Weightlifting World Championships 2017: A Different Insight

Senior Worlds 2017

A lot of you might know that I am hanging out at the Weightlifting Senior World Championships with three of Mash Mafia’s finest: Brian Reisenauer, Jordan Canrtell, and Nathan Damron, and our entire coaching staff of Vinh Huynh, Don McCauley, and me.  However this article isn’t about their preparation, our programming, or anything like that.  It’s about the other aspect of sport that people rarely talk about.  It’s the real reason that we have World Championships and the Olympics, or at least it should be the real reason.

I was reminded of underlying goal when I was at breakfast this morning.  I ate breakfast with men and women from all over the world.  I was in the same room as Iranians, Italians, and Koreans.  I waited in line with them, and I sat beside them.  You know what I noticed?  They were just like me. 

Yeah we didn’t speak the same language, but they interacted with their peers the same way that Americans do.  They laughed, and they joked with each other.  It was a beautiful to just sit back and watch.  This was a room full of athletes and coaches with dreams just like mine.  None of them was really caring about the differences in religion or government.  For this small moment in time, we were all the same.

We are all the same!  We are just humans trying to survive this crazy world.  I have to believe that it is the governments and the media that create the divides for power and money.  I can’t believe that humans at the very basic level care one way or the other.  Yeah I love my God, and I rely on my faith.  Yeah I believe that it would be advantageous for everyone, but I don’t hate anyone for not believing like me.  I don’t think that most humans really care.

Sports at an International level remind all of us that we can all get along.  It should remind us that we are all the same at the most basic of levels.  All of us want a chance to improve our lives.  All of us want a purpose on this earth.  All of us want to protect our families.  All of us want the ability to worship and believe in the way that we choose without anyone or any country trying to hinder those abilities.  We just want to be respected for the way that we want to live our lives.  You don’t have to agree with me nor I you, but we must respect each other.  Empathy is so hard to find in this world.  However when athletes come together at a World Championships or Olympics, empathy can be found in abundance. 

I grew up in the mountains of North Carolina in an area with a 1% minority population.  I dreamed of meeting people from around the world.  Racism was fairly copious in the mountains.  The locals seemed to fear people that weren’t like them.  A lot of the locals believed that people were dangerous if they didn’t look like, act like, and believe like them.  I wanted to put these beliefs to the test. 

I have never had the ability to believe people simply based on their opinion or their thoughts.  I have always wanted proof.  Heck I got into trouble more than once in middle school and high school for debating teachers.  I didn’t believe that I was smarter than them.  I just wanted proof from time to time. 

Athletics have led me all over the world.  I have met people from countries around the globe, and I am yet to meet a group of people that frightened me.  As a matter of fact I often find way more similarities than differences.  Last night Coach Vinh, Coach Sean Waxman, and I ate with a group of lifters from England.  It was the most amazing time.  I felt like I was eating with characters from “Harry Potter”.  I loved it.  I guess I just exposed the fact that I love “Harry Potter”.  Yeah it’s true.

For all of you athletes out there aspiring to compete Internationally someday, I hope that you realize that there is something much more special about the opportunity than simply competing.  It’s the experience of coming together as a Planet.  It’s realizing that we are all so similar.  Sports have the unique ability to spread this understanding of one another. 

Look I am not some overly optimistic kid right out of college.  I get it.  We live in a world filled with some good and some bad people.  As long as there is money and power to be had, governments and powerful people will try to get more than their share.  Ultimate power corrupts ultimately!  That doesn’t mean that all the rest of us have to succumb to the same evil. 

Athletics has blessed me with the ability to travel all over the world.  I thank God for that opportunity.  Last night when the athletes from England told me that people in England used my programming, I realized the opportunity that God has given me.  Who would of thought that a boy from the mountains of North Carolina would have people from around the world reading his books and using his workout programs?  I never dreamed that this would be possible.

My goal is to show the rest of the world that people are all the same.  None of us are really that different despite what you might hear on television or worse Facebook.  Today a guy from Iran passed me the ketchup, and we exchanged the universal gesture of kindness, a smile.  In that small moment, I realized that all the negative things that I have heard about Iranians are false.  They are people just like me.  They have dreams and hopes just like me.  They have sons and daughters, moms and dad, and wives just like me.  Today I pray to God that He gives us all the ability to love one another just like He commanded multiple times in His word.

