ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Show notes at: http://www.shruggedcollective.com/bbs-onetontwo ----------------------------------------------------------------------- @whoop - whoop.com  “shrugged” for 20% off  @FitAid - lifeaidbevco.com/shrugged to save $20 on 48 cans or text "SHRUGGED" to 474747 to save $20 on 48 cans   ► Subscribe to Barbell Shrugged's Channel Here ► Subscribe to Shrugged Collective's Channel Here http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedSubscribe 📲 🎧 Listen to the audio version on the Apple Podcast App or Stitcher for Android Here- http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedApple http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedStitcher Shrugged Collective is a network of fitness, health and performance shows that help people achieve their physical and mental health goals.  Usually in the gym, but outside as well. In 2012 they posted their first Barbell Shrugged podcast and have been putting out weekly free videos and podcasts ever since. Along the way we've created successful online coaching programs including The Shrugged Strength Challenge, The Muscle Gain Challenge, FLIGHT, Barbell Shredded, and Barbell Bikini. We're also dedicated to helping affiliate gym owners grow their businesses and better serve their members by providing owners tools and resources like the Barbell Business Podcast. Find Shrugged Collective and their flagship show Barbell Shrugged here: SUBSCRIBE ON ITUNES ► http://bit.ly/ShruggedCollectiveiTunes WEBSITE ► https://www.ShruggedCollective.com INSTAGRAM ► https://instagram.com/shruggedcollective FACEBOOK ► https://facebook.com/barbellshruggedpodcast TWITTER ► http://twitter.com/barbellshrugged

20% of the 600 plus athletes on the One Ton Challenge Leaderboard are in the One Ton Club, totaling over 2,000 pounds, 1,200 for you ladies. In the snatch, clean, jerk, squat, deadlift, and bench. 80% are out. 80% are on their way, building momentum, getting stronger, and putting in the work. That's why one ton is the perfect number. You can get there. Everyone can. You just need the right training plan, the right coach,

and the right level of commitment to meeting your strength goals. And breaking into the one ton club starts with one lift, the squat. Everything builds on the squat. With over 600 people on the leaderboard, we know two numbers matter, 400 and 225. If you are a male, a 400-pound back squat is the magic number for breaking into the one-ton club. There is only one male above 2,000 pounds that squats under 400. Ladies, same for 225. Only one lady in the one-ton club is under 225 for the back squat. That is why Travis Mash is starting the one-ton training plan with an eight-week block dedicated

to building your back squat. It is the foundation for strength in all of the lifts and if you want to spend time growing your back squat, you need to be squatting a lot. The One Ton Training Plan launches on May 27th for VIPs that have registered for the leaderboard and put in their scores. To get on that VIPip list head over to the one ton challenge.com to get on the board today i also want to give a special shout out to dr sean lamb ryan webb aaron butcher and dj alpha az your real name wasn't on your instagram profile profile for submitting their one ton challenge on instagram if you want to be featured on the shrug page tag us at shrug collective and use the hashtag one ton challenge in support of

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Fit 8 Zero and Fit 8 RX Zero just launched this week. So get on over there to save text shrugged to 474747 or go to lifeaidbevco.com forward slash shrugged. $20, 48 cans. Can't beat it. And our friends over at Whoop, they're going to be supplying athletes at the one-ton challenge. It's going to be sweet. Providing the best recovery tracking tools and strength. Get to whoop.com and use the coupon code shrugged to save 15%.

My sleep has been in the dumps lately. Thanks to Whoop, I know, tailoring my training. Been using mine for four months now. Love tracking my HRV, daily strain, workouts, and sleep quality. The Whoop band allows me to tailor my workout intensity to my recovery, creating better workouts, better recovery, and larger strength gains because I'm not overtrained. Get over to whoop.com and use the coupon code SHRUGGED to save 15%. And now we're getting into the show. Travis Mash, Doug Larson, myself, we're talking about squats. OneTonChallenge.com. We'll see you there.

Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Anders Warner, Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mash, the man that wrote the One Ton Training Plan. This is One Ton Challenge Episode 2 Prologue with our boy John Cena. Episode 1 giving you the high-level strategy, the game plan, the program, the high-level things that you need to maximize your one ton total. Getting you on the leaderboard over at the one-ton challenge.com and today we're going to be talking about the squat because with each of these lifts i want them to become the biggest asset that you can possibly have giving you the most confidence going into the one-ton weekend the one-ton challenge that way when you go and

put your score on the one-ton leaderboard it looks so pretty it's so big it starts with a four a five maybe a six even if it starts with a really high number three that can work we can get you to one ton but we want the squat to be the asset that gets you on the board you feel good about it you feel confident you know you can make a big impact and when it comes to squatting that's like the number one lift maybe the the number two lift compared to the deadlift probably going to be number one but the squat is going to be the lift that knocks off the biggest chunk of getting to 2,000 pounds yeah when I think about the one ton total shoot for 2,000 pounds my squat and my deadlift make up almost half of my score. Yeah. Almost half.

