Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 42 - 4 Supplements I Take Everyday and WHY + GIVEAWAY

Episode Date: June 8, 2020

In this episode, Danny outlines the FOUR supplements he takes every single day to enhance performance, recovery, and longevity.GIVEAWAY DETAILS: Each listener can have up to TWO entries into the giveaway. Each entry will be collected and entered into an app-based randomizer. The winner will be notified on 8/15.IPHONE USERS:ENTRY 1: Leave a 5-star rating AND written review on intunes, screenshot it, and DM it to me.ENTRY 2: Screenshot and share the episode to your IG story.NON-IPHONE USERS:ENTRY 1: Share any post of mine to your IG story and tag me.ENTRY 2: Screenshot and share the episode to your IG Story.GOOD LUCK!---Thanks For Listening!---RESOURCES/COACHING: I am all about education and that is not limited to this podcast! Feel free to grab a FREE guide (Nutrition, Training, Macros, Etc!) HERE! Interested in Working With Coach Danny and His One-On-One Coaching Team? Click HERE! Want To Have YOUR Question Answered On an Upcoming Episode of DYNAMIC DIALOGUE? You Can Submit It HERE!Want to Support The Podcast AND Get in Better Shape? Grab a Program HERE!----SOCIAL LINKS: Follow Coach Danny on INSTAGRAMFollow Coach Danny on TwitterFollow Coach Danny on FacebookGet More In-Depth Articles Written By Yours’ Truly HERE!Support the Show.

Guys, quick update before we start today's episode. This is actually a giveaway. So today I'm giving away an entire supplement stack that correlates exactly with what you're going to hear. So you're going to have a chance to win the four supplements that I take every single day. I'll send them right to your doorstep. All you've got to do is follow along with the episode

and enter the giveaway. It's very, very simple to enter the giveaway. If you have an iPhone, leave me a five-star rating and review, screenshot it, DM it to me. That's one entry. To get a second entry, screenshot and share this podcast to your Instagram story and tag me. Super simple. You can get two entries. If you're on Android, sorry, hate to break it to you. You can only get one entry, but you'll still have a really good shot. Just screenshot the episode, share it to your Instagram and tag me. Now I'm going to take all the entries because they'll show up right in my Instagram DMs, which will make it super, super easy. I'll put them into a randomizer and it'll select a username. Both entries, you're going to get your name in there twice, so you'll have a

better chance. Anyway, without further ado, enjoy the podcast. Have a safe drive if you're driving. Sit back, relax. Let's learn a few things about health. Peace. Welcome into another episode of the Dynamic Dialogue Podcast. Guys, today we're talking all about supplements and specifically four supplements that I have every single day, no cap, because these are things that have become a complete staple for me, the maintenance of my health, the maintenance of my performance, my body composition. I do recommend that all my clients take these products. I'll talk all about them in detail. But before that, just full disclosure, anytime you hear me talking about supplements, understand that I believe a

well-rounded balanced diet requires little to no supplements. And I think that that should be the end goal. But I also understand that like walking around all hoity-toity like, a good diet doesn't require any supplements. You know, that shit is super annoying because it's very difficult for people who are busy, who have kids, who are running around all the time to have a perfect, truly perfect diet. So just being realistic and understanding it, that seems very, very unlikely. And I want to make sure that I'm presenting things in a way that hobbyists, people who are enthusiastic about their fitness or their strength goals, that this is coming in the context of an everyday person's life, not a perfect person's life. These are legit things. And so I'll tell you, I take supplements

straight up. Do I think you should take a ton? No. Do I think you should focus on your healthy diet? Yes. Do I think most people exist in a world where they have to find a balance between those two things? That's, I think, the core of it. So here are the four supplements that I take every day. And all of them, there's many reasons for me taking them. And some of these actually might surprise you. So number one, won't surprise you, especially if you've been following me for any amount of time. You know, I'm big on this one. It's very, very affordable. It's something that you can take every day. It's something that's very well studied, particularly for sports performance. But what's really interesting are some of the novel studies and the new research coming out that's linking it to being

beneficial for the brain, potentially being neuroprotective. And that is creatine. Now, particularly creatine monohydrate. So creatine works by helping us regenerate ATP, which is the energy currency of the body. A quick high school biology class, a little bit of a rewind here. But remember the mitochondria, the mitochondria. And the thing that probably pops into your head is the meme that it's the powerhouse of the cell. Like that's the one thing people remember from high school biology. But that's where we make ATP. When we make ATP in there, the powerhouse of the cell, we send that energy out as ATP to the body, we use it, and when we use ATP, we pop off a phosphate, we're left with why when many people talk about taking creatine, it is associated with either water weight, bloating, or needing to drink more water.

