Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 47 - Q + A: PR's, Recomping, Rep Ranges, High Protein Diets + MORE!

Episode Date: June 22, 2020

In this episode, Danny sits down to answer some of your questions! Can we set a PR/PB while in a deficit? Should I train in the low or high rep range? Will eating a gram of protein per pound of bodyweight help me? We cover all of this plus much more! 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!-----TIMESTAMPS:Is it possible to hit a PR/PB while in a caloric deficit? 1:08Tips to improve training performance while in a caloric deficit! 5:52How often do you hit high reps (15-20 per set) in training? 10:33Exercises: high or low rep? 13:04Is a high protein diet superior for recomposition? 19:07On rest days, should I eat less since I am burning less? 23:14Should I change my calories when my weight change is “ping-ponging” between the SAME two pounds? 28:52Are there any specific supplements you think every weightlifter should take? 32:32I’ve been trying to lean bulk for the last couple of months but have not seen much growth. Should I add more calories? 36:13Support the Show.

Welcome back everybody to the dynamic dialogue podcast. For those of you who are new here, this podcast seeks to bridge the gap between conventional and important scientific information, fitness and wellness. I want to make sure that we integrate the latest scientific information with tried and true anecdotal coaching and health implementation strategies to help you live the healthiest, fittest life possible. And I'll help you continue to do that by giving you access to my friends and people who I think are experts in the industry at helping all of this stuff make the most sense possible. So for today's Q&A episode, we're going to be talking about a variety of different training, nutrition, and lifestyle strategies, as I often do in these Q&A episodes. Now, the first question we're going to jump right it, is from an email from Margaret Svett. And Margaret wants to know, how, if at all, is it possible to PR while in a calorie deficit?

She asks, can you PR while in a calorie deficit? So first, let's just define PR or in other countries, it's often referred to as a PB. A PR is a personal record and a PB is a personal best. I actually prefer the term PB. It just rolls off the tongue a little bit better. Personal best sounds a little bit better. But what it is, is the best performance you have had on a lift at a given repetition range. So generally speaking, in the powerlifting circles, PRs are going to be between one and five reps. So you'll often hear people say, oh, I had a three rep PR, I had a five rep PR, or of course course the most common, the one rep max PR. Now there's different forms of PRs and PBs that I think are really important because just evolving and letting that conversation expand into different areas than just one rep max

can help you apply progressive overload in a unique way. So for example, during COVID-19, I had a pair of 40 pound dumbbells and then my next jump up was 70s. And so I actually, in an effort to preserve my shoulder, did some incline dumbbell press with 40s, with the 40s instead of the 70s. And each week I was hitting a PB. I started at like 31 reps, then got to 37 reps, then got to like 39 reps, and then like 40 reps. And so each week I was setting a PB with a different repetition total on a set weight. So you can make what we would call volume PBs or PRs. And a volume PR would be, hey, I'm going to use the same weight every time, but I'm going to look to get more reps. So a great example of a volume PR would be chin-ups, pull-ups, push-ups, bodyweight exercises, where bodyweight is going to be

relatively stable, but we're going to get a few more each time. And then of course you have your load PRs or PBs, which are, I know how many reps I'm going to be doing, one, three, five, whatever it may be. Last time I did this, I did this weight. This time I'm going to try to do 10% more and I'm going to go for that PR. So can you achieve those PRs or PBs, whether they're load or volume based whilst in a calorie deficit? This is where things get a little bit tricky. Understand that without a doubt, unequivocally, the best environment for consistent resistance training gains and performance is the one in which you can put down the most food possible without it becoming deleterious to either your body composition, your digestive system, or your performance. To put it simply, the more food you can eat, the better you'll probably perform. And that makes it difficult to PR when we're working with limited calories, right? Because if I'm dialing back my calories in an effort to be in a calorie deficit, and

for Margaret, Margaret's probably here, unless there's a guy named Margaret, Margaret's probably a woman. So she's going to have even less calories to work with because women, given that they generally have a smaller body mass, will have a smaller total calorie intake level whilst in a deficit. That's less food you have to perform and recover. So your systemic fatigue is usually going to be higher whilst in a calorie deficit, which is not an ideal environment with regards to personal records or personal best, but it can be done. And it's difficult. Again, the biggest limiting factor is how that lack of calorie intake impacts recovery. So you generally just plain won't recover as well physiologically and

