Barbell Shrugged - Our New Co-Host Deadlifts 700lbs with Doug Larson, Travis Mash & Dr. Mike Lane #830

Episode Date: January 7, 2026

In this episode of Barbell Shrugged, Doug Larson and Travis Mash officially welcome Dr. Mike Lane as the show's new co-host. Mike shares his full origin story, from growing up a sports-loving kid in St. Louis, to discovering strength and conditioning in college, to earning his PhD and becoming a professor of exercise physiology. Along the way, he reflects on the mentors who shaped his thinking, including time spent around Westside Barbell, Olympic lifting culture, and elite academic labs that blended hard training with hard science. The conversation dives deep into the intersection of real-world performance and research. Mike breaks down his work with tactical populations like firefighters and law enforcement, explaining why traditional fitness tests often fail to reflect the actual demands of the job. They explore load carriage, heat stress, aerobic capacity, and why durability, not just raw fitness, determines success in high-stakes environments. Finally, Mike opens up about his own competitive journey across powerlifting, strongman, Olympic lifting, and Highland Games. From pulling 750+ pounds in competition to learning hard lessons about longevity, ego, and smart training, this episode captures what it looks like to stay strong, curious, and competitive into your 40s. With Mike Lane stepping into the co-host role, Barbell Shrugged enters a new chapter, one grounded in experience, science, and a deep respect for the iron game. Links: Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram

Shrug family this week on Barbell Shrug, Doug Larson, and coach Travis Mash. Last week was my final episode of Barbell Shrug. For those of you guys that have been listening for a very long time, this has been the greatest opportunity and a true honor to be on this show. It's eight years and like 700 hours or something insane like that of being able to be on these microphones. We've been through an enormous amount of business and podcasts. And I have met and talked to and shared space and really been at the forefront of strength conditioning, which has been the single thing for the past 29 years of my life that has really guided pretty much everything I've done. I came to Barbell Shrugge eight years ago. And since then,

with Doug and Travis, we've traveled the world. Millions and millions and millions and millions of downloads and this has really been an opportunity that when I was 13 years old and started picking up barbells, the fact that I could have an actual audience, one that reaches as many people as this does, was never something that I ever thought would be a part of the journey that I have had in Strengthening. I just really want to say thank you to Doug for bringing me on, allowing me to be a part of the show for the last eight years. Coach Travis Smash, of course, that's my homie as well. Great human being.

Just loved getting to know his family. Great people. And all the guests that have been on the show, all my friends that I've been training with and doing things with for a very, very long time, well before Barbell Shrugged even had a, was a part of my life. And having them on and being able to really have, God, it's like a big family when you, when you have all these people that have been recurring guests and the, the, the access to the smartest people and something that you love is a part of life that I'll always be grateful for.

Really, there's been things in life that have popped up that I am fortunate enough to have opportunities that are allowing me to move out of the strength and conditioning world. The future is very bright. I'm very excited about it. But this is, or last week was my last episode of Barbell Shrugged. Again, I love you. Thank you so much for being a part of the show. I appreciate all of it, Doug and Travis and all the guests and everybody that has ever been on the show. Co-hosting with us when we were doing live shows and traveling around, Colton, our producer, the guy that is actually putting all this stuff together behind the scenes for us. And we've done so many, so many cool things in the last eight years.

And I just can't believe that I was actually able to be that this was a part of my life. Thank you so much. The show is in good hands. Travis are going to take it from here and friends. Let's get it into the show. Welcome to Barbell Strug. I'm Doug Larson here with my man Travis Mash and Mr. Dr. Dr. Michael Lane is here on the show.

If you hadn't heard yet, our good man, our good buddy, one of my best friends in the whole world, Andrews Barner, host of Barbell Strug for the last eight years. He also ran Barbell Shrug to business with me as well as for the last four years. We ran Rapid Health Optimization together. He has completely exited the fitness industry. and it has moved on to a new stage of life. I don't know if you follow his Instagram,

but he's building log cabins. He's shooting deer. He has a cow now. He has chickens. He's moved on to like full farm life, full farm life, excuse me, out in North Carolina. So all good between all of us. So a very good friend of mine,

talk to him just the other day. He's enjoying his new phase here, but he's no longer the host of Barbell Strugged. And we are bringing on Dr. Mike Lane, who's been with us here at Rapid Health Optimization, along with Travis Mash. You guys coach some of the same athletes. Yeah.

And you guys coach our, our highest tier athletes, some of our pro boxers as an example. And Dr. Mike Lane, a big fan of the show for a long time, is going to us as our new co-host. So today we're going to introduce him more thoroughly to the audience, to you. He's been on the show before, but I'm just kind of running through your life and your background and who you are. And Dr. Mike, how did you get into training, fitness? And, you know, what are you working on these days? Starting with your background from when you're young.

How did you get in training? Okay. So, wait, I guess we're going to go to the long arc here. Now, I guess to contextualize it, I grew up in, you know, I was born in the early 80s, and so on a solid diet of body dysmorphia from Arnold Sports in a year and and service just alone. I know, really helped. Yeah, exactly.

And, you know, exposed to sports, mostly my dad was a big baseball fan, you know, grew up in St. Louis. So raised to be a St. Louis Cardinals, both type Cardinals fans. That's how old I am. So when I, when the St. Louis football Cardinals left, That was the first, you know, like, oh, I don't know if I like this NFL thing. And then obviously it was Rams fan when they were the St. Louis Rams. And now I have a very complicated relationship with the NFL.

But to go back to it, you know, grew up playing baseball, soccer, a little bit of swimming, and then kind of dabbled at a bunch of different sports growing up. Enjoyed physical culture, though, not a really talented person when it comes to sports to be completely transparent there. And then whenever, you know, it was going through high school, was always math and science came pretty easily to me compared to other topics. If you see my writing, I like to use the Vonnegut quote to when writing, I feel like a legless, armless man with a crayon in my mouth. And so when I was in the blank page, we have a lot of, we have a lot of battles there.

So did my undergrad at Missouri State and when I was there, I was actually pre-met. I was bio minor in chemistry. And when I was probably about my junior here, I was, my junior here. year, I was kind of looking at things and like, you know, like medicine seems interesting. You know, I definitely like that idea. And to again, show my age, exercise science wasn't really a major you could do. And so it was either you either PE and I was like, I don't want to be a gym teacher not to denigrant the profession because Lord knows we need better PE education in this country. And, you know, I didn't really want to be an athletic trainer because I don't like wearing

fanny packs and, you know, wanted to be the person helping the person. Helping the person. be in the arena, but not be, you know, the cut man, you know, not be that person in their corner. And it was, of all things, I walked into the athlete's weight room. At that point, the head strength condition coach was Rick Perry and was like, you know, hey, can I come and, you know, volunteer, kind of get a feel for this. He's like, you know, show up tomorrow morning, 6 a.m. And, you know, you'll white metal and do this stuff and, and immediately just fell in love with it. I was like, this is freaking awesome. And I went and actively, then took both exercise physiology and phyomechanics and exercise physiology professor was a ronda

ridinger and the random like no one cares but damn it they should fact about her is she was the winningest field hockey coach in all of missouri state's history and she did that while she was a full-time professor and you know she retired a number of years ago but she was freaking awesome She was a professor and a Smith coach. Yeah, man. And a sport coach. She was coaching the field hockey team in what was the 70s and 80s, because that's what it was. Right.

