Barbell Shrugged - Whole 30, Increasing Aerobic Capacity, and Exactly How We Are Training Right Now w/ Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Travis Mash #528

Episode Date: December 7, 2020

In this Episode of Barbell Shrugged:   Experiences on the Whole 30 diet What happens after falling off such a strict diet Why we are focusing on building aerobic capacity How much strength training are we doing Goal setting, morning routines, and having fun in the gym   Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram ———————————————— 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   PowerDot - Save 20% using code BBS at http://PowerDot.com/BBS    InsideTracker: insidetracker.com use code “shrugged25” to save 25%   Fittogether - Fitness ONLY Social Media App   Organifi - Save 20% using code: “Shrugged” at organifi.com/shrugged   www.masszymes.com/shruggedfree  - for FREE bottle of BiOptimizers Masszymes   Garage Gym Equipment and Accessories: https://bit.ly/3b6GZFj Save 5% using the coupon code “Shrugged”

Shrugged Family, this week on Barbell Shrugged, we are talking about everything we are doing in the gym right now. A lot of this is talking about some of the Diesel Dad programming that we created, how we got there, and what those programs actually look like. And also, Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mast, both just wrapped up doing the Whole30 diet, and their results, and kind of what they experienced over the 30 days of going super, super clean. Just to let everybody know, we are in the holiday season here at Shrugged, and the holiday fitness wish list is here. So for the next 10 days, Monday through Friday this week, Monday through Friday next week,

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I think that getting your blood work done and actually getting a deep dive into what goes on inside your body is super, super important. And you should 100% know what your blood and your blood work and your DNA and match all of that to a supplement plan or a nutrition plan that works for you. Also want to let you know that our friends over at Fit Together are inside mobility month in December and mobility month means that each day a brand new mobility pose or yoga pose is going to be posted in Fit Together. Your job to get into the challenge is to get in, make that yoga pose happen, get more mobile, get more flexy, get strong, and you could have a chance to win

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Go to bioptimizers.com forward slash shrug and use the coupon code shrug to save up to 40% off select packages to get the most full spectrum and effective magnesium product ever. Friends, let's talk about what we're doing in the gym. We'll see you at the end of the show. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Anders Varner, Doug Lawrence, Coach Travis Mash. Today on Barbell Shrugged, we're getting away from a little bit of coaching because we're going to be talking about exactly what's going on in our training and nutrition. And if you can't tell, Coach Travis Mash, he's down a whole bunch of weight. He's been on the whole 30. I have been doing some cool stuff in my garage. Doug Larson, he's got a brand new program that he's working on that's going to be

available to all of you. And this is actually one of my favorite conversations. We talk about life and all the stuff before we hop on here and talk about training. But we don't ever really talk about our own training, where we're at. and the thing that interests me the most is that we each have been doing this 20 plus years mash you're over 30 years now somehow we're still learning and making this thing work lifting weights for 30 years and still learning that's a weird one so i get stoked about hearing what you guys are learning about and and how you're implementing that into your own training um doug larson what's been going on in your world dude man actually now you said that travis doing whole 30 actually i didn't realize i knew travis was doing something to to lose weight but

i knew you're specifically doing whole 30 is that is that actually doing right now yeah yeah dude uh me and my wife decide to do the same thing we've been doing whole 30 like a just like a week and a half look at that it makes so much sense while we're doing this show right now people meeting people we've been talking on the phone on the zoom for how many well it can only be a month but you guys didn't even know you were doing the whole 30 together yeah yeah i'm about i'm almost. Wait, what kind of progress you've made with that? I have lost 13 pounds and, um, in my, my strength dip, but now it's back. So it's like, um, I don't know, my body adjusted to the, I guess the new caloric intake. And so now it's, it's good. And the key, some things that really, cause I was, I'm always skeptical when, you know,

they're like, Oh, you'll, you'll have these things you'll experience. I didn't even read it cause I didn't want to have that in my brain, you know? So I would subconsciously follow it. But, um, but you know, there's a, for me as a withdrawal, you got some headaches that went away. Um, and then there's like, my wife said there was like, uh, was it, was it super energy? I forget what the whole 30 people call it, but I was like no way and then i wouldn't say that like i'm obviously like overly energy fat but 100 i have more energy

than i did before like a lot it's yeah it's just walking around day to day you just feel better oh yeah way way better and i'm able to uh i'm able to retain more information. We were talking about ADHD before the show, and it's something I've dealt with forever. A lot of entrepreneurs do that. But I'm able to, when I read, retain things at a much faster rate, for whatever reason. So I'm curious. More mental clarity, like less brain fog type of thing?

Less brain fog. You can focus? Way more. curious more mental clarity like less brain fog type of thing less brain focus way more and so it's it's easy too because you know i know last semester i was you know struggling i did well but it is just sometimes more than others it's hard for me to read and retain um but now i feel like i'm just it's much easier and i'm taking way, way bigger class load. Is it easier because you don't have to worry about what you're going to eat? You just eat the same, like, how are you guys setting it up in the house? That's it for me. Um, is that, you know, macros is like, I mean, I just adding the extra time to my schedule freaks me out.

Cause right now I'm at capacity. And so, uh, so this is just means, it's just calories. But I had an issue with sugar. A lot of us do just like – it is discipline. To me, I did it not really for weight loss. I was just sick of not being disciplined, because when I stopped being an athlete in 2007, I stopped all discipline with nutrition.

