Barbell Shrugged - Morning Routines, the Gym Industry, and Being a Diesel Dad w/ Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Travis Mash - Barbell Shrugged #534

Episode Date: December 28, 2020

In this Episode of Barbell Shrugged:   A look back at 2020 Morning routines for success Juggling fitness, fatherhood, and family Gym business in 2021 Why so many people are choosing to train at home   Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram ———————————————— Training Programs to Build Muscle: https://bit.ly/34zcGVw   Nutrition Programs to Lose Fat and Build Muscle: https://bit.ly/3eiW8FF   Nutrition and Training Bundles to Save 67%: https://bit.ly/2yaxQxa   Please Support Our Sponsors   PowerDot - Save 20% using code BBS at http://PowerDot.com/BBS    InsideTracker: insidetracker.com use code “shrugged25” to save 25%   Fittogether - Fitness ONLY Social Media App   Organifi - Save 20% using code: “Shrugged” at organifi.com/shrugged   www.masszymes.com/shruggedfree  - for FREE bottle of BiOptimizers Masszymes   Garage Gym Equipment and Accessories: https://bit.ly/3b6GZFj Save 5% using the coupon code “Shrugged”

Shrug family, this week on Barbell Shrug, we're wrapping up, putting a bow on 2020. Get out of here. We're done with 2020, which is awesome. We're heading into 2021, and we just want to do a show to say thank you to everybody. Talking about a lot of what happened in 2020, recapping some of the best shows, some of the most fun interviews we had, as well as just what happened in the gym industry in the last 10, 12 months, what happened in our training, how we've switched our business model a lot. Many of the things that went on this year that nobody was expecting,

as in whatever industry and field and life you were living 10 months ago, it's just very different now. This is a little bit of our recap on the year, as well as what we expect to have happen in 2021. Tons of talk about morning routines, things we'd like to get better at as people, as husbands, and as fathers, as well as just the excitement around 2021 and kind of like how coronavirus and being locked down and all that really has helped us center ourselves and kind of eliminate a lot of the craziness and unnecessariness that was life before being in quarantine.

So it's a super cool show, a lot more relaxing, a little less educational on the strength and conditioning front. Mainly just we wanted to have a fun show to wrap up the year and talk about life as bros. And thank you guys for everything that 2020 was and sticking with us through all this craziness. Before we get into it, though, we've got to talk about our sponsors. Over at Fit Together, you want to live in a world that loves fitness, shares workouts, eats healthy, and supports each other on their journey. Over 70% of our members are training at home.

Gyms are closing again, and tackling your fitness goals solo is a lonely process. Plus, how depressing is it when you pop on social media to get bombarded with armchair quarterbacks screaming about politics, pandemics, and vaccines like anyone actually knows what they are talking about. Social media can be positive, uplifting, and the hub for all your fitness friends. Our partners at Fit Together are doing just that. Fit Together is a free fitness-focused social media platform that just passed over 20,000 users, all of which love fitness, love eating well,

and love filling the world with positivity as they support your fitness journey. Right now, jump in on Mobility Month. Follow along with the daily pose, increase your mobility, and have a chance to win some epic prizes. Fit Together is the fitness-focused social media channel connecting you to thousands of people around the world that want to get strong, lean, and fit without all the BS of big social media. Get in, get involved, and get stretchy for Mobility Month. Head over to your app store

right now. Download the Fit Together app. F-I-T-T-O-G-E-T-H-E-R. Fit Together. F-I-T-T-O-G-E-T-H-E-R. Fit Together. F-I-T-T-O-G-E-T-H-E-R. The Fit Together app. Right now, get into the app store. It's available on all of your devices. I also want to thank our friends over at InsideTracker. Go to info.insidetracker.com. That is where you are going to find the ultra-personalized nutrition platform.

Today, more than ever, it's essential that we do all the right things to keep our bodies healthy. InsideTracker is the ultra-personalized nutrition platform that analyzes your blood, DNA, and lifestyle to help you optimize your body from the inside out. Transform your body's data into meaningful insights and a customized action plan of the science-backed recommendations you need to reach your goals. Are you ready to take control of your health and wellness journey? Unlock the power of your potential with InsideTracker. And right now, you can go to InsideTracker.com and save 25% off with the code SHRUGGED25. I just got my blood work done yesterday. In a couple weeks, we're going to be doing a show

presenting all the information live, the best nutrition supplements specifically for me based off my DNA and my blood work, and I'm really, really stoked about it. So go over to insidetracker.com and save 25% with the code shrugged25. Also, I want to thank our friends over at Organifi. Of course, Organifi is always, always top of mind.

The green, the red, and the gold. I'm filming this right now. It is 7.57. Little Diesel is about to wake up. One thing is guaranteed. I've already had my green drink. It's like the first thing I do when I get out of bed. I go make the coffee, turn the coffee machine on, crush the green drink.

A little bit later in the day, maybe hit a red, maybe hit a turmeric-based gold later in the day. I already hit the greens. I got my ashwagandha in. Do you feel this? Do you feel this? I've got low-level stress right now, low-level inflammation in my life. Life is good because the ashwagandha helps me. The green in the morning, the red in the middle of the day, the gold at night,

that's the stack. We call it the shrug stack, the sunrise, the sunset, how you get to supplement all of your vitamins and minerals, the micronutrients that you're never thinking about because you're just not smashing salads at 6 a.m. That's why you need to have some Organifi first thing in the morning. And right now you can save 20% by going to Organifi.com forward slash shrugged. That is where you save 20%. Organifi.com forward slash shrugged. That is where you save 20%.

Organifi.com forward slash shrugged. Save 20%. We are also going to thank our sponsors over at Bioptimizers. There's never a bad time to boost your immune system, but I don't need to tell you how important a strong immune system is right now. Given the global health crisis that's spreading across the planet, P3OM are probiotics that improve your digestion and nutrition absorption, helping ensure your digestive tract and immune system stay strong and healthy.

While many other probiotics on the market don't even survive, your own stomach acid, P3OM, is fully tested to make sure the probiotic strains not only survive in your body but also don't compete with each other so you're as protected as possible from the growth of bad bacteria and other pathogens. While other probiotics require refrigeration and often die in transport, on the shelf, P3OM doesn't need refrigeration at all. It's also been clinically proven to give you more energy, less bloating, more mental clarity, and to shift your metabolism into a fat-burning mode. So if you're ready to boost your immune system, have healthier digestion, and burn the fat, go to bioptimizers.com forward slash shrug.

That's B-I-O-P-T-I-M-I-Z-E-R-S.com forward slash shrug. And using the promo code shrug, you'll also save 10% on your next order. So two things to remember, bioptimizers.com forward slash shrug. B-I-O-P-T-I-M-I-Z-E-R-S.com forward slash shrug. And promo code shrug. There's never been a more important time to boost your immune system than today. So go to bioptimizers.com forward slash shrugged. Now start living stronger. Friends, let's get into the show. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Anders Varner,

Doug Larson, Coach Travis Fast. Today on Barbell Shrugged, we're wrapping up the year. It's the final show of 2020. The year that was the crazy one that put me in my garage for 10 straight months, closed all the gyms in the country twice. Bros, what's going to happen in 2020? Are gyms going to be able to – is this vaccine – are we going to be able to get back to real life? I think it's going to be rough because people –

too many people aren't, you know, aren't trusted. So it's like, I'm like, damn, I don't know what's going to happen here. We almost talked about it a little bit pre-show, and then I diverted because I really wanted to do it. But, dude, Kelly Starrett closed San Francisco CrossFit. Yeah. I think of all of the gym closings, I feel like we were half joking and also being half very serious at the beginning of this thing.