NCAA sports. Golly, man. Exactly. How did she find time to do that? It's probably how it used to be for everybody, right? Like at some point in time. Yeah, I mean, like if you look at like Bear Bryant, it's like your history teachers, your football coach.

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. And so we can, that's a much longer conversation about the purative sports and how things used to be where like, you know, it was a very, they were student athletes, not athletes. Yeah. So notice that emphasis on the syllables. Exactly.

So between learning from Rick and he was a west side, very west side inspired guy so that then, you know, got me learning all about Louie and everything he was doing. This was about 2006, seven. and working with other GAs there. So during that period of time, Andrew Paul was another guy, also an undergrad intern in the wait room. And he would then leave there to go get his D.P.T. and actually work at Missouri for a number of years under Pat Ivy.

Brian Mann from velocity-based training, he was in GA under Rick. And so, like, he and I were almost like revolving doors. Like right when I started is right when he exited to then go work. I'm pretty sure at that point he first interned with Joe Ken at Arizona when he was there. And then again, would be the guy that would go on to Mizzou. And that's when he do his doctorate, work under Pat Ivy Stoner and the rest of those guys when, you know, Missouri football, not to denigrate what they're doing now, but became incredibly relevant.

Yeah. And so under Pinkle. Yeah. And from there, Rick left to go be the assistant at Notre Dame. And I was, it was in a weird situation because like, Rick was like, hey, you'll be my GA. I'll pay for, you know, you'll be a graduate assistant. And I was like, sweet. You know, I'll stay at my undergrad.

I was a college cheerleader. That's a much longer story, but it was very much so. College cheerleading taught me a lot about, I thought I trained hard. And then I realized like, oh, it turns out if you do shoulders, essentially six times a week. And you stay within your recoverable volume. you start ramping up your strength really quickly. It's like, oh, so that's go figure. That's when I learned to cut in a number of other lessons like try not to get kicked in the face by 100 pound women because it's hard to explain why you've got, you know, bruises because you're getting eaten by again, as I mentioned screen.

Some people are into that. Yeah, I try to stay away from those corners of the internet. But that's not me. But that was. But yeah, dude, supporting a hundred twenty pound female on a single arm overhead like putting a hundred twenty Donble overheads like that's big weight. That's big way. Doing that every day.

Exactly. And, you know, it's just a lot of volume. You're not doing a lot of eccentric, so it's actually pretty easily to recover from it. But, you know, it's just a, yeah, it was a lot of learning. Dr. Andy Galpin here. As a listener of the show, you've probably heard us talking about the RTA program, which we're all incredibly proud of. It's a culmination of everything Dan Garland and I have learned over more than two decades

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You'll be working with not one person, but rather a full team of elite. professionals, each with their own special expertise, to maximize precision, accuracy, and effectiveness of your analysis and optimization plan. Artee isn't about treating symptoms or quick fixes. It's about unlocking your full potential and looking, feeling, and performing at your absolute best, physically and mentally, when the stakes are the highest. To learn more, visit Arteelab.com. That's A-R-E-T-E-Lab.com. Now, back to the show. And so I actually went, I had already, you know, gotten into the graduate program at Missouri State. And so, well, the graduate assistantship went away.

So I just became a graduate intern. So the new coach, Terry Sowerbry, who is now at Oakland University or Overland, it's one of these, whatever ones in Detroit. He's been there for years now. And Carl Christensen, who was the assistant, he was fresh out of Arkansas at that point, being a GA there. How many. Cross rest. You know how it is, man. but that's how you know you learn from all these different people and yeah uh coach so so many of

these names master like these are like this like this like you're board of directors man this is guys like brian brian man and jo can and just these are all my guys yeah yeah yeah and yeah and even that ivy i'm a big fan of pet ivy you know he's i've heard him talk at least three times yeah so yeah he we got him to see because he now is at louisville yeah so he came and he he spoke at he and his sports performance team they spoke at our Kentucky State meet back in November. Oh, they're amazing. Oh, no.

God, Pat is such. Okay, so I'm sure we're going to have a bunch of these, but I've been a lot of run a lot of strength coaches. Pat, like Andrea Hooty, who I got to be around whenever I was in Kansas, are not just good coaches, but they're really, their interpersonal relationship and their management of people is like, that's their skill. Like, not that they're not good at programming, not that they're good at coaching, but They know how to develop report.

They know how to get, you know, people, everyone on the same page and get everybody to work together, you know, with a completely checked ego and stuff like that. Like, you know, we've all been around the guys that may or may not show up in this conversation because they're not great at playing in the pool with everybody else. But when you meet those people, it's like, there's a, there's a couple coaches. Like, if they called me up tomorrow, like, hey, I need a guy. I need you to be my number two. I need to be whatever. like once once I know that I can you know afford my lifestyle and everything like that like all right honey we're moving like I'm gonna push hard for it now there's

other folks that I've worked with that if they said they're gonna they want me to come work with them I'm back I want to X what I'm currently making because there's a certain amount of things that working with you is not as exciting but you know it sure but yeah so from there you mean Travis to pump your tires a little bit like when I first met you that was you know beyond all the all the obvious weight lifting stuff like I felt like you really cared about your athletes right yeah you have such a you have such a good relationship and like I could just tell that like you had a connection there

was great rapport like they they they fucking loved you like as a person not just as a coach like I was like man this guy's really special like he's doing something really really me I think my early do either bond for life or not you know so I've learned to know the person that's like I know the people I love but yeah like Matt Weirniger has been since he's 10 years old literally I come coached him in elementary, middle school, high school, recruited him to Lenore Ryan. So throughout college, now he works for me.

Now he's doing his master's program, you know, while he's working for me. So, like, yeah, they either love me or they hate me. So when I love me, you know, him, Ryan, Ruby, like, is a bunch of them. Yeah, even like a D back in the day, too. The D, I still love her so much. Yeah. So never actually, she just, She's the best.

She's the best. Yeah. Yeah. So I was a graduate intern in Missouri State for all over one semester because I was lucky enough to get a GA spot at St. Louis University. And, you know, I'm from St. Louis. I had two options because the strength coaches there were like, you know, this guy, he's young, but he's obviously interested. He's trying to learn, blah, blah, blah. You know, so they set me up and, you know, completely, you know, grateful for the fact that they did that.

So from there, I was a GA strength coach actually at St. Louis University for, now, this is getting a master's degree. You guys can do the math here for about three years. And the reason for it is SLU, and this is another one that could be its own episode, the way that they did GA ships when I was going through there is they said, okay, you get this much per year to be our GA. However, every credit hour you take, we're going to take that money from the set amount. And so literally, when I started there, my GA ship paid so poorly that if I would have been a full like nine credit hours each semester GA and done it in two years, I would have had to pay slu to be their GA. That makes no sense. That's crap. It's that's what you guys want to.

Athletics in certain areas pays well, but most of them not so much. Not at all. And so my GA. I was a GA too. Yeah, through Lorraine. But it was rough. Luckily, I had my own business. Exactly.

And now that's going to lead to some other things. One is I worked a side job as a personal trainer at Anheuser-Busch brewing because they actually have two gyms. No. One's in a building called a bevo. And that's the one I worked out mostly. It was wild. It's like this gym was like, I think it was like four or five thousand square feet.