And so, like, if your squat is high, then presumably, if you have good technique, your snatch and your clean are also going to be high. So, like, if you can focus on the squat and the deadlift, like the two really raw strength lifts, then I think the other lifts, if you have good technique, will kind of follow. Yeah. Absolutely. I think we're actually going to, when we get a large quantity of data and we start being able to run numbers,

that squat number is going to be the one where you can say, if you squat north of 405, you have like a 90% chance of getting there because now we know you can snatch at least two and a quarter. You're cleaning somewhere around 275, 300, probably getting into the 315 range. And now all of a sudden, if you get closer to 450, it's probably like being – if you're squatting 450, that's like being 7 foot. You're going to the NBA. You're in the one-ton club if you hit squat 450, unless you just don't have a lot of the skills and the technique.

But the squat to me – Or deadlift. Some people deadlift a ton more than they squat. I do. My squat was 429. and – Or deadlifts. Some people deadlift a ton more than they squat. Yeah, I do. Like, my squat was 429. My deadlift was 510. Like, I have a short torso, so deadlifts just – What was your squat?

429. Baller. Yeah. That's big. High-bar back squat, no belt, no wraps, all that Olympic style. But, yeah, my deadlifts just always been better than my squat. That's baller. I can see that.

You know, mine are dead even. In my lifetime lifetime this is lifetime ever my best raw squat is 805 my best raw deadlift is 805 oh wow however that's with knee wraps knee wraps in a belt not so is that raw some people you know whatever raw with wraps you're well you're allowed to wear one set of wraps to to get through the the competition you can wear a weight belt so that counts yeah we're in yeah staying away from all the squat suits and all the craziness that can go on when it gets into the gear. Keep this thing raw.

Put some wraps on your knees to protect them, make them a little more stable. Put a belt on because, you know, belts are good. We should talk about the belt a little bit later, actually. You're in the middle of a Twitter battle about the belt. Right in the middle. But we want to keep the gear to a minimum. No straps.

Not that you'd be using straps for a squat. But lifting shoes, good. Belt, good. One set of knee wraps, good. Everything else, keep it at home. Let's see how strong you are, not just how good you are playing with toys. Do the pitchers put wraps on their elbows?

No. I think wrist wraps are okay. Perfect. Other than that, no bench shirts or anything like that. Well, you can do some crazy stuff. No slingshots, no nothing. Yeah. I like the slingshot more, Bill.

I benched 300 with a spotter, if they help me. Yeah. Yeah. I hit 2736. Without any of that. But my name was Travis Mash while I did it. Dude, let's talk about squatting. I really believe that this should and can be the biggest asset in everyone's of the six lifts for everybody.

I think that you should be very confident getting under the bar but there are some pieces to it that you may be when you're going into the one-ton weekend and you're starting to look at six near maximal lifts that you should think about and and for me when i went through it i was thinking 97 as you know for everything and i put 425 which is my lifetime best on the bar but missed it twice and I really thought oh shit I just missed four and a quarter twice now my body's totally waxed and I have to back the weight down I'm going backwards in this thing just to get a lift on the board only hit four I shouldn't say only 419 still a great lift for me but I hit 419. I'm wondering when you start to think about the amount of weight that you're moving, is it worth going for a PR in something like the squat?

I would have done the 419 first. If it felt like the bar speed was extremely good that day, I would have gone up. You definitely don't want to miss twice. I think that's a bad strategy there because, you know, I could really mess up everything. Yeah. I know when I did, you know, my one-ton challenge, you know, I was very, you know, precise in the numbers.

I didn't – the only lift I missed all day, and I did it in a competition where I got three chances at all. You know, we did clean and jerk together, but I only got three chances at all you know we did we did clean and jerk together but i only had three chances at each so i was super strategic and like the only lift i missed all day was the final deadlift and uh so i was that's important because you know like clean jerk too that can really mess you up like you know i know with me personally a monster clean jerk can wreck my cns more than anything so like i was very strategic i didn't take any snatch or clean jerk that i could possibly miss you know snatch sometimes you can

man you can miss 100 key like today you missed 90 and went on up and got 105 100 was talking shit yeah exactly that was good yeah so like i was um you know i went ended up with 286 on the on the snatch you know, 2, 3. I opened up super light. I wanted to make sure I did not miss. You start missing, man, you just get beat up. And I had to do it all in the same day, and I had time. It was intense.

This is going to be way more fun because you don't have all that mess to worry about. Well, you can hit as many lifts as you want. It's not like you're standing on a platform and you get a couple red lights and the whole day is ruined. But you still want to be smart because you know you start missing a ton of squats well this is the part that i was that becomes very strategic for me and it almost crushed me like you miss four and a quarter twice and all of a sudden you realize like shit my total volume for the day was 850 wasted pounds right so it's gonna you got to come back and now you put another 419 pounds on the bar

i'm over something i'm well over a thousand pounds of just wasted lifts when i could have hit 419 the first one and i go to the snatch on the next one and it's it's totally you probably would have done way more i think if you had not missed those two if you just hit the 419 caught it yeah yeah probably especially deadlifting. I think it would definitely affect deadlift, you know, because they're so similar. They're almost identical in the muscles that you use. Yeah, it's really important, too. I mean, you want to have a training partner, spotter, and all that stuff with you, whatever it is.