All of those things are things you hear colloquially thrown around with creatine. So what does it really do? Well, you've got all the research in the world that shows it's going to boost muscle and strength gains in lifters. So again, that's by virtue of helping you train a little bit harder because we can regenerate ATP, have elevated stores of ATP in the body. So we can just generally do more work, even if it's one to two reps per set. That's massive if you were going to compare to untrained lifting groups, which is exactly what they've done in a lot of the creatine research. And again, this has been shown study after study, decade after decade. There is more creatine research in regards to aerobic, anaerobic, weightlifting, sprint, track time, performance than you could ever want to dive into.

Point taken. You get it. It works. But what's really interesting is it can also help mitigate muscle damage. It can help minimize muscle soreness, which are indirect things that might actually help us with our hypertrophy, our trainability, our training readiness every single day. And then it's also been shown to increase the amount of glycogen we can store in our muscles. So glycogen is another

form of carbohydrate. So we typically think of carbohydrate as like glucose, fructose, galactose, but the human body stores a polysaccharide known as glycogen, which is stored in our muscle tissues, and we eventually break it down into glucose. But what's cool about glycogen is we can store like 200 to 400 grams a day between the liver and the muscle cells, even a little bit in the brain, depending on the size of the individual, which is pretty badass. So if you remember carbohydrates, for those of you watching from home, four calories per gram. So four calories worth of energy per gram. So four calories worth of energy per gram. So if you can store two to 400

grams of glycogen, that's 800 to 1600 grams of glycolytic work you can do right there. And glycolytic work is the stuff we do in the weight room. So again, creatine helps us store more glycogen, which means more power output through a completely separate pathway. All of that stuff is awesome. And not just power output, but potential because we can increase our stores of both skeletal creatine and intramuscular glycogen through creatine supplementation. But perhaps the biggest thing I hit on with creatine, particularly with my clients, many of whom are professionals, many of whom are middle-aged, not all young people, of whom are professionals, many of whom are middle-aged, not all young people, is the emerging benefits for creatine and its ability to impact cognitive dysfunctions and long

degenerative brain diseases. And so all these neurological conditions like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, stroke, epilepsy, even TBIs and things like concussions and memory have all been shown to improve with creatine supplementation, which like given how effective it is for increasing performance, it's even been shown to help with blood sugar regulation and cholesterol balance. But like you've got everything you could ever want from a performance supplement. And you've got what we've now begun to assume is a potentially new and emergent neuroprotective factor that we can take to protect our brains or at least minimize and mitigate some of the symptoms of some of the more prevalent neurological diseases in our culture. diseases in our culture. And what you would expect is to pay massive amounts of money for a supplement that could do these this many things that was safe to take every single day or very regularly, but it's inexpensive. What's unbelievable to me is that even though the supplement industry has

tried for years to create a designer form of creatine, which would be things like cre-alkalin, which is a buffered creatine that purportedly was better for absorption. Or another one is creatine hydrochloride, which touts the same thing. It's better assimilated than traditional creatine, but plain old creatine monohydrate, the stuff they've been studying this whole time, is really, really inexpensive. It's pretty easy to find good sources and absolutely a fantastic way, fantastic way to increase your health, your brain, all of these things that we want to take care of as we age. So number one is creatine. And the creatine I take every day is Legion Athletics Recharge. So this next one is a

supplement that you're going to find all over the place. It's been very, very popular of late. And it kind of grew out of that MLM space originally as some type of super anti-aging wonder product. But what it is, is it's a greens powder. I take Legion's Genesis, and I like it for a few reasons that I'll outline below. But let's first just talk about what exactly we like, what I like about a greens product. So again, this ties back to my original point. These are supplements to an imperfect diet, and they should help fill in the gaps. You should never go overboard and it's not an excuse to eat like crap, but having a quality greens powder on hand can be fantastic if you end up in a situation like a lot of folks do where you're on the go and it's hard

