Barbell Shrugged - How To Use Undulating Periodization, Autoregulation, and Variance for Strength Gains w/ Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Travis Mash - Barbell Shrugged #503

Episode Date: September 14, 2020

In this Episode of Barbell Shrugged:   What is undulating periodization How to use auto regulation alongside undulating periodization Why variances in volume and intensity are necessary for strength gains How to implement undulating periodization into your training program. When undulating periodization may not be the best method for you.   Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram   ————————————————   Training Programs to Build Muscle: https://bit.ly/34zcGVw   Nutrition Programs to Lose Fat and Build Muscle: https://bit.ly/3eiW8FF   Nutrition and Training Bundles to Save 67%: https://bit.ly/2yaxQxa   Please Support Our Sponsors   Legion Athletics Whey Protein, Creatine, and Pre-Workout - Save 20% using code “SHRUGGED”   Fittogether - Fitness ONLY Social Media App   Organifi - Save 20% using code: “Shrugged” at organifi.com/shrugged www.masszymes.com/shruggedfree  - for FREE bottle of BiOptimizers Masszymes

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want to read a little bit more this week we're talking undulating periodization and how you can take those big goofy words make sense of, use them in your own programming, and understand the concepts on how undulating periodization is going to make you stronger, faster, leaner, cooler, sexier. I don't know. Something else. Funner. More fun. There it is. Friends, enjoy the show.

We'll see you at the break. Do sponsor reads. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. My name iss varner doug larson coach travis mass today on barbell shrug we're talking about undulating periodization which is the most advantageous way for me to get through a week of training a month of training a three-month block of training but that word undulating is a very scary word. And I think if you start to understand some core principles of undulating periodization, you will be able to put it into your training. And that's our goal today, to teach you how to do it, what to look for, and ways to go about

varying volume sets and reps, and still being able to track the movements and track progress throughout a longer training block. Doug Larson, I'm kicking it to you. Can you lay out some of the higher level principles of undulating periodization and some of the pieces that you think about when you hear those words together? Yeah, keep it as simple as possible. Like most people think about periodization, they think about just fluctuating volume over time. And, you know, years ago, most people did linear periodization where they were, they were kind of moving from low volume to high volume or low intensity to high intensity, depending on what your goals were. And they would do it in a very linear fashion. You know, every week you would, you would have a little bit more,

a little more, a little bit more, a little bit more, you know, for a period of six weeks just to add volume over time. Undulating is a little bit more of a staggered approach where you're going to have a high volume week and then a low volume week and then a high volume week and then a low volume week. And there's many other ways you could do it, but that's kind of the general idea. Instead of just heading in one direction, you're staggering your volume over time. Yeah. Mash, when you are working with people, I often wonder how this works out with kind of higher-level lifters. Because I feel like for me in my life, I didn't even know undulating periodization existed until i'd been doing it for a long time just because it it fits my lifestyle so well um but how do you incorporate

it or do you incorporate it with with a lot of your lifters yeah we do it on a weekly basis so like we we um you know instead of doing the traditional tens you know eights fives threes ones you know we're gonna you know mix that up from day one i think it works really well because a lot of people i would say you know because i would have there was a time where i said females but like i think even several males you know they they kill it you know the 10 rms they'll set new prs 5 rms new pr, then the closer they get to absolute strength, the less that starts to happen. And so, like, the things aren't translating down to, which is what we all want is a one RM, a brand new one RM. So, like, we do, even though we still have the traditional, like, accumulation, transmutation blocks, but, like, early on, even though we might be focusing on higher reps uh different types of

movements we're still doing you know some absolute strength so we're doing some you know week one might be tens fives and threes and then we move to like week five then it might go to like you know some six threes and ones and then the next block might be more you know more absolute strength focused with some still higher volume. If that makes sense. It's just the focus shifts. Yeah. If that makes sense. It's really easy, like Doug said.

It should not be overly complicated, but it definitely helps when people who traditionally don't respond well to absolute strength, if they're doing it the whole time at least some form you know by the time they have to max i found there's a much higher chance of them hitting new uh one rms and even and more importantly hitting really good ones yeah well i i found it uh i shouldn't say even found it i kind of accidentally backed myself into finding the undulating periodization kind of theory behind it or the program behind it just on my own as I started to get older.

And I guess, you know, talking about training age, I think that it's something that people find really as they're going from that like intermediate level to more of an advanced lifter because your body really doesn't adapt anymore to just increasing the bar or the weight five pounds a week and having a little bit of variance in your rep schemes makes a massive difference in how you feel i think that there's just there's a feel component to changing reps uh rep schemes out that is really nice. If I sleep great, if I am eating well and feeling great, and I really want to go hit a heavy double, it fits perfectly. I don't have to be attached to a specific number every single day that I go train.

