Barbell Shrugged - The Performance Pyramid: What Actually Drives Results with Doug Larson, Travis Mash & Dr. Mike Lane #843

Episode Date: April 8, 2026

In this episode, Doug Larson, Dr. Mike Lane, and Coach Travis Mash break down the performance pyramid: a simple way to organize the biggest drivers of strength, muscle, and performance. At the base are the non-negotiables: training, nutrition, and sleep. The crew opens by challenging the idea that tiny programming details or trendy methods can outrun poor fundamentals, using the old Colorado Experiment and the modern return of one-set-to-failure arguments as a perfect example. Their main point is clear: almost everyone wants to skip ahead to advanced tactics, but most real progress still comes from training hard, training consistently, eating enough to support the goal, and sleeping enough to recover. From there, the conversation moves into the second layer of the pyramid: quality and individualization. Once the basics are solid, the next gains come from refining exercise selection, dialing nutrition to the athlete, improving recovery habits, and solving specific weak links. Mash explains that for most lifters and everyday adults, layer one will carry them a very long way, while layer two matters more as you approach elite levels where tiny edges compound over months and years. Mike adds that protein timing, food quality, and recovery details do matter, but only after total calories, total protein, and training consistency are already in place. The message is practical and refreshing: stop putting the cart before the horse, and earn the right to worry about the finer points. Finally, the team gets into the top layer of the pyramid: marginal gains and nuanced decision-making. This is where advanced supplementation, blood work, biomarker analysis, special recovery tools, and sport-specific exceptions can make sense. They discuss when convenience foods may actually have a place for competition fueling, why supplements like creatine, caffeine, beta-alanine, vitamin D, magnesium, B vitamins, and even bicarbonate can matter in the right context, and how truly elite athletes separate themselves by stacking small advantages over time. The big takeaway is that performance is built like a pyramid for a reason: if the base is weak, everything above it becomes unstable, but when the fundamentals are handled, the small details can become the difference between good and world-class. Links: Doug Larson on InstagramCoach Travis Mash on Instagram

Shrug family, Doug Larson here, and this week on Barb L shrug, we're breaking down the performance pyramid. It's our big picture framework for figuring out exactly what drives results in the gym and how to prioritize your training and recovery. We discuss why the vast majority of your results have less to do with designing the perfect training program and more to do with simply nailing the basics with relentless consistency. We talk about what matters most for optimizing recovery from sleep and nutrition. We also discussed how to know in lab testing, nutrient timing, supplements, and other advanced recovery strategies actually matter. and when they're just a distraction. So if you're someone who loves training and wants to spend time only doing things

that actually move the needle, this episode is for you. Enjoy the show. Welcome to Barb Bell Strugg. I'm Doug Larson here with Dr. Mike Lane and coach Travis Mash. Today we're talking about the performance pyramid since you're working through

kind of the big three foundational layers of all the things you need to consider for your training. But before we dig into that, I actually stopped Mike Lane right before the show. He was about to dig into a rant and I said, you know, hold your horses, dude. Let's just do it right at the beginning.

of the show. So I actually don't know all what you're going to get into here, but enlighten us. What are you ranting about? Oh, my goal is to get everybody canceled as fast as possible. The Colorado Experiment. So I was teaching on Monday in Exfiz, and one of my students brought up the Colorado experiment. Now, this is from the 1970s, and this is Arthur Jones, the guy who pretty much came up with the Nautilus Machines and using K.C. Veter for about a month of doing only, surprisingly enough, his equipment on his training program gained a comically large amount of lean mess. Now, for kind of the history lesson, Casey Vuter is a heck of a bodybuilder back in the day.

He had actually just come back from like injury and illness, so he lost a lot of weight and was supposedly gained 63 pounds of muscle, even though he actually gained 45 pounds. And the extra 63 is because Arthur Jones assumed that he had lost fat in the process. Now, let's start off with what is accurate. They trained hard, they trained consistently, and he was in a caloric surplus. Now, in the peer review science area, one, this wasn't peer reviewed. Two, there's no control subject. You didn't have Casey's genetic twin that just sat on his butt or did traditional barbell training

and followed the exact same diet and all he did was get fat. So go figure. If this really worked and this is, you could replicate it, you would see this over and over again. And so don't get me wrong. That's where people can kind of lose the threat. Because they're, oh, man, all you need is one set to failure. You are correct in the fact of if you do one set to failure compared to don't train, you will make, we're not talking orders of magnitude more progress than the person that says on the couch.

But if we compare someone that takes one set to failure, compared to someone who takes more than one set to failure over long periods of time, the person who does more work gains more muscle. And that's where both are right, but they're losing the nuance. And they were trying to, like, well, this is better. Like, no, it's not. It's better than nothing. Just like chocolate milk is better than water as opposed to workout nutrition.

Because go figure, calories is better than nothing to help you recover after you train are. So hence, it got my huckles up because go figure. They're like, oh, man, look at this. I'm like, yes, two data points. That's really strong. What drug testing did they do on those athletes, by the way? No doubt.

Are you running across people these days that are making an argument for one set to failure still? Why are you frustrated about this? It's still out there big time. Oh, yeah. Because on social media, the Mike Mensen's stuff is again coming to the forefront of like all you need is these couple sets. Don't get me wrong. Yes, it worked for Dorian Yates. But they forget about the two bigger factors.

Dorian Yates has Dorian Yates genetics. And Dorian Yates was running drugs that most people weren't or at all. And there's more to it than that. Like, Dorian just do one set to failure. Like read carefully. Like he would do all these warm-up sets that for most people, those warm-up sets are going to count towards hypertrophy.

They were still close enough to failure that there's still hyperchievous sets. Then he also did drop sets. He did force reps. He didn't just do the one set to failure. So like, yeah. If I do three sets of 12 and then on the last set, I do a set of 15, and the 15 really was the only one I went to failure on, but like I really did three sets with pretty close to failure.