neurologically when you're in a calorie deficit. So what I mean when I say physiologically is, of course, like your tissue, your glycogen storage, all of that stuff. But neurologically, when we lift heavy or we just lift hard, we fatigue our central nervous system. And having adequate food supply is one of the fastest ways that we can allow our central nervous system to recover. So with limited resources, our recovery will be impaired, which makes consistently PRing more difficult. But PRs can happen and happen in deficits all the time. Many lifters actually drop weight for months going into a powerlifting competition. And while they do refeed closer to the actual competition, or even the day of the show, there's certainly not an ideal state to get their best lift ever,

but perhaps their best lift at that given weight. So we can look at a few things that we can do here to strategically improve our performance and still hit those PRs while in a calorie deficit. still hit those PRs while in a calorie deficit. So the first thing I always look at when I have a client who's got a performance-based goal or an output-based goal, but we're working with limited calories, this is where nutrient timing becomes really important. Now, in the context and hierarchy of traditional nutrition, macros, calories, and total amount of nutrient intake is more important for performance than timing. However, as calories become harder to come by deeper into a diet or deeper into a deficit, that's where we really want to manipulate timing. If we've got a set amount of carbs, we don't necessarily want to spread them evenly across the day if we know we're going to

need them around training. In general, spreading nutrients out evenly across the day is fine, and it's something I would always recommend with protein. But with regards to PRing in a deficit, the first thing I would do is say, hey, how many of these carbs can we get 90 minutes to 120 minutes prior to training? So that you have the highest amount of circulating blood glucose. We can ensure that your glycogen is full from both the day prior's carb intake and then getting a little bit in there before we train. And also so that you have the juice going into it because you definitely get, in my opinion, better lifts after a couple meals

if you've had the chance to let them digest. And then how many of those carbs can we fit between 60 to 90 minutes after to expedite recovery, minimize the impact that cortisol is going to have on our recovery and our stressors, and get the most we can on this limited intake level. It's not ideal, but if you time nutrients properly, you can create an environment where you're almost in a mini surplus during the time you're training, but you're in a greater deficit across the day. So maybe you allot like 50% of your daily carbohydrate intake into those pre and post training meals if in fact your goal is to optimize performance while still allowing the overarching goal of a calorie deficit

to facilitate fat loss or whatever it is you may be wanting to be in a deficit for. Don't get it twisted though. This is certainly not an ideal situation for either A, making muscle gains or B, hitting PRs. You'll always want the most calories you can get away with that won't, again, make your body fat spike or be deleterious to performance or digestive health. kind of eating less than maybe you should be, or you know you're eating less than you should be, because you have some goals that might be body composition related, or you have some habits that might be perhaps dying hard. Let this be a frame shift. Let this be an opportunity to consider, hey, if performance is my main goal, it's pretty hard to simultaneously focus on body composition. And I deal with this a lot when I work with CrossFitters, which is this idea that my body composition needs to be tight and I need to have abs and I need to be ripped and shredded and be great at CrossFit. And particularly for women,

this just isn't the case. You need to eat a lot of food to perform well in those high output, high glycolytic environments. When you've also got a person who's got a job, who's got a life, who's probably got kids, you need to fuel that stuff too. And not all fantastic athletes have abs. Some do, some don't. But if you look at the UFC, Ultimate Fighting Championship, a lot of these guys are fairly lean, but not all of them have abs. Not all CrossFitters have ripped, shredded, visible abs. A lot of them have visible abs, but they're not 6%, 5%, 6% body fat. Let's reserve that for the bodybuilders, that freakishly lean body composition level. But if your focus and your goal is purely improving performance, let's give you the fuel you need to do that. But yes, Margaret, to answer the question, you absolutely can PR wallast in a deficit. It's certainly possible. Nutrient timing is going to be

your best friend here. So be smart. Time your carbohydrates accordingly. I would recommend 30 to 45% of daily carbohydrate intake for a woman pre and post training if in fact the goal is to optimize performance in PR while in a deficit. This next question is from at Coach Carruthers and Coach Carruthers asks, how often do you hit the high reps? Like 15 to 20. I started this week and it sucks. So higher rep training, particularly higher rep training done with a relatively significant load. And to put that into context, that's just a weight that's still difficult in that 15 to 20 rep range. It's not like, oh yeah, I do, you know, eight to 10 reps with, you know, 135 pounds on bench, but then I do like 20 reps with just the bar. Like it's got to scale. It's still got to

