Barbell Shrugged - Intra-Workout Rest Intervals to Build Muscle w/ Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Coach Travis Mash Barbell Shrugged #593

Episode Date: July 12, 2021

In this Episode of Barbell Shrugged:   Optimal rest intervals to buil muscle How to get more work done faster Best rest intervals for hypertrophy When does strength cross over into conditioning  Based on sport and performance, how do you optimize rest   Anders Varner on Instagram   Doug Larson on Instagram   Coach Travis Mash on Instagram   ————————————————   Diesel Dad Mentorship Application: https://bit.ly/DDMentorshipApp   Diesel Dad Training Programs: http://barbellshrugged.com/dieseldad   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   Organifi - Save 20% using code: “Shrugged” at organifi.com/shrugged   BiOptimizers Probitotics - Save 10% at bioptimizers.com/shrugged   Garage Gym Equipment and Accessories: https://prxperformance.com/discount/BBS5OFF Save 5% using the coupon code “BBS5OFF”

Shrugged family, this week on Barbell Shrugged, we are talking about intra-workout rest intervals to build muscle. That's right, how long you should be resting. The science of rest, look at that. How long you should be resting in between specific exercises as well as specific sets based on your goal, based on the sport you're playing, based on your training and where you would like to go. Talking about optimal rest

intervals to build muscle, how to get more work done faster, progressive overload in your ability to do the same amount of work in less time, which makes it harder, easier to build muscles, rest intervals for hypertrophy, when does strength cross over into conditioning and you actually may be harming your own goals. And then based off the sport you actually play, how do you optimize your rest? But before we get into the show, we got to talk about our friends over at Organifi. Most of us could use more energy in our day, but caffeine can only do so much. At some point, we need to look at the root causes of our fatigue. It turns out two main factors are low energy and chronic stress and a lack of nutrition. Organifi creates delicious superfood blends that address both of these problems.

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Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Anders Varner, Doug Larson, Coach Travis Bass. Today on Barbell Shrugged, we're talking about rest periods. During your training, how to optimize strength. But there's so many other goals in this thing because I don't take many rest periods when I'm working out. But, bros, do you want to know week three? Week three is like beginning of week three. It's easy now. Do you know what know week three? Week three? It's like beginning of week three. It's easy now. Do you know what little dude did yesterday?

He had his first training session. Made him walk around the block with me twice. You got to hold on. We're working on core support. We're working on core stability today. Yeah. Core stability. Like a koala bear that's attached to you.

That's right. You got to hold him in all the positions that they're uncomfortable. So they're like, sometimes I think he's not even crying he's just trying to stabilize such a yeah right like i'm trying to open my eyes and you're making me hold on to you yeah i carry him like a little football so he's like he's gotta he's gotta wrap on he's gotta wrap it up you didn't even see colors yet dad you're having sex this is too far i know um i'm surviving though i got sleep's been i'm like six and a half hours of sleep a night unbelievable um doug larson you bet tell me about rest periods dude how do we how do we talk to the

people about rest periods uh well like like anything we talk to the people about rest periods? Well, like anything, it's a goal-dependent question, which I think for the most part, it's pretty simple. Like if it's strength or power or accuracy driven, then you take longer rest periods because you need to be rested. And if it's more aerobic capacity or muscular endurance or even strength endurance oriented, then you take shorter rest periods. It just depends on what you're trying to accomplish if you're trying to get what you know a bigger one rep max and that's like your specific goal you need longer rest periods but if you're if you're an mma fighter or something like that like you might do you know heavy cluster

sets like emoms and things like that where you're doing something heavy frequently but not all the way to failure so you can keep muscular or sorry keep your strength endurance as high as possible so everything comes down to what you're trying to train for yeah mash what uh when you just got done with all your master stuff where what is all this research at these days where where do they um like teach you i think when when i first started out in reading all the bodybuilding magazines it was like if you're not taking exactly three minutes, you're leaving all the gains on the table. So I listened to them. Three minutes is kind of the golden standard. There's been studies done at like one minute and under and then three minutes.

But not a lot of studies done at like two minutes, but like a couple out there would show that, you know, really between two to three would be fine, you know, and it's very individual. That's the problem too. But definitely, you know, like if you're trying, if your goal is hypertrophy and you're trying to get, you know, gain muscle, get strong, you know, one minute might be too short, even though, you know, Louie Simmons did it for years, you know, with dynamic effort, but it's not an even though, you know, Louie Simmons did it for years, you know, with dynamic effort. But it's not an all-out, you know,

dynamic is not necessarily going to muscular fatigue. It's going to speed, you know. So there you have it. That's pretty much the – There's some studies that would say up to five minutes or more if you're looking at post-activation potentiation. So you do, like, a squat and you want to do a jump,'re saying up to five which is not it's just not practical so yeah yeah it's definitely not practical actually when you when you uh when you dig into like some of the french contrast stuff that you've been doing um my favorite by the way but yeah yeah what um those

