Barbell Shrugged - Want to Compete in Weightlifting? Here's how to get ready

Episode Date: May 19, 2018

Travis Mash, quite possibly the best Weightlifting coach in America, has teamed up with Barbell Shrugged host and movement expert Doug Larson as well as elite muscle scientist Dr. Andy Galpin to teach you everything you need to know about competing in weightlifting! The seminar is going down in Travis Mash's amazing new gym, LEAN Fitness Systems, in Lewisville, NC. Saturday and Sunday: August 25 and 26, 2018 What will you learn? Movement, Mobility, and Technique for the Snatch and the Clean and Jerk Mental Toughness Assessment of Movement The Science of Building Strength and Explosive Power Nutrition for Weightlifters Building Strength and Making Weight Training Squats, Pulls, and Other Movements to Improve the Olympic Lifts Programming for Maximum Performance Tapering the Program in Preparation for Competition Mastering the Meet Day How to Coach Athletes During Competitions Plenty of Time for Q&A and Just Hanging Out Interested in attending?  Sign up anytime before July 1st and get 20% off.  ATTENDANCE IS LIMITED.  Get more details by visiting: https://www.mashelite.com/compcamp/ Have questions?  No problem - hit them up at [e-mail] and they'll take care of you. See you there! -Doug, Andy and Travis

That'll be dope. Yeah, I'm excited. We got to hear more about the progress of that on a later podcast. The minute Morgan, my Morgan, gets of age, I want to get him biopsies. Yeah. Because I don't think he's human. Yeah. I can't.

I'm pretty sure he's a Martian. Which person is that? My 14-year-old. Oh, the 14-year-old. Squats 506. You heard that right. 14 years old, squatting 500 pounds. And I cut him off.

Weightlifting. It's not his max. High bar. What do you think he can push pounds. And I cut him off. A weightlifting high bar. What do you think he can push right now if you let him go? 550. I think he'll be well. I think he'll hit easily 600 by the end of the year without me. At an 8 RP.

This right here, this is a great way to start this whole talk off, by the way. This is exactly why me and Andy want to do a weightlifting seminar with you. You are like the guy when it comes to, especially in my opinion, like coaching younger athletes. You just make young guys so freaking, freaky strong. You've got a 14-year-old that's squatting 500 pounds. You've got Nathan Dameron. He's squatting over six.

Seven. Seven now. It just keeps going up by hundreds of pounds. Yeah. You watch Nathan go, too, and it looks like he's in an RPE seven the whole time, too. You know, he's not even training. I've squatted over 800 raw.

Right. And when I watch Nathan, I'm amazed. I can just get caught up, and I'm not gay, but I get so caught up in watching him squat. It's just like he moves weight like I've never seen it before. Like, he'll take 600 pounds. And it's not that he's doing 600. I've seen plenty of that. It's the way he moves weight like I've never seen it before. Like he'll take 600 pounds. And it's not that he's doing 600. I've seen plenty of that.

It's the way he does it. It looks like he's doing an air squat. How long have you been coaching him for? Three years now. And all that progress, all that strength, and he's healthy still? When Nathan got to me, I could out front squat his back squat. And now I just – I lifted a different time. You don't want to be embarrassed.

Yeah. And so it's been cool. I think the biggest piece of the puzzle that a lot of coaches are missing is that we have a lot of fun. It's not like a – I don't try to pretend I'm a Polish coach or that I'm some Bulgarian coach. We have fun. We're Americans, and Americans are silly, and we want to have fun,

and we have a good time. Yeah, yeah. All right, let's dig in real quick just so the audience has context as to why we're sitting here talking about weightlifting. Of course, I'm Doug Larson, owner of Barbell Shrug, longtime podcast host and longtime weightlifter, doing weightlifting and strength conditioning for essentially my whole life, but weightlifting specifically I've been doing for over 20 years now uh dr andy galpin i'll let you introduce

yourself is to my left uh yeah that's my intro that's who i am so i'm a scientist i run the center for sport performance at cal state fullerton which means i do research and science on sport performance so expert gangster muscle physiologist, real scientist. Just nominated for Young Scientist of the Year, but you have to respectfully decline that unfortunately, but very cool to be offered that because he's tenured.

I got too much I got too many awards too soon. Oh really? Poor Andy. Just got tenured. Of course, Travis Mash, go ahead and introduce yourself. I'm the head weightlifting coach for Mash Elite Weightlifting. World record holder, right? World record holder.

