Barbell Shrugged - [Strength Beyond Basics] Maximize Strength with Bands, Eccentrics, Isometrics, and Velocity w/ Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Coach Travis Mash #691

Episode Date: April 19, 2023

In today’s episode of Barbell Shrugged we dig in to developing strength using bands, eccentrics, isometrics, and velocity. In this episode, we'll discuss the benefits of each of these methods and how to incorporate them into your training routine. First, let's start with bands. Using resistance bands can be a great way to add variety to your workouts and challenge your muscles in new ways. Bands provide a form of accommodating resistance, meaning that the resistance increases as you approach the end of the movement. This makes them great for exercises such as squats, bench presses, and deadlifts. By adding bands, you can increase the resistance at the top of the movement, which can help to build strength and power. Next up, let's talk about eccentrics. Eccentric training involves focusing on the lowering portion of an exercise. This can be a very effective way to build strength and muscle mass. Eccentric training can be performed with bodyweight exercises or with weights. By emphasizing the eccentric portion of the movement, you can increase time under tension, which can lead to greater muscle damage and growth.   Moving on to isometrics. Isometric training involves holding a position without movement. This type of training can be done with bodyweight exercises or with weights. Isometric training can be a great way to build strength and increase stability. It's also a good option for those who may have joint pain or injuries, as it doesn't require a lot of movement. Lastly, let's discuss velocity. Velocity training involves performing exercises at a high speed. This can be a great way to build explosive power and increase athletic performance. Velocity training can be done with exercises such as plyometrics, sprints, and jumps. Incorporating these methods into your training routine can help to keep your workouts interesting and challenging. It's important to vary your training to avoid plateaus and to continue making progress. However, it's also important to listen to your body and not overdo it. Always start with a weight or resistance that is appropriate for your fitness level and gradually increase as you get stronger. To learn more, please go to https://rapidhealthreport.com   Connect with our guests: Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram  

Shrug family, this week on Barbell Shrugged, the crew is back. Doug Larson, Travis Bash, myself, we're talking about getting jacked. It's what we like to do. It's fantastic. Today, we are talking specifically about stimulus and adaptation. And what that really breaks down to is us digging into the number of different ways that you can personalize your specific training program when you plateau, or if you are having a difficult time getting better in a specific position in your lifts. So if you're thinking about squats, if you're having a hard time getting out of the hole, if you're having

a hard time once you break parallel standing back up, what are the tools that you can use in order to continue to progress and add them into your program? And we walk through a bunch of different methods and kind of like a checklist of understanding what to use, when to use it, what sort of adaptation you should be looking for. And then the stimulus that you should put into place in order to get that application or adaptation. Really cool episode. This is something that Travis uses all the time, As you can tell when you listen to the episode, he's very well versed in all things, really hypertrophy, talking about just really like the velocity side of things, which is super important in different places that we want to be looking at the velocity of the barbell as you move

and just troubleshooting on why people are either missing lifts or they're not progressing at the velocity of the barbell as you move, and just troubleshooting on why people are either missing lifts or they're not progressing at the speed or the rate that they should be. And all the tools that we talk about in here, from bands to eccentrics to isometrics to velocity. I even talk about weight releasers, all kinds of fun tools that you can use and why you would insert them into your training program as always friends you can get over to

rapid health report.com that is where dr. Andy Galpin and Dan Garner show you the exact analysis that they do for lab work with Dan Garner and then lifestyle side of things lifestyle and performance with stress, sleep, nutrition, supplementation, downregulation, all those pieces Dr. Andy Galpin gets into. So make sure you head over to rapidhealthreport.com to watch that 90-minute video, lab, lifestyle, and performance analysis. Rapidhealthreport.com. Friends, let's get into the show.

Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Anders Varner, Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mash. Today on Barbell Shrug, we're going to be talking about stimulus and adaptation and making sure that when you start making changes to your program, that those changes are actually yielding the results that you would like to have. Dude, many times I feel, I probably go into the gym and just start changing things up, not having a clue what's going to happen. And I actually want to start with how important mash, um, when you start making changes to, uh, people's programs, um, obviously these athletes are significantly higher level than said, Anders Varner at almost 40 years old. Um, what is, uh, what is, what, when you start to see deficiencies

showing up in people's programs, how long do you wait before you start making changes? Because I feel like making changes a lot of times is something people should not be doing based off of like knee-jerk reactions. How long are you waiting around and seeing trends going the wrong way People should not be doing based off of like knee jerk reactions. Right. How long are you waiting around and seeing trends going the wrong way before you go, there needs to be an intervention here.

