Barbell Shrugged - The Relationship Between Strength, Speed, and Power w/ Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Coach Travis Mash Barbell Shrugged #597

Episode Date: July 26, 2021

In this Episode of Barbell Shrugged: How strength speed and power are correlated How to train all 3 at the same time How to focus and improve weaknesses How to train all three in olympic weightlifting Ways to train all three away from the barbell   Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram   ————————————————   Diesel Dad Mentorship Application: https://bit.ly/DDMentorshipApp   Diesel Dad Training Programs: http://barbellshrugged.com/dieseldad   Training Programs to Build Muscle: https://bit.ly/34zcGVw   Nutrition Programs to Lose Fat and Build Muscle: https://bit.ly/3eiW8FF   Nutrition and Training Bundles to Save 67%: https://bit.ly/2yaxQxa   Please Support Our Sponsors   Organifi - Save 20% using code: “Shrugged” at organifi.com/shrugged   BiOptimizers Probitotics - Save 10% at bioptimizers.com/shrugged   Garage Gym Equipment and Accessories: https://prxperformance.com/discount/BBS5OFF Save 5% using the coupon code “BBS5OFF”

Shrugged family, this week on Barbell Shrugged, we're talking about the relationship between strength, speed, and power. For all you coaches out there or athletes, you need to understand how all three of these are interrelated and the specific things you can do to increase each one on their own. Travis Mash had a radical tweet the other day, sparking all the controversy on the internet, on the Twitters, and we wanted to take a deep dive in. But before we get into the show, I want to thank our friends over at Bioptimizers. Did you know that over 80% of the population is deficient in magnesium?

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one. I highly recommend you give it a try. Today, you can get 10% off with a Barbell Shrug coupon code when you visit magbreakthrough.com forward slash shrug that's m-a-g-b-r-e-a-k-t-h-r-o-u-g-h.com forward slash shrugged use the coupon code shrugged 10 at checkout to save 10 magbreakthrough.com forward slash shrug let's get into the show welcome to barbell shrugged i'm andrew Varner. Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mash. Second time's a charm, fellas. Today on Barbell Shrugged, we're going to be talking about the relationship between strength, speed, and power, and why, as a strength coach, focusing on each individual one may not be the best way to train your athletes, unless that's just your home and where you want

to hang out. We're going to be talking about the relationship of of all three how they are uh similar how you're going to train for them as well as what makes them different um but bros i have to tell you this new radical i haven't even done a show read for them yet i haven't even like done this this is the freebie fellas uh my swing sesh my squat rack with the swing set attached to it it's like alive and well. And we squatted in my backyard. I have an outdoor gym in my backyard now. It's literally the coolest thing I've ever seen.

You got like one squat rack and then you got like pull-up bar and dip station and whatnot. I haven't seen the exact specs there. So it has a squat rack that is really, really legit. Like it's a heavy-duty, not janky, really nice squat rack that is really, really legit. It's a heavy duty, not janky, really nice squat rack. It has pull-up bars,

three of them, all at different heights. It has a if you were into the CrossFit, it has box jump setups. Each of the stairs that the kids climb to get to the slide is at 12, 16, and 24 inches. So if you want to do like the Metcon thing

and jump up and down on the thing, it's like perfectly set up for those heights. And then it has a dip station and uh we've also set up a way i shouldn't say we set it up but we use those box jump things to do all the unilateral work so we had like a legit full training session it's not fully done yet uh because i got to build the border and put all the playground mulch down and all that stuff but you know this thing is so savage i was like kind of worried when it showed up that uh it was just gonna be like a little janky like no it's awesome it's so savage and the here's here was dream state achieved on

day one i had all my friends over and we were squatting. Everybody showed up after we trained and all the kids were playing on the swing set and the slide and running around and all the parents were out back. And I was like, dream state. This is it. All of my decisions, most of them, really revolve around, can I hang out with my friends and be a dad at the same time how do we accomplish all the goals at once like how do you how do you combine the fitness your friends and being a dad and making sure kids see you lift weights swing sesh that's the best part about it man is the fact that your kids like are out there watching you train yeah you're trying to like trying to keep my kids in the garage to watch me lift weights like they won't just stay

in there and watch me like they'll they'll be running around doing stuff but i'm in the garage they're running around playing they'll kind of see me here and there but they're not just like playing next to me as i'm training it's so radical i cannot wait to get it completely finished because it's just like it literally is like the dream state like how many times have you gone to a playground with your kids that's not at your house and like done pull-ups and then wondered like i we could put like a squat rack here and lift weights like now it's in my backyard for the foundation like so you're squatting on something solid like you're just squatting on the dirt or how do you anchor down uh well