And I will say this for Andy, he's our go-to. All the great weightlifting coaches, our go-to is Andy as far as making sure we're doing the right thing. So we have theories, and Andy's like, that's stupid or not stupid. You didn't say this about yourself, but I'll go ahead and say it. You're the one with the best weightlifting coaches in the country. Hands down, easily, easily. Well, I can say this.

My athletes are the best athletes in the country. You've got a ton of people at Worlds. You're the most athletes at Worlds, right? We're the three at Worlds, so we have the most. This year so far, we've qualified two for the pan am senior pan ams two for youth pan ams and one of them the 14 year old morgan mccullough which we were talking about earlier he's the number one youth in the country at 14 already so yeah and you're the one that turned us on to harrison last year so watch out for this kid at worlds like he's gonna do something

i yeah you know i'm forced out of that that kid been foreshadowing it. He's got a great coach, Kevin Simons, who is in weightlifting. He's my go-to. Like, I think if I were to die, my athletes are all to go to him because he's brilliant. But, yeah, he's steadily brought Harrison along, working on technique, getting him stronger, full body. And it shows. He's like, Harrison's a beautiful guy.

I would say collectively we've got to have 70 years of weightlifting experience probably. I'm just going to guess you're a Trav. Well, no, you're a little bit newer. I mean, how many years have you been lifting? I have been since I was 11 is when I started doing weightlifting. So I'm 48, about to be 45. Because you were weightlifting, then powerlifting, then back to weightlifting. Correct.

You know, yeah, I came up in a high school. We were lucky back in the day where we did, I guess they called it powerlifting, but it's clean and jerk, squat, bench, deadlift. So I started, you know, most of the movements right away and then went to college to play football at Appalachian. You know, we had, gosh, it was great coaching. We were way ahead of our time. So we did snatch and clean and jerking as we were playing football.

Then I went to the Limit Training Center, then back to powerlifting. Right on. So a lot of experience between the three of us. For sure. We've got tons of experience. So we want to do a seminar together. We've wanted to do this for a long, long time. For a long time.

We haven't put it together until now. We're finally doing it. You've got a gangster new gym set setup that I have not personally been to yet that I'm very excited to come out and check out. Have you been over there? No, I'm dying to. It's beautiful. I've seen the photos.

It looks fantastic. So we're going to do the seminar at your place. It will be weightlifting focused. You have the biggest vision for what's going to happen there. I'm there to help out. I love to teach mechanics and technique, especially the details that go into it. Everyone knows the basics of keep your back tight, keep your hips down, and whatever.

Like, that's all, like, known. Where I really shine is, like, looking at someone's – taking someone who has, like, a mobility restriction or an extreme body type, like, oh, you got really long arms and actually a really long torso all at the same time. And, you know, based on your specific situation, you can make this little tweak here, this little tweak and everything's that much better like i like making those very specific changes for very specific body types or very specific people based on their situation

and that's something that you know i didn't get really good at until i'd been weightlifting for 10 15 and now 20 years you know coaching a lot of athletes working with a lot of people to be able to see those little nuances that i that i when I watch a beginner coach, I can see that they don't know. They just know to say the basics. And so I'm excited to help teach technique. But what do you want to cover on this seminar on your end? I think it's going to be fun because we're going to cover everything from A to Z, what it takes to go from I don't know anything to I'm going to compete my first day. And that involves progressions of how do you teach how do you start someone out? I mean from square one they don't know

anything to know once they start out then Doug is like covering the nuances you know all to programming all to here's what to expect at competitions all to what to expect when you're on the stage everything everything from A to Z and so and Andy is going to tell you the science of it all and say why this is right. Yep. And as well as, you know, I'm an educator for a living. So one of the things that I'm very good at is, okay,

you have all this information, but let's put this in a format that's digestible and usable. Right. And so that's really what I'm excited is to take all the information that you two have and help people put systems in a place that allows them to use this multiple times and to make sure that this is something they can build on and action steps.

So that's the part. And then again, adding some science for those people that are interested. I can't wait to like get in there and like, you know, you take someone and you break them down and you have, you know, someone,

let's say that someone is having trouble getting pulled, getting pulled forward at the beginning of a pull, which is, I think, the most common mistake. Teaching a young coach or a young athlete, what do you do about that? I can tell you, here's where most coaches make a mistake. They tell you, hey, you're getting pulled forward. No shit. I know I'm getting pulled forward. What do I do about that?