It depends on, you know, where we're at. So like, you know, with Ryan, we're a year out in the Olympics. So it's more urgent now. We only have one year. So it just depends on who, and plus like depends on what your goal is for that block. And like, if you know what you're doing, odds are, you will probably won't have a bad trend. If you know, like, depends on what your goal is for that block. And, like, if you know what you're doing, odds are you probably won't have a bad trend. If you know, like, if I'm using bands only with squats, I know the adaptations I'm going to get. I'm going to get better at creating force at a high velocity. You know, I'm not going to get good at going super.

I'm not going to get good at doing a 1RM at 0.18 meters per second. So, like, I know what I'm going to get good at. a one rm at 0.18 meters per second so like i know what i'm going to get good at i know what i'm not so like you know if i'm doing bands and uh it creates something like you know his hips or back are starting to get irritated i will address that right away so it just depends on you know what i'm seeing like because i know when or for example if right now we're doing a lot of um squatting without bands and we're getting stronger and so i'm probably going to see a trend of him getting less you know high velocity he's probably going to be a little slower but i also know that's okay

because that's not what we're trying to do right now so so i hate the word it depends but it's always going to depend it depends on what you're trying to do, you know? So anyway, if I'm trying to get stronger at squatting and it's not happening, I'm probably going to address it fairly quickly, but like, you know, probably that's not going to happen. Yeah. Um, when you start to look at, uh, those trends over time, what is a period of time that actually matters to you? It's like any time someone asks me, like, is something good? I always go, well, how long are we doing this for? I think that that's almost like one of the most important questions of like,

where are we going and why are we going there um like is doing four sets of something more important than doing six well maybe if you're trying to have the biggest bicep in like 12 weeks you should be doing a lot of reps and a lot of sets to get a big bicep but over 20 years of training those additional two sets don't really matter that much no probably not you know yeah it really just just depends on how urgent things are you know and like i think one thing that we do that's probably not a good idea is that we try to only spend maybe four weeks you know like you know if you look at a typical you know for some reason in america we talk about a 12, you know, like, you know, if you look at a typical, you know, for some reason in America, we talk about a 12 week, you know, program. And so, and in four weeks we want to do hypertrophy. And then, and then in four weeks we want to develop strength. And then in four weeks

we're trying to maximize power, whatever it is. I think that's one thing is like, we don't spend enough time trying to, you know, trying to create the adaptation we're after. If we really want a purge of you, odds are you're going to want to spend more than four weeks. It's just the body doesn't adapt that quickly unless they're newbies. You can do anything personally. That's why it drives me crazy when you see a strength coach, and they'll get someone who's brand new, and they'll be like, oh, we set a 50-pound PR. I'm like, bro just the dude just started you know you can set a 45 pound pr as soon as you put a barbell

on a brand new person's back 45 pounds for the first time yes so it's like doubling someone's income when they're making minimum wage yes like oh it's easy yeah so yeah they got a raise at mcdonald's and they doubled it you know or whatever and so but you we need to spend more quality time i think if we want to produce more power we should spend more time there or in weightlifting if you want to get better at the snatch then probably you're going to put you know probably put more volume towards snatch for several weeks you know to get it um one thing i think is interesting which um is that lately when it comes to hypertrophy this is rather new is that they found they've discovered now that it takes that maximum hypertrophy happens in about five reps no matter what you do like once you get to uh

where you're getting to failure it's those final five reps whether you're doing 30 reps or whether you're doing a max five it's those final five that that maximize hypertrophy so you know if you're doing hypertrophy probably triples might not be a good idea because you're you're missing two reps each time and so and, and then if you're, you know, you could do even an indie, you hear him talking about like, you know, what people do to failure for 30 reps, you do get the same amount of hypertrophy, whether you're doing, you know, near failure at 30 or near failure at fives, you're, you know,

as long as the volume of those fives equates to the same you're going to get the same amount of hypertrophy but you're not going to get the same amount of strength so once again it depends on what's your goal if it's just to be sexy i think you should probably stick to high reps because it's less stress on the joints it's like you're never putting those heavy poundages but you're also making getting strong you know nor are you getting as fast you're not getting the the um ligament intended you're not getting connective tissue improvements or you some but not as much as you would if you went fives so my thing is if you're a strength athlete a five by five is probably a better adaptation than 10 by 10.

