Barbell Shrugged - Top Four Deadlift Variations and How to Master Them All w/ Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Coach Travis Mash - Barbell Shrugged #573

Episode Date: May 3, 2021

In this Episode of Barbell Shrugged: Commonalities between every deadlift Benefits and drawbacks of variations and accessories Pros and Cons of Single Leg Deadlift Sumo vs. Conventional  RDLs and its benefits Anders Varner on Instagram   Doug Larson on Instagram   Coach Travis Mash on Instagram   ————————————————   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   U.S. Air Force. Find out if you do at airforce.com.   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”

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Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Anders Varner, Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mash. Mash, I just want you to know I was at your alma mater this weekend going back to college. I was walking through the campus of – first off, everybody should know, today on Barbell Strike, we're going to be talking about the four main deadlifts that you should be doing in your training, similarities and differences. But before we do that, I just got back from Babymoon with my lovely wife who is having a baby in nine weeks, and we went to Blowing Rock in the Appalachian. Where is that? I don't even know.

We call it Appalachian. We say Appalachian. Is it, where is that? I don't even know. We call it Appalachia. We say Appalachia. First off, if you see a picture of Blowing Rock, like the big cool thing, and then you go to the Blowing Rock, it's the most disappointing thing in the entire world. There's like some old dude. Yeah. Got you. He's like, I'll take your 20 bucks. And he takes the $20 and you're like, all right, where do I go? I'm expecting like this many mile long hike. He's like, it's 50 bucks or 50 feet that way. There's no hiking. It's just a regular rock sticking out of the ground. And I'm supposed to believe some Native American dude jumped off this thing and the wind blew him back to some chick. Yeah, right, buddy. You just took, that's's robbery that's the government taking my money i want my 40 bucks back bro that rock is regular as shit there's nothing special about

that rock we had a blast though i want to go to app state it's nice i want to go to app state because i went to like the cool kids bar sandwich shop. And it was just like college kids all around. And I could tell that they all thought that they were busy and doing something. And all I wanted to do was look at them and go, you are so bored. And you don't do shit. You have like three hours of commitment in your life on a daily basis. You have no idea. You can't even be grateful for what you're doing right now because you don't know that life could be hard.

Yeah. I wish someone had told me that like what you know what though i kind of innately knew that this wasn't real i feel like on day one when all the girls when i was playing football and all the girls come to town and i'm like this is not real this is utopia i'm gonna take advantage i knew i was gonna take advantage of these four years. I was sitting in there, and obviously all the waitresses are college girls, and I was just like, wait a second. You only recycle 20-year-olds? I'm getting older and farther away from the average age of just 20. And as soon as you turn 22, you've exceeded the limit to ride this ride.

You've got to go back. We've got 20-year-olds coming in. 19-year-olds are coming to the 20-year-old land. That's right. I couldn't believe it. It was like – I was like, college is so radical. How did I not know? I love the state the best.

It really is. It was fantastic. I really hope Adelaide goes there just because it was like a place that I felt like I could hang out. Sure. As college dad. Uh, I mean, yeah,

for sure. But there's just so much to do. Like, you know, if you're looking for a party, they're there. But if you're looking to hike and do outdoor things, it kind of felt like a,

like a college, but with like cool little outdoor hippie vibe. Yeah. That's about it. It's like a little bit of all. Yeah. Yeah. I used to go to hippie parties all the time just because I wanted to try to

understand their culture. I'd always go in there and talk to them and be like, why do you dress like this? It was crazy. One thing I did not understand though, is how like, like the, in order to be cool,

you have to have like your, your special IPA, like the, the regular bar doesn't just serve Natty Light like mine did. Of course not. I don't know how a college kid can afford an $8 beer. This kid's going there.

Don't you have Natty Light on draft for like $0.10? Can I buy a pitcher for $2? One of my fraternity brothers had all his, obviously his parents paid for school and his living, and he had a $2,000 a month salary from his parents. Two grand a month to just do whatever. Yeah.

I'm like, man, can I get your dad? That's absurd. Yeah. He was the best, too. Doug, I've been trying for three weeks to keep this from you in conversation because I wanted to talk about it so much on this show. I watched the documentary Choke for the first time like three weeks ago with my dad. And it was the first time I had ever seen an inside look at the the gracie family and like like pre-ufc pre-media pre-marketing pre-money like these guys were just built to be assassins

and it was one of the coolest documentaries ever watching Henzo train. What's the one? I mean, there's tons of them. There's more than one. No, no, no. What's the one that it's mainly about? Because Henzo's the dad, right? I actually haven't seen that specific documentary.

Oh! I thought for sure that would be like you would know every, you would have seen it 100 times. He probably has read all about it. I haven't seen it. I haven't seen it. I haven't seen it. Those guys are monsters. Yeah. Henzo's the dad, right?

I think Henzo is a dad. Again, it's the whole family, so many of them are dads. But Hickson's, like, who's also – his name is spelled with an R. Thanks, Brazil. Hoist is the first one that everyone talked about. Hoist Gracie.cha he's gonna put ufc on the map right yeah yeah that well there's a part of this is so gangster it's the old man that says this whoever whoever the old man is i don't know where he is in like the lineage

but he goes he starts naming off i think it's helio yeah that's the one so he is talking about because the tournament used to be like two days or one day you fight like six times or something like that in like a weekend it wasn't like a man bracket yeah so all these guys are showing up and the old man who's it's got to be like 70 80 years old he's just been beating the shit out of people his whole life. He's like, you know what's really great about karate? He's like, those guys are really good at karate. You know what's really great about taekwondo? Those are really good at taekwondo.