Like it was big. You know, I had like a bunch of machines, you know, cardio. You consult with different people. He coached their athlete. I mean, they're employed. Yeah, yeah, from their executives and people on the lines and stuff like that. But like literally right out the window, like right out the front desk for the check-in, I would see just bottles of Bud Light whipping by.

And I was like, I'll probably see a bunch of you guys again. Maybe this weekend, maybe sometime soon. Yeah. And like the perks there were wild. Every month, you would get two cases of beer for free. You would just drive up. You'd tell you like, I want this, this. They'd throw out in your trunk.

And then you drive off. And then that tells you how economical that business is, man. Well, this is really got bought up by InBev. And so when they got bought up by InBev, it just the party died. I got let go of a bunch of other folks, my boss, he got let go of. And, well, I mean, it was just, you know, corporate. Like, we now we got to make it. So this is a, you know, we're profit seeking.

And so the less than the overhead, it is what it is. And I was, since I was a GA and I had more certifications, myself and one of the other ones that was actually getting her DPT, at Slu, she, we all got let go. And so like the ones that only had a, didn't have a bachelor's degree yet and stuff like that, they got to be kept around. Anyways, so because of that, and like, again, Sleu didn't pay well. And it turns out I like to eat. I ended up getting a gig as a high school strength coach at a local high school called

Limburg High School. And it was great because then, you know, I had, because there I was writing all my own programs. I was taking care of everything with the teams there. Obviously, at SLU, I was, you know, the number two to the initial coach. He left to go actually be a strength coach for the police department at St. Louis Metro. And then the head coach that came in that I worked under is at that point with Scott Charlott. And Scott is still one of my best friends to this day. You took a long ways around.

Oh, trust me, it gets the path still be winding. So went through. And then during that period of time, one of the guys that I'm. met in the nutrition program was a guy that named Justin Thacker. And so Justin, I was wanting to learn more about Olympic lifting because frankly, I sucked at it and not much to change there.

And so he and I started training together on Saturdays. And, you know, we kind of, yeah, oh, man, he was, I will miss that guy forever. We had a lot of fun training together. I will. I met him through. Barbara Sutch in Miami. Yeah, he made it on the show. I'm like, dude,

that's freaking awesome. And he, uh, so Justin, the first time we train together, he's like, yeah, we're going to do a little Olympic lifting. Um, and then after that, you know, I'll have you, you know, teach me having you the log and we'll do some stones and do stuff like that. I'm like, okay, sounds good. So he's like, okay. So first we're going to do is we're going to do, um, an e-mom for 10 minutes, you know, maximal snatch singles. Like, okay, cool. Like, I mean, that was power snatching. I think I was split snatching at that point and it's a power split snatch.

So it's just like all types of just power lifter, just grabbing that bar, yank hard, and it really just kind of a muscle snatch with the lunch. Like that was pretty. Not sure. Yeah. Yeah. And he's doing his singles at like 135 kilos and like I'm like barely 90 kilos. So like very big discrepancy.

And then he's like, okay, now we're going to do a heavy three to one of the clean and jerk. I'm like, okay. Like again, I know how to do push press and a power clean like, uh, you know, so we go through that. He's like, okay, now we're going to do a heavy three, two, one on the front squad. I'm like, okay, that's something. And then we did a heavy three, two, one on the back squad. I'm like, we're going to, like, we're going to do some strong man at some point, right? Because like, this is, I don't know. Then we do a heavy three, two, one on the deadlift. And he had

deadlifted with me. That's that, yeah, because of how I'm built, I'm very good at deadlifting just because of leveraging. And so that was good because he was pissed off because, you know, like, My deadlift is pretty good. And his was obviously not. I mean, guys still could pull 600. Like he wasn't weak by any stretch in the imagination. And then we do a freaking log. And so, you know, we go through and, you know, kind of do a bunch of singles there in the log.

Then we do farmers. Then we do stones. Then we do. I think we did. I went through tire a little. How many hours? Yeah. It was like a three hour training session.

Four hours. Yeah, dude. Like we, and that's what we did for like over a year straight outside of like little, you know, I go out of town. we would go train for three plus hours on a Saturday. And like, oh, it was great. I got back the first time and like, you know, I'm just a mess. And my, you know, girlfriend, now wife, is like, I thought you said you're going to work out for like an hour. And I'm like, well, let me tell you something, honey.

Like that's, you know, come back. My hands are just burned. Like, I'm just messed up. And was it. Did you adopt? Yeah. Oh, it was great. I mean, I kept training like that.

after I left St. Louis to go be a graduate assistant at Kansas under Andy Frye. And then interning a little bit with strength conditioning and doing kind of, you know, all the research stuff that was involved with him and the collaborations he was doing with athletics. That's what I would do. Saturday is because the way that the building was set up, my graduate assistant office, the building is called Robinson. And Robinson was actually the original campus wreck. So Doc Frye took half that weight room and turned it into,

old school Samson half racks, eight, or no, six platforms on each side of the room, you know, quarter inch or half inch, um, flooring and like,

that's where I trained. So it was awesome because like I'd be in the lab doing whatever. And then I'd have 45 minutes while like this thing was running through the gel or transferring on the membrane. And I'd just go lift weights and then come back in and go back and forth. And like, yeah. And they,

you're going to train. You're basically I'm not Again, I'm not that talented And I wasn't using See pink pills There were no pink pills There was no pink pills

But it was But it was great Because I would be training Out of there I want to know about your time We're starting to fry Yeah He's one of my favorite

Just because of like His stuff You know like a lot of his research Is like how I That it's like A background of a lot of my coaching You know like As far as like

Intensity versus volume, you know, I talked about like, he was one of the first people to like, you know, come to conclusion that it's easier to recover from intensity versus like high volume, which to me seem to make sense. But like to other people, like, they would fight tooth and nail on it. But like, what would it like being with him? Wait, do you remember some of his overtraining studies, by the way? Yeah.

You're talking about this session you did with, or many sessions you did with Thacker. Like, his over training studies that Fry used to do because Frye is actually how me and Galpin ended up at University of Mellon. Memphis. We met him in Vegas at an NSA conference and then he was our advisor for the first couple years before he left and went to Kansas and he's do these over training studies where it was like it was like 10 true singles 10 true 1RMs on back squad for like 10 days in a row or something like that and then they measure all kinds of variables and he would just beat the shit out of people like if you got if you hit the rep you had to add five pounds and then you had to go again and then you had to go until you missed it and then they'd back you back down it's like and then you do 10 sets like that 10 days in a row just to see how how people would respond. Yeah, 10 successful singles, MASH, because I piloted that out as one thing I maybe do for my dissertation. Yeah.

