Barbell Shrugged - Why the Front Squat is Superior to the Back Squat in Training w/ Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Travis Mash - Barbell Shrugged- #477

Episode Date: June 15, 2020

In today’s episode the crew discusses:   Musculature recruitment differences in the front squat and back squat Why the front squat helps overcome mobility limitations Why the front squat creates a deeper range of motion Why the back squat is better for testing but not training Why there is more core development in the front squat Why the front squat is safer to coach in group class settings Why the front squat is superior in training but the back squat is. superior in testing And more…   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   Organifi - Save 20% using code: “Shrugged” at organifi.com/shrugged   www.magbreakthrough.com/shrugged - use coupon code SHRUGGED10 to save up to 40%   http://onelink.to/fittogether - Brand New Fitness Social Media App Fittogether   Purchase our favorite Supplements here and use code “Shrugged” to save 20% on your order: https://bit.ly/2K2Qlq4    Garage Gym Equipment and Accessories: https://bit.ly/3b6GZFj Save 5% using the coupon code “Shrugged”

Shrug family, I want to say thank you. Thank you for all of the nice comments about the show and really just all of the positive support that everybody had reaching out, taking screenshots of the show last week that we did about Glassman and the state of CrossFit. The whole scene seems to be changing rapidly. And I just really appreciate the fact that you guys allow us the space to talk to you. You believe and trust in our voice and it just means a lot that we can get on here

and have long-form conversations about super complex subjects and that you guys trust us and listen and think that our message matters. Nobody ever really wants to be addressing complex issues like this. And even when you are doing it, there's something about it where you just hope and pray you're not offending everybody because the intent behind of it is just all love and the love for fitness

and getting the fitness people focused on fitness and seeing how much good we can do in a simple 45 minute show. Um, but it seems like we nailed it. It seems like there was a lot of really positive feedback. I really appreciate everybody that took a screenshot and said, thank you. Um, looked like we did a solid job of helping you guys really kind of put the thoughts together that you were having in your brains. And if you haven't listened to the show, please go back and check it out. It's last Wednesday's show. It was the show that we launched just before this, so you should be able to download it as well.

But I just really appreciate everybody that really gives us the space to have deep, long-form discussions about complex issues and how they play into the world of fitness. This week, we're talking about squats, front squats, back squats. Put up a post on Instagram, got people riled up a little bit. But once again, we want to have a long-form conversation talking about some training tools and front squats, why we believe they're a superior training exercise to the back squat, and what you can do if you are a coach or an athlete that may be dealing with some issues in the back squat and looking for a better, stronger way to increase the muscle mass

and live a little bit more pain-free or with a little bit better movement quality. Hope you enjoyed the show. We're going to take a minute in the middle here to do some reads. Next week, we are giving away 135 sets of Barbell Shrugged bands. This is the very first time we have launched a physical product. Everybody that buys a bundle from our store

over at barbellshrugged.com forward slash store is going to receive three free Barbell Shrged bands you're going to be out you're going to get seven programs up to seven programs uh with massive discounts and then you are also going to get shipped to you three free barbell shrugged resistance bands which i am super stoked on so next week get into the store barbellbellstruck.com The launch is on Monday and you're going to get a free three

pair of resistance bands. So radical. They got Barbell Shrugged written on them. So stoked about it. But that starts next week. Let's get into the show. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Anders Varner, Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mash. How we doing, boys? Fired up.

Fired up! We're going to talk about fast class versus back to back today. Then we're going to get into it. Dude, I want to learn about velocity-based training. Second half of the show, we're going to talk about velocity-based training. You've been spitting all these numbers at people. You have this flex thing. I love it.

It's like the new thing you're super stoked on i can tell yeah you got numbers you got data you're moving barbells uh but for the last couple months now um especially with us all recording three days a week talking about strength um we're big fans of the front squat and i've had people reaching out wondering why we keep saying that we should be doing more front squatting, um, and maybe not less back squatting, but I personally believe that for me right now, that the front squat's a much superior exercise, um, for my joints, for strength gains, for kind of all the added benefits that go into what I'm, what I'm looking for.

People want to know why, which would make sense because the back squat has always kind of been considered King when it comes to building strength. Doug, do you have a preference in your, in your training now of like where, where you spend most of your time when you're under the bar? Well, I do, but most of my decision- making there has to do with the fact that my after i had that shoulder surgery 10 years ago uh i got my labrum repaired i never really was able to recover full

external rotation so i can't grab a straight bar and just do back squats like normal high bar back squats so i pretty much always front squat unless I have a specialty bar, you know, safety bar or giant camera bar or something where, where I don't have to actually rotate to grab the bar. And so I pretty much front squat. Have we really never back squatted? Um, I probably have back squatted with you once or twice knowing that it was, I was going to crank my shoulder into a funky position and it was going to

hurt, but I love back squatting. And so occasionally I know every, knowing that I was going to crank my shoulder into a funky position and it was going to hurt. What a friendly guy. But I love back squatting, so occasionally – What a friendly guy. I know. Every six months or so, I go, my shoulder feels pretty good. I'm going to back squat, knowing that it's going to hurt for a couple days. God, we're such fools.

I mean, yeah. Oh, yeah. It doesn't – Honey, why did you do that? Well, Anders was here, okay? I got excited, okay did you do that? Well, Anders was here. Okay. I got excited. Okay. Are you seven?

You couldn't just make a better decision? Yes. I'm seven. Yes. Still. Luckily, at my place, I have a giant camera bar and a safety squat bar. So, I have the option to still do something resembling a regular old back squat. Yeah. Bash, are you pure front squat now after your new 500 pound front squat 501 yeah um i i still do you know and i still want to do um next year i'm going to compete in powerlifting so

eventually i want to have you yeah yeah so i'm do one more. I was stuck in the bodybuilding show from the last show, but go ahead. I mean. We'll let you go back. I still go, but like I said, I can't do this show. Until my mom, when she passes away, maybe I'll do one. But my mom would kill me if I got into skivvies. A bunch of grown men. My buddy that I competed with, like, years ago,

we were on Team USA together in 1996. And so he said he's going to compete again. So then he's like, you should compete and we'll go at it again, like a rematch. So that intrigued me to do it. So we'll see. What are you going to – what numbers are you going to hit? I mean, at least I'm sure like – I'm hoping like a seven squat,

four bench, seven something deadlift, you know. That's beautiful. Well, that's going to be fun to talk about. When – why are you doing so much front squatting then? Why is that like the method of choice right now? It builds – I mean, the front squat is going to always strengthen your back more than the other movements. And so getting my back strong.

