Hey, Athletes! Where do you place the bar when you squat? Are you a high bar or low bar kind of lifter? This week we talk about bar position and if it matters on the squat!
Episode 89 of The Garage Gym Athlete Podcast is up!
How Much Does Bar Position Matter On The Squat?
In this week’s episode of the Garage Gym Athlete podcast our favorite three guys are back. They give us their weekly updates and announcements before they dive into this week’s study. It’s on bar position and if it really does affect your squat. For this week’s topic it’s a fun one! If you could only train using 5 Meet Yourself Saturday workouts, which 5 would you choose? Lastly, this week’s Meet Yourself Saturday Workout is what the RUCK!?
If you haven’t already, be sure to subscribe to the Garage Gym Athlete podcast either on Stitcher, iTunes, or Google Play by using the link below:
IN THIS 60-MINUTE EPISODE WE DISCUSS:
- How Much Does Bar Position Matter
- Shrums May Be Moving!!
- What the RUCK!?
- High Bar vs. Low Bar
- What 5 MYS Would You Train With
- Tips For MYS
- Updates and Announcements
- And A LOT MORE!!
Diving Deeper
If you want to go a little bit deeper on this episode, here are some links for you:
Study of the Week
Garage Gym Athlete Workout of the Week
Be sure to listen to this week’s episode:
Related Resources at End of Three Fitness:
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Thanks for listening to the podcast, and if you have any questions be sure to add it to the comments below!
To becoming better!
Jerred
Transcript:
Jerred Moon
All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the garage, a mathlete podcast Jerred Moon here with Kyle Shrum and Joe Courtney. No actually again,
Joe Courtney
sorry. Hello, everyone doing women’s APPRECIATION MONTH right? Apparently
Kyle Shrum
you did it.
Jerred Moon
You went to having no women on the podcast.
Joe Courtney
Just give her her time off. That’s it. Oh,
Kyle Shrum
my gosh,
Jerred Moon
yeah, she’ll be back. She’ll be back. And we will be glad to have her back. But our toddler very interesting today. And she did send in her info. So I will be sharing that.
Kyle Shrum
So we are not forcing her to be off the podcast for the record.
Jerred Moon
Like Yeah, just so we’re clear.
Kyle Shrum
Just Just to clear that up. Yeah.
Jerred Moon
All right. Let me get into the podcast. So well, my first shout out is going to be it’s kind of a blanket shout out. But specifically, I’m gonna go with Tynan roll Linder. He’s been on the podcast few times. He’s been to the coaching course. Awesome, dude. But he’s doing the Murph project. So if you’re not familiar, the Murph project, it’s the workout Murph once a week for a year, and he’s getting close to finishing it. So as a lot of the Murph crew, there are a lot of people doing this project. Now. It’s pretty crazy. Yeah, and so the whole community, if you’re doing it, awesome, if you want to get started, I know some people were like, three, and now they just started. wherever you’re at, some people are finishing, they started before some of the Murph crew. People did and just good on you. If you’re doing it, it’s a challenge. And I Kyle and Joe told me before the podcast that they were also going to start the merch project.
Kyle Shrum
That is why those
Jerred Moon
straight lines I just want them to. So that’s my shout out tiny and specifically, we are having the Murph crew back on the podcast in a couple weeks. So that will be cool. But today, as far as content, we are going over the study of the effects of barbell placement on kinematics and muscle activation around the sticking region in squats. So really, we’re looking at high bar versus low bar back squat, which we talk about a decent amount people ask me questions about there are often internet arguments about this. And just so we’re clear, I don’t care. There we go. I don’t care what your someone on Instagram told you or whatever, I just don’t care. I don’t care at all about you arguing with me on squat position, just so we’re clear. But I will tell you what the science says about all these things. And we can we can get into that a little bit more. The topic is what I’m most interested in to get into today. So you know how we asked a lot of questions. The you know, the end of the an athlete interviews, we have like a set of questions that we asked, you know, hardest workout you’ve ever done, and mental toughness, best advice all these things? I would like to add this one, but it’s a little it’s pretty in depth. So I don’t think I will. But I would like for you guys to participate. And so this one, the topic is if you could only train with five workouts for the rest of your life, what would they be with another asterisk that they have to be meet yourself Saturday workouts. So if we had to pick five, meet yourself Saturday workouts, and that had to be our training schedule for the rest of our lives, which five, meet yourself Saturday workouts? Would we pick? And we want to get the community involved in this conversation. So go in the Facebook group. This is published on Monday on Tuesday, Kyle will be kind of putting the question in the group. And we’d like to get a thread going of what your top five pick would be. So Kyle will post that question, you guys add it to the comments if you’re in the group. If you’re not in the group, go to garage gym, athlete.com, sign up for a 14 day free trial. And you can join our closed group and participate in this conversation. But I’m really interested to see what people pick. I also don’t know what Kyle has picked, or Joe has picked. And they don’t know what I’ve picked. So this will be an interesting conversation on what we picked and why. So we might go over the study a little bit faster today, which is going to be fine with me. Because if I sounded like got a chip on my shoulder about the squat, it’s because I’ve just had so many little comments and emails and Instagram messages and comments and stuff over the years about these things that I just don’t actually care about. Like, I’ve had people, like rip on me for having a dead man’s grip on pull ups versus wrapping my thumb around the bar or doing a certain type of M like, Why do you care? And then they tag other people in the comments. And they’re like, hey, so and so what do you think about Jared thing? And I’m like, Who cares? Like why does anyone care as much about this stuff? I think it’s cool to go over the science and I get into it a little bit more. But ultimately, all these things come down to personal choices, right? And that’s gonna, you know, spoiler alert, spoiler alert, kind of the takeaway for it, but we’ll get into the science a little more for that updates. Joe, how’s life
Joe Courtney
uneventful. I was not turned off by that. It was a quick change of direction. Fast. And yeah. I said that last week that I like it fast and loose. There we go. So not much. Trains fine, it’s good. It’s we’re ending the cycle, I’m feeling like I’m ending the cycle strong. So finishing up strong on strength, and I’m actually pretty excited to test retest few things on when it comes to fit week, especially my squat, I did press last time, I’m not sure if I’m gonna do it again. It’s kind of been not too great lately, but squats been feeling really, really good. And also, at the end of this cycle, as of this week, I believe that’ll be my last week, or our our last week model is is counting macros. And it’s been about four months of us counting macros, which it seems thinking back on it, I never thought I’d you know, just do it for four months, but it just it just became like a normal thing. And it wasn’t very invasive, you know, basically all we eat, we’re just either shakes, or just put everything in a bowl and stir it up. And that’s it. Just you know, macro soup, basically. But it worked out great. And I think it’s just time to break away from that and not rely on weighing everything. And I think it’s almost, I’m almost like not not worried, but it’s almost gonna be weird to just not weigh anything and everything. But I think I have a, you know, after several months, everything I have a pretty good grasp on on what I should be doing and eating. And so that’s that’s the main changes going on.