to get the micronutrient dense polyphenols, vitamins, and minerals we get from plants and vegetable matter in our diet and fruit matter in our diet. So a greens powder can help supplement that by supplying some freeze-dried, effectively particulates of these vegetables that have been dehydrated and turned into a powder. And it's a great way to transport some of that nutrition in a really concentrated form. All you're missing out on is the fiber, which is of course why you would still need to eat things like fruits, vegetables, nuts, and legumes. But again, they're a very practical tool for covering your bases. One of the things I love about them is most of them contain a variety of different greens. Some are just one

green like wheatgrass or spirulina, which I'll get to in a minute, but a good greens blend is a really solid product. It'll be one that covers most of your bases and can almost be like a backup multivitamin if you want to think of it in another way, but it provides some really unique polyphenol compounds that you usually don't see included in a multivitamin formula. And if you did, you'd be taking like 20 pills. So the stuff that's inside Legion that I really, really like and think that makes it stand out more than anything is the inclusion of reishi mushroom and spirulina. So let's first talk about reishi mushroom. Reishi mushroom is something I've been hyped on forever. four sigmatic which is

another company that makes a mushroom supplement actually did an amazing course on their four primary mushrooms which are reishi lion's mane cordyceps and chaga but we're talking about reishi um a lot of people call reishi the queen of mushrooms and what's amazing about it is it's been shown in the literature to protect the liver, to protect DNA degradation, to reduce the time it takes to fall asleep, to inhibit formation of new fat cells, to raise HDL, which just a reminder is the good cholesterol, to improve your blood glucose, to improve the health of the kidneys, to have potentially anti-cancerous benefits. That's pretty amazing. And this is from a mushroom that you're probably not going to get in your diet.

So while you might get those vitamins and minerals elsewhere, a lot of the unique compounds to this particular organism, the reishi mushroom, can only be found in reishi. So it's pretty fantastic how this exactly works, what you're really getting from it. Now, reishi can be very, very expensive. I've seen small packets of reishi tonic tea sold for anywhere from one to three dollars, and that's including only 500 milligrams or half a gram here in the U.S. of active reishi mushroom. I like Genesis because Genesis provides 2.5 grams of reishi mushroom per scoop. So I know that I'm getting all of these benefits from a product reishi. It has so much research backing it. I would take it all by itself and I would pay good

money to take it every day because I value a lot of those benefits. Like I said, decreased time to sleep, that means less tossing and turning. And I've seen that myself. So not only is it there in the literature, but the anecdote is there as well. And then the anti-cancer effect, the blood glucose regulation effect, the liver protected effect, to me, that's all really, really important. And so taking something like that at 2.5 grams a day in a greens powder, to me, is really awesome. And then the other thing that's in Genesis that I think just stands out, and that's worth talking about, because again, I'm talking about my four favorite supplements, but I got to tell you why they're my favorite. And I got to tell you what's cool about all of

these different inclusions. And so spirulina is, again, this is something I would take by itself. And what's interesting to me is I actually do have it by itself. I don't take it by this method, but I use it for my fish. I have spirulina capsules that I give to my fish and it really brings out their colors. Spirulina is an algae and it's a complete protein, which is kind of unique, but algae is a unique organism. So I guess it's kind of in the realm of possibility. But it's been shown to improve cholesterol, reduce exercise muscle damage, help detox heavy metals, reduce systemic inflammation, increase insulin sensitivity, all good things. You're getting five grams per serving in the Genesis, which is a pretty solid dosage. And again, these are things I would take every day. So spirulina and reishi are awesome. And that's why I take Genesis every

day. Not only is it a quality greens product that kind of has my back, but it's also something that comes with reishi and spirulina, which I think are amazing and I would take anyway. Hey guys, just wanted to take a quick second to say thanks so much for listening to the podcast. And if you're finding value, it would mean the world to me if you would share it on your social media. Simply screenshot whatever platform you're listening to and share the episode to your Instagram story or share it to Facebook. But be sure to tag me so I can say thanks and we can chat it up about what you liked and how I can continue to improve.