And then also the mobility of it. Because another goal I have is to clean 400. I don't want to clean it, Jared, but I want to clean 400 pounds one more time. That's the big goal for next year. So the front squat is a big way of preparing. You know, it's like preparation. Very motivated of you. Yeah. 400 pounds you. Yeah.

For a hard-to-come clean. Jeez. That's my goal. So, I don't know. When you say the front squat makes your back stronger, are you mostly referencing your upper back and just, like, thoracic extension? Well, I mean, you know, like,

if you think about, like, the moment arm, the minute you put the, you know, the bar in front of you, you lengthen the moment arm, the minute you put the bar in front of you, you lengthen the moment arm of your entire spine. So pretty much your entire back, because of where the bar is, is going to strengthen it. When we talk about the core, really when you're talking about the core, as far as stabilizing your spine in the upright position you know um your spinal erectors are

going to be the primary core group of muscles so when you put the bar in front of you you're going to you know activate those muscles the entire time so in your mind how how is is having the bar resting on your shoulders extending that moment arm like you're talking about. How is that different than, say, doing a good morning? It's really not. You can just do a squat. The good morning, especially once you tip over, like when you go horizontally,

it's definitely lengthening that moment arm big time. But in this one, you're just doing it, you know, getting the bang for your buck. So you're going to strengthen your back while you're squatting in really in more of a position that you want to be in when you're back squatting. You know, I like both. Like, it's not really one or the other for me. Good mornings were a big reason why my squat, you know, was in the 800s or all because of that. It was a big difference other for me good mornings were a big reason why my squat you know was in the 800s or all because of that it was a big difference maker for me yeah for me the whole thing really is just about mobility i feel so much more comfortable sitting down in a perfect spot with the weight on my shoulders um and when i have it on my back i feel like I don't have the ability right now,

mainly in my ankles, to sit down in that perfect upright torso. But if I can change the position of the weight, I can sit in a perfect front squat, and it feels fantastic, and I feel really strong there. But as soon as the weight gets on my back my my chest leans over um and i just end up grinding through reps versus like actually feeling like i'm doing something positive for myself i think my body automatically when i put the bar on my back uh go it goes back to powerlifting and like so it's like so used to like going barely below parallel so therefore it makes you know mobility is a huge problem for me right now at 47 and so it just

makes it harder when i put it behind me when i put it in front of me i think my body naturally relaxes and like lets me sit lower because it's used to that you know when the bar is there going low when it's there it's used to like going just low enough yeah so the other thing i think about a lot is that and why i choose front squatting is like the the bang for your buck and how many different um muscle groups or like how much full body strength can you gain um the front squat just feels like a better movement like the further you get the bar away from your spine the the stronger you have to be in your core to stabilize right your torso upright um and then of course lifting the weight like there's just i'm not going to overhead squat i'm not going to zurcher squat. Um, it's not that I won't,

it's just as a, as a staple movement, the front squat is, is kind of that like perfect balance between maximizing, um, like total musculature needed and recruitment for, um, getting strong and doing what you need to do, uh, without having like, man, it's impossible for me to back squat and feel like I'm doing something without 315, 335 on the bar. And then the next day I wake up and my knees are janky because of that. Like it's just an amount of weight that I don't want to lift every single day, which is really funny because for many, many years of my life, I thought there is zero chance I'm going to get through an entire Monday without squatting like 365. There's just no way. I wouldn't even be alive. And now you can take 225. Yesterday, I squatted

275 for 10 reps or something like that. It feels amazing. My knees don't hurt this morning everything just feels like i'm moving in a much more like more efficient way my whole body has to be a part of it versus just loading the bar up and and going i'm with you that's another big benefit even for my power lifters i always have them do you know the first if i have time that is the first uh four to eight weeks will be a lot of front squatting just to give their body a break from the same movement pattern and uh just knowing that it's going to help strengthen their you know their torso and it's going to help you know increase the mobility and it saves their body from what they're about to do which is always the tons of back squats. Yeah.

When you look at athletes and you start to kind of assess their movement, do most people, if they have the mobility kind of in their lats and in their triceps to get into a good front rec position, would you say that more people would benefit from training the front squat than training the back squat, even if they are in strength sports where they have to back squat every day? Like, should front squatting be kind of the staple lift for some athletes versus the back squat? I mean, it's hard to say either way, but, you know, I know I would do this. I know that you can get that higher effort with a smaller load.

So, like, that's always going to be a bonus you know yeah you know push it without being a maximal load on your spine that's always going to be a good thing but um it's hard to say like you know is it the go-to for everyone really like what you should do is look is assess the person so yeah if you have the three squats to make it simple you got the front the high bar low bar the front is going, you got the front, the high bar, low bar. The front is going to strengthen the back more. The high bar is going to strengthen the quads more. And then the low bar is going to strengthen the hips more.

And so then you just assess and be like, where is this person weak? You know, obviously, if it's a weightlifter, front squats have got to be a staple. If it's a powerlifter, you, it gotta be a staple. The power that you have no choice, low bar back squat, but you know, for the average person or for the, you know, strictly this client, you know,

you're going to look at where do they need the work the most? So, um, I feel like front squats, you, most people can go lower on front squat, um, compared to back squats and still be in a good position.