So that German volume train I used to do, we don't do it all anymore because it just doesn't make sense. I can't understand. I can't think of a reason why. Walk me through that again. I was, I was, I was all in. And then you said something that I would never thought would come out of your mouth. The German training is not your thing anymore. And I couldn't believe that you haven't written that on a piece of paper and yeah, a long time.

I know like it's one of the things that I've done away with is we don't do any tens at all or eights, which is, you know, very typical. A lot of ways and programs early on we'll do eights and tens. But when I found out that really only the last five reps, regardless of what you're doing, those are all that matters. And then the closer you get to, you know, the more specific it is, the adaptations are more specific to what, you know, a strength athlete is supposed to have.

So it only makes sense to spend quality time at five. So I have to give thumbs up to, which is, what is it, is Glenn Penlay. He was always, pretty much year round they're doing you know fives you know they would squat three days a week and each day it was like fives and now and back then i was like gosh i feel like he needs to mix it up some but now i have to say no he probably was right or even starting strength what's the guy um uh you know he's all about fives i have to which i feel like he probably took that from pin lane but you know you really are just talking about the big movements you're talking about squats and

pulls you're not talking about all the assistance yes no or you know yeah assistance we do um we do a lot of like high reps eights and tens and you know um but like even those really i just don't i think that you're risking you know if you're doing it on everything to a maximum of five, might be putting you at risk. But on the big movement, squatting, pulling, fives is probably going to be your best bet if you're an athlete. Yes. So that's the newest thing I can give you guys. It seems boring, but it's pretty important for a weightlifting coach. Don't put your athletes through the 10x10s

if you don't need to. Just have them do 10 sets of 5. What if you just want them to be sore for two weeks? Then 10x10s are great. That's what I do to my neighbor in here just because, look, he weighs 141 pounds. He's up 15 pounds since he walked into

my gym the first time. I go, look, all you need to do is get to 10,000 reps with this heavy-ass thing on your back, and you'll be fine. Yeah. And you're going to college next year, so maybe we should up the weight a little bit. You don't want to be walking into a frat party squatting 135. No one cares. No. Yeah, definitely.

No one cares. I feel like 10x10 is great if If they're only going to be coming in like once a week, then you can smash them because you need a big stimulus because they're not going to be showing up so often. But if they're trying to train six days a week, then I think you're doing yourself a disservice by totally just smashing somebody because then their ability to train well the next two or three days, then it goes out the window. They're just checking the box the next two or three days until they can walk normally again. Shark family, I want to take a quick break. If you are enjoying today's conversation, I want to invite you to come over to rapidhealthreport.com. When you get to rapidhealthreport.com, you will see an area for you to opt in,

in which you can see Dan Garner read through my lab work. Now, you know that we've been working at Rapid Health Optimization on programs for optimizing health. Now, what does that actually mean? It means in three parts, we're going to be doing a ton of deep dive into your labs. That means the inside out approach. So we're not going to be guessing your macros. We're not going to be guessing the total calories that you need. We're actually going to be doing all the work to uncover everything that you have going on inside you. Nutrition, supplementation, sleep. Then we're going to go through and analyze your lifestyle. Dr. Andy Galpin is going to build out a lifestyle protocol based on the severity of your concerns. Then we're going to also build out all the programs that go into that based on the most

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You're probably like, if you do a 10x10 on a Monday, if you squat again on Wednesday, you're probably, not only are you not getting any new adaptations, you might be going backwards. Because until those fibers that you've damaged, because you do damage a lot of fibers, those damaged fibers fibers until they recover like um nothing good is happening like you're not you're not going to get you know the high

hypertrophy because you're not going to get the same amount of high threshold motor units recruited so what are those bad ideas what are those last five uh reps look like when you're looking at them as a coach? Are those slow grinding it out reps? Or is that with velocity? Like where, what does that actually look like for the, for the specific hypertrophy goal that you're going for? That's a great question. So we, we, we use velocity loss always, and we don't want to, we don't get all the way

to failure very often. I'm not saying that we don't, but it's a very rare thing because like some of the adaptations you get by going to complete failure is not necessarily that good for a weightlifter because remember we talked about the nation angle, like as the nation angle changes, when you start going to those grindy, slow reps, you're going to get a shift an angle and it's going to cause you to have slower movement at the joint and not to mention when you go to failure too you're going to get some of the some of the adaptations are going to be like slower you know all muscle fibers are going to start leaning more towards slower twitch