He goes, what's really great about people that are good at boxing is they're really good at boxing. He goes, none of those people are really good at street fights, though, and we're about to get in a street fight. And was like oh that old man is coming he's true though man those those guys in brazil especially before the ufc was around they were they were like the bullies of rio were like they would they would go around to like any martial arts gym that made a claim like they were good they would show up and be like no we're better than you our martial art is the best one you want to fight right now and they'd fucking fight and they'd win and they would just they would just go around putting their money where

their mouth is to anybody to anybody and then hoist came over to america and said i'll challenge america to a fight i'll fight anybody and then he won them all yeah everybody was like oh shit until american wrestling entered the show you can look like the history of the usc and Everybody was like, Oh shit. Until American wrestling entered the show. You can look like the history of the UFC and it was like, it was like Gracie do just sue. And then you see where American wrestling enters and then no offense to them. That was the end. Yeah.

Once the, once the bot, what's our, once the wrestlers learned jujitsu, now everybody knows everything. Yeah. That was, that was a huge game changer when the wrestlers came in and like when Matt

Hughes fought, he's Gracie in the ufc and like it was not challenging because matt is a fucking super athlete great yeah hoist gracie has no real technical advantage over him as far as like total grappling goes and maybe jiu-jitsu specific advantages but definitely not a wrestling advantage and matt hughes is a fucking super super athlete. So he just steamrolled him. I love Matt Hughes. That's so funny that you haven't seen it, dude. It was like the original – what was the – was it called the Ultimate Fighting Challenge Championship back in the day?

Like UFC 1? I'm pretty sure it was UFC from day one. Yeah. Because there was a couple – I remember ordering it like UFC 2 like in 1994. Yeah. Yeah. You know what's so funny? I remember my buddy's dad would rent the VHS, and they would talk about it like as if now

everybody knows what an arm bar is, but nobody back in the day knew what it was. They'd be like, they're just out there breaking people's arms. Like there was no stopping it. It was like your arm's broken. Now you stop. Well, they also used to not have time limits. So they would just go until somebody won. The clock wouldn't count down like from each round, you know, five minutes down to one for one round on and on.

It would just count, count up as long as you, as long as you took to submit the guy or knock them out. And I remember we ordered on pay-per-view again, like, you know, I was like 11 years old or something like that. I was really young. I was in junior high and uh so my buddy's dad orders it for us and we watched the whole block you know the whole three hours or whatever it is for the pay-per-view special but the the main event you know was was lasting however long you know 20 minutes 30 minutes or and it fucking hit nine o'clock or whatever whatever the whatever the

cutoff was and goes boop and just fucked it up and back then you like you like couldn't there was nowhere else to go watch it you had to watch on pay-per-view and like if you wanted the results you had to like just wait until like a friend of yours maybe found out about it from his friend i didn't find out who won the fight for for weeks you remember mark kurt that dude was such a killer if he had not gotten on painkillers like that dude I think is I still believe he's the best of all time he just didn't have time to prove it but

he was a killer he looked like a complete animal like he's the guy you walk in the room you like I'm not fighting him you guys got remember he famously said one time like once they outlawed headbutting I didn't know what to do. Because he would just go out there and wrestle people and just fucking headbutt them.

God. I saw him beat somebody in seconds. I think I've already told the story on the show, so I'm not going to do it again. But, yeah, I saw him beat somebody in seconds. And he was so humble. And the other guy was talking so much junk prior to the fight. And within – you know, let's get it on is what the dude said and then knocked out. I mean, literally kicked him in the fight and within you know let's get it on what the dude said and then knocked out i mean literally kicked him in the face and dropped him done that was the whole fight

and i'm like good god um there was a there was one fight there also weren't weight classes so there was one fight in the documentary where the guy must have weighed like 240 250 up against a guy that maybe weighed 135 like he was this tiny asian dude and just got his face like his nose was in the back of his skull by the end of it but he got an arm bar and choked or like about snapped the dude's arm and ended up winning and they showed him walking back to the dressing room, and his face is, like, inverted by this guy's fist. Like, it is so gross. And he's so fired up and has no idea how broken his skull is

that he's, like, talking shit to Hicks and Gracie as he's walking back to the locker room. He's like, I'm coming for you. And I'm like, buddy, you need to wait three minutes for all that energy because you have a long life of recovery coming your way. Like your skull is smashed right now. Yeah. Terrifying.