And so I'd had enough. Why did you guys do it, Doug? Why'd you guys take the family plunge? I was hanging out with you the weekend before. Was I that bad of an influence? I had some ice cream. We got back from our trip. It's like Andrew Scott.

We can't fucking eat like those guys. Yeah. Andrew's had ice cream. I'm getting overweight just looking at him. Yeah. Yeah. My wife actually was the one that initiated it. She has some friends that were doing it.

And, you know, we've been home, quarantine, COVID with kids. And so we're home all day with kids. And, of course, my two-year-old, three-year-old, and five-year-old, they will eat whatever happens to be in front of them if it's, you know, if it's sugary and carby and whatever else. Like kids find carbs. And they love carbs. I actually like what John Berardi said about how he treats his mealtime with his kids,

where it's like mealtime is for meat and vegetables and fiber, basically. He didn't say those exact words, but that's what mealtime is for. And then carbohydrates, they get those the rest of the day. They're going to eat carbs no matter what, so he's got to get some protein and healthy fats during mealt during the mealtime so i've kind of moved that direction a little bit but but yeah like um i i felt myself even though i still mostly eat whole 30 probably 80 or 90 percent of the time anyway um little things that um little things some of them that don't matter and some of them that do um have been cut out of my diet like i don't eat as much rice right now which i'm totally i'm

just doing whole third just to say i did it and then rice is totally coming back 100 but other little stuff like i didn't even know that was out that would kill me like my kids had like uh they're eating like a little thing of candy um you know i would i would have a piece i'd be like hook it up with a starburst yeah Yeah. I want one of those. Me too. Or like other little stuff. Like I would chew a lot of gum, which is like totally obviously also not a big deal. But it would put a sweet taste in my mouth and it would make me have cravings.

So I'm like, that tastes good. And then I'll be more likely to want to eat something else that's sugary, that actually has, you know, calories and could be bad for some reason. But it wasn't really for me as much, more so for my wife. I don't really use – food is not like a coping thing for me. If I'm stressed out, like I eat just the same. I don't stress eat at all. Yeah, me neither. I mostly eat like healthy organic meat and vegetables.

Like that's just how I eat. It's how i always eat but but i would i would slip a little bit or if like we went out to dinner and some and someone else ordered dessert and they asked me if i wanted a bite of it i would take a bite of it or i'd be drinking an ipa at dinner time which generally doesn't even though i love ipas they generally they don't agree with me um you know it's like 400 calories per beer yeah you have four beers and all of a sudden you got your whole day i miss beer yeah i do miss drinking an ipa uh at dinner time you know one but but anyway so i didn't have like a whole lot of cleaning up to do um but the the times where i where I was not doing 100% of what I know to be doing, I would feel psychologically bad. Like we're on this show, we've been a role model of sorts for many, many people for 8 or 10 years now.

And I felt like if I was at dinner eating a bite of chocolate cake and a fan of the show just happened to see me over there, which happens. They come over and say, oh, hey, you're from the show. I love your show. Great to see you. Great to meet you. And then I'm eating fucking chocolate cake when they show up. I would be like, fuck. I'd want to explain myself.

I just didn't feel right about the hypoc hypocritical side of like having a bite of chocolate cake even though i'm not fucking smashing chocolate cake like in that example like it just it just never felt good to me to to eat junk food knowing that i'm supposed to be the guy and then i for the most part 90 of the time am the guy that eats really really well virtually all the time so i have like a little bit of cleaning up to do but my wife my wife was slipping much more than i am because she she uses food more so than i do as a as a coping mechanism to deal with stress with kids and covid and being home all fucking day long like she could feel that she was slipping a little bit again she also eats mostly pretty good we're both

in healthy and good shape and all that um but we we just wanted to clean it up a little bit. And so Whole30 just seemed like a fun thing to do since we had so many other friends doing it. It's so funny. I remember when we all went into quarantine in like, what, April? And we were talking about what people's goals should be for quarantine. It was like, well, it's bulking season. Your cabinet is right there you should get after it right now get in your garage you have one barbell and you got bumper plates

or regular you should just squat and eat all day long and now six months later we're like we're all trying to lose weight we all got too big um i actually it's like i did emom aesthetics for the whole the whole 10 week block plus the five weeks of of emom aesthetics strong 30 and i put on like 12 pounds of muscle yeah like i got much i got much bigger in in like the first three months of of quarantine but then at that point at that point i was like i was sick of having to add extra calories and extra carbs to my diet just to maintain the weight. You know, because now I'm eating like meat and rice and a little bit of vegetables instead of like a meat and a full plate of vegetables.

And I was like, man, I kind of want to back out of having to eat as much as possible to keep all this weight on. I'll probably lose a little bit of weight. I'll still eat as much as I can, but it'll be basically just meat and vegetables, nothing else. I'm actually – I still have maintained pretty well I'm not doing the whole 30 but I'm on the same kick it's been really interesting because I the first so we went to my in-laws house for a month and it's not like we ate poorly there but it's the same thing where it's like you can't be

around your family and at a lake for an entire month without somebody going, Hey, you want to do a happy hour this afternoon? You're like, of course I do. You want me to be on an Island and one of the most beautiful lakes in the country and not have a drink with you? Oh, well that would be weird.