man so we built it and then it's it's like your standard swing set but the squat rack part so along with it they call them the earth anchors and it comes with it it's a one foot long screw that's an inch and a half wide and you just drill it straight down in the ground at five different places. And it's not going anywhere. Oh yeah. I got some of those for my trampoline. And the name of the company is, is swing sesh,

swing sesh, S W I N G S E S H. And, uh, there's like three different models. Uh, I have the souped up one, which has got in it. And then the slide and swings, we have has got the full souped up in it.

And then the slide and swings. We have a code and I don't know what it is off the top of my head. I'm going to guess that the code is shrugged and I'll put it in the show notes. But seriously, if you're like just a family that is going to get a swing set anyways, and you also like working out, this is the greatest invention of all time. So jealous. I love working out outside too. That's the rad part too.

My garage is dope, but outside, it's 100 degrees outside, just sweating your ass off, hanging out. I kind of have this idea. You put a little platform in front of it. I'm putting a platform in before the mulch comes in so it's like a flat i leveled the backyard i say level i didn't level level it's not

like some real pro came in with real tools and stuff but i put 100 bags of dirt down to level it out so like each individual section anywhere that you would stand is like level. But if you're on the high side to the low side, it's not a level, but for like the four foot space that you need, it's, it's flat. And I felt super comfortable squatting out there the other day. It was great.

That's the coolest thing I've ever seen. I was so fired up about it. So here's my idea. I haven't run this by Ashton yet. Here's the idea, though. If you can get the bros to come over and just have, like, family night, but you're just squatting in the backyard with your friends, and you just have, like, the bar only goes up,

kind of like we did with the one-ton challenge, where, like, you can't take weight off the bar, but we just – everyone builds, like, a 6RM. And you got all the people hanging out in your house. Everyone's going to have a couple of drinks after kids are playing. We don't really have to worry about grills on. It's coming. I just got to get this mulch down a couple of pieces, a couple of parts left. I was sure to take part in that. That'd be so much fun. Um, yeah.

Mash, you had a story, Doug, you got a story. Yeah. We haven't talked in like a week and a half, and this is what happens. Travis, what happened to Bear? Oh, poor Bear. He broke his leg. We were at a playground, and he was – the thing with my boys is they never just like, you know, with a swing set, we'll have stairs to climb up

and a slide to go down. They're always going to go up the slide, jump off something. They never use it like they should. He's climbing on this playground set and there was a hole on the, which is part of the little

playground set he was on. He steps in the hole and then he fell. It broke his fib tib. Really? No, it didn't come out of the skin or anything it was pretty bad was it like

Conor McGregor? yeah it was like Conor McGregor did he stand on the nub? no he didn't stand on it Drew was like yeah Drew was like, yeah. Drew was like, walk it off.

I'm like, Drew, his leg is broken. You know, like, she thought he was. I love that. I love that. No overreaction whatsoever. Can you just walk it off? Yeah. She was not even going to take it to the doctor. I'm like, babe, did you not see what's happened?

Anyway, so we took it, and it was broken. It was clean break. It wasn't on the growth plate. It was near it, though. I'm glad we got it done. You got a hard cast on there? Yeah. He's basically

in an ornament is all he is right now. Poor little dude. We got to carry him. He's got to pee. We got to carry him. He's learned to crawl, though. He's doing a bunch of – he'll crawl around the house on his hands. Poor guy. Crazy. He's crazy.

I'm hoping they learn from that, that they'll just pay attention. I mean, I'm glad that they're brave, but be a little bit more calculated. Kids are not going to do that. You ever seen video of BMx bikers when they're kids they're like out there on the trampoline or they like break their leg jumping off some ridiculous jump when they're eight years old they get their leg all casted up and then there's always like a an old video of them like on the makeshift bmx bike with cast on doing back flips on their trampoline,

just to keep practicing with the broken leg. Kids don't give a shit. They just get hurt. Keep going. It's fierce. There's that guy that, I think he jumped the Great Wall of China, and then he broke his ankle,

and then he did it. Hold on. With a broken ankle, he did it two or three more times. Yeah. Who was it? Was it Huberman talking about that on Rogan? Yeah.