move through it pretty quick and that's all about power output. Right. But what you're doing is like you're doing – like even though there's four things together, you're not going anywhere close to fatigue on either. So you might do a one-rep squat at 80% or 80% to 85% as fast as you can, and then you're going to do like a jump, a weighted jump, and you're going to do an unweighted jump, and you're going to do like, you know, a jump, you know, a weighted jump and you can do an unweighted jump. And you're going to do an over, over speed jump. You're only doing like,

you know, one to three reps total per set, but in between those four, you are resting, you know, two to three minutes. I would say for that, probably three would be good, but that's individual. It depends on how fast you can recover. And it's easy. If you're using velocity, it's easy to see if you're resting enough because if velocity drops at all, either you need to shut the whole thing down or rest more. We're having the velocity guys on.

I can't wait for that. I didn't know they were out of Australia. Yeah, Australia. We're going over there next year. Me too, with you. When are we going? We're getting those dates right now that's how you invite yourself on your friends international trips yes just like

that well where are we going we got our we got our bro time cut short today but because of me because i had a meeting but you were going to france in january so i was definitely going to ask y'all about that so what what that. What's going on in France? We're doing a seminar on – Besides you and Drew just romancing each other all over the place. Right. So we're going to – Brian Mann and I are doing a seminar. They requested us to come do weightlifting

and a velocity-based training seminar over there. So we're going to go there. Who's that? Some group in France. You know, some group that Phil talked to. And it's either going to be in France or it could be in Switzerland, which I'm hoping. I want to go to Switzerland.

Go to Switzerland. I know. Dude, I'm dying to go to Switzerland. Me too. That's like huge on my bucket list. Me too. I want to go to Lauterbrunnen. You know where Lauterbrunnen is?

No. It's like the most beautiful place in the world. Google Lauterbrunnen. It looks incredible. Oh, yeah. The world is open, friends. We're going across water. Large bodies of water again.

It's happening. Thank God. I'm so excited. Yeah. I think the easiest way for me to think about rest periods and how is to get a friend and then train with them. And the amount of time it takes to change the weights out and have a good conversation and get the other person to lift the weights scientifically proves that that amount of time is the best way to rest for maximal gains. It's the most unscientific possible way to do it. But have you ever had like a training partner where it doesn't end up being the exact amount of time that you need to do,

like to rest, hang out, get your friends all motivated, someone lifts weights, change the weights out? It comes out to about three minutes. You're probably right right you're probably dead on i'm a hundred percent right yeah we've been standing around barbells talking shit to it to people for decades right it's the exact amount of time if you do it with a friend and you're not sitting there hanging out on your watch looking waiting for all the perfect the perfect scenario you just go get a friend that's what i do do. If I'm training with somebody, that's what we do. I love doing straight sets when I have a partner.

I never want to do them when I'm by myself. Yeah. Doing a set and then sitting around for three minutes and waiting. It's either doing it Metcon style where I'm bouncing from exercise to exercise. E-mom aesthetics. I'm doing supersets and triceps just like E-mom aesthetics, 100%, where you're getting a rest. You can do front squats the first minute and push-ups the minute well that while you're doing push-ups you're you're

resting your legs in some capacity yeah i would i wouldn't recommend that again if you're if one rep maxes are your your very specific goal but if aesthetics and just general fitness is your goal then then putting exercises back to back to back where you're you're getting rest on one while you're working on something else you're working on you know you're getting a conditioning effect all at the same time is totally ideal. Yeah. Here's the exact amount of time you shouldn't spend resting. Whatever the amount of time is that you go directly to your phone and scroll Instagram in between. So your brain goes off in the middle of nowhere and you're just thumbing around for nine straight minutes.

Cause you don't know how fast time flies when you're on Instagram. It goes fast. It'll take your whole day. It'll take your whole day. And then all of a sudden, 10 minutes, you got to go do a warm-up again. So, get a friend or do EMOM aesthetics because EMOM aesthetics, you get like 20 seconds of rest. That's the best. You go back and forth, a couple supersets, you get a little conditioning. I think those are like the perfect, see, when I'm training by myself, exactly like Doug was talking about, if I do the straight sets through, I'm lost because it's too much time, right? So if you can pick exercise or do, if you're training by yourself, exercise selection gets really cool because if you could superset, like he said, just go squat into a push-up

squat into a row something along those lines so you're not overtaxing specific body parts we're just going to wake up brutally sore the next day but doing it so that you just are constantly moving because so many people in like specifically in the crossfit space the word metcon whatever that is but what you're trying to do is in the smallest amount of time by yourself, ensure that you're lifting some sort of heavy weight, multiple different exercises in which you're getting between eight and 15 reps. And then probably one like burnout set where it's like multiple sets of 15 to 20 to be able to really just get a sick pump and feel awesome. And if you're lifting something that's heavy in like the three to five range, well, then you can go do a set of pushups

for like 12. And that amount of time, you're not messing up your leg workout. You're not overtaxing any pressing muscles. And at the same time, you get about a 20 second rest. So overall, it's roughly going to be a minute, minute and a half of rest in between, but you're not doing anything that's like overwhelmingly taxing. And you're going to get some sort of conditioning benefit in there just because you're constantly moving. And for me, that is like the perfect scenario because I don't have like when I'm doing straight sets by myself, it makes everything so boring. I don't even want to sit there and do that. I know how easy it is to get lost on your phone because I'm that guy.