And it was me and the lab intern. The lab intern's girlfriend calls me day four. And it's like, hey, he can't come in today. He's just too beat down. Like there's just no shot. And I was like, yeah, dude. I did that protocol to myself. And I literally had knee tendonitis for like the next two months.

like it was just it was it was on a true squad so it wasn't even a true free barbell squad it was on a machine so you're at least controlling a couple more variables right to make it consistent and dude like yeah Doug's not underselling it when it was just brutal so the thing dr. fry hands down the thing that always comes to mind first when I think about him is he's a good man like he's just such a nice guy. His wife, Mary, is, she's as good as a researcher. Her area is a sport and exercise psychology and like all about the type of climate and everything else. So like the fries as a family are like the nicest people in the world. Now, of course, he is passionate, loves talking shop with anybody about sports, science specifically and performance. And oh yeah, I mean, from when we were

there, he was doing velocity-based testing with the men's and women's basketball team. And obviously, you need Kansas basketball. I don't really need to more into it. You know, they're pretty successful. And we were doing velocity load profiles on all those athletes at that time. And in turn, you know, helping. What year was? Help me out. What year? That was 2010 to 14 is when I was with him at the University of Kansas. And so, you know, we every year, we go in there, we do that battery with them in the preseason. So that way, coach Hooty during the season would be able to modify the loading based upon, you know, you know, Robinson would be squatting this way to at for this percentage for this speed. You know,

the Morris twins would be squatting this weight at this speed, you know, and I was around those those guys. And, you know, I could definitely, I can definitely, um, yeah, Robinson was just such a class stack like such a nice they had they had a lot of great athletes come through there and I stick with the names of the ones I like to talk about and yeah what's maybe don't show up but at the same time you know it was great because you know you got to see the application but we're also doing the bench signed stuff fiber type thing looking at different muscle proteins and how activated it's just all in that mechanistic uh targeted repomyosin pathway of like aka it's mostly yeah how that's going to be activated through both hard training.

Is this your master's or is this, are we still master's? H.D. I know. So you did your PhD under Dr. Frye. Yeah. My master's was under Ed Weiss and Sloop. And you did, Doug, you did your master's under 85 for a while. Yeah, for a while.

Yeah, he left halfway through and then I, I best switched advisors. But yeah, I initially started with him. He will switch to what's the guy's name is at UNLV now, right? Well, no. So that's Brian. Yeah. He was our waylifting coach and biomechanics professor and a great fun. But my advisor actually ended up being Rick Bloomer, who also is a fantastic person. We did, I did a study oxidative stress and inflammation regarding fish oil and aerobic exercise

to see how inflammation was augmented by 60 minutes of a full, full VO2 max more or less. Yeah. We did, we did walking with a heavy weight with a heavy pack, walking uphill with a heavy pack for 60 minutes. Basically too fatigues. Actually, remember, because Andy was one of the participants in the study. He actually got his heart rate up to like 207 walking with a heavy pack. 207. Yeah. Yeah. It's like the highest heart rates I saw during that study.

It's like the highest rate I've ever heard of almost like. So she's an old 220 minus age thing. Plus or minus 10%. Yeah. That's what gets you. Yeah, but I think Denver said he still blows that away. He said, what did you say? No.

Yeah, yeah, that's maybe that could be I could be off. But yeah, it was like 205 or 207 something like that was like in the low 200s high enough where we're having the same conversation we're having right now back then like holy shit. I can't believe this just happened again, he wasn't even running like it was just walking with a heavy pack on what at a 15% grade or whatever and we just keep keep bumping it up half a mile an hour every minute until he may have been in that he might have been in that 10% though it's oh it's it's up well think of it this way

so if he was 25 you figure one 95 then you figure that's 19 and half upticks that means he could have got as high as 215. Yeah. So yeah, I told you guys, math is something I'm kind of decent at. Yeah. Emphasis sort of kind of. And yeah, actually that lends itself to, so obviously learned from a lot of different people, a lot of different things at Kansas.

And then I got my professor job at East Kentucky. And you know, that's where I've been teaching, researching, and doing everything else there since. And it's been, it's been great. And trying to get all these days. Yeah, no worries, 2014 was when I started there. Well, you left Kansas, went straight to eastern Kentucky. Yep. And from there, you know, I was the only exercise physiologist,

so one of my mediocre jokes, that was the best and the worst exercise scientists they had on the campus. And so, you know, from there, got the lab going and started off doing athlete tracking. And, you know, working with our athletics department to do body comp and a bunch of other things. That's awesome. to just kind of helping the athletes, you know, the O2 maxing and such. So, but it was actually thanks to one of my

co-workers that got me in conversations with the local fire department. But like, hey, we got all this, you know, turnout gear that is old, so we're just tossing it. It shouldn't be used anymore for actual firefighting. Including your self-contained breathing apparatus.

And he's like, do you want it? I'm like, it's free stuff for a lab and we don't really have much of a budget. Of course I do. And that's what got me into tactical. kind of looking at load carriage and different metrics there. Because it turns out once you throw on that heavy ruck, firefighting gear guys, like, empty. And that's just, you know, your hat, pants, jacket, you know, breathing apparatus,

helmet, you know, masks. And what is all that? That's 60 pounds starting. And that's before they got an accident in hand. That's before they've got hoses. That's before they've got extra air tanks. It's for there. The heart rate.

And it's right. Yeah. Yeah. It's like wearing. Lump fire. No pants. So like whether you're fighting a fire, tell you what,

firefighting gear is effing awesome to wear in the cold because that stuff is so insulated that, you know, you are super comfortable. But anywhere else, it is, you're just sweating in it. It's like the old school wrestling,

you know, wearing the rubber suits. Like you're just, it's getting into there. So like I teach my students like you're, now you're solving two problems. One, you've got to send more blood flow to your muscles because you're,

obviously training you're doing something with two you're trying to send more to your skin to help you thermoregulate and it turns out you can't go to the skin because it's all obviously insulated and that's where you see like for firefighting you know it's not just put on a weighted pack a native pack is a real different game than you're over there and you're sweating it out inside of the gear right and so it's it's definitely and that's where i was like oh man this is an interesting tactical problem and at the same point on our south campus that's that's where we have was looking as the Department of Criminal Justice Training Center, aka it's where every single cop in the state of Kentucky outside of Louisville PD, Lexington PD, and H.L.R. Patrol,

all through their annual training. And that's where the cadet training occurs and they live in forms and people come back in for their firearm training and everything else. I didn't quite realize what that meant when I started there because one day I park on campus to go walk in my building and I hear the telltale side of small arms fire and again I grew up in St. Louis. Now I grew up in the suburbs but I went to Slu and we lived in the city. So it's like my yeah, that's gunfire. Like I'm glad that this is a brick building that we live in. And I was going just like sprint into my office like turn on the news like like like what's going on like some like bank robbery going like and one of my coworkers like one of my coworkers like oh no, they just

got a gun range on the far side of campus. I'm like, oh, okay. So, you know, we've been then started conversations with the training staff and we've been doing tracking there because here's the problem that we're getting into, we're doing some research on right now, which is when the police cadets undergo their physical fitness testing, they do that stuff in gym shorts and a t-shirt, but you guys see cops walking around now. They're wearing the tactical vest on. Some of them have all the gear on the vest. Others are wearing the duty belt. with the lighter vest but like they're out there wearing 20 plus pounds of gear and like we're holding into physical fitness standards that were developed in like the early odds when a cop was a guy

exactly i mean he was you know he's in you know essentially khakis in a button down shirt like he wasn't wearing all this extra gear he had you know he had cuffs and a gun and like that was it he didn't have a taser attached to him you know he didn't have a bunch of other equipment you know base what have you right and it's like you know it's like you know it's The difference between doing the football combine, how many guys like to brag about how fast their 40 time is, but it's like you weigh a buck 30. I put a pair of shoulder pads on you in a helmet. You're now add to pretence in a second. Exactly.

Because you can't run with weight on because you're just stripped down. And that's okay. But in them, it's like, no, guys, we're quality of how we test them is not how they play. For the firefighters, their physical system is testing. They wear the full gear. And then they have to run that gauntlet. I think it's brilliant because you've got to know what's going to happen. You know, are they going to be capable in a flyer?