Is that what you're talking about? Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, like, in the, uh, or is it? I mean, if it's the case, like I do a lot of training like that. There are many, many sets that I do that are not truly to failure. There, you know, I have two, three, maybe more reps in, in reserve, depending on what I'm trying to do.

If you're doing velocity based stuff, you do no reps to failure. right like depends on what you're trying to do like I used to when I was when I was my teens I did most of my sets so like just bone crushing failure yeah that's what you're supposed to do if you didn't go to failure I felt I felt like you like you like pushed out and like and and and someone was going to yell at you right I thought I was going to get in trouble but now that I'm older I do lots of sets too close to failure and then like my last set or two I might take it like all the way to failure but if I'm doing if I'm doing higher at back squats I got I did I did we did the 20 Red Backscot show the other day.

I was doing sets of 20 for front squats. And I only really went to like, I was doing, I was not doing a true 20 right back squat thing. Like we were talking about like the one just brutal set of failure. I was doing multiple sets of 20. And I probably could have, I probably could have got past 20 on those first couple sets. And then actually on the last I only got to 18.

But the 18 was the only one that actually failed on. But that was a very intent, quote unquote, intense workout. Like I was putting a lot of effort into those sets. I was like fatigued the rest of the day. You know, I did stuff after that as well with all the single joint stuff. We talked about leg curls and calfers. I did a much other assistance work afterward. And that was brutally sore the next day. But I only took one of those sets to failure. So is that what they're talking about? That's not the same thing as just doing one set. Yeah. This is the old school Arthur Jones, not also only machines, which not going to be wrong. The machines are solid. Like they've definitely improved over time. You know, and machines,

training does have a place in training. Sure. But when you're trying to sell your product, which is your machines, and then sell it with, oh, you'll have to do one set to failure, and that's maximizing muscle mass. Yeah, and again, he was a salesman, and they got to give it to him because people still talk about it and that still remain relevant. But going back to your point there, Doug, that's the nice thing about, yeah, you can do four sets of 10, last set to go to failure.

So if you do three sets of 10, same weight for the fourth set, and you bang out 20-something reps like okay you weren't actually training hard those sets were productive but as long as you're getting within four sets or four reps to failure that's giving you a solid amount of stimulation sure and so that's the again the nuance the are you training hard and are you training consistently if you're doing those two things even if your training program sucks you know and that's where people can get little persnickety about west side barbell and louie i'm sure MASH, you've suffered some flack from stuff you've done with your training. But, you know, the biggest piece of the puzzle is getting them to get in, train hard, train

consistently with good technique. And then the periodization, it matters, but not as much as those bigger rocks. Right. There's so many ways to get to the same endpoint. Like, I bet if you, it's any powerlifting or bodybuilding, like, championships. And you ask the top five people, they're all going to give you five. different ways they got there. So it's like, yeah, did you train hard?

You know, were you smart? Were you giving yourself enough rest to recover? Like, there's so many things that are like important. The rest of it's just like whatever. Yeah, they might give you, it might sound if you're not, if you're not an expert in the space, like you're new to it. Like you might talk to one person and they're going to be telling you like all these different nuances. They might do some specific variation of an exercise and some other person does a little bit

different volume and at the end of the day it's going to sound like they're doing different stuff but conceptually like principles wise you're going to be like oh yeah they're all they're all doing heavy movements around the same type of volume they're all variations of a squad or all variations of a deadlift or all variations of a clean et cetera so like if we're cycling back to our the kind of core idea of the show today like with our performance pyramid if we have like kind of three layers of a pyramid you have all your foundational items all you kind of like performance enhancing things and all you're like all your kind of nuanced things at the very end which give you like your marginal gains, you know, doing high quality training.

Again, just training at all and training consistently. It's like the base of every pyramid here. And so if we talk training, sleep, and nutrition, are you getting enough high quality training? You're doing all your major movement patterns at least once or twice a week and you're going to somewhere close to failure. You're doing it with good technique. And you're doing consistently for most days of the week, week on week, month on month,

year on year. As far as training goes, like that's the base of your pyramid. You can be 80% your results. Even if like your program isn't like amazing, if you're doing like kind of a, you're doing a power off the program, you're doing kind of like a bad crossbook program,

you're doing a bodybuilding program. You're in a magazine, whatever. Like if you train five, six days a week hard on a sub-optimal program for many years in a row, you're going to be light years away ahead, rather, people that especially aren't doing anything, but people that just aren't training hard or being inconsistent, et cetera.

Right. I mean, you know, like the amount during his it doesn't even make sense. You're telling me you go on a squat. We used to throw five plates on there. Don't warm up and then just bust it out big boy. No chance. You know, like like man, just tougher and stronger than you man. They can just go up and do five hundred cold. I mean, we can train together anytime and find out. You know, like we're both doing our both old. So like yeah, it's like you're going to have to one. Otherwise, maybe that's why you tore your bicep, tore your tricep, and like look like Frankenstein at the end of your career. Well, exactly. And that's where it's all about the tool. When you're young, my joke with a, if a kid at the rec says he's going to go to a set of 10 on the bench press, what he's really saying is he's going to do seven reps. And then I'm going to do three upright rows with ascending load because he's not going to get rep eight, nine, and ten. It's going to be a wee brother, comrade get reps eight, nine, and ten.

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that and you're okay. But if any of us did a hard set to failure and then did some force negatives, like that risk reward ratio starting to get a little flipped more towards the risk side no doubt so it was the same guy mike who's is the guy mensner yeah he i just watched the video where he went up to um ronnie coleman and said you know he didn't like his i don't know you know thinking back is this really true does this really happen like were they even alive at the same time you see so ronie colemy came on in the 90s i know that we did mike mr die i think it was actually, I think it was in the early thousands, but yeah, he was.