And then if things aren't fantastic, well, the weights can be a little bit lower. The rep schemes can be a little bit higher. So I'm not pushing maximal effort. It really allows for just flexibility inside a training program so that it's kind of just like controlled chaos. But if you're able to pay attention to your body

and you're able to pay attention to kind of the metrics that make you move really well, like sleep, nutrition, outside stress, work, things like that, some days you can go into the – What's that? Those are the things that most people mess up. Yeah. Yeah. And you can go into the gym and just, it's okay to feel totally waxed. Where if you're on some linear periodization where every single week you have to add five pounds and you've been doing it for, you know, six, seven, eight weeks in a row and your body's just beat up, you may go into the gym and just not have it that day. And then instead of realizing that's okay, you know, to back it down

or do a little less, not hit the rep count that you were thinking, now you think you're off program and you're behind. It's really, to me, just a way of structuring the ability to meet your body where it's at with the demands of training that you're looking for. There's no reason once you kind of learn that you're able to mix up the volume and mix up the exercises a little bit more that you're still on program even though that day you might not have had your 100% best effort. It's all built in there so that it meets your life where it's at. I guess, Doug, you understand movement patterns. You love them.

When you're thinking about laying out kind of an undulating periodization, do you say, if we're talking about a hinge and a squat um if if the goal is to kind of be able to have these higher volume lower volume days how do you how do you think about setting that up inside a training block or inside a week like do you feel like you're overloading too much if you're going for like a heavy double in the squat and the hinge or does the hinge need to be higher volume if the squats lower like how do you how do you set up movement patterns based on the volume of the week well i mean again that's a that's a goal dependent question depending on what the person is trying to do and what their what their goals are what they good at, what they're not good at, what kind of injuries they have, etc. I would be looking at the total training program and not just comparing those two lifts more than likely. If they're a powerlifter and they're competing in squats and deads and then, of course, bench press, know maybe that's a slightly different conversation but um i would focus on one of them for a training block and then have the other one be it'll be in

there and it'll be trained as well but i i think it's better to to niche onto one movement and so if if you're trying to improve the squat specifically then maybe you're doing heavier squats and a little more volume on the deadlifts and then then you could switch but i don't think you necessarily have to have one that's for strength, like you're saying, and one that has to be the opposite for volume necessarily. As long as they're both being trained heavy during the week and you're not doing too much where you're beat up all the time, then that's really kind of the zoomed-out ultimate big-picture goal.

Travis, what are your thoughts? Yeah, I totally agree. It would depend, like you said. But, like, I do find on average probably, and I don't know why. I don't know that there's even any studies. But, like, hinging tends to, you know, for most people, it tends to, like, beat their CNS up a little bit more than just, like, the squat pattern. So you might consider that.

But the funny thing is is that for me that's not the case. Like, I feel like I can deadlift,lift like every day and it doesn't affect me but on average most people like when they deadlift you know and i've heard it could be because because your hands are being used because there's so many nerve endings in your hands that like you know the body you know wait when did you hear this i've heard it forever really that deadlifting beats most people up yeah well yeah no no i'm talking about the hands part oh i i know that that's true yeah oh when did i hear that that was the reason like um i've read it a couple times but i can't remember where just that you know i know that there's obviously tons of nerve endings in your hands yes that's

how we you know we send the brain lots of information and so like when they get beat up you know then the body perceives that as you're beat up and so yeah um which you know the only reason i interrupt you is because we we talked to dan john for about half an hour about hands and nerve endings um yeah i I remember him talking about it. I didn't know if you were still on the show at that time because you kicked out a little bit early. Yeah, no, I remember him talking about it. I totally agree. There's lots of nerves in the hands.

And, like, so if it gets beat up, that's why I always tell my weightlifters because they use their hands so much to make sure they take care of their hands for multiple reasons. Number one, it appears that, like, the more they take care of it, for multiple reasons yeah one if uh it appears that like the the more they take care of it the better they feel you know and like uh and then you don't want them to rip their hands too um there's that one but so like so maybe i would consider that is like um if if normally if a deadlift beats you up maybe you know keep it slightly less volume than the squat. Yeah. I remember seeing, I'm trying to think about like research studies on this that I can recall.

So these details would be kind of shaky, but I think the rough idea was they were comparing linear periodization to, I believe it was daily undulating periodization. I kind of suggested weekly when I gave my first example about staggering volumes throughout your weeks. But this one was linear periodization versus daily undulating periodization. And so the linear group had something along the lines of like three training blocks. So three, four-week mesocycles. And they basically took, I think it was eight sixes and fours throughout those three training blocks. So the first four weeks, they did mostly eight rep maxes.

And the second four weeks, they did mostly sixes. And then the final four weeks, weeks nine through 12 of the total study, they did four rep maxes, I believe. And then the other group, the daily undulating periodization group, they had three days a week for

the 12 weeks. And Mondays, they did eight rep maxes. Tuesdays, they did six rep maxes. And Fridays, they had three days a week for the 12 weeks. And Mondays, they did eight rep maxes. Tuesdays, they did six rep maxes. And Fridays, they did four rep maxes, something along these lines. And then at the end of the study, having done basically the exact same volume, they were matched on volume, the daily undulating periodization group had dramatically better results. Winners. Yeah.

That's the way I do daily. Which is why we're talking about this right now versus regular linear periodization because you do get better results with undulating periodization in many cases. Yeah. And we do daily, even my old team. And then even the people doing our one-ton challenge, they're doing daily for the most part throughout the workout. Yeah.