Otherwise, you're guessing. Yeah, as sport specific as possible. It's just not a sport. You just want to know, is this person going to freak out and, you know, and get everybody else in trouble, you know, so yeah. And that's where you get yourself into a really hard logistic situation because, one, you know, we want to have these tests that have a lower rate of injury because, let's face it, as a firefighter, hopefully you never have to get into a physical altercation with another human.

If you are moving a human, it's a passed out human. Right. You know, and if I like you, I'm dragging you by your shoulders. If I don't, I'm dragging you by your ankles. Right. You know, drag in a body and Doug, you know this more than Mash and I, but Mash and I both have mouths. So we've had to do the sum. A human being that is motivated that does not want you to hurt them, but is trying to hurt you, that is real.

There's no way to homogenize that. Like, okay, at the end of the fight, we're going to take, we're going to go to the bar. We're going to find a decently built, you know, you know, you're muscled up 200 pound guy and you got to fight him. Like, doesn't matter you're whether a 100 pound cop or you're a 300 pound cop. You got to get an altercation. It's just like, okay. So hence, like they have a run test. They have a 300 meter or then 1.5 mile 300 meter, a pushup test, a sit up test and a bench press test.

Because it's like, how do you homogenize combat? that and that's that's a good question to solve but let's face it you know Doug you know this is like getting in a fight is so metabolically difficult yeah so you at least got to have a decent aerobic case so if you could do a mile and a half in a decent time is it the same as fighting no but like the likelihood of getting hurt putting a mile and a half compared to likelihood of getting hurt going full live wrestling with somebody for three minutes you know you just then you get into lawsuits and everything else It's such a, not necessarily a Gordian knot, but it's really difficult.

So that's one of the things that I've been doing outside of teaching, which honestly, I love. I really, yeah, I really like educating, miseducating on occasion, but mostly trying to educate and teaching like exercise science, biomechanics, sports nutrition style courses, because that's actually my master's, is actually sports nutrition. Because SLU, I was either going to do a master's in anatomy, which honestly sounded a little boring or get an MBA, which honestly probably should have done because the guy who did, that after me makes way more money than I do. And then of course nutrition from physical form, it's closest thing I had. And I had like one general nutrition course. That's no reason my

master took a while. I had to go take a bunch of prerex so I could get into the program, even though I had had a much bigger science background than most people in the dietetic program. But it worked out. And then I think that's awesome at that background. They have nutrition is like the huge advantage. Oh yeah. I mean, how many of you, you know, how many years did all of us just, you know, I'm going to just have, you know, I'll have more chicken fingers. Yeah. I'm going to crush a Jack's pizza post workout, you know, for the anabolic side. And yeah, it was only until I dial that end, I became a great pastor.

It was like, that was my advantage. I feel like that was of all the things I did, I think dialing in my nutrition was a big, big advantage, you know, you'd be looking at the west side of boys eating like hamburgers and you know, I had everything laid out. Yeah. I mean, doing wrestling and MMA and all that throughout my, you know, 20s and 30s, or really teens 20s and 30s, like I've done martial arts my whole life. And then always having a strong interest in nutrition and my strength coach that I met when I was about 14.

Like he, he would fly me to NSEA conferences and that type of thing. Like he would, he would let me stay after training at his place. And we would, he would make me dinner and like teach me what was in the food. like he like he mentored me in so many ways and so like nutrition was always a part of it and then being in a weight class sport um a playing football in high school and trying to wrestle the same time trying to be as big as possible for football and then as lean as possible for wrestling i was always kind of playing the body weight game you were and um having having to make weight regularly was one more thing that really just like motivated me to want to know exactly what's in my food

how many calories how much protein just all the things and then i you can get to college like i wanted to take nutrition and I got like I got a minor nutrition and then when I got to graduate school like I sat in on on like the macronutrientons class like with like the clinical nutritionist crew like just for fun like I would just go to the nutrition classes because I wanted to I felt like that was like if you're going to be a strength condition coach or a personal trainer like a you need to know you need to know the nutrition side but not just like the science of it you needed to know how to cook you need to know how to make meals like you need to

You need to know the practical side of it too. So actually learning to cook, I felt was very important, which of course now, like, now I'm not like a professional chef by any means, but I can totally feed myself in a healthy way. And I'm very glad I did that when I was in my 20s. And now I just take for granted the fact that I know what's in all my food and how to make it taste good. Yeah, super important.

Even if you want to eat well, if you don't know how to cook and or you don't know how to make it taste good, you're just not going to eat that. You're not going to eat very well. You've got to be able to make healthy food taste good. Yeah, at least palatable, sure. Now, I will simply say that when you're trying to lower your body weight, that's the time to make food unpalatable. That's what's time to do plain chicken, plain oatmeal,

because it's hard to overeat on stuff that sucks. The problem they are getting in the right, you know, like when you is getting the amount of protein, you got to make that at least palatable. You need to, you know, if you're trying to lose, you know, to cut, you don't want to lower your protein. With me, I'm not a big, I'm not a huge eater. So the minute, like, if it's too dried out, I just want to eat anything.

That's not good. Start to lose muscle mass. Well, and then you get into serve safe stuff because it turns out, you know, stomach flu is great for a weight cut, not so much for cutting the type of weight you want to cut. Right. And, you know, and that, so kind of, I've, obviously, when you go through your history, you omit a bunch of names, and there's a lot of other people that I'm incredibly grateful for. I got to go to a couple ISSN conferences because we did a little bit of research with Muscle Farm when they were still doing a lot.

Friends with Jordan Moon, who's a great guy who was the head of their R&D when they were really pushing stuff hard in like the mid-2010s. And when I was there, you know, that boy, Corey Greger, right. Yeah. Yeah. And then Jordan Joy was another researcher working with Jordan Moon. And but we were at ISSN. It was in like Phoenix. And you know,

you're just kind of talking different people and you know, everybody's got name tags on. And you know, the whole research, the like one of the more like the big ones people go back for is Stefan Pasiakos's work because he's the guy who is using the cadets in the military and having them take in like either the RDA or like the one. It was like a 0.8.

It was like a 1.5 and like a 2.5 grams of protein per kilogram. Please always check my data. I just, but that's, why over and it's like, oh, you need 2.5 grams of protein per kilogram of lean mass to not lose lean mass in your chlorate deficit. He was the guy that did that study and it was in, you know, military personnel. So, you know, compliance was a bit more required. Yeah. And I'll tell you what, feel free to use his picture as my picture on the website. Because like, you know, you've been around

economies. You've met Doc Fry. You've met a bunch of those other folks. And like, you know, I'm like, And I'm like, who's this male model I'm talking to? I'm like, oh, this is Stefan Pasiakos. Like, good for you, buddy. You're doing research that's like light years ahead of everybody else. And like, you could just not. I'm sure you could just like put on a suit and smile and be on the cover of something. Like, it was just a surreal moment in time.

I'm like, no. Like, you don't have a beard. You don't obviously have needed corrected blenses. Like, you got a cold head of hair. Why are you doing this, man? Why are you doing it? He does really love it. Oh, he does.