He mentioned it. That's right he also mentioned Dr. Andy Galpin he sure did he got the shout out Mr. Andy Galpin getting another thousand followers on Instagram he is he is he's smashing

I knew he was buddy to Huberman I don't know Huberman is it Anthony something I don't know just Huberman such a good last name he runs a podcast. Huberman. Is it Anthony something? I don't know. It's just Huberman. Such a good last name. He runs a podcast called Huberman lab. It's super funny. I was listening to, I was like folding clothes this weekend in between sick children.

I think it's Andrew for the record. Andrew. Yeah. And I was listening. I was like, I should help Galpin and see if he knows this dude. We should get him on the show. And he's like,

make sure you get over, check out Andy Galpin. He's one of my favorite guys i was like oh i guess they know each other yeah wow small world i'm learning too the academia is a small world there's only a few the thing that is interesting about that is like i take uh many of the things and the people that we get to talk to all the time, just almost like for granted. Right. It's just like, I just,

we, we get to talk to them and they answer phone calls and it's so cool. But then you realize like that guy that's writing you back just happens to be like literally the best in the world. It's crazy. Yeah. I know. It's really wild.

Whenever I hear someone on Rogan like that, we're like in the world at this thing it's crazy yeah i know it's really wild whenever i hear someone on rogan like that we're like in the last year i think there's been like maybe six guests maybe a little more give or take one or two people on either side of six but like of people that like we've interviewed like friends with them and you go oh you're like're like, you're the best in the world. That's so wild. Yeah. There's a bunch of them that we've had, you know, that already,

we have Galpin. We've had Lane Norton, just brilliant people. Mike Nelson's been on, uh, Matt Frazier's been on. There's like, it's like just in the last year,

it's like tons of people that we've hung out with and are like relatively friendly with is have been on there's like it's like just in the last year it's like tons of people that we've hung out with and are like relatively friendly with is have been on the show it's crazy it's good what was your story dad yeah what do you got bud oh yeah so my four and a half year old he's i tell him all the time he has a totally different build than than my other two like my my oldest and youngest they're they kind of have like a longer thinner lankier body type and riders just like thick and stocky uh you know with like like huge power belly and big glutes like he just like he's totally built different than the other two and so um you know i kind of encourage him to lift weights and a little more than the other two like i think he'll

be really good at it and uh and he just seems to also have more natural interest in in uh in training so i had i had just finished doing uh doing a workout where i had a bar you know in the rack i was like doing already i was out of the rack and so i had the the hooks at like hip height which for him is like perfect like back squat height so so a regular you know 20 kilo bar was sitting on the uh on the uprights and he walked over there and tried to like pick it up on his shoulders like a front squat and he kind of was having trouble with it and then he decided to put it on his back like back squat and so i kind of like helped him move it around and set his hand position and he was just doing like you know picking it up out of

the rack like an inch and then setting it back down on the rack he wasn't trying to like squat with a 45 pound bar he basically weighs It's like a bodyweight back squat. Right out of the gate, bodyweight back squat. Right. So he picked it up and set it down and picked it up and set it down. And then he was like, cool. And he kind of like went back to playing. And so he was playing in the garage, and I started to walk away,

and I wasn't looking at him. He decided, once I wasn't looking, to go back over to the bar and put it back on his back and pick it up again. But this time he picked it up and when he set it down, he missed the hooks and he, and he started, he started to fold and round over round forward,

took a step, a step, a step forward and then just fucking face planted, totally face planted on his back. He's laying completely flat face down, not moving at all. And the bar is perfectly balanced on his back he's laying completely flat face down not moving at all and the bar is perfectly balanced on his neck either side of the bar is touching the floor it's perfectly balanced just sitting on his neck and he's not moving at all he's not crying he's not like he's

not like fidgeting nothing of course i'm like sprinting over there to like grab the bar and pull it off of him i pulled off of him and he's still like not moving not making any sounds i was like i was like like shaking him real quick like are you oh shit are you conscious like yeah just like get get knocked on not cold by smacking your face on the ground be scared to death yeah jesus yeah uh but you know he cried for a second but no like lasting damage but it scared the fuck out of me because i saw it all happen in slow motion yeah the whole not moving i'm like god did it break his neck that was scaring me to death yeah yeah yeah do you imagine like having a body weight barbell on your back that didn't have bumper plates on it so like they're not going to hit the ground first

like and all the weight lands on your neck yeah man little Little kids are resilient, man. He walked away. I'm sure he will walk through the house and stub his toe and it's full-fledged. Dude, you almost decapitated yourself yesterday. No tears.