Some of you might know that we opened the doors to L.E.A.N. Fitness Systems this past Monday.  We wanted a gym where all would be welcome.  A place for all to reach their goals, and I believe that we have done just that.

If you are looking for weightlifting, general fitness, athletic performance, boot camps, or powerlifting, you can email us at:

è Chris@tfw-WS.com

L.E.A.N. Fitness Systems

L.E.A.N. Fitness Systems

Well today I announced our soft grand opening for our new facility.  I can’t really believe that it is here.  Chris Mason and I have talked about this moment since we were slinging weights together at Appalachian State University.  Neither one of us could imagine a life outside of the gym.  Both of us loved everything about it.  Look I am not just talking about lifting big weights.  Yeah both of us have been known to do a lot of that.  I have coached some of the best strength athletes in the world, but lifting heavy weights isn’t the real thing that drives me.

There are three of us that are in this together.  Crystal McCullough will be the one doing the day-to-day and watching lives change.  She loves the gym as much or more than both of us.  She loves the community, and she loves being a part of people reaching their goals.

That brings me to the real driving force behind this project.  It really doesn’t matter to me whether someone is trying to break a World Record or whether he or she are trying to get their first pull-up.  It never has mattered to me.  There has always been one driving force that made me love everything about the gym.

The gym is a place where someone can transform his or her life.  If they want to lose 100lb, they can do that.  If they want to get stronger, they can do that.  It’s a place where people that have been in an out of control life can take back some of that control.  It was that very place for me when I was a young man.  I was a young guy with a life that was spiraling out of control.  The gym was a place that I could count on.  If I put in the work, the results would come.  It was the fairest place that I had ever experienced.

When we learned that we had actually gotten our new spot, I cried like I was that eleven-year-old boy working out in the gym again.  My dream had come true.  I can’t believe that we have a 5,500 square foot gym with Men and Women’s locker room and showers.  That might seem trivial to all of you, but to a boy from the deep mountains of North Carolina, it’s like winning the lottery. 

We will have some of the best functional equipment in the state complete with:

·      Aerodyne Bikes

·      Concept 2 Rowers

·      Indoor and Outdoor Turf

·      2 Vertimaxes

·      Kettlebells

·      Dumbbells

·      Intek Powerlifting and Weightlifting Needle Bearing Bars

·      Eleiko, Werksan, and other needle bearing weightlifting bars

·      Texas Powerlifting Bars, Squat Bars, and Deadlift Bars

·      Beautiful Intek Urethane Bumper Plates

·      MuscleDriver USA Racking System

·      Soft Plyometric Boxes

·      Lasers for timing speed

·      Body Tempering

·      Belt Squat Machine

·      Reverse Hyperextension

·      Glute Ham Raises

·      4 Way Neck Machine

·      TRX’s

·      Two Power Racks

·      IPF Approved Combo Rack

·      Two competition bench presses

·      Bands and chains of course

·      Wall Balls, Hurdles, Ladders, and Cones.

·      Sprint Bungees and parachutes

I am sure that I am forgetting something, but you get the idea.  So what services will be offer:

·      Training for Warriors General Fitness

·      Bootcamps

·      Mash Elite Olympic weightlifting

·      Mash Elite Athletic Performance

·      Mash Elite Powerlifting

·      Personal Training

We have the equipment and coaching to service anyone from the most elite athlete in the United States (and we already do) all the way to a 68-year-old retired doctor (and we already do).  We don’t really care as long as we are servicing people that really want to reach their goals.  We want a culture filled with members that are focused on getting better.   Do you know what I mean?  I am talking about a culture filled with people that simply want to be better today that they were yesterday. 

I’ve had the pleasure of coaching athletes all the way until their first Division I scholarship offer.  I’ve coached a lady that lost over 100lb at the age of 62.  I have three athletes on Team USA right training for the IWF Weightlifting World Championships that take place in two weeks.  Coach Chris recently helped a high school student go from a couch potato teenager to a young man in love with fitness.