So you end up going and like having a drink four or five days a week just because you work, you go swim, you paddle around a little bit on a paddle board and it's like I think I worked out today but there's no weights around there's no gyms open I came back and I was like 201 202 which for me is just it's like it's on the heavy side of not not getting it done I had the same in a way like the same guilt that Doug's talking about if it's like I'm just not living the life

right now. And I don't feel good about it. I hate not living the life. And like doing what I tell people to do or ask people to do, if I'm not doing it, it really sucks. But the interesting thing is that I, I've really stopped as just like me as a person paying attention to people that I feel talk to you about like a 30-day thing or some crash course diet or some super fast way to get strong. something the other day because he got up i don't know exactly what his weight was but last year he was kind of like chubby guy chubby strong guy and was talking about his nutrition and now he's like six-pack guy he's got it's like shredded dude and still strong and he was talking about how that transformation took him you know he got really big and it took him almost a year to get really big. And then it took him six months to lose all the weight. And I was like, everything I tell people to do is like focusing on the long term, not getting hung up in the day to day.

And I was like, yeah, for some reason, I still don't do that. It's like when I, if I want to lose weight, I just like starve myself, well, slowly starve myself or faster starve myself for 30 days, get down to the weight that I like. And then I just hang out there and I'm like, this is it good. But taking a much like healthier longterm approach to, um, doing it was definitely just watching him and kind of inspired by him of like, I just gotta,

I don't want this to be some like crazy month long thing where my whole household has to change because of me. And now I'm like 193 pretty regularly. That's like my, my normal waking up weight and I feel so much better. It's just been like, it's, it's so nice waking up and just being a little bit lighter because for a long time we were just, we were just eating. We were just getting after it. Lifting weights in the garage. It's great. Yeah. I was, I've been eating terrible ever since I stopped being a, you know, like a professional power after 2007. And from the moment I stopped,

like my discipline on nutrition just went to shit and, uh, it's sad to change. Same reason to's it's not to do this it's not even to me that it's like going to shit it's like you have this your brain is designed to do the thing you've been training it to do which is eat everything because you're lifting so heavy you have to recover so much like then all of a sudden it's like what do you need to do to be in shape not that much physically yeah but if you're still piling in 5 000 calories a day it doesn't work bad news exactly so and i was i was uh unlike most pilaters i was very disciplined in my nutrition like you know i i was able to recover and do more volume. And at meets, I had lots of energy.

And, you know, you see most of my competitors, deadlift time, they're tired. I'm like, how are you tired? Like, you know, you've really worked out by now six minutes. You've done six lifts. But, you know, it was super important. I feel like that was one of the reasons, like, that I was able to become the best. Because unlike Ed Cohen, like, you know, he was, it was super important. I feel like that was one of the reasons like that I was able to become the best because unlike Ed Cohen, like, you know, he started out super strong from the very beginning and I've always been

strong compared to the average person. However, I did not start where he started nowhere. And so, so I did all the little things which I talked to my athletes about. However, they've not seen me do it until now. They've heard me talk about it and i do a lot of things in my life you know like the amount of writing i do the amount of reading i do all these things are super disciplined it's fucking i could not get a hold of this nutrition thing and so um now i feel like i've done a good job you know what do you how do you feel like you're gonna do coming out of it

good now now that i've got you know control of you know control of things like it's good i just had had nothing to do with weight loss to me had to do with like i got to show myself that i can be disciplined about this thing yeah i talked about it so long i'm like wait who are you like who is this guy who all of a sudden i'm so just when it's all alive and now i can't that's why i i like have to it's not even have to, but I like, I kind of like created this little superhero, the diesel dad.

Like what the hell do I need at this stage in my life to actually be the right person that I need to be? Right. And it's not two hours in the gym anymore. It's not eating 4,000 calories anymore. No.

You got to reshape the whole evolution of what you're going to do and how you can do this for a really long time. I'm sure there's some additional evolution coming that I don't even know about. But right now, it's eating a lot less. It's training a lot less. It's been really interesting.

Over the last two years trying to like reshape and then they throw covid in the middle of it where you're just locked in your house um but that's been that's been a really big transition of just letting go of old anders that needed to do all that stuff and finding out what the the new way to kind of like consistently be committed to what you're doing right i joined a gym right beside my office uh literally i could walk it's like right next door and it's really it's called south side in hickory and um they have everything they have like a crossfit section where you can do weight lifting i can do yeah sash cleans they have all the cool equipment so i love it because

nobody knows me and i'm not trying to get to know anyone there i hope they're not listening because someone's gonna think i'm but like i'm trying to get because i could probably tell if they're listening or not my goal is to go in there and like like, do my thing and get out. And so it's an hour workout. So, like, the majority of my train is an hour and out. And then on the weekends, you know, I'll have my one session where I go heavy and spend longer. So it's much better.

I feel better. My sessions are like – I used to feel like that about the gym where I'd go in there and be like, God, I hope nobody talks to me. Everybody just leave me alone. I just want to do my thing. But now that COVID has hit, now I go to the gym in there and be like, God, I hope nobody talks to me. Everybody just leave me alone. I just want to do my thing. But now that COVID has hit, now I go to the gym and I'm just like, God, please somebody talk to me.