It was like, well, if you own a gym and you never really wanted to own the gym or you got into it thinking it would be super fun and you realize that it's a huge pain in the ass, now is your time to get out of the gym business and no one's going to feel bad for you at all. Or think that you're a loser or think that you lost. Yeah, it'd be like COVID happened. Just had to go.

You can get out and it's not your fault. Kelly Starrett dropped. I can get a pass. Yeah. Dude, I feel like Kelly Starrett dropping out 10 months into this thing or nine months into this thing is like just put shockwaves through the gym industry of like, oh my gosh. If Kelly's out...

Yeah, if Kelly's out, anybody could go out. But at the same time, Kelly's rent's probably like 10x what many other gym owners are. So he's probably got his overhead's got to be super fucking high compared to most people. I bet they're paying like 40 grand a month. That's exactly what I was thinking.

The exact same number I was thinking. I have no idea if that's real, but that was what popped into my head. This would be a good time to get like the, you know how the rent is so expensive in California. It would be a good time to reconcile that and be like, look, you know, you're not going to have anybody renting anything. Like we're going to have to readjust. This is crazy.

I'm getting zero. I cannot pay you $40,000. No, well, it's not going anywhere. I looked at the Zillow of my house in San Diego, and it's gone up like $60 dollars in the last 18 months and half of that was in um in covid like let me tell you who's not going to buy that a potential gym owner is not going out there yeah let's go to california and open a gym oh wait yeah like what what have people been doing i haven't even gone to a yoga studio or even

thought about it but i mean the one thing that's been really cool about is like i ran a poll in our main shrug collective group um and we had almost 70 of the people that are on our training programs and there are have built home gyms and then yeah all of the people that follow the diesel dad programming um it's like over 80 of those people have built home gyms of some sort like 80 of the people have squat racks in the garage and can do a full training program that's crazy. It's the most convenient thing. And I feel like, you know, when CrossFit started, there was all of these people that were training really hard in their garages. To me, CrossFit really came out of this garage gym kind of culture of training really hard, doingic lifting that you couldn't do

in corporate gyms um and it really fed those people that didn't fit in anywhere right you like weren't cool enough you like weren't supposed to do olympic lifting in corporate gyms you're way too hardcore and like power lifting gyms olympic gyms, none of that stuff existed. And then CrossFit came along and scooped all of those people up. But like somewhere around a decade, like the 2014 timeframe, 2015, like all of those people, once CrossFit hit the mainstream, started to leave CrossFit gyms and go back to their garage. They just didn't fit in. And now everyone's to their garage yeah they just didn't fit in and now everyone's in

their garage like i think it's gonna be really cool to see just as this progresses how many people like what cool trends and cultures like come out of being able to connect everybody in in their garage because that's that's where like everyone is training right now i don't think that'll change i mean you know, I like training in my garage. Like, you know, it would be cool to go to a gym once in a blue moon to like, you know, have a squat party or whatever. But like, I just, I will never go back to the gym. Not because I'm afraid, just because it's convenient. And I need, that's the key for me is like, I want to be able to take a break from whatever i'm doing walk my tail downstairs work out come right back up yeah it's perfect so that's

kind of where i'm at right now like it's just so much more efficient like yesterday as an example i was i worked in a crossfit gym for like five or six hours but i didn't train while i was there i was like i need i need to get work done while I'm here and hang out and talk to people and be social. But then I don't need to train there. I can train at home. So I waited until I got home in the afternoon. Like, my kids were playing outside, and I trained at home. It's just like, for me, with all the stuff I have going on, it's the most efficient way to get done all the things I need to get done is just train at home.

Oh, Wes, you went to the CrossFit gym to get a little socializing, but then get your work done. That's crazy. Yeah. I mean, I'm always more productive when I work outside of my house, but I can still train at my house. No problem. But I know if I train at the gym and then I go home and I try to work, it's not going to work out at all. But if I go home and just lift weights, it'll probably be fine. I'll get it done.

Why is that? You know, I'm the same. Like, uh, you know, I skipped going to my office a few days and I'm not near, if I go to the office, I, I crush, you know, and it's like literally 10 minutes down the road. Like there's nothing different. I have solitude here. If I go up to my upstairs office, no one bothers me, but I'm just still way more efficient. If get in my car drive 10 minutes that's weird it must be my brain just knows it's time to shift i'll accept basically like any distraction i can get when i'm at home like if my girl comes over to me and grabs my hand and goes dad come help do blocks with me i'm like all right i'll follow

him i don't want to i don't want to tell him no i i don't want to be the dad that's like always sitting at his desk and the kid's like come play with me and i'm like go in a minute in a minute i'll be there in a minute and then they're going to show up like yeah i'd rather when i'm working be away and then actually i also like that like i i work i work when i'm away and i'm more efficient there because there's no distractions like i'm not just like walking to my fridge anytime i'm like minorly hungry yeah you know what i mean like yeah i'll go eat again i say like an hour ago uh but then when i come home i actually really like the fact that i can train and my kids can watch me train oh yeah that's like that's a huge benefit in my mind because my kids are not like growing up in the gym right now they don't see anybody training

so if they don't see me training they don't't get that exposure. Yeah, totally. Yeah, I like training with my kids. Saturday was like the coolest day ever. Like all we did, I got up and went on a walk down by the lake, you know, rocking out. Rock did his inline skating now. That kid can do anything. Like he literally, he like, we bought him inline skates. I'm like, look, man, it's going to take you a minute, you know,

so don't get discouraged. Literally one minute. One minute. And I'm like, you're way more athletic than me. How old is he? Six. He's six. So now I'm like, should we try?

I was about to talk to you about ice hockey. Should we get him going? But anyway, we had such a great day. Once it hits, it's over. Nice hockey dad. Traveling hits, it's over. We worked out all day. Nice hockey dad traveling all over the damn country, spending your time in cold-ass hockey rinks. That sounds like a terrible idea.

Yeah. Travis, is Drew worried about, like, I thought hockey, and then I picture people colliding into each other. Like, is she comfortable with collision sports, like football, like with head injuries, boxing, that type of thing? No, but, you know, she'll have to get over it. Like, no. So I'm going to –

Yeah, where do you stand on all that? You've got to be a man. Like, you know, like if my son wants to play football, I'm going to be like, all right. You know, I will say this. I probably won't let him do, like, Pop Warner football, you know that, because you get a bunch of dads out there and nothing productive is happening. You know, so, like, I'll wait until middle school, you know, or high school.

But, yeah, so right now the goal is athleticism. You know, like, let's do Ninja Warrior. Let's do gymnastics. And we played all – I was telling you, like, Saturday as a family, it was fitness all day. Like we worked out together. Then we came up and we messed around. Then I went and rode – I have this Echelon bike.

It's kind of like a Peloton. It's $1,000 cheaper. But so I'm riding my Echelon. Yeah, yeah. So I'm riding my Echelon there playing. But, but like we just did fitness and played and like engaged all, all day. It was great. And so,

yeah. Yeah. Does Adelaide ever see you train? She currently, so this weekend was actually, um, one of the few weekends that she actually does. I try to do it during nap time.

So I'm just not bothered. She just isn't old enough. She doesn't get that. She should not be standing near me when I'm swinging a kettlebell. Like it just doesn't make sense. But I do bring her in here and like get her to hang on the pull-up bar. We do cool stuff. She picks up,

she's got a little three pound dumbbells. I try and get her to put them over her head. She just, it's just doesn't make sense. Like I was, she just stopped napping, which is hell. Yeah. Like I, it's not that she's in, it's funny. Cause I like look at it as all of like her body's training to do something. It's going somewhere, and she's on autopilot.