be somewhat difficult in that higher rep range. And it is difficult, but I do dabble in that repetition range. And I actually had a discussion with a client about this the other day. And I really, really like using that rep range for muscle groups that make sense. And I'll explain what I mean here in a minute. But as long as there is a training stimulus that is somewhat close to failure and demanding, even if it is 15 to 20 reps, it's going to help elicit muscle hypertrophy. That's a really, really important thing to lay down here as a foundational understanding. You can grow muscle in the 15 to 20 rep range if you're working hard enough. You don't need to be in that 8 to 12 rep range to build muscle. For many people and many muscle groups, that 8 to 12 rep range and the associative load tension required to elicit hypertrophy, it works great. Like 8 to 12, you can – let's say 6 to 12, you can still lift pretty heavy.

Particularly for muscle groups like legs and with your compound lifts, that works awesome. But let's say you're trying to hit medial delts and biceps and rear delts and maybe something like calves you know sometimes those higher repetition ranges wear and they kind of provide a little bit too much wear and tear on some of the soft tissues particularly i've noticed the biceps tendon some of the shoulder stuff in and around the ac joint and rotator cuff can be agitated by work in that six to 12 rep range that's heavy enough and demanding enough to elicit hypertrophy. However, backing off a little bit, selecting a lighter load and extending that set towards 15 to 20 repetitions allows for a training stimulus that's hard, but you're not forced to load those tissues so

aggressively. And what I mean by that is, you know, let's say you're saying, okay, I'm going to do everything for six reps today, right? I'm going to do all my lifts. I'm in the four to six rep range. And let's say it's a push day. That's going to be great for bench press. Awesome. Four to six rep bench press. Everybody's done it a million times. Works great. I don't know how long it's going to work great, but yeah, that'll work. Okay. Well, what's the second exercise? Oh, dumbbell shoulder press. Okay. Four to six reps. You're going to get away with it there too. Oh, third exercise, cable flies. Cable flies, four to six reps. You're going to have to pick a pretty heavy weight. And while the pec might be able to move it, think about the biomechanics. Think about the

positioning of the shoulder. Do we want a four to six rep heavy ass weight when we're allowing that much flexion and extension through the shoulder when the shoulder girdle is opening up and adducting and abducting in that plane? I don't know. I know my shoulders wouldn't love it. Okay, maybe we move on to triceps next. Okay, say it's a rope extension. Four to six rep rope extension? I don't know about your elbows, but my elbows might get a little cranky. And then maybe we finish with lateral raises. Four to six reps? I don't think so. So this discussion about repetition ranges, I think it's really important to look at the muscles we're trying to train, the things that we are trying to elicit from said training. And it can become really, really valuable to use this. So the initial

question was, how often do you hit the high reps? Well, I hit the high reps fairly often. And in many cases, I do it every single time I train, but it depends on the things that I'm doing. That 15 to 20 rep range is something I would probably never touch with something like a deadlift or even a barbell overhead press, where the likelihood of me fatiguing, say my low back or some of the supportive structures of my shoulder is really, really high, I'm probably not going to want to extend the set out that far because I don't want those valuable muscles that play a role in stabilization to fatigue and then might end up in a position where I'm more likely to injure myself or injure those smaller tissues. So

certain exercises lend themselves very well to 15 to 20 repetition training range, but some don't. So I use it often, but it all ends up coming down to the rep range. Now let's talk really quickly about even going beyond 20 reps and if there's utility for that. So I've used this a lot in rehabilitative work with clients, trying to minimize inhibition after surgery, trying to get a pump or a sensation because even though sensation doesn't equal hypertrophy, sensation can be a really valuable tool for developing what bodybuilders call the mind muscle connection, which is just the ability to elicit a really strong contraction, touch base with that sensation, and hopefully be able to elicit it sooner and earlier into higher load sets. The mind muscle connection is something that many bodybuilders swear by. Even in my coaching, when I'm not working with bodybuilders, even when I'm working with athletes, being able to touch base with what it is you're trying to fire and recruit can be really,