Any adult. That's not my family. Anybody. Hello? Friends. I'm actually really excited. The gyms in North Carolina just opened Monday. I can't wait i've been trying to get into like a corporate gym and just get back to some of the machines that i miss and

yeah there's so many pieces of i feel like i might join i go through these waves every year and right now i'm in like a a big just corporate gym phase type of training like i just want to do those specific things that you can only do in a corporate gym massive pump i love my crossfit gym like the crossfit surmount so rad the people there are so awesome i just can't mentally like really check into doing that intensity right now. It just, it's so hard and I'll go on like a three or four month kick later in the year or early next year or something like that where it's like, I really want to be in the CrossFit space and doing all that.

But I think I've only done maybe two days since COVID hit of Olympic lifting. I even like thought about trying to go and do a full six week cycle, something like that to get back into only lifting. And then day one, I was like, eh, I just want to like do some rows. It's strong. Yeah. Um, Doug, you just wrote a brand new program, though, that you're following. It kind of follows the EMOM Aesthetics, but it's much more like a strength-focused program.

What's it all about? It is. So I did EMOM Aesthetics. EMOM Aesthetics is really a product of COVID in a way. It's like everybody got smashed. Everybody's kids got taken out of school, and a lot of people lost their jobs and whatever whatever it was like and everyone's supposed to be at home and so i'm sitting at home i got i have my my three kids my two-year-old three-year-old five-year-old uh and they're they're a lot to to deal with and so

uh i wanted to make a training program that was like minimal time involved, like just the absolute minimum. That way I could look at my wife and be like, I'm going to go, I'm going outside in the garage. I'll be back in like 25 minutes and I'll be, I'll be all done in 25 minutes is all I need. And, uh,

and, or she was working out with me. And so we actually would, uh, for a couple of months there, we would alternate doing 10 minute, um, AM or e-moms at a time i'll be like i'm gonna go i'll be back in 15 minutes i'll go like do a quick warm-up do my 10 minute thing come back in and by then she's like ready for me to be back all stressed out yeah kids and

then i would say okay go ahead and switch and she'd go out and she'd do her 10 minutes and like 15 minutes is like a short enough amount of time where it's like manageable. So we had this dynamic where we were just trying to work out very quickly but still make some progress. And then eventually EMOM Aesthetics is what emerged where it's essentially Metcon style bodybuilding. It's just 20 minutes a day, four movements per day where you just do A1, A2 for five sets each. That's 10 minutes for the first two movements. B1, B2 for five sets each for the second set of two movements, 20 minutes total, and you're done.

So you might do front squats and weighted push-ups for your first two, and then front foot elevated reverse lunges and something, um, probably related to the, the press, um, from a second ago, like a shoulder raise or tricep exercise or, or peck something, or, or maybe just another compound press. Uh, so I did that for, for 10 weeks and then I did the, the, uh, kind of advanced, um, uh, version of that, which is called Strong 30, which is basically just like 30-minute blocks

of six movements. I did that for another five weeks. And like I said before, I put on like 12 pounds of muscle and I felt fantastic. Like it's all Metcons. It's all bodybuilding style Metcons. So there's a conditioning element to it

and there's certainly a volume hypertrophy element to it. Super time efficient. Really enjoyed it. Made a lot of progress with it. But then when I got done, I was like, man, I made a lot of progress. What do I want to do next? And I was feeling like my kind of explosive strength-oriented athleticism just wasn't on par. I wasn't running sprints.

I wasn't doing any Olympic stuff except for one day a week um in the imam aesthetics you'd do like a little bit uh but i wasn't doing any jumps i wasn't i wasn't doing anything like uh explosive or or powerful just just you know it's like met cons are just basically pacing the whole time until you you try to go fast yeah but you're not really doing anything full speed really you're just trying hard and so i decided to make because i love i love e-moms and i and i love i love that structure especially training by myself in my garage like i like having the clock push me along because if i don't have it then i'll train too slow and then my workouts will last too long and that's not good for for covid with having kids home and all that. So,

so I made a new program called EMOM strength, which I fucking love. I love it. This is my favorite program that I've been on in a long time. Like I love the EMOM aesthetics and now EMOM strength is, is easily my new favorite. So, uh,

I made a ton of progress back in like 2005 where I, I smashed all my PRS. I smashed my PRS on, on front squat, back squat, deadlift, clean jerk snatch, et cetera. Like I smashed all my PRs. I smashed my PRs on front squat, back squat, deadlift, clean jerk snatch, et cetera. Like I smashed PRs on everything, doing a wave, three different mesocycles, four week long mesocycles where I maxed at the, you know, in the fourth week of each of three consecutive mesocycles. So week four, week eight, week 12, I smashed my maxes over and over and over again. And that was was the first time that ever snatched over 100 kilos like i was trying to get 225 on

the bar so i could i could feel um to you know snatch two plates i've been like at 215 217 and a half like like for for a while and uh was like looking for a way to smash through that pr and so i did this program back then which i I wish I still had it all printed out. I used to have these sheets and I lost them. I don't even have digital copies of, but, um, where I pretty much did all dynamic effort method for everything. I remember you talking about this. Yeah. Yeah, dude, I did. This was like off season football training in college. And I did, you know, it was, it was like three to five reps of every exercise

all explosive reps nothing to failure and so i would uh you know even if it was just like you know inclined sit-ups or or hanging leg raises or or dumbbells whatever it is like i did i did a high number of sets of a low number of reps all explosive reps just like you would do dynamic effort method from you know conjugate west side style stuff and i felt so good doing that training program i felt explosive i felt athletic i was never beat up i had very little joint pain like all the boxes were checked i felt fantastic and i was breaking all my prs and i could i was always excited to go back to train because. I was never beat up. I slept well. I was never that sore really either.