Okay. So they might as cross pass because the rumor is he, you know, that he had written this article about Ronnie Coleman and about Flex Wheeler and said, oh, they look great, but, you know, if they don't know how to train, if they did what I, you know, what I told them to do, they would be awesome. And I'm like, what a bold statement. Since Ronnie Coleman, like, arguably is the best it's ever been, you know, like, you can't say that do the go like you know you might think that ed cullen's program wasn't good but guess what he

won a lot more than you did so he's right so yeah with ron and went like eight olympias yeah he was one the more than anybody's ever so like it arguably almost everybody would agree he's the best of all time so i can't what could he have done to be better like he did go heavy he just went more volume than you he went heavy and kept going where you quit he kept going it worked this huge Then you get the with guys like specifically with Cohen, we've got hindsight. You know, he was training using the best programming, best technique and everything else at that time. And don't be wrong, he was the Michael Jordan of that time. And I, yeah, if you ever meet Ed Cohen in person, first off, incredibly kind, nice human being.

Second, like, I'm, you know, I'm all 510, but I've got big hands for how tall I'm not. And like, I got to look at this. egg. Oh my God. His form is like a legit uncut down two by four. His just sheer radius and alma thickness is like, yep, if I was designing a human being to be essentially a

forklift to be a wish, I give you Ed Cohen's skeleton. And that's where like, you know, with Ronnie Coleman, like, he obviously trained hard, he trained consistently. You know, during that era of bodybuilding, obviously there was different substances to help with training. But at the same time,

they, you know, all pros kind of solve for themselves. That's why I was finding it entertaining when they're like, oh, why does blank blank use that technique or not squat or not do this or that? I'm like, well, turns out, you know, yeah, you can see videos of Ron doing 800 for multiple reps, both in the squat and

deadlift. And at a certain point, it's like, okay, yeah, I can see why you might want to leg press, man. That's a whole lot of weight going through that spine. It was a point. Yeah. Well, and he obviously got a really good return on investment from it, but unfortunately, You know, I know he definitely has had back problems.

This is where people will pile on and give him trouble or anything else. But if you're going to redline the human physiology, like, something's going to fall off. Sure. Like, we know how many power lifters and strongmen you know that have, you know, blown a bicep. You know, it's just it's unfortunate where you get into it. But that's so comically to an end of the spectrum that they're trying to be like, oh, well, you know, he could have done better if it would have done this. It's all conjecture. And it's often, go figure, someone that's now trying to sell.

program and you know if you would have done my thing you would have been fine it's like so you're saying the greatest bodybuilder of all type could have been greater i mean is that even mathematically possible like if you're already the best can't become more of the best can you like that's even bad grammar you know the funny thing is if you want to go low-hanging fruit of what would have made ronie of Betty, a better bodybuilder is have him not be a cop. Oh, yeah. That's a really stressful job. That's, you know that aid into his recovery.

Like, I don't care about his programming so much as like, imagine if literally Ronnie would have been treated like a Bulgarian weightlifter during the height of Bulgarian weightlifting. You know, straight up state sponsored, no stress, all you've got to do is train and recover. It'd be so huge. That's the Ronnie that would have been eating. that would have been even more insane. I mean, like, it would have been so hard.

It would have been so hard if he showed up to like a traffic stop or like he comes to the door of your house. Like nobody, nobody goes, oh, the police are here. They go, holy shit, look at you. Who are you? Like, yeah. I mean, or they're going to know who he is. But if a 300 pound shredded dude shows up at your house, you're going to go, whoa, can we, before we dig in this, whatever reason you're here for, can we talk about that situation?

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what I've done, but let's talk about how big your ass is. Like, God. Yeah. I mean, talk about a built-in deterrent for a lack of compliance. Yeah, you even said that nobody ever, like, fought back. Like, yeah. I'd be like, it's good, man. Just cuff. Yeah, no, nobody's trying to fight with him. No, it stands, dude. You're going to get broken. Like, he's going to throw you around like a gorilla. It's like, it's going to be bad. Yeah, you know, Zoom back into the,

yeah, not running. It's not a bad idea of the show here. So, again, we have, we kind of broke down this performance period into three general phases,

kind of the, we're 80-20ing our way through all of the big picture items that you obviously have to do to make any substantial progress. So I already mentioned training, and basically I'm stating the obvious with training with, you have to be training, and you have to be able to train with enough ball. with good enough technique and just a just general structure training program that you're doing

consistently or not making progress at all. Stating the obvious, of course. Moving on beyond that, of course, nutrition and sleep are the other two big categories, and you have to have just, hey, enough quality and quantity of each to make some progress. But, Mike, I'm going to kick it over you regarding nutrition, just like the bare bones basics, and then we'll get past the basics, which hopefully everyone already knows at this point. We can kind of move into layer two and three here. Yeah, no worries.

So effectively, you know, context is key. Most people, if we're just eating at a good maintenance calories when we're getting enough carbohydrates to support the training volume and protein to obviously support building muscle mass, I like to teach with my students. It's the cups inside of a bowl analogy. So imagine a large bowl, and inside that bowl, you've got three cups of different size.

One cup is for carbohydrates. One is for fat. It's pretty small, small like a shot glass. And then one is for protein. once we fill that cup with the protein in your diet, the fat, the carbs, it spills over and fills the ball. Once we fill the ball, it spills over, and that's either what turns into, that's a caloric surplus, and that's what either turns into fat because we're not training, or turns in a muscle, and then, of course, if we're massively overfilling the bowl, we're not just going to maximize the muscle gain,

but we're going to gain fat with it. So simple, quick and dirty, we can literally just do cans of tuna fish, pixie sticks and shots of olive oil, and you'll fill each of those cups. It's not going to be super great for like long-term health. It's definitely not going to be very enjoyable. But, you know, that's the whole if it fits your macros logic that was kind of popular a couple of years ago. Where, you know, again, it is pretty simple at the end of the day. Are you getting enough calories?