fiber and so that's not good so we try to keep it the majority of time no more than 20 but yet you can go if you're a bodybuilder and all you care about is just getting gigantic, you can go 50 to 60%. It's true failure is when you're getting 15, 60, somewhere in there is where you're going to miss. That's specifically why I was interested in, because when I, when I think about mostly like the training that I'm doing now now it's like basic bodybuilding hypertrophy training getting into eights and tens and then hitting we had brian borstein on a couple weeks ago and he was talking about how like adding in partials where you're like really at failure but just continuing to move through it um and and a lot of the research that's coming out on a lot, just basically like the length and partials and things like that on, on its effect on hypertrophy. You can't really do a lot of that

stuff when you're doing big compound movements. You're just going to fail. You're not, you're not able to stand up. So yeah, yeah i was i was really wondering like how do you how do you what does that five look like because it's not going to be a bodybuilder type no five no it's going to be more we when you get 20 loss yeah it's going even that last rep you know so like is going to look a little slower than the beginning if that answers your question whereas you know if you're going to complete failure like that first rep of five is probably let's say like normally for five reps failure happens at 87 so if you're doing an 85 set you know that first rep is going to be at like 0.47 meters per second roughly and then when you're done it's going to get you know 0.3 or lower and so it's

going to look a lot slower and so it's a big difference however if you go to failure if you're a bodybuilder it's going to get to like around 0.2 so it's going to look yeah like it's not a complete rep you're just trying to you're just barely standing and track a little bit right you know charles i actually really i'm curious your your thoughts on what andrews just mentioned when we did that show with brian bornson he was he was talking a lot about um doing movements like like lat pull downs is a great example or lateral raises are a great example where if you're doing lat pull downs you might go to failure with hitting your chest but you probably still pull to your forehead another five or six reps like yeah like i had like a half rep you're the top of the range of motion has not actually reached failure.

It's just the bottom range of the motion has reached failure. So he was talking about doing basically like the, as much of the range of motion as you can, you reach failure at the bottom. Then now you're pulling two inches off your chest. And then now you're pulling four inches off your chest. And then you're pulling to your eyes

and you're pulling to your forehead. And then you're just, you're doing these like half reps because at that part of the range of motion, I wouldn't say you're fresh, but you have not actually fully reached failure yet. Uh, what are your thoughts on, of course you can't do that for all movements, but for things like lat pull downs and lateral raises and a handful of others, uh, it's a, it's an available option that I think a lot of people don't necessarily take advantage of. Um, what, what are your thoughts on that overall specifically for hypertrophy first i think that's brilliant here's why because like um you know range of motion there's eat depending on where you're traveling and where the maximum amount of force is happening it will dictate which muscle fibers are recruited the most like for example if you only squat like free weight like you know you're not going to recruit your gluteus maximus very much because only when you're getting maximum force production at extension is the glute working

and so and the thing with squatting the maximum amount of force is happening in the bottom because that's where the moment arm is the longest and the best hip extensor at that position is going to be your adductor magnus, which is, it's, which is crazy. A lot of years, I mean, maybe 10 years ago, we didn't even know that that was a hip extensor at all, but it is out of the bottom of a hole of the squat. Yet when you get to finishing the squat, by the time beginning that last bit, the moment arm is so less, the butt is really is is not recruited at all now if you were to go and do as many as you can in the bottom and then finish with partials you

will 100 recruit the maximum amount of muscle fibers so i think that's a brilliant thing he's talking about and um yeah if you're only using straight weight that's the only way i think you do a movement like squat and get all the fibers you're after for sure it's actually a rationale for doing quarter squats with what you just said like just if it's the only thing you ever do ever and you don't you don't do you don't do full range of motion um the majority of time then that can be a problem that's usually the argument for not doing quarter squats like you're you're trying to pick between one or the other like yeah uh but if you're just using quarter squats as like an assistance movement and you can put on say 100 you put on 100 do like a