I'm the dude that's like, got to wait, got to wait, got to recover. Next thing you know, you're on your Explorer page, and that's terrifying. You don't want to be on Explorer page in the middle of working out. Got bad vibes on the Explorer page. I think sometimes people think when they think progressive overload all they think about is like more volume more volume and but i think a couple two other things you can think about the two progressively overload and i have to admit i i saw greg knuckles write about this years ago but he's talking about you know try to do the exact same workout but faster or the other part would be you know to lift the same weights fast you know to do

the weights faster so mash i think i'm gonna do that i of all the ways i've lifted weights i've never done the same workout for like 30 straight sessions and just tried to get better at it i mean like christopher som Sommer used to do that with his gymnastics guys? I think that's a great idea. What do you do with them? Just have them doing the same sets and reps, the same workout,

but getting it done in a quicker amount of time. Gymnastics programming is probably a much different thing. You don't want to do, I mean, I guess in a way you could, if you went three days a week, you could do the same training program for,

um, especially if it's a full body pull up squats, some sort of press. I definitely try to do, I do a very similar workout for several weeks in a row and try to improve that workout, either lift more weight, lift the same weight faster, you know, higher average intensity, you know, whatever it is,

try to improve a little bit at it. And so far it's really working. I try to get the most out of these. I think people try to, you know, they'll watch somebody do, like, you know, velocity-based training, or they'll watch somebody do some kind of fancy training, and they want to jump right into that. And what I recommend is, like, start where you are and keep doing the most simple thing possible

for as long as that'll work. And when that stops working, you know, go one step up. But, you know, when you go to the very end, in the beginning, like where are you going to go now? You know, so. Yeah. I mean, that's like just wisdom, right? Right.

You go, you start doing these basic things and then you get all lost in the middle. Sometimes you win world championships, become the strongest man in the world in the middle though. Sometimes. But you try all the stuff and then you get to a point you go, oh. It's easy. Oh, I was supposed to have a good friend to hang out with. Right. I was supposed to talk some shit and have some good conversation.

Yeah. And then I was going to lift weights when i was done talking smack that's it i think that's a great point you you do you do your you get your rest your rest built in you get your communication built in you have all the fun and then you do front squats you gotta make sure you choose the right guy though because like i used to hate with a bunch of power lifters they take too long and i like i like to go i actually wanted to dig in one of the reasons because i wanted to dig into the power lifting thing of why they just sit around and why do what olympic weightlifters just sit in between sets you know that's like one of the very first rules my dad it's still there's like weird things in your life that probably someone's ever said to you that just stick with you for no reason they have no real basis but they just stick with you my dad like the very first like month of me

training was like you should never sit in a gym I still never sit down same thing never have I ever sat down while I'm training specifically because my dad said that to me in the very first 30 days. It drives Coach King crazy. I hate it. It drives me nuts. They're looking for absolute all-out contractions each set. So it's like it's

different. It doesn't make you so unathletic. It makes you so like the whole point is movement. I would definitely not call Ryan Grimsland unathletic. I would think he could do about anything he wants to do. In his spare time, he almost won Waterpalooza in his spare time once. He was second.

If he could swim, he would have won it easily. So, like, I wouldn't call him unathletic. Yeah. Or Morgan can do anything he can throw a football further than anybody he can do handstand walks forever i don't know how you found these kids i don't either like that's luck i love to like make it up and just say i'm such a good coach but i do get lucky so um earlier we were talking about decreasing rest intervals kind of week by week i think that works particularly well when you're you're trying to like hit a certain pace of something say you run a seven

minute mile but you want to run a six minute mile so yeah a mile is four laps around the track that's a minute 30 pace uh six minute mile you know there's 10 of those in an hour so that's a 10 minute mile and so you're trying to run it at a 10 minute mile pace but maybe you can only do that for like one or two laps and then you're then you have to slow down so you could do something like you you run you have all of your single laps your 400 meter sprints have to be below 130 and if you if you have if you can keep that pace with like a three minute break in between then next time you do a two minute and 45 minute or sorry two minute 45 second break still trying to hit the 130s if you if you hit 130 on all of them then you bump it down to two and a half minutes and

you keep cycling your way down that way that's brilliant you're training at the pace you need you're building capacity at the right speed right if you're just jogging out if you're jogging at a slower speed like running full speed sprints and going jogs, it's not the same range of motion. It's not the same fatigue in the same places. It's not the same thing. So you need to run at the correct pace and get good at running at that pace, build capacity at that pace. So by using the rest interval model, you can train at the proper pace the whole time just and build your conditioning at that pace and then eventually you do it all in one go that's like exactly

i got probably accidentally but it just feels right when you're doing that how at the beginning of uh quarantine last year when i did like the three months of track work i had one day of like pure 400s where we just bumped the rest intervals down and then one long day. Um, and then one day we were just all out sprints, hundreds, forties, like just really short, really fast. So I was hitting all of the times that would like get me to a faster mile, having some sort of long aerobic piece, some sort of super sprinting piece, and then the 400s to time everything.