You got to watch the documentary. I can't believe it i uh i i know nothing about the gracie family uh now i feel like i know at least an hour and a half of highlights and it was super cool like hickson and like all the anytime i watch any of that stuff i just want to watch the training videos i don't really care about the fight so much, but I like watching how they train. And he's just so next level on breath work, the meditation side of things. I'm sure there's a lot of even crazier stuff that they do, but they're so deep into the life and soulfully committed to fighting and the art of killing people that it's like an insane um hey when can we get went off now i'm totally interested in this whole breathing thing let's get him can we uh evan demarco and janna interviewed him not too long ago i'm sure we

could get connected i would love to talk to him like now because it's like something that i'm not you know um i watched a show on him recently too it's like so sad when he talks about the reason that he goes and seeks pain is because his wife committed suicide or something like that it's like that was like he said that it was like an entire thing based on like uh zach evanesce posted it the other day it's like a 10 minute video of why he started doing what he does to make life so painful. He's like, well, my best friend went through depression and killed herself,

and that was my wife, and I have no way of replacing it, so I just fill it with pain. I'm like, ah! That would be – Too deep. Went too far. I'm not capable of that, man. I don't know what I would do. But anyway, all right. Let anyway all right let's talk about let's talk about deadlifts yeah sounds happier yeah right on so the the big four that i want to talk about uh trap bar

deadlifts well we've talked about standard deadlifts so many times uh sumo deadlifts uh stiff legged deadlifts and romanian deadlifts um take it away doug i want to hear the finer points of deadlifting form the the pieces that no matter what deadlift you are doing um kind of the similarities commonalities between all of it just in the in the movement patterns yeah so the big four in my mind conventional regular deadlift with straight bar sumo dead with a straight bar rdls you can do rdls with straight bar sumo deadlift with a straight bar rdls you can do rdls with straight bar trap or really but most people do them with straight bar and then trap bar deadlifts or some some other specialty bar variation hex bars and what have

you they're all very similar but they're they're also a little bit different there's there's trade-offs depending on which one, which one you choose everything. All of these questions are goal dependent questions. If you're a competitive power lifter, then you need to be the most proficient at whatever your competition lift happens to be. Uh, but, um, selecting, selecting for your, your best movement by body type is often, um, often done where people that have really long torsos tend to do really well

with sumo deadlifts and people with short torsos tend to do really well with more conventional deadlifts also they they stress your body in different ways so like regular deadlifts have the if you look at studies on on sheer forces at the lumbar spine like regular deadlifts have the highest and then sumos and then and then trap bar and i haven't seen what the data says specifically about RDLs, but you're super bent over. So it's probably really high shear forces. Not that shear forces are bad, but it just means that you just need to be aware of where you're putting the stress for each particular lift.

If you're doing a trap bar deadlift and you have a little more of a vertical torso, you're using a little more knee extension, a little more leg drive. And if you're doing regular conventional deadlift and you're super bent over, then you're using a little more knee extension, a little more leg drive. If you're doing regular conventional deadlift and you're super bent over, then you're using a little more hips and hamstrings, glutes and hamstrings. It's all about

trade-offs. They're all similar, but not the same. You can make trap bar into anything you want. You can actually let it drift out in front. You can start dead in the middle and make it obviously the most advantageous as far as especially if you have that

open-ended one like you have in your basement mash my favorite in tech yep so yeah thanks for that one yeah to your point travis like it's it's not the it's not the implement that determines the movement pattern it's how you choose to do the move do it right so if you if you grab a a trap bar and you instead of having your hips a little bit lower and your knees a little bit further forward, which you certainly could do because now the bar is not blocking your shins anymore. The bar path can be different. You could do it like I'm suggesting, or you could do it exactly like you do a regular

conventional deadlift. You're just going to put your hips a slightly bit higher, get a little more of a vertical shin, and assuming you have a nice flat back, pull from there. It's how you choose to do it which determines the stress there was somebody on uh the one thing i want to say about deadlift too is like there was somebody who i really respect let me we just don't agree on one thing but they talked about deadlifting versus the clean and i do i do believe there's a misconception out there that you should deadlift a certain way and that you should clean a certain way. Oh, this is great. We just did the YouTube video on this.

Yeah, right. And so like, you know, I don't know why people, you know, so many absolutes when it's just not true. I did the research. I actually interviewed over a hundred different top level power lifters and coaches, and even a few that are like moderate level. And you know, by all means, most people just put themselves in the most advantageous pulling position for their bodies and pull you know the only difference in a in a pull of a deadlift in a pool of a clean is simply your intent is like with the deadlift you're

trying your best to get behind the bar as soon as possible so you you you know you're trying to maximize your center of gravity but then the other and the clean, you're trying to stay over for as long as possible, maximizing the correct point of the lift, meaning the top position. So that's the only difference. Otherwise, most people start in the same position. I don't even know why you would switch it. If a certain position is your strongest pulling position, why would you switch it for the other one?

Well, we were talking about it in the video. It's like depending upon what your discipline is, it may be much more advantageous if you are a crossfitter and doing more of like a stiff like a deadlift type deadlift in which you're very submaximal where high turnover matters a lot. And if you're looking at a deadlift and there's kind of two joints involved where your knees are much more in the lift, and there's a bigger like quad focus,

it's going to be a slower movement with a slower turnover time than just bending at the hips, banging it off the ground, and going after it for 21 reps at two and a quarter, 315, whatever it is. I think that if you are looking for the most possible weight that you can lift for one rep, there's a single way that probably the strongest people in the world are going to get you to that specific. I would say maximizing your, you know, the moment arms of each individual joint based on your anthropometrics. And in layman terms,

it's just like putting yourself in the best pulling position based on how you're built. That's what I'm trying to say. Yeah. When, when you compare those to the clean, like if the start position is the same, what's, what, is there a difference in the bar path going into the clean verse in the deadlift because they're the bar swings back into your body a little bit more in the clean than it's going to in a deadlift easier to get that but you're trying to do that with the deadlift if you you know no one wants the bar to stay out in front of them it's heavier

you know because if you look at like moment arms you're talking about the distance from whatever joint you're talking about yeah perpendicular to Perpendicular to the line of force. It's just harder to get that 500 pounds to move than 300. Right, right. It's easier to sweep back with 300 versus 500 or more. But, yeah, you're trying to get it off the floor. I don't think a whole lot is different. You're trying to push with your legs, sweep with your lats.