Like everything about it was fantastic. And then the genius that I am, I got done with that program. I was like, all right, great. Go back to what I was doing before. I know, man. And then occasionally I go back to it because I know that it makes me feel so good.

So I took that idea and loving EMOMs and wanting to have some explosive strength-oriented stuff in an EMOM program. I built this EMOM strength program where the first EMOM is basically like an A1, A2 of purely dynamic effort method type stuff. You might be like 75% for triples for two different movements. Say it's front squat and bench press. Then you go back and forth every minute on the minute, ping pong, EMOM, for 12 sets of two or three or whatever it is. Then the weight fluctuates week one, week two, week three, week four from 65% for triples, 75% for doubles, 85% for singles.

Then on the fourth week, you just build up to a one rep max and you're done. And then that's kind of how those waves work. And then after the dynamic effort method, EMOM, that's kind of the first part of the day. Then there's two smaller, more similar to EMOM aesthetics, volume oriented, you know, 60 to 80% of your max for max reps um for between three and three and six sets where you're just doing volume and just you know basic basic assistance work but it's emom it's

like emom assistance work so you got emom strength stuff and then emom assistance work and it's four days a week i do it every other day kind of has like an upper lower split to it i do it every other day so it's an eight day cycle lower split to it. I do it every other day. So it's an eight day cycle for me. And then all my, my off days, you know, I either go for a run or I go to jujitsu or I go rock climbing or I do

something else, not, not lifting weights. And, and man, I feel, I feel fucking super athletic. I feel like explosive again after doing it for,

for so many weeks now. I'm not, my joint pain is less than it was on, just doing emom aesthetics five days a week especially strong 30 where the volume is a little higher um like i just i just have achy joints that how long does it take you to do it um it's a little bit longer so it's it's more it's more in the 45 minutes to an hour range i mean i swear then then emom aesthetics which is which is you know between you know 20 30 maybe maybe 35 minutes uh but yeah but it's it's totally reasonable the amount of time commitment there it's you know it's an hour or so um four days a week dude and most people

can manage that so that's a reasonable training ball load yeah yeah i bet if i had to guess that every single human listening on this show right now, if they did that, they would get stronger. Because the majority of people are probably adults. They're working, you know, and they haven't done anything explosive. Guaranteed, like their type 2 fibers have suffered. You know, they probably, you know, reverted back to a lot of slow twitch you know muscle fibers i bet they would have a big jump and i bet they would experience especially based on my latest you know just just my data i've you know from from doing velocity

based training you know it's definitely a thing i know even with me like i am a naturally explosive you know like naturally like i'm all fast, which was zero, like long, you know, my aerobic type two, type one fibers don't exist very much. So like, but as I've gotten older and stopped, you know, things change. Muscle fibers change all the time. And I was, I'd gotten slow and it was, and for the first time in my life, I started doing this fast. Like you're talking about doing dynamic effort. And it was an incredible surge for an old guy. That's crazy. Cause I'm 47 that,

and I've obviously experienced with the barbell. And so like to have a surge at 47 was crazy. So I bet 99.9% everyone listening right now would love that okay like just like you might i felt better in my joints i didn't have to like get emotionally pumped to walk in so used to going heavy i didn't have to be like oh shit i'm gonna front squat 500 pounds i gotta get jacked you know i could go in there knowing i'm gonna do sub maximal weights it's gonna fly yeah much better yeah how much has your training match changed since you've won in the last 30 days with energy probably being a little bit different?

But what do you have going on? I'm only doing – so I'll do like one movement where I go kind of heavy, and then it's all like just like Doug. I even have some days where i call it mash contrast which is kind of similar to french contrast but i you know they'll go you know heavy light heavy light and that mine is like starts the heaviest it simply trails down so like i'll do for example you could do a squat you could do a clean you could do a um bodyweight jump and then an overspeed jump where, you know, the bands are actually helping.

Assistance, yeah. I like – that is personally my favorite workout because it makes me feel like an athlete again. Yeah. I'm going, and by the end of it, my joints feel great because, you know – but I do recover. Like, on that, I go around, and I'm trying to get, you know, two to three minutes of recovery because I want – it's all about max effort if you keep going eventually you'll be going slow not the

piece of purpose but dude i'm actually so interested in to hear your answer to this because i've been thinking about a lot on my own and just like in as we talk about like the evolution of like what do you really need to be doing right now to match your goals and your training and how you eat and all that stuff. But like going from being one of the, not one of these actually the strongest man in the world to who you are now, like how do you define just the idea of strength in your, in your own training now? Is it,

is it like staying strong and healthy? Or do you still have like numbers that kind of like in the back of your mind haunt you? Yeah. I say haunt you as well as motivate you. Yeah. I want to clean 400 pounds again. You know, I do want to do that.