Practically, what does that look like? Can you give like examples on movements and reps and all that? Yeah. I mean like so I'll just say week one on average the way I program, you would do – let's just take the squat. You know, normally Saturday is where I blow people up, they get the, you know, because normally I'm assuming that most people get Sundays off, you know, from work, from everything, so they can, like, you know, recover. So we do, like, that would be our week where we do tens.

And sometimes I do waves that day, so you're going to get tens and threes. You know, so you start with a heavy three, then a ten, then a three, then a ten, three, then a ten. Then come Monday we'll do, like, you know, so you start with a heavy 3, then a 10, then a 3, then a 10, 3, then a 10. Then come Monday, we'll do like, you know, that would be our heaviest day, so it would be multiple triples. And then on Wednesday would be, you know, the 3s. It's as simple as that. And we might definitely, we're definitely now waiving the intensity, though.

Like, you know, I'm not going to necessarily – did I say threes again? No, threes and fives. Sorry, then Wednesdays would be fives. And normally it's going to be like back squat Monday. I mean back squat on Saturday because that's the biggest bang for your buck. You know, the amount of hypertrophy you get is directly related to the load and also the range of motion. And then some Monday you get – you're going to do either.

It depends on what's important to that athlete. Like if they have a week, you know, a week front squat, then we'll do front squats. If their back squat is weak in general, we'll do back squats again. But then normally on Wednesday will be a focus on front squats. I mean, it's not, I we people try to over complicate it but it shouldn't be it's uh it's as simple as that you know just wave the intensity so you can't go like max you know a max 10 rm a max you know 3 rm a max 5 rm you'll be you know be

dead but like um that'd be the key is to wave that yeah um i guess i kind of want to like break it down though now that we've kind of laid out the higher level sides of these things like um when when you think about volume uh sets and reps basically laid out throughout a week um the if your if your average goal or if your goal is to get 20 sets per body part per week as you would in a good training program to build muscle, is there a benefit? I guess the average thought is if you're training four days a week that you're doing five sets of X amount of reps to get to that 20. Is there any benefit or, I mean, I can talk about from my personal training,

but the benefits that go along with doing a heavy loaded day of, say or the squat and then a loaded day of hinging patterns so that maybe you're doing 10 five and five over three days to get to that that 20 total sets um 10's a big number but um is there is there any research that kind of backs up the that undulating the the volume day to day on those one, just to, to be able to kick or to, to get around the, the amount of soreness that comes out, but, um, how, how you vary the volume in, in movement patterns, um, throughout a week. Do you guys, do you guys have any examples of, of kind of breaking that down? And, and then my experience, I can, I can totally talk about how I set it up. I mean, what we do is like on Saturdays, like I said, is the majority of it.

We do quite a – like the way we do it is we got to set it up. If you're a weightlifter, you got to think about like you have all this other stuff to do too. So like if you're thinking about squats, you know, you can't just – like if you're a powerlifter, just go all in. I'm just going to crush my squats. I'm good. You know, I'm going to go all in on bench, all in on dead yeah i'm good you know i'm gonna go all in on bench all in on deadlift that's all i gotta worry about with weightlifters you gotta snatch clean jerk then you got it's important to be able to squat to do push presses to do pulls so you got multiple

variables there and so you gotta consider like if i go all in on squats it's gonna affect my cleans that's just the way it is or it's gonna going to affect my, you know, my, I love it list. So on my, on, if my goal is for Friday to always be like my higher intensity, like I'm going to, my go day, let's say Wednesday is going to be a very moderate volume, you know, the lighter day. Whereas the Mondays or Saturday is going to be, let's go all in because I got Sunday to completely recover is what I'm, it's what I'm hoping. And then Monday we'll go moderate because I still have the rest of the week. So that's the way we vary it as far as volume, even volume and intensity, really. And most of the examples that we're giving here, it's going from like a set of 10 to a set of 2 or 4. So you're going to have high volume day, low volume day. Is there any issue with going like high volume, take a day off, high volume again, take a day off, and then dropping it down?

It's not like logically how it would probably look on paper, but over time or in a 12-week or 8-week training block, do those days really matter so much, or is it really just about kind of meeting your body and getting the total volume that you need? Who knows? I would say, yeah. I would say definitely that would be individual dependent.

We have a guy like Isaac who's from New Zealand who is high volume all the time because he's individual. If I did high volume, took a day off high volume with Morgan, I think you'd definitely blow him up. He's like a Porsche. You've got to drive him really fast and change the oil. Whereas Isaac is like a BMW. You can just drive it and drive it and drive it. And it just gets better, you know.

So like, I don't know if that analogy was good or not. Wait, why? What is it about him that makes high volume just so much better? You know, because it's just the type he is. You know, there's always, I found. Because he's like a really long athlete. Yeah, and he's super fast. But he's just not, you know, his's always – I found – Because he's like a really long athlete. Yeah, and he's super fast. But he's just not – you know, his absolute strength is not very high.

So, like – You're saying that about a guy that was just smashing barbells when we met him at your gym. Oh, I mean, he's amazing. Like, you know, don't get me wrong. Like, you know, he's a junior weightlifter, clean and jerky, 400 pounds. I mean, so he's – he's no joke. But he's not, you know, like Morgan squats 600 pounds. And, you know, I don't know that – I don't think that Isaac squats 500. But yet, you know, they're both –

He does seem uniquely fast, though, Isaac. He's unbelievably fast. So he just – you know, the same thing when I had Tom Suma was the exact same. You know, we had Tom Suma and Nathan Dameron. You know, Tom Suma, if I – if he had – if Tom Suma. It was the exact same. We had Tom Suma and Nathan Dameron. Tom Suma, if Tom Suma would have done the volume that Nathan did, nothing would have happened. There would have been no response. But if Nathan had done what Tom did, it would blow Nathan up.

