Barbell Shrugged - Immediate Steps to Increase your Squat, Deadlift, and Bench Press w/ Oscar Bjork — Barbell Shrugged #430

Episode Date: December 18, 2019

Oscar Bjork is a coach for the Swedish national team in powerlifting, bench press, and has trained a number of people from beginner level up to world champion and world record holder. In this episode of Barbell Shrugged, Anders Varner and Doug Larson discuss: 3 ways to increase your squat Assessment for proper squat technique Non negotiable to developing your deadlift Programming for a big bench press How to increase your deadlift How to program to increase your powerlifting total And more…   Oscar Bjork on Instagram   Anders Varner on Instagram   Doug Larson on Instagram   TRAINING PROGRAMS   One Ton Strong - 8 Weeks to PR your snatch, clean, jerk, squat, deadlift, and bench press   One Ton Challenge   20 REP BACK SQUAT PROGRAM   Please Support Our Sponsors   “Save $20 on High Quality Sleep Aid at Momentous livemomentous.com/shrugged us code “SHRUGGED20” at checkout.   US Air Force Special Operations - http://airforce.com/specialops   Organifi - Save 20% using code: “Shrugged” at organifi.com/shrugged   WHOOP - Save $30 on 12 or 18 month membership plan using code “SHRUGGED” at checkout           ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Show notes at: http://www.shruggedcollective.com/bbs-bjork -----------------------------------------------------------------------   ► 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

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to save $30 on a 12- or 18-month membership. Oscar Bjork, Swedish powerlifting coach, and he's the powerlifting instructor for Aleko. We're out there in Sweden. We got to interview them. This interview is awesome. Filled with awesome, awesome nuggets for you to take away. Let's get into the show.

Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Anders Varner, Doug Larsen, Coach Travis Mash, powerlifting coach for Team Sweden, Oscar Bjork. Dude, how's it going, man? I'm good. We're at Alico headquarters inside the brand new, well, it's a year old, but brand new to me and brand new to our audience and the viewers. This place is absolutely gorgeous.

We just got done making our own barbells. Have you ever made your own barbell? I have not. See, that's messed up. You work here. You're one of the best powerlifting coaches in the country. You're making everyone stronger

and he won't even let you design your own barbell. No. Do you get a free barbell working here, though? I should bring that out with him. It's a good idea.

Seriously. You have no barbell. What are you doing? I mainly drink coffee, but... The coffee's free. Dude, coffee's like... Coffee's such a big thing here.

It's like, is there a bigger thing in the wintertime when it's like 20 hours of darkness and it's cold and everyone's just like, well, fuck it, stand outside and drink coffee all day. Pretty much. In the pre-show, you were talking about the powerlifting scene a little bit. You coached Team Sweden. Yeah.

But only in two lifts. Is that what we – No. He said powerlifting and bench press. So powerlifting, squat, bench, and deadlift, bench press, bench only. There you go. So they test bench press. So powerlifting, squat, bench, and deadlift, bench press, bench only. There you go. So they test bench press as its own event? Yeah.

Yes. So that's the only discipline that's on its own like that. So you don't have squat only competitions. Not in the IPF. Don't you do some other federations do deadlift only? Yeah. Or some weird combination of push-pull, like deadlift and bench press. But the IPF is just, yeah, powerlifting.

It's what it's always been. Yeah. Yeah, even since when I was doing it. Right on. So let's rewind a little bit. What's your whole background? How'd you get into training, et cetera, et cetera? Okay.

So I started, I was like 14 years old. I was doing boxing and we were in the same facility as the powerlifting club in the time where I grew up and those guys were strong and being 14. So of course you want to be strong. So I started imitating what they did and gradually fell out of love with the boxing and went into powerlifting and

I've been stuck since then. You're from Vasa, right? I am. Yeah, my first international competition was in his hometown. So 1996, a long time ago. Gave my age away. What country is that? In Finland.

He's from Finland originally. So it just brings me back to like, it was one of my favorite moments of my life. So is that something that you just excelled in right away and so you just decided to keep doing it or you just enjoyed the process of lifting weights and getting stronger? I honestly have never been very good at it. Like I'm a very mediocre lifter, but despite that, I liked it.

We're laughing, but we actually feel the same. I feel like I'm very mediocre at lifting weights. Maybe that's why we like it so much because we know how far there is to go when you actually know what real strong people are doing. Oscar, would you agree that a lot of people who were not great at the sport that they love end up being the greatest of coaches? Yeah, it might be. It seems to happen a lot.

Maybe because you really need to think about what you're doing to get stronger because you're not just born with it. Yeah, I think that's totally accurate. If you're just bad, bad, bad, then you don't have any progress and you just never even want to try. But then if're the kind of good we see all these other people that are radically better than you you're like what am i going to do like you got to learn learn learn try to figure out all the best ways to optimize your performance but if you're if you didn't win the genetic lottery you're never going to be a world champion but you still can get radically

better i feel like that's kind of where where i fell as far as lifting weights i never i never was like world champion caliber at anything but uh but I wanted to be really good, so I studied a lot. Were you kind of in the same boat? Yeah, yeah, I can relate to that. That's how I like to rationalize it to myself as well. Yeah, when did you start coaching? About 2010. Right on.