You know, so like, you know, so yeah. But you can – I don't have to be near as strong to do that yeah i need to move fast i need to be movement um i feel like i'm probably capable now it's got practice i know it sounds crazy but but like for me that's you know it's not that yeah yeah i'd rather do that than like push the you know i still want to be strong in the powerlifting, but I'm not trying to squat 800 pounds. I just want to be stronger than most people. I do want to be to where if I wanted to, let's say that I wanted to do a powerlifting competition

that I could train six months and at least go head-to-head with the best in the world. I might not win. I'm not trying to say I'm going to be the best, but if I wanted to go and compete against Dan Green, those guys, I could. So I feel like I'm there right now. If I want to go at it, I'll go head-to-head with them. But I just don't feel like I want to be obsessed to try to be the best. Yeah. That's a whole different level.

Yeah, for me it's been really i know that you know when it comes to the the speed lifts um like when we were down last time uh we went and did something barbell shrubs shrugged specific doug and i got together last weekend out and uh two weeks ago out in gatlinburg so that we actually hung out but the time before that that we hung out was what late February yeah something like that maybe maybe even early February when we were down in Arkansas at the the fit ops camp and those when we trained down there I snatched 225 and clean 305 and I was just like, it was like the fourth year in a row of like not training specifically to be really, really strong and competing and still being able to hit those numbers. I was like, it was really cool. And at the same time, when we got into quarantine,

uh, it just, I was like, I don't, what am I going to do? Sit in my garage? Like if I drop a barbell right now and I wake up my daughter, my life is over. Like I only have nap time right now to do this fitness thing. And that was really why I stopped doing a lot of the Olympic lifting. But next time we all hang out, especially when I walk into the gym with all those freak shows that you got at, um, Len now I can't wait I just want to see what it what it looks like when I max out to see if all of this stuff just stays the same and I power cleaned 245 for a double the other day felt pretty smooth felt pretty clean I was like the stuff just doesn't really leave if you have general strength and athleticism to be able to do the movements.

So it's really kind of changed the definition a lot for me of like, what am I trying to do in strength? And that's why the EMOM aesthetics thing, if anything's really changed for me a lot lately, it's when I was doing the EMOM aesthetics, i wasn't doing it in the more intelligent way like doug does it where it's um you know more of a full body we're doing two different body parts in a single day i was like training three to four days a week and just picking a a movement pattern and just crushing myself so it'd be like we're gonna have squat day and then i wouldn't be able to walk for four days and then when i couldn't, I would go and do back day and I would just pull and pull and pull and then couldn't raise my arms. It was like, I was doing just way too much.

And I started just going back to more intelligent. I mean, it's all about just like figuring out, you know, if I told you I was only going to squat once a week, and this was just eight months ago, it would have been like, you're only squatting one time a week. Like, what are, what the hell are you trying to do? Get weak like that? Yeah. How are you going to stay strong? Only squatting one time a week. But now that's all I do. And it's just a much more sustainable approach to do, you know, four, five exercises a day, full body, and just mix it up as much as possible, assuming that I'm still getting kind of like the big five-ish exercises in with, you know, bent rows, squats, deads, and just kind of mixing those up in a way

that is much more sustainable. But that has made my body like me so much more than just picking a movement pattern and saying, well, we've got to solve seven days worth of strength in the next 45 minutes. Let's go. Squat, squat, squat, squat, squat, squat, lateral lunge split squat like all the things that just absolutely destroy your lower body and then doing all of the pulling like all the horizontal and vertical pulling exercises in one 45 minute window on a timer it's like i just can't do it it's too much i had to stop squatting every day because i didn't have to but like uh i it's like i just can't do it it's too much i had to stop squatting every day because i didn't have to but like uh i it's my with my hip you know i have the the left hip is like you know it's bad and so i have to do a lot to warm up and i have to do a lot mentally to be able to go do it and

so because i have to you know it hurts and i have to be like i have to get like. And I have to be like – I have to get like – you know, I have to overcome that, you know, the pain. And like doing that every day was like – it's too much because it's a longer workout. It takes me longer. I mean, I have to warm up 30 minutes at least. Yeah. So like it just makes the workout too long. So twice a week I can handle it. That's good.

I just can't squat every day. I think that's one of the biggest things like the work the training one of the things that i have the most i shouldn't say guilt but it's like in the back of my head i always think am i putting my family in a worse position because i like fitness so much that's right which means if i'm in the garage training and i'm prioritizing just me and Adelaide's going crazy or mom's cooking dinner or whatever, whatever I'm not helping with. I'm always sitting there thinking like, do I really need to be, I've deadlifted 1 million reps. Do I need to do these eight? Right. Or should I be in the kitchen right now helping? should I be doing the dad part more than the fitness part and that is really how so many decisions are made right now of me training and keeping it

under 45 minutes if I have time then I do it um but you know when when I have to look at like what how much time I don't have time to sit around and just like lay around and warm up. Those are like the most fun times too when you just sit in the gym rolling on a foam roller doing nothing but talking about working out when you're training really hard, just hanging out with your bros. But I'm in my garage. I don't have anybody. It's like, okay, you got 45 minutes.

Turn some music on. Low so you don't bother anybody. And get to work. Same. I can go in the gym and do, like, super low-intensity stuff, like foam rolling before my training. I'll get out there and, like, start foam rolling, and then I'm kind of like, I'm sleepy.