10 or a set of 10 instead of 12 where you're essentially doing uh kind of like almost like good mornings in a way you're just putting your butt back vertical shin getting a strong glute contraction then that's a fantastic exercise and you're not going to hit your glutes then in the same way because you're going to reach failure on your squats way before you reach failure at the top of the movement like you're recommending bands are very similar it's actually one of the reasons like bands as well because you do get that full glute contraction all the way to the top of the movement without without being on cruise control for the second half. You stole my thunder. It's like, you know, what you could do is do a set of 10 straight weight, set of 10 banded, set of 10 straight weight, a set of 10 banded,

and guarantee you will have recruited all the threshold, all the high threshold motor units. I mean, and that's what it takes. Like hypertrophy, here's what it's boiled down to at this point. You know, years ago we thought metabolic stress um we thought muscle damage and um the big one uh i'll help me so muscle damage metabolic stress and um mechanical tension yeah so but like most important one the most important i'm just moving my arm a lot we should be good no it's so like getting the pump is the thing is that all those things are the same it's like mechanical tension is the one that matters but

here's what you really need to think about is like are you if you're each rep you're giving it a maximum effort at the maximum velocity and you're getting as close to failure as possible is those are the three requirements for maximum hypertrophy. That's all that matters. And as frequently as possible. So like, that's where you got to play the game. Here's where the art comes in. It's like, if I kill myself on Monday, I probably won't be able to squat again until like Saturday, you know? So like, you know, if get as close to failure as I can, but yeah, I can recover by Thursday and then I can recover again by Monday. Maybe that might, it's probably going to be your best bet for maximum.

But that's the art of it, you know? So, but bands. Do you ever use bands for higher rep stuff? Like you were talking about doing 10 sets of 10, which of course is not something you probably do all the time, or I guess not at all anymore. But when you used to do that, did you ever use bands for the higher volume days like that just to have more time under tension? Yes. And there's even proof now that by using bands, because there's no resting spot is it's probably more metabolically challenging than without bands if you do it like that if you don't do it you know if you're doing it for speed

then no but if you're doing it for like a typical heavy five it's probably more metabolic metabolically demanding than free weight and so yeah i did all the time because i just that i mean uh i naturally realized that speed work for me wasn't as good as like going learning to grind because i was really good at producing high velocity you know force but i wasn't good at like you know going to that 0.18 meters per second so i needed to spend more time there and it worked for sure. You know, even doing like, you know, using bands going super heavy and like say doing singles or doubles and then stopping before failure, taking it off and then doing free. I used to PR like that all the time,

but now we're talking about something different, patination, which is also a great way to for hypertrophy too is you know, you, if you give your body the ability to lift more weight for more reps you're going to get more hypertrophy so yeah another thing you talk about adaptation like one time one summer like it was like the summer in between i think my freshman and sophomore year like i i was experimenting with bands that this was you know shy of 20 years ago like i'm new to chains and bands overall and i was using them for fucking everything the whole summer i used them for everything and uh way way overkill

not recommending it it's not necessary necessarily however i did i did go back to college after that summer uh getting ready to play my next year of you know small college extended high school football small college football and uh the very first sets of squats that I did with straight weight, no bands, I felt like I was going to jump without trying. I couldn't. I felt like somebody was pulling me up. It was impossible not to be explosive. And that adaptation went away very quickly.

It was like a week or two, and that was gone. It went away very fast. But it was a very interesting feeling to squat down and then just feel like like somebody grabbed me by the shirt and just lifted me up you make a great point if you're an athlete the reason why bands i i mean honestly as a weightlifter now as a weightlifting coach rarely do we squat without bands and here's why it's because if you want true compensatory acceleration it's super hard to do that with with just straight weight because if i really accelerate throughout the movement it's going to pop off my back and you know at the tip top and it's uncomfortable and it's just you're naturally going to decelerate no matter what you tell your brain to do with bands i can actually accelerate all the way through the

weight stays on it's it's a much more It's a much more conducive to coaching athletes. The last six weeks for weightlifters, we don't squat. Rarely. Maybe a rep here and a rep there without bands. It just makes more sense. Now that it's proven that if you want to create high-velocity force, bands are going to be better than straight weight so i just can't see why you would ever not use bands those last six weeks when all you care about is maximum power that's all that's weightlifting you know do you guys ever squat all the way to a

full triple extension like you're doing back squats like you squat up you come up like you're trying to jump and then you go to a full a full plantar flexion where heels are off the you're on your toes, like a full triple extension type look, and then you just catch the weight and land. Bartles come off your back, but you did go past just standing. Yes. Almost all the time when we're straight weight because I encourage them to accelerate all the way through. And, yeah, it pops up. Especially in the front squat, it'll pop up, which they're used to anyway, adjusting for the jerk. Yeah, all the time.

That's the only way to do it. That's the only way to do what Fred Atfield was talking about. The compensatory and getting the adaptations that you're going to get from compensatory acceleration. The only way to do it is that. It's got to pop up.