So nature's just saying, go do this. But she's not in good enough shape to make it through a full day to get to 730 at night to go to bed. But she's definitely in good enough shape where she doesn't need a nap. So at like 5 o'clock in the afternoon, it turns into hell because she doesn't need a nap so like five o'clock in the afternoon it turns into hell because she doesn't sleep she's grumpy then she's just a like just a stressed out baby that hasn't slept in you know however since 6 a.m and like 5 p.m is brutal five to seven and she's just like it's non-stop how old is she two and a half so yeah she's a she's a slightly older than i know yeah we still do quite even bear does quiet time and one at one out of

every four times he'll fall asleep i'm like thank god it's great you know yeah well with ashton being so she sleeps at school because there's like – it's like peer pressure to sleep. So Ashton being pregnant was up napping this week or taking a nap this weekend, and I came down to the garage. I invited my friend over to come train, and then Adelaide just wouldn't sleep, and was like what do I do this is like the dad dilemma I want to train with my friend he's coming over right now we're gonna get do something awesome and then she's just up in her crib will not do quiet time will not fall asleep so I'm down in the garage and she comes down and I'm down in the garage and she comes down and I'm like doing bent rows

and she keeps coming over and like touching the barbell and I'm like, you don't get it. This weighs like five times as much as you. You're going to get hurt. Get out of here.

She doesn't care. Doesn't care. She just doesn't get it yet. But it's like a workspace I guess I've got a great idea for Pfizer here's our next project if they could come up with something that you could

give your kid to like sedate them that wasn't don't think I would for sure be like I'd squirt them all just a spray in their face they'd be zombies

I'd have three little zombies that would be awesome if I knew nothing bad would happen they would get zombie eyes everywhere shush shush shush two hours Ashton and I just look at each other all the time we're like i cannot

believe she doesn't nap like how is this our life right now like you don't even realize how well you guys clearly do but you don't realize how like how much that two hours is just precious. And now it's gone, and then there's another one coming, and we're just like, we're never going to have ever a minute to just sit down and not do things. This sounds like a Diesel Dad show. Well, we're launching next week, so it's great. Let me tell you, here's what I've learned. Here's a good end of 2020 Diesel Dad little bit of knowledge.

When I was done with school, I went through maybe a week or two of like, I mean, I hate saying this word, but I felt depressed a little bit. Because all semester it was go, go. I had a test, I had this. And then all of a sudden I had like a little break where I didn't have to do anything. Yeah. There's things I wanted to do, but I have to. And like, I went through the weirdest time and like, plus I, my, my workouts had suffered. I mean, I barely worked out.

And then all of a sudden one day I was feeling else like sad. I was like, take your ass downstairs and let's work out and so i went downstairs and i did like a really easy like a front squat and i rode my bike it was like a miracle so it was like it was like the clouds parted and like the sun shined yeah and i'm like, this stuff is real medicine. It's like working out. It's like if you're a dad feeling what I'm talking about, stop what you're doing and literally go work out and see what happens.

I got a feeling it'll change your whole perspective. I freaking love waking up early and going and training in the morning now. Like, it's not like full training but this morning upright rows front raises just lifting weights and getting after it for 10 minutes before i like have to go do anything and then going outside walking is like it started as just a way for us to so that i could be like mentally aware before we hopped on doing shows at 6 30 in the morning and now it's just i go i like feel such a difference in the mental clarity of my day um my energy levels throughout the day like i i have to do it it's it's just the best way to wake up is to wake up and just go straight to the garage

and go get it i'm envious of you let me ask you i have questions on that because like i want to do that is like do you when the alarm goes off do you get up and like go to work or do you like do you have any kind of like wake up time like uh um so i have like a really quiet alarm um and it's set for five and i usually get up at like 5.20, 5.30, because the alarm just vibrates, so it doesn't wake anybody in the room up. Me too, of course. And even better, I don't have to actually wake up to hit the snooze. I can just tap the phone, and it'll go down for another five minutes or whatever.

But, yeah, I try to just like i i actually try to just lay in bed awake and just kind of like relax i'm like half asleep half awake but i'm aware that i'm awake and that i need to get up so i'm not just i don't i've never been like an alarm goes off and i just pop out of bed person even if i I'm sleeping. Me either. Yeah. I don't do that. So I could set the alarm for like five 30 and pop out of bed and go do things, but that's not, that's never been a possibility. Um, so yeah, I'm up five 2530. I go downstairs and I make coffee. And then while it's the workout that I do is kind of designed to be done in the exact amount of time that it takes to brew a pot of coffee oh I see what you're saying

so that by the time I go inside coffee's ready but I'm not just sitting there fucking around on my phone doing nothing while I'm waiting for a cup of coffee to be made so it's like you just Matt instead of sitting there doing nothing, I just go to the garage, and I typically will just leave the barbell out of whatever I want to do. So this morning, there's 95 pounds sitting on the squat rack. I throw some straps on so my hands don't hurt when it's cold, and I just do 50 upright rows in multiple sets

and then grab the 15- pound plates and do some front raises um like monday yesterday was um i still had the 95 pound bar on the rack and it's like good mornings and kettlebell swings or something like it's just it's really simple but dude if you wake up and hit 50 good mornings at 95 pounds you're awake that's what i'm wanting it is like the it's it's just an awesome way i i don't want to be like full workout guy in the morning no i don't want to like really lift weights i don't want to do that yeah i just want to do what you're talking i want a morning routine like the walking so then you do some of these straight so you you have your 20 minutes of wake-up time get up say you know put the coffee on go do your 10 minutes of like yeah you know whatever workout you want to do just to get a

slight pump get going then you get your coffee and then you go walking with your coffee in your hand yeah and i listen to something. Um, like what do you listen to? This is a good night. Typically. Um, it, it has something to do business related.

Um, I could go through. So I just finished the story brand book, which I told you about. Um, Ash and I are thinking about buying an investment property in Pinehurst next year, uh, before the pregnancy. So I've like really started to take a deep dive into investment properties and

just figuring out how like the Airbnb game is run. It's only 45 minutes from our house. There's just, it's like, I've been down there a couple of times now and my buddy and I have like a yearly vacation that we try to go play golf down there. And every time we're down there a couple times now and my buddy and I have like a yearly vacation that we go play golf down there. Right. And every time we're down there, we're just like, it's so nice and quiet and peaceful. It's like just this super old town. I'm not even a huge golfer, but because people are, I can have the house for whenever we want to go do it.

I'm not going to go buy some like giant mansion. I just want a place that we can like go and have a cool vacation um and then the other however many years of the month we rent it out to people that want to go play golf and what book are you are you reading a book on that on the investment um i i'm actually just listening to podcasts um just to pick things up like beginner investing in real estate. Um, and then I bought a book yesterday. I don't even know the name of it, but it was like the first one that popped up on basically going from zero to your first investment property. That's what I, it's funny you say that it's like, I've started obsessing over tiny houses, like experiences. So I want to like,

cause you could do it really cheap. He's like, cause there's a bunch of spots along the lake where it's like, you know, 20, like, like for example, there's one right on Lake 25,000.

So you can do buy that and then get like a tiny house and you can make the, my goal would be perfect. Tiny house. Like it's got like a hot tub. It's got a, a you know like a little workout place that kind of pulls out like make it the coolest experience ever and still you know your 60,000 total investment which is you know i can handle that even if nobody rents it i won't go broke you know so yeah i think that's the the big part of it especially after owning multiple businesses for over a decade now. It's like you kind of have like a certain risk tolerance that you're with.