And what was that process to getting to coaching Team Sweden? So I went to a lot of competitions back then and you in sweden is not that big you get to know pretty much all the lifters in sweden regardless of level and everyone comes together for nationals and stuff like that and i just ended up talking to people and i started coaching this one lifter who were picked to go to the World Championships. I think it was 2015 and as her personal coach I went with her. And there on site we had so many lifters and we were only three or four coaches for the entire team. That's Masters, Juniors, Sub-Juniors open. So I got to handle a lot more people than just her who I went with.

And it went okay, I guess. So they just asked me to come back for the next competition and for the next one. Since then, I've been doing it regularly. When you say okay, what does that mean? You won? She won, yeah. Yeah, that's better than okay. You see the culture.

In America, the coach would be like banging his head. Yeah, and we'd fucking smash everybody. I won. The athlete happened to do what I said. Right, right, right. I told them what to put on the bar, and here's my Instagram handle. I told her exactly how to lift it. She was weak, but because she did what I said, she won.

Exactly. That's not what happened. Yeah, I guess being drawn to the powerlifting thing, we're here at Alico. Were you ever interested in weightlifting or has powerlifting just been the love the whole time? I've dabbled a little bit in weightlifting. I was even worse at that than powerlifting.

Who would have thought you need mobility, you know? It was fun, but it was not as fun because I was so limited to what I could do. By then, I had already been training for like eight or ten years and just gradually destroyed my mobility. I mean, I think a lot of powerlifters, if you do it correctly, because the goal on squat is to go below parallel but not too much. If you go too far below parallel, you're probably going to be weaker than everyone else.

So if you train like that too long, that's going to be your mobility and that doesn't work and wait yeah pretty much so yeah when for or when becoming a coach especially coaching you know elite athletes uh what has been that education process for you um whether it's certs uh you know in-person coaching but where where have a lot of your inspirations come from and a lot of the learning pieces? Oh, it's a hard question. Like how much time do I have? That's why we're here. 45 minutes minimum.

Yes, obviously there are – I have some education. I have a master's in exercise science and physiology. That's like a base pretty much. But I wouldn't say that has mattered that much because I really think that you learn from other people doing the same thing like other coaches and there are just so many today that are so good uh from the top of my head i can think of mike to share a vector training system absolutely yeah um bryce lewis of the strength athletes uh boris shiko of course i was gonna ask you you know this in powerlifting is always gonna be the boris shiko or you know, in powerlifting, there's always going to be the Boris Shiko,

or some people still do Westside Barbell, but I figured most people around here are going to do more of a Shiko. Yeah. What is that model? I'm actually not familiar with them. It's like medium to low intensity, high volume, high frequency, high specificity training model. You basically just do the competition lifts a lot.

The general idea is to just build proficiency in the lifts. And then you have like the Norwegian model of powerlifting, which is very similar, but they have a little more diversity, so a little more alternative exercises, but still the same medium intensity and just hammer them with volume. It's a very big contrast to the Westside model, which is higher intensity. I agree.

I love Louis Simmons and Westside Barbell, but somewhere in the middle is the beauty. I'm not a Boris Chico. I'm not going to follow that, but some more Norwegian. Somewhere in the middle. Some conjugate, some alternative exercises, but somewhere

where you've got to be specific. And the people who, you know, Westside Barbell when I used to compete against them, they may or may not be able to pick the weight out of the rack. And if they hit the groove just perfectly and stand it up, they're going to hit a big number or they're going to bomb out. But what i'm saying the the proficiency of the movement was not that good and if you look you know watch some of boricico's people they're all gonna move

beautifully you know if you think about the one lifter um who dead of course he's not ipf but uh he dead lists like 900 and something pounds. Totally blanking out. But anyway, he's actually probably better than Ed Cohn ever was. But his movement is like perfect. So that would be the difference in like a Westside and a Chico guy. Yeah, yeah, I would agree. I'm actually really interested. I've never interviewed somebody that grew up in a weightlifting scene

that was not in the U.S., which is really interesting. When you're growing up in this and learning, you have different idols and everything. What are the thoughts of the American system, which really stems out of West Side? It's a good question. He thinks we're weak is what he's trying to say nicely.

We're definitely not weak. Didn't mean to offend you. Go ahead. Sorry. Everyone has heard of Westside and everyone is kind of familiar with it. Maybe not into the detail, but you're just roughly familiar with it.

And I think the main point is just take what's useful, discard the rest, try it out for yourself. Exactly. I don't buy into one concept as a whole, but you've got to pick, cherry pick what's good.

Yeah, I agree. So what is your personal style these days? And how has it developed over the years? Well, it has developed a lot to begin with. I think it's still developing. I am, I hope. But like I said, I think I would like to take the middle ground somehow. I don't buy into the far right, if you will, the Boris Sheiko gang and not the Westside gang on the other flank either somewhere in the middle little more

middle road kind of guy if anything I would have to lean more towards the proficiency rather than

just go max max out all the time so if you're doing an off-season training

and it's more like an upper body bench press day what does a day look like for you or is there that because in the chico there's not that there's they always squat bench deadlift they don't have like an upper and a lower but so what is an example of a workout that you that you would typically write like what's like a template if you have one? To begin with, if we're taking just, let's say, a bench-only person, then I would start with like settling for three or four bench workouts, bench slots throughout the week, because I think that's usually the frequency you would like to go for. Maybe if you've just been benching once

a week before, maybe just not hop straight into four times a week immediately, but work gradually towards that. Because I think that's the frequency we need to get the volume we need without having four-hour long sessions. Because again, you personally and you train people that just compete in bench press. Yeah, that too. Most, they're kind of rare.