If you decelerate, you did not use compensatory acceleration is that you have to it's got to pop up you know if you decelerate you did not use compensatory acceleration so yeah there you have it um outside of bands what other tools are you um using as kind of like an intervention to ensure specific adaptations are happening well there's the deficiencies there's several it's like you know you've got your the velocity of the barbell it's going to be specific so if i'm yeah hold on i actually had a question uh following up on what doug was saying um you were talking about the automatic slowing down like in a back squat coming out of the hole you're going to be much faster uh once you break parallel and you're

you kind of like automatically decelerate when you're using your gym aware equipment are you able to measure lower half and upper half speed on the bar yes it shows now now we have it especially on the back end this is where you got to have the cloud though you can see like at because you can see in real time like how much velocity you're creating depending on where you're at in the movement so you can see yes specifically on the app we've gone so far late in the last two years with general where we've like you know now we've added rate of force development to the equation we've used uh you can measure rsi since you are basically designing this app with your already world-class athletes yeah yeah that's

yeah it is yeah we're adding all the equations Two, now what Gemaware has done that's ahead of the game is we measure the eccentric velocity, eccentric force. Because now we're all – Dr. Sukumil I was talking about earlier, that dude is doing all the research on how important accentuated eccentrics are. And so how do you measure that? Well, we can measure that. So it's been a huge look because now i'm starting to say at a certain load are they getting better in the amortization phase like are they going down faster and changing directions quicker now and if they are they're getting better at you know the stretch reflex or the you know the elasticity all the properties

that resist stretch which is going to be be Titan that no one talks about. Nebulin. Titan is the one that anchors your myosin head. The nebulin is going to anchor the actin. And so then all the collagen layers that surrounds the muscle fibers, like all those things get stronger and thicker and like, which is awesome for elasticity. You know, the only thing you got to worry about is like you get too elastic. Well, now you're at risk of tearing the muscle. So you got to measure that.

Once again, that's the art of it. Um, are you, when you are all, well, might as well just talk about, uh, velocity since, uh, that's one of the, one of the things that you're playing with, um, for specific deficiencies anyways. Um, are you measuring, measuring um the speed of the bar on the way down say in a back squat that's what i'm saying yes the eccentric yeah we're definitely measuring the eccentric velocity now because i want to see if they're getting better handling certain loads in the century bottoming out and then bouncing out of the bottom no no

we're trying to and like but the thing is this is what most people don't understand is like people will say, well, then I will just slow the eccentric down. And so that's not necessarily it. The faster the eccentric is under control and the under control. That's the key. If I can change directions faster, I'm getting better at controlling, handling that elasticity. Those properties that resist stretch are getting stronger, which is the ones I just mentioned. And so, yeah, we definitely, we measure.

That is something that I've mentioned a couple of times, but I have a senior in high school that's going to NC State next year that's been training in the garage for like six years. He came to me at like 125 pounds, six foot one, like beanpole skinny, like 15 pounds in six foot, six foot one, like beanpole skinny, like 15 pounds in the last six months. But I'm having conversations with him about what you're talking about

because he's never lifted weights before. I haven't worked out with somebody that hasn't lifted weights before in decades. What sport is he? Is he, is he going to play sports? Trying to, trying to go to prep parties next year at NC State. Oh, yeah. No, no sports. Just trying to get healthy and trying to get strong.

Just trying to put on weight. But he's never lifted weights. And, you know, it's just let's do a bunch of reps and just learn how to do this stuff. And then once he's done, like I just had him on a slant board for four months doing uh dumbbell squats not even like up at his shoulder level just it's the lowest center of gravity possible getting his knees over his toes um until he could do uh 55 pound dumbbells for a set of 10 um but once i got him on a barbell, I noticed very quickly his eccentric movement patterns are wretched, not because he's doing something wrong, but it's purely like the control on the descent is a very difficult thing to understand because all you want to do when you're lifting weights is get that stupid bar off of your back because it's trying to bury you. So you just think all I need

to do is just stand this thing up, but then you're never controlling it on the way down. And that is like a massive, um, neurological piece, uh, like the brain body connection to be able to maintain a good position as you descend into the squat. And once now that's all we practice, we're going to do lots of high rep stuff of you just practicing, controlling this weight on the way down. And it's radically changed the way that he moves in a very short amount of time, because he just is able in each position. If I asked him to just stop,

he could just stop and a good position on the way down. Because the standing up part's not the problem. He just moves terribly down. Can't control it on the way down. Sets himself up. When he goes to stand up, his whole body's not moving in the right direction because he can't figure out. Because the descent sets him up so poorly for the ascent. Totally. the descent sets them up so poorly for the uh totally it's so important too and like in athletes

if you just use straight weight uh you will you'll never develop your your eccentric strength like you will your concentric because in for most people that you're about 20 to 30 percent stronger eccentrically so if you just use straight weight you can't't overload it. So you got to find a way to go heavier eccentrically to really get it better. If you're like someone like Ryan. So we've added a ton of weight releasers this time. And we've even added now, we're like add weight and they squat to the bottom to the pins. So now it's resting on pins. People take the weight.