But making sure you hit depth, making sure you're getting down there, because I swear to God, the first two times I sat that four and a quarter down, I thought I was rock bottom. And I looked at the video, and I was I was like we got some work to do you're so mobile I can't believe you squatting high but yeah well it was just uh it was just you know I mean it's 425 it was tying my lifetime PR and I hit that 425 after coming off of like a 12-week squat cycle where I was like just jazzed like I started the squat cycle knowing in 12 weeks I was going to hit 425. Like it was just one of those like – I don't even know if I needed to do the squat cycle, but that was like the training to mentally get myself to the point where it was like 425 is lifetime.

I'm going to do that. Like I've had two numbers that I've always wanted to hit in my life squatting. One was 425 for back squat and 315 for 20. And, God, the training to get those is just miserable. Some people call that like a realization phase. You know, you have all the ability to do 425, then you do the things you need to do to make it real. So, yeah.

One of the things I think that also got me when I did it, and people should be practicing this while they're doing the one-ton training plan, is I always high bar back squat. But when it comes to maximum weight in the back squat, you should roll that bar down your back a little bit. Yeah, the high bar. I didn't at this one but like you know mainly i didn't because um i didn't want it to crush me for the deadlift because i knew i was

going to do all these others yeah definitely low bar is going to maximize you know the poundage that you're gonna be able to do simply because it shortens you know your torso yeah right yeah yeah if i would have done low bar back squats like a powerlifting style instead of high bar, like full ass grass reps, like Olympic style high bar back squat, I would have gotten a much higher score. I don't know what I would have gotten except that they're actually done a true max like that back when I was, you know, I got that max was like 2006, I want to say, for my back squat. I don't have any desire at this point to try and beat that score with a low bar back squat at all. But I firmly believe I would have got at least like an extra 30 or more pounds. Yeah, well, that's why it got me was because you roll it down and now all of a sudden your torso arches a little bit more forward. Your hips shoot back a little bit more.

The positioning is a little bit weird. So my normal upright torso and sitting straight up and down. And I was trying to play the game. I'm trying to get to a certain number. It's like, well, I'll just roll the bar down a couple inches. Next thing you know, your torso is forward, your hips are a little bit higher, and I didn't know where my butt was because there wasn't enough practice in there. So while they're going through the training plan, make sure you're doing the high bar back squat,

but also practice the low bar because when you get into the – we don't care where the bar is. We just want your hips below your knees, and we want you to stand back up so you can squat as much as you possibly can. I always say even on low bar, I mean, too many people think, okay, now it's low bar, now I need to change everything. And really, I disagree. You know, I think even like Greg Knuckles would agree with me. Like, you know, putting the bar two or three inches down your back does not mean all of a sudden now my mechanics are completely different.

Like, especially when people, like, sit way, way back like that. Like, the thing that causes you to go, you know, as far as the thing that determines depth is hip flexion. So when you start sitting way back, immediately you started flexing at the hip. And so, yeah, you're going to stop above parallel. You know, I would recommend, you know, sit the hips back, then sit down. And I think it'll also keep you more upright in the torso. And I think, now I know, like the back, the spinal erectors is a big part of whether you get the weight or not. Especially when you get super strong.

Like with me, it never was, you know, can my legs lift the weight? It was can my back support the weight? Mine was always core. Yeah. But when you sit way back, you just now start to lengthen that spinal flexor moment. You don't want to do that. If you keep more upright, you totally eliminate that.

Right. And I kind of have a different build than you guys do. I have very long arms and very long legs and so it always was really knee extension strength like for me if i couldn't stand up if i can't get a deadlift or a squat it's almost always because i can't extend my knees my back never rounds like i can always like on i can do a poor back squat pop my butt up and then and then good morning it no problem because good mornings are are compared to some with a long back an easy exercise because i have a very short torso so anytime i did a lot of leg work a lot of and then good morning it, no problem because good mornings are compared to some with a long back,

an easy exercise because I have a very short torso. So anytime I did a lot of leg work, a lot of quad-specific work, my PRs always were at an all-time high. But if you've got a long back, then you've got to train. Your weak link is being bent over with that long torso. So pressing knee extension strength for someone like you, maybe that's not your weakness. You've got to work on your back strength. You've got to find out for you what your weak link is in the chain and strengthen that well there's three things that you're gonna have to like um strengthen

obviously knee extensors you know hip extensors and then the spinal you know spinal extensors as well there's those three things that you got to overcome and like you got to find what's what's weak for you you know with me it will always be because i have a long i have short femurs longer torso so it's going to be my spinal erectors so you got to overcome the spinal flexor moment you know like with um you know hips as long as you sit kind of vertical like you won't have to worry about hips or back you know but then yes it's going to be all quads so for, sitting back might be the better idea. So there's lots of ways to play this game.

For me, it's going to be staying vertical because I'm not going to lose because of my quads. I'm going to lose because of my back. And we talk about there should be a lot – there's a lot of ways to play the game. You should play. You should practice all of them getting into – going into having a plan. I didn't really know that I was going in to do this, so I was kind of learning on the fly.