Thanks so much for supporting the podcast and enjoy the rest of the episode. The next supplement that I take every single day, and I shouldn't say every single day because there are some days I don't, but these are the four that I take the most often, is whey protein. And whey protein is really, really easy on my stomach. And that is not the case for everybody. But for me, it's more of a behavioral way to ensure I get enough protein because I can often let the day get away from me and end up not eating nearly as much as I should. So it's important for me in the morning to get that creatine in. I'm sorry, protein in. Well, to get that creatine in. I'm sorry, protein in. Well, I take my creatine with my protein, so Freudian slip. But what I use is I use a whey protein powder, and I start every day off with one scoop, which gives me about a 20-gram boost on the day. So I'm starting my day plus 20 grams

of protein, and that's a habit I've been in for a really long time. I have a protein shake in the morning. Is it better than whole foods? Probably not. But man, oh man, has it been practical for my lifestyle because I'm out of bed early and on the go, especially back when I was training clients at like 5 a.m., which I did for eight years. I would recommend doing this with a plant-based powder. I know Four Sigmatic has a really good one that has a mushroom blend. Legion has a really good one that's pea and brown rice. If you want to do that, collagen probably wouldn't give you the same muscle building benefits, but it could still give you that dietary protein boost. So there's a lot of really, really good things behind just having a protein supplement.

I'm not saying it has to be whey, but again, these are things I take every day. I just so happen to choose whey protein because again, for me, it's starting out with a little bit of a jump. The next one and the fourth and final one is a multivitamin. So I'm really, really big on taking a multivitamin every single day for many of the same reasons that I'm really, really into taking a greens powder every day. It just covers your ass. It's hard to eat perfect every day, and having a supplement that includes all of your vitamins, all of your minerals, can be really, really easy and a really, really effective way to cover your ass.

So I like several different multivitamin products on the market. Right now, I do take Legion's Triumph, which is excellent. I'll get into that in a minute. If you're looking to add a multivitamin though, I would strongly recommend getting one that is USP tested, certified, third-party verified in some way, shape, or form. Vitamins can be a little bit tricky because they can often use like really low bioavailable forms of vitamins, or they don't necessarily always end up being truthful to the label. So one that I've actually found is really high quality, very affordable, and really tends to be reliable is actually the one you get at Costco. It's the Kirkland Signature Multivitamin.

That's a great budget option. On the highest end, I like a brand called Thorne, which makes medical grade supplements. And I think that they have a couple tremendous multivitamin products. That's if you're a big spender. The one that I take every day that I love is Legion's Triumph. And I love it because they use all the bioavailable forms. The product is third-party tested, but it also includes a lot of stuff that I was taking individually. So again, this isn't just me chatting about supplements. This is kind of my chance to let you guys know in on exactly what it is that I take or that I'm looking for in my supplementation protocol, things that I want to include on top of my diet,

not just the things I want to include to fill in the gaps, but stuff that I like included on top of my diet. So one of the things that Triumph has that I absolutely love is ashwagandha. And it has KSM-66 ashwagandha, which is the most bioavailable form. So ashwagandha is an adaptogen from Ayurveda, or the ancient Indian way of medicine. And Ayurveda and Ayurvedic medicine is still quite pervasive, even in Western culture. And it's been pretty readily accepted as a secondary form of what many people would look to as like Eastern medicine. So people who are drawn to things like acupuncture, Chinese medicine, and Ayurveda oftentimes end up in the same camp. I do tend to typically subscribe to the most Western medical information, but these are

camps of medicine and healing that have been around for a really long time and do seem to help a lot of people. camps of medicine and healing that have been around for a really long time and do seem to help a lot of people. So they're worth looking into beyond just ashwagandha. But ashwagandha is effectively what we would call an adaptogen. And adaptogens are just plant compounds and natural substances considered to help the body. And they help us adapt to like stresses and they help us exert normalizing effects on bodily processes. They're, they're really popular. They've been around. Ginseng is one that people talk about a lot. Um, and they use as a reference a lot, uh, as adaptogenic or, uh, one, another one is

rhodalia, but ashwagandha is fantastic. And it's been particularly interesting to me as a male, as it's been shown to help with testosterone regulation in more than one study, which is pretty cool. It's also been shown to have a normalizing effect if cortisol levels get too high, which can be really, really good for people who are high stress, maybe don't get a ton of sleep, and maybe who caffeinate a lot. It's also been shown in the research to help with immune function. So you've got some unique positively hormone regulating effects. And what's cool is a lot of adaptogens have the ability to bring stuff to a normal level, not a super physiological level. So it's not like you're

getting this crazy impact on these hormones. It's just having some degree of normalizing effect. That's just so fascinating considering it comes from a natural source. But no real downsides to ashwagandha supplementation either. Triumph also includes selenium, which is important for testosterone formation and production. That's a lot of times why you see people eat Brazil nuts because Brazil nuts are very high in selenium. But everybody knows Brazil nuts suck. So we will probably stay away from that and maybe just take some Triumph. It also has 200 milligrams of magnesium, which I'm a huge, huge fan of with regards to helping me get to sleep and helping with soreness. Those are two