You also understand that you're not going to get it right on the first try. Right. So managing like not going out and buying a half million dollar house because you think it's cool and you're going to get like some massive amount of money out of it. Um, you know, like you all, there's so many different ways to do it. Like it's just like fitness, which it's just houses, um, that you could do it. Um. I think that that's like the, the interesting thing is just finding the one that fits our family, which is like the lowest amount of daily work,

right? Like how many houses is the right number? So we just kind of set like a family goal that ideally if not by the end of next year, but by the end of 2022, that our income on top of paying for whatever mortgage that is, we'll then pay for the mortgage on our current house. We live for free. Yeah, that'd be awesome. That's a really small number when you think about total revenue in a business.

But also going from zero to profitable is total revenue in a business but also going from zero to profitable is never easy in a business so um it always seems like because i'm i'm such an optimist you know what's funny is like i haven't come across a website yet that sells me something that isn't like you should not do this you're gonna get totally screwed no you're gonna fail epically they're all like you're gonna be so rich and i'm like that's just ad copy ad copy ad copy here's the real story if it were easy like there'd be a lot of rich people there's not a lot of rich doug what is your morning routine like do you have like what do you do um Pretty consistent. I wake up at 5 most days. Maybe I sleep until 5.30.

That's sleeping in at our house. My wife wakes up at 4.30 a couple days a week to go do the 5 a.m. CrossFit class. She's also up early usually. Maybe she sleeps in on her off days until 6, something like that. I got three boys, so my boys are up. They're usually up on their own around 6.30, something like that but I got three boys and so my boys are up you know they're usually up on their own around 6 30 something like that so yeah I wake up at five I always I always wake up if if I've had a lot of physical contact with my wife during the night then then I'll get right out of bed if if I wake up and she hears the alarm and she gets closer to me

and we're kind of just laying there touching close, then I'll stay in bed for another 10 minutes just to relax and enjoy myself. Then I'll get out. I always drink two big glasses of water right away. Maybe I go to the bathroom and weigh myself and record my weight in my phone and then I drink my two big glasses of water. I probably weigh myself only sporadically once a week or whatever but my phone will average out the weight so i can see my monthly averages on a nice graph i've been doing that for years and then after i

drink my two big glasses of water i take i take a quick shower while i'm in the shower i use a water pick you guys know what a water pick is? No. I had one when I had braces. Oh, yeah? You know what it is, Travis? No. It's kind of like a flossing machine, but it's like water pressure flossing. Oh, yeah. It's cool.

And so you just put it in the gaps between your teeth, and it's just like water pressures between your teeth, just like the same-ish thing that flossing would do. I don't know which one's actually better or worse, but I usually floss at night. And then in the morning I do this water pick thing. And I just do it in the shower. It's like, it's like this little machine, you know, you charge it, but it can get wet in the shower and you just, you fill it up with water and you spray it between your teeth.

So I do that while I'm in the shower. And then I also, my neck's been hurting since like 2012, something like that from MMA and probably from football and boxing. And I've had a lot of neck issues. It's the whole reason I stopped fighting MMA. And I've been told for years by many different specialists and whatnot that like my CT junction, my kind of my high upper back, low neck area is super tight.

And so like, uh, the very top of my thoracic spine slash the very bottom of my cervical spine is very tight and then i'm also tight a very high cervical which are the two those are two places you're not really supposed to be tight if you look at great cooks joint by joint thing and then then mid cervical you're supposed to be stable there just like you're supposed to be stable on your low back in the same way but but i'm hyper mobile just like if you were hyper mobile in your low back you'd have low back pain i'm hyper mobile mid cervical and so i've had chronic uh chronic neck pain for a long time but eventually you know i've tried many different things to you know to still be able to do jujitsu and and have my neck not hurt and it wasn't until

just recently within the last three months or so where, where I took some advice from, from James clear, um, who's kind of a, he's a habits person. He wrote the book atomic habits. Um, you know, he said that, um, two things. There's one concept that I got from him to make sure I say this correctly. Um, if you, if you don't have time for something, you, you change the scope, but you stick to the schedule you guys heard this concept so i just read one of the books that i read actually was atomic habits my like little morning walks so go ahead yeah yeah it's a fantastic book yeah anybody uh should read that book um but i get in the shower two things like I use the shower as my trigger to do

neck stability exercises that way I know I know I'm gonna take a shower every day and so I tie this new habit to this old habit the habit the habit of taking a shower is very consistent I always wake up and take a shower every day basically no matter what and and so while I'm in the shower I do neck stability exercises. And my fucking neck feels fantastic. I have not had neck pain in almost a decade, except for the last two months, consistently no pain. Even when I go to jiu-jitsu, it doesn't bother me. Jiu-jitsu doesn't bother me.

Afterward, my neck pain has gotten so much better by doing neck stability exercises while I take a shower each morning. This is gold. I think all this is right i mean so like what do you do stability like what do you like yeah you do like just like um yeah so i i think about it trick stuff yeah your neck has you know three planes of motion just like everything so you have kind of your sagittal front and back plane your your lateral flexion plane and your rotational plane and basically what i do is i put i put pressure into each one of those directions

and i just don't let my neck move so I might push on the front of my forehead from the side. Like I'm trying to rotate my head, but I just don't let my head rotate. And then I'll do the other side of course. And then, um, you know, I'll, I'll, I'll do basically, you know, all the different directions like that, but then I'll put my neck in other positions too. I might, I might flex my neck all the way to the side and then do the same thing. Push on the front on the side try to rotate it and i just i just put my neck in a bunch of different positions full rotation full lateral flexion full flexion full extension and then i do all i don't do every single one every single day does that make sense like yeah totally you know if i if i have five you know six different directions to do with my neck neutral i don't do six directions

lateral flex six directions at the other side lateral flex six directions fully flex six directions fully extended yeah because that's that that's just that's a lot but yeah but all but all but but since i do it every day sometimes twice a day i just i just rotate it um so anyway a long explanation for my for my unique shower routine uh yeah so i wake up glass of water shower routine with the water pick and the stability exercises uh and then i get out of bed go downstairs my coffee is usually already made so i just i pour my coffee you do automatic is that what you do you have it set i just set the timer the night before so it's it's you know it brews at five o'clock and then um i put collagen

and a little creatine in my coffee each morning and then if we have a show like this morning we're recording a show because we record at 5 30 in the morning twice a week uh if we have a show i do this of course but then if i don't have a show then i have i have a couple of books i put books all around my house like every bathroom and every in every room that way no matter where i am i have a book i can just grab and read so i'm always reading you know five books at the same time um which can be slow but i actually just finished three books like within like three days of each other where was your instagram post that was like i read three books today i have a meaning to i used to post books on instagram all the time, but I have not done it in so long. I have this big stack of books that I probably should just go recommend to people.

But anyway, so lately I've been reading The Daily Stoic, which I know Anders is also reading. It's right there. The book's rad. So I'll read that first. Say what? What is The Daily Stoic? Stoic philosophy. And so it's basically just, you know, one page per day that you read that just kind of gets your mind right around how to do well in life.

Got it. You know, how to think and kind of how to be. Yeah. Right. So I read the Daily Stoic. I read, again, one page per day. So i just read one page and then i put it away and then and then right now i'm reading jaco's book leadership strategy and tactics which is a fantastic leadership book everybody should read that book it's very very good um and jock was like just so aligned with who i am as a person

like he you know he's just super into working out he um you know he he's been doing jiu-jitsu for a long time he owns an mma gym um you know i i heavily debated doing the navy seal thing that's actually how i started working out was i started doing all the navy seal workouts because i was like set on going to the seal teams and i like i did you know i i was always looking into it always always researching it was like it was like my passion before I got into working out. Eventually, I realized that I keep watching Navy SEALs training because I think training is cool. I don't necessarily want to specifically be a SEAL.

