Barbell Shrugged

New episode every Wednesday! Join the Barbell Shrugged crew in conversations about fitness, training, and frequent interviews w/ CrossFit Games athletes!

Latest Episodes:

The Psychology of Self-Sabotage w/ Dr. Ben Steel, Doug Larson, Travis Mash & Dr. Mike Lane #847 May 06, 2026

Show notes

In this episode, Dr. Ben Steel joins Doug Larson and Dr. Mike Lane to break down the psychology of self-sabotage, performance anxiety, and why high performers often get in their own way. Ben shares his background as a former wrestler, certified mental performance consultant, and mental health counselor, explaining how his own experience with pre-performance anxiety led him into sports psychology. The conversation centers on how athletes and driven people often use avoidance, perfectionism, all-or-nothing thinking, and "paralysis by analysis" as protective mechanisms, not because they are lazy or weak, but because they are trying to avoid shame, embarrassment, failure, or exposure.

The team also explores how self-sabotage shows up differently in athletes, lifters, business owners, and high performers. For some people, it looks like blowing a diet, skipping competition, overtraining, or waiting until everything is perfect before taking action. For others, especially successful people, it can look like over-indexing on work or performance while avoiding uncomfortable emotional conversations, relationships, or deeper personal issues. Ben explains how tools like CBT, visualization, breathing, self-talk, arousal regulation, and pre-performance routines can help, but the deeper solution often starts with empathy, trust, outside perspective, and helping people feel understood rather than judged.

Big takeaway: self-sabotage is usually not a character flaw. It is a protection strategy. The goal is to identify what pain the person is avoiding, reduce the perceived threat, build confidence through small actions, and help them step into a challenge without needing everything to be perfect first.

Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram

Training for Power with Velocity Based Training w/Doug Larson, Travis Mash & Dr. Mike Lane #846 Apr 29, 2026

Show notes

In this episode, Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mash, and Dr. Mike Lane explain why velocity-based training is a powerful tool for athletes who want to perform better without constantly feeling beat up. Instead of relying on grinders and fatigue-heavy sessions, they show how training with speed and intent can help athletes become more explosive, more efficient, and more prepared for sport. The big picture benefit is simple: you can build strength and power in a way that carries over to sprinting, jumping, changing direction, and competing by focusing on maximizing speed of contraction on every rep.

They also make the case that velocity-based training is not just for elite lifters or sports scientists. Used well, it can help athletes make progress with less unnecessary soreness, joint stress, and wasted volume. The practical value is huge: better power production, better recovery management, and a useful and enjoyable way to match training to the real demands of sport. For athletes, that means a better chance of getting faster, stronger, and more powerful over time. Enjoy!

Links:

Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram

550 Mile Races w/ Cody Taylor, Doug Larson, Travis Mash & Dr. Mike Lane #845 Apr 22, 2026

Show notes

Cody Taylor went from living out of a van on a music tour, signed to a major label and playing after Def Leppard, to setting unsupported fastest known times on 550-mile wilderness trails no one had ever completed without a support crew. He didn't start running until 2020. By 2023 he was finishing 100-milers. By 2024 he was carrying a 53-pound pack through 650 kilometers of Quebec backcountry alone, filtering water from mud puddles, taping the skin off his own back, and sleeping on the ground to eventually crossing the finish line. The question isn't how he survived. The question is how he built a body and a mind capable of that.

In this episode, Cody breaks down why strength training is a foundational component of his success in elite endurance performance and what it really takes to go unsupported when every pound in your pack matters and no one is coming to help you. He also covers the mental architecture of doing hard things: why 14 days of solitude in the wilderness will permanently change how you experience a glass of tap water. If you train hard, compete seriously, and want to understand what the human body is actually capable of, this episode is for you.