things I noticed quite a bit with magnesium. And magnesium is a dietary electrolyte. So many of you probably get it if you take sports drinks, but it's sometimes hard to get from the diet. Primarily get from things like fish, a lot of times shellfish, peas, some types of melons, nuts. It's harder to get for a lot of people because they don't eat those foods very often. And magnesium deficiency is relatively common. So I love that it has effectively a daily dose. If you're getting some from your diet, 200 milligrams, which is what's in Triumph, should be good. It also has zinc, which I quite like. And for those of you who aren't aware, zinc is actually something that depletes. As we gain

more muscle, we need more zinc. Our zinc stores get spread thin. So again, given that it's one that's hard to get from your diet, you can get a lot of it in oysters as well as selenium, believe it or not, which brings me back to another point. Oysters are often referred to as an aphrodisiac. And interestingly enough, selenium and zinc both have an interesting impact on testosterone production. So it could have been that for years and years and years, people ate oysters and it actually normalized a zinc and selenium deficiency because back in those days, you couldn't get all your nutrients on the time. You just had to get them when you could get them and grow the crops that had them. And people didn't really understand the concept of vitamins,

minerals. But when they were able to get their hands on oysters, because they're so loaded with zinc and selenium, and given the fact they were likely deficient because perhaps it wasn't seasoned for those crops or you name it, they noticed the aphrodisiac quote unquote effect, which was really just a normalization of testosterone, which is a hormone that can make us feel quite derail. So that's one that I always found to be quite interesting. But zinc is very important. It's a rate limiting factor and a cofactor and an enzyme in a lot of different parts of the body. It does a lot of stuff. Zinc is really important. And so you want to make sure that you're supplementing if in fact you lift a lot and you don't eat a lot of those foods I mentioned. So

you guys, those are the four I take every day. Honorable mentions though, before we leave, the honorable mentions here are fish oil. Fish oil is one that I take almost every day. I only left it off the list because I do eat fish quite a bit. And that is a very, very popular source of omega rich fatty acids, particularly omega threes are fatty fish, but you can also get them in other places. But that is one of the honorable mention. The second honorable mention was an electrolyte supplement. I do take an electrolyte supplement to go along with many of my workouts to provide again, magnesium, potassium, sodium, to help with muscle contraction and to help with hydration. So those are your two honorable mentions. And for those of you who have listened

this far, here is the details. So again, just one more reiteration to win this supplement stack, the supplements I take every single day, Essentially, we've got Triumph, Whey Plus, Recharge, and Genesis. So a whey protein, a vitamin, a creatine supplement, and a greens powder. These things are awesome. I know they'll probably make a difference for you. So that's why I wanted to give away that exact foursome. Very easy. It's going to be an entry-based contest. I'm picking one winner. I'm grabbing the entries. I'm sorry, I'm grabbing all the entries, throwing them into a little machine on the computer, a little app. It'll run all the usernames and boom, it'll pick a random winner. So you can get up to two entries

in this contest. So the first entry, go to the review section of iTunes. If you're listening on your iPhone, if you're not listening on your iPhone, I will give you a second way to get your first entry. Okay. So if you're not listening, if you're listening on your iPhone, leave a five-star rating and review on the iTunes score, screenshot your review before you press submit, send it to me. That's one entry. For non-iPhone users, just share one of my posts to your Instagram story. Okay. Second entry. And this is for both Android and iTunes people and iPhone and Android people, whatever you want to call it. You get your second entry by sharing a screenshot of this episode to your story and tagging me in

it. So for iPhone users, leave me a five-star rating and review on iTunes. That's one entry. If you want to get a second entry screenshot, this episode, share it to your story, tag me. Android users, share any post of mine to your story and tag me for one entry. And then for a second entry, screenshot this episode, tag me in it. That can be your second entry. So again, all that's on Instagram story or iTunes review. Very, very easy. I will be picking one winner. I hope that makes sense. And I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. I've got two amazing guests coming on later for you to listen to this week.

And I'm very excited for you to listen into those. They'll be regarding thyroid health and physiology. So stuff that's really, really fascinating for your health. It'll be really applicable abroad. So you guys enjoy. Have a good week and a happy, healthy Monday.