No tears. When a bar grazes the neck, it can be... We saw at the Pan Ams, a bar grazes the neck, it can be – we saw at the Pan Ams, a bar grazed the neck of someone and knocked them completely out. It looked like it just kind of like barely touched them, and the dude was knocked out for a minute. It was like – it scared me too. I thought, oh, my God, did it break his neck?

You know, I forget the one guy's name that got paralyzed in CrossFit, but, you know, it looked just like that and then we saw a girl's elbow get snapped literally like it didn't come out of the skin but it was like it was pushing out it was bad so that was the two big accidents we saw you know in columbia but anyway yeah do you tell me more about that. How'd that go? Oh, yeah. Another one of your Pan Ams? We killed it. You know, Ryan destroyed the 67-kilogram class and beat the next guy behind him who was 20 kilos behind. So broke all the Pan American records.

Super gap. He is, yeah. Is that because everybody is, like, not competing because they're going to the Olympics, or just he's that savage? No, because, you know, it was only, like, it was the juniors, number one. It's just the people. Oh, yeah. not competing because they're going to the Olympics or just he's that savage? What's the juniors number one? It's the people. Not many of them are going to the Olympics. There's 20 and down, so there's not many

juniors. There might be one or two juniors. I didn't recognize the junior part. He just dominated. America did good. And it qualified us. We were looking to pay them games later. Is it next year or later?

It's later this year. And we had to qualify. This is the only meet we had to qualify spots. And so we had to be in the top. If you're in the top three, you could earn five men and five women slots. And so we got second in the boys and third in the girls, which is weird that we got second in the boys. And Mexico beat everybody in both.

Out of the blue, they've never been good at all. I never heard about Mexico for weightlifting. Yeah, they dominate. So you're like – I mean, either you guys finally got a really good coach or you're on some good stuff. I guess we'll find out soon. But, yeah, America's great. We had – look, let's see.

We had Hampton Morris got – he got gold in the 61s. He got gold in the 67s. Morgan got silver in the 109s. And let's see, there's a Connor. I forget his last name. He got bronze. Our team killed it, you know. Who's beat Morgan?

Oh, a guy from Mexico who's amazing. This kid from Mexico snatched 155. Morgan won gold in the clean and jerk. But this guy, yeah, Morgan would have needed to, you know, if he had hit his 150 all-time best snatch, he would have won. But this kid just annihilated 155, and Morgan only got 143. So he's 12 kilos down. And that dude could clean jerk pretty good,

but Morgan would have had to have done like a 202 or 203 clean jerk. He's not quite ready for that. How old is Morgan now? He is 17. He turns 18, I think, next month. Has he graduated high school? I don't even know what the ages are. He'll be Illinois Ryan.

But isn't that a year early? No, he's just got that late birthday. His birthday is in August. He could have held him back. You know, that's what I would have. You know, I'm rocking beer. I'm going to hold back one year just on purpose, just in case they play a sport.

We're doing the same thing with Adelaide, whether anybody knows it or not yet. I've already started mentioning it. Her birthday is like two weeks after. She would be the youngest person forever. Ah, you know, both academically,

athletically, like, you know, socially is, um, I've noticed a few parents lately doing that and it seems to really work out. And so Malcolm Gladwell talks about that in one of his books. Uh,

I forget which book it is. Maybe outliers. Yeah. It's about the NHL. Yeah. And yeah, it goes on a big story about how, yeah the way to the all the way to major leagues big leagues or whatever for for hockey for soccer for all kinds of pro sports like the kids who were always the oldest in their classes they're just the most developed like if you're basically a six-year-old you're competing

competing against like you know 10 months younger than you five-year-olds, there's a development gap there. And so you're just much more likely to be the best player on the team and the biggest and the strongest. And then because you're the biggest and strongest and the best, you get more attention, you get more coaching, you get more time playing. And so it just accelerates your progress, and then you end up being that much better.

And I also like that you kind of expect to be the leader of the team you expect to be the captain you expect to be in charge you expect people to look up to you and so you kind of just take on this role of of being the captain of being the best and then just it just feeds forward you just like that's just your your base expectation for the rest of your life because that's how it's always been yeah so guy who played at Wake Forest, Kay Carney, started as a freshman running back. That's what his parents did. Running back one year, I just saw that, and I saw his development.