Because if you're not filling the bowl, okay, well, your body has to get that protein from somewhere. And that's coming from muscle. Now we're talking kind of starvation. But the same point, if you're in that deficit, it's going to pull from your body. fat as long as you're training and creating that stimulus. But again, if our goal is to build muscle and our goal is to really increase performance, we want to be at least weight stable. And then when you get to training ages like ours, you probably need to be in a surplus

if you're going to build any muscle at that point just because you're well developed. Yeah, at a foundational level, like you used to be getting enough calories to fit your goals. If you're trying to lose weight, your calories are low enough where you're actually ticking down in body weight. If you're trying to stay stable, your weight is staying stable. And if you're trying to build muscle mass, then the weight on the scale has to be going up at least a little bit each week. You know, say, say 0.5% of your body weight or 1% on the high end there. So just getting enough calories and getting a roughly for super basics, I'll say a roughly even macro split.

As far as the foundational layer goes, we'll talk into, you know, altering your macros and whatnot kind of as like a level two or level three item. But are you getting enough calories? and do you have like a roughly even macro split is like like the most basic approach to nutrition right um mass what what else sleep i mean for me it's been the biggest change i've made lately is just like listening to recommendations from uh dr perry has really helped me just making sure i go to bed and get up the same time um i stopped drinking i haven't man i haven't this is weird to say i haven't had any alcohol in months you're like i just i did notice you know what's i stopped and i would have a glass and just mess me up it's uh my training is so good i can't anything i do

that messes it up it just bothers so like so like so stop doing that like um and then that i went through this weird thing when around 50 like i had this like weird anxiety that i never had and like simply by just making sure that i'm getting enough sleep and by making sure i got you know getting the sunlight in the morning like that went away too like you know the doctors were like oh you can do this medicine. I'm like, man, the last thing I want to do is something, take something else. But I was able to just exercise correctly, sleep better, and like all that changed. Now it feels so great.

Zero anxiety, zero anything. So yeah, it's super important. It's been the biggest change I've made. Yeah, not drinking is an easy win for most people. Yeah. You know, of course, every once in a while is fine. But if you're not, if you're drinking every day, it's, it's going to have a, a, ongoing disruption to your sleep.

So like big picture for sleep, as far as like this foundational layer, layer goes, are you in bed for at least eight hours without distractions? At the same time, you know, I would say that to you. Yeah, you're in bed. You're not being, you know, interrupted by by a dog waking you up or kids in the room or your phone or anything else. Like, are you in bed with the lights out for at least eight hours? And if you can check that one fairly easy box to check, you know, I'm talking to

Mike's got a young, a baby at home. It's easier said than done. But there's the constraints in everyone's lives. But that at the most basic level is like the foundational layer of the sleep category in my mind. Just are you in bed enough to have the potential to sleep? And that's where exactly. And from there, after we go quantity, we go quality. So, you know, if you live next to, I don't know, the L in Chicago.

And you've got the subway going through all times until the night, waking you up. Obviously, I got a small child. Like, did she just cough? Were she up? Or did it like, you know, it's just, you know, you're putting yourself in more of a vigilant state. So you're not sleeping as deeply, et cetera. So, you know, it's one of those things where part of the world you want both. But if you know your sleep quantity window just sucks because of work, life, all those

responsibilities, then, damn, make sure that room's dark. Make sure that room's cold as you like it. make sure that you are not, you know, pounding a thousand calories and trying to lay down and wonder why you can't sleep, you know. I still make that mistake sometimes is like if I get up in the middle of night and like, because, you know, you're also wrapped to make bad decisions in the middle of night. It's like, sometimes I will just let myself go and that's bad. It definitely makes for bad sleeping. So I think that is one of those, it's nuance. So if I'm working with an athlete and you got to train tomorrow, you got to compete tomorrow,

I would probably be okay with you sacrificing a little sleep quality to get the calories in you. So you've got the fuel and you do those repairs. But what we're doing tomorrow doesn't matter. It's a rest of the rest. I don't have to sleep. Go to sleep and get a big breakfast in when you get up where you're getting those calories in. So I know you're going to sleep better. And then when you wake up, you're definitely going to be hungry.

And then you're going to pound down the calories that you should have had. So, you know, it's one of those things of, it's nuance. And so hence, if you got somebody in there listening to right now and they know they get off at 2 o'clock in the morning, you know, their boss is an asshole, they can't bring food with them to work. Then it's like, yeah, pound your calories down so you know, just start yourself that day. And just do like a shake, do something that's easy digestion. You know, you've got, you got some room there. All right. So moving on past this first phase here.

Again, talking training, nutrition, and sleep. In a way, especially on my side, I was really talking about quantity for all those things. Are you getting enough training? Are you getting enough sleep? And are you getting enough food, calories and macros? And then that really kind of handles the initial 80%. And there's got to be some, you can't do it all like incredibly poorly. You got to do it at some level of quality.

But this next layer, we're doing kind of the next 80%, again, if we're 80, 20, you are from 80% to like 96% of your results are going to come by 80%. by 80-20 and two times. The quality layer is kind of layer, layer two here in my mind. And Mikey already started touching on some of this with the nuances that you've already mentioned. But Travis, we're talking about training and now going beyond just like doing a general training program that you could find online. Like you're starting to get into the nuances of like the individual athlete and

tweaking something specifically for them, specifically for their sport or their body type or their injuries or they're on and on. Like you're making it hyper individual to the athlete. it's not a general training program anymore. You're writing it specifically for an individual. Talk us through training and kind of what the next layer of nuances is for training specifically. That's what I'm probably, you know, once you know, you get them, say a guy like Ryan, like once he makes it up to the pop, it's until that point, until you're like battling

for like a team USA spot. In my book, it's like all layer one mainly. Like everybody's doing the same program. We're all talking about sleep. but like but then you get the point where you start sending him to like and we did you know we sent him to and dandy and dan and did uh did his macros and his diet and got his supplements exactly dialed in and like what can you expect you're just helping for that last 1% you're literally squeezing out the water out of the rock at that point but that's what separates that's what separates you know

the guys going to or winning the Olympics and the guys or at home. It's little. It's very little. There's so many people watching Olympics that could be there. They just not quite there. So, but that's when we started these things that we're talking about now. And I think one thing to never sleep on is, don't get me wrong, an extra 1% gain, an extra, you know, less than a fraction of a percent. Yeah. A gain per training session is meaningless in a week. Doesn't even mean much over a month. But over a year, okay. You're seeing some differences, but over a decade, that's where it shows itself. Yeah.