Links:

Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram

How AI Is Changing Nutrition Coaching with Rami Alhamad with Doug Larson, Travis Mash & Dr. Mike Lane #844 Apr 15, 2026

Show notes

In this episode, Doug Larson and Dr. Mike Lane sit down with Rami Alhamad, founder of Alma and former creator of Push, to explore how AI is changing nutrition coaching and performance tracking. Rami shares his background in engineering, strength training, and startup building, including the journey of creating Push, the velocity-based training platform later acquired by Whoop. The conversation covers how that experience in sensors, data, and coaching systems led him toward a bigger problem: making personalized nutrition guidance dramatically easier and more useful for real people. They also dig into what makes Alma different from traditional food trackers, including logging meals by voice, text, and photos, along with coaching features that help users spot patterns and make better decisions without getting buried in manual data entry.

The second half of the conversation expands into the bigger picture of AI in coaching, health, and business. Doug, Mike, and Rami talk through how tools like wearable integration, supplement tracking, micronutrient guidance, weekly coaching summaries, and coach dashboards can help people stay more consistent while giving coaches better visibility with less friction. They also discuss the future of AI in human performance, why great coaches are more likely to be amplified than replaced, and how the real opportunity is using these tools to automate low-value tasks while preserving the high-trust human relationship that makes coaching effective. For coaches, athletes, and performance-minded listeners, this episode offers a practical look at how AI can improve nutrition and decision-making without losing the personal element that matters most.

Links:

Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram

The Performance Pyramid: What Actually Drives Results with Doug Larson, Travis Mash & Dr. Mike Lane #843 Apr 08, 2026

Show notes

In this episode, Doug Larson, Dr. Mike Lane, and Coach Travis Mash break down the performance pyramid: a simple way to organize the biggest drivers of strength, muscle, and performance. At the base are the non-negotiables: training, nutrition, and sleep. The crew opens by challenging the idea that tiny programming details or trendy methods can outrun poor fundamentals, using the old Colorado Experiment and the modern return of one-set-to-failure arguments as a perfect example. Their main point is clear: almost everyone wants to skip ahead to advanced tactics, but most real progress still comes from training hard, training consistently, eating enough to support the goal, and sleeping enough to recover.

From there, the conversation moves into the second layer of the pyramid: quality and individualization. Once the basics are solid, the next gains come from refining exercise selection, dialing nutrition to the athlete, improving recovery habits, and solving specific weak links. Mash explains that for most lifters and everyday adults, layer one will carry them a very long way, while layer two matters more as you approach elite levels where tiny edges compound over months and years. Mike adds that protein timing, food quality, and recovery details do matter, but only after total calories, total protein, and training consistency are already in place. The message is practical and refreshing: stop putting the cart before the horse, and earn the right to worry about the finer points.

Finally, the team gets into the top layer of the pyramid: marginal gains and nuanced decision-making. This is where advanced supplementation, blood work, biomarker analysis, special recovery tools, and sport-specific exceptions can make sense. They discuss when convenience foods may actually have a place for competition fueling, why supplements like creatine, caffeine, beta-alanine, vitamin D, magnesium, B vitamins, and even bicarbonate can matter in the right context, and how truly elite athletes separate themselves by stacking small advantages over time. The big takeaway is that performance is built like a pyramid for a reason: if the base is weak, everything above it becomes unstable, but when the fundamentals are handled, the small details can become the difference between good and world-class.

Links:

Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram

Benefits of Single Joint Exercises with Doug Larson, Travis Mash & Dr. Mike Lane #842 Apr 01, 2026

Show notes

In this episode, Doug Larson, Dr. Mike Lane, and Coach Travis Mash flip the usual strength conversation on its head and make the case for single joint training. Instead of focusing only on squats, deadlifts, cleans, and presses, they explain when movements like leg curls, calf raises, lateral raises, curls, triceps work, and hip isolation drills become incredibly valuable. The core idea is simple: compound lifts build the foundation, but single joint work helps fill in weak links, improve symmetry, and keep athletes healthy enough to keep progressing.

The conversation digs into where isolation work matters most. Mash shares how targeted hamstring work helped address knee pain and imbalance in an elite Olympic weightlifter already operating near the top of the sport. Mike explains that single joint training can deliver hypertrophy and tendon loading without the same global fatigue and axial stress that come with more heavy compound work. The group also connects the dots to sprinting, jumping, jiu-jitsu, and everyday adult performance, showing how training knee flexion, calves, tibialis anterior, glutes, shoulders, and other overlooked areas can improve resilience, movement quality, and injury prevention.