I just think it's badass that they're doing all this cool training. Then I got into training. I wake up. I read those books. What I do is I stretch while I read. I do is I stretch while I read. And so I do mobility and I just pick exercises or movements where I can still have a good view of the book, whether I'm just holding it in my hands while I'm bending over. Like if I'm doing an RDL, I just hold the book in front of me and just hold the stretch or whatever. But I stretch for like 20 minutes while I read, check both those boxes.

That kind of helps me just waking up and feeling good. Uh, you know, I, most people train in the morning because they know if they don't train in the morning, they're not going to get to it, but I'm not, I'm not like that. I know I'm going to train. And so I don't, I don't feel like I need to train in the morning. Um, so I, I do that. And then once, uh, you know, once I've read a quick section or two and stretched for 20 minutes, then I usually hop on my computer.

I check for messages from people. I respond to things. Maybe I do some quick work that I just want to knock out early in the morning, especially if I have a request from an athlete to change programs or something like that. I want to get that stuff done as quickly as possible. So do a little bit of work. And then around six, 15, six 30, then I, I go in the kitchen and I start making breakfast, make breakfast for the boys. And then seven o'clock I, uh,

if everyone's not awake, which they, they often are, um, then seven o'clock is kind of the cutoff. It's like everyone's out of bed at seven o'clock, um downstairs everybody eats breakfast together and then you know i play with my kids and whatnot until until eight eight ten and then and then you know we got three kids to take to school they've all been in school they're out of school now for just winter break but they they all were in school um i usually take one kid or two kids and then my wife takes the other one or two, and then we're off for the morning. Shrugged family, I could not be more excited to announce the Diesel Dad 30-Day Challenge,

and we are helping busy dads get strong, lean, and athletic without sacrificing family, fatherhood, or fitness. You want a strong, lean, and athletic body that you are proud of. What you are missing most right now is the confidence. Believing in yourself is hard when you don't feel good in your body. The discipline. When times get tough, you fall off the wagon and struggle to get back on. And the competence. The lack of confidence and discipline bleeds into every area of your life. If you can't take care of yourself, it makes taking care of others even more challenging. These are the traits of leaders, role models, and every dad deserves to have them.

Fitness, family, and fatherhood are essential to happiness, and busy dads should have a fitness program that ensures the success of all three. We get it. Our coaches are all dads, and we know how busy life gets. Low energy turns into missing the gym, bad food choices, and without knowing it, you put 15 pounds on in all the wrong places. Even worse, it beats you down mentally and emotionally. It feels like the mountain is just too high to climb.

The Diesel Dad Challenge is by dads, for dads, to get you strong, lean, and athletic. Let us be your guide. On Saturday, registration is open over at barbell shrug.com forward slash diesel dad challenge 30-day buy-in three training programs if your gym's closed we've got two ebooks coming your way we're so excited about this diesel dad nutrition the nutrition program designed for busy dads to get strong lean and athletic as well as the diesel dad 100 which was my morning routine which i created because my life was in chaos i didn't know how to make all of this stuff work, and I needed to own my morning. So I created the Diesel Dad 100 so I could wake up in the morning, make sure that I'm

getting some morning movement in, lifting a little bit of weights, starting my day with movement in the most positive way possible, which carries on throughout the rest of my day. Starting good habits, eating well, training well, and being strong, lean, and athletic without sacrificing family, fatherhood, or fitness. We're so excited on Saturday. This thing's launching. It's going to crush. We're so excited to unite all the dads that love lifting weights, that want to be savage dads, that want to be savage husbands, that want to be savages in the gym. All of it. So excited. You can get over to barbellstruck.com forward slash Diesel Dad Challenge starting Saturday. Let's get back to the show.

Listening to both of you, there's definitely some of each I wanted to add. I feel like that's the one. I'm so disciplined in my life except the morning. It's like I have one hour of my day that's wasted. In the morning, I get up and I play not Solitaire. What's the other game? On your phone?

It can go on for an hour. Literally, it's a free sell. I'm really good at free sell. It's the only wasted part of my life. I don't even know what that is. Free sell. Don't do it. Don't look it up.

Forget I said it. Go download an audio book. I'm not going to get sucked into a video game. No. That's a good idea. Just download an audio book and go for a walk, dude. That's what I want to do. Go outside.

But I like what Doug said about – I've got tons of audio bookss which i read a lot and so but like taking a walk i think on top of when i get back from the walk doing my stretching while i'm reading do you do you always read or do you do audio or a little bit of both well i i don't need to like to make effort to get audio into my life because i listen to audio all the time right like like all day long every day like anytime i'm anytime i'm by myself or if i'm cooking meals or if i'm driving if i'm yeah i'm just doing something where i where i where i don't specifically want to have silence so i can think about something or if i'm not doing something that requires you know more mental engagement if I'm just doing some mindless low-level physical task like driving

then then I listen to audio so I listen to hours of audio every day and I've done that for 10 or 15 years for a long time even before like podcast apps and audible were a thing I would like on Napster and all that I would download, you know, 30 hour training programs for people speaking on stage from marketing conferences or, or, or fitness. Like, and that's kind of how I got into wanting to make digital information products, like making digital video products. Like I used to watch so much of that stuff and I would, I would download the videos and then, and then rip the audio off. So I could listen to the audio on my, on my iPod before I, before I had an iPhone, that type of thing.

So I've been into audio content for a long time. Wow. I typically end up buying the book that I'm listening to. I feel like reading is the thing that I stopped doing for a little while. I used to read all the time, and then when Adelaide showed up, like reading time, just like immediately got chopped. And I was either just listening to podcasts. I don't listen to podcasts at all anymore. Um, like I don't listen to Rogan. I don't listen to any of that stuff. I purely listen to just educational things that like the real estate thing that is just sparked, uh, because

of the conversations we're having in our house. But, um, I don't really listen to like, I feel like podcasting, uh, to me and I like our show is, is very educational. Um, if, if you wanted to learn about strength conditioning, but I don't, Rogan's almost like too much entertainment at this point for me. Like I just want the information and I don't want the entertainment part. Like I want to learn if I'm going to be putting that hour in. Um, and I used to love listening to Rogan and, and, and doing all that, but I just, now he's off iTunes. I have, I just refuse to download another app and now that I don't have it,

I don't miss it at all because I've just filled that time with audio books. Me too. You have like a full audio book of like 15 hours of somebody talking about a specific subject. I'm way more into that than, um, like some, some shorter form at this point.

Me too. So I love Andy too. If I'm not doing an audio book, which I have a ton in my library right now, but then I do, you know, Andy's probably the guy, the YouTube I listened to the most.

Like I probably listened to almost every one of his and like multiple times. It's awesome. So yeah, he helped me with school for sure like he makes it simpler because he's he's he's you know he's like my friend so like it's easy for me to listen to him versus like sometimes you know professors like eyes glaze over your board out of your mind but andy i feel like i'm in like i when i was driving last semester because you know you know all last semester we were on the farm,

and I was driving an hour to school, an hour back, two hours a day. So I really listened to a ton of audio. And Andy was like – it felt like I was driving with my buddy. I put Andy on, and I didn't feel so lonely in the drive. I feel like Andy's there hanging out. Hanging out with your friend. Yeah. I've had the same experience.

It's funny sometimes because Anders, my wife, listens to our show all the time. She listens to most of the episodes. I very often walk in the room and you're speaking. I don't know what's happening. I'm speaking, right? I'm speaking. It happens all the time. But it doesn't make me feel like, oh, my friends are here.

Yeah. I just heard Andrew's voice in the background. Dude, when we first started doing, when I first became the host, I listened to every single show just to find out if I was at all entertaining like that would like I had never had like my own podcast and then all of a sudden all these people are listening to the one that you don't start out with an audience typically you get to grow into one right the exact opposite started with the to the wolves on day one and but I would listen to every single show over and over and over again

just to try and find some sort of rhythm to just introing into things. It was like learning on the job by listening to myself with no real roadmap because I bet I'm one of very few people that walk into a large audience on day one coming with Bledsoe and the number of people that have listened to the show over time. So I made a point to listen to all of the shows we did many, many times. And Doug and I would just sit there many times, just turn the mics on and just practice talking into microphones. Oh, really?