And, you know, and they don't get me wrong, without overlooking the previous components, and meaning you are sleeping, you are eating, you are training consistently. Like, who cares if you manage to do a slightly better clean variation for him or clean up his technique if the dude's skipping every other squat workout? Right. It's pointless. And then he's not going to get very far anyway at that point. So, yeah.

So like let's get back to layer one at that point. Exactly. Let's do these basics. Let's forget the layer two stuff. And a lot of your athletes are going to be like that. They're not going to make it past layer one. Or even your clients to say, even your adults, if they just, you know, like, there's a group here of old guys I've been working with a little bit. I've passed them off now to one of our personal trainers here.

But like, I got them started. And yeah, you're just saying like, look, try to sleep a little bit. every night but you know that's where we're like get an hour like so that's where we're probably never getting out of layer one with these guys but but yeah i mean no one really gets away from layer one like layer one is always there but if you have all that stuff dialed in then you can you can stack on top of that and you can you can make you can make all the individual adjustments to a training program but that that assumes that you're while you're making those individual adjustments but you're also still doing means you're crushing

level one. Yeah. You're already training consistently and you're already doing enough volume and on and on. And now you're just like selecting specific exercises to shore up the weaknesses to help that person hit their next PR by five pounds. And I hate what people can't get layer one and they're wanting to go on to layer two. It's like, you know, I have athletes who are like, they want to like talk about supplements and getting blood tested. I'm like, wait, man. Like, you know, are you even sleeping? Like, you know what I mean? Like, how about how about making the training every day? Then we'll talk about this other stuff like it's like come on putting the cart before the horse starts you well and it's essentially in the proverbial sense of house of cards like don't wrong it's flimsy and all it takes is

you just quit sleeping and everything above it just falls apart and go figure you're not going to take you know extra weight protein and that's going to fix you only sleeping two hours a night now you know you're not going to do accommodating resistance and that's going to improve the fact that you only get in 20 grams of protein over the entire day. Yep. Like it's just, but, you know, and they're kind of obviously on the nutrition side, which is, okay, now that we're here, I had a great question from a student the other day, which is, you know, does protein timing matter?

And the answer is yes. You know, if you're getting protein pretty even bowls throughout the day, definitely post-workout, that's going to help recovery. But if, you know, you got an athlete and they need 150 grams a day, and they're doing a perfect 20 grams, four times a day getting 80 grams of protein a day. And then you got somebody else that just sits down and pounds down two pounds of raw beef, you know, and doesn't get sick from it.

They're getting in, you know, well over 100 grams of protein. They're going to make more progress in the person who's meticulous with timing everything, but not getting in the dosage. So like your macronutrients, like hence you start off with like, are you just getting enough of these, hence the cups in there? Then let's talk about timing and let's talk about quality. Yeah. So you

I will say I saw a lot of power power of just I'm talking at the very tip top that didn't even get layer one right. Like I'm talking about weighing in and then going to McDonald's to get their pregame. And I mean it was that

I am 100% convinced it was that that allowed me to beat them because I just did the little things and they didn't because I didn't start out near as strong as a lot of the guys. It's just, But one at a time I would chop them down.

They would, you know, they're talking about going out drinking. I'm like, we're at the world championships. What are you talking? It blew my mind. And in my mind, I'm also thinking, okay, that's one guy I'm not worried about this week. You know what I mean? Like, it was, they were doing all this other craziness. I won't even mention.

I'm like, maybe you guys should not do some of this dumb stuff and like do less of this other stuff as well. Well, that's when you get into addition to subtraction. And you already brought up the reality of not that you were, I mean, you are, we're going to avoid stereotypes of being from the hills, but alcohol you're ingesting was probably not like the Ron Swanson shelf a week. Right. But it's wild of how many folks they'll have the diet down, let the sleep down, but every night is, you know, crushing beer.

Bingo. And they're like, why can't I lose fat? I'm like, oh, I got an idea, buddy. one because you literally shut it down whenever you're going and drinking alcohol too bingo you're cutting away from your sleep you're cutting away from your recovery and you know and there lies again when we're thinking about getting to world-class levels the little things really add up it definitely yeah I mean don't get me wrong I've seen folks using other performance enhancing white powders and I'm not talking chalk to help with intensity for power lifting and it's like

yeah, I could see how that has utility in very specific situations, a very specific type of nose torque. Yeah. But at the end of the day, you know, and that's where, you know, you and I have seen it with how many athletes are literally using, you know, antibiotic steroids, but their diet sucks and their sleep sucks, and they're getting beat by natural athletes because congratulations, your biggest pieces you're doing poorly. And I cannot tell you how many freaking times I have some idiot kid who has backney. who has moonface, who's the color of a strawberry, and who can't bench 225. And I'm like, and he's taken, he's a Sarm Goblin or something else.

I'm like, guys, why do you want to just be mediocre? Go to bed. Try that. Yeah. Eat some freaking food. Like, actually get the big rocks down. And, well, and that's a different conversation entirely about, you know, if, people choose to go down that path. But, you know, with that nutrition side again, and I,

the Mick murdering your GI, that's cool. You can do that. But that's the long term or short-term thinking. Like, don't be wrong. The if it fits your macros is absolutely a good way to keep you alive right now. But, you know, all the nutritional decisions we're making right now is setting up the plaques that might calcify in our arteries. Yeah. Setting ourselves up for increased risk of type two diabetes is like, you know, it's it's death by a thousand paper cuts. It's not one double quarter pounder that kills you. It is a lifetime of that with stress with genetics with everything else. So hence, you know, go figure. Most of your best power lifters, they eat more like bodybuilders. They've got really good discipline. They actually eat vegetables. You know,

they have, you know, they care about the timing, which the GM Blakely diet obviously works if we're just trying to put on mass. But I sure hope you're also running the GM Blakely drugs. So it's not just fat and insulin resistance you're getting out of the deal. But so many people have gone on to beat and stuff. Like, you know, sometimes I wish those guys would just go on. Like it's quick spreading their knowledge because like there's so many people now have gone on to do better things that even jam did.