They also make a practical case for using isolation work in the real world, especially for busy lifters, aging athletes, and people training around pain or injury. A few hard sets at the end of a session can go a long way, and even one challenging set per week is dramatically better than doing nothing at all. Whether the goal is aesthetics, joint health, better activation, or simply staying in the game longer, this episode is a reminder that good programming is about context, not dogma. Single joint exercises are not a replacement for the basics, but used at the right time and in the right dose, they can be the difference between spinning your wheels and continuing to improve.

Links:

Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram

The 20-Rep Squat Method with Scott Charland, Doug Larson, Travis Mash & Dr. Mike Lane #841 Mar 25, 2026

Show notes

In this episode, Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mash, and Dr. Mike Lane sit down with longtime strength coach Scott Charland to unpack what it really takes to build athletes and build a sustainable career in strength and conditioning. Scott shares his path from collegiate strength coach to leading one of the most unusual and impressive sports performance models in the country at Parkview Sports Medicine, where a team of 24 strength coaches works alongside athletic trainers, physical therapists, nutritionists, and mental performance coaches to serve high schools, colleges, and youth athletes. The conversation highlights a major theme early: the high school setting is not the bottom of the profession, it may be the place that most needs elite coaches, clear boundaries, and a better quality of life.

From there, the group digs into one of Scott's signature training methods: a brutal but highly effective high-volume squat progression built around sets of 12, 15, 17, and eventually 20 reps in the back squat. Rather than rushing young athletes into heavy percentages, Charland argues that most high school and college athletes need more practice, more muscle, and more time under the bar before they ever need max-effort work. The crew breaks down why high-rep squatting can build technique, hypertrophy, work capacity, bracing, confidence, and mental toughness all at once. They also explain why so many coaches make the mistake of chasing record boards, maxes, and flashy methods too early, when what most athletes really need is development.

Finally, the conversation broadens into a bigger critique of the strength profession itself. Scott makes the case that many of the profession's problems come from poor boundaries, ego-driven career decisions, and a culture that glorifies burnout. Instead, he argues for clearly defined roles, better pay floors, healthier schedules, and more realistic career paths, especially at the high school and private-sector levels. If you care about athlete development, coaching careers, or how to build stronger athletes without skipping the foundation, this episode is a direct and practical reminder that more muscle, better movement, and smarter systems still win.

Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram

Culture, Buy-in and Stronger Athletes with Jeremy Carlson, Doug Larson, Travis Mash & Dr. Mike Lane #840 Mar 18, 2026

Show notes

In this episode of Barbell Shrugged, Doug Larson, Travis Mash, and Dr. Mike Lane sit down with Center College strength coach Jeremy Carlson to unpack how he built a high-functioning strength and conditioning culture at a small Division III school with limited staff, limited time, and one shared weight room. Jeremy explains how he went from being a former soccer player and CrossFit gym manager to launching Center's strength program at just 24 years old. What started as a scrappy operation with seven double-sided racks and hundreds of athletes eventually turned into one of the most organized and culture-driven systems in college strength and conditioning.

The conversation centers on Jeremy's unconventional model: instead of training athletes only by team, Center athletes train in mixed-group sessions across the day, with different sports sharing the same space while following sport-specific programming. That system not only solved a logistics problem, it helped create a true department-wide culture. Jeremy breaks down his three-part mission: prepare athletes for sport, build character, and give them the tools to become lifelong fitness enthusiasts. He also explains why simple programming still works incredibly well for most college athletes, especially when they are still relatively novice in the weight room. Rather than chasing complexity, he focuses on getting athletes stronger with basic lifts, teaching movement well, and making conditioning and change-of-direction work more specific to the sport.