Jerred Moon
That’s why I like a good 12 week macro challenge for anybody, because if you’ve never done it before, you probably hardly pay attention to serving sizes at all. And so even if you do it for 30 days, like it’ll just give you a really good reset. Or gauge of like what something how many calories are in something, what an actual serving size is the big one that always gets people’s like almond butter or peanut butter. You know, like two tablespoons? not actually a lot, you know. And you probably eat like nine tablespoons if you were to do it on your own. So it’s good to go over those things. So I think doing it forever. Just would drain me mentally.
Joe Courtney
Yeah, I think I need to break away from it. And the fact that I’m like, double thinking it means I probably should stop anyway, because it’s just been so long with it. I think I just need to go back to be normal about eating but I kind of it’s it’s simple, how we how we’ve been doing things anyway. So it’s it’s not a big deal, but kind of happy for Kyle, what’s new with you?
Kyle Shrum
We are potentially you’re going to be moving houses in the next month or so.
Jerred Moon
Next month or so that’s fast. Yeah. Yeah.
Joe Courtney
Oh, so well to the devil.
Kyle Shrum
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. The student moves a house in like a week. Now, I’m trying to get something with a little more space. Get me out of the basement in an office in a garage. Yeah, an office in a garage. Yep. So my man unbelievable. Become a true garage, gym athlete and actually have the gym in the garage instead of in the basement. But
Jerred Moon
yeah, sure. I get excited when people are buying houses. I’d like to buy houses.
Kyle Shrum
Sure. You know, if you want to, if you want to contribute to the budget as well. Yeah, you know, I’ll put the downpayment. I’ll well, I’ll welcome that. Yeah, so anyway, potential potential big moves there.
Jerred Moon
That’s awesome. That’s huge news, man. Congrats on Yeah, even starting that process.
Kyle Shrum
Yeah, so I forgot that it’s been almost six years since we bought this house and I forgot all of the thing paperwork that goes into
Jerred Moon
you know, when the last time I lived in a house for six years. Never since I was born since I was born, I have not lived in a house for six years or one spot for six years because my dad was a military I was in the military and then after the military i don’t i was like you know pretend to be in the military.
Kyle Shrum
I don’t just keep moving. Yeah, well, you’re building an HQ now so hopefully you’re gonna stick around this
Jerred Moon
house will be six years. I say 99% chance. Yeah, always leave some room for who knows what happened six years a long time?
Kyle Shrum
Yeah, well, we bought this one in a good time in a buyer’s market and now it’s a really hot seller’s market. So we’ve got got a good opportunity here to come out on top with a with a bigger place so
Jerred Moon
so this might be an off the record conversation. But if you’re gonna put your house up for purchase, might as well just come to Texas, maybe I get you out this way.
Kyle Shrum
Yeah, and I can I can steal Ashley’s office before she gets out. There
Joe Courtney
you go. First come first serve.
Kyle Shrum
She’s not here to defend ourselves. So
Joe Courtney
and as far as being a garage, gym athlete, I’m still not a garage, gym athlete. I don’t know when I will be Have you ever been. I don’t think you’ve technically ever know. Never had been I’ve worked out in jarrods various garages more than I have my own. So and I worked out in three of his garages, I think at least wait for for now for the last four houses I’ve been in worked out in your gym, but I don’t have my own garage setup still, but probably when we get back to the states
Kyle Shrum
in like, 10 years. That’s a year away.
Joe Courtney
18 months. Yeah.
Jerred Moon
It’s gonna go by fast. I’m excited to get you all the Texas. Yeah, if you didn’t hear. You don’t have to wear a mask in Texas anymore, especially when this is published.
Joe Courtney
In a couple days, Governor just pulled that out.
Jerred Moon
And anyway,
Kyle Shrum
I heard they’re trying to scare all the Californians away. I was taken away not to
Joe Courtney
say that but I don’t want to start anything, Kyle.
Kyle Shrum
I don’t know what they’ve already started something with the women’s Appreciation Month. So man getting so much trouble. This is what happens in Nashville is not here. We get it.
Jerred Moon
All right. All right, Jerry, what’s going on update updates. For me nothing major I they’re making more progress on the on the office that I’m building that could keep me here for six years. So that’s good. I’ll shoot pictures, eventually, once they get the framing up. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks, I think that’ll be cool. I’ll throw it in the group. But I’ve stopped fasting, which I’ve been fasting for a very long time, like years. But I’m still carbohydrate fasting, but I just wasn’t I was getting so bad about feeding myself. Like, to where I was in caloric deficits. I didn’t, I didn’t track necessarily like probably you’re tracking Joe. I was like after the fact tracking. So it’s not 100% accurate, cuz I didn’t weigh and measure as I was going, but then I would like kind of calculate what you eat today. And I don’t know, I just get busy, like, you know, with work. And then after work, sometimes we have like two different soccer practices to go to, and then we’re back and it’s just, I’m not gonna eat this huge meal, right for bed. And so I was like, but this has been happening for several weeks. And I was like, you’re just not eating enough. This is not good, you know. And so the only real change is, I added bulletproof coffee back, which I don’t think is like a magical thing. But it’s a good way to get a good amount of healthy fats. And I put protein in bulletproof coffee as well protein with no carbohydrates. And so it’s still like a carbohydrate fast. So I still feel great in the morning. But yeah, as of right now, I’m no longer doing my intermittent fasting. And I feel great. I feel fine. Feel basically the same. I just need more calories. So I’m gonna be doing that.
Joe Courtney
So what hour mark, are you having yours? Do you know? Having bulletproof coffee?
Jerred Moon
Yeah. Like how long had I been fasted?
Joe Courtney
Like? Yeah, I guess like 12 hour marker or so?