Most of them do powerlifting, but same principle. So you have your slots for bench, squat, and deadlift, and you need to distribute that over the week in a somewhat intelligent fashion. Usually three or four times squat, three or four bench, and two to three deadlift. And obviously you can't go all in on any of them all the time because that equation doesn't work out.

Right. So you have to puzzle it, fluctuate the intensities and the volumes. Are you mostly tracking weekly volume? Is that how you look at it? Yeah, volume and more

number of lifts in different ranges, intensity ranges. I don't think the tonnage doesn't tell you anything because you can do 10 reps with a bar and that's 200 and you can do one lift with 200, the same volume but it's not the same training effect. So I like to track

the number of lifts in the different lifts. Like different zones of lifts. There's something arbitrary like 60-70%, 70-80, something like that. Just to get some rough idea of what you're doing. Point being, everyone can handle different amounts of volumes.

You just got to start somewhere and just see what happens. You can't just write a good training program like that. You just have to do something and then see what happens just as you go. Yeah, I kind of pulled you on to the weekly question, but back to the daily question. What does a day look like for the bench press example? Well, first it's prehab or warm-up as needed.

If you're 16 years old and healthy, you don't need very much. Get after it. Wave your shoulders a bit. But as you get older and more beat up, you need to do more prehab stuff to just get everything functioning as you need.

Maybe it's some upper back activation, rotator cuffs, mobility whatever and then move into the main exercise and depending then on the rest of the week's workouts then that might or not be a heavy day or not or an alternative exercise

let's say it's your main bench. You work up to something reasonably heavy, leaving something in the tank. And then working back down for a few back down sets. Again, leaving something in the tank and move on to whatever assistance exercises that benefit you. What are some

assistance exercises that you would recommend? Let's take you for an example. Where do you miss your benches when you're in competition? Off my chest. I mean like... Yeah, most people do. It's reasonable to assume that you

need to train your start position more. So first make sure that your positioning is good, that your tension is good, your actual position, not even the strength. You're setting up okay. So maybe something to, some prehab warm-up exercise that facilitate that, that you really get your arch up and your shoulders and upper back firing. Then we can look at, are you just weak in the bottom position?

Maybe you need to train with long pauses in the bottom. Get more exposure for the bottom position. You can have like spoto presses with a long floating pause in the air above the chest, not touching. Or pin presses to really start from zero momentum. Something like that. Figure what works out for you. Have you ever done any isometric training? You know where it starts on your chest and maybe there's pins a few inches above that.

And you press into the pins. Yeah, I've dabbled with that. I find it so difficult to set up that most people just don't do it. I know. I agree. I think if you can, obviously, asymmetric contractions are one of the quickest ways to get strong. That would probably be reserved for, like, the elite guy, you know, someone who's, like, going to take the time because he's trying to beat you know he's trying to get that one percent edge you know i did a lot you know charles pulligan is one of the first people that helped me with that yeah you know we would

do it would take forever but you would do it right off the chest a few inches then you would have a middle range you'd start like say four inches above your chest go to 10 yeah then you would do the top end and it would the whole workout was just nothing but isometric work yeah but it it really worked yeah so if you want your bench press there you go you're welcome so you structure those as like a like a five second rep max so like you you press off your chest you press into the pins and whatever you can hold for three seconds or five seconds is is the way you're looking for you would do like three sets of like five to six from the bottom then you go to the middle three sets of five to six from the bottom. Then you go to the middle, three sets of five to six.

Then you go to the tip top. And then after all that, so you've done nine sets already, take it all away, then you're doing some. You finish. I always like to finish full range of motion just so timing and technique is correct. But, I mean, that one, I only did that for a few weeks. It was like eight weeks.

My bench press shot up 10 kilos. It was a pretty good jump for the bench press, that one, I only did that for a few weeks. It was like eight weeks. My bench press shot up 10 kilos. It was a pretty good jump for the bench press, that is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so there you go. When we're talking about bench press, are you assuming in the back of your head that we're mostly talking about like equipped press, like where you have a multi-ply bench shirt on, or are you mostly talking about raw lifting?

Mostly raw, yeah. Equipped lifting in Sweden has gone down over the past pretty much 10 years. Same as America. Yeah. I think that's the trend. Did you ever get into it yourself? Yeah. As we talked before, when I started, there was no raw lifting.

I had to do equipment. I always hated it. I was really happy when we actually had the first unofficial world championships in raw lifting here in Sweden in 2012, I think. Oh, wow. In Stockholm. Before that it was all equipped. Were you guys one of the first countries to start moving into the raw scene?

Yeah, I like to think so, yeah. At least on the competition side, like officially. How was that transition with a lot of the lifters here? Were they like bothered that they couldn't lift as much did they think the sport was going in a direction they didn't want and there's always some traditionalists yeah that like it like the way it was and yeah i think the raw lifting is not real lifting and you take out the skill component yeah arguments like that where do you see your kind of the best qualities in your

coaching is it program design uh communication with athletes technique yeah oh it's uh it's always hard to judge yourself and try not us americans we'll talk about ourselves forever i'll tell you all about it i uh i like to think that i have an eye for technique, seeing what the problem is, and just jumping into conclusions of how to fix that and how to just in a somewhat intelligent way just incorporate that into your training. Let me go and get deeper.