really valuable. And a tool that I've used for this, particularly in my own training, but with some clients with relatively great success, is blood flow restriction or occlusion training. And what this is, is essentially limiting venous return to a working muscle by cutting off blood supply using kind of these makeshift tourniquets. And what happens in that tissue is you have a buildup of metabolites because you can't flush blood in and out. So you get hydrogen accumulation, creatine accumulation, phosphate accumulation, lactate accumulation, all stuff that can contribute to this really intense burn and effectively help you drive greater sensation. And I've noticed anecdotally that that flushing impact

is also quite powerful when you take them off. So here's what's really interesting. To do BFR right, your sets are sometimes upwards of like 70, 80, 100 reps because you're usually doing antagonist work. So you'll go bicep or elbow flexion into tricep elbow extension, like 30 reps of each three rounds is one set. So that's like 180 reps, but you're doing it with a insanely lightweight. You really don't feel it until the second or third cycle through, at which point it becomes incredibly painful. And the goal of that exceptionally high rep training is probably not hypertrophy. It's probably sensation. It's probably metabolite buildup or what people in the hypertrophy world would call metabolic stress. And that stuff has a unique value as well. So metabolic stress is

going to help us facilitate perhaps satellite cell proliferation, not exactly hypertrophy, but that can have benefits down the road. And then one of the things I've really noticed is bringing all of that stuff into the tissue, all those different metabolites that might help with muscle growth or sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, indirect stuff. None of this stuff really matters if your goal is just purely building muscle. It can help with maintenance of soft tissues and joints. BFR really, really helped me get through some years that I was dealing with agonizing elbow pain because I was able to train my muscles and my surrounding tissues with such an insignificant weight that the only pain I was really feeling was the pain and the burn from the metabolite buildup, not the wear and tear on my body, not the stress on my body. So 15 to 20 repetition range is something that I

recommend based on muscle groups, based on what it is that you're trying to do, what you're trying to accomplish. But it certainly has a place in an extreme high rep training might be good in a rehabilitative sense, a mind muscle connection sense, a neurological sense. There's value for repetition ranges beyond 15 reps. Let's just leave it at that. 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 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. All right, so this next question is from at Griffin McMahon and he asks, is a very high protein diet superior for recomb, say one to 1.5 grams per pound of body weight?

To put it simply, yes, a higher protein intake is going to improve the likelihood of seeing better body composition outcomes when aiming for body recomposition. So again, body recomposition is in theory, the tightening of the physique that happens when you're building a little bit of muscle whilst liquidating a little bit of body fat. And the current popular way to do this is by eating close to maintenance, but with a higher dietary protein intake. And the reason for this is eating at maintenance with a higher dietary protein intake, given things like the thermic effect of food and proteins impact on things like appetite, can really help with leanness, even whilst eating a relatively moderate amount of calories, because a greater proportion of that

protein will be lost due to the thermic effect of food because a greater proportion of that protein will be lost due to the thermic effect of food or thermic effect of feeding because it takes more energy to break down protein. And we will certainly be sure to have maximized muscle protein synthesis with a higher protein intake. And if you space that out across three or four feedings, you have a much greater likelihood of optimizing MPS, muscle protein synthesis, mTOR, some of the pathways that help with muscle growth. So inside of this refeed, we've said, okay, we're giving ourselves maintenance calories, which is really important. We're giving ourselves more than adequate protein. And then of those maintenance calories, a disproportionate amount are coming

from protein, which will keep us full. And we can trust that less of that excess intake will turn into body fat because we know from the literature, excessive protein intake doesn't correlate nearly as much to body fat gain as excessive carbohydrate and excessive fat intake, even whilst calories have been equated due to the high thermic effect of food and then the unique nitrogen component inside of protein. So yes, I often recommend 1.1 to 1.2 grams of protein per pound of body weight for recomp. I've never had somebody go as high as 1.5. I don't know if I would recommend it, but it certainly has, there's potential there to explore. I would worry about digestive stress and just like simply never wanting to eat meat again after doing that. So yeah, for recomps, I think that a higher 1.1 to