Nathan needed high frequency, high intensity, low volume. And Tom needed moderate intensity and lots of volume. It's the way they responded i feel like yeah it was like people who like follow prilipin's chart to the t you know that's where i normally start everyone it's just a great place to start and then it's individual then some people vary to what nathan and say morgan which is you know high intensity high frequency low volume and people some people sway to the you to the hard gainer, which is moderate intensity, very high volume, and they need that.

So I wrote this program a long time ago called The Hard Gainer. And the volume on there, if I would have done that, I would have died, for sure died. But for Tom, it was the only thing that ever pushed his squat up. And then when Tom's squat skyrocketed, so did his snatch, so did his clean and jerk were guaranteed. That's not necessarily the case with Nathan and Morgan. Like, you know, they can take a dump and their squat goes up.

You know, it's just that's who they are. Just a good day. A little bit lighter. A little more room in the belly. Exactly. So, like, it's just that's where, like, me and a coach, that's the art. You know, Dan John talked about there's a science. There is.

You know, and I want to be as scientific as possible because the goal is to take as much of the guessing out of it. But then science does stop. And that's where it gets, you know, that's where time under the bar, time coaching, and then just the natural instinct of being a good coach kicks in, and then that's where we all differ. I feel like there's a lot of coaches out there who have a very good baseline of science, and we all go, we're very similar to that stopping point, and then we vary from there. And so, which is the fun part for most of us is you

know where we get to actually use some art yeah i think that that's a really important when you're writing a program for somebody is like really it takes a long time to to figure out how somebody is going to do that and travis would be really funny because the science part of it when when somebody would come up to me uh in the middle of practice or training or whatever it is and be like dude i'm just not feeling it today and i'll just look at him go okay stop don't do what you can like i don't know what to tell you you want me to you want me to like look at the piece of paper and tell you you're not human and say it says do this you have to go do this like no i i think that that's where this this idea of uh undulating periodization really makes a a great claim for meeting people where they're at

in there because it's you realize it's just it's okay and it's actually beneficial to be able to i see what you're saying andrews i'm just now understanding what you're saying and you make a brilliant point. You're saying more of like where I would call that where people auto-regulate. You're saying like, I might have tens on the book, but tens aren't in the card for you that day.

Threes are. Yeah, you got to be able to talk to people. That's brilliant. Auto-regulate with undulating periodization. Yeah, that's a brilliant point-regulate with with undulating periodization yeah that's a brilliant point and i mean i it's how i basically do all of my training like i know what i need to do i know what i'd like to do but if you go into the gym and a two rep max isn't in the cards like that's a giant a massively taxing thing on your body to have to think that you're going to hit a 2RM. And to think that you are, to think that you're going to do that just because the paper

says so, well, the paper doesn't understand your life. So it's okay to go in and be flexible in it. I think the bigger point that for me is like understanding that you have to, at the beginning of whatever cycle training you're putting together of having an actual goal and understanding where it's going. And that's how you kind of build the program out in that if you're trying to set a one rep max, you know, you can't max out every single day and think that you're going to just add five pounds to the bar and you also if you only do high rep back squats you're not going to be training towards you know you're going to have the big hypertrophy effect but you won't be doing all the strength building but inside that to be able to fluctuate the volume fluctuate

you know pretty much every variable that goes into putting that program together. Um, you should see better results by meeting your body where you're at and, and varying the volume. And, you know, there's, there's a lot of things that you can vary from, you know, number of times you're lifting a week, if you can actually get into the gym. But you're going to see better results and be able to relieve a lot of the pressure that goes into following exactly what's on the piece of paper. Because it just doesn't have to happen exactly. The piece of paper is not a human being that lives a life. The piece of paper is the utopian world in which everything is perfect all the time.

Yeah, the piece of paper would fit. If you were in Russia in 1970 when your living was taken care of, your food was taken care of, your recovery was taken care of, then there's a better chance of you following that piece of paper because you didn't have the stress of work, family. You were sleeping, eating, lifting, recovering, and that's all you did. This is a good chance you could fit that piece of paper. Then the improvement chart would definitely play into where it's probably 100% what you can do. Yeah. But now in America, that's not the case. The athletes have to work.