Let's start with squat. Give us some basics of technique that might be absolutes. Everyone should do X with their movement. There are very few absolutes and a lot of variables. I like you a lot. I think of two absolutes that are non-negotiable. First should be your positioning of your ribcage towards your pelvis. Down.

Yeah, exactly. Agreed. Because that helps with bracing. Right. Second one is breathing, IAP. Yeah, inter-abdominal pressure. Exactly. Those two go into each other.

You really need to do that regardless of what your squat technique or style or your build is. You need to get that down. Let me get specific there. With the bracing, you say, like, tell me, how do you teach it? Do you teach it, you know, push out against your belt, just the front, sides, around? Yeah, so I actually think the belt is a really good learning tool

because it gives you tactile feedback. But if you have no belt, I usually start with, I don't teach that many beginners, but when I talk to people about it, I usually have them push their fingers into the sides of their belly and try to blow up your belly, just expand all the way around. And the trick is to,

it's easy to do this while you're sitting or standing up, but to do this and maintain it while you're squatting, it's hard if you're not used to it. That's where the belt comes in. It's a good feedback tool to actually feel like it should be a little loose and you should press your belly out towards it and you should feel this, yeah,

this touch, this feedback all around, all the way. Yeah, all the way, like a tire. You should feel it very well. Oh, I lost it in the bottom. Okay, I need to think about that. I want to take a quick break to talk about our friends over at the Air Force. Friends, if you have ever thought about getting into the Special Operations Unit, please get over to airforce.com forward slash special ops.

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Save 20%. Back to the show. I actually find that that is where the majority of people lose lifts. It's very rarely in their legs. You see their core. They lose their core at the bottom. I think every great power lifter would say eventually you get so strong that it's your back. It will be your torso that gives.

Your legs will be able to support it. I think if you look at a leg press, that would tell the tale because, you know, everyone can leg press more than a squat because it's taking the torso out of it. Obviously, the way it's designed, it's going to take another 30% out of it. But, like, you still, knowing that you're only lifting really 70% of what it's truly, you're still doing way more than you can squat. So that should tell you. So your torso, like you said, the inner abdominal pressure is going to go up. And even if you don't miss lifts, one of the easiest ways to see kind of that weak core is when people go to stand up and they aren't able to keep that back angle and their hips shoot all the way up.

And the flexion. Yeah, and then basically you end up doing like giant good morning, which is just super gnarly. That's not going to happen with real weight. Yeah. All right. So what about like some people talk about spreading the floor. Some people talk about grabbing the ground with their feet and like externally rotating. Do you teach any of that?

That would fall into the variables category. I really don't put that much value into it. Like whatever you do, whatever works for you, that's great. It's not what's going to make or break your squat. If you like standing really wide and pushing your knees out, fine. As long as your squat looks good in general, then that's fine. Do that. If you like to stand really with a narrow stance and just shoot your knees forwards over your feet, sure, as long as you can get to the required depth and get up again. If it's a powerful

position for you, then fine, because we are so anatomically different that you need to have such different stances. How do you find that with so many different body types? And is there a very simple test that you have people do to figure out what looks optimal for them? It's a hard process. It is. And you don't get as much time as you need to actually really

dive into it. But you can do some educated guesses just based on what people look like. By now, I've formed an idea of what you should squat like just by watching you for a while.

What would you say? Wide stance, medium stance, close stance? Now I was just boasting. I don't actually know. I haven't seen you move. You can judge him. You can judge him. He goes real narrow, narrow front squat.

That's because I have to because I have bad hips. When I was competitive, I was medium. Okay. I just assume that being American, you would do super wide stance. No. I agree with everything you're saying. I do not. I love Westside, and I've learned a lot.

And I agree with what you said about them. You take the good and leave the other. I agree. I pretty much agree with everything you said. You went weightlifting first at a high level and then went to powerlifting. Then went to powerlifting. Yeah, I never got into super. That's a background most people don't have.

Right. So, you know, it taught me a lot. Waylifting already taught me that frequency is important. Yeah. I know the more I snatch, the better I get at the movement. Yeah, right. So I always assume the more I squat, the more I bench, the better I get, which is totally true. All right.

So what about, you know, there's so many of these variables. Some people teach this stuff as absolute. It's absolutely bullshit. What about sitting back versus sitting down? Or is there something new? I don't know. How else could you get there? Sit forward. Sit forward? I don't know about that.

What would you say? I would say the main goal is to A. Hit required depth. That's going to dictate how you do it. Then B. You've got to be in a strong position so you can move the most weight. And C, it's got to be a style that's sustainable so you don't get any acute or chronic injuries,

like overused injuries. So all those three need to go together. And your style, however you squat, got to fulfill all those three requirements. So if sitting back is a good strategy for you to squat a lot and you're strong in it and you hit depth and you don't get injured by it, then fine, go ahead. I personally can't do it.

I need to sit down between my legs. That doesn't make one better than the other. It's just we're different. I agree. I think if you sit back, you know, obviously you're getting hip flexion dictates depth pretty much more than anything. So the minute you sit back, you know, obviously you're getting hip flexion dictates depth pretty much more than anything. So the minute you sit back, you're already flexing the hips. And so you're going to reach your maximum range of motion sooner.

So like you said, if you sit back and you can't reach depth, then you can't sit back. No, exactly. Then you got to sit down. So, yeah. Great. Or anything in between there. It's like two extremes and it's a continuum. Right.