1.2 grams per pound of body weight intake level is a fantastic place to start. I do think it's important anytime you talk about protein intake that you make some recommendations and you kind of provide some context. A lot of people will tell you that high protein diets can be unhealthy and that they can be bad for the kidneys. And that can be true in populations who have compromised renal health or compromised kidney health. But for otherwise healthy individuals, I don't think it's too deleterious to long-term health to have a high protein diet, based on what I've seen from the literature i just think it becomes increasingly more important as you eat more and more protein or if your goal is to temporarily eat more protein for body compositional purposes that you consider

the sources of those proteins so i would say uh one point uh a reefy let's say it's three months long eating 1.2 grams of protein per pound of body weight would probably be more deleterious to health if all you ate was processed and deli meats versus if you ate whole grass fed wild cod, blah, blah, blah meat. So if you are going to increase your protein intake, cover your bases, play it safe and try to opt for higher quality sources of protein. I think you'll do better in the long run if you do that. All right. So another excellent question from at B Cortez 96, she says, or she asks on rest days, should I be eating less calories since I'm burning less? And I do this with a lot of my clients where we undulate calories

so that they have more on the days or the days before they have their hardest training sessions in an effort to give them the fuel that they need to train and recover properly. I think for many people, in many cases, reducing calorie intake alongside reduced calorie output is a wise course of action. I think it makes all the sense in the world to say, hey, go ahead and eat a little less on the days you don't go to the gym so that you don't gain as much body fat if you're inclined to eat in a calorie surplus, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It makes all the intuitive sense in the world. The only rebuttal I would have for this is that, hey, if you're already in a deficit where you're at maintenance or you're really want to taking your recovery seriously or you're super stressed or you don't want to count

different macro sets, different days of the week, it's completely fine to eat the same amount on the days you don't train so long as you make sure that that overall calorie intake is still aligned with your goals. Like, you know, let's say you're in a 500 calorie deficit every single day or that's what you've calculated for yourself on the days that you train. The average person is only going to burn 300 calories or so working out. You know, those Fitbits and those Apple watches apple watches they're very very unreliable and almost always to overestimate it's like these it's hilarious to me that these like tiny little 115 pound girls will go to the gym and fucking do the stairmaster for 20 minutes and hit legs for an hour and be like i burned 900 calories no you fucking didn't you didn't burn 900 calories

it's ridiculous probably burned three four hundred, but your heart rate monitor is incredibly unreliable and popping out some just ridiculous data. So like, let's just say you burn three to 400. If you're in a 500 calorie deficit, you know, that means on the days you didn't work out and didn't calculate that in there, you're still in a 200 calorie to 100 calorie deficit. Um, and you know, for many people, I think it's a lot easier to just have one steady macro set across the entire week. I think that in in some ways, the simplification is probably going to outweigh and it's going to be more beneficial than having two macro sets having days where you're clearly feeling as though you're eating less, right? Let's outline too that like when you're exercising, we know that exercise has a appetite suppressing effect. We know that that's, let's say

it's two hours. It takes you 15 minutes to get there. You know, you exercise for an hour and 15, you shower for 15, takes you some time to get back, whatever. So it's two hours out of your day that you're probably not eating and you get the appetite suppressing impact of exercise. So it's easier on the days that you work out not to eat. So reducing your calorie intake on the days you don't work out, there's a lot greater likelihood I think that you're going to overeat, right? So these are just things to consider. And while I do implement this with a lot of clients, I think it's worth sharing some of the pitfalls that we've run into. So some people really do struggle because they have more

time to think about food. They're not training. They're not at the gym suppressing their appetite because when you're training, you're not hungry. So I, for many people, recommend one consistent macro set across the whole week. And I find a way to make sure that it's set up so that they're still in a small deficit or at maintenance on the days that they're not training. And in truth, sometimes that can make diets take longer. It can make it harder to reach your goals. Or I shouldn't say harder, it can make it take longer. It can make it easier to actually reach your goals, but it will extend the timeline. Something I've actually had a lot of luck with personally is on the days I don't train, those are sometimes days where I'll implement intermittent fasts.

I'll just start my day off with a protein shake and a greens powder, something nutritious, day off with a protein shake and a greens powder, something nutritious, something that I think is, again, high in the nutrients I would want. And then I'll just wait until I'm hungry. So like, I'll wake up at six in the morning and I'll kick back a greens powder and a protein shake. And then I might not eat again until two. And so effectively, I have enough protein in the morning to ensure I'm giving myself a chance to have some muscle protein synthesis going on and I have a greens powder to ensure that I'm getting some micronutrients. But then I don't eat again until I'm hungry. And oftentimes that allows me more time in the evening to eat what I would call more normally than if I were eating throughout the entire day. So not that you need to change