But it makes a massive difference. mean we i'm 2009 if i don't if i hit 425 instead of 419 all of a sudden it's like 2000 you know 15 pounds or something like that that's not a big deal no now all of a sudden it looks like i made it super easy if i have to hit 416 now all of a sudden i got a much bigger task ahead of me over the. There's a lot more pressure on these lifts if you're starting with the back squat, and now you've got five left and you hit 85% instead of 90, or 90 instead of 95. That's huge. Everything you have coming your way for the rest is going to have to be 98%. So it's important to be able to practice, know where these numbers are going to be lining up and

how you can specifically use your body the best way for what it's designed to be doing to uh to lift as much as possible you know just think five pounds per lift that either gets you 30 pounds short 30 pounds over five pounds yeah it's a huge difference and the last four weeks that last mesocycle will be more practicing exactly yeah the craft of the one ton challenge i love that uh don't have the last four weeks of the entire program the last four weeks for the one ton weekend when it's time to go bigger go home we're going it's more specific i can't even take it i can't take it people just like let's get there. It's like football. It's like any sport. The closer you get to it, the more specific it becomes. We're going to light the internet up with the PRs flying around.

Right. One ton weekend. I like how you have the first mesocycle for each movement. So there's two four-week blocks per movement. And you've positioned the first block is more of a hypertrophy block and then the second block is more of like a strength specific block right of course there's very possible you could get stronger in the first phase and gain muscle mass during the second phase vice versa but uh but i like i like having that rhythm where you you work on hypertrophy getting

bigger muscles bigger muscles are generally stronger muscles and then you're working on the second four weeks for each movement i'm working on purely force production right just heavy movements 90 plus percent and at the end of that four week block the second four weeks for each movement, I'm working on purely force production. Just heavy movements, 90-plus percent, and at the end of that four-week block, the second four-week block, at the end of the total eight weeks, you max out. And then you start all over again with a new movement, still maintaining your total body strength for all the movements, but focusing on a new movement. Yeah, you don't want to go backwards, obviously.

Maybe there's a good chance that you're going forwards. It's just we're not going to demonstrate that new PR that you're capable of. We'll save it for the end. You'll just PR the one lift that we're focusing on. But, you know, a lot of times speed – I mean, if you talk to Westside Barbell, which you boys have, you know, interviewed Louie a few times, like, you know, the dynamic effort, he thinks it's all about that. So, like, speed, he believes, has created a lot of those PRs.

So, like, a lot of times, even though you're not focusing on the squat, say we're on the bench, but we're doing maybe some dynamic work on squats, you could be definitely getting that PR going up. You're just not going to put it out on the squat. This is anecdotal at best, but for me, I find that the dynamic effort method stuff works really well for movements that I'm mechanically disadvantaged at, and heavy max effort lifts do really well for me for the

moves that I'm mechanically advantaged for. So if I do speed squats and heavy deadlifts, I always get stronger. But if I do heavy squats and speed deads, it just doesn't work the same for some reason for me. I don't know if that's what it is for other people, but that's happened many times for me. Every time I'm around Doug, he says something, I'm like, dang, he's smart. Like, you know.

Like I should write a book. Yeah, like... Like, I should have a podcast. That's exactly right, you know, like, because you get better at the movement, you know, when you're doing, like, you know, eight sets of triples, you're getting better at the movement.

And so you're learning to take a certain weight and push it as fast as you can while you're focusing on perfect mechanics. So, yeah, I could definitely see that, you know, whereas if you're mechanically sound, go heavy, you're fineically sound, go heavy. You're fine. As long as your patterns are perfect, go heavy.

Are you in the camp that the squat really is like the base of all strength training? I do. You know, I love deadlifting more, but if I had to say what movement is the key to, like, everything strength, I have to go with squat. Yeah. So, yeah. It just produces more, you know, there's more hypertrophy that you're going to gain with a squat because there's not a big eccentric, you know, phase in the deadlift.

I mean, we're going to write some tempo in there, so we're going to force you to do so. But deadlift, squatting is way easier to gain muscle, so absolutely. We've all been in the coaching game quite some time now, and you also start to see some funky things with the squat. The kind of wire-poor movement mechanics that transfer over into a lot of the other lifts. I think it's really important that people understand that this program, we want to be focused on really quality movement and getting strong

because if you can't, in a way, master that high bar back squat, snatch is going to be really tough. It's going to be really hard to have an upright torso when you catch a really heavy clean. Absolutely. The deadlift, you can get away with it without a big squat, but they play really well together. But you're going to need to have this squatting position.

You're going to need to have the requisite mechanics and eliminating a lot of those poor movement patterns that we see so often um i guess what's kind of like a the higher level you know knees caving in butt wink things like this um and for me i battled for a long time with like nasty hip shift that would, as soon as I would drive up, hips fly out, spines moving under maximum load, really unhealthy. But when we start to get into programming, how do we fix a lot of those imbalances that could lead to hip shift? Well, doing some unilateral work, it's kind of funny. Everybody saw me debate my boy, which I love about unilateral work yes some it's kind of funny everybody saw me debate uh my boy which i love in you know about unilateral versus bilateral but doing some unilateral work make sure that you

know we're symmetrical in nature i mean humans are asymmetrical yeah in nature but to get to as close to symmetry as possible is super i think uh stuart mcgill would totally agree with me that's a good way to avoid as many injuries as you can possibly avoid so like that would be one you know there's neurological ways that you can shift you know when you have hip shifts a great way to this is awesome thing i'm about to tell you now if you're getting a hip shift let's say you shift to the right to get somebody to stand on the right side of you with a band or a strap pulling you towards that side that you shift, you will automatically shift back. And that, I've seen our athletes totally overcome any kind of hip shift by simply doing that. That, with unilateral work, making sure that both sides are at least as close