When you think about back angle, is there something specific that you're looking for as far as body type? As far as like a more leaned over... I don't want to say low bar because it just causes a big fight. First in Olympic lifting. If you have a really long back, like the back segment is long in relation to your legs,

then you're going to have to fold over forwards a lot more to hit depth. It's just you have to. By mechanically, you have to. It may or may not be ideal, but you have to do it to reach depth. And then you've got to work with it and make that a strong style for you. I've got one more question about the squat technique. Once you reach depth yeah when you're trying to come up do you teach pushing into the bar driving feet through

the floor combination like how do you how do you teach the ascension portion that's one of those cases where we like to try different cues and see what works best for that person it's day one what do you use first? good question I would assume I think I don't actually know I think it depends on the athlete but I think

I would start with driving like your shoulders and head back towards the bar agree just start somewhere and see what happens it doesn't really matter I think a lot of times

when you people when they think feet to the floor first a lot of times the hips will come up and then you'll get the angle shift and that can be a bad thing. If you drive into it and then you push

I think you get a better biomechanical position. We mentioned Westside Barbell multiple times now. How much heavy lifting do you do versus how much volume do you do versus how much, we haven't mentioned yet, dynamic effort stuff where it's basically velocity training, speed reps, that type of thing.

Do you incorporate speed work into your programming at all? Not in the traditional sense, no. It's a little bit implied that you should always try and push the bar as hard as you can, as fast as you can in every lift. Obviously, it's not going to move very fast when it's like 85% or more, but you should always have that intention for maximal recruitment of all the muscle fibers. But not many people around here do the traditional speed training with like a very light percentage and just three quick reps. I didn't either. Actually throw the bar.

I think it's kind of been proven that it doesn't really work as we think it would work. It recruits muscle fibers but doesn't exhaust them, so you don't really get a training effect. So you don't get hypertrophy. I mean, I think it might help your technique some, but there's not going to be anything. I think now the studies have shown that for maximal hypertrophy,

which is there's only two ways to get stronger, either get more proficient at the movement or add muscle size. And to get hypertrophy, you've got to go almost to optimally. The best way for hypertrophy is to go to almost failure. It's going to recruit the most fibers and cause the most hypertrophy. We haven't talked about deadlifts yet. What are your general thoughts on improving some of the deadlifts? I would like to, for the record, I don't like deadlifts

because I was always bad at them. That's the best reason not to like them. It really is. I think the deadlift is the most unforgiving one of all the three lifts because in the squat and the bench press, you have all of the eccentric phase to kind of correct tiny errors. But in a deadlift, your positioning has to be spot on when you start to pull. Otherwise, you're not going to get it.

That's totally me, by the way. I miss all my deadlifts at the bottom. So when I miss, I go out there and I'm just like, yeah. Nothing happens. It looks like I've had like 300 pounds too much on the bar. Thank you, everyone. Thanks for coming out. I did nothing.

We had Pip Oltorez at the one-ton challenge at Olympia, and he had 700 to, like, mid-thigh. And then he dropped it, and I was like, what are you doing? Some people. It happens to a lot of people. Yeah, I was just like, you got it off the floor. The rest is so simple. I know.

But that's not for everybody. It just depends on your body type. I know people that can actually. There was a guy, Spud. You guys, Spud Inc. Mark Bartley's. I've heard you talk about him. Anyway, the dude could literally get 900 to there, but he only could deadlift seven something.

He just go find Brett Contreras, push those hips through. Exactly what I'm saying. Work those butts, man. Do you do the hip thrust? Yeah, yeah, I do. Can't you tell? Yeah, right? Didn't you see?

I missed the weight for two seconds. Wide angle Colton on the glutes as she walks by. Sorry. Not you. Not you. We're not being creepy. Earlier when Travis asked you about assistance exercise, your first question was what's basically the weakest link in the chain.

Where do you need to have the work? So if I can't pull from the floor, that's my weak link. Then there's other people that can get to mid-thigh, but they can't get it. What kind of assistance work did you do in my case versus the other case? First, you've got to rule out that there's something technical going on, like something funky with positioning. Much easier to fix.

Easy to rule out. If we assume that you both have good technique, then it's not the positioning. Then I would, like in kind of the same way as with a bench press, I would do assistance exercises that exposes you to the hard part of the lift for you.

So maybe pulling from deficits, pulling with pauses, just slightly above the floor. My favorite, yeah. Get more isometric, preferably exposure of that difficult range of motion. Same as weightlifting, that would be. Agreed.

Yeah. What about when someone misses at the tip top? Like, that was not my problem. But, like, you know, the person who can get it to mid-thigh just cannot get their hips through. That's usually weird. No. Usually that's a technique thing. Right.

I'm having a hard time to come up with situations when it's not, because usually if you sacrifice your back, by that I mean you round over in the starting position, you hunch your back a bit, that will make the start easier. But then as soon as you get up and are about to lock out, you're in such a bad position to lock out mechanically, so you just can't do it. But if you were to start with a more straight back, you would have a harder time in the bottom,

but then the lockout gets easier. So you can choose where you have your problem, if you get what I mean. So by the time they get to the top, their hips are mostly extended, and then they're still in some degree of lumbar flexion, and then to get all the way to the top, they have to produce a concentric movement, only using their low back? Yeah, and a thoracic flexion especially. They're not strong enough for 800 pounds. Sorry, go ahead. A thoracic flexion especially, and that's very hard to actually, we're not that strong to extend that thoracic spine. So maybe that's a case for just seeing over your starting position and maybe deal with the tougher start to get the better lockout.