Go try for a superhero movie and call it good. Call the day. Seriously. One of my, another guy that I did my PhD with, Jake said like, he's actually now doing research with them. And like the stuff they're doing with the military side is wild. And one of the cool things,

because he actually, I got him to present at a different conference we done on campus. My friend Jake is that literally, they're trying to figure out literally what makes, the difference between the people that survive, you know, buds, you know, Ranger, Delta training. Like, what is the inherent differences? And, you know, they're looking at hormones. They're looking at all these different biomarkers. They're looking at HRV. And like, who are the ones that can just take that absolute beating between calorie restriction, excessive movement,

and no sleep or minimal sleep? And it's- Yeah, they narrowed down. Well, it's still, they're developing the research stuff. But, I mean, it's the things that we already inherently know in that you've got the guys that have got the mental motor. Like, they've got that discipline. They got that focus. But unfortunately, they're held together by paper mache. And so, like, they'll go, but they'll break every time because they can't.

They just don't have the durability. And then we've all been around the guy where everyone says like, man, if I had their body, because, you know, they do have the physicality, but they don't have the site. psychology to do it. And so it's kind of one of those things of trying to discern how much of it is genetic. And then how much of it is actually trainable? And how do you, with the psychology part, like, how do you define that? It's like, yes. Oh, yeah.

It's such a hard one. They're building toughness. I'm like, what does you mean define that? What's your KPI? And they're like, yeah. Well, so we hold with their hand over a lit candle. and the guy is a third degree burn

those are our tough ones. We're dumb, but I mean, it's hard to discern the difference between the truth. Maybe they just have some issues with feeling. You know,

maybe, in Irving, they're slightly different than everyone else. Oh, man, there's, I don't know if you guys are familiar,

but there are literal human beings that have no pain response. And they, like, they die all the time of infections because they, like,

break a toe. They don't realize if they have internal hemorrhaging and like it takes them out. But wild is, is and it's also incredibly rare is there's people that have essentially calcified amygdalas that they have no fear response none nothing scares them and so like that's a bad dad and that's the one anecdote i heard was actually it was a female and they're like they have to like

tell them like not everyone is your friend so like if you and i are out you know driving at three o'clock in the morning a bunch of dudes are like hey come on over here at whatever o'clock and ready gas station we're like oh cool get in the car this room like what he got and we'll start walking over because like there is no like eh uh-huh the difference between like not being afraid because it's like i know who i am and like okay like i'm just not going to engage and then the straight up like not but you're still like no man like i just not interested you know you like anything else you pick up on those non-neutral sand this person right over the head so they're So people don't take advantage of them.

Yeah. I mean, it's interesting not have a fear response, but also like just like from a pure just just horsepower standpoint. Like like raw intelligence. Like you should be able to like logic your way through that and be like, nah, it's not a good idea.

I probably should get out of here. Yeah. Yeah. And they start walking towards me. They're going to hear you know. Yeah. Yeah. I was at a gas station not too long ago in Memphis and then pump my gas and this

dude walked up to me and goes, you want to make $5? And I go, nope. I almost said I already have $5. And then I caught myself. I was like, I don't want to say that either. Just no, thank you. I'm out.

No. Sir, if you would have found me 20 years ago, I would be like, yes, I do. But, you know, right now, not worth that time anymore. No, man, I got my whole family too. Like, it's just a different ball game, you know, like, you know, grow up in the mountains. You know, you get into altercation traffic. You know, I'm going to pull over and bite, you know, just it's what we did. But now I'm like, no chance.

You know, I got my family with me. It's not going to turn good. Like, nothing good. come out of that so this is the different deal as a dad and like now the era too you pull over you don't know who's got a gun you don't know who's an mnay guy like dog you don't it's a different ballgame now so yeah if i'm gonna fight on the street like a real street fight something has gone horribly wrong horribly wrong yeah and no i'm probably about to pull somebody so it's if i'm not going to fight anymore I'm going to shoot you.

So like, I ain't got time for this. I got to get on to my family. So it's a bad day. Yeah. Yo, let's back it up. You talked a lot about academia and many cool people here. What about your, you're lifting throughout that whole.

Oh, yeah. He's strong. Yeah, let's talk through some powerlifting and getting strong here. Yeah. So it all started in high school, I think, like a lot of other guys. I'm in the weight room. And my first strength coach was the high school strength coach I had there. um coach morris and you know he was doing the good old fashioned bigger faster stronger

and go figure you go on a program i did that it was great yeah i took notes on that whole book when i was like 14 yeah nice well it's clean squat this is like right it's like re-basic it's it's kind of similar to 5-3-1 yeah yeah exactly yeah oh yeah and from there you know went into my undergrad and was really I would say power building is what I was doing kind of bass backwards and because it was definitely that bodybuilding split kind of it was definitely suboptimal and then it was when I got around Rick that's when I went hardcore west side and was doing you know max effort upper lower dynamic effort lower and or same thing and following that program doing a little bit extra volume just because I'd come from kind of more that bodybuilding style

and stripped down west side is not a whole lot and it was a whole lot and it was interesting because it was the first time I ever went to Westside barbell was the fall of 2007 and that's like the height of Vogelphol's power before he left for lexon that wedding was still training out of there and obviously louis was always freaking louis and god every time i went to west side not only was awesome but i pretty much always left of the story and the first time i went there was great because i was prepping for the first raw unity that eric talmont was doing I'd done like three four times. Oh, yeah.

Those were awesome. Yeah. Yeah. And so I got a, I was there, you know, went to met him at Bob Evans. And I mean, I'm a fucking nobody. I just call them up in December. I'm like, hey, can I come out and visit you? And he's like, yeah, sure, you know, be here at this place.

I stayed at a motel like right near west side that, you know, definitely someone maybe died from chain smoking inside of there. Yeah. You know, go to Bob Evans. Yeah. Like, why are these blood stains on my pillow? Weird. Yeah.

It's a nice play. I'm bad to remember the name. It's like really literally one of those red roof in or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Nothing you want to stay in. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's on the west side of Columbus.

And from there, you know, go have breakfast with them. And, you know, I'm just doing a safety squat bar box squats on the phone box with Lou and, you know, a couple other guys and just get, I mean, I worked up to like, I think that was 455. And then I tried 500 and like, that was my first time using an SSB. And in order to maintain a monocum of professionality, I would simply say that my upper back folded like paper under that 550. Yeah. So that were 500. And that's where that was the end there. But then they did band at deadlifts.

And deadlifting is kind of my thing because I have. Yeah. Well, it's, uh, it's the eighth index from like rock climbing when they like the differential between your height and that. Mine is like seven. So like that's the reason why I power. Olympic lifting always felt weird because the power position is just so close to my knees. Yeah. So, you know, Snatch always felt good, but clean felt bad because it's just my arm.

But I worked up to like a little over six, but like just at six. And I think like I pulled enough that like everybody there was like, oh, like this guy is no bit. This guy can actually do something. Yeah. And, you know, of course, like I think it was like an eight second concentric because it was ban resistant. So it's just like, you know, like the slow like and they're like, well, he also commits to the pole.

and, you know, just had fun training. That's what Greg Panora was there. He had a tricep on a rope thing. And it got put, it was the tricep rope that was all the way up on the ceiling. Yeah. And it got off the track. And so, and I was prepping for the raw unity. I was probably like 190 something pounds.