to equal as possible, and we'll counter that. Yeah, I've heard great cooks say that the number one predictor of injury is preexisting injury. If you hurt your knee before, you can hurt it again it's already damaged but then the number two one's not quite as intuitive as that it's movement asymmetry is the number two predictor of of injury so if you're if you're not moving the same side to side you know humans are asymmetrical you don't have to move you know if you're a baseball pitcher and you throw with your right hand then of course you're going to move differently because you practice with your right hand

so many times and then you throw with your left hand and you look like you've never thrown a ball in your whole life. But if you're doing squatting, you're doing a bilateral movement and you're shifting to one side, that's an asymmetrical movement that is supposed to be symmetrical. And that's a problem. That means you have an imbalance that you can't seem to fight through and it needs to be addressed. Over time, that's definitely going to hurt your spine.

You know, when your hips shift to the right or to the left, well, so does your lumbar spine. It's not meant to. It's meant to stay, you know, neutral as possible. You know, the word neutral spine, that's very, you know, debatable. But as straight as possible when you're squatting, keeping your torso as straight as possible will keep your spine as neutral as your spine is. Everyone's a little bit different, but keeping your torso straight we'll keep that a big flaw i think i think besides value it's no

not think i know like um when your back flexes while you're squatting that's another big no-no like not only will it put you in a weakened position that's where you're you know when you hurt your spine you're you're done like yeah you know if i hurt my knee i can overcome it you hurt your spine, you're done. If I hurt my knee, I can overcome it. If you hurt your spine, you could be paralyzed. Everything goes up and down. So we definitely want to keep that torso nice and straight, cause as much stiffness as possible. There's going to be a lot of movements in each of the workouts

that's going to strengthen the back, like good mornings, RDLs, all that good stuff. Doing it unilaterally too, like some unilateral RDOs. We're going to get you prepared to not only be stronger, but to do it safely. Single leg deadlifts saved my whole strength training career, I feel like, because the hip shift was really brutal. I actually broke a toe, shattered a toe. It was disgusting.

And that made ankles really bad. My walking got weird, which went right into, like, a knee. It's already with hip shift. And all of a sudden it was like, how am I going to train and keep everything moving? Single leg deadlifts kept everything straight. Absolutely. That's my big warm-up now. I didn't do it today because I'm rushing.

But normally, like, every time I warm up, I used to use our belt squat, which works great. But I have to go up and, like, you know, leave where we're training in the back. Which isn't fun. Yeah, so, like. I got to leave all the cool kids. So, start doing it. So lonely. Which is body weight, unilateral squats.

And I do that with some, you know, when I get into full flexion, then I do a hip extension. Like, I roll, you know, up, then you know up yeah anyway that warm-up has been money to me it's been just like or better than the the belt squat yeah i just need my glutes to be engaged because it gives what it does when someone's got like impinged hips like me you know when you do your some glute activity it pulls your femur you know back and gives a little space to move and then you can train without pain. If I can train without pain, I can go super heavy.

Yeah. You're talking about flexing your spine under load. I think that's, for the most part, is common knowledge if you've lifted for any period of time. Right. Something I hadn't really thought about until I believe it was Brett Contreras that posted a study about the swab back was that any time you experience a flexion moment, so anytime your spine is flexing, even if it's not going from neutral to a flexed position, what we normally think of as like rounding your back, if you go from hyperextended to neutral, that's still you're producing flexion.

You're just going from something really extended to something that's normal. So if you get a flexion moment, that's still problematic for your back. Maybe not as problematic as going all the way to end range flexion where all the musculature essentially turns off and it's all passive structures holding your back together, your ligaments and your discs and whatnot, which just aren't made to hold your back together with a heavy barbell on your back. But it's still a problem. Being able to stabilize a position and maintain that position.

That's key. If stability is not moving in the presence of potential change, it means you're holding a position. You don't move from that position. That's key. And if stability is not moving in the presence of potential change, it means you're holding a position and you don't move from that position. That's what stability means. That's what's up right there. So even if you hyperextend and you go to neutral with a butt wink and you're like, I didn't really flex that much with my butt wink, it's still a problem.

It's still a problem. It's caused by the hyperextension. Most butt winks, I've written two articles about the butt wink. Most of it is simply caused by people being hyperextended. And then it's going to neutral. However, you're still flexing. Stuart McGill would say that hyperextension might very well be

worse than starting in neutral and going flexed a little bit. Even if you maintain hyperextension, there's potential damage there. It's really tough because your core turns off once you get in that overextended position, which, I mean, I think a lot of people, you know, you're in another Twitter argument right now about people wearing belts.

But those are the people that it's really dangerous if they have a belt on because they don't know how to use it and they're already in a bad position because their abs aren't turned on to be able to brace. Boys, this is some gold for you. Just anchor down. Ribs down. The worst cue people give, I think, and I used to do it. I mean, like when I was powerlifting, you'll squeeze your shoulder blades together.

Chest up. Together is fine. Now anchor down. Anchor down will normally put you into a pretty good neutral position. But when you try to just keep arching and pulling your shoulder blades together, it causes hyperextension. Plus, theomboids aren't that strong at all anyway but your lats are so when you're anchored down you got your lats you pull them just back that's all rhomboids not very big small muscles yeah yeah i mean if you're pulling your shoulders down to

get in that lat activation like you're talking about like your lats connect to your glutes through your thoracolumbar fashion if you're if you're getting a strong lat contraction then you're more you're more likely to be stable at your low back as well because you're getting a strong glute contraction. So if you're getting a strong glute contraction and a strong lat contraction, they're connected through fascia. Right.