Jerred Moon
Um, yeah, I’d said faster that like the probably 13 hours to 14 hours before I have bulletproof coffee. It’s still pretty exciting.
Joe Courtney
Yeah, I actually have to consciously think about doing longer ones on days on my train later or not at all. Because I think actually, as of right now, every day, it’s basically 14 hour fast. I don’t I train and then I don’t have my shake until about nine o’clock. So that’s but like, on the on the weekends, I try to fit in ones longer, like going at least till 16. But I don’t know if like 14 counts as much of a fast or
Jerred Moon
I mean, to be honest, 12 is good. I didn’t know the American public got up in the middle of the night to eat until I read some research on that. But uh, so yeah, we’re doing great. But 12 hours is awesome. So yeah, I was averaging 16 to 18 every day. And now I’m just going down to, let’s just say 12 to 14. But my goal is to work in more 24 hour fasts occasionally. And be real intentional about those. Because I also don’t, I’m not I wasn’t seeing I see zero benefit from the 16 hour fast. I mean, I don’t. When I first did it, I felt like I saw some benefits as far as like mental clarity. And I felt better. I felt like helped me with blood sugar issues. But now I just feel like I’m kind of in maintenance mode, I didn’t feel a lot of benefit from doing it. Other than I don’t even feel hungry at the end of my fast anymore. It’s like my, some weird, you know, I used to be starving. So I think I’ve reset a lot of good things. And it was good, but I’m going to stop for a while see how eating more calories does. Nice. Alright, let’s get into the study. So again, we’re talking about pretty much bar position, high bar versus low bar. And they looked at kinematics in mind saying that right? Yeah, and muscle activity around the sticking region of the squat. So they had 10 competitive male power lifters who completed this study. They were all capable of squatting at least 1.5 times body mass to legal power lifting depth. All the subject use both high bar and low bar squats in their training. And, Kyle to your point, I don’t know if you had it in your notes, but they were looking primarily at the kinematics. And then they found more about muscle activity. So I’ll let you talk about that. If that was one of your points there, but they really just had some familiarization visits, and then they they worked up to 90% of their predicted five rep max in high bar and low bar positions. How they executed it, I don’t think is that important. Just know that they were testing both of those things at higher loads. And then they would look at the overall like, angles of everything, but then also the muscle activity with an EMG to see what is more activated during the different squats. And here is the actual takeaway from the study. It says when depth and stance with were matched, the low bar technique was associated with lower erector spine a and quadriceps activity than the high bar technique. Thus, when the goal is to maximally maximally activate knee extensors, and the external load is matched, high bar placement would appear preferable. So that’s that, as far as EMG activity, high bar has a slight edge over low bar, which will piss off a lot of power lifters if you say anything like that. But what do you guys, what takeaways Did you guys have from this study? It’s fairly basic.
Joe Courtney
Yeah, I do high bar personally. So I guess I’ll just say that I’ve tried low bar and I don’t mind it, it kind of one of my shoulders, I just bad mobility, it’s harder to get in position. So that’s one limitation for a low bar, if you’re debating on it between. I noticed in the study that they had, they had them do the high bar and the low bar. But there’s also mentioned that they had to keep their feet placement the same. And I was curious as to why that is because if I remember correctly, when I did low bar, my feet would actually go out wider than we do in hire,
Jerred Moon
I found that very interesting, too. Because if I were to be coaching someone on the squat, and I could talk more about this, but I would, I would focus way more on your stance, when you set up, over whether you’re doing high bar low bar, like Where will your feet position on the ground, I would focus so much more time on that over doing high bar low bar. And so I thought that was interesting too, because you typically take a slightly wider stance with low bar,
Joe Courtney
yeah, I, I changed my position now like even during the workout or like workout to workout, if like, when my low back is having a little more tightness, then I’ll go a narrower stance and put more load onto my quads. Because my ankles mobility still find that way. Or, you know, vice versa. Sometimes if I go heavier, I might go to a little bit of a wider stance depends on the day. But I think that, you know, fluidity is something that would be good for people to to kind of play around with that’s, sometimes people post their their squat videos, it’s one of the first things that I’ll either correct whether it’s their heel position or, or their feet or whatever versus worried about what they’re doing with the bar. But another cool, one or least one cool thing I noticed with the study was the velocity, how they were taking it in relation to the sticking points, that was kind of cool, how it was measured. I didn’t really get a lot out of the data from that. But it was but it might be cool. If you could see which one you’re you’re coming out of the squat and change direction better at. But in the end of the day, I think it’s it’s not a huge difference. But I personally think that high bar most people should do but because low bar, in a way is more technical. And what what I mean with that is that you want to make sure you’re strong enough in the low back and posterior chain region to doing low bar versus overloading it and possibly hurting yourself. So I think you should have some experience before going to low bar that Oh, but starting off, and for most people, I think high bar is the best overall. But either way, it’s kind of just like splitting hairs is if we’re kind of being honest. And for our training in general as well. Another small bits is low bar, you don’t need as much ankle mobility. So if you really suffer with ankle mobility, low bar might be a decent option for you. And but I also mentioned the shoulder mobility point, but I will turn it over to Kyle see what he has,
Kyle Shrum
I think with the with the stance issue they were trying to they were trying to eliminate discrepancies as much as possible and just and just try to see, you know, try to see how things how things were working in the different bar positions versus, you know, everything else that was happening, but I also see how that would kind of skew the results because normally people are going to take a wider stance with low bar and so if you really want to see you know, the differences and see, you know, that may have actually had a bigger impact on on the results if they had actually let people do the wider stance with the low bar and they may have seen some different results. But something I found interesting was it seemed like it they said, low descent velocity has a negative effect on the sticking region. So correct me if I’m wrong on this. And I could be, but it seems like going slower on the way up? Or was it no going slower on the way down? That’s descent velocity, going slower on the way down has a negative effect on the sticking region? So if I’m correct, that means going slower on the way down makes it harder to stand back up with it.
Jerred Moon
Is that what that means? Yeah, that’s essentially what they’re saying.