If you go down as far as you can, you know, with, with all the, all the boxes checked about good technique. I feel like I always, I end up going lower on front squats kind of automatically. So I feel like front squats are more of like a strengthening your, your true full range of motion, you know, catching a clean rock bottom. You need to be strong all the way that low, but the back squats,

I typically have like a slightly wider stance, not big power lifter wide but like just slightly wider and then i tend to go to like just below parallel right that seems to be about where even with i have pretty good mobility and always have especially lower body with ankles and hips i i i tend to stop right around just below parallel but i don't really truly go kind of ass to grass, you know, all the way to the floor on back squats. Like I can't on front squats much easier. Yeah. Is that common with you? Yeah. Yeah. That is the main reason I do a front squats is it gets me used to going. It's easier for me to get low and mobility is more important than anything for me right now. You know, it's not like I need to get stronger, but I need to, to but mobility is huge yeah it allows me to squat lower and makes my hips feel better then that's that's really the

the thing that i'm looking for yeah if people were to kind of assess their program i know in the ones on challenge program like everybody goes through like the very first wave is like a massive front squat that's how we built the back squat in in the first eight weeks um if if somebody were to assess i would imagine there's a lot of people that are back squatting because they've been told to back squat their whole life that would probably benefit from switching over to the front squat as their their main lift uh is there like a body type or uh kind of just like some sort of assessment people can put on themselves of like, man, it just doesn't feel great. And then going and switching over and

feeling it out. Like, I feel like my body type specifically just fits that better. Kind of like what Doug was saying, where I know that I don't have the mobility to go down to that size. And you look at people's femurs length to see, like if you watch kind of like the Chinese Olympic weightlifters, their femurs are these tiny little things and they squat so perfectly and their torso is perfectly upright. And then I'll video myself and I'm like, that doesn't look like what they do at all. We are very different people. No matter how much I stretch, my torso will not look like lose. There's just no way that I'm ever going to get in that position. And is there, if, if people to assess their own body types, is there something that they could be pointed to, to say like, Oh, front squats are probably something that I should use as the staple and then practice the back squat as a max effort, but use front squats as the big training lift?

Well, I would say if you have a long torso, then front squats would be a great movement for you because it's because of the fact that they will strengthen your spine. Because, you know, if you're doing, you know, back squats, you'll make it a little bit easier on the very area that you need to work on you know like um whereas if like your short torso say like doug who's shorter torso longer legs you know they probably don't need that that much but then there's the fact of you know doug feels better and it goes lower so you know is there it's hard because you all right i'll make it simple for our here we go you can either you take the movement the three big ones the front high and low bar back squats you take it and you can either say i'm going to do it based

on assessment you know we we see like where they weak is it their back is it their quads or is it their hips or step two would be you know but what you know what is the person looking for are you looking for mobility are you looking for back certainty are you looking to get your are you looking to jump higher or run faster um because if you're if you're trying to run faster then probably back squat based on the studies is a little bit better but not that much but yet the front squat is good for i need to stand on my back you know so like um or if you have trouble going low one of the reasons why that the back squat it's harder to go lower than the front squat is this is when you back squat most people naturally sit back and the minute you sit

back you create uh hip flexion and hip flexion flexion is the determining factor of how low one can go. So like if you're, if you're reaching hip flexion sooner, you can't go as low. However, most people in their front squat, sit straight down. So hip flexion is delayed a little bit. Therefore you're able to go deeper and puts more range of motion at the knees. So the, you know, so you will get more for the quads in that case because you're sitting lower.

However, there's a lot of variables in the squat. So I love talking about that. But in the high bar, you can still go almost as low, but you're able to use more of a load. So it's very negligible which is which is better the high bar or the i mean high bar back squat or front squat for the quad they're almost even so the difference would be that you know the biggest thing for me when i when i when when someone asked me about this is i go well if you're if your front squat is improving your back squat definitely is

you know for the most part because you know like i i did um i squatted once so far since i've been on this core team workout and uh you know i squatted well into the 500s day one yeah i haven't done any so i would say that's true the transferability is just is is great from front squat to back squat but from the back squat to the front squat you're not going to you might not have that mobility you might have created so much tension that you you just don't move well through that range of motion i think that the line of action on the barbell too as you're sitting down in the front squat is for most people who lack even just the smallest amount

of mobility um you may have a decent line of action on the back squat because you're able to like bend your torso so much farther forward and then as soon as you get them in the front rack and if you take a line of action where your chest goes forward and you're you're doing too much you're done you instantly see where the the weak link is in your mobility and your um just movement patterns in general. I always try to think about like when I'm front squatting that I'm not even pushing my hips back and down. I'm just trying to literally sit onto my heels.

And that really ensures that the bar is moving straight up and down. When I'm back squatting, I have like a – it's not even like a weird mental – like I just know that I can't sit in that's not even like a weird mental, like, I just know that I can't sit in that position with even like three 15 on my back, which isn't like a crazy heavy weight. It's just, I know that I'm going to be bent slightly more forward and the line of action on the bar is going to be a little bit more forward and it doesn't transfer into the front squat. But as soon as I get the bar onto the, into the front squat, the bar path goes straight up and down. I'm actually able to sit straight into my heels.

It's like, there's just a tiny little bit of a counterbalance by having the bar in the front rack. And with that little counterbalance, you just, everything moves a little bit better. It's easier to load the glutes. It's easier to sit through that full range of motion.

And you're not going to sit the glutes. It's easier to sit through that full range of motion. And you're not going to sit as far down. You have to have like a very special body type to be able to sit all the way down and a back squat like that. Like the back squat really is, it's a phenomenal competition lift, but for training, yes, you should train it, especially if it's the sport that you're competing in. You have to train it, obviously. But like a pure training lift, I feel like you're going to get way more bang for your buck doing a front squat than putting – and it gets into kind of like the load and frequency that you're putting on the joints. Like if you train the back squat three days a week and you're, you're inside 85% on each of those sessions, you're going to be moving a lot of weight,

a lot of weight, you know, like, especially if you're in the five, 600 pound squat range, but even somebody that squats 300, you're going to be inside 85%. Yeah. And now, now you've got a lot of weight that your joints just aren't prepared to be moving each week, where if you can back that down and your front squatting, say 70, 65, 70%, it has the same, like, you're going to be using a lot more musculature to move that weight in the front squat, but you're not going to get that total beat down on your joints. I will say this. I'm not big on absolute statements, but in this case,

I would absolutely always front squat. One, if I were a high school student mission coach, or two, if I were a CrossFit coach, I would have the whole class always do front squats. Here's why. Because it eliminates that whole need of a spot. And even if you tell people how to miss properly with a back squat, inevitably somebody will get in a bad position,

and the bar will either go over their head or they're going to get their back rounded. It just, you know, it's going to put you in a bad predicament eventually. So, like, if I were a high school coach, all front squat. CrossFit coach, all front squat. Because no spotter, no risk of injury with the back. Because, you know, the minute you bend forward, like you said, the bar is gone. So, that would be the big reason why I would stick with it.