But then things change there because the moment, you know, you can, you're trying to, once you cross the knees, you're trying to get behind the bar, you know, on deadlift. Because if you don't, it's out in front and it gets heavy. But with the, you know, clean, not, you know, you're waiting until the last possible moment. Because you're also trying to get that, you know, the stretch reflex. This is obviously a theory.

But you're trying to get the stretch reflex from the hamstring. So if I can stay over and lengthen, if I can extend my knee, now I am fully lengthened to my hamstring. So in theory, I should get a stretch reflex, making that top portion more powerful. But with deadlifting, if you're in that position, you're in trouble because you've now lengthened that spine as much as possible. It's going to be really heavy on the back so it seems like trap bar deadlifts are more way more common in kind of sports

performance settings you know you're playing with soccer soccer players and hockey players and baseball players and whoever else you know weightlifters and powerlifters they use straight bars in their sport for the competition lifts so you know it makes sense that they would do slightly less hex bar trap bar deadlifts but do slightly less hex bar, trap bar deadlifts. But do you ever use hex bar, trap bar deadlifts with your athletes? Or is it just specific situations? Or do you guys have like certain training cycles that you prioritize them? You know, I would for my athletes. But even then, I think that's a mistake to avoid, you know, because what they're doing, you know, it's easier on the spine.

But the problem with football players or even soccer players is that there's going to be collisions. And, you know, if I've put stress on my athletes back in a very safe way, then they are ready for collision and your athletes are not. So you do need to be careful of that. You know, you just need to be wise. I feel like, once again, too many strength coaches want to be all, you know, absolute, okay, we can't deadlift because there's stress on the back. You know, where I'm saying, you know, you need to put stress just in a very wise way, so understand volume, understand technique, and then because if not, that at least is going to be weak.

If I run into somebody who's only done trap bar, you know, deadlifts, then I'm going to win that collision every time. The interesting thing about coaching, really depending upon where someone's training age or just their like general body awareness, getting people into a deadlift is kind of a tricky thing if nobody really understands where their hips are at. They always just end up bending over with their back

instead of pushing their hips back. They bend over with their back instead of hinging and pushing their hips back. And we end up seeing as somebody, as soon as somebody sets up by just bending over, the only way for them to get back because they've loaded their hips the wrong way is to use their back to lift the weights. And then you end up, if you don't have trap bars, and a lot of gyms just don't have trap bars because they're really expensive. They're hard. It's like a hard thing to store it's kind of good ones are expensive

yeah they're they're kind of a nuisance when you're a gym owner because there's nowhere to store them and they just take up floor space um but getting people into a good position is much easier i think with the trap bar than than in a a deadlift. For sure. Somebody that is like very new to training feels a little like lacks confidence with a barbell. And we used to overcome that by just raising it up, whether you're putting it on blocks, whether they're putting it on plates and getting the bar. Yeah.

You can get, You can get people in the same position almost as and they're still going to get you know 95 percent of the benefit like and and just learning the movement um i think that that's like a really good cue if you're a coach and you struggle with people getting into position or like learning how to hinge initially when they come into the gym that that was like how we taught deadlifts um in our intro class we very rarely have people coming from the floor just because it's so, it can be tricky. And anytime somebody is new to lifting weights and they bend over, they immediately think it's dangerous. It's like the first thing that goes through their brain. Yeah. They've been told their whole lives to lift with their legs, not lift with their back. Yeah. With new people, there's really, there's really three movements that I like to do

as far as hinging goes. I do rack pulls like you just suggested. I do kettlebell swings. Yes. And or RDLs. I like the top-down approach, especially when it comes to hinging and keeping a neutral spine because everyone can have a neutral spine while standing vertical upright.

It's hard not to. And then as you bend forward, you don't have range of motion restrictions until the very end of the lift, and you just stop before you get to a range of motion restriction. So you can do like partial rep RDLs, or it might be their full range of motion. It might look like partial range of motion to us if they don't have really short hamstrings or really poor hip mobility or just don't have very good spinal extension, isometric strength, and they just get tired and they round their back or whatever it is. But those three things seem to be the big ones that have worked for me in the past, especially kettlebell swings. If you're, someone's worried about like

bending over the barbell, they're not comfortable with barbells. Like for some reason, dumbbells and kettlebells are not intimidating, even if it's more weight, you'd be like, yeah, here's a 45 pound bar. They're like, I don't want to do like, here's a 45 pound bar they're like i don't want to do like here's a 55 pound kettlebell and they're like oh that's better no one thinks and i if you guys ever used um i call it i just call it a kettlebell hinge but you take the kettlebell by the horns and pull it into your belly button and then you know all you have to do then is is tuck your shoulders down it's so easy to teach your hands in it's like now you say stick your butt back and bend over while you're pulling. So they have that, you know.

It's like a front-loaded good morning. Right. You have that tactile, you know, feedback. So, you know, keeping their back flat is easy. Now you say stick your butt back and hinge over. It's like even the person with the worst hinge does that. I've never had anyone who couldn't hinge once they started doing that. Then once they figured that

movement pattern in the very same day they could hinge. I feel like it's the quickest way you could ever teach a hinge. Do you teach stiff legged deads? Oh, for power lifters. Not really my way of lifting. I don't see why I wouldn't though.