calories, right? This is just an alternative option. You might change eating behavior. So maybe your calories are the same, but on the days you don't train, if you were a morning trainee, maybe you fast till the afternoon and eat more on the back half of the day. There's so many ways that you can play around with this when you don't have to fuel for exercise that I think we can look at things like, hey, what are some behavioral modifications, some eating window modifications, some things we can play with behaviorally to make it a little bit easier for ourselves when it comes to nutrition on the days that we're not training. All right, next question is from at the OC PT,

which if I had to guess probably is a personal trainer in Orange County, right? OC and then PT. Weight loss has been stuck between the same two pounds. How long until I change calories? So in general, fluctuations aren't something that I would like go, oh, there's fluctuation. We need to change. However, stagnation, I would be concerned with. So if you're bouncing up and down between these same two pounds, right, that could be many things. It could be stress. It could be water. It could be all this. But we know that there's stagnation of body mass within that two pound range. You're not dropping below that two pound range. You're not going above. You're right within that.

So in some ways, while it's not truly maintaining the exact same weight, those fluctuations are clamped. Right. We know they're not going to go above this number or below this number. So we could call that a form of body weight maintenance. And for my clients, if the goal is body fat loss, I really, really like to be sure that we wait it out for at least a week. But if we're maintaining for a week, I will tend to reduce calories. But how much we reduce those calories can be really, really small. I tend to reduce them from carbohydrate or fat depending on the client and depending on where we are at with their current macros. It usually makes the most sense to dial a little bit back from carbohydrate or a blend of carbohydrate and fat. I don't always dial back from fat alone. Usually what I will do is I'll make a compromise and say, hey, if we want to reduce calories by 100, we're going to take

15 grams of carbohydrate and two, 3, 4 grams of fat. Or if we want to reduce calories by 200, maybe we take 20 grams of carbohydrate. That's 80 calories and 10 grams of fat. That's 90 calories. So it's 170 calories. It's close to 200. I don't like to pull all from fat because then you can get down into those lower levels of fat quite quickly. So even if I know, hey, I want to reduce calories by like

100 and we do have higher fat intake, I'll still usually borrow a little bit from carbs because fats play a particularly important role for the maintenance of different things physiologically. So I don't like to just pull back there. And generally, I start clients with a really high carbohydrate total because of the impact that that has on performance and repair and recovery. And so I start high so we deliberately can borrow from that total as we go with the diet. But if you're ping-ponging back and forth between the same two pounds, it's been a couple of weeks, we can effectively call that maintenance with some fluid retention, some sodium, those general scale weight fluctuations. But we're not seeing the big change. So it becomes really, really important that we start to get real and say, okay, we need to

make a modest drop here. And then you monitor. And if you're still ping ponging, you might have to make a greater drop. But if you start ping ponging between that lower end number and a new lower end number, you're on the right track because fluctuation is normal. But stagnation is something that we might want to avoid as we go through a diet. All right. So next question is from underscore C flaw. And she asks, are there specific supplements you think every weightlifter should take? If so, what?

I'm a huge fan of creatine monohydrate, which should come as no surprise. If you follow me for any amount of time on this platform you'll know i think everybody should take creatine not just lifters um i'm really big on lifters taking supplemental zinc or eating high zinc foods because as you gain muscle zinc stores throughout the body are depleted and you need more to have a proper and adequate level of zinc. So creatine and zinc are really high up there on the list. I'm also a really big advocate of fish oil. Fish oil in particular has been shown to have mildly anabolic impacts at higher doses. That's a McGlory from 2019. If you want to look up the study, just Google McGlory 2019 skeletal muscle hypertrophy. Fish oil has also been shown to improve brain, eye,

heart, bone, joint health, as well as help with curtailing excessive inflammation. You want a nice blend of EPA and DHA from your fish oil, but I've had lifters take up to four grams of fish oil a day with no deleterious side effects. Another one I really like, and it's a mineral, is magnesium. Magnesium can help with nervous system recovery. It's really, really good for helping with relaxation. I've noticed sleep quality with almost all of my clients, because it does play a role in some of the different processes we go through whilst sleeping. And it's also a very common deficiency. So simply adding it in again, a lot of the foods we get zinc from are the same foods that we get magnesium from. So those can be very good

whole foods fixes, uh, or whole food opportunity fixes. You don't need to supplement, but those are some that come to mind right away as I'm kind of answering these questions as things that I think all lifters should take. Betaine is emergent. It's a new player in the space, but there's a lot of potentially interesting research around betaine's ability to improve performance. It's nowhere near the tier of some of those other supplements, but it's one that you might consider if performance is a goal. Another one is caffeine, but not chronic caffeine consumption in the sense that every single day I'm going to have a huge cup of coffee. Instead, it's perhaps more of a focus of, hey, I'm going to time this caffeine closer to my workout so I can get the performance and acute effects.