Kyle Shrum
So I know, I know, for me when things start to get heavy, and it’s, it’s something that I had to try to force myself not to do, and I’ve been focusing on it with BCT. If it’s heavy, I tend to try to go slower on the way down, because I don’t want to like I don’t have to, yeah, I just, you know, I don’t want to just drop. But it’s like that also, going slower on the way down also makes it harder in a sticky region sustained a backup. And so if there’s a way where you can get yourself trained to a point where you can go a little bit faster, on the way down, not just dropping, not just you know, dropping straight to the bottom. But if you can go a little bit faster on the way down, and kind of get a little bounce, I guess, on the on the bottom end, it’ll help you on this on this sticking region, that was just something interesting that, that they found with the low descent velocity. But we all know about the sticking region, right? Like, with the with the back squat, like if you do if you’ve done a lot of back squats in training, you know what that sticking region is like, you get to that point where you’re coming back out of it. And you’re like, oh, man, this gets really, really tough. And that’s what they were trying to test was is there a difference in the kinematics of high bar versus low bar, and they found that there was basically no difference with high bar and low bar when it comes to the sticking region is so when the kinematics and the sticking region, but they did find, and it’s, it almost seemed like accidentally, they found that there’s more muscle activation with the high bar than there is with the low bar. But it actually seemed like, they found that a low bar was safer for your lower back. And it seems, and I believe, it’s simply because the weight is closer to your lower back. And so it’s not having to strain as much to hold the weight in place. I my my personal choice is high bar, that’s just what I’ve always done. And I tried some low bar for a couple of weeks on BCT. And I just didn’t stick with it, I don’t think it’s I don’t think it’s I think it really was just a preference thing for me, I just prefer the high bar. But with VCT trying to squat as much as possible. So maybe I should just go back and try to try to train a low bar and, and get get to that point where I can be comfortable with it. But from what I can tell, it seems like the takeaway from the study is if you want more muscle activation, go with high bar. And if you want more just raw strength go with low bar, but I feel like there’s a lot of people, I feel like the general population just doesn’t do low bar very much. I feel like you kind of have to be in that powerlifting world to even really know what a low bar squat is. And, and so I feel like it’s just something that’s unfamiliar to people. And so if you’re gonna switch over to a low bar, it sounds cool to you to switch to the low bar, and potentially, you know, increase your one rep max a little faster and all that kind of stuff. Just do some do some research on it and probably get some coaching on on the low bar squat. Because it is a different it is a different position. It’s a bit different technique. And so don’t go out there and hurt yourself just trying to change your BB session and add some weight to your one rep max. But like Jared said, it’s up to you. It’s up to you which one you want to use. Yeah, power lifters get really, really defensive of the low bar. They own a squat, almost exclusively use it, I would say is a low bar. But I think having both in your arsenal, having both tools in your toolbox is always going to be good. And leads to you being a more well rounded athlete, which is what we’re looking for. Anyway, if you can do both, I think that’s gonna be gonna be good for you as well.
Jerred Moon
I really feel like this study just opens me up to talk about how much I hate powerlifting
Joe Courtney
I just love
Kyle Shrum
that one out of the part.
Jerred Moon
Yeah. So I don’t hate the low bar back squat. I don’t have any problems with that. But when you look at powerlifting I just find it such a weird, and it’s it’s become worse and worse for me like the sport gets weirder and weirder to me. Because when you see people at the end of their powerlifting careers, they’re broken, getting hip replacements at the age of 42. And like all these stupid things, and I I don’t even get it anymore. I used to be like, yeah, you know, like, that’s the cost of, you know, being great or whatever. But no, I don’t, I don’t get it anymore. You make basically no money. Being at the very top end of being a power lifter, and no one will remember your name. Like we had that conversation about some of these things with people at Louie Simmons gym. They’re like, that’s immortality. It’s like, You’re lucky I even saw this like, I mean, I’m into fitness quite a bit. So anyway, I won’t hate on powerlifting too much. They are they do prefer the low bar back squat. There are a lot of benefits to it. So I do think you mentioned the lower back, like, if you have to keep your spine upright more in the squat position. That’s just gonna be a lot more on your spinal erectors. Right. So there’s a lot more activity there. That makes sense. And there’s a lot more quad dominance here. I have a lot more respect for Olympic weightlifters See, I don’t hate the I don’t I don’t even like Olympic weightlifting. But I don’t hate it. I don’t hate on them at all. Because I truly respect that sport. I respect their mobility in their strength that those those top athletes are absolutely impressive to me. Power lifters doing some, they’re trying to cheat angles as much as they can and like go like, lift as much weight with as little movement as possible. That’s the game of powerlifting. And that’s not the game with Olympic weightlifting. Sumo. Yeah, like I think that it’s it’s kind of weird to me how different the sports are. But I think I prefer high bar, I’m a high bar squatter I’ve tried low bar, it’s fine. I don’t, I don’t like it as much. Yeah, ultimately, I do think it comes down to what you want to do. If you prefer a low bar, then do that, if you prefer high bar, then do that. I think high bar builds better athletic positions. But I don’t have a problem with a wider stance. And this is where I think people actually want to argue but they start arguing high bar low bar, because you can do a high bar or low bar with a narrower or wider stance. And I think that the wider your stance are, the more you’re going to build your hips and the stronger your hips are, we talked about this all the time, you know, the more athletic you’re going to be the more power you can generate. So within whether you pick low bar high bar, which I think should be based off of a comfort level, you know what is more comfortable for you to do. Do what Joe’s doing like expect, like experiment with these different positions or different stances trying to go wider or narrower. Because Louie Simmons always says that wider, will build narrow, but narrow will not build wide. Now, I don’t know if he has any science behind that. But he has a ton of experience behind that. So I’ll go with what he says is being true. So I i experiment with wider stances as well, because I have a fairly narrow stance, I’m incredibly narrow stance on the deadlift, and kind of narrow stance on the squat. And so I like to go out and you can feel the difference in your hips, when your hips are stronger, a lot of the things are stronger. And another cue I like to give people with squatting is pushing your feet apart and not down. And I think if you could do that, just an actually feel like you’re trying to push your feet apart when your squat, start with lighter weight. And try that just try that mentally. And see how that feels. And what you’re going to do is you’re going to end up engaging your hips a lot more and the movement and you’ll understand the difference between being quad dominant, using the hips a little bit more taking pressure off your lower back, and all these things. So I think there are a lot of other ways to improve the squat that aren’t necessarily low bar high bar, if I had to pick one, I’m going to pick high bar every single time. Just because the low bars kind of is just weird. To me, it goes back to the the power lifting thing is like, how can I lifted the most weight with the smallest amount of movement possible. And that’s not really what I’m trying to do, I’m not just trying to load up a bunch of weight, like it probably would be helpful in lifting 500 pounds for PCT. Right? But I don’t really care. Like I want to be well rounded, I want to be athletic, I wanna be able to jump and run and be healthy. So up to you, as far as the study says, more muscle activity in the high bar. But it’s not a big difference.