And so like, yeah, that worked for you good. But like there are people now who have crushed your stuff who are doing things better. So maybe it's time to let that go. you know, including myself. But luckily since I've been at Natalie, I've been a coach. And like I've watched things develop and evolve. I don't love me. Anyway.

I mean, referencing the McDonald's thing, like, I actually would put something like that into layer three in some situations. Like on game day, sometimes you just need calories any way you can stomach them. Like you're nervous. You know, like when I used to fight MMA, like I'm not hungry before. MMA fights, but like I need, but I know I need some calories, especially if I cut a bunch of weight and like, like I'm still, I'm still like trying to just put on and it just re-accumulate, so to speak, as much glycogen as possible. And if I'm drinking a Gatorade, I'm drinking candy, basically,

right? It's like I'm, I'm drinking skittles in a way. Like, it's pure sugar, right? It's not, it's not good for me. And if I did that, if I did that every single day and that was like just what I drank all the time, that's, that's terrible for you. But, but, but game. day, you're just trying to get enough calories to perform at your best. Right. Even if the nutrient quality is very low, it's not going to matter so much. As long as you, as long as you know on a daily basis that that nutrient, micronutrient quality matters.

You know, we often say that calories determine how big you are, macros determine what your body composition is and micronutrients to determine how healthy you are. So you do need to have micronutrients in your diet in order to perform internally. Like your physiology needs B vitamins for energy and you need, you need, you need, certain nutrients for cognition, et cetera. And if you're not getting them, then you're going to be, you know, cognitively slow and have brain fog and on,

on, on, all the things that we deal with at rapid with lab testing and whatnot. But those are all very nuanced things that matter a lot. People don't think about when they're just trying to, you know, make the hunger feeling go away and have some nice mouth taste. You have to have a nice mouth feel. So there are times when having a burger from McDonald's like, could make sense if that's the only thing that you could put down.

But the vast majority of the time, you obviously should be eating high quality food. But as far as like layer three goes, since you're getting like toward the tail end of the show here, is knowing when to make an exception to the rule. That's a nuanced thing. And that's going to be hyper individualized to each specific person. Like if a burger's all you can put down and that's like your thing,

then you should do it because you need it for that day. You know you're making an exception. You know why you're doing it. You know why it's quote unquote wrong. But in this instance, for the very specific goal that you have, it's helpful, then how about it? Right.

So a couple things is, one, I'm never trying to help create somebody's orthorexia. Like, don't be wrong, a McDonald's cheeseburger is better than starving to death. No questions asked. You know, so at the end of the day, and if you don't care about performance, you don't care about the long-term stuff, live life.

And at the same time, that's one of the massive advantages of fast food joints, of convenience food is it is homogenized. I can go get a twinkie here in Kentucky, in Tennessee, in North Carolina, pretty much anywhere I thought the globe, and I got a pretty good idea of the calories I'm getting. So hence, if your athlete happens to be in some foreign country,

the chance the local fair might mess up their GI just because it's prepared in a different way that they're used to. You've got, you know, different municipality water, all of those different components there. It's like, you know what? we can go to the golden arches and we get you a cheeseburger. And we know what it's going to taste like and what it's going to be. Right.

That would be the only time I would say that's a good idea. Just because of how, you know, like, even in power, eating the burger, it's like, you're just going to get that energy dump. You're going to go to, it's going to be deadlit time. And you're just going to be like, you know. Hey, and at the same time, there's a thing I teach it as discretionary calories. once we've hit your macros, once we've gotten your micros, most people, unless they're losing weight and that's when bodybuilding diets are sad, you know, they've got like a leftover calories. And you know what?

If that kid going to McDouble after he trains with me is his little, you know, external reward and that's going to begin to come back and eventually I can maybe get him to get rid of it. Cool. Like there's nothing wrong with as long as it's fitting within the plan. And at the same time, you know, it's the same situation with that sleep stuff. Like, okay, we know tonight the sleep's going to suck. What are we going to do? Tomorrow, we're going to hit a amount of caffeine early in the morning that we would otherwise say we would avoid. Right.

You know, we are going to, or we're going to have that meal before bed because it's more important than I get some glycogen back in me. Because I've got to go do a basketball tournament and I got three games tomorrow. You know, where I'm a midfielder in soccer and, you know, we got a tournament weekend and I know I'm going to be running miles on miles and I'm not doing that on hopes and dreams. I'm doing that on carbs and a little bit of fat. Right. But I think that layer three, though, is like, this is at the point rise now. It's like every week we're talking about some small nuance thing like that.

Like, you know, the sauna, like red light therapy, that's a new thing. Like, you know, biomechanical refinement, which is like almost I wish we wouldn't talk about. I think it's like because of how much time it takes. to make any kind of change like that and weight lifting so slow that there's other things you can do. But we're now at this last little bit trying to squeeze. I don't know if you get water from the rock at this point. Yeah, you're trying to get blood from that stone.