But I always, I was focusing the majority of the time on making sure that those intervals, I was still able to hit my my 400s inside specific intervals with decreasing rest each week building up to the 630 mile you guys ever you guys know alex vieta the guy who's he like pretty much made the the concurrent training popular again yeah yeah has he been on our show? No, we got to get, I love the guy. Like we're pretty good buddies. I bought his book years ago and read it. You know, it's all about how do you train? How did you do powerlifting with, you know, long distance running? And that's basically in his running model. Yeah.

It was like someday, like two days a week where like nothing, but what you were saying, Doug, you know, interval training. One or two days was like low intensity steady state, which, you know, not so hard. So you're going to get that specificity that you're after in those interval days. And then one day would be something totally different, like rowing,

biking, something, you know, outside the box, just to get your heart strong. But it was a really cool program. That is what I lack the most. I started – I've been doing cardio now and working out hard for about a month. But I've got to, like, get a goal for my cardio. I'm scared to get it because I know once I set that goal, I'm going to do it. And so I'm afraid to set that goal.

How's your hip for running? Are you able to get it because I know once I set that goal, I'm going to do it. And so I'm afraid to set that goal. How's your hip for running? Are you able to get out and sprint? I've been biking so far, you know, but I don't know. And I think that I don't think it's going to make it any worse. You know, if I can squat, if I can front squat, you know, 400 pounds, then I can probably run. So I just got to get out there and do it. I feel like swimming would be –

Dude, last week I did 16 50s with my neighbor, and he beat the crap out of me. Really? Like punished me. That's hard to believe. Like a college swimmer? Yeah. He definitely knew how to swim.

The problem when it gets into stuff like that like if you just want to meet like jamaica for example i can just go the distance and be in good shape and know that i'm gonna be able to swim as far but i can pace it out so that i can breathe and breaststroke when i need to catch my breath but when you're doing like a a mid i wouldn't 50s probably not even that's like one lap in a uh olympic pool but two laps in my pool um there's like turning there's like form when you do 16 of them so like for the first seven or eight i was pretty tight with him and he's like he also probably weighs like 25 pounds less than me my lower half turns into an anchor yeah my my ass just

drops after i get tired because it's just i'm not are you good at the turning and all that you know the turning on the walls and all that i don't really try the pool stuff is like just super fun because it's just out of my like wheelhouse but i can do it yeah so i like to go do it and i only get to do it during the summer really like the pool's not open most of the time and i'm not like a member at the ymca where you get to go swim all the time um but yeah dude 1650s crushed me because it was like sprint, but also a really long ways. I wonder if getting in the pool would be good for you. It would definitely be good for me.

It would probably be nice on your hip. My dad's hip replaced me. He goes swimming all the time now. I need to do it. I love swimming, and I'm pretty good. That's one thing I would like to get better at, to be really good at swimming. That specifically was how we did it. So if I was to actually be focusing on the swimming training, we went 16 50s on the minute

and a half. So it's like the first ones take like 40 seconds. The first like eight were like 40 seconds. And then I got my, my last one was like 50. So my goal would be to get all of them basically right at inside 38 to 42 seconds. And once I was able to do that on the minute and a half, then you bump it down to 125. Shit. That'd be super fun.

Yeah. I think that's like, yeah, it'd be really hard. That's what I was doing with that workout, holding my breath for the 25 yards. And I got it so that I was able to go every minute on the minute for 20 laps underwater, basically on the minute. That was really challenging because I was doing that like once or twice a week when i had access to a pool what is the point of the holding the breath um the point really at the time was just that i had gotten back from laird's house doing all the underwater training and i wanted to go play figure out how to how to do it um but i started just wondering can I go 25 yards? And then you can. And then doing it for 20 gets you to what?

Maybe it's 20 meters, something like that. Whatever the standard length of a pool is, 20 meters. 20 of them gets you to 500 meters, which is pretty solid. So I just made that up. And then once you realize you can do it, then you just start putting some metrics to it. How long can layers stay under the pool? I mean, I would assume three, four minutes, five minutes.

What? Mash, you could get to a three-minute breath hold very easily. I can do two minutes pretty easily. I can do two minutes in any moment. That's as far as I've ever gone. When you have somebody doing breath work stuff with you, a three-minute breath hold is doable by most people. Really?