Joe Courtney
pushing your heels out, not your not your toes said feet out. I just wanted to clarify that. Make sure that like, make sure your heels are going out. If your toes are turning out as you’re squatting, then you need to widen your stance and the more your toes turnout, the more your glutes are turning off.
Jerred Moon
I don’t mean turn your toes out. I mean, it’s more of like a feeling like have you ever Yeah, ever told somebody to like try and bend a bar like when they’re bench pressing or something, you’re not actually going to bend the bar. And I mean the same thing with the squat. You do want your feet fairly straight your toes like they can be. You don’t want them to be angled like in a significant way, like 10 to 15 degrees angle if not straight, and then push them apart which you should feel really mid foot to heel like what you’re saying is like not the toes shouldn’t do much in squatting to be honest and pushing apart. So you feel it in the hips a little bit more. You can even do this with an air squat. If you work up to it just there’s a big difference between Even if you’re really mobile like dropping down as to grass and then just standing back up versus Okay, I’m going to stand back up, but I’m going to push my feet apart and they don’t actually move anywhere. It just feeling and you’ll realize that you’re engaging a whole different muscle group that you probably haven’t been previously. Alright, topic.
Kyle Shrum
Let’s do it. Okay, so
Jerred Moon
I’ll brief it again real quick for the topic. You can work out with only five workouts for the rest of your life. That means let’s just say Monday through Friday, you have this training schedule, they have to be the same five workouts every day of your life for the remainder of your life. And they have to be Raji mathlete. Meet yourself Saturday workouts there’s about I don’t know 3040 I don’t know how many we have of them right now. If you guys want to participate, take a look. Go to garage gym athlete.com slash NYS, or if you just go to garage gym, athlete calm, there’s a little menu bar that says meet yourself. And if you scroll through that page, you’ll see all of them it’s linked to YouTube with the briefs and the descriptions and all of those things. So go check that out. Those are meet yourself Saturday workouts now we’re going to pick our five Kyle wants you to take it first man what would be your five workouts for me yourself Saturday.
Kyle Shrum
So these are not necessarily going to be an order like a preference order or anything like that. Except for the first one. First one, if you’ve listened to the podcast at all, probably know our mo nice ones on there are miles on there. And if I can only do if I’ve got to do one thing every single week for the rest of my life, I’m gonna do the iron mile every week for the rest of my life. I’m gonna write these down. Hold on, just to just to me really good for for just straight mental toughness. Obviously if I’m doing it for the rest of my life, I’ll probably be increasing to quite a bit of weight at some point. But yeah, our mile and if I’m going to be doing it for the rest of my life, that’s a good excuse to get a Oh man. What
Jerred Moon
am I a yoke? Yeah, the yoke that’s it a yoke instead of a barbell so just to change it up and iron mile just walking really far with a heavy weight on your back for those who are unfamiliar.
Kyle Shrum
Yep. And then so the rest of these are just not in any order. I went with Old MacDonald which is a big long amrap with some you like I do like Well, I’ve got another one way to get
Joe Courtney
pretty sure.
Kyle Shrum
And then I do like the way to Karis throwing the so our mile McDonald, then a throwing grog bowl because it’s just a little bit of everything. And obviously still throwing in the way to Karis again,
Jerred Moon
so far no overlap between me and you see if we keep going.
Kyle Shrum
Number four is patriot. So power cleans and pull ups are no clean and jerks and pull ups. So just something else to get some some barbell work in our mile I guess is barbell work but it’s not really barbell work. It’s just a barbell on your back. So I wanted something with barbell in it. So patriot cleaning jerks 100 clean and jerks, and 100 pull ups for our with a 30 minute time cap, that’s patriot. And then you can partition is needed. And then the last one that I put in was just the good old yo 35 K. Just a lot of run in a lot of calisthenics, you don’t need any equipment for it at all. That’s and I think that’s the main reason I put it in there was because I didn’t need any equipment. So it’s something that I could do. I had at least one workout that I could do literally anywhere. Just running 100 meters and then doing the calisthenics and doing that six times. So
Jerred Moon
give us a little more reasoning behind all the so you have a lot
Kyle Shrum
of people he did it’s like Rob Okay,
Jerred Moon
so what, why these? Like, why did you did you have like a method to your madness, like,
Kyle Shrum
there was there was a little bit of method, mostly, it’s just the ones that I like to do.
Jerred Moon
Okay, so seeing on recovery at all from these workouts? Well, Saturdays is his Yeah,
Kyle Shrum
I got I got two days a week that I’m not working out. So I’ve got some recovery there. I wouldn’t be doing if I’m only allowed to do five and I’m gonna space them out, you know, and throw the recovery in there and all that kind of stuff, but I don’t know just stuff that I like to do. I felt like these were all well rounded, like with the Grotto and there’s different ways to do them, right. Like with the grab bowl you you’re either riding a bike or you’re doing a row or you’re doing a run. You know, sometimes you can throw the best stones Sometimes you don’t know you’re supposed to but you know, based on your, your, your level, your athlete level, you know you do that or you don’t. There’s a lot of calisthenics thrown in here. There’s a lot of bodyweight stuff that I think is really important. I think if you can’t move your body weight, you’re not actually strong. Just hot take, we won’t go any further on that.
Jerred Moon
There’s absolute strength and relative strength. So
Kyle Shrum
yeah, and I talked about last time on the podcast that I really suck at pull ups. And so that’s one reason I put patriot in there not just to get some good barbell work, but also to get pull ups in there because I suck at pull ups. So if I’m having to do 100 of them in workout at least once a week, then I’ll get a lot better at pull ups. And and then yeah, like I said, you know, three, five K is just, it’s just running getting better at running and getting better at moving your body weight. So that’s kind of I was just kind of my method to all that and I like relatively, I didn’t throw Broken Arrow in there because I freaking hate Broken Arrow. You know, I didn’t throw the quarter mile for humanity in there because I hate the quarter out mile for humanity. I didn’t throw murfin there because I didn’t want to be cliche. And
Joe Courtney
shame out.
Everyone’s doing Murph. Murph, I’m not doing
Joe Courtney
project hurt and feels people’s feelings.