Yeah, just sit in the garage for multiple practice talking into microphones. Oh really? Yeah. Just sit in the garage for two hours. Wouldn't even record it. We just have the mics on so we can like have the feedback and just, just get comfortable with it. Oh yeah. You got to practice. I started practicing after when you got,

when we did that show with John Rady and you two brought the thunder like you did. I'm like at that, that was the minute I started practicing my craft. I'm like, these two dudes, they're the shit. And so I was so impressed with what you guys had read it and set your questions. And I felt like the most professional I ever felt doing podcasting. I'm like, all right.

Then they deserve for me to like start really practicing in our you know my craft better and so i did from that day i'm like that guy was i was so fired up for that show when we did that with him because i had just finished the book yeah like when we i i didn't have the book for steroids as a sport yet but i already know that if we if i had read that book and been able to ask like more specific questions about his journey that that show would have been just a or it hasn't gone out yet but it would have been slightly different just because just the tonality that he used in the book um with explaining his story like i i never really it's hard to tell where the author is putting uh like his opinion into uh mendez's story um and if because there's a lot of pieces

where it feels in that book, like, like Pat's like really pissed off at USA weightlifting because where he almost feels like the USA should be paying the IWF to let them cheat. Where he's like, everyone's doing it and everyone knows, but our country keeps holding us back because they won't pay. They won't pay the stipend. And that was like something that I really would love to dig into is like, is that Pat's opinion that the USA weightlifting just is intentionally not allowing us to compete on the same level? Or is that the author in the book saying,

like, we should start paying people so we can compete? How don't we get Pat on our show? We could totally do that. I'd actually love to. I'm on it as we speak, yeah. There's, like, multiple parts in it where i feel like um and and also there's there's things about his life that all lead to this um this character obviously and it's someone telling the story but there was definitely many parts where i i felt like either the author or pat

were both heavily implying that usa weightlifting was holding USA Weightlifting back by not just paying, by knowing that the entire world is doing this and it's not going to change, which it isn't. It isn't going to change. Well, I would say like, you know, that being the case, that America is dominant because like you're lately, we're in the top three at every single world meet. Like we're the top three. It is China, um,

North, Northern Korea and us. So like, I'm okay with that. So that means you guys are like the whole, all of USA weightlifting now is so different than two decades ago. Yeah. The pool of athletes.

We're trying to roll it. Like, and I didn't even know this because I only found bros once he had his gym, but he was lit. He had, he was lifting and setting platforms up like in a warehouse of a granite shop that he owned. Yeah.

Yeah. He told me he didn't own a gym, but he's coaching a guy that snatches 200 kilograms. Has he been on the show? John bros. Um, we actually recorded a show with Brose one time, and then afterward we discussed it, and he actually said, hey, can we re-record that?

We ended up going into some of his childhood and some of his personal life, and it kind of got sadder than it should have been, we'll say, where he was kind of like, i don't really want that to be my the show i put out with you guys so let's do it again sometime so so yeah we have a a kind of a loose agreement to do it again sometime but we were in vegas only for a few days and by time we actually didn't talk about it right there then and there after the show he texted me afterward and we you know we chatted about it after we'd already left town um so i would love to do a show with him again because i really enjoyed our our first show together just i love the guy kind of got it didn't stay on the weightlifting

conversation as much people always love me you know because i like him so much they're like assume that i agree you're like i can i see the thing with me is i can love someone and not agree with anything there's you know as long as they're not doing anything to affect me i don't care where I can see the thing with me is I can love someone and not agree with anything. You know, as long as they're not doing anything to affect me, I don't care where anyone, I'm not anyone's moral police.

So I think he's an interesting character. I like, you know, I don't agree necessarily. I don't agree at all with some things he did, but like, it's funny to me. It's a funny story.

I hear him talk about like the way he set up his, his gym, like it was he set up his gym. Like it was literally set up to where if you saw that came in, they could like message back and tell the dudes to run out the back. And I'm like, like, wow. I mean, he was really trying to do his best to give his, you know, in his defense, he was trying to give them a chance to win based on what everyone else in the world was doing. You know, I hate saying everyone, cause you know,

not everybody's dirty, but America, that's not true. You know, there's other countries that are clean, but, um, but he was trying. Yeah. It was, uh, it's a great book. Have you started reading it at all? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's such an easy read just because it's it's you're like you're like reliving all the moments of weightlifting in the past 15 years that you've paid attention to but had no idea inside stories and it's so crazy some of the questions but yeah dude that show with rady um was was really really awesome just because i read that book but the the show with cory gregory that we did as well was so rad.

I know Corey's been on two or three times, but it was the first time we had all sat down together with him. But he really got me fired up on the morning stuff. Like that was really early in the quarantine. And one of the first shows that we did, he was like, when we realized it's so funny to think I was telling somebody this story the other day when everybody was supposed to go into lockdown. And we were only like, we had like five shows recorded. And all of a sudden, plans were getting shut down.

And we were like, what are we going to do? And we came up with this brilliant idea and then at the beginning of the pandemic when everybody really thought everyone was gonna die and the world was ending we were like we're gonna get a house in tennessee and just record like 20 shows we'll be able to get through this three month period and everything will be good three months yeah all right we yeah yeah all the gyms are shutting down again um my wife could botch that she's like no yeah as soon as i presented that idea i got that like i think we could make a better decision here yeah that's what my wife is like she's like she was like one of those go ahead and go and see what happens you know time that

my man okay yeah right let me make this call you know but okay that's exactly what i got just like sure you could do that that that is a possibility might not be the best one yeah uh nobody has any clue what's going on in the world right now. And if you bring that shit back to my family, there'll be no sex being had here. What do y'all think about next year? What is, what is,

is it peasant? What is your view, Doug? Like, what do you think going into 2021? Cause you're, I think you're more of a realist slash kind of optimistic, but definitely realist. What do you think? Going into 2021, because I think you're more of a realist slash kind of optimistic but definitely realist. What do you think?

I'm way over the top optimistic all the time. Yeah, I'm definitely not nearly as naturally optimistic as you and Anders. You guys are excited about everything. Everything's going to be perfect all the time. Every time we launch anything, Anders is like, this is going to be huge. And I'm like, ah, fuck, man, I don't know. But actually, I love the fact that you guys are so optimistic

because it keeps me more optimistic than I would be. But for 2021, I feel like all the vaccine stuff is certainly happening. But, man, that's a tall order to get out billions of vaccines, to get everyone to actually take them, et cetera, et cetera. And so, I mean, 2021 is going to be a transitional phase, hopefully, where everyone is starting to get everyone to actually take them, et cetera, et cetera. And so, I mean, 2021 is going to be a transitional phase, hopefully, where everyone is starting to get vaccines, and hopefully case numbers and deaths are slowly trickling down. But I think it's going to be basically more of the same.

Like, at least for the first six months, it's going to be basically the exact same. And then for the second half, you know, maybe they start loosening up some restrictions, but we're still wearing masks, and we're still social distancing for fuck man at least two years are we still are you still think you still think that we will be like not going to meet that the nfl will still be like no people in the stands you think that'll be next year too i think that goes for all of 2021 wow yeah because i think the like if you say uh all the fans are allowed back

in the nfl stadiums like there's going to be nobody's going to want to take the fall for for a bunch of people getting sick and all that nobody wants to put themselves out there as the guy that was like yeah you'll be fine and then people die and yeah so i think i think bringing things back is always it's a conservative thing because nobody wants to be responsible for the negative outcome of getting people together if it doesn't work out. I don't think there's a chance we're going to like the CrossFit Games or like Mr. Olympia.