So, you know, to give you not only some good cues to use but also some good you know movements to use to strengthen your position off the floor it's gonna be fun because like you should walk away from there a much better coach and you know i haven't worked with nearly as many high level weightlifters as you have trapped but with my weightlifting club i started at cal state fullerton almost everyone there is a beginner right and so this is something i've dealt with for many, many years now. I've got a lot of experience going, okay, you've never tried this before. From both the young coach and the young athlete's perspective,

I've watched a lot of our young coaches do things, and I'm like, okay, we can do this better, and we can communicate things better. We can simple tactics and teaching tips like that that can really enhance um a young coach's progress in the common mistakes like you're saying that young coaches make we've seen a lot of those so whether you're an athlete or a coach uh we've got a little bit for beginners i can't wait to teach too like how to you know how do you communicate with your athletes i mean i'm so excited to communicate that yeah that's the one thing i think that the advantage i have you know like coaches like sean waxman he's brilliant like when it comes to biomechanics I'm so excited to communicate that. That's the one thing I think that the advantage I have.

Coaches like Sean Waxman, he's brilliant. When it comes to biomechanics, he's unbelievable. But I think an advantage I have over other coaches is I can communicate so well with those athletes. And I can find out what's really aggravating, causing them stress in life. And deal with that too. There's so much to coaching that people don't. It's not just about I can teach snatch and clean and jerk. If it were only about that, I would not be winning so easily.

It's about so much more. It's about how do you take an athlete, see their strengths and weaknesses, and convince that athlete that they're as good as you see. A lot of athletes just don't know. I look at an athlete. Let me give you an example of what I'm saying. A guy, Derek Bryant, he just moved to me. He's only been lifting six months.

I'm telling you guys right now, that dude is on Team USA this year. And he had no idea he was capable. And I'm like, Derek. So he just moved. After Junior Nationals, he literally went home, packed his bag, and drove to my gym, moved there, got a job, got an apartment. He's committed. And I'm telling you right now, that dude makes Team USA this year But getting, being able to convince him

That he's as good as you know he is That's the magic Because right now he didn't know He was just lifting weights, man And now I'm saying, no, you're going to be Way more than just a weightlifter, you're going to be Team USA this year Yeah There's a guy at our gym back in Memphis who he has, like,

the perfect mechanics for weightlifting. He has super short legs and super short arms and a crazy long torso. He cannot bend over when he squats. He has to squat with the most vertical torso. And when he does squat, it's like a six-inch range of motion. I'm like, oh, my God, dude. But he's, like, 15 or something like that. And he has no idea, like, the advantages that he naturally has.

And, like, I have told him multiple times, like, I'm not blowing smoke up your ass. Like, you have something that most people don't have. This is very special, the setup. Anthropometrically, like, your proportions are so perfect for weightlifting. And he's like, oh, thanks. And I'm like, does he get it? I don't think he gets it. He doesn't understand that I'm not just being nice to him.

I know of a good coach that that 15-year-old could turn to, though. For sure. The recruiting process. He's not that far from there. I'm going to tell him to come out. It would be like Morgan's whole family uprooted and moved. No way. He had the whole family moved so he could train with me.

Things are changing in America. Thank God. The whole point of getting into weightlifting was I wanted to change the mentality of Americans about weightlifting. They're starting to see there's advantages. I mean, CJ and Harrison are both making over six figures as 17-year-old waylifters. And there's college scholarships.

There's opportunities if you're really good, just like any other sport. Now people just don't know, and so they're starting to find out. So they're like, well, it's worth making a few changes to help the kid reach their potential. So in your opinion, who specifically would get the most out of attending this conference? Who is this for? Athletes, coaches? Either or because, you know, a lot of athletes, unfortunately, don't have coaches. So, like, you definitely need to come because you're going to have to coach yourself.

You know, so you need to be there. Coaches need to be there, both. And so, it's true the conditioning coaches could do it, you know, just to learn all the nuances of weightlifting. Because if you want to teach snatch and clean and jerk, you darn well better know how to teach snatch and clean and jerk. Otherwise, you're not getting any of the benefits of it, and you're actually setting your athletes up for injury.

But if you learn the proper steps, the proper processes, now snatch and clean and jerk is applied directly to your sport. They're going to jump higher, run faster, be more explosive, rate of force development goes up. All those good things happen then. Because of that too, it is a skill set that if you have as a young coach, that sets you apart because so many don't have that. If you have that experience, if you have that talent,

that is one more thing in your belt that makes you more valuable, and you can do things that other people can't have. So even if you are remotely considering that, and you're like, well, I'm not going to compete or train anybody that's going to compete, that's a skill set that's going to get you that other internship, that other placement, that other client, because now you can have the basics there.

And, you know, unlike most people, Doug and I, I don't know about you, Trav, but we had to learn this whole stuff on our own, basically. Yeah. Like, we had to learn through failure, and we had to break things and do things wrong for a lot of years until we got it figured out. There was nothing like this available when we were coming out.