And how many times when you're in, like, a group CrossFit class or any time, it could be strength and conditioning in college where you've got 20, 30 people. You've got a team in there, and everybody's back squatting. And you look around the room, and what you're really doing is trying to triage who's going to hurt themselves the most first. So you only end up helping the people that look like a disaster or in immediate need. And then there's this whole group in the middle of people that are look like a disaster or like in immediate need and then

there's this whole group in the middle of people that just aren't doing it right but probably aren't going to get hurt today and you end up kind of leaving them alone so you've got these like beginners that have a bar on their back for the first you know inside the first 50 times and they they're just trying to figure out where their glutes are and the the part of the back squat that's you want to put yourself in a position or lift in a specific way in which like your brain doesn't when you sit down at a back squat if you're gonna miss it your brain goes oh well my legs don't the glutes aren't working so i'll i'll just transition all of the energy to the upper back and then you see somebody trying to like stand up the bar's way forward their chest is forward

and their brain is just working through this checklist of all the muscles and joints that don't work right now to find one joint that can actually lift the weight and it's a mess yeah and with the front squat you just can't do it because it's it's so easy to dump yeah you're you're you're holding the bar in such a funky position on like smaller joints so your wrists are going to give out if the bar comes off your shoulders oh you're stopping it yeah as far as like coaching a large group of people even if it's's 10 people, you're, you're gonna, it's just a much more effective way to get people moving in my eyes then. Um, and trust me, we back squatted every single Monday that I own the gym. Like there was not a single Monday that we weren't lifting heavy

back squats, but now I'm a little bit older. I'm the focus is a little bit different. I'm much more gen pop than I feel like I was. It's probably, I probably was very gen pop then too, but, um, my goals were, were significantly different in which I was, I wanted to only move as much weight as possible. So I pushed that on other people. And now it's like, man, I would just prefer see everybody front squat really pretty. And then maybe like once every three months once every you know that's probably a pretty uh maybe once every four months we like test our back squat just to see the transferability right so yeah i'm not hating on the back i mean i was a world record holder in the back squat i'm not hating on it i'm just saying you know for someone my age or someone Gen Pop, it only makes sense.

I mean, in most cases. Yeah. Front squat. Yeah, like you said, it's the thing that's tested. I mean, Boyle is like the most anti-back squat person there is. But if you ask him, like, do you coach the back squat? He's like, well, I've got college hockey players that have to go put their body weight on a back squat and they have to sit down and stand up as many times they can in a minute to test leg strength and endurance like it's it's it's a great way to test this stuff

um to test strength it's as a test it's a great tool um but for, it's better to have more tools to be able to, to get through, uh, and get the same training effect without having to maybe deal with as much joint pain in your, in your clients. I'm with you. That's the real reason right there for me. Just I squat and it doesn't hurt. So again, there's like two movements I can do a lot. I can do front

squat every single day if i want yeah deadlift very often with zero repercussions but you know back squat there's normally a price to pay for me so yeah travis how do you typically switch up your front squat training like what kind of variations do you guys do do you play with foot positions i know you like pauses chains and bands all the variations what do you guys most commonly do um i i use yeah like tempo is what i use the most and um you know lately i've been doing like breaths in the bottom so like i'll probably do a recovery squat today so it'll be like you know what can i go you know with taking three to five breaths now what i do is also put a i put a um a velocity on there like a minimum so like uh i'll do a front squat one rm with three breaths but it has to be faster than 0.7 meters per second so uh you know that's just all that is just it's the same

percentages you know i'm using that because with busy lives like ours, percentages aren't really the best avenue. Using the velocity is a little bit better because it takes into consideration the stress in my life, this crazy quarantine, how am I feeling. So I can go out there and get a good workout based on the state my body's in. We're taking a minute here to talk about our sponsors.

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Our friends at Organifi, we love them. We also have to thank our friends over at Fit Together. The Fit Together app is the brand new social media app just for fitness people. It's like a breath of fresh air every time I go on there because people are only talking about fitness. You can get over to all the app stores on all your devices at F-I-T-T-O-G-E-T-H-E-R. Fit together, all one word. And here's the deal. Right now, social media is a blaze with negativity. Everyone is taking super hot shots, super opinionated things, finding all the articles that nobody actually reads, and they put them on social

media right now just to prove how right they are with all their opinions. Guess what? The only thing I want to see is people hiking, is people lifting weights, is people doing burpees. I just want to see people getting after it in the fitness world. And that is the sweet spot to my life. It's fitness. So if you like fitness, you're tired of the old social media mess, come join me over at Fit Together. I've got 30 days of bands going up right now. And you can join me at F-I-T-T-O-G-E-T-H-E-R, Fit Together.

Download the app. Find me at Anders Varner. We have a group for Barbell Shrugged, people. Just search for Barbell Shrugged and come join me. Fit Together app, F-I-T-T-O-G-E-T-H-E-R, Fit Together app. Let's get back to the show. Yeah. One other thing uh last time we were out uh in lewisville we we had a fun little exchange about how i need to keep my hook grip on throughout the clean so i started front squatting with a hook grip and

did i lose you mash you there frozen your screen froze but your your audio's here um and it's been awesome i really really enjoy front squatting with a full full grip now i feel like my mobility is much better i feel like the uh the movement pattern is much better. I feel like the movement pattern is much better. I've really noticed like two main things. Like one, my mobility, like I could just grab a bar with a full grip now and get into a good position right away. Like even me looking at myself on Zoom right now, I give myself a B minus. That's pretty good. That's better than my college GPA.