Not to mention, you're going to have a shorter spinal flexor moment when you anchor down. Even if it's like, people don't understand what a centimeter means. A centimeter can be the difference in making or not making the lift one centimeter so if you understand physics you understand that yeah yeah that could be 50 pounds on a lift by that one centimeter absolutely like the difference in a super strong dude and a not super strong dude is literally two centimeters like you know there was a pretty good study that i was reading just the other night it was talking about like where the the patella tendon attaches five centimeters below the kneecap or three centimeters below,

three centimeters, making that person 50% weaker than the person who could attach it, five centimeters, two centimeters below. Wow, dang. There you go. One other thing I don't think people think about with respect to the butt wink and rounding their back is their foot position. Right. If you put a bar on your back and you put your feet all the way together,

there's basically no chance, unless you have a phenomenal ankle mobility and a really long torso, that you're going to go down into a perfect ass to grass squat with your heels on the ground, your back completely neutral. Right. Like practice that if you've never tried that before. Put your feet all the way together and squat down. You'll basically round your back purely for balance sake.

Like if you keep your back neutral and you keep bending your knees, you're either your ankles are going to come off the ground or you're going to fall over backwards is what's going to happen. So a lot of people round their back purely from the point of view of just balancing and not falling over. Especially if you were taught like, you know, like perfect, the perfect way to do weight lifting is to have a narrow stance, toes completely straight ahead. Some people can get away with that if they're really short and they have a long torso and all that.

Not me, but yeah. I can't do that at all. If you've got long limbs and you're tall at all, then you likely will need a wider stance. You're likely going to need to toe out just a little bit more. So playing with your stance, if you butt wink, if you potentially widen your stance and maybe even toe out a little bit that allows your your knees um your knees can go out a little bit and your hips can come forward just a little bit and then you can have a more vertical torso you don't have to round just for balance sake as long as your knees track with your first two toes that's the key you know so that's another thing i would say when it comes to foot position is like

to get into a completely deep squat make make sure that your spine is vertical, and as long as your knees are tracking with your toes, that's your stance. Maybe it's shoulder width, maybe it's hip width, whatever it is. Everyone's, you know, we're so anatomically different too at the hip. Yeah. So it's not only our structure. Wherever that femur kind of comes in, it makes a huge difference on where your toes need to be pointing.

We got really carried away with the toes forward thing for a long time. Yes, and I love, you know, Kelly started you know kelly started my yeah he helped you yeah he helped me recover and we've talked a lot about the he he likes the toes forward really as a as and as a um what's the word i'm looking for as a tool to assess someone there you go i blanked out so he uses as an assessment then he totally gets in weightlifting you're not probably not going to be toes forward. Yeah. Find what's comfortable. Sit down.

Try to keep your back flat. Yep. Lock your lats in. Dig. I would recommend, too, digging your big toe, your pinky toe, and your heel. Like, try to pretend it's rooted into the ground. And then screwing it in. I like that better than, I don't really like – when I was powerlifting,

I would say spread the floor. That's cool, but that's going to cause a whole different thing. Now your knees are going to go the other way. That's equally as bad when it's way outside your toes. But when you really just anchor and try to root your toes into the ground, like I just said, and kind of screw it in, now there's better potential for your knees tracking with your first two toes. Let's dig into the actual eight-week block for the squat that's setting up the entire training plan.

We're starting this thing off with the squat cycle. We've got eight weeks dedicated to the squat. It's a total body strength program where we're going to be working on the snatch, clean, jerk, dead, and bench, but we're really focusing on the squat. How do you – what goes through the mad scientist's brain when you're putting this eight weeks together? Well, you know, there's so many things to consider, you know, frequency, intensity, volume. You know, so what I'm – in that first block, what we're really trying to do is get better at the movement. So tempo is going to come into play.

You know, we're going to look at you know the eccentric the downward the negative some people might call it the negative we're going to look at the bottom the isometric contraction isometrics are the greatest way if you want to strengthen a joint at a specific angle there's nothing better than isometric contraction a pause you know and then you know concentric being i like with concentrics i like going as explosively as possible. But even if you're looking at hypertrophy, it doesn't really matter. You could still go semi-slow. But at the end of the day, in the second block, we're going to go super fast.

But you guys have had Cal Dietz on your show. So I've learned a lot from his book, The Triphasic Training. And we're not obviously copying his book. But there's going to be things in there that involve eccentric some things are going to involve isometric some things are going to involve concentric because you do need to make sure you maximize all of those muscular contractions so that'll be a big part of the phase one because we're trying to get you know bigger muscles yep so that's a big part of it and we're trying to get better at the movement slowing it down is the best way to get better at the movement

and, two, to stabilize at those positions. Because if you get out of position in a squat, in a big squat, if you get out of position, no matter how strong you are, you've just kissed it goodbye. I mean, we as athletes, specifically as strength athletes, there's nothing easier right now than going online and saying, like, what is the best strength or squat program? It's mine, but go ahead.