That's in good shape. Wow. There's a lot of just over-oxygenating your system system and then you just use the oxygen that's in you and you don't need it anymore doug doug have you done any of this yeah i actually have uh i did i did it with brian mckenzie a couple times at some of our masterminds uh years ago and and did have did have that experience where you do you do the breath work uh and then you can hold your breath for much like twice as long as you think you're the breath work uh and then you can hold your breath for much like twice as long as you think you're going to be able to and no kidding and everybody

everyone that's doing it all has kind of the same experience so um like even if you watch like like people that do you know free diving or like when david blaine did his like um he was like in a big glass sphere basically and he was trying to hold his breath for some absurd amount of time i forget what it was he was trying to set a record so it was probably like i don't know 12 15 minutes or something like that like i have to look it up but a long fucking time that's a long time to hold your breath no so he did a lot of a lot of breath work hyperventilating so to speak before he before he went under yeah i highly recommend people not start in a pool because shallow water blackouts is a very real thing. And I've only actually ever done like water pool workouts with clients twice because it's terrifying. Like I wouldn't know what to do if somebody blacked out.

Hopefully get them out of water. Yeah. But after that, I'm sure they've taken like one breath in the water while they were blacked out to catch their breath of water yeah after that step one they've taken like one breath in the water while they were blacked out to catch their breath and they got water in their lungs i would be out i wouldn't know what to do um i'm no part of that yeah the only people that i was like ever the only one client and it was because i knew that he was like a very advanced surfer and he had been held down many times so being underwater was like a very advanced surfer and he had been held down many times. So being underwater was like a normal occurrence in his life.

But, um, it's just, it's a little freaky. Things can go bad quickly. Um, yo back, back to the rest of the thing.

I have a, um, a quick comment on hypertrophy. So, uh, there's good research out of those shows that, you know, longer rest intervals,

you know, three, three to five minutes do better than one to two minutes, that type of thing. And I think one of the potential reasons there is they say you want to do five sets of 10 on front squats or something like that. And so if you do a one minute, 60 second rest interval, well, maybe you're gonna be able to use, let's, 100 kilos. But if you have three minutes or five minutes, well, maybe now you're doing five sets of 10 with 130 kilos, like something that's significantly heavier. And so at the end of the day, you accumulated 50 reps with 130 versus 100, and you just get a better hypertrophy response. Like you get way more mechanical tension.

You're probably going to get more muscle damage. Maybe the metabolic stress, like the metabolite buildup is higher. You feel more of a pump, so to speak, when you have the shorter rest interval. But I think that's – I'm making this percentage up. That's like 5% of the equation. Like muscular tension – or sorry, mechanical tension is the big one. And then metabolic stress and muscle damage kind of come secondary. I don't know if that's like all the way flushed out in the literature. Cause all three of those,

they're all, they're all so intertwined and it's kind of, it's like kind of flushed out, but like kind of not because they're so intertwined. You can't have metabolic, metabolic stress or muscle damage without mechanical tension. You can't say it's just that. So it's kind of,

it's kind of tough, but it's, it's kind of widely accepted at this point that mechanical tension is the big one. Well, used to they would say that you would want to go minute to 30 seconds rest because it would increase that short-term, like, metabolic response. I mean, hormonal response. So then you'd get an increase in testosterone, growth hormone, IGF-1.

And so they just assumed that that meant more imperturbability and then come to find out that they had zero to do with hyperactivity because those things only work long term meaning like a sustained amount of growth hormone igf1 and testosterone and so those you know the short response of each did not was not that was only, it was mainly mechanical tension and a little bit, you know, definitely metabolic stress plays a part. But like, yeah, the big thing was hormonal. The hormonal response was what everybody was saying. You know, especially when I was in the nineties that they were, it was like short, short rest, get it, you know, get pumped. And that's how you got huge.

I read that in all the bodybuilding magazines. Totally. The hormonal response to the short rest intervals was like that was par for the course like everybody responses i heard people talk about all the time it was like part of the part of the uh the fitness world back then more so much more so than today none of those led to any kind of like hypertrophy so you look at like the you know the pathways none of those led to any type of you know pathways of of um hypertrophy so it was just a thing i guess you got a pump though and so felt good definitely felt good but um but it wasn't it wasn't helping yeah i think also just in in understanding like what your goal is, going kind of back to the beginning of if you're just kind of starting out and trying to grow muscle and you haven't been at this

game, doing a program like EMOM Aesthetics may not be the best. There's a kid that hits me up on Instagram all the time that just weighs like 140 pounds and he's trying to get big and he's doing like higher intensity training. When I say higher intensity, more like, um, like emom aesthetics, like conditioning with higher,

heavier weights. And I'm just like, dude, you got to stop all the conditioning pieces right now and just lift as much weight as possible for as many reps as as possible but it needs to be really really heavy as soon as you can go trigger everything like there's there's this weird disconnect in and i think it really plays into just this idea of taking rest and what feels like working out right there's like on one end, a Metcon,