It just seemed to really set him up much better. Then I look back at my own athletic career, and that would have been a huge difference. One year, because I know my freshman year in college, I grew so much athletically. huge difference like one year like because i know my freshman year in college i like you know grew so much athletically just my confidence maturity so i'm like yeah so i'm gonna get you know just try to give your kids as much advantage as possible how do they eliminate that whole setup like i i feel like there's so many like you just you just look at, like, Tom Brady. He was, like, such a late bloomer.

Yeah. Not really. And then all of a sudden, of course, he is who he is now. I wonder, like, you would think as a sports coach, you would be, like, almost in a way, like, trying to find a way to get through that system where it's, like, how do we just find the real athletes without somebody that's just, like, a late bloomer and and getting punished

by their birthday good question i feel like there's a lot of if people if sport coaches would really look at some stats and some math they would probably do a lot of things differently yeah but unfortunately they don't you know just look at as soon as baseball understood a little bit of math, well, mainly stats, they made changes based on it. But I think football could definitely make some changes if they would just slow down and look at that a little bit. Yeah. Kids playing football anyways is totally scary.

I'm not sure we'll be around in a decade. We'll see. Too much money, man. People man people do it doesn't matter gladiators go out there and they're going to run into each other somehow whether it's lacrosse I see so many parents choosing soccer over

football soccer's like lower impact way higher volume of headshots unless you're like on the line headers i'm watching this show on netflix because i find these things like super interesting watching the inner workings of like high level sports teams uh and it's called like sunderland till i die which is basically like the rebuilding of a european soccer league soccer team that's in

uefa i'm probably screwing up what league they're in but um it's dude in power of the highest level men playing sports like i feel like when you when you like when if we were just like talk about soccer you think about all these little kids running around kicking a ball towards the net well one day the savages show up like the people that will just hurt you yeah like they understand aggression and they understand being mean and they have the speed and the power and the real athleticism to like make that sport terrifying. And like we just watch the speed of their practices and like it's honestly like I'm just blown away by the level of athleticism of these people just like soccer. It's like it's not even the same thing that we think about when you say the word, my kids are going to go play soccer. It's terrifying how freaky those people are. even the same thing that we think about when you say the word, my kids are going to go play soccer. Yeah.

It's terrifying how freaky those people are. And athletes in general. Add money to the equation and you get some freaks. Yeah. This is going to air before we get down there. I just want everybody to know that we're going to be at Zach Evanesh's seminar. So if you are in South Carolina, get over to Zach Evanesh's seminar. So if you are in South Carolina, get over to Zach Evanesh's page. I think it's like SSPcoaches,

maybe.com, something like that. I'll put it in the notes. We're going to be at Sorenex and hanging out, teaching the clean, hanging out with people doing shows. We're just going to be there on Friday. So if you're in the South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia-ish area, come rage at Sorenix and we're all going to be there

with Zach. So that'd be fun. Um, Travis mash today, we're talking about your tweet that you put up about strength, speed, and power. What, what inspired you to get on the, uh, the internet and make a post that inspired me to want to talk about it on this show. I feel like you see, if you go on Twitter or even LinkedIn, you'll see coaches debating the same old topics, you know, which we've kind of gone over them individually at one time or the other. But I feel like, you know, this statement kind of lumps them all in there. You'll hear, oh, strength cures everything. Like if you listen to Louis hear oh strength cures everything like if you listen to louis simmons like he really thinks that you know if i get stronger in this area i'll get faster if i get stronger in this area i'll jump higher and so or you get the people who only want

to work on technique and they think that cures everything you don't need to go to the gym just get better at these you you know, technical cues, and you'll get faster on the track or the field. And so my point is that it's an ongoing, you know, paradigm. You've got strength. You've got speed. You've got power, which is kind of a combination of the three, and it's like forever you'll work on them.

You'll get strong, you know, and then when you feel like, you know, you've gotten, you know, I guess a lot of people would say, like, for example, which is arbitrary, but they'll say, you know, two times bodyweight squat. And, you know, they'll think that's as strong as you need to be. I'm definitely saying that's incorrect. And then you work on speed. And when speed seems to slow down, then might be time to go and work on power which is a combination of the two but so it's an ongoing never ending you never have enough of

either it's just you keep going until the game is over so yeah that's something where you're just kind of constantly assessing like what's the the weak link in the chain right like if you have someone who's like kind of they're kind of fast and they want to get faster but either you are and you know that they're just fairly weak you go okay well this obviously is like something that they they are lacking right they're not like really strong and getting them a little stronger like there's diminishing returns once you're at a certain level of strength but if like somebody's like you know their their back squat is you know body weight and a half it's kind of like it's not really that strong. Like, getting him stronger will help his speed. Like, at what point does the strength not help speed?