Then they change directions just to really overload the eccentric we've done the same with deadlift to where it'll be like on a rack and so they'll lift it up we'll pull the pins they'll lower it slowly partners will take off weight then they'll stand up with it to overload the eccentric and that's been a huge huge change for athletes because otherwise you just will never improve eccentrically if you just use straight weight you can't even if you go slower because you know going slower is not really helping you you're still not overloading eccentrically because all you're doing now is creating more time and attention making it harder to stand up either way you're not getting better

eccentrically because you got the same weight that you're concentric with and you're stronger eccentrically. Anyway, you've got to be creative. And that's another one of the – another one is vectors. It's like let's say that you want to be a sprinter. You do need to spend some quality time producing force horizontally. Or if you're a thrower, if you're a thrower you know if you're a baseball player you got to spend time rotationally and so like you do need to think about the vectors you're trying to improve because the the um the transfer to sport will be specific in the vector

you work so that's something to consider as well yeah um yeah for for the average the average person that's just trying to build muscle, that's going to be a tricky one to understand. I also wonder how sometimes like the like isometrics plays into kind of like understanding. Are you using isometrics in areas where people are just struggling to get through some position that like for many people, it's just going from below parallel to above parallel and shifting joints right there when they're squatting. Yes. We do it in the pins, though, because, like, a lot of people will say, well, I'll just do a pause. And a pause is awesome, but you can't – there's no way that you're getting maximum force, you know, if you're just pausing, but we pull it in the pin or we squat or we pull or we press in the pins for a maximal contraction. And now if you do it with your muscle, muscle, muscle, muscle, with your muscle lengthened, then you'll create, you will actually strengthen the connective tissues. Also you'll get, you know, some of the tighten,

all the things that once again resist stretch. So that's the way, like Keith Barr, the guy who like is all about, you know, tendons, he will recommend doing isometrics for maximal contraction while the muscle is fully lengthened. So think about if you're trying to, you know, strengthen the patella tendon, the quad tendon, you want to get on the leg extension machine and like load it to something you can't do and press into it as hard as you can because now your quad is lengthened while you're trying to produce a maximum contraction that did that make sense 100 yeah same thing on the leg curl load it up something you can't do and then try to do a leg curl. And 30 seconds seems to be easy.

He would say like, you know, four to five sets of 30 second maximal contraction will get you, you know, maximal adaptation. Yeah. Staying on the eccentric side of things. Excuse me. I have seen on videos of you using weight releasers. Are you doing that more for the eccentric piece? Yeah. Or for the potentiation piece?

Both. So, yeah. I don't think you can do one without the other. But mainly, it's hard to say, but definitely both. You're going to get both no matter what you do. But really, we've been really focusing eccentrically. So that's been the thought, but we're getting potentiation as well. Because I've said it many times, my first time ever squatting 800 pounds was done with weight releasers.

I lowered 900, 100 flops off, and I stood up with 800. First time squatting 800 raw was that way. I think it's the best way. I wrote an article about it. I think it's the best potentiation you can get because it's immediate and you're doing it only centrically so you don't get the fatigue that you would if you

did it like a full range of motion potentiation set. Yeah. All kinds of stuff there. Yeah. I've never actually used weight weight releasers um something i would love to play around with they're fun if nothing if nothing else man they're just they're just fun and so yeah that's what i do i just i love those things you you know and that's something we don't talk about. There is the fun factor. If an athlete is having fun with it, then by all means they need,

they need to do it. So. Yeah. If you just sat there and back squatted by yourself forever, you wouldn't back squat that long. No, man. I mean, I feel like that's where like so much of a, why, it's not why people love winning, which is why they went to the Westside to do that. But they – Louis made those speed days and dynamic effort days, like, fun. You got to go do different cool shit.