there's zero rest and you're going as hard as you can and you feel like you've worked out so hard. Right, you're smashed. But what you've really done is like been breathing really fast. You're doing some things and you're working on conditioning, but it's not going to get you to the strength goals that you want. You're moving submaximal loads. You're increasing your heart rate. You're doing a lot of very healthy things, but you're not. I take thresholds, which is a good thing. You're not building muscle during those stages. Yes, you're accumulating volume. And if you're doing deadlifts at 225 for 75 reps,

yeah, there's something going on there, but it's not the, the end goal that you're looking for at the beginning stages of your weight training career. You need to have very dedicated time in which you are hitting sets of three that are really heavy. And then moving to sets of eight that are really heavy. And so that's a 12 that are really heavy. And in order to hit these and eights and twelves over and over and over again,

you have to rest. Like there's many times where as somebody that has done this for so long, I feel like the training that I'm doing right now, like it's so good. It's like perfect for my life, but it's only perfect for my life because there's 25 previous summers that I've been lifting weights in a stage that was perfect for my life then. And for the first probably 20 of those, it was like lift really, really heavy for every single rep range and take big breaks in between. And then when I want to add conditioning in, which was really like a decade of CrossFit, it's like, those weights are easy. You have conditioning built in. But if the goal is to get strong and you're at the very beginning stages, you should be taking longer

rest periods, trying to focus specifically on moving as much weight as possible for whatever rep range you're training in and understanding that building muscle takes a very long time and the only way that you're going to be very successful at it is to lift very very heavy through a full range of motion in every rep scheme that you can think of and conditioning feels like you're working out because you haven't put the time into understanding like the the mind body connection to really intensely lifting weights you don't know how challenging a set of three can be or a set of two set of five feels like 50 sometimes like you have to go to that place so many times to be able to almost like progressively overload the amount of intensity that you bring to each set because

everybody can do burpees. Like that's, that's like on the exact opposite end of a really heavy set of five. Like it feels like you're working out more when there's no rest and it feels like it's really hard. But after you learn how to lift really heavy, a set of five is terrifying. Like a double, that's like 99% of your one RM because like your body can get there if you really want it to. That's like gut-wrenching. If you told Ryan Grimsland that he has to do 10 RMs, he's going to be like, fuck.

Matter of fact, he told me he's not doing it. He said I'm not doing that anymore. He's never said anything like that to me. And one day he's like, I'm not doing 10s again. Speaking of the one RM, he just squatted 500, right? Yeah, 500. And when he stood that 500 up, I might be wrong. It wasn't in the training session.

But the look on his face because it took him a second to walk it in was i think i could do that for two and then he decided against it yeah he was definitely contemplating something he stood there for a long time like i think i could do this and then it was like nah let's wait another day for that it's so painful yeah fine i mean that was a huge jump for him that was like a 10 kilo pr it was for a guy who hasn't gone up in weight and who looks like a man these days he is i'm watching to do it right now he's going to look like a man these days but like how long i mean when did he show when he showed up he was what 13 14 years old coming from crossfit yeah just right so coming

from crossfit like he probably has this like gigantic engine is coming to you to learn how to lift weights right that's all he can do burpees and it feels like he's been working out and training really really hard and you go okay well today we're going to do this little thing called 10 by 10 yeah and a lot of that now we're going to learn how to get strong and it takes a lot longer because there's so many like additional demands that go into lifting heavy weights. Like you have to move well, you have to understand when it's just squatting, pressing, benching, there's, there's a,

there's a mind body connection to actually feeling the right pocket to sit in when you're squatting or benching. Like it's just, it's a, they're funky movements when you're a beginner and they come with all these insecurities of, am I doing it right? Like this guy next to me has got 315 on the bar and I'm at 95. Like, what do I do? How long is it going to take to get there? And people just, it's, it's much harder to understand the intensity that you have to bring to lifting a set of two because doing a set of 50 burpees seems like a better workout.

You're going to be more gassed, especially as a beginner. It does, yeah. Especially as a beginner, like to do 50 burpees seems like a better workout because you're just – you're tired. You're sweating more if you walk into somebody that you know and that needs to be doing threes fives eights they don't they just don't have the they don't have that in the the capability to like get to that intensity for a little while yeah if you're a crossfit coach like i remember back like crossfit.com used to program like seven sets of singles on deadlifts and things like that and that would be the only thing you're supposed to do that day and and we would have people at our gym do that but like the new people like like the soccer moms

like they're doing just seven reps with for them it's not even actually even close to like a true one rep max and you know even even if it is it's it's like they're deadlifts in 125 or whatever it is. So they do seven reps at 125 and then they go, I didn't feel like I did anything. And they're kind of like disappointed with the workout. And so it's like, you need to know your audience and what their goals are and what they're going to feel good about. Granted, doing those deadlifts, assuming they did them correctly and all that, like there's going to be some benefit to that. But for those days, we always made sure to throw in something at the very end it's like you're going to do all that and then you're going to row a 500 for time right after after a short break just to

give them some something at the end of the workout where they're like oh that was hard okay i'm ready to go home now that feeling of accomplishment that they're all looking for i think that also too like when you get into the conditioning piece, like first off, making somebody row 500 for time, that's relatively new is one of the meanest tricks you can possibly pull on somebody. Well, they asked for it though.

I've had people literally call out sick from work after coming in in the morning and doing like a 500 meter row test. They're like, I just can't go to work today. I'm just going to lay in bed. I'm done. But that is also a piece that is like really challenging for people to understand how hard you should be pushing in like interval training. Like if you had somebody get on the erg and tell them that they need to hit a 500 at a 90% – like um, what's the, what's the aerobic, aerobic monster does a great job of that

because it's, you have your, your 5k test, which call it 20 minutes, um, which basically puts you right at a two minute 500 for what? 10, 10 sets of that. Is that right? I think that's right. 10, 500 gets you to a 5K at 20 minutes. But if you were to take a percentage of that and row 205, 500, but you have to do it for many, many sets at a time, it's hard to get to those. It'd be 155, not the other way. It's really hard to maintain those top end paces for for multiple intervals and to be able to shorten that that rest interval like most people just aren't training for a specific 5k or they're like that anytime we had to do i say had to do it because it was never like super enjoyable but you sit on a rower and you're like well we

got to go breathe for an hour and you look at interval training it's like hit the exact same number for your max row in in eight minutes and then rest five and you're like whoa i don't oh that's i gotta do the same thing in 45 minutes from now that I can do in the first round. Like this is going to be really, really brutal. Yeah. But the conditioning piece, I think so many, if you look at a lot of these things and just like, I have to get this much amount of work done, that's just like this all out thing to just get to the end. It's, it's really like this all out thing to just get to the end it's it's really like a higher

higher level of thinking when you start thinking about what is your pace inside those one of the open workouts i remember that just absolutely just massacred people uh do you remember when they did the like seven minutes of burpees yeah i remember like this yeah they started off like yeah seven minutes well who did well in that workout was not the people that could do three minutes of burpees really really fast it was the people that were able to sit there like basically on a metronome and hit one every five seconds for as long as you could do it what type of person does that like who did so who did well at that uh well i'd like to raise my hand and say me in my region something like that but it was all because like you have this you have this

when you when you build i actually don't know exactly what it was but i did very well and it's only because i had the experience to understand hey this is not going to be a three-minute workout or a five-minute workout. I need to be going just as fast in minute six and seven that I did in minute one and two. So how do we pace that out? And then we had people go and test specific intervals of like, how fast can we do 10 and then rest 30 seconds? How fast can we do the next 10?

So then by the time they release it on Thursday and then everybody 30 seconds how fast can we do the next 10 so then by the by the time they release it on thursday and then everybody does it on saturday everybody knows the exact pace to get to a specific number to to get you where you need to be which is nice when you train with people that know how to do things um but how did you pace it good lord I have no idea. I was like the test dummy that did the first one. I think we did 20 as fast as you can, rest 20 seconds or rest 30 seconds, something like that, just set to 20. But then we realized that the rest period doesn't do anything. After we had a couple more people tested it, it was like we basically just set up a clock,

and it was like every five seconds, go, go. Every five seconds, do a rep. Yeah, and your coach would just sit there. And we all had our own little like what's good, what do we want, how do we get there. But if you have somebody that's on a clock every five seconds, now, now, now. You don't have to think too much. You just go but you have to test these things out and and like know what you're where you're going what did you do doug you just did you just do it or did you

have a game plan um i i didn't think too hard about it really like back then i wasn't really doing a lot of crossfit style training i was i was fighting mma and i was in in the weight room i was mostly doing uh you know hypert, speed, power stuff. Then my conditioning primarily was grappling and hitting heavy bag and doing pad work and sparring and all that. At that point actually, what year was that? even like 2011 something like that 12 yeah yeah i remember where i 10 ish years ago jim i was yeah but i but back then like i had i had probably not done 100 burpees total in training and like like the like years previous i just i never i never did burpees i because at practice i'm doing that kind of stuff all the time like in wrestling like you're you're constantly sprawling and getting back up as fast as you can.

And yeah, like that, like it's, it's a part of MMA training. So I felt, I felt totally prepared and ready to do that, even though I hadn't been doing that much crossfit style training, but,

um, you know, I, I, I, I, I, I,

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I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, the same uh the same heat as me and uh and you know knowing that i hadn't really done almost any any burpees like he was really curious like how well i would do and he came to me afterward was like what'd you get and i got it was something like like five reps less than him or something like that like he got like 123 or something like that i got like 118 or whatever it was and he goes how like how you don't even do burpees like you don't even do crossfit like like how did you do that i was like dude i fucking i'm an ma fighter like i fucking trained all the time like high intensity conditioning like that's the length of one round that's what i trained for it's like my perfect time domain it's yeah it checks all