Here's what I would do is, like, is develop an efficiency, you know, I guess ratio, which is what we've done. So you take – we take the squat and we take the deadlift, and I'm going to add in – I haven't yet, but we're going to add in like say the strict press. And then I'm going to compare it to the snatch and clean and jerk. And what you do is we take it, you know, look at it as a team, as a whole and see kind of where you lie. So like, you know, like normally I think, I think it's like 61% means you're fairly efficient, but whatever your ratio is, you'll probably keep forever.

Once you've trained about five years, some people like Nathan Damron will always be a lot stronger than they are good at weightlifting. It does not mean that they're not efficient. It just means he's got short femurs and the dude was put on the back squat, and that's okay. But when you start to see that, you know, because right now, if you look at Nathan, he's getting really strong.

He's snatching 171 the other day, and he's clean jerking two-something. So when you start to see the weightlifting get well beyond, you know, where he's normally been in that ratio, now even for Nathan, it's time to back up and let's get a little bit stronger. And so then that will push that up. And so, you know, it's time to back up and let's get a little bit stronger. And so then that will push that up. And so, you know, you just – it's an ongoing battle. You know, you don't want to like – you know, you don't want to think you ever have arrived.

After five years, they've established that ratio. Then that ratio will be there forever and you should continue on. When you – when I read your quote because you were – you framed it under strength and conditioning coaches, like the umbrella for coaches that are trying to get kids or athletes stronger, faster. If you take it specifically out of the context of just Olympic weightlifting, do you think that it's the same conversation? Definitely.

I go to specific schools around my neighborhood right all i can think is like i don't know what goes on in there but if they're around on ladders parents are getting robbed robbed yeah that's done uh is is it all the same coach or do you think that there should be specific coaches that are in each like area i think there are coaches that can do it all the same coach, or do you think that there should be specific coaches that are in each, like, area? I think there are coaches that can do it all. You know, I feel like I'm pretty good at it. You know, I have Cade Carney once again. He scored the third-best Nike Spark score in the entire country.

So here you are, you know, we're in the middle of nowhere. Winston-Salem, Stockia, he had a ton. You know, he's really genetically gifted, but I'm sure there's others out there that are more genetically gifted. And so we were able to, with strength and speed, you know, get him to where he was unbelievably fast, could jump super high, but was still strong. And so we worked on all of it.

And so the key is, like, you've got to, you know, as a strength coach, if you want to be able to do those things, you can't just read everything Louis Simmons writes and that's all you do. Then you need to spend some quality time, like, looking at the speed guys. And so what is it, Charlie Francis, he's a guy, his way of thought, you know, pretty much his program seems to fit my personality. We do our strength. And so he seemed to be my go-to guy.

So I learned a lot from him. Locally, there's a guy named William Bradley, who I think is just incredibly good and probably the best-kept secret in all of America. And so we would get together a lot. And sometimes, like, if I had athletes that really needed that like a tenth and one more little bit i had no problem sending them to him because he's a specialist yeah he's kind of like the opposite of me like he's good at strength like he can teach strength

but he is like an unbelievable expert at speed and so like we really worked well together yeah because if in the context of olympic olympic weightlifting there's a speed just as different as a different thing right you're not moving right which is kind of like well i mean you are moving but you're not you're not propelling forward you're not chasing somebody um there's no lateral i meant um up and lateral so having a specific person that can teach that I feel like there is some benefit to having that specific thing but overall just being

stronger I think I feel like strength just solves so many of the problems correlation between vertical ground reaction forces and speed that correlation is very strong i remember my biomechanics professor talking about that you know back back in graduate school like you you would think it would be like horizontal forces that would

determine speed but it's much higher correlated with vertical ground reaction forces which the ground's the only thing you have to push on the harder you push on the ground the faster you're going to go in general right that's what propels you you know you get that uh whatever for every action equal and opposite reaction so your foot strikes the ground then the forces you know you put the force into the ground and then the force in turn reverses it pushes into you and propels you forward so the harder you strike it the key is like stability too like um some cool things that people could do is within their strength is maybe work on you know stabilizing those joints a little

bit more i think we've talked about it before but like you know being able to when you strike that your ankles knees you know the ligaments and tendons are also strong and able to withstand that force because if they're weak, you know, you're going to lose a little bit of that. However, when they're stable, then you're going to propel yourself even more. Yeah, and on a similar note, like the more well-trained you are, the research shows that if you do like EMG or some similar type of measurement where you can actually like see if the muscle fibers are firing or not, like on a graph, the more well-trained you are, your muscles in your calf, as an example,

will start to fire even before you put your foot on the ground. If you're well-trained, it's like they're getting primed and ready to contract earlier. They've been trained to do that. They understand the pattern and what's going to happen. And if you're untrained though, then there's like this lag where your muscles are like, Oh, what's going on? Like I should, I should contract now,

but like more advanced athletes, the, they, they just, they have that, that neural movement pattern locked in where they, they, they can produce more force quicker because their muscles are more prime.