Yeah. Um, the, um, and then having the connectivity, like a closed chain at on feet to ground and then closed at the, at the barbell just makes me feel stronger. My, my body and my brain recognize that I'm actually doing something versus just resting the bar on my shoulders and like not really having, um, you know, like there, there just isn't that like open casual feel to what's going on now that I'm looking at my own front rack here and in the zoom camera, I'm working on doing the sand. If I can keep that grit, I'm going to need to be able to do that to get to, you know, 400 pound clean. Um, we've going to need to be able to do that to get to, you know, a 400-pound clean. We've got two amazing clean people who can do amazing cleans in our gym.

You know, we've had Nathan Damron, who did 220 kilos, 484 pounds. Yeah, he's amazing. He's a 96. And then, of course, we have Morgan, who's done, you know, 200 kilos, 440 at 16 years old. So, like, in both of them, of course, we have Morgan who's done 200 kilos, 440 at 16 years old. So in both of them, they're probably the best at that movement that anybody's ever seen, anybody. But they both keep their hook. And so they're able to pull up until the very moment of catching the bar.

They never have that moment where they can't pull themselves down. Yeah. So I'm trying to get to that too. I had a lot of people reach out about that episode and they were – I converted them. Your ideas on that show actually, like that specific interaction we had about that and me whatever i don't remember what we were all the details um but when we got into that one that that one changed a lot of people's front squats they they actually had a ton of people reach out and and talk about how they they've switched it up and that is that you do it the first time and you go oh that's definitely different yeah and and now i Definitely different. Yeah. And now I can – I actually had people in my gym out here.

This girl is an Olympic lifter, and she went back and listened. But, yeah, pretty awesome. I think a lot of people can benefit by just keeping that in there. I love feeling connected to the bar more than catching it with the open grip. It was a big difference maker for Jordan Cantrell, for sure. And he's very – he's not typically mobile in the rack position. He's mobile everywhere except in that position. But, you know, he just worked at it and worked at it.

So I'm pretty confident – here's my point of that, is that if he can get there, everyone listening can get there if they just work at it. Well, 99% of you can't. Jordan looks like one of those guys that needs at least 300 pounds in his hands before he can get to it. Yeah, it's not even a joke, man. It sounds funny, but it's not even a joke.

Yeah, what do you do about his elbow position? Because it's not textbook. No, it's more like this. He can crank it up, but he's probably like a 45 versus – when you look at Doug, Doug's elbows and lats and everything move so well. But his is – it looks like he's holding the bar a lot of times. Yeah. I mean, it does look that – especially until he's above 300,

until he's 140 kilos and above. Yeah, it looks like he's definitely holding it it's like like at 120 it's literally hovering yeah and then but then you know 40 it's down and then by the time he's doing 190 he's like you know uh it's in a good position i i got a theory that's why he's so good at jerks it's like he's spring-loaded you He jerks 210 kilos or 212. Basically, 470 the boy can jerk.

He's an 89-kilo lifter. He's 196 pounds. He's cranky enough. He's thick. That boy can jerk. His overhead strength is probably the best pound for pound in America, no doubt. God, that's a lot of weight.

Dude, you brought up all of these meters per second. You were just talking about this velocity-based training that I can't stop seeing on your Instagram. When did you find this, we're just going to call it BBT velocity-based training so that we don't have to say all three words each time. Uh, when did you start paying attention to this? Probably 2015. Uh, I went to, I got a chance to visit, is it 14 or 15? It was somewhere in that 2014, 2015 time. But I went to Florida state and, um, Dan Schaefer was there. who's he's now working on some

he's the smartest dude i've ever met literally he's like he was he's working on some kind of high-end phd right now that makes my phd seem like i'm in elementary school but i was down there and he was the he was the olympic head strength conditioning coach for them. And he used velocity. And he showed me that where he had collected data to the point where he knew that when his athletes could do 85% at X speed, that they were then capable of 100-meter PR on the sprint and sprinting. And it blew my mind the way he used the data to just make so many correlations that were – and then at the time they were just well always ford state is known for their track and field obviously but at

that time they were dominating and so i started researching it i've talked to him and then i read all brian man's you know books and now i'm you know collecting my own data and i'm when we go to lenore ryan that will we'll have it will mainly be velocity-based training. Is that what your PhD is going to be in? No, it will be part of it. I'm going to do it on athlete testing. So mainly the two instruments I'm going to use are gym-awares. They have a flex unit, and then they have the main gym aware unit for velocity-based training i'm

going to use both of those and then i'm also going to use the mega wave so mega wave will tell me if athletes if they're they use brain waves dc brain waves echocardiograms and the heart rate variability to tell me is their cns ready is their energy systems ready and is their their pns ready so yeah those three variables so that's what my my pcb is yeah when you are looking at kind of like max effort days or speed days dynamic days um what are the numbers that you're looking for we'll just keep it basic for like just looking at back squats all right every every every lift is going to have different speeds but if we were to if we were to categorize like this is heavy day this is fast day or dynamic day um kind of walk us through like what a what a heavy day would look like maybe a light day and then relationship between the two

well here's what i would do first if i were anyone listening and i wanted to try i would do a uh forced velocity profile and see like where on the spectrum do you lie? Like, are you a person who's naturally fast, but not very strong, you know, or,

or are you a person who's naturally strong? So, and not very fast. And what you end up doing is knowing where to focus, you know, because like, let's say for me, like I found in the deadlift,

you know, for whatever reason, whether it's efficiency or whether it's just, you know, I let's say for me like i found in the deadlift you know for whatever reason whether it's efficiency or whether it's just you know i have spinal issues my speed on my deadlift and my bench press are is gone on front squat it's literally perfect across the board it's like where it should be but you know deadlifting i don't have to go heavy now i can focus on speed so like uh louis you know mainly when he says dynamic day, he's talking about the strength speed, which is like 0.75 meters per second to one meter per second. You know? And sometimes he'll, he'll, you know,

let his athletes get into the speed strength, which is like, that is one to 1.3 meters per second. So that would be anywhere in those realms would be considered dynamic effort. And then, you know, 0.75 and down, you know, is where you would spend your time if you're doing a max effort. Mainly though, if you're looking for a true max effort, you know, trying to get strong, you're talking about, you know, 0.5 and down. Most people fell around.3 to.2, and then there's freaks like Hayden Bogue, and who knows? He'd probably do a.1 meter per second and still make it.