Even though you were just squatting and just deadlifting, by putting the bands on it, putting the weight releasers on there, putting the chains on there, doing it to different height boxes, like – It was just cooler. Yeah, it's just – you have that's why prospect exploded it was like i can do these 15 different things and 10 different ways and combine them all together and feel like i'm gonna die at the end of it this sounds incredible and here's like just to make sure i don't miss any of the the the specific transfer that you're going to get from strength training there's like eight of them like the muscle group

you're training so if you're doing biceps your biceps are going to be what gets stronger and bigger i mean that makes sense that's obvious um the velocity we've talked about that if i if i do things slow i'm going to get really good at doing things slow things fast to get things fast the contraction mode we've talked about concentric eccentric isometric the range of motion the specific adaptations we've already hit one thing that we didn't is the point of strength endurance continuum now a lot of this i'm talking about and let me give credit where credit's due chris beardsley he's the one who i've been reading him up we need him on the show i know

dude that dude is so smart but and he makes things so complicated so easy so complicated when i see an infographic from him that i can't even get through the first two sentences if you read his book it's much easier like his book is like i know his infographic is uh infographics are so like what is he trying to say and then you look look and you're like, oh, it's the one little sentence is all you need to read. Alright. It's complicated, but it's also just very comprehensive. Yeah, it

is. He's in-depth. I'd love to see him. I would love to see Dan, Andy, and Chris Beardsley hang out. Oh, and Dr. Sukumil. Those four, man, I feel like they would save the world if those four got together. But anyway, but the endurance, so like if you do lots of high reps all the time, you're going to get really good muscular endurance. You're probably not going

to get good at power or pure strength. So like whatever end of that continuum you're working on, you get better at stability. So like when you do things, I know whatever end of that, you know, that continuum you're working on, you get better at. Stability. So, like, when you do things, I know when I was young, when I was at the Colorado Springs OTC, Charles Polgan was having people do squats on a stability ball. And so, like, I watched a guy, Ted Ekay, squat 225, standing on one of those round stability balls. And I'm like, man, I bet he's going to get so strong. And his back squat from the floor went down so he got really good at squatting not trusting the floor underneath right like a

terrible idea you just can't push hard when you're in an unstable surface exactly it's a that's not a good idea if you're trying to get super strong and then uh external resistance we've talked about straight weight versus bands and then the vectors so we covered all eight at this point but when you transfers yeah does um and i'm sure gpp kind of plays into all these things but um is there like a place in which we just need to get in better shape like being a more athletic person does that um yeah totally deserve i mean like its own box i mean i feel like many times i've gotten plateaued in my life and the thing is i just need to step away slow down that specific thing and just go get in better shape or stronger in other areas and stop hammering this one specific thing.

And a lot of times it's like the athletic things like sprinting, running hills, moving, moving athletically. And all of a sudden, like the world opens up a little bit when you're not just hammering the exact same thing and trying to break it down into its tiniest little pieces, but just like panning out and don't move much more macro and just moving. Yes. I think some Smith coaches out there only focus on the weight room and

they're making, they're doing it to serve us because you do need to get out there and sprint. If you want to get good at sprinting, you need to sprint. You want to get good at jumping. You need to jump. If you want to get good at moving,

if you want to get good at baseball, you got to play you want to get good at moving if you want to get good at baseball you got to play baseball man and so like you know yes the majority of your time should be doing the thing you're trying to get really good at like if you're crossfit you need to go play crossfit and so you can't just go to the weight room and get really good at something it's it's just a piece of the puzzle and those are the eight ways you can improve yourself in the weight room but then get out of the weight room, but then get out of the weight room and move. Move in all the different planes. Move in the sagittal plane. Move in the

frontal plane. Just move. You got to do that. Fab Smash. Where can the people find you? MassElite.com. You can also go to GymWare.com if you want to look at Velocity stuff and use code MASH5.

There it is. What do you weigh these days? Who, me? 209. 209. That's light. I need to be. Summertime.

I'm getting ready for the lake. I'm definitely getting ready for the lake. I'm getting ready. Well, maybe the next show I'll make a cool announcement, but getting ready to spend more time doing things I enjoy. So I'm excited. There it is. Doug Larson.

Right on. I'm on Instagram. Douglas E. Larson. I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner. We are BarbellStrike at Barbell underscore strike. Make sure you get over to RapidHealthReport.com. That is where you can see Dan Garner and Dr. Andy Galpin break down lifestyle, performance,

and lab analysis for one of our clients inside Rapid Health Optimization. You can go watch that 90-minute video for free over at rapidhealthreport.com. Friends, we'll see you guys next week.