Kyle Shrum
I just triggered all our guys. I did yeah. Anyway. Yeah, there you go.
Joe Courtney
So uh, that was I almost had patriot on mine because it is 30 minutes and it’s cleaning jerks and pull ups but still a lot. Like it’s that one’s really intense really quickly and some of the other ones that I wanted. had that. So I guess I will go now. Alright, Monday, I actually have mine down today I I plan mine out. And for reasons and everything, just so Monday. Yeah. Monday, I know when a jersey squat day so I wanted something that was gonna at least build my legs or be able more leg dominant and this is the one that I was most reluctant on. But it might be a necessary evil and it’d be the 25 minute lunch test. Because I’m hoping after a couple of weeks, my body just adjusts to a ridiculous amount of lunches, it might take like two months. But eventually it might adjust. We don’t know we will never know. So that’s that one. It is a quarter mile lunges with a vest on to do within like 25 minutes at lunch and then after that you do it again but without the vest. So essentially a half mile lunges, terrible and legs. Next because my legs are going to be beat up and terrible. I am going to do heavy load long distance because all I’m doing is taking the same bag and taking it for a walk. So not a lot a lot. I’ve done this before and it doesn’t really work the legs too much. It’s more of like a core and upper body you know shoulders traps that kind of thing that’s going to work and I think walking will help some of the some of the Dom’s from the lunges. And that will be completely unnecessary. Day three will be blitzkrieg 2.0. Now I put this one on here because I think I it has pushed presses heavy push presses. So I think I need some some some upper body work I need to do some sort of pressing. And I almost had the quarter mile for humanity because it has hand cleans and push presses. But that one’s just awful. So it’s got heavy push presses got a bunch of pull ups as well strict pull ups and you hire me to run and then after you do that for 30 minutes you go run for 30 minutes so I get some some presses and pulls some upper body work and then I go for a run afterwards. Day for zone to Murph I gotta get you gotta gotta gotta have some recovery in there.
Jerred Moon
I’ll talk about that one.
Joe Courtney
Gotta have some recovery in there. So it’s Murph, but staying in zone two. And then the last one is my baby and that is river heist just felt like ending on a good you know intervals note of rowing and shoulder to overhead for the for the 1000 pounds of weight. And also kind of a common theme with mine is that especially with revised and such is that it gives me a little bit of agency so that I can determine what the load is for river heist how heavy I do my shoulder to overhead or ground to shoulders, a heavy long distance I can determine how heavy I go. It might determine how far I go. blitzkrieg I can kind of adjust the way for the push presses and such as well. Questions.
Jerred Moon
That’s no, I think that’s interesting. I think the question or comment I would have will be summed up when I go over mine. But I actually want to go over Ashley’s first. So we had her send it Then because she we knew she wasn’t going to be here so she selected I don’t know if it’s in any particular order but she said he oh three five k it’s my favorite one and you can literally do this anywhere or comments then she had river heist so that’s c you guys match there I’m trying to like see the overlap and both had the five k you guys had the five k Okay, and then she had she said river heist love the ground a shoulder mix up here finishing this one in the time cap is a doozy. Next is burpees save me. She said I kind of like burpees oddly enough so burpee say me nobody else had that one. No, conditioned me to the grave. She said it sucks, but it’s awesome. love this one. Alright, so she has conditioned me to the grave. And then her last one is 1000 said I love this time cap one the time cap ones I think also all bodyweight so don’t need much equipment. So 1000s so the only overlap we have so far is one between Ashley and Kyle with the three five K and one between Ashley and Joe with river heist, which I’m already surprised I thought that we were all going to have a lot more overlap, because then we get to me. And I have no overlap with either one of you. And only one overlap with Ashley.
Joe Courtney
Let me see. Wow.
Jerred Moon
Wow. So and that’s that’s hard to do when there’s that there’s only like, you know, whatever. 30 or 40 options. Alright, so I guess I will go with mine. So since I am being cliche, I’m gonna go with Murph as number one. And the reason I selected Murph, I think, if you push me to say if you could only do one workout for the rest of your life, what would it be? It would be Murph. And that’s just because you got some running in there. You could add more weight to it to to gain even more strength on the on the squats and the push ups and pull ups and stuff. So I just really love Murph. And the reason I chose normal Murph is because we didn’t get into all the stipulations of this hypothetical situation, right. But I would also do zone two morphs. I feel like if you pick Murph you can do a zone two Murph, if you pick zone two Murphy can’t do you can’t do regular Murph. So that’s why I picked Murph and Oh man, we
Kyle Shrum
can’t do regular Murph thing it
Jerred Moon
Yeah. So yeah. makes jokes Joe put himself in a hole there as a whole can do Murph, I bet you’re sad about that. Okay. The next for me was conditioned me to the grave, which is my overlap with Ashley, because that’s just straight conditioning. So I could really target some specific areas. And I’ll talk about my overall selection for some of these when I’m done. So conditioning the grave third was Stairway to Heaven. Kind of wide Joe selected 25 minute lunch test. I feel like I needed something a little bit more. Leg dominant. So I’m on but I’m getting crushed this week. This is a hard week every week, right? But I’ll talk about my strategy behind it. Because after that, it happens to be the workout for this week. What the ruck so that is my number four. I just love for the same reason Kyle picks some way to carries like weighted carries are really good for injury prevention and just strength overall. So having a solid rock in there would be awesome. And then last but not least Broken Arrow how many barbells in my selection? Zero. Yeah, and we don’t put a lot of barbells and meet yourself Saturday workouts most the time anyway. And that’s intentional because workouts are hard enough You know? So anyway no barbells in my future if I were to do this, so why these selections well conditioned me to the grave I think Stairway to Heaven and Broken Arrow I can’t remember what the rock I don’t think they all have time caps I think three out of my five have time gaps. If I if memory serves me correct and that was my intentional because unlike Broken Arrow, this is kind of cheating the system pulling a Joe if you will. Shots fired, but like Broken Arrow, I really like cycling, right? I could do the front end of this. And I would also be able to ride 10 miles on my bike. But I could I could sandbag it one day. And then just there’s a time cap on Broken Arrow right? Is it I can’t remember now,
Joe Courtney
I think very primitive for two hours.