Grinders. He does grind really well. He is the best grinder, and he's always been like that. When he was at my gym, he was – you're thinking, no way he can do one more rep and he does like five more slower each time i'm like crazy with hydraulics yeah man so the velocity you can really just like you know it keeps someone like me from spending all their time on going heavy. Yeah. Because I know that there's a weak link.

I've done my profile. I know where I land. And I know I need that focus. And that if I pay attention to my speed and get it up, so will my strength days. And the more I've learned, the more I understand, like, with Doug. Like, you know, Doug, like, obviously he needed that quality of strength. Because, you know, you said dynamic, obviously he needed that quality of strength because, you know, he, you know, you said dynamic days, kill it for you.

And so, but then there's humans out there who say, you know, I've done dynamic. I don't feel any, I don't, I don't see a big benefit. My PRs didn't go up. I'm assuming probably that person already had that quality of speed, you know, strength that they're trying to work on. There are probably fast. So it was a waste of time and they needed to spend more time in the absolute strength or accelerative strength yeah yeah um louie's been tracking this stuff what what i i guess i mean i've heard him talk about

you know speed on the bar many times right um but i guess what has changed that has like really sparked your interest or is it just because you can actually track it so scientifically right now or not scientifically but like the use of technology is so much easier now that you can you can track it without kind of like the mad scientist Louie sitting there going oh it's about a.5. You go calculating speed in his own head. Well, he used a Tendo unit, but the Tendo units and a lot of the units out there are so expensive. But the Flex that I'm using is affordable. You're talking about like $500 for this. Yeah.

So people can afford that. And so that kept a lot of people from doing it. But I think the big difference in what people consider velocity-based training and what Louis was talking about dynamic and max effort is that you can use velocity-based training every single day, not just on a free day. When I max out, I can say I'm going to do a one-RM, but I'm going to stop at 0.4 meters per second so like um there's you know it's just a matter of using it and making sure that you're in the right zone you want to be in every day because here's the big reason every single day a person's one rm can go up or down 15 So you're talking about a 30% window.

Yeah. So one day you come in and you do what you think is 85%. That's really a max effort that day because you're 15% in the hole. So it's just a way of making sure you're where you should be. And also it's a great way to, you know, with your athletes. Let's say they come in one day and they hit 85% and they're off 12%, 15%. Instead of me, like, you know, guessing or using my eyeball, the data will tell me, Morgan, today we're not going to do any of this.

We're going to go do some bodybuilding and get you recovered. Yeah. You're so tanked. Can you look at it? Like, someone like Morgan jumps on the bar, and he starts hitting, like, warm-up sets, 20%, 30%, 40%, and he's just moving. Like, it's just one of those days where you go,

oh, you're at the top 15%. You go, fuck the plan. We're going heavy today. Let's go lift the weights. Are you able to make an on the on the fly transition like that yeah that's and that's what i'll do you know when i have um i see i can do it with my eyeballs however sometimes i have a problem with you know the athlete because you know they're young and their emotions are all over the place you know they might not believe me i could either say you know

morgan it's slow today we We're going to pull it back. And he'd be like, I feel great. What are you talking about? Or I could say, Morgan, you're fast. Let's PR. And he would be like, I don't know. So it's a way of saying, look, Morgan, here's what the data says. Let's go.

It doesn't matter what you feel. It's like, this is what it's saying. Let's go. That's a big benefit, benefit too is getting buy-in you need to learn how to rig that machine because that way you can put it in the training hall at the olympics you go look dude i'm calculating everybody's stuff in here you're like three times faster than everyone today that's a great idea you're gonna go eat their lunch it's not even gonna be a it's not even gonna matter these kids aren't in your world that would be a great that would that would be a great idea like just show them some data be

like look i just pinpointed that guy's clean over there can you have you have you put it on the bar for the olympic lifts oh yeah i've done it for clean so far for me and then you know i've used the gym aware the big unit for snatches and all of it and that's the one we had down in jamaica right yeah yeah we had them jumping on that's it that's it so um have you fit found ways in which you're like is the front squat back squat are those kind of like the the ones creating the most velocity on the bar do you use jumping and anything like that to test? I did. There's a video on my Instagram of one day it was raining outside, so I did jump squats and playing around. Remember that? Yeah.

I'm going to do that every week too, some jump squats, especially paired. I do a heavy squat with a jump squat, a heavy squat with a jump squat. Yeah, because even with just a 45-pound bar or very light dumbbells, you're still not going to be at your 1RM velocity in jumping. That would be a really interesting test to see how a weightless max height jump, standing vertical, translates into on a growth growth curve would they all line up with those with those lines follow each other yeah yeah it's a good point and see and with the with the flex

you know it measures height so like i can actually see how high i'm jumping you know other than you know when i have dumbbells in my hands you you know, like can't really measure that. But I can put the flex on the barbell and I can actually measure, yeah, I'm getting higher. Yeah. Instead of what I feel like. I hate the word, you know, if you're working on a PhD, feel doesn't mean shit, you know. So, like, you got to have quantifiable numbers on there.

When you are – so this comes from, like like a lot of the CrossFit thing, like this, like working on your weaknesses and hammering your weaknesses. Do you, do you feel like you're going to get to a place where you're just like, look, dude, this is something we have to work on.