Yeah, I know. The mass squat program for the one-ton challenge. And you get these fun names like Smolov and the Texas program and all these crazy things. And every time an athlete comes to me and says like, you think I should do Smolov? I'm like, well, what about the junior one? I'm like, still, too much too much we've

gone too far how do you manage the volume like what what does that look like in in an eight-week block i think i love philippines chart it's a great place to start you know i'm you know we you guys have told me our clientele so like i really used philippines chart to make sure i dial in the proper amount of volume without going you know you do have to go enough volume to create some muscular damage. Now, when I say muscular damage, don't mean I'm trying to hurt you. It means we break the muscles down, they adapt and they get stronger and get better. So, you know, I've used that to make sure I'm staying in the proper, you know, volume for our clientele to get stronger.

You know, my clientele, sometimes you kick Provenstar out because they've been doing it so long. So now I've got their volume charted. So for our clientele, we're going to be stronger. You know, my clientele, sometimes you kick, pull, and start out because they've been doing it so long. So now I've got their volume charted. So for our clientele, we're going to be perfect. You're talking about for elite weightlifters. Yeah, elite weightlifters, yeah, kick, pull, and start out because they've been lifting 10 years. And so now you have to track the individual's volume.

But for our guys who's been doing it one, two, three, four years, this is going to be perfect for them. How many days per week do you think is ideal for squatting, for someone who's kind of just a middle-of-the-road intermediate athlete? How many times do they squat? Yeah, but like per week. Yeah, per week. Yeah, I would say, you know, at least two, I think three being optimal,

you know, which we've got, you know, every scenario in there. I sometimes only squat twice, and I'm still, you know, getting some really good gains. And I think the other thing when it comes to volume, sometimes only squat twice and i'm still you know getting some really good gains and i think six the other thing when it comes to volume it's not just the back squats that we're programming it's we got snatches we got cleans there's a lot of places that we're getting a ton of volume below parallel and the accumulation of that over time makes a massive difference right and if we don't have those movement patterns dialed in,

then we're doing it in the snatch and the clean, and then we're really hard wiring bad movement, and then all of a sudden we get into this next phase. So we have to have this accumulation phase up at the front with really good quality movement, building a lot of quality muscle on top of quality movement. That way when we get to the second four weeks, let's get yoked. Yes, that's when the fun begins weeks let's get yoked yes that's

when the fun begins yoked i mean you know it's funny how there's some people who love that work phase where you're just like putting in that tons of volume and then there's some people who like i'm more of a let's go heavy every day i'm i i needed something like this when i was a power but like you know this will appeal to both sides you know the grinder and then the person who's like just put the weight on baby you know so i'm's like, just put the weight on, baby, you know. So I'm more of the let's put the weight on. So we get to spend a lot of time inside 90%, though, 85%, 90% for reps. And then we're building to that big crescendo moment at the end of eight weeks

where we get the max out. Yes, and we're going to see some numbers go skyrocketing on the leaderboard. I'm going to get on there and cheer you on and be pumped up. I'll give you a virtual fist bump. It's going to be awesome. Right? Yeah. You were mentioning a small off earlier.

Anytime I hear about any fancy program that's just an eight-week program, just a four-week program, a 30-day challenge or whatever it is, in order for the person who made that program to have happy clients, for a 30-day challenge, you kind of have to smash them. Or they're not going to make any progress. They're not going to feel like it was any good. But if they did that same 30-day thing back to back to back to back to back to back to back, they'd burn out or get injured because the intensity has to be there or the clients want their money back.

Yeah. But like a year-long program, I've always liked year-long programs because you have to program enough volume for people to make consistent, steady progress for a long period of time, and you have to keep the volume low enough for people who don't get hurt and they don't get burnt out. You've got to keep the volume high enough and the variety high enough for people. They have fun because they're getting the variety, they're not getting bored, and they're making progress the entire time. If you don't get hurt doing those programs and your knees don't explode and you can actually

walk at week eight, the problem is you go and set your pr and then three days later it's 10 percent lower right because you did all this work you're mentally so aggressive and angry and got under the barbell pr you did it that's not like an actual pr it's a pr for this little four-week thing you did yeah and like you can can't do anything. The problem with small off, it just totally eliminates everything else you're doing. Basically, all you're going to be doing is squatting. Personally, who wants to do that? You think like German volume training, like 10 by 10. I don't have that kind of time. I don't have that kind of time. My athletes do that sometimes because that's their job. And we only do that

maybe once. they hate it too german volume is like for you guys that don't know it's like 10 sets of 10 yeah it's so hard you're a really strong person you're doing real sets of 10 you're gonna be brutally sore yeah it makes uh 70 of my guys throw up the first the first week they do it and these are full-time that's their job professional. They're Olympic professional Olympic weightlifters. Hunter will go throw up because it's brutal. So we're not doing that with you guys. But that's the thing is that we can't just throw a squat program

at somebody for eight weeks and say, okay, you're done with the squat. No, we need you to carry that strength not just through the first eight weeks, PR at week eight, but we need that to come back in the final thing for the one-time weekend because we have to have those numbers in our back pocket for the next you know eight months ten months i think the squat sets up every lift i there's a lot of my weightlifters i know when their squat goes up five kilos so does their snatch so does their cleanser it leads the way my goal for you know goal for our guys here and gals is that you guys become the same efficient lifter. That when we add, say that we get this 40-pound PR, which you're going to do in eight weeks on your squat,

it's going to equal a 40-pound snatch, a 40-pound clean and jerk. I did this huge equation. I have this massive Excel sheet where I have people take, it's like a 30-item test, and it's all based on, guess what, the squat. Like, it's like a percent, you know, the snatch is X percent, the clean and jerk is X percent, all the way down. And so, like, the goal here is to get you not just strong at squat, squatting strong in how it relates to all the other lifts.