Yeah. That force. Yeah. I believe the next five years, here's what I think that, let me preface this by saying, Barb Ben asked me, I did a little interview with them and they asked me, did I think we were getting close to the, you know, the top of the potential for humans and strength? And I said,

I said, we're getting close with the things that we work on now. However, I believe that we're really missing out and we're afraid to really dive into that neurological side of things. You know, like we're always talking about, you know, the muscles and the tendons and the ligaments. But for some reason, when you start to talk about the brain, people are afraid. They see that as like there's a bad stigma. If you talk to someone, if you tell an athlete, hey,

you really need sports psychology, it makes them think that you're saying that they're weak. It's not. But I think a lot of study needs to be directed towards the brain. And I feel like a lot of athletes need to work on that side of their game and I think a lot of things change I think we're not even close if we can just like relax and be like it's okay to look in that area yeah there seems to be a stigma around any type of therapy like whether sports psychology or just or just getting psychotherapy in general like you're just talking to somebody and kind of working through your problems. But like, like there's like this weird underlying assumption that because you're working on that,

like you're, you're screwed up or you're, or you're weak, as you said, or like there's some negative association with it, even though, even though it's like an, in my mind,

like an obvious thing to do that could be beneficial. Right. I don't know why they don't want to be judged. Well, you can get a coach to get strong. You can get a coach to get fast. You can get a coach to do pretty much anything. But if you get a coach to work on your brain,

there's like a stigma attached to it. Number one, it's not out there that much. Number two, there's a stigma, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I feel like every good coach in some way serves as, you know, the CrossFit therapist or whatever. Like you're going to be in conversation with your athletes and you're going to be managing their their mindset and their mental state and you're you're kind of doing a lot of the same things that that a therapist

would do not that you're like exactly the exact same thing as a trained therapist they have other skills that we presumably don't have but uh you're you're helping this person on their mindset how to think etc and because you're the coach, there's no stigma against it. So I think it's wise for coaches to learn some of those skills because it just makes you a better coach. I wish there was a place that coaches could go to get – to really work on that area more. You know, like I know like if you go –

if you look at weightlifting powerlifting football soccer the difference in you know the good the good players and then those great it's the brain it always is like i know there are people with better genetics than michael jordan or lebron james however their mindset the way that they could you know elevate themselves and be confident saying the way lifting man it meant. It's obvious. I think if you ask any way that they coach, they would say the same thing. Like all those athletes you just named, I'm actually rereading or re-listening to his book right now, Tim Grover's,

the dude behind him. He's the trainer that gets their brain right. He wrote a whole book on it called Relentless. Right. I haven't read that book. I've read the – what's the dude? Mindful Athlete. You know, the guy supposedly that was the Chicago Bulls.

Like he was there. It's probably the same guy. It might be the same guy because he was Jordan's and Kobe's and Dwayne Wade's. Oh, my gosh. He had all the dudes. Yeah. Like literally everyone you just named, he was their strength coach.

And his whole book is just about like, yeah, the workouts can be brutal. Yeah. You can do all that, but there's like a, there's, there's really a switch that has to be turned on about just being a complete

bad-ass. Like you just have to train your brain in a way that allows you to be literally that level of athlete. Right. It's all about, you know, if you could easily just get into the flow state anytime you wanted. And I feel like there's a lot out there that can help people and teach people how to do it.

But when you tell an athlete, hey, man, you know, focus this area. They literally think that you're being mean to them or think that you're saying that they're weak. And I'm like, can you not see the only difference in you? And this other athlete is your brain. Like when you, you know,

they have these arbitrary numbers and it just scares them. And then you got a guy like Ryan where it doesn't exist. There's no arbitrary number. When he competes, if he's really ready and he's really focused, there is no arbitrary number. He's not afraid of anything. He's like, put it on the bar, and he attacks it. And if he misses, he misses.