And, okay, I was the, I was a fat kid in the 80s, 90s. And so every year when you had to do like the rope climb, I would just like hang from the rope and like nothing happened. I'm like, what are we doing here? Like we're both just wasting each other's time. And so when I was a college cheerleader, we'd go train in gymnastics gyms. So every time I saw a rope, I would climb up that sucker because I could. Yeah, I got to where I could do fall. You defeated it. Yeah. I said that same story to one of the girls I was cheering with and one of the guys I cheered with at the same time. Like, why do you always climb the rope? Like, I was the fat kid, you know, every year I just hang from the rope and there's

nothing to do. And the girl looks at me goes, you tried to hang yourself when you were younger. Yeah, so. I'm not not passing on those jeans to my children. Well, I'd clarify my language. I'd clarify my language. Yeah. And so it's off the track. And so, you know, and they're like trying to figure out how to fix it.

And I was like, I can try to climb up there and, you know, hold on to the rafter with one hand and see if I can turn the rope over. It turns out I could climb up there and grab one of the rafter and do it. But I could not get the rope back on there. So like, then they put like a system of a bunch of different boxes up. there and like stacked them and had somebody else climb up there and finally fixed it. But I will always remember, you know, I was, we were deadlifting at that point. And because, you know, it was Louis there with the early, early morning crew.

And then in walks vulgar bull. And like there are two human beings that I've met my entire life that just simply seeing them made me uncomfortable. Like, and like the rocked up 275, you know, version of like just like traps, you know, just a triangle underneath the base of his. skull like Vogelphol, like I felt like I was dropped into the gorilla pen at the zoo. I'm like, I don't want anything to do with this. Like the guy just, the guy moved like an angry silverback.

Yeah. And like, and he was then getting ready to go do his squat workout. And, you know, it's just like to see those guys and see the numbers that they were doing nonchalantly and otherwise was just so freaking cool. Yeah. And took what I learned there, came back and I had a. I mean, I won the first raw unity is a 181 when there wasn't many people competing. So it's like, you know, you're good.

I think that was the beginning, don't you? Of the, of the, of the move. Yeah, that's when Raw was really starting to open up. Yeah. Yeah. And so, but it was, it was great of getting to go out there, train with those guys, obviously training with Justin to learn the Olympic lifting. I got in a strong man, thanks to one gentleman in Springfield, Missouri.

And then training at Eagle Gym in St. Louis, who really, Wessels. Oh, man. Yeah. Willie is one heck of a guy himself. And obviously, he was a great guy.

Yeah. He was one guy that I looked up to it. I mean, he was, he was really right up there with Cone, but just he didn't do it. He is like, he didn't do it long enough.

That's what makes Ed Cohn's so immortal is it. Longivity. So long. Like, I don't know how I did that. I do. He was smart. He told me that I just didn't follow his advice.

I should have. But like, he just did the whole half the season, power of the half the season cut it back to bodybuilding he had true off seasons that's the only thing he did i think that most powers just never do they should oh yeah it's yeah and it was great learning from those guys i competed yeah strong man for a number of years um i competed in nationals months but i this a 200 and i think i took like seventh like it was like i was there i mean the car deadlift i did really well at because go figure again bill for deadlifted um the overhead events

we're challenging. Yeah. Exactly. The thing that will always remind me of like, don't feel like your pride needs to get in the way of performance, because I never liked to be the guy out there and just his rebands by himself, you know, and like in a T-shirt or something else when you're doing Stone. And there is, my wife was with me.

And so she's got the picture of it. There was so much tacky on the stone by the time I was up. It was like a 300 over bar for Max Reps. That whenever I laughed it and then I went to load it, you see my shorts just full blown, like just straight up stuck to the bottom of it. And they're just like, ripped like myself a wedge. Oh, dude. And it was from back to front.

So it's arguably, I don't know if that's better or worse, but that's what happened. And so like I literally like drop the stone like it rips my shorts off, have to step out of my shorts, rip my shorts off and then go back into it. And you know, you got one minute. And so like, you know, that's, I was only going to get maybe four, maybe five reps. but when you waste a rep biting clothes like that and doing that yeah and like i mean i was wearing my rebands so it's like i sell the compression shorts underneath and like go figure it went well after that but it's like dude no one cares how you look if you're winning so like yeah exactly you know and that's get the good

old man o'anel lantern going because it just you know waxes your chest as you go through it it was uh yeah and i think i did like all of like one olympic lifting meat and it was just like power snatch power Yeah, power clean. You've done the whole thing. You've done strong man, power lifting, weight lifting. So he's got to do bodybuilding. And actually, it's funny you say that. That's currently what I'm arguably training more for than anything else.

Me too. Just because, you know, yeah, amen. Getting pretty sounds nice. I've never done it. So I'm just trying it. And actually, the other one I competed in is Highland Games. That was actually my first strength style competition was Paul Christensen. Got me into that in Buffalo, Missouri.

That's the only one out there. And dude, throwing a caber is such a like, man thing. Yeah, it was just like hitting a good Olympic lift. Like power lifting is cool. Yeah. You have that like, I, you know, I moved object from A to B. But there's something about like when you can nail a hard snatch, a hard jerk and just like, bam, like that I own this weight, it is over me.

And so when you throw a caber and you see a freaking, mind you, I mean you, I'm Elm Bell, when I say telephone pole. But when you see that log, like, flying through the air and, you know, goes 12 o'clock, clips end over and then. It's like, that was. That's cool. I am flipping my will upon this object. That's super cool.

Oh. Yeah. And, yeah, so I kind of, like I said, yeah, I've got decent numbers. My last meet and I was telling you guys about, I was a really light 220 because I'm not going to, I just wasn't going to do a water cut. It was a local thing. And, uh, uh, he deadlifted, Tom. What you deadlift?

Uh, 7.51. Yep. Dang. Oh, wow. Like, two, like 208. And so. It's a beast. You know.

What do you squat? Not much. Uh, I hit in that meet, it was like 535, which was a PR for me in the meets. And, you know, I, I tore the one pack and had had both laborings done. Thank you, college cheerleading. Um, and that one, I, I think I got like, it was only like a 305, 310 bench, you know. So it was. it was definitely not bad.

And then I got this guy named Travis Mash that's telling me now I need to go chase 8 and the done lift. So it's like, yeah. Yeah, it's something. That's the next step is eight. You can't even take anything else. You just got to go to 8. Yes.

What about 755? You got to go to 4X, man. 4X. Yeah. You know, oh, man. It's one of those things of like, and that's part of the fun of obviously power lifting where it's just like, okay.

And then, God, with like you talked about, like the frame shift, has been because when I first got into it, that's when gear lifting was really big. And I just put on a bench shirt. I put on a squat suit once or twice. And I just never liked it. It's just something about the equipment lifting. I hate it.

I just felt weird about. I mean, you obviously did a phenomenal job under that era. I hated it. I mean, honestly, I trained raw mostly and just put on some stuff. But like, I hated that. I didn't want to be known for that either. That's why I would always warm. I would warm up raw.

to let everybody know i'll beat you no matter what it's so like yeah have you guys ever uh talked with or been around j nera no he was a he was a he was a 220 guy in one of the like one of the raw unions i did um and that was when oh gosh um of course i'm forgetting his name but he's a another heck of a 220 242 guy who is now in california the The name will come to mind. But Jay warmed up on his squats, front squatting, until he got to five. And then he switched to back squats. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think he squatted seven in that competition. So it's like, my God, it's 135 front squat. Like it's not at the 225? 450. Oh, 405? Like, 495. Like, when is this guy going to put the bar in back?

Like is he just going to get there and rock a front squat? Like, I was, damn. I've always thought about doing a front squat just to be like, because I can. Oh, I. Like on the platform? Yeah. For your official lift. Just to be like, you know, yeah.