I just haven't. Power lifters I do a lot lot of stuff like deadlifts because I feel like it mimics the position you could possibly end up getting in in powerlifting. But whereas RDLs are more ways to be specific. But you could do either. I do RDLs with power lifters. So I don't know why I'm stereotyping that.

Well, they're a little awkward. I feel like they're awkward in the sense that like you really need to understand movement. Yeah. Like have a pretty decent training age when it comes to hinging and being comfortable, keeping your legs straight and having a decent amount of weight. I end up when I think about adding those in, the majority of the time I think about it more as like just stretching, like stretching under load and going to an end range of motion,

like nice, slow. It's not something that I'm like concerned about doing a lot of weight. There's very rarely a day where I'm like, I'm going to go to like build like a heavy five and a stiff like a deadlift I have done that it definitely like it's definitely not and then not walk for two weeks I did that for that I think I've told

this story like for about you know I did it for like eight weeks and I deadlifted 800 pounds but I'm not saying you should go out anyone listening I'm not saying go out and do it I'm saying I did it as a it was Ed Cohn's advice he did a lot of stuff like this oh really nice yeah and forever was the best deadlift of all time and so i did it and definitely it was the biggest response of my life yeah i love that because i like to think about all of those movements on like uh

when you think about like mobility and stability like i want to be very mobile but you don't want to have mobility and not build stability through that range of motion right so our ability to expand movement capacity and expand range of motion you have to become more mobile but you also want to be doing it loaded so it's not just sitting there stretching tissues for no real reason. And stiff-legged deadlifts are just such an awesome way. Good mornings are an awesome way as well of using lighter loads to build mobility and expand that range of motion. But at the same time, you have to maintain tension and you're building muscle through a new range. So it's not just like bend over, try and put your palms on the ground for no real reason. You're, you're still lifting weights. You're just slightly

expanding that range of motion as you go through and just creating like more durable joints is, is really like the thing that I think about the most. Um, I try to kind of, I try to do them in a way and like RDLs are the the really cool one because you can load them a lot put a ton of weight on there do some half reps feel awesome and you're gonna get a ton of benefit but single leg deadlifts is like expanding that out into a much more like uh mindful movement type right um plan yeah it's definitely like i don't know if i'd ever have like that would be the one i said i like absolutes if i have a general pop person you know maybe the the risk profile that would not be it would not be advantageous for a normal person to do those

i don't see why but unless you did like you know're talking about being you use it for stress but even knowing what i know what um what uh dr you know mcgill would say i would say probably don't do it at all for them but for a power loser you know who's not caring about the risk who's trying to be the best in the world i i would say for 100 do it because it works you just might get hurt so you might get hurt doing all the things we do so you know that they don't care about that i didn't care i might get hurt so travis if you're going to work if you're working with power lifters do you do you kind of you consult with them so to speak on like which competition movement is going to be their better movement like no no i really feel like you should be doing sumos and you you really should be doing conventional or is it kind of,

what's that conversation like? How do you choose? You know, I have them do both no matter what. And so one way obviously is by, you know, watching the movement and seeing which one is like, you know, seems to be the most advantageous. And the other way is like looking, yeah, you can look at like the way they're built. You can look at hip structure. There's a couple of things you need to consider when the sumo is like, you know, yeah, you can look at like the way they're built you can look at hip structure there's a couple things you need to consider when the sumo is like you know yeah you can look at torso length but you also need to know is you know do they have deep hip sockets or shallow hip

sockets you know if they have shallow i might go sumo every time but you know if they can develop power in that position because it's just like it's a shorter range of motion and it's less stress on the back so i think all together the sumo is the best way to go because you know squatting is definitely going to put you know stress on the back so if you can take some off in the deadlift over time that seems to be the the why i couldn't i just wasn't that good at sumo or i would have the longevity yeah yeah for longevity sake you know um so that thing is do you have the hips? I just don't. I agree with that.

Yeah. How do you test? I think sumo is much easier on my body most of the time. Yeah, totally agree with that. I just wish I could get in that position. I don't ever do it. I've only done it a couple times. It's always so awkward running.

You could do it easily. Oh, no. I'll teach you. You don't know how to do it? Yeah, as long as you have the hips, it's the way to go. And, like, a guy like, you know, JC, my young guy, is like, we do Simo because, you know, he doesn't have the longest of arms. And so by shortening that range, it puts him in a better position

because when he does conventional, you know, because of short arms, he's in a very contorted position at the bottom. And it's hard, you know, to create the mobility to get in a good position for a conventional would be disadvantageous for the squat because we have him in a perfect position to squat. So if I add range of motion, it's not a good thing. We're not empowering the thing. That means he's going deeper and that's not – we have him, you know,

a little like an intratubule low parallel and he's maxed out on squat and that's good. So, you know, there's a an intratubule low parallel, and he's maxed out on squat, and that's good. So, you know, he has a lot of variables to consider, as you can see. But he's now got his – his sumo is, like, beautiful. You know, we mimic the – I always forget his name, too, the Russian dude. Whatever. There's an amazing Russian powerlifter who's got the best technique, Yuri Belkin.

There he is, Yuri Belkin. If you watch Tim Deadlift, you see why he's beating everybody. I know everyone is so – there's a lot of Americans who get a lot of hype. That guy, Uri Belkin, who I just mentioned, whips them all badly. But that's a guy who's more worried about winning than he's worried about Instagram. That's the difference in America than him right now. That dude's a baller.

Dude, I'm actually looking at his uh a picture of his setup like right before he pulls what is it world record 445 kilos kilos good lord he is his body is designed like but he's not like overly aggressive in his sumo no he kind of looks like he just has a body but he gets perfectly created yeah his torso is straight up and down there's zero stress on his spine it's almost is like it's the least amount possible on his so it's all at that point becomes all quads which i guess now you know you shift you know like what works what like, in the sumo, the big difference in sumo and conventional mainly is, like, the sumo is there's more stress on the quads. There's very little, if you get in that position he's in, on the back and the hips.

It's, you know, you get some – obviously, you have to have hip extension. But you've limited that amount as much as possible in the sumo. Yeah. How often do you get RDLls with your weightlifters in is that like one of the big accessory lifts that you do until maybe the last like six weeks that i you know switch out i would not do rdls and i make it so sore yeah yeah the muscle damage is not worth it you know when we're trying to get for competition you can't there's no way you're getting out of it i've never done i could just thinking about them i feel like i'm gonna be sore tomorrow yeah

just doing a show talking about them yeah especially exceptionally straight legs like if you do like almost like locked knee deadlifts the straighter your legs are the more sorry hamstrings are going to be yeah i remember doing i remember i used to do those just like almost like completely locked out knees just just enough bend to like have a soft knee and keep it stable. But you get that big stretch in your hamstrings, you're sore for a week. It's almost the only way to completely stretch your hamstrings. So when you do leg curls, you never fully lengthen your hamstrings because, you know, you're extended at the spine.

Unless you get the submachines that allow a little bit of flexion. But like even then, it's not fully limpid. So, RDLs, that's the way. You never get nearly as sore from leg curls as you do from RDLs. No way. Not a prayer. Have you guys been watching any of the Knees Over Toes guy? Oh, yeah.

The stuff that's been coming out. We need to get him on the show. Yeah, we do. I've been – well, I was on Babymoon last week, but I actually – it rained one day during the Babymoon, so I was like in the house for eight hours. I was bored. I hadn't been bored since –

Where did y'all stay? Before Adelaide was – in Blowing Rock. What town? Oh, okay. Airbnb up in the mountains. Chitola is the resort up there. You should go sometime. Wait, which one?

Chitola it's called. Oh, yeah. We drove by. I think we went there for a day. Scratch that. West Glow Spa. It should go sometime. Wait, which one? Chitola it's called. Oh yeah. We drove by. I think we went there for a day. Scratch it. West close spot. West close spot. Oh, it's great.

Anyway, you have to go. Yeah. I spent like two hours on that dude's YouTube page the other day. It was great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. about RDLs and yeah, kind of a different way. Like he does like really, really straight leg, very aggressive deficit. Kind of, kind of like not the way I would want to teach it,

but it seems to be very dialed in and what he's in and what his goals are. I think he's very good at periodizing everything he's talking about. Like, you'll see him getting to extreme, you know, knees over toes. You know, you get to extreme knee flexion. But he's done a very good job. What you see is you see this glimpse of something like, holy cow. But you see the steps he took to get there and how long it took. You're like, it's working.

What he's doing, he doesn't know anything. I really love his messaging. He's like, life doesn't happen in an eight-week study. No. And I'm like, it's very few people talking. Because that's really what so many studies are based on in universities. You've got one semester to have an idea, study for eight weeks, write a paper on it, get it accepted,

and now we just consider it fact. Yeah. It's really challenging. He's talking about strain energy. That's what he's doing. He's strengthening those ligaments and tendons in a way that no one else is. But in a way where there's so much – if you guys want to know the most room for growth in strength and conditioning,

it's this. It's people understanding strength and energy better. I think if you do that one thing, the whole industry takes another bump up because it's the quickest way. We've already talked a little bit about it on the show. This guy's already figured it out. There's two people out there, him and one other guy that is vertical, something about vertical leap. He's been on my show too, but. He was working with Corey, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The guy working with Corey Gregory. And so they are doing a good job and I don't think they're, they understand the science, but they know it's working. But I, the science is that, is that they're doing a great job of getting those tendons and ligaments stronger and thicker over time. And that is a great way to get faster, jump higher, get less injury. Yeah.

So we should coach out there. I think a lot of it has to do with it. And it even plays in today's conversation about the like stiff, like a deadlift. Like when you get to those extreme end ranges of motion, they need to be loaded still. And you need to be strong in them. It's just you need to be using significantly less weight. You need to be very, very slow and deliberate about moving in those ranges of motion. Because if you're not slow and very mindful of what you you're doing there's a good chance you're going

to tweak something that's what you got to be careful of when you're doing like a stiff like deadlift extreme range of motion but yeah take your time you can prepare it and like um and you might not get into ever into the position you're seeing online yeah but one thing for you and and i know we we do this with like the diesel dad program where to um it's it's the the longevity is built in with the one-time challenge it's a year-long program where you can actually like see but one thing i really like about his program is he's like this is like a nine-month program it has to be nine months yeah and then we take three months off because your body's got a rest he's like if you want to do some other stuff cool but it's only nine months then we take three

months off and then we come back and do nine months so like his whole system is built out for like a very long term um solution to to the knee problems those dudes are doing miracle work with vertical leaps. Do you see those dudes? They have the way they're jumping. He's got Terry Crews, that super jacked actor. Wow. He's got him dunking.