Our first weightlifting coach was two-time Olympian Wes Barnett. But I moved – well, let me rephrase that. You don't know what it's like, Travis. In high school, we did cleaning jerks. We did snatches. And we learned kind of okay technique. College was better. Mike Kent, he was the history of the Tennessee coach at Florida

for the longest time until the whole, you know, they all got fired. Yeah. So he did pretty good. But then my first real weightlifting coach was Wes Barnett. Nice. So I learned from who I consider the best weightlifter of all time in America. So my second weightlifting coach was Dragomir, bronze medalist. Right.

So I was lucky. Team coach, yeah. But I had to do that. I would have had to do like you guys, but I uprooted my whole life and drove 23 hours. So if you don't want to have to uproot your whole life and move. Come to the seminar. But you want to come to the seminar.

I promise it will be way cheaper. No kidding. Well, and also like a lot of people, they hear seminar and they think like, okay, we'll be sitting in chairs and watching PowerPoints and that type of thing. That's not what's happening here. i suppose we could call it more of like a workshop it's just like a multi-day yeah workshop where i mean you're gonna be you're gonna have barbell in your hand you'll be working on your technique you're gonna be you're gonna be

sweating like you know at times you're gonna be lifting you're actually gonna be lifting heavy it's not just gonna be pvc pipe work and the whole deal like like we want to get after we want we want to have a good time we actually want to lift weights. We all do this because we like lifting weights. So let's fucking lift some weights. Yeah, exactly. I mean, there will be some classroom time. But what you'll do is you'll learn and then let's go do it. Learn and let's go do it.

And I don't know how many opportunities people have ever had to have critique and help on their clean and jerk and their snatch from somebody who's coached this many world team members. Yeah, it's going to be fun. At a price point that's not, you know, eight months mortgage. Or think about this. Or, like, you, Andy, you don't have to go to Cal State Fullerton and spend thousands and thousands of dollars on education.

You get you for two days. Put it this way. There is a very, very long waiting list to get into any of our programs. You get to cut that whole thing and get right to the jam. You don't have to take two years of prereqs and none of that crap to get in there. Pass any boards. None of our programs. You get to cut that whole thing and get right to the jam. You don't have to take two years of prereqs and other crap to get in there. Pass any boards, none of that mess. Yeah, exactly. You get to walk right in.

You get the good stuff, too. Where's your gym at, Travis? It's in Louisville, North Carolina, right beside Winston-Salem. This is a big city. Louisville's a small little town outside of there. And that's on the East Coast, right? East Coast, North Carolina. North Carolina.

It's one of those states that's somewhere between Wisconsin. I'll tell you what it is. It's beautiful. It is beautiful out there. I've been to the Mass Strength Spectacular. I know how beautiful it is out there. You know what? You guys come.

Maybe we'll do a little thing on the farm too at nighttime. Oh, look at that. Yeah. So what's the airport they would fly into? You could really do Greensboro, Charlotte, or Raleigh. So it's like Greensboro is the closest. Raleigh and Charlotte are both about an hour and a half away. But Greensboro is real close.

Okay. And we haven't actually locked down the date. We did lock down the date, and then we realized that after weeks of locking down the date that it was the same weekend as the weightlifting national championships, which we obviously can't go to because me and Andy have so many athletes competing that weekend. Hey, you know, I do have one.

So, Doug, you're just a poser. I want our audience to know I chose that date. And I'm the weightlifting coach. And it wasn't me that discovered the date was wrong. It was Doug. It's a major fail. The only one without an athlete there. That's right.

He's like, hey, isn't the weightlifting national championships that weekend? Darn. We're currently in the process of rescheduling, so we're not going to say the date here on this recording. But, of course, by the time this posts on the page for the seminar, all the information logistically, like the dates and the times and airports, hotels, we'll put all that on the site. It'll be summer 2018, though.

Yeah, summer 2018, and it will be at Travis' place, so at least you know the location and you can start to get prepared. And we'll have hotel information, all that stuff, arrangements, and Travis will come pick you up personally. I will. He's a big pickup truck. You can go to the back of it. Don't mind the hay in the back. Just get out of these might. It's a big pickup truck. You can go to the back of it. Don't wind the hay in the back.

Just get out of the way. And you can get signed up on Travis' website, mashelite.com. Do you know the specific webpage for the sign-up page? It'll be on mashelite.com slash seminars. Seminars. Perfect. Cool. If you want to come, we'd love to have you there.

It'll be super, super fun, and we'll hang out and lift some weights.