Yeah. I can't wait to start seeing the PRs come through. Me too, man. It's so rad when people start seeing that the work pay off eight weeks later, and then they get to go into the next cycle, and it's just so awesome because you set the whole year up with a really good training block and the momentum just carries through the entire thing. And it needs to be a year long because we've got six lifts to get through.

Then we need that big last month to get everything back to 100% so that we can have this big moment, the one-ton weekend where everybody just gets dirty. I want to go to everyone's gym in the world that's doing it and just hang out with them. How do I make myself reach that many different places at once? We need teleporting just for the One Ton Challenge. Just got to follow everyone through Instagram. Talk to Andy.

Maybe Andy can invent teleporting by the end of the year. There you go. Team, I need you to go over to the one ton challenge.com. When you get over to the one ton challenge.com, you're going to be able to register all of your current PRs because the current PRs, those are important to us. We want to know the base that we're starting with. We want to find where all the strong people are,

get them all into one little leaderboard filled with all the cool kids. Because what you're going to do is you're going to get on coach Travis mash's one ton training plan. And that training plan're going to do is you're going to get on Coach Travis Mash's one-ton training plan, and that training plan is going to have you inching your way up person by person every time we test, leading you to the crescendo moment, the one-ton weekend at the end of the year in which we test you on the one-ton challenge, and you're going to crush it.

We're going to be the biggest, the strongest, fastest, best barbell athlete you could imagine. And it all helps. It's all here because Mr. Travis Mash is putting the best program together for us. And then when you get the one-ton and you become a part of the one-ton family, then we'll teach you the handshake. The one-ton club handshake. Yeah. There you go. But yeah, get over to the one-tonchallenge.com. Get registered on top of the leaderboard. You're going to be given the One Ton Challenge Starter Kit. Inside that starter kit, we have everything you need to know. Resources

on technique, nutrition, lifestyle, supplementation, the rules to the game, and what we're looking for in the six lifts. So the competition side of it, a little bit of the rules. And then Doug's got tons of content. We've got shows specific about building muscle and maximizing your potential in the six lifts. So make sure you download that starter kit. It's got everything in it to get you moving. And from there, we're going to open the cart up a couple times, and we're going to be able to get you into Travis Mash masters the one ton training plan yeah the the program for registration uh if you're on the vip list which if you put your lifts on the leaderboard uh and when you do that like you said put your

lifts on leaderboard will automatically send you that that starter kit that andrew's mentioned but you'll also be on the vip list so everyone in this program your long program gets coached okay it's not just we're giving you workouts and you go do it on your own. You're going to have a coach helping you out the entire time. We can only accept so many athletes. So we're launching the program. The registration will be open for about a week, or we might sell out before the week is over.

That opens on May 27th is Monday. If you're on the VIP list, you have early access on that Monday, and then we're going to launch it to the rest of our audience on Tuesday the 28th. And then you have through Thursday, June 6th, for this round of the Once on Challenge. We'll launch it a couple times a year. So if you don't do it now, a couple months from now, we very well may launch it again. But if you don't do it right now, then that means you basically have to wait. You can't just do it next week or the following week.

Now's the time. So end of May, cart is going to be open, and it's a one-year training program written by Mr. Travis Mass, one of the best weightlifter, powerlifter programming people in the entire world. So you're bound to get super damn strong. The OneTonChallenge.com. Get your list in there. Get the starter kit, and get in here and get strong with us.

Next week we are going to be talking about the snatch, the most technical piece to this one-ton challenge. Putting it all together like a little puzzle for you and the program to go along with it. We'll see you guys next week talking snatch. That's a wrap, friends. No reason you should not be squatting 400 pounds for males and 225 for ladies.

Get you into the one-ton club. Make sure you get over to lifeaidbevco.com, forward slash shrugged, or text shrugged to 474747. Our friends over at FitAid just launched FitAid Zero and FitAid RX Zero. Sugar-free. It's delicious. Get over there. We've got tons of BCAAs, glutamine, arginine, vitamins, minerals, CoQ10, Omega-3s, delicious drinks. LifeAidBevCo.com.

And make sure you check us out. We're going to be at the games with them. We've got a whole bunch of badasses lifting. It's going to be a really, really fun event. So stay tuned. We'll have tons of announcements about that. LifeAidBevCo.com forward slash shrugged and text 474747. Text shrugged to 474747. And our good friends over at Whoop.com use the coupon code shrugged, save 15% and get over to the one ton challenge.com.

Get your scores in, get on the VIP list. We have a killer program coming to you from coach Travis mass that we just talked about for the last 50 minutes of your life. Thanks for hanging out with us. I can't wait to get you so freaking strong. We will see you on Wednesday and the one ton challenge episode on snatch is coming next Monday. Have a good weekend.