They have the stresses of social media. And so, yeah, I think that's the whole point of athlete testing. And I believe in America, the more individual you can make things, the better the program will be. I'm talking about weightlifting now. If you want to create the best weightlifter in the country, then the more individual you can make it. And the, but the thing is you got to be able to make, you know, to discern, you know, what is the athlete, you know, which athlete really gets their body and which athlete is swayed by emotion because you have both, you know, some can just be feeling very soft that day but really

they have that their body is ready you know so just that's where it gets crazy that's where like testing would make it much more like scientific versus like emotional it's a big difference that's where you're go ahead sorry i was gonna say i think this in some ways depends on your experience level beginners respond to things differently than than really advanced advanced athletes respond to things like in the case of morgan morgan's gonna add a couple pounds to his back squat a year we hope you know like yeah 5 10 20 like those would be pretty good gains once you're squatting over 600 pounds you had 20 pounds your squat that's that's pretty good gains once you're squatting over 600 pounds. You have 20 pounds of your squat, that's pretty good. As opposed to if you only squat 200 pounds,

well, you could probably add 50 pounds a year, 100 pounds a year for a year or two. You don't need to. To get you from 200 to 300 to 400, and then things will start to slow down. It's got that logarithmic curve where you make big gains in the beginning, and then they kind of smooth out and taper off over time. So if you take a very basic linear periodization model or just a linear model where every Monday you're back squatting three sets of 10, and this week you did 200, next week you're going to do 205, and then 210, then 215, and every week you just add five pounds. You can do that for a period of time when you are brand spanking new. I remember doing that with 20-yard back squats when I was in high school. I remember starting with 155 and then just every week, every Monday,

adding five pounds, and it got harder and harder and harder and harder, but I was able to do it for months, for a couple months. Where did you end? I'm curious. 265. So you went from 155 to 265. Yeah, that worked a couple months. Where did you end? I'm curious. 265. So you went from 155 to 265. Yeah, that worked a long time. Over the course of, it wasn't five pounds exactly every week.

Some weeks I missed it and had to. Yeah. If I missed it, I kept the same weight for the following week. But I remember toward the end there, just like being nervous all day on Mondays. Because I knew I had to back squat. I had to wonder if back squat. I knew it was brutal last week. And I barely got it. I was like, fuck it knew I had to back squat. I had to one rep back squat. I knew it was brutal last week. I barely got it.

I was like, fuck it. I had five pounds today. This is going to be rough. That's so hilarious thinking about you being nervous. I made fantastic progress, though. Oh, yeah. I was so nervous about it. Because you never get nervous about anything.

I would have loved to have been around you. Oh, man. All day. It haunts you. I would have been too, man. I probably would have haunts you. I would have been too, man. I probably would have left the country. I would have been so scared because 20 reps, that just does not jive with my DNA, man. I'd be like a scared little puppet.

Do it. But, yeah, like if you're an advanced athlete, a well-trained advanced athlete, you can't just add five pounds a week every week, and that's your plan. It's not a plan at all, really. That would be so awesome. It's a plan to fail. Undulating weekly or daily undulating periodization for an advanced athlete is likely much more effective

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at bioptimizers.com forward slash shrugged. And be sure to use the code shrugged for 10% off. B-I-O-P-T-I-M-I-Z-E-R-S.com forward slash shrug. Friends, let's get back to the show. Well, it also makes training just way more fun. If every day you were looking at a set of five with just five more pounds, and every week your program, your coach just like took the spreadsheet and just grabbed a little bar and just drug it across where it was like last week plus five last week plus five you just did five

by five forever there's there's no variance there's no people do that when they did that he did like he would do saturdays was 5rm monday was like um five by five with a percentage of what you did on your 5RM. And then Wednesday was like. I wouldn't have been able to have been his athlete. I would have been like, look, dude, I'm here to have fun. Yeah, you're making me. Strong is a very close second. Yeah.

I'm not sure what that was about. I think the Texas method, he called it. And then Wednesday was like a light five, three by five or something. And it just rolled that way for a very long time. It wasn't like four weeks. called it and like uh then wednesday was like a light five three by five or something and like uh it just rolled that way for a very long time it wasn't like four weeks it was like it was like a long time i would have been like i can't do this i'm so bored like i cannot do another five rm i'll can we not do a triple like why not you know like come on now but that's what he did and like you know those dudes got you know good results but let's back i remember the muscle driver days you know those

there was time those athletes did not have fun they looked like they were like in a i don't want to say i think nowadays i've never watched how i say what i'm about to say but like they looked like they were not having fun i'll just say that leave it at that but yeah it was they look miserable just rolled in like let's do the work and go home yeah and But they looked like they were not having fun. I'll just say that. Leave it at that. Yeah. They looked miserable. Just rolled in like, let's do the work and go home. Yeah. And if you are somebody that really needs a steady dose of high rep training, there's a lot of ways that you can actually vary the training

that doesn't have to be just in reps and sets and the amount of volume you're taking in each week. The variance of the way that you are doing the movements like the the implements that you're bringing into it um i think that that stuff i don't i would love to hear what louis had to say about uh the differences between kind of the the conjugate and like the the undulating idea but a lot of the stuff that i i would say that I follow an undulating periodization almost daily just because it keeps things fresh and interesting. And I still feel good about the fact that like, I'm just getting, the goal is to be strong for as long as possible.

And, but getting in and playing with different implements different squat bars um like pressing with different um different pressing variations there's tons of ways to kind of manipulate the bar to get a new training stimulus out of it as well. Even if you have to stay just doing fives, you know, doing a dumbbell press and a barbell press, you're still putting your arms straight over your head, but you're going to get a wildly different stimulus by using dumbbells versus barbell. And just the way that that's loaded and the demands of your core to stabilize your shoulders. There's using different implements and different tools, even if your rep schemes and your total volume stays the same on a daily basis. And it's okay.