Yeah. And, you know, when you're thinking about working with these individuals and just trying to carve out a little bit more, you know, that's where, you know, I like the paradigm when we're thinking about an athlete. what's what's causing the fail is it technical and you know how long it takes a fixed technique it's so hard yeah sometimes it's real it's two cues and like congratulations you've added pounds to the total others it is drilling it for months and not years how many people have talked smack on Kendrick Ferris's jerk and you know and just for the listener like he was argue like of his era he was the like for American waylifting oh yeah like just I got to meet his

his strength coach once at a S-CA. My GA was standing next to me. And he, my GA trained lifted weights with me. And he's seen the weights that I left. He's like, yeah, you know, once Kendrick could do 250 for a set of 10 high bar, you know, that's when he felt really good with Olympic lifting. And my GA is just like looking at me like, dude, I've seen you do like 365 for sets of 10. And I'm like, gauge, just so we're clear, he's talking kilos. And you see that's the white around his eyes. He's like, yeah, you've seen me squat 550 for two. And I had to put my soul into that.

Like, Hendricks was doing that for, yeah, for 10 and not even weighing 200 pounds. So, like, again, with those individuals, then you've got the straight up, they just need more muscle mass. And when your weight class athlete, like your guy there, it's like, okay, we've got to be judicious almost at this point of what are we doing with this body weight. And then you obviously have the potential issues of psychological issues. How many athletes have you seen get the equivalent of the yips? And then that was the thing, like they couldn't get over. you know they got scared once the weight weighed X amount you know how many times have you know Clark it because they lost their will once the bar got heavy enough and they got to

race that thing to the basement and that it's I've only met one athlete that's never Clark is like I had one guy so like it's our I was like you know weight lifting is like it's such a sport of like you just got to be like eff it you know it literally that's the thing they don't talk about about and most weightlifters won't even talk about it but if you don't have that little bit of darkness in your brain that you just don't care about your life it's not support for you because like I was watching uh my you know I have this Matt Whittaker is up coached him since he was 10 he's a he's a great waylifter and uh he's been team USA but now he's he's retired he's coaches for me but he's still yet he cleaned 178 kilograms so

it was like it's what is that like 390 and I swear the bar did not get to his belly button. It was at waist, height. And right then I'm like, you are the bravest guy, I know. I mean, I would never have gone under that. Even in my bosses sometimes, I'm like, how? So Kyle Pierce was Kendrick's coach. Yeah, he's a, he's a great guy.

Oh, yeah. Yep. And Dr. Come on, Mike Stone. They published this great research about like how very little, you know, once an athlete has been in it five, six years, the amount of time it takes to change technique is like, and even after you put in a lot of time, it might not change still,

that you're just better off to really focus on force application about where in the pool or where in the lift, are you missing it and like really focus on improving your ability to apply for us at that point but i totally agree and like in so many coaches want to focus so much on on a technique because it makes them they feel like they're yonder or something i'm like they'll be like they'll say something the person will lift you like see it changed i'm like nothing changed not nothing that looks exactly i don't say it but we're all thinking the same thing like nothing changed but okay But if you feel like that, you know, that now you're this Yoda, fine.

Say what you want. Well, and when it comes to changing technique, we've all worked with that athlete that we have to try to say how to change your technique with like 30 different cues for the same air. And like the real challenge of like how do you communicate that in a way that's succinct? Exactly. They can replicate. Like, you know, they'll have that aha moment and they come back next week and it's like, you know,

it's an etcher sketch they drew it once shook in it's gone forever like i thought we fixed this and it's like nope we're still coming back to the basics and hence it's like well you know what they're really good at the hammer we're not bothering with the screwdriver anymore we're just going to be we're going to be lights out with that hammer we're going to be able to hammer screws in we're so damn strong i'm just going to as a coach this coach 50 to me to say at least get it right for the beginning yeah because like after five years you know you're not going to do a whole lot it's going to matter. Like,

people who said, oh, if I had Kendrick, I would have done X. You would have done shit, man. Like, the dude's technique was,

it was in stone. It was, you're not going to change it. Shut your mouth. He made it to the Olympics. If you coached to the Olympia, shut your mouth. You know,

you haven't. So like, so I love Kendrick and I definitely love Kyle Pierce. And so they did a great job. They went to Olympics twice. A lot better than I've done. So, I mean,

and I guess this may be controversial, but not really, but remember, this is an American lifter. So he's competing clean against the rest of the world. I have my injury, so I will not be at the Olympics. The injury kept me from Olympic. Sure did. Yeah.

And to go back to, you know, this is where, you know, you can get to a level of precision of, and, you know, I know I'm stealing a bit of Doug's thunder, but like, this is where, yeah, let's look at the full blood panel of the athlete and see if there's something that's, weird. You know, let's make sure everything's firing on all cylinders is where you can talk about, you know, really getting into even things like the freaking microbiome. Because if they are not

absorbing stuff, and especially if they're pumping a lot of food for themselves, so I have a swimmer. I worked with it, Slough, and super great guys, super hard worker. And what they thought he had was massive anxiety because every morning before the meets, he would just be, it would just be flown right through it, just flown right through him. No, dude's a celiac. So the night before, when they're doing the pasta night, he was pounding down how many pounds of pasta through a dude that can't absorb wheat.

And then go figure. You put him on rice the night before. One, he's not struggling with being the brown rocket in the pool. And two, he's performing a lot better because you're no longer doing something that is GI can't handle. Don't be wrong. That is a straight up like medical situation. But it's the reality of like you can have an otherwise, you know,

hard training individual that just, yeah, we're missing some little piece, you know, our B vitamin status isn't where it should be. And then you look at their hematicrit, you look at their red blood cell values, and like, dude, that's kind of weird. You know, I mean, heck, another wonderful anecdote. But my cousin, he's a cross-examination. country coach. And so if you want to be real bored in Google, you can figure out where he's at because we got the same last name. And honestly, we look very similar from the neck up. But he chose

the flight response. I chose the fight response. Now, with him, he and I have an understanding that the second one of his athletes converts over to a vegan diet, start the clock. You got about two months. And then that athlete's going to start popping with anemia. And they're going to wonder why their time suck, why they're slower. And it's like, you know, half them don't supplement with iron or they're not pounding spinach and a lot of other high iron, you know, foods. And then they wonder why initially they felt better because they weren't eating cheeseburgers anymore. Right.