If you're drinking caffeine every single day and having a cup of coffee every morning, you're really not going to get anything out of caffeine around your training. But if you're not a caffeine consumer every day, you might benefit from caffeine around your training. It's certainly been shown to be a potent performance enhancer. Another one is sodium bicarbonate, which is just baking soda. But again, I think a supplemental electrolyte can help in a lot of ways in that same vein as well. So supplemental electrolyte, betaine, caffeine, zinc, magnesium, creatine, and fish oil are the supplements that I really lean into heavily when I'm working with lifters and when performance is particularly important. I think that there's a lot of value there. Last question is from at rxmen, and he asks, I'm trying to lean bulk for the last couple

months, but I'm not seeing much growth. Should I add more calories? Yes. However, it's important that you understand that the importance, there I go, double important. It's really important that you understand you have to be patient, particularly when it comes to muscle growth. If you're gaining, and this is a number I work with with my clients, between 1% to 1.5% of your total body weight per month, I think you are in a rock solid place for a lean bulk. So just measure your weights, ask yourself every day, hey, am I sticking to my macros? Am I training hard? Am I achieving a stimulus of progressive overload? Am I getting adequate sleep and managing my stressors? If you're saying yes to all those things, and you're gaining about 1% of your total body mass per month, so if you're 170 pounds at the end of your first month,

you should have gained about 1.7 pounds. If you're on the upper end of that 1.5, maybe like 2.35 pounds, something like that, just pulling those numbers out of my ass, quick math. I wouldn't trip. I wouldn't try to expedite lean bulks. The faster you try to go, the less of a lean bulk it is. Remember, muscle growth is not a very, very rapid process. Okay. Muscle growth takes time, particularly for people who have been lifting a while. And I'm guessing if you're trying a lean bulk, you've been lifting for a little while. So just bear with me, okay? Hear me out. I think it's really, really important that you continue to double down on patience. You lean into patience. You want to go slow during a lean bulk. The faster that you go, the more likely it is you're going to gain body fat. The less likely it becomes that you're going to gain muscle. That

muscle growth is kind of, it's got a clamp on it. It's got a speed limit on it. You can only gain so much so fast and going any faster all that's really going to do is increase the likelihood of getting a speeding ticket which in this context effectively speaking is gaining extra body fat that's the unwanted side effect of trying to go too fast just like the unwanted side effect it doesn't affect everybody but when you do speed you increase the likelihood of getting something like a ticket. So just be smart about it and don't try to do too much too fast. Hopefully you guys enjoyed this episode. Look, I really like the Q&As. They're fun. They help me

get into the weeds. I know there's a lot of value in here for you guys. So if you have a question specifically for the podcast, ask me on my Instagram whenever I drop a question box, but better yet, go to the link in my bio and submit a question to me via email. I love to hear from you guys that way because you have more characters to work with and you can ask some really thorough questions. So if you have a question, go to the link in my Instagram bio and click the link that has the title, ask a question for the podcast. It'll pull up a quick form. You fill it out and it goes right to my email and I'll check it when I do these Q and A. So it gives me a better opportunity to answer your questions in thorough detail because you'll be able to provide a more thorough question. If you guys enjoyed this

episode, it would mean the world to me if you shared it to your Instagram story and tagged me. If you disagreed with something I said, send me an email. Let's chat about it. I'd love to chat and have respectful discourse. And if I'm wrong, that's totally okay. And let's, if you can, leave me a five-star rating and review, that would make a really big difference. It helps the podcast grow. And to everybody who's listening again, I really appreciate all of you. It's been amazing. This has been something that I worked on pretty regularly during COVID and I'm very excited to continue working on moving forward. So everybody, I hope you have an amazing day. I'm recording this on father's day. So you'll hear it the day after,

but you know, on Monday, the day after father's Day, so you'll hear it the day after. But on Monday, the day after Father's Day, call your dad again and tell him how much you appreciate him. You guys are awesome and have a good one.