I think, Doug, it goes a lot back to what you're talking about. I mentioned a little bit earlier on the training age of the athlete and realizing, Doug, I think one of the best things to thinking about and realizing, you know, what are the, you know, Doug, I think one of the best things to thinking about like the implements is those templates that you write, kind of like the build your own workout templates where it's like, here are the big buckets that we need to fill every day. The goal is to build muscle. So we need to have these rep ranges and this total volume built out over a week and a month. But inside there, there's a lot of variance in how you get to those, those volume numbers and how you actually,

um, how you're actually piecing together each individual workout or, or the total volume that goes into each workout. You can, you can vary that stuff as long as it's built out in a specific way and and that that's that's where i end up having the most fun training is when it starts to be yes i'm handling the big the big push pull squat hinge um but i'm having a lot of fun just mixing things up with different tools, different rep ranges. The tools thing is a really cool one. I just started playing with bands and stuff over the last month or two months, really. But Travis, how often do you mix up?

Do you incorporate safety squat bars, which is pretty standard? Yeah. Probably one of the more standard bars that you can find that isn't just a straight barbell. How often do you change up kind of the tool and the implement that you guys are using? A lot, especially for a weightlifter on squats, a lot. Because the squatting, all I'm trying to do is get them strong.

I make sure that they're always doing a front squat because that's specific to their sport. But like, you know, powerlifting a lot until maybe the last six weeks and then they need to be specific. Even those last six weeks, I might have one day of like, you know, a Buffalo bar or a safety squat bar or a camera squat bar, you know, but, you know, depending on the athlete, some athletes, you know like if you vary at all it messes them up because they really need lots of practice but like me like i

didn't bother me whatsoever but it just didn't you gotta know the athlete like um but like my wife needed she needed to squat low bar three times a week period with a straight bar you know but um you get to know your athlete but a lot i think you made a very good point a while back you said um you know is is like with what would louis think about undulating periodization i wrote this book called conjugate and it was my way of the things that i have learned from louis that i implement into into weightlifting and that's one of them like conjugate doesn't have to be so drastic. It does not have to be that I'm going to hook a band to

a bar and we're going to do snatching. It doesn't mean that I'm going to snatch with an axle bar. You could do a pause and a squat and now you've changed the stimulus. Or you could do a 10 on Saturday, 3

on Monday, 5 on Wednesday. Those are changing. And then the next week, you might want to pause one of those reps or subtract one of those reps. There's so many ways to vary things, to get a different stimulus, to keep it exciting

to people like you that like to have fun without going so far where specificity gets thrown out the window because that's important the said principle is important too you do have to be specific and that's where louis might miss the boat a little bit in weightlifting is that it's very specific so yeah i actually when when you think about like the the dynamic effort days and like the the max effort days that's probably kind of like the most basic yeah level of it of varying up tempos varying up the the you know stimulus of the day of higher volume or max effort um like it there's a

lot of different things between like undulating periodization but um if you wanted to think about it in in a manner of how how west side did it or um how a power lifter specifically would incorporate speed and max effort days or dynamic days and max effort days it's that's probably like the the highest level easiest way to understand how to incorporate it of having a day in which you have to go set a new one rep max or two rep max 10 rep max and then another day where you're you're varying it up or you're just moving as fast as possible velocity yeah i think they did a lot more undulating periodization than they would even admit you know like because they do you know they would do what you just said on the squats and deadlifts they'd have a max effort and then a dynamic day but then all their all their accessory work is like bodybuilding so they're doing like you know

fives and threes and tens and because because of you know they do so much like you know they're lunging and they're doing their you know some of them even do some types of leg press like you know so they're doing like the high reps as well it's just they use that in their accessory work so it's just man i think the biggest point people should be getting from this is that there's so many different ways to do it and like and i recommend being specific to your goal as possible so if like you're piloting you do need to squad bits and deadlift and then from that after that vary things as much as you can to keep it fun because no no one talks about this, but here's the thing. Whether you're a high-level athlete or whether you're a general pop,

if you stop having fun, even Morgan would start hating weightlifting. Even Morgan. Even Ryan. Even the people who you think, I've watched it happen. Last year, I watched a girl who'd been lifting almost 20 years start to hate it. And in Thailand, lost her mind and quit. I saw it.

So like even, so you do need to vary. You do need to make sure your athletes are having fun if you're coaching. If you're an athlete, you need to be having fun. If you're not, change what you're doing right now. Take a day off, take a week off, and figure out why you're not having fun and change that thing. It's a big point. Fun's the most important part.

It really is. i have to have fun right stop doing whatever that is immediately me too and everything um that's the real success across the gyms is that people show up and they go dang that was awesome that was really cool and then they keep doing it and it's new every day you're gonna get better yeah yeah right i mean that's my high school football coach used to say that the best training program is the one that you believe in. That's kind of on a similar note. That's not all the way true, of course. But his point is that if you think something's awesome and you hit it hard every day because you think it's awesome,

and that also could be because you think it's really, really fun because that's why you think it's awesome, then you're going to make progress because you're putting in 100% effort and you're being consistent. Right. That's really the most important thing. Like, if you're putting in the volume, then you're going to grow muscle. I totally, I think the biggest mistake weightlifting coaches in America make is that, you know, they get, you know, they start being a weightlifting coach.