Jerred Moon
Yeah, I think there’s a time cap somewhere on that. If not then forget what I’m saying. But this was my thinking because I thought there was a time cap that I could just ride my bike. sandbag the calisthenics at the beginning and then maybe not finished the workout every week. It would be my plan there and that’s the same with like conditioned me to the grave. If I wanted to make condition me to the grave some more zone to work. I could just change a conditioning to the grave zone to style and only finish about, you know, whatever 30 to 50% of it. And that’s about it Stairway to Heaven, you get a lot of leg strength adding weight there. So yeah, those are mine, a lot of calisthenics and bodyweight work and my selections Obviously, I’m a huge fan of that stuff. Yeah, those are it. Questions, comments, concerns?
Joe Courtney
Seems each of us have kind of our own common theme thing. Kyle had a lot of variety and weighted carries mine, I left myself some agency to make adjustments week to week dependent on loads and intensities kind of thing. You actually both had time caps. And like you said, you didn’t have any barbeau stuff. It’s just mostly bodyweight for I guess the long long part. So I guess I guess we all kind of I didn’t even fully intend to put mine like that. But I think we just all were had our own
Jerred Moon
way very revealing about your your fitness thumbprint. I’ll go ahead and coin that term. Watch what you like and stuff.
Joe Courtney
So which in way isn’t surprising. I mean, we know Kyle likes to carry everything’s I like to not be backed into a corner and
Jerred Moon
come back maybe into a corner.
Joe Courtney
No, you know, cuz, yeah. When I was thinking of lunch test, there wouldn’t have never even came an option. It was not even like not happening.
Kyle Shrum
I had a feeling I was like, I almost put Stairway to Heaven, just to have one that really sucked. And I was like, because I was looking for one that sucked. And I was like, I bet you’re gonna put Stairway to Heaven. I bet that’s gonna be one of his. I don’t want I don’t want any overlap with anybody. So to but to find out that we only have three out of the four of us. There’s only three overlaps. That’s kind of great. So I guess none of us. I guess all of us moving to Texas is not a good thing. Because we wouldn’t all be working out together. We’d all be doing a different workout everyday.
Jerred Moon
Maybe doing deprogrammed workout.
Kyle Shrum
That’s what we’re all doing Jared five. That’s what we’re doing.
Jerred Moon
Well, I might actually try this I’m actually intrigued now. I forgot who was you remember, they did it for their birthday. But it was like all on a day. They did like three meet yourself Saturday outs, like in a day, but I might do this. I think it’d be cool to get the community involved. And this is just spitballing publicly here but like a meet yourself week, where we all go off the programming for a week. And we couldn’t put it in team builder because if everyone’s selected their own, that would be impossible. But if you guys like any of our selections, we could vote who has the best meet yourself week that you’d like to do. And then we could let that in team builder and have everyone do it as like optional work. But yeah, I like meet yourself week I want to try I want to try mine. Merv conditioning to the grave Stairway to Heaven. What the rock Broken Arrow that sounds like. There was a little strategy and trying to put Murph on a Monday and Broken Arrow on a Friday because they’re both basically Murph. And so I’m trying to separate those with as many days as I can and then have the weekend before I’d have to hit Murph again. But yeah, that was those are mine. And so community start thinking about these go to garage mathlete comm check out all the meet yourself Saturday workouts if you’re not familiar with them yet. We even have like a way that you can. I don’t know how to I don’t even know where this is right now. But we built all the meet yourself Saturday workouts into the members area A lot of you already have access to and it has the workout cards and everything. So yeah, we’d like to hear from you and Kyle, post that thread in in the group go we want to hear what your thoughts are on Meet yourself week and what your five selections would be awesome to see. And I can’t wait for this. And your thoughts behind it. Like why why do what maybe like a quick sentence or two like Ashley put, that’d be awesome.
Joe Courtney
You guys have any runner ups.
Jerred Moon
I did I do. I
Kyle Shrum
didn’t think I didn’t think that deep into apparel. I picked five and when
Jerred Moon
I picked I ended up with seven because I was just like, I’m gonna go pick the ones that I would do. And I ended up with seven and then I thought through it a little bit more and then eliminated two but if you have your runners up, runner up, tell them I’ll look and see what mine work I
Joe Courtney
can remember quarter mile from here humanity I mentioned that when I was back between that one and 25 minute lunch test just to get the lunges in there. But I was already doing push press on blitzkrieg day. And then the 60 minute run is my ask which could have been either intensity or some to also for recovery. So those two were my main ones
Jerred Moon
or your two again 60 minute running What else? quarter mile for humanity. Okay. Mine’s a 35 K and 60 minute run. So there’s overlapping a runner up. I was thinking same thing 60 minute run because it’s just that would be a nice way to break up a meet yourself week like on a middle of the week do a 60 minute run because you could do whatever pace you wanted. Even though you’re supposed to push yourself in that because it’s 60 minute run for max meters is the technical name of that workout. But uh i’ve had that in there and the eo three five k i just love because you can do it anywhere. But I kind of hate the O three, five K to like all all cards on the on table here are
Joe Courtney
your chips a bit too cliche now?
Jerred Moon
Yeah, yeah, too many people like it. It’s just I don’t like running a five K, every time I do that workout. I’m like, how’s a little too much running trip how I feel every time. Wait a minute,
Kyle Shrum
I think it’s the same thing with the mirto. Like you can do the zone two thing, like you don’t have to run that the 800 like it’s a time cap to at 60 minutes. So I just do it, you know? And so it kind of is a 60 minute run. It’s just throwing some calisthenics in there too. So that’s kind of why I put it in there too was the the ease of not having any equipment being able to do it anywhere. And then I think that was the toss up with it. And Murph, like Murph has you know, both of them have squats and push ups but Murph has pull ups where five k has sit ups, you know what I mean? And so the five k one out not because it’s not cliche, but because it’s, you don’t you need zero equipment. And so I wanted one that needed zero equipment. And I think it’s the it’s the first meet yourself Saturday ever created. Yeah. Oh, gee. Yeah. So g
Jerred Moon
and going through some of my notes. I’ve had so many ideas. I probably told you guys about the we haven’t taken action on like, I made the garage gym athlete. 10 K. Do you guys remember that? That was a neat yourselves. You guys like me out of like, talked me out of doing that one. And I might get out back.
Kyle Shrum
You’re welcome community.