I hope you guys get it.  We love watching lives changed.  I am not talking about changing for a season.  I am talking about changing lives for the long-haul.  We have that chance now.  Chris, Crystal, and I have a facility that meets the needs of all the populations that are use to working with us.  We have a facility that we can be proud of.  We have a facility that our members will be proud of.  I am very thankful for this moment.  When I told my wife that we had actually gotten the facility, she started crying.  I asked her why she was crying, and she told me because she was so happy for me.  She knew that it was my dream coming true right before her eyes.  At that moment, I realized that it was real.  I can’t wait to serve you all.

Last thing, in case you are wondering what L.E.A.N. stands for:

L- Lifestyle

E- Exercise

A- Attitude (I’ve always had a little extra of this one.)

N- Nutrition

I will tell you more about this next time!

Sola Gratia,

Coach Travis Mash

USAW Senior International Coach

Does God Always Answer Prayers?

During the Mash Strength Spectacular we concluded the competitions with a free “Mentorship” activity.  Basically we set outside under the lights, and a panel of special guests answered any and all questions from the athletes and visitors that chose to stay.  The event was in honor of my late friend Chris Moore as we talked about doing this together.  We didn’t have Chris with us of course, but we did have his wife Jani Moore.  It was an honor to sit by her and answer all the questions from the audience about programming, fitness, stretching, life, business, and faith. 

One question was asked via email the next day.  I am not going to mention this young man’s name, as I am not sure that he wants me to, but the question really hit home.  He had watched the episode of Barbell Shrugged where I talked about my wife being diagnosed with cancer two days before our wedding.  On the show I explained how I would lay beside her every night begging God to heal her.   See my wife is the only woman that has ever gained my love.  I am not quite sure what God did to me, but my heart belongs to Emily Drew Mash.  I couldn’t accept that God might take this angel from my arms. 

That doesn’t mean that God was under any pressure to heal her.  He does what He wants.  Yes He loves us, and yes He does all things for our good: Romans 8:28 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. 

I believe this with all my heart.  That doesn’t mean that His idea of good is the same as ours, but you can guarantee that His version is exactly what we need.  My wife used to send tingles down my spine, when she would talk about her confidence in God’s healing powers.  She was convinced that God was going to heal her either on the earth or in heaven, and she didn’t care which.  The verse that kept her going was:  Malachi 4:2 “But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall.

His question was that his mother that had raised him as a single mom with no family around had been diagnosed with cancer a few years ago.  He too prayed every night that she would be healed, but she wasn’t.  She did live three years when they had given her only four months to live.  However she wasn’t healed.  He asked me if God did that.  So here is my best answer.

God is sovereign over every thing, so in one way or another he is responsible for everything.  He is either causing it or allowing it to happen.  However this is a fallen world full of sin, evil and corruption, and that’s our fault not his.  He has never promised that we were going to be happy on this earth.  We are to be content because of what He has already done for us, but that doesn’t mean that life is lollipops and gumdrops.  It’s not. 

So does that make God mean in the case of your mother?  No not at all.  If your mother believed in Him, then she is loving life right now.  She wouldn’t come back to visit even if she could because she is in the presence of our Creator.  What more does one want?  Then there is the thing that is happening with you.  Number one her sickness caused you to pray every night.  That means you were brought closer to God for that time, and now you are pondering this question, which is also causing you to ponder God.  Instead of focusing on just the death of your mother, you might want to think about everything that is going on. 

Some of the things that happen in life will never be able to be explained by us.  We just have to trust that God is working it out for the people that have faith in Him.  Let’s look at Houston.  I mean that was a tragedy that has killed 60 people so far, and the aftermath is going to kill more people with contaminants.  However how many people have turned to God because of this tragedy?  How many people in the country forgot about the ignorant racists in the country, and instead focused their attention on helping one another regardless of race or ethnicity.  How much love will be spread as they rebuild over the next few months.

When you ask God for something, you simply have to let it go and trust that He will give you exactly what you need as long as your faith is in Him.  This is pretty deep, and I am sure that several of you want get this, but you believers out there will know exactly what I am talking about.  I hope this helps.