And so then they start reading and watching videos of, like, Russians and Bulgarians and, like, you know, or maybe even Chinese. And next thing you know, they're trying to pretend that they're that kind of a coach. And so they want a training hall with no music. They want people with their head down and, like, you know, their hood up until it's time to lift. And you go lift and you go sit back down. Guess what? It's America, man.

That's not going to work. These athletes are going to be like, you know, no, they're not going to do that. Be an American coach. I don't want to be a Russian coach or Bulgarian coach. I want to beat them. You know, that's what I want to do. So like, I want my athletes to have fun because in America, we like to have fun. We're crazy. We're wild. We're loud. We slam bars, you know, and that's who we are. And that's all right. Like there's nothing wrong with that because we're different. You know,. That's the whole – this whole inclusive thing. That's who we are, so I don't need to pretend that we're something they're not, and people should accept us for who we are. Oh, this is great.

Boy, I'm flipping the script on this one. But yeah. Yeah. What I think about high-level training goals, I spent a long time thinking about programming out or periodizing out a year of training. And that was to make it to the regional and get through the Open and be healthy, do a couple Olympic lifting competitions along the way. I would love to see that, by the way. That sounds insane. CrossFit a year out. I'd love to see that by the way, that sounds insane. CrossFit a year out. I'd like to see what that looks like and how long that took. Yeah, it wasn't that, I mean,

both the programs are actually up in our store. Like the eight week one ton challenge program was pretty much the off season. I say off season. It's like, that was like the jumpstart to. I say off-season. That was like the jump start to getting back into lifting really heavy. And then we would go through a massive, basically high-volume, mostly 20-rep back squat cycle from starting to kick November, December, January off. And then you had a month to basically just do a bunch of conditioning to prepare for the open.

And then from open to regionals, from open to regionals, it was all high skill, high volume, because you're going to go six workouts in a row. And then I kind of knew I wasn't good enough to go to the games. So regionals was like the big, that was like, I kind of knew I wasn't, uh, good enough to go to the game. So regionals was like the, the big, that was like, you made it thing. Um, and you did it, you did it well and wherever you place. Um, so that was, that's, that's basically how we, we broke out the year. It was all lifting.

Um, and no cardio at all. Then none. lifting um no cardio at all then none i mean there's i actually came across a when i was training with aj um i came across a photo shoot we did together and your boy was beefy during that time it was so funny to look at the pictures where it was like from so our and our regional was typically uh in like may may or june so it's basically summertime so by the time regionals was over i didn't even really i just i just did regular crossfit classes to have fun and be a part of the community um but my main focus was having fun and surfing it was summertime in san diego like training was that, it was just go as have as much fun and

be around people. But, uh, I took, I took three months off of super hard getting back to goal focused training. So that's, that's more or less how the year broke out. It was super heavy, super heavy lifting, um, to start all like, you tons of olympic lifting tons of did you bench press no never uh it actually i've only benched want 300 one time and i went on like an eight week i'm gonna bench 300 just to say that i did it um but yeah the the hardest part of all of it was always the high volume squatting cycles that we would go through 20 rep max thing yeah and it was mainly just because like we did it every year not just for the like building capacity side of things but we did it to really try and find out who was tough enough to be on the team and, and be like, who, who was going to like, yeah, it was like, who was really

going to put in the work to be. And then it became like a cultural thing in the gym of like, it's that three months it's time to to get your head right because now we all, yeah. So you're doing, you're doing that 20 rep back squat cycle and then you, you're not just doing that. It's spread out a little bit longer than the original program because then you add in a bunch of conditioning elements and skill work and stuff like that.

And then once the open comes around, you've got four, maybe six weeks to just sit on a rower. And you just get your freaking lungs as big as possible. I don't know how they do it now as far as what Frazier and Tia and the top, top athletes are doing. But that's the general structure of how we laid it out. So many variables in CrossFit. It always intrigues me how they do it.

Well, I think by the time you get to a specific level in CrossFit, you know what you need to work on so much. So I was always relatively – it was easier for me i think because being relatively athletic i didn't have any like massive holes on the athletic side of things like if you struggle with muscle ups you're you're just sitting on rings all day long you're doing dips you're doing strict muscle ups like i could just yeah i just needed everything to grow at the same time versus having glaring holes that needed to be filled. What do you want as a coach? I know this is not about a CrossFit, but I'm so intrigued right now.

So as a coach, who are you looking for? The person who's like you, very athletic, you don't have any one thing, or do you want someone like Matt Fraser who's obviously strong so he doesn't need to worry about that. We need to focus on these other things. Or is it dependent? It is. incredibly strong, there's a good chance that whatever coach you had that made you very strong didn't spend a lot of time teaching you aerobic capacity. Right. So those people, for some reason, strength still always wins.

You could teach somebody that's really, really strong how to sit on a rower and pace out a 5K. Right. You can teach them how to do – oh, by the way, at my – now that I just talked about the rower, I rode a 129.500 last weekend. You told us. That's sick. Woo! I didn't know you were on the phone.