You know, it's like, oh, this diet works while they're slowly draining those ferretin levels, while they're slowly, you know, just not able to mint the same quality of red blood cells. And then eventually gets them. Like I said, month, two, month three. No way, man. You know, I actually like cross country like so much. Like, I know it sounds weird. Not wait, time out.

I like to work with cross-country athletes. Let me rephrase that. Because, like, I just dig that whole, like, the V-O-2 Max and ways to change it and, like, things that we can do. There's so many different ways that you can, like, you know, tweak your athlete and improve them. Like, I think it's just something different. Like, weight a little bit is, like, it's one energy source. That's it.

You know, you got the phosphate, creepy, that's all you got. But, like, I love that whole cross-country. world and and that's a obviously this entire conversation for another where there are certain personality types that find their way to certain sports right and your average cross-country individual is a far more disciplined than average individual that you're going to meet when they're in it for a while like the it's like the the people that can be longest and swimmers that can stare at a blue line at the bottom of a pool for hours every day like it takes a different type of

headspace. It's a different type of mind. Where like, you know, I mean, why do we think so many people love CrossFit? Because essentially it's the ADHD of lifting weights. It is. You get to do a little bit of different things all the time, which is great because it's super stimulating. It's a very social situation.

Cross country is isolating. It's fucking hard. And the only person pushing you is pushing you. And like, we live in an era now where you can use headphones. You know, back in the day, you'd have a tape deck. Your CD would skip. So, like, you're just out there with you and the voices. like you got to be made of something different to one of those marathons at that point.

Yeah. Yeah. 100% right before we wrap here. We haven't talked supplements yet. I'm sure there's someone out there that wants to hear about supplements, kind of where they stack up and be higher a few of things here. Obviously, they're not going to be like in the foundational layer. We're putting that for the big categories of training nutrition and sleep, but definitely layer two, at least like the basic supplements. You got creatine and protein powder and caffeine and beta aline and kind of like the generic supplements that all.

have scientific backing. And then it's really beyond that, kind of in the layer three category, but really what we do at Rapid is like we do, we do all kinds of testing, data collection, blood work, et cetera. And then any supplements that we're recommending beyond the basics, there's data to back up why we're recommending that you're taking verberine or NAD or whatever else you're taking. Mike, on your end with the athletes that you work with, like, what are some of the less known supplements that often pop up as a result of blood work and stool samples and any other

data we collect? Interesting. So now if we're going specifically with looking at blood biomarkers, you know, you'd be surprised how many folks need to take a broad spectrum vitamin B. And that's even with them having a pretty good, healthy diet, they just might be bad at absorption for one reason. Another, you can talk about people that have the MTHFR gene and otherwise that, you know, go figure B vitamins are cofactors in pretty much every way that you produce energy in the body as well as DNA replication. So if you're rate limited there, it's going to show itself. Now, again, highest level athlete, you take two, three percent off of them, and congratulations,

they're on a podium. You take that off of your average person, it doesn't matter. Now, yeah, you already brought up the realities of things like berbering and otherwise. When you be surprised, some folks like, man, they're actually slightly insulin resistant, which is wild because they're lean, they're crazy active, and they eat a very sensible diet. But genetics are genetics, and we're just trying to do our best within it. But the thing that often comes up with a lot of the application of the athletes I'm working with is, and this is not a metaphor for cocaine, because I already talked about it once, baking soda, as it means, you know, taking bicarbonate, as a means to help with blood pH levels for people that are fighters, that are 400 meter runners, that are people that are just living in anaerobic glycolytic health, and supplementing with things like beta aline. Because, go figure, if I can increase that carnizine level, I can buffer a little bit better in my muscle, it's not going to hurt as bad.

I'm going to have a little more bandwidth for making good tactical decisions as a combat athlete, or I'm going to be able to drive a little bit higher the entire time for that event. So, you know, that's more on the sports supplement side and the other southern side. Like, okay, average American most likely to be deficient in vitamin D and magnesium. I've literally seen pro athletes that play outdoor sports and they don't have, they actually have clinically low vitamin D levels, which is just wild. And so, hence, it's a very normal thing to potentially have to supplement with. And unless you're somebody that loves your green, leafy vegetables, your chance of not having enough magnesium, especially if you're sweating a whole lot, because you're losing magnesium, not as much as you're losing sodium, but you're losing your potassium, your chloride, and a lot of other electrolytes in the process.

So it's, that's the thing is you can't really like, okay, everyone should take this. Like, okay, yeah, everyone should probably take a multivitamin as a hedge. But even then, it's kind of like, let's actually see what's going on. because some folks they only need to take one thing other folks it's like yeah we should probably

let me go get the kitchen sink because I fill it with everything we don't get out in the sun either most people work you know almost everybody I know works inside now so we're just not out the sun so 5 and D is going to be a tough thing well Doug said until I did a good job

I'm not allowed to record outside so I guess I'm here for now stuck inside all right fellas great show So, Dr. Mike Lane, what could be you find you? Yep, Mike Lane, PhD. Feel free to say hi online.

Goodful. Charles Mash. Ashlead.com. You can also, if you want to go to on Instagram, Coach Travis Mash, I'll be doing the sore neck spring cleaning. It's the first workout. I dropped it today.

It starts tomorrow. So jump on it. It's going to be a good workout. Yeah, awesome. I'm Doug Larson, Douglas E. Larson. On Instagram, we are Barbell Shrug, barbell underscore Shrug. If you want to upgrade with Dr. Mike Lane, Coach Travis Mash,

and all the people at Rapid Health Optimization, including Dr. Andy Galpin, and especially relevant to today's show and get a hyper-individualized training program and nutrition program, recovery program, sleep program. We kind of cover it all at Rapid. Every layer of the pyramid that we talked about today, you can go to Rapid Health. That was our old link, Rapid Health Report. Probably so forward to the right place, but you can go to R-R-A-L-B-L-B-C-com. Friends, we'll see you guys next week.

Thank you.