Yeah. It fucking kills me. And then I have to, like, try and pull myself out of this, like, slumber that i put myself in to try to like rinse and then it just it's like it's like a waste of time i need i need to go in like right away and just whatever like whatever i do like right away kind of sets the tone for the whole session so i try to go in right away and do something um you know safe but but it you know semi-explosive and athletic like right from the get-go just to

like set the tone for the session that's what i try to warm up like that i don't try to like if i lay down like i might stay down you know so like i like to like take the barbell and start squatting just the barbell and then i have a series of things i do to get my hip prepared to activate my glutes the glute that's important's important. If anybody has hip pain, like I promise you, if you, there's several things you can do like, um, Brett Katrins is like, um, the hip thrust that he talks about all the time. I do a lot of those. Sometimes I'll use the belt squat because, because the belt squat pulls you into, you know, that interior, I mean, the interior pelvic till you have to actually use your glutes to get out of it if you stand up. So that does it. Anytime I get anything you can do that, that you have to

like, you know, really squeeze your glutes to get full extension warms me up. I guess it probably, I'm assuming that it pulls the femur back just enough to get a little clearance in the front. So I don't, you know, there's not so much like bone-to-bone contact so yeah i think my warm-up right now really consists of just like walking around the neighborhood to clear my brain and actually have some sort of transition time from whatever i was doing into but like i've mentioned it on the show but i have it exact it's 0.97 miles from the stop sign that i'm looking at right now to the stop sign so there's like an exact one mile loop around and it's so nice knowing that there's a one mile track that i can go run at any point so it's just like training time and i need to somehow break away from whatever writing and work and put my phone

away. It's like a little eight minute jog around the, around the block and ready to go. It's also really changed the idea. We were thinking about doing a show on warmups, which we totally should, but how much time I used to spend laying around thinking I needed to like foam roll every tiny little piece of my body. And now it's just developing that attitude of like at any point in time, I should be within three sets of doing working sets like deadlifting. I don't even know what I used to do. But it's like, you should just be at 315 for a working set, whatever it is 135 225 315 put it on the bar and go if you want to do more than that you're you're inside four sets of your working sets like i don't have it's not even about having time i think you know i love the name of kelly's kelly starrett's new

platform or going from mobility wad to the ready state because i just super buy into that i'm like at any point in time you should just be able to go play the game. Playing the game right now just means we're actually just training. We don't get to play the game that much anymore. But warm-ups are just so overthought out. Just go hang on the bar and get your last. Yeah, overkill. I think it causes a lot of people to put them set

themselves up for for injury it sets themselves up for um worse performance because you know if you're about to go squat and you go stretch your hamstrings and stretch your you know do tons of work for your your hips you're you're going to create a state of like not being able to contract. Yeah. So like warming up is a key, not necessarily going in there and stretching every muscle. Weightlifters do it all the time. There is a person in weightlifting that is hypermobile. This guy is hypermobile.

And he has the potential to snatch 170 kilos. However, like there's no stability over his head. He'll miss behind. He'll miss in front. But I'll see the same dude stretching for an hour prior to competing. I'm like, bro, you need to stop stretching your shoulders. You need to let them be stable. And so, like, anyway, so people get in this mindset,

I got to warm up for an hour. You need to warm up to wherever you can get into your optimal position without pain. The moment you can get into your optimal position without pain. The moment you can do that, it's time to start slapping weight on. There's no better way than taking an empty barbell and starting to move. And then I do a circuit, so I don't sit down. I do an empty barbell. I do, say, the hip thrust.

And then I do one movement. I do – the only thing I lengthen is my psoas. And there's a lot of research that would say that that is okay. You're not going to tear your psoas squatting. So I do it. Circuit, circuit, circuit. Yeah, I started – I mean, I did start doing this three, four, five months ago maybe even. It was actually when we started having to do shows

at 6 30 in the morning because i the last thing i wanted to do was wake up and then have to go talk to thousands of people intelligently with sleep in my eyes and not even having a cup of coffee and so i started coming to the garage and just hitting like 100 reps of two exercises so 50 of each just to get moving and get some blood flow and feel like I was in the gym training and in that mindset. And then I go for a one-mile walk around the block. And as everything, it progresses into some sort of, can I do this? What does my movement look like?

So I'd wake up, I'd turn the coffee on and I would leave 225 in the squat rack. So I didn't even, there was no way that I was going to lift weight before squatting 225. And I wanted to know exactly what my squat looked like getting out of bed with 225 on the bar. Like, could I go all the way down where my ankle's going to be able to open up without any real walking? Could I hit a set of 10, 15 reps? I was pretty impressed with myself. I felt great about it.

I'm impressed. I just wanted to know what 225 looked like as cold as you can possibly get. The blood flow hasn't even reached your muscles yet all you've done is turn the coffee on what does it look like when you squat five did it hurt to do that it didn't hurt anything my movement was really good but what i noticed was that my core was so not engaged like i just hadn't done enough breathing almost, or like just bracing in your normal day to actually have blood flow in my abs. So that was the place where I felt the most instability was just, it turned into kind of like on camera, it looked great. It looked like everything was in the right place and look smooth. But in my brain, I could feel that like, I just didn't have my core fully engaged.