The deeper takeaway from this episode is that great coaching is not just about sets and reps. Jeremy shares how consistency, standards, buy-in, and real human development matter more than flashy programming. He talks about teaching athletes to manage their own training, empowering upperclassmen to lead, and creating an environment where a golfer can confidently tell a lacrosse player to get off her assigned rack. The result is a system that develops stronger athletes, better habits, and more capable adults. If you care about coaching, leadership, culture building, or how to create excellence with constraints, this episode delivers a practical blueprint.

Links:

Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram

Performance Brain Health Part 2 with Dr. Tommy Wood, Doug Larson, Travis Mash & Dr. Mike Lane #839 Mar 11, 2026

Show notes

In this episode, Dr. Tommy Wood returns to Barbell Shrugged for part two of a deep conversation on brain health, cognitive decline, and the daily habits that shape long-term mental performance. Joined by Doug Larson, Travis Mash, and Dr. Mike Lane, Tommy unpacks why oral health matters far more than most people realize, explaining how gum disease, oral bacteria, and chronic inflammation may contribute not only to cardiovascular disease but also to dementia risk. The crew also digs into the importance of sensory input, from hearing and vision to social interaction, and how losing those inputs over time can quietly accelerate cognitive decline.

The conversation then shifts into sleep, where Tommy breaks down what actually matters most for protecting the brain. Rather than obsessing over perfect sleep scores or chasing an arbitrary eight-hour target, he argues that the biggest levers are sleep opportunity, regularity, and avoiding behaviors that wreck sleep architecture. The group explores the different roles of REM and deep sleep, how sleep supports emotional processing, learning, and metabolic cleanup in the brain, and why wearables can be useful for trends without being trusted too literally. They also cover naps, alcohol, caffeine, common sleep aids, magnesium, chamomile, and why worrying too much about sleep can itself become part of the problem.

Finally, the episode broadens into brain risk and brain resilience in the modern world. Tommy highlights major risk factors for cognitive decline including hearing loss, high blood pressure, diabetes, smoking, obesity, alcohol, air pollution, and toxic exposures like lead and other environmental contaminants. He also gives a nuanced take on technology, arguing that video games, digital tools, and even AI can be either brain-supportive or brain-eroding depending on how they are used. When technology expands your capabilities, it can sharpen cognition. When it replaces thinking entirely, it can weaken the very skills you are trying to preserve. This episode is a practical roadmap for anyone who wants to think more clearly, age better, and protect their brain with smarter everyday decisions.

Links:

Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram

Bodyweight Supplement Dosing: Creatine, Caffeine, Beta-Alanine and More with Doug Larson, Travis Mash & Dr. Mike Lane #838 Mar 04, 2026

Show notes

In this episode, Doug Larson sits down with Coach Travis Mash and Dr. Mike Lane to challenge the "one-size-fits-all" approach to supplement dosing. They break down why most labels are effectively written for an average-sized person, and why that matters when you're 100 pounds soaking wet, or a 300-pound lineman. Using real stories (like a 450 mg caffeine pre-workout for a small athlete and the classic "I couldn't sleep" aftermath), the crew lays out a simple north star: doses should scale with body weight, and you should take an amount specific to your body size.

From there, they get practical on what works, what's overhyped, and how to time things. Dr. Lane explains beta-alanine as an intramuscular buffer (via carnosine) that helps athletes push harder in the anaerobic "pain cave," but only if it's taken consistently for weeks, not as a one-off. They compare that to sodium bicarbonate as a more acute strategy that can help performance but comes with GI risk if you don't practice it ahead of time. Along the way, they call out a common industry trap: under-dosed formulas, proprietary blends, and products that sound impressive but contain amounts too small to matter.

They wrap by narrowing down the essentials: creatine as a daily staple for most people (and potentially higher doses for cognitive benefits, especially under sleep deprivation), plus basics like protein and targeted use of supplements based on training demands. The conversation also goes deep on magnesium, why many people are likely low, how it supports relaxation and recovery, and why the form matters (bisglycinate/threonate etc). The big takeaway: match the supplement to the goal, match the dose to the body, and build your plan on quality ingredients, effective amounts and repeatable habits.

Links:

Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Barbell Shrugged

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected