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douglaselarson

@douglaselarson

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Barbell Shrugged
RAPID Health Optimization
BS and MS in Kinesiology
Jiu Jitsu Black Belt
Diesel Dad to 3 boys 🤨🤓😏

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

868 - Training for MMA and BJJ

In this episode, Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mash, and Dr. Mike Lane break down strength and conditioning for MMA and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, with a heavy emphasis on building speed and power endurance. Doug shares lessons from his own fighting and coaching experience, including structures and routines for heavy bag intervals and a simple way to progress on fight specific conditioning. The crew discusses aerobic fitness, recovery between rounds, and why your conditioning needs to reflect the muscles, movements and pace you actually use when competing.

They discuss assessing and developing strength, mobility and work capacity. They also explain why strength cannot replace technical skill, especially in jiu-jitsu, and how confidence in your defense can help you commit to your offense. If you train or coach combat sports, this episode will help you identify what is holding you back and make your work in the gym support your performance on the mat or in the ring.

Link in bio to listen 🎤

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867 - Elite Athletes and Special Ops w/ Robb Rogers

In this episode, veteran strength coach Robb Rogers joins Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mash, and Dr. Mike Lane to explore what decades of coaching collegiate athletes, professional teams, and military operators can teach us about building lasting performance. From the St. Louis Blues to special warfare, Robb explains what elite performers share, how tactical demands change the training equation, and why trust and personal accountability are essential to effective coaching. He shares how he builds programs with experienced athletes and chooses exercises around the person, their goals, and the demands they need to meet.

The conversation turns to getting stronger while keeping the ability to move well. The crew discusses the trade-offs of training to failure, using jumps to assess readiness, and maintaining mobility, elasticity, and movement skills alongside heavy lifting. Robb explains why the movement pattern matters more than the implement, while Travis and Mike share how a narrow focus on powerlifting affected their own athleticism. Whether you coach high performers or want to stay capable as you age, this episode offers practical ways to make your training carry over beyond the weight room.

Link in bio.

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I’ve been a fan of velocity-based training since I first experimented with it in 2005. After three four-week blocks, I hit PRs across my weightlifting and powerlifting lifts while really enjoying the training itself. It felt like I was running sprints in the weight room. Full speed, not to failure, full rest. Fun and effective. The work felt easier on my body, yet I felt faster and more explosive than I had before. So getting to sit down with Dr. Bryan Mann, the person who brought VBT into the mainstream, was a conversation I’d been looking forward to for many years.

We talk about where velocity tracking adds value, how the approach can fit different athletes, when it’s useful, when it’s unnecessary, measurement devices, and how to use it for maximum results in strength and power development. I came away reminded why I’ve loved this style of training for so long.

Link in bio, enjoy!

-Doug

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#865 - Built to Last: Strength, Recovery, and Return to Performance w/ Brian Newman

Brian Newman joins Doug Larson and Dr. Mike Lane to talk about getting stronger, recovering from hard training, and staying healthy enough to keep doing what you love. Brian spent years working in professional baseball and now leads health, performance, and safety for Fort Worth Fire. He explains how he trains firefighters who don’t have an off-season and might get called out in the middle of a workout. We talk about moving in heavy gear, building a program around the squat, hinge, push, pull, and carry, and why getting crushed by a workout doesn’t necessarily mean you’re getting better.

We also get into what it takes to come back from an injury and perform well again. Brian explains why wearable data needs a coach’s eye, how to adjust training when recovery falls behind, and why strength coaches and medical staff need to stay in touch through rehab.

Link in bio to listen 🎤

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Your strength is holding. Is your speed?

Dr. Andy Fry describes studies where sprint performance slowed while maximal strength held up. If your sport depends on speed, the weight on the bar doesn’t tell the whole story.

Track a familiar speed or power test consistently. If performance trends down, review your training load and recovery. One off day does not prove overtraining.

Swipe through, then hear the full conversation on Barbell Shrugged, Episode 864.

Link in bio to listen 🎤

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“Speed is the first thing to go.” -Dr. Andy Fry

When you’re overtrained, speed can drop even while your strength holds up. Keep this in mind if your sport depends specifically on speed.

Doing a daily readiness test, such as a vertical jump, could be a helpful way to detect early fatigue because it may show up days or weeks before you start missing heavy reps.

Hear the full conversation with Dr. Andy Fry on Barbell Shrugged, Episode 864.

Link in bio to listen 🎤

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Ep 864 - Strength and Conditioning Industry Pioneer w/ Dr. Andy Fry

This week on Barbell Shrugged, we welcome Dr. Andy Fry to the show. Dr. Fry is a pioneer and legend in the world of strength and conditioning and someone who helped shape my career long before this podcast existed. He served as an advisor and mentor to both me and Dr. Andy Galpin during our early years at the University of Memphis.

He's one of the most impressive scientists in the industry, with approximately 300 research papers produced by him and his teams over the years, all dedicated to learning what really works to improve human performance. He's done more than almost anyone on the planet to push the industry forward. He's a true professional, an excellent scientist and educator, an overall great guy, and someone for whom I have an enormous amount of respect.

If you're curious about where the science and practice of strength training started and how it has improved and evolved over the years, this episode is for you. Enjoy the show!

Link in bio to listen 🎤

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#863 - From Competitor to Recreational Athlete w/ Gini Grimsley (@ginigrimsley)

Former Division I and professional basketball player Gini Grimsley joins Doug Larson, Travis Mash, and Dr. Mike Lane to discuss one of the hardest transitions in fitness: going from competitive athlete to normal life without losing the identity, structure, and physical capability that sports provided. Gini explains why former athletes often struggle to stop comparing themselves to their younger selves—and how the desire to prove what they can still do can lead to unnecessary pain, injury, and frustration. The team explores how athletes can redirect their competitive drive, establish new performance goals, and build a training routine around who they are today.

Gini also breaks down her current approach to lifelong athleticism, including strength training, conditioning, plyometrics, unilateral movements, rotational work, and reactive activities such as pickleball. She explains how modifying exercises can preserve intensity while reducing orthopedic stress, why adults should rebuild tissue tolerance before jumping into races or high-volume programs, and how smart assessments can prevent trainers from overwhelming unprepared clients. Whether you are a former athlete or simply want to remain strong, fast, and capable as you age, this episode offers a practical framework for training hard without allowing your ego to destroy your body.

Link in bio to listen 🎤

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Ep 862 - Coaching Behavior Change w/ Cody McBroom

Cody McBroom (@codymcbroom) joins Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mash, and Dr. Mike Lane to break down what separates a list of exercises from real coaching. As a strength coach, online coaching business owner, and host of the Choose Hard podcast, Cody works with “advanced general population” clients who have tried to train and diet but still cannot connect the dots. The crew gets practical about why many people fail to progress: they are training too far from true effort, cutting ranges of motion short, or following a program without understanding how hard the work should feel. Cody explains how thoughtful exercise selection, rep ranges, video feedback, and clear progression can help online coaches create programs that are harder to misinterpret—and more likely to produce results.

The conversation then moves past macros and reps into the real challenge of coaching: behavior change. Cody shares his framework for helping clients build self-control, self-discipline, self-belief, and ultimately self-respect by tying health goals to their core values and creating evidence through small, kept promises. They unpack how to handle all-or-nothing thinking, why accountability has to lead to a specific action plan, and how coaches can ask better questions instead of settling for “I’ll try harder.” Whether you coach athletes, general-population clients, or yourself, this episode offers a sharper way to turn good intentions into lasting habits and sustainable results.

Link in bio to listen 🎤

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Ep 861 - From Paralympian to 10-Time CrossFit Games Champion w/ Thomas Miazga (@tommiazga)

In this episode, 10-time CrossFit Games champion Thomas Miazga joins Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mash, and Dr. Mike Lane to share the extraordinary path that took him from a childhood shaped by cerebral palsy to the Paralympic Games, elite adaptive CrossFit competition, and beyond. Tom reflects on discovering freedom and athletic identity in the water, qualifying for the 2008 Beijing Paralympics just 18 months after returning to competitive swimming, and how a devastatingly close miss for the London Games eventually led him toward coaching, CrossFit, and a new definition of what was possible.

The crew also digs into the practical side of training an adaptive athlete: building strength around the individual, managing high upper-body training volume, using stable equipment to create safe loading opportunities, and prioritizing training economy over unnecessary technical complexity. Tom explains how CrossFit transformed his independence in daily life, helped him become a 10-time Games champion, and continues to fuel his pursuit of HYROX, Ironman racing, and long-term health. Most importantly, this is a conversation about refusing to let a diagnosis, a scoreboard, or someone else’s expectations define your potential.

Link in bio to listen 🎤

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Episode 860 - Live More, Hurt Less w/ Dr. Sean Pastuch (@drseanpastuch)

Dr. Sean Pastuch sits down with Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mash, and Dr. Mike Lane to talk about what he’s learned the hard way about chronic pain, discipline and how to get back to training pain free. Pulling from his new book *Live More, Hurt Less*, Sean breaks down why so many lifters end up organizing their entire life around avoiding pain, and how that strategy inevitably makes training less fun than it used to be.

He shares his own story of dealing with seven years of debilitating neck pain, and how nothing changed until he finally had a compelling reason to change it. That meant hiring a coach, getting serious about sleep and nutrition, delegating the stressors he was carrying, and making recovery the highest priority in his life.

The conversation digs into how the story you tell yourself, the things you do every day, and the people you surround yourself with either reinforce your limitations or help you take your agency back. Sean gets practical about how to actually talk to doctors so you can get what you need, as well as how to set real expectations between coaches and clients.

The team also gets into what ethical sales actually looks like in coaching, why good coaches need to screen for real commitment, and how the best practitioners stay directionally correct without pretending they have all the answers. If pain, fear, or stagnation has made your world smaller than you want it to be, this episode lays out a framework for rebuilding capacity, getting stronger, restoring confidence, and getting back to the things that actually matter to you.

Link in bio to listen 🎤

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Ep 859 - Blood Flow Restriction with Dr. Michael MacPherson

In this episode of Barbell Shrugged, blood flow restriction specialist Dr. Michael MacPherson joins Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mash, and Dr. Mike Lane to break down how BFR training can be used for far more than post-injury rehabilitation. Michael explains how strategically restricting blood flow creates a hypoxic environment that increases type II muscle fiber recruitment, metabolic stress, and cellular swelling—even when training with relatively light loads. The result is a powerful tool for building or maintaining strength and muscle while reducing the mechanical stress placed on joints and connective tissue. They also discuss limb occlusion pressure, why cuff design matters, and why modern BFR protocols don’t need to be brutally painful to work.

The conversation expands into practical applications for athletes, lifters, and anyone looking to improve performance or recovery. Michael explains how BFR walking, cycling, leg curls, Nordics, plyometrics, and even passive recovery sessions can be incorporated into training, with walking protocols as simple as 10–15 minutes at roughly 30–60% limb occlusion pressure. The team also explores how BFR may help athletes strengthen commonly neglected areas like the hamstrings without adding significant training fatigue, making it especially useful during heavy training blocks, travel, injury rehabilitation, and return-to-play programs. Whether you’re trying to add muscle, protect irritated joints, improve conditioning, or address weak links without piling on more heavy loading, this episode provides a practical framework for adding BFR to your training.

Link in bio to listen 🎤

Also, use the discount code “ClinicalBFR” to save 15% at AirBandsBFR.com and 15% at Saga.Fitness

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