So rad. That's amazing. Watch Terry Crews get up and dunk, MASH. This is your next calling, dude. You've got to get on his program and get back above the rim. That would be awesome. I think this summer I'm not taking classes. I can't wait. I have

learned a lesson this semester. This one's harder than the last one? Oh, yeah. Because of this thing I'm building. By far. Hardest semester of my entire life. By far. Double. A few more weeks and then I'm going to drink a lot of beer one day hardest semester of my entire life by far. Double. It's almost over.

A few more weeks and then I'm going to drink a lot of beer one day. One day. One day. Yeah. Dude, I actually want to get back to RDLs and programming them for your weightlifters. When do you – like do you load those super heavy or is that more of a hypertrophy thing that you're

um focusing i mean obviously it's going to be heavy no matter what but you're not like is it much more just an accessory building volume and and kind of we've adding we know we keep like a rep or two in the tank until – but there definitely comes a time where we at least two times throughout like a 20-week block, we're going to go to a 5RM or an 8RM and a 5RM. But we're not going to do a 1RM. We're going to push those. But we've – that's after several weeks of preparing. After doing unilateral RDLs, then doing several weeks of lower RPEs. See, this is like an area of programming I feel like weightlifting because the sole focus is to do

two lifts really, really well that CrossFitters miss out on so much that it's really challenging in a CrossFit program, especially if you're like regular person trying to be good at fitness and you want to go test yourself. And the coach is now looking at, he's got three to four hours a week with you and he's got to get as much done in that hour as possible. But, and then you have to do conditioning at the end of it every day. Cause that's like, that's like the, that's like your treat for lifting weights earlier in the session like it's really challenging to program all of those pieces in when 15 minutes of your day has to be doing a metcon because there just isn't like enough time to go deadlift rdl single leg rdl some sort of conditioning piece at the end and now all

of a sudden you've like condensed a 90 minute session into like a 45 minute window after a good 10 to 15 minute warm-up and so many people just miss out on really good exercises that build really healthy joints and and really healthy tissues because they're trying to just got to get that like conditioning piece in at the end yeah it's it it used to bother me a lot because everybody like that that's like the score on the board right and then in a way you want to be like let's take the score off the board let's not even worry about that part of it let's just train and do the right exercises and learn how to move perfectly i guarantee you at some point when we test those but to be able to take like a an 8 to 12 week block in a crossfit gym and say like hey we might not do conditioning or we're only going to do it twice a week

people are going to freak out on that they're're not going to like that one bit. Yeah. I would probably spend one block, one eight-week block in the year on RDLs. And then what I might do is put them in the Metcon. But you'd have to be careful. You'd have to say, on this movement, you have to do a five-second eccentric. And that's part of the Metcon. Yeah.

I think the most dangerous thing you could do is put rdls into a metcon because you will have people flying around be like 30 20 10 rd people would just be going nuts it would look like you were doing a kettlebell swing with a 135 pound barbell for so many reps. That would be the only way I could think to maintain that. You know, like you could get growth in those eight to ten weeks, but then you'd have to find a way to keep it. Well, I think a lot of people wonder what the difference is between like competition CrossFit programming

and general recreational let's get in shape programming right and the difference for us was always the amount of lifting and accessory work we did just to build big strong durable muscle and keep your joints healthy um and and we worried a lot less about conditioning than the uh just the the regular crossfit class the the regular one hour class that came in like uh and and being able to set up because most people that come into a your crossfit gym if you were like hey uh we're gonna go on this eight week block where we like really focus on this one thing they're like just get me in shape make this thing as fun as possible can you just do me a favor and not make this suck and when the competitors come

in and they have a very specific goal of going wherever they're going right and you say well for the next eight weeks you don't get to breathe or if you do get to breathe you're just going to sit on a rower for a long time. That's what they do. And then they lift weights. It's just, it's a very different. Yeah, right? It is terrible.

Yeah, you're going to go row for 45 minutes just to wake up in the morning. Just lots. But that really is like the big difference in the program is like, is, is getting rid of like having a sole focus versus just being so, so general in your approach. And, um,

but you can survive with, without RDOs, you know, like, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Like doing just a regular deadlift,

they'll probably find is more fun. And if you have trap bars, that's fine. You definitely need to teach them to hinge. hinge otherwise eventually somebody hurts themselves in their house hinging they're going to bend over that's why the trap bar is good but is it functional i don't think so because like if i've been able to pick up a basket of clothes i better know how to hinge so i do believe you do need to load them in front sometimes or they're going to get hurt in their house anyway so i mean at least that's what that's my hypothesis i mean yeah it doesn't happen jim

most people are very aware yeah so yeah they're aware and they got coach telling them what to do and like yeah so you need to teach them so part of why you should deadlift at least sometimes with a barbell is to teach them how you deal with the slow that's in front of your body, you know, do it. How often do you guys do, do deficit lifts? You know, uh, quite a bit,

but you know, like not as much as we used to, because you know, those are, I felt like when I started looking at the, you know, the, the data that they would probably hurt people more often than just regular.