But in order to do it, like when I was coaching people and they'd be strong enough, like you, you, you get some guy that comes in and he can, you know, clean three 65 and you're like look you're already strong enough to go to the games we don't need we just need bigger engine like go

sit on that rower and go breathe for a long time um but i would also pull them aside and be like you you not just because you're strong enough i still want you to be the strongest dude that exists right now like let's not forget that you're an animal and you need to go eat. And like this oxygen thing is cool, but that barbell is where you're going to make your money. Like, let's make sure we're strong. Do you, do you feel like there's a bit of a risk in saying, like focusing too much on maybe someone's weaknesses versus like the fact that they can just move heavy barbells really fast and and be in that top level strength and it's like every athlete's different is there a time where it's like you're you're kind of give and take like we don't need to spend as much time in a specific place or you're always going to want to continue your strength too it's just like yeah you just know

like for me here's what here's the big thing it's telling me it's saying i can spend time on speed and my one arm will go up because that quality is lacking so much so not only can i you know can i do that and get better but i can do a lighter load on my body and get better so that's what it's telling me with deadlifting like yesterday the heaviest I went was 352 pounds, but it's fast as I can go. And so I don't have to go five or more hundred pounds to get a, you know, some kind of stimulus. That's what it's really telling me. But it doesn't mean that I'm not going to do a max effort this weekend.

It just means I don't have to go as often, or I might go to a max effort, but I'll put a time cap. I'll put a 0.4 meters per second, you know, time cap. So the minute I jump below that, I'll stop. I think that the squat is probably, if somebody wants to get into it, like a really good place to start, but you've also done it on deadlifts. Have you done any pressing with it, bench or strict press? Both, yeah.

I developed a strict press profile, and it was pretty um across the board too i think you can read about that one too in um in my in my it's on my instagram my personal one but yesterday i did um i did recorded my whole workout and showed people how i used it for the squatting you know i showed them you know like yesterday my goal was to work up to a 1rm with a pause but a 0.4 meter per second time cap so like that means like what it did is i got a good potentiation from that you know the whole you know pap thing again but i didn't go so heavy that it was going to fatigue me and mess up my down sets which were my most important yesterday the most important thing was my down set my speed sets but that you know but that 190 kilo well it was uh what was it it was um 90 kilos of bar weight and then a hundred of bands it was

crazy but that that was all that was for it was to give me some potentiation to crush my downsets to make them even faster and they were even faster and they got faster and faster the whole time so that and i explained all that showed them on the on the velocity you know how you how you read it what i'm looking at so anyway you can get you guys can check that out on my instagram story but i put it on master performance yeah i was late doing this too man that's a lot of numbers you just have a big spreadsheet you track everything in or is it does the software track it for you yeah it tracks it for you so sick yeah beautiful yeah

i i the i guess almost like dynamic days in general i never really did that that was all kind of like crossfit air bike rower stuff yeah for a long time the idea that you could go and just create a profile does does it tell you kind of like what days um when you're when you're laying out a program are you pulling it up right now i was gonna show yeah was going to show people what all it does show you. Like, I love this thing. This is so much fun to me. Like, I swear Velocity has made my workouts, like, exciting again. I feel like a little kid. I can take my little – take my iPad out there.

Yeah, do you get to play – do you play the game where you're like, this is supposed to be a fast day, and then – You see that? There's a glam you see yeah the screen on screen is a tough one yeah so like well this part is like this this talk tells me everything about my workout but then i scroll over it tells me all the different velocities and how was i trending you know you know if it's all on my down sets these were my speed sets and you could see that it was perfect yeah there was not very much variation at all it was as fat and then the

last one was the fastest that's perfect yeah do you have do you have all the athletes tied up to these things now uh when when we when we get back to the gym yeah we'll all i have units uh for all of them to try so nice yeah they've been gym wear has been so good to me and and you know i've sold a lot of units for them because it's so cool now so yeah helping me do you think there'll be a day with this technology coming out where you can write a program where you don't even have sets and reps it's like i need to stay inside this this like yeah force curve and then or this this speed and then as soon as you get out of that speed i don't care how many reps you've done but we only want to stay at 0.5 meters per second and as soon as you drop below we're done but i want you to do as many reps as you can above 0.5, and that's it.

I'm kind of brainstorming on what it would look like, but could you theoretically write a program in which you're accumulating as much volume as possible, which is really important, and using it to a place where it's like, I only want to be at this speed, and that speed is going to designate whether it's heavy day, dynamic day, whichever you're going for.

But as soon as you drop below this and you're not able to move the bar fast enough, I want you to just stop, and then we move on. Right. Well, it's still going to be a reasonable amount of sets and reps. You know, like, so, like so like you know if a person only did like you know on workout one they only did like one set of two you know probably not a lot of stimulus there but like you know so you're still gonna want to look at prilovin's chart and have a starting spot of like because really you can correlate velocity with the percentages

because it should match up so like if your goal – so when I tell somebody do 70% for, you know, I don't know, nine doubles, you know, 70% really means, you know, somewhere between accelerated and strength speed. You know, that's where that number hits on the zone chart. So like it just makes sure – it's making sure that I'm at that. Because like I said, if I'm in the tank, 70% is really 85%. So it's just making sure I'm where I should be based on my CNS. Because we have the internet that stresses us out,

because we have the coronavirus stressing us out and trapped in our houses, it takes that into consideration so you're still going to want to do those optimal numbers of sets and reps and you still want to build on it you still want to track like if you're a coach out there and you want to coach like a uh a weightlifter or a powerlifter or maybe even a crossfitter what you're going to want to know is like if you produce x result let's say that you hit your 300 kilo total and boom then you're going to want to there's this crazy formula that you can do called the k value that tells me exactly how many how many reps i should do and

it's going to tell me what the um the average intensity of those reps should be so you can literally now plan the next 20 weeks knowing that's where i have to be and like discover how you want to do it yeah that's getting super nerdy though no i mean that answers because i was thinking like instead of writing you know three by five you just say, I want you to accumulate as many reps as you possibly can with, you know, uh, for the back squat for Morgan. Like I want as many reps inside this range that you can possibly do.