the boxes oh yeah you know i mean like that's what i was training for i was training for three five minute rounds so it's perfect for you yeah it was great yeah and and and that back then all i did was interval training right like very little long distance steady state cardio once in a while for fun but like it was all 400 meter sprints as fast as possible and 30 second airdyne sprints as fast as possible etc and so the the intensity when i first started crossfit i didn't have like oh shit that was the most intense thing i've ever done i was like 20 minute amrap you mean i get a fucking like chill for like 18 minutes and then go hard that sounds awesome i only get really tired one time at the end yeah not every single 30 second all all out sprint where you're fucking just like, okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. In fact,

speaking to me Goldrick that one of those tired I've ever been was, uh, he came up to me while I was, I just finished coaching the class. I wasn't, I wasn't about to train at all. And he was about to do a thousand meter row. It comes up and he goes, he goes, you want to race a thousand meters? And I go, no, not, not at all. And then like 30 seconds seconds later 30 seconds later I come back and I'm like yeah absolutely let's do it like it totally changed my mind I was like I was like give me like give me like two minutes to just kind of move around for a second and then I sat down and same deal like he he beat me by by I think it was six seconds I rode like a 312 and he rode like a

306 or something like that and so but that was like one of the most tired i had ever been with no warm-up doing all out 30 seconds or a thousand meters uh you know again against somebody in a competitive session i remember walking around the gym being like the week of wheezing dude i would have was coaching CrossFit classes while wheezing. Yeah. I'm like, you guys go run. Yeah. I don't mean to run. Yeah. I don't mean getting out of the old inhaler.

Yeah, 1,000 meters. Those intervals are so brutal doing that, like trying to pace out 1,000 meters, like a little over three minutes at a time, Intervals are so brutal doing that. Like trying to pace out a thousand meters, like three, little over three minutes at a time, just doing all out is going to make you. Oh, but by the way, shout out to,

to, I just mentioned Mike McGolder twice. Shout out to me, Golder key, even to the games back in 2013, but disqualified again for this year as a team. No way. Did he really?

He's fucking stoked about it. We need to do a whole show on all the people that we used to train with that are just still smashing. Like, I'm so insanely impressed when I hear, like, Mike McGoldrick's going to the games again. I can't imagine how much training he's done since I quit CrossFit to get him to the games. Like, that is insane to me.

Yeah. Absolutely insane. Jen Ryan, she's going back. And Vic just put two teams into it again this year. They finished like first and second or first and third, something like that. I'm like, Jen Ryan, you are 40 years old. Everyone out there right now is half your age. To be your daughter.

What are you doing? What in the, how? How do you keep getting better at muscle-ups? Haven't you done a trillion of them yet? Haven't you figured it all? Just keeps crushing. I don't know how people keep the eye like that that long. There's people my age still power the thing at that high level.

I'm like, you guys are just going to do it till you die that's that's what you're about to do like uh jason coker is still at west side barbell still he just had back surgery he got pretty much his entire spine fused and he's trying to come back i'm like what yeah when you hear that mash we're gonna wrap the show but i promise i i have to know what what goes through your brain when you see somebody doing that you're like dude you gotta you need to start a business you need to put all that competitive juice into something else because the bench press doesn't love you back anymore he's gonna die he knows it i think he knows that he's going to die doing it

he'll die apparently somehow you know, that's what I believe. I believe there's a couple of them out there right now that's going to do it until it's a wrap. That's like that's how they want to go. I guess. Like, not me. I love my baby. So I love lifting heavy, but not at that level.

You know, I see them. He was doing a – he did a 440-pound bench press with his feet up, you know, in the air. And I'm like, impressive. Raw, of course. No, no, no, no, no bench shirt or that mess. I'm like, you're a beast boy. Like, yeah, I can't do anything with my feet up. I'm all leg drive. I think it's so interesting. Like, so training to me is just so like, I don't think that I ever thought about it like this until I stopped competing because everything was just always about competition for so long.

And then now there's just such a different mindset and frame around why I train that the idea of just killing myself like that. Oh, shit. I can't find any purpose to lifting like that anymore. I'm glad they can. Good for them. I just – Yeah. I wouldn't have anything left over for my family.

I know I wouldn't. I know how I get. I just wouldn't have – I would be annoyed if people were trying to keep me awake. And I can't – I'm a dad. I can't do that. Yeah, I don't want to either.

Coach Travis Bash. Where can't do that. Yeah, I don't want to either. Coach Travis Bash. Where can people find you? Mashlead.com or Instagram Mashlead Performance. Doug Larson. Right on. I'm on Instagram. Douglas E. Larson. I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner. We are Barbell Shrugged.

Barbell underscore shrugged. Get over to DieselDadMentorship.com. That is where we're helping busy dads lose 20 to 40 pounds. And if you are in San Diego, LA, Palm Springs, or Vegas, get over to Walmart. We got three programs on the shelf in the pharmacy. Friends, see you next week. That's a wrap.

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