So like they became, especially like, you know, like my competitors, because the volume is so high, they became especially like you know like my competitors because the volume's so high you know like i know i tweaked crystal once and sarah once and so then i just started like easing back i would do it like one block at a lower you know at a lower um intensity and just focus on like a slower tempo but yeah so i stopped it but now we do a lot of you'll see on videos a lot of rdls you know from a deficit mainly because it's a great way to put the bands because we do a

lot of band work because i feel like it definitely helps with a with that speed you know the it should like get faster as you go so the bands really teach your body to recruit fibers as you stand up so we do a bunch of those but mainly i love chains and bands for deadlifts the best me i totally agree i think i think bands for deadlifts is the number one way to get stronger in my first time the first time i ever did like a a doubled over mini band you attach to one side of the platform loop it over the other side and then loop it back over so really it's kind of four bands and they're already really stretched at the bottom uh i just had a straight bar like a regular deli bar and i had 100 pound plates

on each side and i did lift at the time 500 plus pounds and i was like oh it's just 245 plus bands we fine no not a fucking i was not fine at all, dude. I picked that thing up and then very quickly I got above the knee and I was like, oh shit, I'm doing a one rep max right there.

It was like 700 fucking pounds at the top or some ridiculous number higher than I thought it was going to be. You have to learn to go fast is the key. You learn to pull fast

is what you do with the bands which is good. Always use straps. I got that single repetition. I got... My upper traps were more sore than they've ever been from

anything in my entire life off a single rep i feel like finally i have a group of weightlifters that are all sold on bands now they're seeing the results yeah it's so hard at first you know you have you had a lot of traditional guys you know they're like wow what's this band thing and now all of them are like hey can i use bands use bands? So now we're going through bands. I need to get with a sponsorship for bands because we're crushing them. Yeah, see Ryan. Ryan loves bands. You know, now he's –

Dude, hold on a second. I'm so happy you said his name. He looks so fast under the bar right now and so stable when he catches the bar like he had for a long time some like just 16 year old hyper mobility stuff going on yeah like his joints just moved in ways that when you get older your joints just they're just not like he's still just growing yeah he looks strong right now we've done a really good job this time of, like, preparing him properly because now we're thinking more long-term because, obviously, last quad he wasn't going to the Olympics,

and so we were having fun making teams. But now, even in the competitions we're choosing, like we're planning long-term 2024. Like we're only going to peak him twice per year, period, no matter what USA Weatherly says, twice per year. We'll have him ready to do a number good enough, but we're going to do this thing right this time.

He's the one I've been using. This thing I keep alluding to, but he's been my guinea pig, looking at the volume, getting him ready, making good decisions. Are you still coaching Sarah Davies? No, we're friends. We're friends, though. She's over there.

She killed it. What was the event she just did? Was it Worlds? Yes, she did the Europeans and she got silver medal. She crushed it. She crushed it. Then my girls from Denver, they crushed it, especially Strong Piglet, Sandra.

Strong Piglet, best Instagram name ever. She is the number one lifter in Danish history. That's awesome. I know, man. I'm so pumped. We got to go back. We definitely need to go to Denmark because she's about to go to the Olympics. I would be surprised if she doesn't make it.

So we're getting pumped. I think she's coming to Columbia in May, and I'm going to go down and, you know, help coach her and finish this thing out. And then Tokyo, I hope. Please, God. It's coming to Columbia in May, and I'm going to go down and help coach her and finish this thing out. And then Tokyo, I hope. Please, God. It's going to work. Yes. People will be allowed, too.

Wait, next year, you won't be allowed. Wait, who's going to be able to go coach her? We'll see. I don't know. Are they going to be able to let you in? I don't know yet. We'll see. Let's get her there, and determine if they'll let me and the

coach from Denmark, but if not, whatever. I got her there. I'm happy. I did all the programming, the whole quad, so I'm happy. I will feel accomplished. Got one under my belt. Yeah. Coach Travis Mash. Where can the people find you?

Mashlead.com. You can Instagram Mashlead Performance and Twitter is where my favorite though, even though Where can the people find you? MASHLEAD.com. You can Instagram MASHLEAD Performance. And Twitter is one of my favorites, though, even though it's like I love Twitter. At MASHLEAD, I have great conversations there. I love just watching Twitter go down. Like I'm a very – I'm not involved. I try – like I don't really have any say on twitter no there's no following there's no like real need for me to be sending out my 140 characters or whatever it is now but watching you and squat university and like lane oh my god it's fun i

really enjoy i don't know how you guys keep up with it. I feel like your phone is just like ding, ding, ding, ding, like Johan Blake when I was talking shit to him. I ignore it until it's time. I have a time. It's like at nighttime. Literally, where some people go watch TV, I go do my thing on Twitter. It's my favorite.

I love it when someone tries to debate me. It's not my favorite. I feel like I've caught a fish at the end of a pole and I'm about to like fry this fish, you know? And so when I see somebody, well, you know, I think it's dangerous for kids.

I'm like, thank you, God. So excited. Yeah. So many studies to send you. I like, yeah.

I make you look like the biggest dummy and you don't even know it. Poor man. Poor guy. But anyway. Doug Larson. Bet. I'm on Instagram. Douglas C. Larson.

I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner. We are Barbell Shrugged at barbell underscore shrugged. Get over to barbellshrugged.com forward slash diesel dad where all the dads

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