It kind of felt like a little bit of a really heavy good morning just because not everything was firing at once. I don't know. I was really stoked that I could just like wake up and go feel good under 225. God, I don't think that would be the one time goes feel good under 225 god i don't think i could that would be the one time you could out squat me because i don't think i could get full depth if i went straight i mean when i take the barbell only i can't get full depth on the first set because it's like oh it's so achy uh and then the joints get oiled up and then i can go but like

yeah so i can't do that i could do that with deadlift i don't know about squatting yeah i just wanted to know it was like at some point i have to i don't know i i always have to there's no way that i'm just gonna like stay in the middle ground i'm just not built like that if i if i put 135 on the bar i'm like i wonder if i could squat 225 for 10 at 5 45 in the morning or i haven't even gone to the bathroom yet i wonder if that's possible you know i bet uh i wish i could get the point my next step when it comes to like discipline is doing what you said it's like you know you get up do your working out do the mile you know walk and then you get on the show because you know we had that john r do your working out, do the mile, you know, and then get on the show?

Because, you know, we had that John Rady on the show. I don't know when we're going to release it, but we know that his research is going to make you, you know, obviously be more alert. It's going to supply you with some dopamine, and you're going to be able to, you know, to function much better. I need to do that. The first couple times we hopped on the show when we were doing them this early and everyone's in quarantine it was the only time

we could hang out i just remember feeling brain dead like how am i gonna talk as much as i need to talk in order to fill like a 60 to 90 minute show about training when I haven't done anything. It just doesn't even feel right anymore not to wake up and go for a walk. Like I just had, it's like the first thing I have to do it just to feel good. I want to try it because I want to see if I can notice like the, you know, the results that he talks about. I want to see if I can do that and then read something to see if I can retain it more. If so, I will become an aerobics bunny, but I just need to get

my butt up out of bed. Have you guys read anything on I'm sure Doug has, on new aerobics? It's like aerobics for the brain. Audible is like my favorite. Now that I'm driving driving hickory every day audible is like my favorite thing but so i downloaded this book um i was looking for more books from you know uh dr rady but then this other one came up it's awesome it's about all the ways that you can like train your brain and to be smarter like you know for

example you know we've all heard of like all right you know spend time with your left hand you know more like do brush your teeth yeah yeah or there's like um you know when you're driving down the road try to experience like feel the your clothes on your back you know and like feel how does the texture or take a different route you know but like if you get into a pattern, your body, just like anything else, the law of accommodation, it adapts and doesn't have to change anymore.

And to a degree, it can start to go backwards. But to implement all these different levels of change. I've already read the book. I'm going to reread it and I'll give you more details, I think, afterwards. But it's just all these different ways to introduce change in subtle ways that won't affect you to, you know, to, you know, to suggest to the brain to, to continue growing, to create more sales.

So yeah. Yeah. I have a, in backing down the strength training stuff, I've also been running a lot more, which has been cool. But, yeah, I think that that morning routine stuff and just having this mile-long track in my neighborhood here just is so nice because I can just take off in the middle of the day. I think that that's been like just a massive – I'm actually, I'm not like a big step counter,

but I kind of want to know what my step counts look like in like seeing, I'm sure you guys do this, but when you get in the zone, when you're working and you're just like on the computer staring at the screen and you're just like four hours, I'll go by. I'm just writing fast yeah and like there's part of me that when i'm in that zone i'm like i don't want to leave right now because it's so hard to get back into that creative writing and that just that mode doesn't happen easily it takes a long time to like it may take an hour just to be able to get like to put a paragraph together

and then all of a sudden you get that paragraph and it's like okay i'm locked in for the next couple hours because i actually have an idea that i can riff on for a while and but forcing myself to get up and just go walk around and move it's like kind of like a self-editing process in a way of uh like just breaking away and getting out of it is almost just as important sometimes i find for like the creativity side of things where i'm like yeah just getting out and moving makes me see things in a different angle or different light so totally um rad bros let me ask y'all before we shut yeah if you guys had to and like to say that someone said um all right you got to run the longest race you could what could y'all do just out the gate could you do a marathon could you do 10 miles like what do you think you could do i ran 22.6 about

seven months ago without training for it that is around a marathon one time without training for it but i've never gone farther i'm sure i could i don't really want to i feel like i could go with if i had proper if i had proper food and water supplies i could go two miles on walk a mile relatively just for an entire day if I wanted, I think. Assuming I had a decent pace in the two miles. If I was running 10-minute miles, I think I could just – that was really my goal when I set out to do the 22 plus. 10-minute miles. Was to do 10-minute miles, two on, one off.

Run them at 10. Run two 10-minute miles and then walk one and and then just go yeah that is absolutely insane to me that is baffling like i just i need that's what i that's i need to get to that now because i've never you know it's all been completely phosphocreatine system not even really anaerobic, except when I did grid for a minute. But I need to work on my aerobic system. Dude, it would be fun if you – this would never happen.

I shouldn't say never. It would be highly unlikely to happen. But if you went six months without front squatting or just squatting in general heavy, just so you were like forced yourself to break away yeah and have to recreate it what you would learn in that six months it'd be interesting even if it was three months yeah i'm not front squatting i don't think i've ever gone like yeah without front squatting just have reinvent. You'd have to just reinvent the whole wheel of

what it was. What it feels like, what it does. Yeah. That'd be crazy. So, Travis Bash, where can they find you?

Masterlead.com. Come on. I'm driving a new book next week. I don't know. It'll probably be out by the time this comes out, but The Clean.

So we're going to call it out, but The Clean. So we'll call it The Power of The Clean. Ah. We'll get an email for that. You can find me on Instagram, Douglas C. Larson.

I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner. We are Barbell Shrugged at barbell underscore shrug. Get over to barbellshrugged.com forward slash store training programs,

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