That's fast. No chance. I know it's fast. Two seconds off my PR. I always – 100% of the time will take the strong athlete because I can teach them the rest of the stuff. It's easier to do it. I got AJ Roberts at 290 pounds to do a muscle-up. God, that's insane.

So being strong. Like watching a walrus do a – Being strong is king. He couldn't even walk to the end of the block with a kettlebell in his hand without wheezing. But I could get him to do a muscle-up just because he was strong enough and athletic enough to be able to do it. Man, when I first saw it, it was like the least athletic in my life. You just can't move. I can squat, bench and deadlift, and that's it.

I'm really good at those three. When he unracked 405 and hit it for a set of five, it wasn't that he squatted 405 for five. It was the ease and the way. If I walk 405 out, my shoulders, the bar just bounces because my shoulders aren't big enough. When he walked it out, it was like me walking out 135. It just didn't budge yeah and then his hips just perfectly went down and up down and up down and up for five and then he

racked it and i was like have you ever squatted 1200 before yes that looks like about a 33 effort did he squat really wide did he do the whole whole, like, west side? All of it. Yeah. We had to change so many things. But, I mean, he was – it was great. Seeing – watching him change his life was great. Have you seen him lately? He's ripped. Like, I mean –

Back. He's, like, lean and, like – I haven't seen him. When was the last time you saw him? I see him on LinkedIn. I see pictures. Like, he's lean. And, like, he doesn't even – I can't even – it doesn't look – you would not seen him. When was the last time you saw him? I see him on LinkedIn. I see pictures. He's lean. He doesn't even – I can't even – it doesn't look – you would not know him.

He's your size. Interesting. Yeah. Anyway, there you go. That's cool. I haven't seen him lately either. I remember when he did bodybuilding right after powerlifting and got lean and he was big. You're saying he's smaller now?

He's smaller. He's fit now. He looks like he could go into the military or something. He's like, you know, he might be – I don't think he's as big as you, Doug. He's like – you know, pitchers could be deceiving, but if he's 200 pounds, I'd be surprised. Maybe 200. Like he looks great though.

He looks like a different dude. Like he looks transformed though. He looks like a different dude. He looks transformed. Right on. But yeah, I think that the, you know, I think going back to what we were originally, or what I was originally talking about, when I think about a lot of

the specificities that go inside like this block I want to build to a new 1RM, well, everything that you can do to be focused on that 1RM needs to aim in that direction. So your periodization in that or your undulating volume in that is going to go from like a 10, a 6, a 4, and kind of backing itself down and having waves throughout the weeks of where you're going to be headed over like a eight to 12 week time period. But if you go from that to like a year, and then from a year to maybe two years, five

years, and having these like long-term goals of just kind of where I'm at, of just, I want to be strong forever. It doesn't matter 100% of of the day that each every single day to me is like the perfect workout and the perfect um volume and the perfect just implement the perfect tool the perfect everything if you just pick shit up over a long period of time you're gonna be strong and that really to me is like at the at the heart of the undulating periodization thing is that i don't have to be perfect every single day um i really like the auto-regulation side of it the ability to just listen to my body and um know that i didn't sleep

great or know that i've been on the road for a month. So if I can just get to a gym, I'm winning hardcore. Especially if the whole world hasn't been able to get to a gym for the last four months. And now all of a sudden, there's some undulating-ness for you when you go from having a full gym to virtually nothing for four months. Everybody. So, Travis Mash. Mashlead.com.

Where can the people find you? Yeah. Go check me out on LinkedIn. Maybe you'll see our boy over there, too. Are we allowed to announce your new thing your new thing this will be the first time though yeah i mean yeah yeah like a couple months until this airs so i'm going to be doing um it appears i've been appointed by the speaker house here in north carolina to be on the athletic trainer board here in north carolina so like yeah it's like

what that means i'll tell you later because i don't 100% know. I just know that I'll be going to Raleigh ongoing, so I'll get to see you, Anderson, a lot. Come and hang out, buddy. I got a garage filled with heavy stuff. It's a three-year appointment. It's going to be funny. I never thought I'd be in politics. I never wanted to be until now, so here I am. I just feel like it's a time where I at least want to be near what's going on and have a voice.

I probably won't be able to do anything but i'm gonna try you know we'll see it's beautiful yeah doug larson yeah find my instagram doug larson i'm anders warner at anders warner we're barbell shrugged at barbell underscore shrug get over to barbell shrug.com forward slash store that is where you're going to find all of the programs ebooks, mobility courses to make strong people stronger. We will see you guys next week. That's a wrap my friends. BarbellShrug.com forward slash OliBundle. That is where the OliBundle is and you use the code OliBundle, O-L-Y-B-U-N-D-L-E to save over 80% $97, five programs, snatch, clean jerk, peak cycle, squat cycle, and a template to get you super jacked.

Plus, world-class weightlifting from Justin Thacker, teaching you all the technique, as well as nutrition for weightlifters so you can eat to get jacked. Also, Organifi.com forward slash shrug to save 20%. Fit Together app, where all the fitness friends are doing fitness things and having fitness conversations without all the bs of other social media platforms fit together also i think you need to hang out with our friends over at bioptimizers.com forward slash shrugged use the code shrugged to save 10 percent magnesium breakthrough get your deep sleep on friends we'll see you on wednesday