For people that are, you know, lockout. For people that are... Great point. For taller people or people that are just big, they don't have good mobility in general, some people can barely get their hands to the bar without... They have to round over to reach the bar, basically. For those people, what do you do? I'm one of those people.

So I would like to know. For me, it solved the problem to switch to sumo because my hip is better designed to stand with my legs more spread than narrow stance.

So, I didn't fix my mobility just that I assumed another position and it worked better and started training that one. If that's not an option, then,

yeah, mobility is a hard thing. Go play soccer? New sport? I think that a lot of times with mobility that you know doing that movement more often yeah is is the best answer i don't think that you know a lot of time in this new world of like uh lacrosse balls and all those things like that i mean really if you have x mobility the only way to change it much that i've ever witnessed has been frequency of doing the movement. And then you're only going to change X because especially how old are you now?

I'm 30. So he's been training 15 years. He's had X amount of mobility, and he's done things to develop that mobility for 15 years. You're not going to do a lot with lacrosse balls. It's going to help him anytime soon. It helps for the immediate lift but yeah exactly when you go home that night it's going right back right back and you're only going to do x you're only going to get a small percentage of help it's going to release a little bit but then you know you're not going to do much you know

you're not going to go and become john claude von damm does anybody even know that guy anymore i hope so i do too blood sport but. He's coming on the show soon. Yeah. I'll talk to him. He's on our go-to list. All right. So let's now. I think a few would agree with me that the most technical lift of the powerlifting is the bench press.

At least for me because bench press was my worst. Yeah. But I got really. I mean I became a world record holder in it. But I worked super hard at the bench press. There were so many things I could do to develop, you know, to work my technique a little bit that would add kilos to the lift. So, like, let's talk technique on bench press.

Yeah. Most people don't have a good technique in the bench press to begin with. Right. Agreed. And I would agree. It's a very technical lift. Right. It's so much more than just extending your arms.

Right. I think having a big arch gets a lot of, it depends on how you see and look on it, it gets a little hate for having a good arch, but also it's... Changes the rule then. Yeah, but getting a big arch is also what a lot of lifters focus on to get stronger.

And that might be like a mistake as well because that arch alone is not going to lift the bar. Right. You can't have just a lot of mobility without the stability. So you need both. You need to have a really solid platform to press from. And if that platform is higher up, then that's better. Yeah. Anyone who's ever done board presses knows that. Yeah. Yeah, they know if you have less range of motion, you're going to that's better. Yeah. Anyone who's ever done board presses knows that.

Yeah. Yeah, they know if you have less range of motion, you're going to lift more weights. Yeah. In my opinion, people are bad at creating tension, just getting really, yeah, creating a lot of tension, especially in the bottom position. It's easy, like in the squat, it's easy when you unrack the bar

and have it on your straight arms. Right. You're probably going to have good tension here, but you unrack the bar and have it on your straight arms. Right. You're probably going to have good tension here. But as soon as you lower it and get down on your chest, you're going to squish. Yeah. That's what usually happens. Right. And that's what you really need to focus on usually.

Is not letting the squish happen. Yeah. Right, right, right. So, all right. So, on the descension part, are you going to talk about tucking? Are you going to talk about sliding the forearms? Are you just talking about bringing it down? Like, is going to be yeah dependent on the person like everything else yeah of course that's the official disclaimer for everything yeah but uh i would say that's just one of the variables right the non-negotiable like the constant

would be to keep tension and keep your chest up right so however you lower the bar that your chest doesn't collapse right and then we're going to figure out after a while like if you should tuck your elbows more or or less and flare them or however you should press right that comes later just create this stability at first right i love uh one of my friends jason coker who he's a west side guy yeah but he doesn't he really doesn't train west side that much which you'll find most people who are actually at west side don't do what you think they do. So they're going to do pretty high frequency. But, like, he talked about, you know, I used to think tuck, you know, is what I thought worked for me.

But he talks about sliding the forearms. And so then you end up having more of a bar, wrist, elbow. Versus when you tuck, you got bar and wrist back here and the elbow here. So it's not as stable of a platform as doing this. And it really, at this age, you know, it really helped to be able to increase my bench press as an old guy. Yeah. I actually have never even taught or really heard of the tuck. Can you go into a little bit of just the benefits of that?

I've always just structurally it always made more sense to have everything lined up, elbows in tight. You're going to have a vertical forearm for the most part no matter what. A lot of people when they get tired, especially on the consultative piece, they'll be here, and then as they come up, they fly out like that. It happens all the time. Well, okay, so here's the thing. When you arch arch you want to

go you want to touch at the highest point that you're legally allowed to touch and to get there to be in a good you don't want to go like that yeah so you want to make sure you have a vertical as vertical as possible so you slide or tuck or whatever to get to there and then yes you want to most people well west side louis used to say press straight but i think now we can all agree that you want to press back because you want to you want to limit that uh lever you know the shoulder so you want to press back and up so yeah that's the second biggest thing i would say uh is back yeah pressing back towards your face not straight up yeah that puts you in a really bad position at the end of the lift.