I don't think any of that's happening. I don't even think they're scheduling them. And those events take at least a year to schedule out. They just have Olympia. I don't think any of that's happening. I don't even think they're scheduling them. Those events take at least a year to schedule out. They just had Olympia. Yeah, but they didn't have the convention. Are you guys going to throw

vaccination parties, like house parties with only people who have been vaccinated once you're vaccinated? That would be the exclusionary factor. I don't care who comes if I'm vaccinated. So I can't get – I'm good. You can have what you want, but I don't know.

I've gotten to the point where I just don't care in general. I feel like I'm going to be able to fight it off, and I'm really just managing other people's expectations because if you want to come in and give me a hug, bring it in for the real thing. Let's get it um i have little to no concern about any of it even if i do get it and i just go shit that was part of my uh risk walking into the world today that i might get this thing right um i'm afraid of my mom like i have you know my mom my grandma's got it right now

in the home how old is she 94 is she how's she doing she's got covid at 94 yeah not great yeah i don't want to laugh but she's 94 like what she's not um yeah i don't want to be the one that kills my grandmother yeah well i mean i think that that's like really the thing that i end up doing the most right now is just managing other people's expectations like if somebody wants to come give me a hug and i'm friends with them i'm like cool dude let's do it i miss you let's be friends but if if you can tell that somebody's nervous or like trying to keep their space or like it's wearing a mask while they work out or something like that like what am i gonna do

force my body on you that's like social rape with a hug or something i don't know what the hell that is that is the main reason i wear my mask it's like i'm not sure yet about the science behind it but like if like if it makes one person feel more comfortable, then I don't care. It doesn't hurt me. So when I go around, I wear my mask just because I don't want to be a dick. It's really what it boils down to.

If it makes somebody feel comfortable. If it keeps businesses open, I'm totally, totally down. I'm just like, yeah. The daycare, they want you to stand outside, and they want you to wear the mask. And if they really ask me my opinion, I'd be like, I'm outside. Yeah.

Leave me alone. But it keeps them open, and it keeps my daughter there. And I'm wearing my mask with a big smile that no one can see behind a mask. Dang straight. I wear a bubble. I will roll up in one of those big old bubbles pushing the insides all the way to the daycare

you're going to keep out of late for a few hours whatever I put a full size latex glove on I walk around with a yellow glove I don't care I don't think. Well, I, I don't think that like,

when are we going to go to a summer concert again? I, that's going to be a while. All those people up there in the lawn spreading viruses. Dang. That's just, yeah, I know.

I feel the same. I was just, I was hoping I was missing something. I thoughtoug was going back well you know i thought about the risk and now i think we'll open but yeah i feel the same on that one even and uh i feel like even when even if they say we're all fixed people aren't going to trust it we It were at the biggest, weirdest intersection right now of mistrust with the government that, um,

it's super interesting. So like, I think that I'm just 37 years old and so many things where it's like, Oh, I've just been alive long enough to live through nine 11. I've just been alive long enough to be a part of this pandemic and see how the government's reacted. Like,

I don't know if I've said it on the show, but I've probably said it to you guys both off, off air. But it's like, remember when nine 11 happened and we had this like rating system where it was like, yeah, green means we don't have to worry about terrorism.

And then yellow was like, maybe worry a little bit. And then orange is like, maybe a little bit more. And then one day I remember we had like red where like terrorism was supposed to happen outside your door. And now I haven't heard anything about a terrorist in 10 months. All it is is the new talking point on media of like this new,

the new angry thing. And we can't see this one either. And it's like all anybody talks about for 20 years is us being at war to fight terrorism. And then the germ shows up and that's gone forever. Like when I initially talked to my dad, I was like, dad, get in the house. Stop going to the coffee shop. Stop doing all this stuff. And he goes, Anders, do you know what it's like when the government lies to you and you

have a draft card in your hand and all your friends are getting drafted to go to vietnam to find out that it's just a bunch of bs political bs what do you think this is and i was like i can't say anything about that i don't know what that feels like but now we do though yeah you kind of just get this, like, there's just, like, a lot of stuff that leads to a ton of mistrust. That sucks. Because of social media, everyone's got a voice, and everyone's got a thing, and it's just weird. It is weird.

It's a weird time. We have a vaccine now, and you would think everybody would be stoked about it, and all that does is make half the people even more pissed off saying they're implanting Bill Gates into our bloodstream or something. I don't know what the hell they got going on. But like the amount of mistrust is so wild. It's incredible. And I don't think that's going anywhere.

And it doesn't matter whether it's a pandemic or whatever the next thing is. It's just nobody trusts anybody. There's a crazy theory that the Jewish people are the ones coming up with the vaccine. And they have figured out. This is a new one. Just wait. This is good. And they have figured out the religious gene.

They're going to eliminate Islam. They're going to give it to the... They won't be religious anymore. Then the Jewish people won't have to worry anymore.

That's so good. What about you guys? They're religious too. Like, so you – that doesn't make sense. Doesn't have to. It's like anybody can sit around. You could really, if you want to be, you know, use your imagination, you could come up with some really cool stuff.

And I am the king of what ifs. No one can beat me at what if. And so I can come up with some stuff you want me to like um yeah i i don't know i i feel like all that conspiracy is just for the most part though i feel like i am way closer with my family i enjoy being home i feel like yeah i didn't realize when we were on the road five to 10 days a month in planes, doing really cool stuff. Like I don't, I want to do really cool stuff still. But I didn't realize that I was really in like a cycle of going on a trip, coming home, preparing, getting as much done as I possibly could in order to prepare for the next trip

to wherever the next place was and who's going to be there and who do we do shows with and who do we train with and who do we eat with and setting up the whole thing. I really like being home with my family. It's awesome. Like raising Adelaide and being able to when else are you going to spend five months with your children every single day yeah with your kids it's just not not a thing i love my kids are gangsters like we have a lot of fun saturday

was a great day like we did nothing but like fight each. We wrestled. We lifted weights. I taught bears learning now. My four-year-old had to lift weights. I'm just going to tell you. I know he's four, and I'm going to sound like a crazy dad. That kid is about to set. He is going to be the one that is going to kill in weightlifting. He is just perfectly designed.

He has no idea, too. He just looks around, smiling. I see his little bitty femurs i'm like oh son you're gonna crush everything your dad did rock on the other hand can just like i can see him going and being what's your boy the surfer that's uh you always talk about the surfing guy that's married to uh gabriel reese yeah yeah yeah i think i think rock could be that guy he's like he's just so balanced it's like way beyond me but yeah so yeah. I think Rock could be that guy. He's just so balanced. It's like way beyond me. Yeah.

Yeah, so you hear me. It was fun. The one thing I would say, though, is on the other side that I feel bad for are my athletes. Like I've had – we've had four athletes make their first team USA to not be able to go on it. And I know people are like – he's like, that's – some people right now are like, well, that's shallow.