Jerred Moon
We have we have the garage mathlete. So there’s the eo three, five K, right. So there’s the garage. Actually, it may have been the garage mathlete five. I think I shortened it. But yes, it was just harder. So there’s one for you three and one for GTA. And then there’s out and back, which is coming. That one’s coming for sure. And then I don’t know if I should give the name away of the nine. I
Joe Courtney
think it’s I’ll tell him the new one. It’s gonna be it’s gonna be a fun week.
Jerred Moon
Yeah, don’t don’t be good. And that’s it, I guess. Because we can
Joe Courtney
next you know, I’d say now next cycle. We’ll have three new mittersill Saturday’s
Jerred Moon
There we go. There it is. Okay, so, transitioning to one of my selections what the ruck who’s got it ready to brief.
Joe Courtney
Okay, buy in you must complete in order no partitioning started off 60 pull ups kipping is allowed if you are meet the caffeine requirements as we’ve said 70 hand release push ups 80 squats, 90 sit ups 100 burpees and then right into a three mile ruck.
Jerred Moon
I love the burpees is the worst part every time. Oh man. Yeah,
Joe Courtney
I every time I work I’m like, like okay, cool calisthenics and Iraq and oh my god, they’re 10 minutes.
Kyle Shrum
I’ll go first. I think I give the same advice on this one every time just fart like the
Jerred Moon
reasons why we’re coming up with new meet yourself Saturday. So we stopped giving the same advice 16 weeks or so.
Kyle Shrum
I think it’s a I just think, I think that’s the way to do it. The last time I did what the rock I was just gonna, I was just gonna walk it try to fast, like, fast walk it and realize it was gonna take me forever to do that. So I just, I would, you know, run slash quickly shuffle for a little while and then I would walk and then I would just kind of do that until I finished it till I knocked it out. You know, but I really liked this one. Obviously. There’s a lot there’s actually I was looking through the meet yourself Saturdays, there’s a lot of way to Karis inner meet yourself Saturdays. And so that’s good for me, because that’s what I like to do. So I just had a plethora of workouts to pick but I think the one that kept this one out was dadgum burpees. I don’t want to do 100 burpees every week. Maybe that’s why I should have put it in there. So I would actually do but anyway,
Joe Courtney
that’s I’d say, Yeah, I’d say make sure you’re warmed up to the rock because after your calisthenics, you’re going right into the rock. So whatever you need for that, whether you have the right shoes on the rock is ready and get your ankles and calves primed up, then your hips loose for the rock and set that good pace. And I’ll do the music for once. If you haven’t Spotify, go to the garage, gym athlete playlist on Spotify that we have. I still try and add some things to it. And then we start on your ruck put on jarrods Electric Power well thing
Jerred Moon
I forgot the team member who tribe called Red electric power drum. Yeah,
Kyle Shrum
yeah. Spotify, not a sponsor by the way.
Joe Courtney
Blow Your Mind. Yeah,
Jerred Moon
we have no sponsors out there. Yeah. Yeah, it has to be noted. Okay, bro are Broken Arrow what the rock. They’re the same thing. What what the rock? phenomenal. You know, I’ve done this one. More recently, the weather was mild and I’ve I’m convinced that 80% of meet yourself Saturday’s for me is the weather. Specifically Texas weather I’m sure it gets hot other places. I just don’t live other places. So yeah, Texas in the middle of summer, what the rock is one of the worst workouts in existence. And our and our quote unquote winter is not that bad. I realized I’ve really only do this one summer, I think so this one, it shouldn’t be too bad if I were to do it when it’s programmed because it’s not hot yet. Yeah. As far as tips, go fast. go as fast as you can on those calisthenics. And I really just the burpees is where I mean go fast, you’re going to go as fast as you’re able to and all the other areas. But burpees that’s really where you’re going to start feeling sorry for yourself and going slow and excuses and chalk in your hands on burpees. And you realize why am I talking my hands for a burpee? And like all these things to just breathe a little bit more and drink some water? Don’t do any of that just do the work? Do the work. And that’s it. I don’t have a lot of, I guess, position the rock appropriately, I guess, as Joe has learned from some serious back issues, which I’m now experiencing, not from the same problem. But uh, yeah. Don’t put a kettlebell on your place, like on your lower back in a backpack? Is that gonna hurt you
Kyle Shrum
don’t do that.
Jerred Moon
Yeah, don’t do that. So that’s about it go fast, specifically on the burpees go as fast as you can on the burpees or at least a good tempo, or at least a good tempo that you don’t get out of, or this will be my my step down from that have a mental agreement with yourself before the workout starts never, you’re not allowed to negotiate with yourself after the workout begins. Not okay, because your brain is going to get weak and try all the stops. So what you need to do an agreement with a minimum number of burpees you will do each time before you are allowed to rest. So and try and pick a high number try and pick something like 20 like I can only rest after 20 burpees because then you get to like doing seven and you’re like I really want to stop but you can’t. Because you made a deal with yourself to do 20 each time you start to do burpees then you can rest in between. But that’s another good mental trick because if you just let yourself rest whenever you want on burpees you’re gonna be stopping every three to four towards the end of that 100 and it’s really gonna slow you down. So make a deal with your brain before you begin that’s it guys and gals
Kyle Shrum
I’m excited to hear everybody else’s five meters. Yep, Saturdays.
Jerred Moon
Yeah, I’m excited to do meet yourself week. We have a lot of stuff coming up next cycle. Don’t want to reveal at all noon yourself Saturday’s I’m gonna figure out how to throw a meet yourself week. We have some Murph related stuff coming up. It’s just a lot of a lot of good stuff going down. Next cycle, I was just making sure that the next cycle includes the Memorial Day Murph, but it does, right.
Yep. Okay.
Jerred Moon
All right. Cool. Well, that’s all we have. Ladies and gentlemen, if you’re part of the community, I really do appreciate you. You being awesome. Just, you know, answering these questions telling us what your five are and having fun in the community and and being you and subscribing to the programming. And if you’re not a part of the community. I say it every week. It’s the best thing about everything we do. Yes, programming is awesome. Meet yourself Saturday. They’re fun. You learn to make them fun. Over time. If you’re not a part go to garage D mathlete comm you can check out our meet yourself Saturday workouts. You can see all a bunch of athletes stories and then you can also sign up for a 14 day free trial and get jiggy with it. I think is what the kids are saying today. I’m just gonna end in there. Thanks for listening to the podcast. No One No one’s listening anymore. It’s fine.