Bar's way out in front of you. You can't save that. It's that shoulder flexor moment. You limit it then. It makes it less hard. Put it in simple terms. That also goes in with tucking your elbows. It's a way of

getting your elbow a little bit in front of the barbell, looking from up. Yeah, so you naturally push that way rather than that way. When I see you do it and we're sitting vertically and I see you in that position,

it looks super funky, but laying down with your belly up, it makes more sense. I just saw you tuck your elbow and I was like, why would anyone do that but you're actually pushing back on the bar towards your head to get into a good position and you made a good point like when you tuck like that if you decide to tuck i like sliding

at first but if you can't get the bar going back then i'm tucking because then you're going to be able to push back yeah it's almost like a catch. Like, really, I call, sometimes I use the cue, throw the bar. So you're like, I start, I do a lot of leg drive. So you throw it, catch it, and press it. It seems to work with a lot of people. Yeah. Do you do any incline or decline benching as part of your programs? Yeah, that would be a good, a good non-specific general hypertrophy movement

if you're far away from a competition and have the time to spare and the energy to put into that. Obviously, it's not specific enough to do close to competition like in a pre-competition cycle, but further out from a meet, then sure, yeah, if it's a good movement for you that's pain-free and you're

able to build some muscle with it, yeah. Go ahead. What he said is use it to get jacked. Yep. That's what I heard. I heard that too. Same for dumbbells and any other machines and or gymnastics movements, et cetera. Like how much of the other stuff do you do off-season? How much is hard to say, but more of it, anything nonspecific,

more of that the further away we are from a meet. Accumulation. Yeah, exactly. Right. How much GPP or just general fitness goes into it? I think people should. Like breathing hard? Yeah.

I think people should probably do it more than they do. Yeah. To answer your question in a weird way. There's something to say about having a sufficient cardiovascular capacity to actually be able to recover from your training. Sure. We did the one-ton challenge in Vegas at Olympia, and I put them on a 15-minute clock.

We had three, like, well, pit bulls, probably like 200 pounds. Right. Super jacked. I know. The traps looked like a fucking skateboard ramp. Giant traps. And then we had two other guys that were, like, at least 275 each. And, like, four squats in.

And I was like, oh, you guys, we don't need a time limit anymore. Like, they were breathing so heavy after four squats that, like, they're wrapping themselves up. It was, like, it was basically just, like, a conditioning effort for them to get to 500 pounds. I think that's something they should probably work on. I love the IPF. It was my favorite going to there because it was very fast. If you're not in good shape and you go to the IPF World,

that fitness level right there would get you killed. I was talking to somebody the other day who went to the IPF World, and they literally finished their whole meet in an hour and a half so like those guys would be dead you know yeah yeah yeah but i like being conditioned because i can you know it's all about it is when you when we talked about volume a second ago and he talked about more about how many certain lifts can you get in but the more of those lifts you can get in, you know, the better off you are. That, if you can, like, if you did, you know, X amount of, like, 60 to 70, X amount of 70 to 80, X amount of 80 to 90, you know, in 2019, in 2020, the goal is to be able to do more.

So if I get in shape and I can do more of those lifts, then I'm going to get stronger unless I get hurt. Are you programming much GPP, just general fitness work? Yeah, I do some, yeah. It's easy to overdo, but it's kind of low-hanging fruit. It doesn't require that much to get up on a sufficient level to actually be able to survive your workouts. So we're not talking like hours every week. Yeah, just a few minutes.

Like 20 minutes at the end of your session to push a slide and do strong hand stuff. If you're doing it on your off days, then fine. It doesn't really matter. As long as it doesn't interfere or steal too much energy from your main workouts, then whatever. Yeah. Bench press, the leg drive. Yes.

Yes or no leg drive. Yes. Me too. Agreed. Some people literally don't use leg drive yes or no, leg drive me too, some people literally don't use leg drive at all when you say leg drive are you pushing your feet straight down or are you pushing back so that also depends on the person, but usually

what seems to make people click is to tell them to try to scoot over towards the head of the bench, like push that way agreed, yeah, push back then you have, the way I see it tell them to try to scoot over towards the head of the bench right push that way agreed yeah push back yeah and then you have the way i see it usually two main styles with the entire leg dry thing one where you have a constant pressure from your legs to help create that tension and just keep you rigid and then you have the other version where you actually allow yourself to sink

in a bit and then get the push i was about to ask about that yeah is that one you prefer yeah i prefer that one it's it's a bit harder but i think if you master it you can get a little more out of it yeah it's a timing thing yeah if you're a person that fails right off your chest then that that seems pretty valuable that would save me you know because that was where you know i fell right off my chest and the leg drive that that saved me it's like that timing if you watch the guy like dan green not yeah at all but but like that timing. If you watch a guy like Dan Green, not idea at all. But like that leg drive saves him too. That's why a lot of times you have the guys who are good deadlifters

and you have the guys who are good bench pressers. And they don't tend to go that well together because the great deadlifter has longer arms and a great bench presser normally has shorter arms. But so if you can create some pretty good leg drive and get the bar going, then you can equalize that. That's and get the bar going then that you can equalize that that's a very interesting thing though because by doing that you're actually just ignoring the part you're weak at right you don't get any better at it so you still need to train your weakness right but having a good leg drive helps you ignore that when it comes to

competition yeah so like train it but then when competition try to, you know, to make it not such a disadvantage, really. Yeah, when you're programming out for an entire year, how many big competitions does everyone have? And like, how are you periodizing the year out?