We're in a pandemic. But remember – put yourself – remember when you were a kid. All that mattered was the one thing. And so they work hard. My athletes work hard. Like, I'm a brutal coach. And so, like, you know, brutal coach and so like you know and then they they do the thing and then they can't go so i've yeah it hurts me for my athletes but

you know the being my family 2020 has been great for that it's been great when you're 19 years old you make team usa that's like the biggest moment you've been working your whole freaking and you do it half your life for it when you found out that was a goal i uh there's yeah there's there's so many my neighbor came over and was like my son's prom got canceled in his senior year of baseball and like i didn't even think twice i was like yeah prom's really not that big of a deal like later in life it's not a you know yeah it's like no his prom got canceled and i was like oh my god i'm such an old curmudgeon like i totally forgot how important and how cool prom was and all i was thinking about is like i'm an old man who cares you should have been like

well probably kept your son from making a baby somewhere. Seriously. Yeah. Dude, do you – did you guys go through like a scary time in the business? Having to transition and pivot a bunch of stuff? I mean, no. Our business is, you know, for the most part has been – it's flourished. You know, while I was in school, it got tough because, you know, I can't produce as much content, you know, for the most part has been, it's flourished. You know, while I was in school, it got tough because, you know,

I can't produce as much content, you know. Yeah. And I can't, you know, it's hard for me to make a new product. No time. It was a little bit tough, you know, towards the end of the semester. Yeah. But now we're doing, you know, we did that with PhD and that went really well. And we have a lot of things we're doing, you know, we did that with PhD, and that went really well. And we have a lot of things we're doing.

So now it's been, for me to be in school and do all the things I'm doing, I'm very excited, like, with how our business has performed. Yeah. Yeah, we had to. We were running all the one-time challenge stuff and, like, setting up the gyms. You guys had to pivot.

And they all shut down. We had to pivot huge. Yeah. We were trying to get into the events business right when the pandemic hit. You can go to shrugstrengthim.com if you want to see what I'm talking about. It's still up. But I feel like you guys pivoted and like actually won out at the end of it. Like I feel like it ended up being much better for you huh it really

forced us to create the programs that actually align with um like who we are i think is it it like once you take the amount of time to sit around and train out of the equation you just have to get in and get it done you kind of are living the life of like what most um most of the people that listen to this show are professional strength athlete or coaches or whatever that like are in gyms and prioritize training at like the highest priority um which really like i feel like i like completely became a dad in the last 10 months where it was like, I totally understand what everybody else is going through.

We're like where I am, which is like a hundred percent how the diesel dad thing happened. Uh, it was like, I'm in the house. I need to figure out how to eat so I don't turn into a fat ass. Um, cause like all the time you learn how to train and like do everything that I

love to do, but I don't have 90 minutes to just go fuck around at the gym and get my work done. And then I go train and then I come home, like I don't have that. So how do I get all this done in under half an hour? And then now because we all have kids and we all have to record super early in the morning it's like I can't show up to this podcast and be

intelligent I've only been awake for six minutes and just trying to make it work so that started the morning routine and now it's like a complete package like i i totally get what most dads are going through like i connect with that hardcore now um and when we launched the diesel dad for the first time it crushed it was fantastic we have so many rad like dads that love lifting weights that just don't have a lot of time to do it and they fit all three of us more than anything else you could have done yeah um and it's like authentic thing we've done in in many years yeah for sure it's like the number, if you just think about like all of the people that like training that were probably doing CrossFit or Olympic weightlifting when they were 25 years old, they're all 35 to 40 years old now.

And they all have multiple kids and they're all in their home gyms and they don't have a lot of time. They got a home gym because they didn't have a lot of time. They got a home gym because they didn't have a lot of time. They got a home gym because gyms were closed down. Yeah. And they need to learn how to eat. They need to learn how to train. They need to learn how to get up and get after it.

And I just 100% relate with all of that stuff now where for a long time, for pretty much my entire life i was just like why don't you have time to snatch and squat and do multiple assistant exercises and then do mobility work conditioning piece at the end and yeah like i don't understand it doesn't make sense now i'm like makes perfect sense now. So obvious. It's so obvious. Let me ask this question to end us since it's getting late. What is the one thing that you're going to change that you would like to change in 21? If you have to choose one big thing, what's it going to be?

I think I've already spilled the beans of mine is like the only place I'm inefficient because I'm a super efficient human from the minute I, you know, finally after I waste my one hour in the morning, I'm super efficient. So now my goal next year is to, is to maximize that one hour when I wake up. Yeah.

So I'm going to take from both of you, like I'm going to make my own little morning thing. I'm going to start that mess. I mean, if I – I'm most interested going into the new year of like – I love Corey's stuff about like just building a streak of good habits and seeing how far I can go. Like I've been calculating on every morning basis and actually putting it on Instagram just to hold myself accountable. Um, like 38 to 40 days in a

row of doing the full like morning routine, which is great. Um, and the only two days that I did when I was traveling, um, last week for, um, but getting after it um is is just continuing that and then i have another kid coming i don't know what's about to happen oh yeah yeah i like to think that whatever system i have created right now um is sustainable through that but i know i'm gonna not be sleeping much from like July, August, September. Yeah.

So, uh, maybe you'll get lucky, man. Maybe you'll have that baby that just like rolls in, just like sleeping with, you know, who knows some people get lucky for the opposite of that.

Yeah. And I, as your friend, I'm hoping that, yeah, totally. Yeah. I'm preparing for the opposite. totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm preparing for the opposite. I would never hope that anyone gets a baby surprise all night. I would never hope. I would wish that all night. No. It would be me. So, Doug, what about you? What do you think – what do you want to improve on in 2021?

You know, totally unrelated to fitness, I've been very consciously working on being more playful. I got three, I got three little kids. They want to play all day long. You know, I have a wife who wants to have a fun, enjoyable experience all day long. So, you know, being playful with my wife is kind of, kind of like flirting, like trying to like work on like getting that, that kind of fun, playful, flirty vibe back with my wife. And then, and then also just, just playing, just playing with my kids and, and kind of fun, playful, flirty vibe back with my wife. And then, and then also just, just playing, just playing with my kids and kind of learning,

relearning the skill of how to have fun and be, and be in the moment, just, you know, playing blocks or whatever it is. I like that. I have no problem being flirty. That's my nature. I play with my wife all the time. But wasting the hour, I'm fixing that mess. Get off the Minesweeper. You know what? I'm going to delete that thing right as we speak.

You play those games. Dude, you got a week left. That could be your news resolution. I am deleting this thing as we speak on this show. It is. That's more time you could be watching Andy Galpin videos. Remove app. Delete app. I love it.

It's gone. It's gone. Coach Travis, where can I find you? Mashley.com, and you will not find me on FreeSell, that's for sure. Sorry, FreeSell community. Twitter at Mashley. Sorry, boys. I'm gone. Doug Larson. I'm on Instagram, boys. Doug Larson.

I'm on Instagram. Douglas E. Larson. Dude, we need to do a whole show about it, but get over to diesel dad or a barbell shrug.com forward slash diesel dad challenge. We have the morning routine,

the nutrition and the training programs, 30 days to buy in, get strong, lean and athletic without sacrificing family, fatherhood or fitness. We're super stoked to launch this. It goes on sale on Saturday. to buy in, get strong, lean, and athletic without sacrificing family, fatherhood, or fitness. We're super stoked to launch this. It goes on sale on Saturday.

We start on the 4th, and I'm fired up for a whole bunch of dads to come and just rage with other dads that like lifting weights and being savage dads, savage fathers, savage business professional people just living the dad life and being jacked all at the same time get over to walmart if you're in palm springs san diego la or vegas we're in the performance nutrition section three programs on the shelves in the pharmacy friends we'll see you on wednesday that's a wrap my friends make sure you get over to buy optimizers.com forward slash shrug to save 10 using the code shrugged or canify.com forward slash shrugged to save 10% using the code shrugged. Organifi.com forward slash shrugged to save 20% on the green, the red, and the gold. Fit Together, F-I-T-T-O-G-E-T-H-E-R,

the Fit Together app is live mobility month. It's going on. Get over there for all your fitness focused, friendly needs. Download it on in the app store with all of on all your devices as well as inside tracker.com use the code shrug 25 to save 25 friends we'll see you on wednesday