And that may be 10 total reps. That may be 20 total reps, but if you're accumulating as much volume as possible and you're keeping the speed, you're using the same muscle fibers, you're still achieving the same goal, but you're also getting the added benefit of like all this additional volume that doesn't seem to be beating you down so much that your, your performances.

Only problem with that is this, is that like, um, if you did just as much volume as you possibly could do at a certain speed what it makes it hard to do is recover and do it more frequently yeah like there's a there's a yeah the dude chris beersley does some really cool research on there is a point of no return so there's a x amount of volume that at that point if you reach it like you're not doing anything you're not you're not getting any more opportunity you're not getting more efficient so it's really volume you know for no reason and what it will do though is slow you down and your ability to do it again because um the that's the big factor frequency so if i can do something more often with the optimum amount of i'm better off to even do a

little bit less volume but more frequently because the more you do it, the more efficient your body will get at it. So that's a big one. Do you notice a lot of the same stuff on bench press? Like what's the – how about not even bench press? Have you found anything that's just been like about your own training and then other athletes that you're working with or are you just like, oh my gosh, without this tool, I would have never even recognized this in my athletes?

My bench press. Because I was always known to be a very fast bench presser. Speed has always kind of been my trait I have that beat most people. But my bench press, it was way off. Like literally, even now i can still bench you know 350 and so um which is not a lot but it's pretty good but like at 200 pounds like i can't generate any speed and so it made you know i broke my neck in 2007 well it sounds worse than it i mean i what i did is i i fractured the vertee, you know, minor, but it really messed me up.

It just lets me know that there's still some major nerve damage, which, you know, my three fingers and my left hand, you know, my thumb and first two small fingers, they are numb all the time. Like, not completely, but like it's almost like you've been to the dentist and you got all the shots and it's numb-ish all the time. So it's the radial nerve. So it just lets me know that there's still some major impairment. But I'm going to really use speed to see if I can, you know, to, I guess,

recruit those fast-twitch fibers in that pathway, that radial nerve pathway. So he told me that. I didn't know it. Travis, do your lifters have prs for different speeds not yet they will for sure yeah i'm curious to to to like get a set number of different speeds you have like your your 0.5 your 0.8 your 1.2 meters per second and then like plotting those on a graph to kind of see like if there's any like weird deviations where they just flatten out or it spikes up really quickly yeah i can't wait to this court that's my the thing i'm excited about the most like i've kind of adapted though i like being at home with my wife and kids but the one thing i'm missing is like you know obviously being my athletes and i have this toy i can't use because i'm here so i can't wait to track all that data and find out everything but one of the things

we're definitely going to do doug is this is that um those last eight weeks before competition we will not go to uh 90 above on the squats we'll probably not go any more than 85 percent you know and we'll look at how fast 85 is So that's the thing we'll track. So it does a couple of things. Number one, you know, those last eight weeks, it's a power sport. It's not necessarily an absolute strength sport. So like I'm looking for a power output. So it's allowing me to take the absolute strength and really start to use it the way it needs to be used at a competition.

I'm of course talking about weightlifting right now. And the other point is, you know, when I used to, I would try to taper everyone to peak at their snatch, clean and jerk, and squat. And that can be pretty mentally, especially for females, can be pretty mentally taxing knowing that I'm expecting them to hit big numbers on all these things versus just thinking about snatch and clean jerk i think that's mentally a little bit less of you know of an issue so we'll definitely use that yeah have you done any testing i know the the post-activation thing is like also big on your brain right now of testing going from like a heavy squat into some sort of jump and just seeing how that

all plays in together. I did it. You know, when I was doing my squat jumps, I was doing like, I was going back and forth and then I spent like some, a string of like, and when I say heavy, like I was using 50 versus just the bar and um after doing the 50 for three sets of triples it was then my bar spiked really quite a bit it was a you know there's a big deviation i can't remember exactly i haven't like look like i can go look at my history and see but it was a pretty big deviation of how, of the increase after I spent like three sets of,

of, uh, 50 kilos. It was a definite spike. Travis, where can they find you? Go to masterly.com. You can also like,

um, you can go to gym aware and, uh, what's your code? Tell the people mash five, all capitals, mash five. And you get, it's not a huge discount, but, you know,

these things are like – they just don't give discounts. But you'll get 5% off and you'll get a free travel ticket. So it'll definitely help you. Killer. Yeah. Doug Larson. Right on. Find me on Instagram at DouglasyLarson.

Yeah, team. I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner. We're Barbell Shrugged at Barbell underscore Shrugged. Get over to BarbellShrugged.com forward slash store. Make sure you check out the EMOM Aesthetics program that Mr. Douglas E. Larson just put out. It's kind of flying around right now. A lot of people get swole. Body part splits.

Everybody loves them. It's smashing right now. It's pretty cool. Very fortunately, it's smashing. Everybody loves bodybuilding. and if you say you don't you're lying and so i actually this is a beautiful combination between crossfit and bodybuilding it's it's all crossfit structure but it's but it's volume oriented functional hypertrophy man people crossfit to be jacked right at the end of the day it's all about hypertrophy yeah i uh went through

all of the like large level modalities that i have trained over 23 24 ish years and there was only like this little gap of like 10 ish years that weren't bodybuilding or what i would consider bodybuilding probably a lot of people look at it think i was doing crossfit but in my brain i'm just doing structural hypertrophy jack man yeah everybody started trying to lift weights 300 that movie 300 came out everybody's like how'd they get so jack and somebody was like it's crossfit jim jones yeah jim jones and so people cross it to look like that. It's bodybuilding. So good. We'll see you guys next Wednesday.

Alright. Monday. Monday, yeah. Okay. Threw me off. Alright, see ya. Bye-bye. That's a wrap, friends. Make sure you get over to barbellshrug.com forward slash store. Go check out all the bundles because next Monday we're giving away a free set of resistance bands for everybody that buys a bundle.

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Fit Together, the Fit Together Fitness app F-I-T-T-O-G-E G-E-T-H-E-R Fit Together that can be found in the app store on all the devices. Friends, we'll see you on Wednesday.