I really try to talk them out of having more than four competitions a year, four big ones, four competitions that we peak for. You can do smaller meets like local meets. We have this system here in Sweden where you gather points for your powerlifting team throughout the year, and you have a finals, like a series. So those are not important for the world-level lifters,

but maybe they want to do it because it's in their hometown. Then fine, just go do that, but don't peak. Hit 90% or something, yeah. But not more than four peaked meets in a year, because it's really hard to have time to actually build up something to peak of. So in a 12-week block, how long is that kind of

accumulation phase, and then getting people to a peak? It's going to differ. But I would say it also depends on how you define peaking. But I would say no more than four weeks is a peaking period. Right. Like you can have more specific preparations before that,

but the peak itself is not more than four weeks. So that would make it like eight weeks, just basic training before that. Right. So eight weeks of basic, four weeks just basic training. Yeah. Right. So, oh, I see what you're saying. Eight weeks of basic, four weeks of peak. Yeah. Go compete.

Yeah. So, now, how do you do, do you do, like, daily undulating periodization or do you do, like, tens, fives, threes? If you had to, like, define it, it would be daily undulating, yes. Me too. Yeah. So, I think that's huge for like um you know what i found especially females because if you do your tens they'll set tons of prs their 10 rep maxes

they'll get stronger and stronger and stronger and then same sometimes even with like sixes and fives but then it sometimes won't transition to threes and ones but if i'm always doing some absolute strength work along the way i think you have a better product or a definite better outcome for especially females or even some males who like you know yeah i think goes for both yeah i agree too yeah i feel like that just keeps people healthier too yeah that getting the volume work in not just pushing ones and threes yeah and five being your highest set just never you just don't get the volume work

and just the practice of good hypertrophy and growing what about squatting every day you know like the

Bulgarian method applied to powerlifting good or bad I've only tried it personally so I haven't trained anyone

with that style but I did it personally a few years back and it worked really well me too for a while

me too then I hurt my back and it worked really well me too for a while me too then I hurt my back but I was really strong me too worth it yeah absolutely it worked

I did it 2015 was like the last time I was strong that's actually when you guys came to the farm and I wasn't real strong but I squatted

I mean I deadlifted 700 pounds cold cold on camera in that video sober not sober mostly sober I wasn't real strong, but I squatted 700. I mean, I deadlifted 700 pounds cold. Cold. Yeah. On camera. In that video. Sober. Not sober.

Mostly sober. I was drinking. Mostly. I was sober. All day. In the summer in North Carolina. Helping it strong. But I think that's pretty much what ended my being able to be strong.

That period of my life, that was like the ending right there. That moment, I had like a few weeks after that, and then that's the last I've lifted heavy. Yeah. What I consider heavy. Right on, man. This has been a pleasure. We got some cold tub to go dunk into and then a beautiful Swedish sauna waiting for us. I wish it could come.

I wish it could too. You definitely can. All right. I don't know who's holding you back, but they're not making your life as fun as it could be. The government, my wife, has made plans. Yeah. So you don't have to go home, but it's a better decision to. I'm recommended to.

Yeah, I've been recommended to go home. I know about that recommendation. Me too. Can I just hang at the gym for a little bit? You mind if I go train for three hours? Yeah. I recommend you not. Okay. I normally get up your ass home. Can I just hang at the gym for a little bit? Do you mind if I go train for three hours? Yeah. I recommend you not. Okay.

I normally get up. Yeah. You can't. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So if people want to be coached by you, what is your coaching availability online? How do you run your program?

Yeah, I do some personal online coaching. Not very much on a big scale because I need to keep up with the national team and my daytime job here. But I'm on Instagram. My handle is Oscar Bjork

as my name. How do you spell that? Yeah. That is O-S-C-A-A-R. A-A-R. You hear that, crazy Americans? You hear that?

That's the way you really spell it. B-A-J-O-R-K. It's it. B-A-J-O-R-K. B-A-J-O-R-K. Yeah. Awesome. Do you have a website? Not anymore.

I don't. There you go. Focus on Ileko. There it is. Coach Travis Mash. Mashelite.com. You can do Instagram at Mashelite Performance. Doug Larson.

Right on. Find me on Instagram at Douglas E. Larson. I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner. We're the Shrug Collective at the Shrug Collective. OneTonChallenge.com. Squat. Dead. Bench.

Snatch. Clean. Jerk. Goals to hit 2,000 pounds. 1,200 for you ladies. Get over there. Download our free e-book. Make it strong.

People stronger. We'll see you next Wednesday. Bye. That's a wrap, friends. How exciting. One Ton Challenge World Championships happen at the Nor Classic, May 19th to the 21st. Tons of details to follow. If you are a gym owner interested in hosting an event, send me an email.

Anders at barbellshrugged.com. The livemomentous.com forward slash shrugged. Save $20 on your order. Use the coupon code shrugged, save $20 on your order. Use the coupon code shrugged20. And Organifi.com forward slash shrugged, saving 20% on your first order. Whoop.com, use the coupon code shrugged to save $30 on a 12 or 18 month membership.

And then all you badasses out there interested in checking out the special operations, head over to airforce.com forward slash special ops. We'll reach out to a recruiter and learn how you can be a part of the nation's baddest warriors. That's a wrap, friends. We are heading into the holidays. We've got a very cool New Year's sale coming up, and we'll learn more about that next week. Have a good weekend. you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you Thank you. We'll be right back. We'll see you next time.