It's not because he's afraid. I feel like all of this, like the framework around therapy is about just uncovering problems of like a bad childhood. Nobody ever frames it in like the wiring your brain to be a total savage, like to make you unstoppable. A lot of good – That really is like what most of the book Relentless is about. It's like we can't do anything about the past. You can go to a therapist to understand your past and get through it. But he's like, but if you want to be great at something,

like you have to basically train your brain to not have these beliefs of – like I all – it's interesting because like if you're the strongest person in your gym, like you don't, there's a good chance that like 400 pounds is a big back squat. But if you go to your gym, 800 needs to be the number. Like those, those are, it's, there's, there's just a framework of like where, what you see on a daily basis and what normal is. And that's why training partners and

all this stuff is so important like just the ability to to train your brain to be able to know that there doesn't have to be a limit to to where you can go you could fight you could fight the battle of like trying to convince somebody to change their beliefs and there's there's some possibility you could do that. But I feel like as far as what you just said, like if you establish a culture where you are, it's going to be easier to change someone's belief that they can squat 800 pounds when, when that's just like an expectation for everyone,

like you're around a bunch of really strong people. You can see that it's possible. And so now you believe that it's possible. You believe that you can do it versus being in a gym where nobody's even close to that. And your coach is like, no, you could be great. Like be great like keep trying and like yeah you might be able to convince them but having that culture i feel like is is uh like a powerful hack so to speak to getting somebody to believe i think that's one of the you know if you look at the bulgarian system russian

system you look at west side barbell you look at people in my gym you look at power and grace that's the common denominator is you put a bunch of savages in the same room and as long as you can cultivate that you know you know because like a lot of times that's either going to cost something amazing or something terrible because you get put them in there and everyone's like kill each other yeah i know when i was at the limit training center when i would visit uh in 2016 we visited limit training center my i would visit uh in 2016 we visited limit training center my my guys because they're on their way to the junior pentams and the atmosphere was terrible you had two people that obviously hated each other who in the same weight class and it made the whole room unbearable you know if you can have a coach who can handle that

mess and be like you two stop that same terrible atmosphere can do something great. You can start to battle. You know what I mean? It's just weightlifting, man. It's not like we're not fist fighting. We're weightlifting. And so if you beat me today, that's, you know, okay, I'm going to try to beat you tomorrow.

And you enjoy each other and be like, what are you doing? You know, how are you snatched at? What were you thinking? You can learn from each other. But it is something you do have to have if you want to be the best in the world sometime or another you got to put yourself in the room with the best yeah that was actually uh something cena when we interviewed him doug and he would talk about all the time when we were all just training together and like and something that

i just was like super proud of when that he trained with us for so long, like four years coming to our gym was like, he could go anywhere in any place. And to keep that dude around for four years and keep him moving. And I would ask him like why he trained there. And it was always just, he was obviously the strongest person there by a lot, but the education side was the part that he, he liked,

he liked the way that we talked about lifting weights. We have an elevated conversation here. He's not going to the boot camp down the street. We actually are creating the environment that makes him better at what he does because he could go anywhere. That culture just matters. I feel like if you were 14 years old and you walked into Mass Elite, you were like, I squat 315

and you were the strongest person you know. You're like, cool. We're going to triple that. The kid's like, damn it. I thought I was cool. It happens a lot in MASH Elite. It happens a lot. You get the kid who thinks they are until immediately they walk in and you see their eyes.

Some people will never come back because they're just not that good. That's why when I walk in, I talk shit to Hunter Elam and that's it. Right. You got to find your spot.

I find the girl that's 60 pounds lighter than me and I got her. That's what you do. You find one that you can beat. That's what you do. You find one that you can beat. You beat that. You get the next one. You work your way up. Nope. Nope. Nope. I'm not. If I can beat Hunter, I'm good. You have ways to go, man.

I know. Coach Charles Smash, we got to cut it short today. A little bit short. Where can people find you? Mashlead.com. You can go to Twitter where I talk a lot about this stuff, at Mashedelete, or LinkedIn. It's just my name. There it is.

Doug Larson. On Instagram, Douglas E. Larson. I'm Anders Varner, at Anders Varner. We are Barbell Shrugged at Barbell underscore shrugged. Get over to DieselDadMentorship.com for all the busy dads who want to lose 20 to 40 pounds without spending 60 to 90 minutes in the gym, restrictive diets. Come and hang out with us. One-on-one coaching with Doug and myself. Also get over to your local

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