Uh-huh. I had a monster front squat, so. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You still do have a pretty damn good one. But like, I used to have a really, and I've been well in the 60s.

So brusquite. So it'd be fun to just to be like 600 pounds. But yeah. Oh, yeah. You can hurt some feelings. So, yeah, that's kind of been the competition. You know, it's when I started at. At, yeah, at Eastern, that's when I just, it's not that I stopped competing completely.

I just, the frequency went way down. Grad school, I try to compete once in Strongman, once in powerlifting a year, because you guys, well, once I got to Kansas, because once you get to a certain point in your training career, and that's where, again, Cohen's wisdom, like, you're not making that much progress. So if you're going to go, the more often you compete, well, peaking's great, but you're not actually really building much strength. you're just manifesting it and now able to exhibit it. So it's like at this point now, I got to laugh.

Okay, so I hit the 751 competition. The previous best was it was literally at the raw unity when in like 2014 when I went 716. And so, you know, it was 35 pounds in damn near 10 years. And of course, you know, a lot of life happened. Yeah. We use things along those lines. It wasn't a straight line. but you know I got a laugh

as I did this competition though so like my students like oh so what are you gonna we need to pull like the next big way and I'm like oh no maybe like 20 more years from now 27 2028 like how are you now what are you got? I would do it I would get on it

quick oh no you know you oh yes I am very aware of both the literature and not everybody is it was a day been rick's that still like PRing that dude is a free man I would love to know what's up with him because like there I know this in my 50s it's a different ballgame like I can get stronger but it's I claw for every pound you know like when I was younger

it was not the case now it's like this claw and like that guy is a beast it's so interesting and this is kind of the whole our advantage of being more long in the tooth it's like for these guys that you know they just want to lift they just want to squat once a week it's like okay you know you got 52 squat workouts in a year if you don't skip one yeah so you know in 10 years you're talking 520 workouts like it's the number sounds big but as you guys know it's it's really not and so like if you're not going to really not that you everyone's got your next healing you know depending on how much you're willing to do nutrition sleep and everything else that's how much of you can obviously manifest and at a certain point feeling starts coming down yeah and you know for these guys

Like I tell my students, like, the fastest sprint you're going to run in your life is in your late 20s, maybe early 30s. Yeah. And not that you can't get fast in your course. Especially for speed. Yeah. Especially for speed. Like, right now, cleaning is like so different. It's so different.

It's like, now I can't believe that like 300 seems hard, but it's hard. It's like, you know, it's never been hard before. But now it's the thing. Well, and that's the thing. Like, if you've gotten close to your ceiling, when that ceiling comes down and starts pushing you, you feel it. If you never got close to your ceiling, all these people are like, oh, man, like, I don't notice anything to my 60s.

It's because of like, well, you never pushed it. Yeah, exactly. My ceiling is. I essentially think that anytime I hear somebody say, I'm in the best shape of my life. And they're like in their 50s, I'm like, you just were never in amazing shape. Ever. That's all you're really saying right now. I'm glad you're in shape.

I'm happy for you. what you're saying. Just means you didn't really train in an intelligent way intensely for many years on end when you're always. Yeah. And you know what? Exactly. Like,

problems for you to get in shape. But the simple reality is that like if you could do some type of weird time paradox and get you from every year of your life and like just do like the Royal Rumble. Like yeah, my 20, my 28, 29 year old self is probably going to rock everybody else. Like the only advantage that older me has is simply because, you know, getting into combative sports. But, like, the best athletic. By 30s, I was strong.

You know, I was. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And then it was like, my best snatch and all that. That was then. You know, my best headlift is obviously now, but like, let me tell you, you know, you guys both. Option A, fight someone who's incredibly strong and slow. Option B, fight someone who's incredibly fast.

And I mean, I mean, if they're so weak that it's like, you know, me fighting a squirrel, like, you know, okay, I'll be okay. But if they've got just enough punch behind him, like, no, man. i don't yeah speed is i don't want to look like yeah i'm in the matrix and i'm definitely not neo so but yeah yeah another competition side and yeah so now i've been doing direct armwork um they're still small but not as small in direct too sure i feel like if you have long arms you really do need to prioritize some armwork yeah like i've been working my that's like the week the weak link in the chain and i say i've been working my calves my calves or

They're the only small thing in my body. And, like, they're sore for the first time and forever right now. I'm like digging them as we speak. Oh, what are you, what are you hitting with me? You're doing some straight-legged stuff? I like the gastric. So, like, you do a lot of straight-leg stuff. But I need to do, and I do need to do some seedy can I just get the soleus a little bit.

So. Have you started playing with your foot angle and, like, you turn your toes in and out a little bit? I have. Yep. So, yeah, I've been doing, like, you know, put it on a, on a plate and, like, doing all kinds of weird angles and weird step bumps. Yeah. Yeah. I just, I'm tired of having small calves.

I do quite a bit just because I do a lot of hiking. If you don't do, if you don't do calf races, then you, like, go to a big hike, like, you're going to be sore for, like, 10 days, 10 days in a row. Yeah. That's what happened to Andy. Me and Galpin summited in Mount St. Helens in Washington. And, uh, did you really? Mount St. Yeah.

Yeah, we did over the summer. And, uh, both Andy and his wife. life, they have sore calves for like a week because they have not been doing any hiking. I've been preparing for summer hikes, you know, year-round days. Because like I try to go on big hikes every summer. I'm going a big hike next week in New Zealand. No, you and your dad always go. No, uh, was it what, no, you and your dad, I thought, no, or is that Andy in his, uh, we go, we go, we go hunting.

We go, yeah, deer camp and then, I mean, we're, we're hiking all day while hunting, but he, we don't go, we don't go on big hikes to go on hikes. Right. We're deer hunting for sure. Right on. Mr. Michael Lane. Dude, I'm fucking stoked you're here. We're all in the tanners, of course, but dude, having you on the show, I think it's going to elevate the show and it's going to be a great conversation. And, of course, you're just a great, a great fit from so many angles. So I appreciate you being here. Yes. I appreciate you guys. And obviously, given people a lot more context and unfortunately, I'm sure they're going to get a lot more as we go. So thank you again for the opportunity. I learned a lot today. So, yeah. Yeah, same.

Uh, we're right on. Uh, where can people find you, my friend? Um, so, I'm so. Yeah. Yeah. So you have the Mike Lane PhD in Instagram. I need to start doing more of the socials.

We'll figure that out. Yeah, we need to help you. You need a website too. Yeah. All that. You got a, I got a face for radio and a voice for silent films, man. I don't know if I need to be really broadcasting the stuff. I think you do, man.

You got some cool background. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. All right. Obviously the stuff I'm doing to wrap it and obviously. and through EKU. So if you guys want to come and be miseducated by me, please feel free to come on over. Beautiful. Travis Mash.

Matchel-lead.com. A lot of new products. Right on. I'm Doug Larson. You can find me on Instagram at Douglas E. Larson. We are Barbbell Strugg. You can find us on Instagram at Barbell underscore shrug. If you want to work with either Mike Lane, Travis Mash or anyone else at Rapid, you can go to Arteelab.com. A-R-E-T-L-A-B-B-com. Arte is our flagship program. It's one of the most comprehensive and data-driven health and performance programs on the planet. If you don't check that out, again, go to R-HATLab.com.

Friends, see you guys next week.