Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 49 - Q & A: Protein, Lunges, Recomping, My Current Training + More

Episode Date: July 3, 2020

In this episode, Danny answers your questions regarding a variety of topics!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.

Good morning, afternoon, evening, whenever you're listening to this, guys, and welcome back to the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. I'm your host, Danny Matringa, and this is a platform where I seek to bring the best experts in the health, wellness, fitness space to you so we can have a dialogue that is centered around helping you improve the quality of your life through health, fitness, and performance. Today's episode is going to be just me though, and we are going to tackle some questions. It's a Q&A, but before we do that, I wanted to hit on perhaps the biggest question I got last week across all my platforms, which is, do I believe that gyms are actually going to reclose with this new wave of coronavirus?

It's not a new wave. It's the same wave. However, because we kind of tackled this state by state, we didn't have a strong national policy. We are certainly seeing spikes in parts of California here where I live and in states that did not have a really strong shelter in place ordinance like Florida and Texas or those who just simply lifted those restrictions earlier than others. So what we might be seeing is a spike in the first wave. Some people are calling it a second wave. If it's not a second wave, there's still a very realistic likelihood that we will have a second wave. And I do worry that there will be a second wave of gym closures as now gyms are opening up in pretty much every state here. I know that the gyms opened in my county two days ago. And one of the gyms I was at opened about a week ago. I think they just kind of jumped ahead. But hey, people are going to do what they're going to do. I would still recommend wearing a mask. It seems to be that there is some

research, at least at mitigating what you are spreading, perhaps not what you might end up being exposed to at the end of the day, but I would wear a mask and I would again continue to get equipment for home gym use because I do think that there is at least some likelihood and I would say it's moderate to very likely that we might see a reactionary secondary gym closure. As unfortunate as that may be, not to start this

off with negativity, but again, it's something that I would be focused on. At least give it the time of day. At least consider it a possible outcome of all this and try to be prepared because it really punched people in the mouth the first time around. And I would hate to see people caught with their tail between their legs again. Because it seems to be somewhat manageable to work out from home if you have the things you need. So continue to work to gather those things. Especially as more and more people go back. There might be more equipment availability.

So let's get to your questions. First question is from at Sid Glover. and she asks, should you eat one gram per pound of body weight to lose weight if you're 200 plus pounds? And again, that's one gram of protein per pound of body weight. Now, I really like one gram of protein per pound of body weight for almost everybody I'm working with that's trying to lose weight. However, when you get to that 170, 180, 190, 200 plus range, it can be very difficult to eat that amount of protein, particularly I have found for women. It just, for whatever reason, is more difficult for women to eat higher amounts of protein. We could dive into the rationale behind this. I have a little bit of a theory that it might be related to evolutionary

biology, how we ate across our 200,000 years as a species. But if you ask dudes, hey, could you eat a whole tri-tip? A lot of them could. Most women can't. And I just think that given the preference men have towards protein, one gram per pound of body weight seems to be cool up to about 200 pounds where it's a little bit harder and they might have to do some things like shakes. But I know a lot of women who can barely crack 100 grams of protein a day. And so that one gram per pound of body weight might not work well for somebody who has more weight to lose. So in those instances, I will generally recommend one of two options. The first is one gram of protein per pound of lean body mass. And you can do a quick calculation using your body fat percentage and your overall weight to calculate

an estimated lean body mass. And that's essentially fat-free mass or all the mass in your body that isn't body fat. Now, the other thing you can do that I've also had quite a bit of luck with is one gram per pound of your goal weight. So if you were 200 pounds and you want to be 160 pounds, maybe you start by eating 160 grams of protein. I find that these two methods are a much easier middle ground than simply going straight to 1 gram per pound or even the lower end of that range, 0.6 to 0.7 grams per pound. It makes the math a little bit easier. It makes it easier to stick to and track those macros. And again, from a behavior and habit-based standpoint, it sets the bar for protein intake in a reasonable range.

Somebody who perhaps hasn't been tracking their calories or hasn't really been prioritizing protein, who's north of 200 pounds, is going to find it incredibly difficult to consume that much protein if they haven't already been doing so. Given the fact that protein is incredibly satiating, it's also very filling and can often end up making people just skip meals altogether and end up binging on the back half of the day. So I definitely recommend aiming for a gram per pound, but it's all context dependent. For people with more weight to lose, you might try a gram per pound of lean body mass. You might try one gram per pound of goal weight, or you might try a gram per pound of lean body mass, you might try one gram per pound of goal weight,

or you might just use that range of 0.7 to 1 and multiply your weight by that and see if you find a reasonable number there as well. This question is from at underscore G underscore L underscore T and he asks, she asks, can't tell by the thumbnail, any supplements to help me stay asleep? Taking L-theanine and 5-HTP, but not working. So L-theanine is an amino acid derived generally from tea leaves, has a calming effect, and can actually work synergistically with caffeine. And that's quite the reason why you'll find people who drink tea say it hits them differently than the caffeine in coffee or say an energy drink. 5-HTP is something that can down the line be metabolized into serotonin,

which can help with restful sleep and actually end up helping in the formation of melatonin, which is one of the things I would recommend. Melatonin does help regulate the circadian clock and can help with shortening time to fall asleep, as can the amino acid glycine. So melatonin and glycine are the two that I generally recommend first and foremost for people struggling with sleep. Then I will recommend magnesium and zinc, a combination of the two or one or the other. Generally speaking, I've had my best luck with magnesium. After those two, I will sometimes work in L-theanine, and lastly, I'll work in 5-HTP. But if you're only taking L-theanine and 5-HTP, I might backtrack a little bit and add in melatonin at 5-10mg per day, about 2 hours

before bed, and around 3g of glycine. There's a really good general sleep supplement that I have been taking lately from a company called U Theory that has a lot of the things I've just mentioned. And I also really like Legion's Lunar. And it's a fantastic sleep supplement. Legion Lunar does have a lot more melatonin than the U Theory. I quite like both. Legion is having a massive sale right now. So if you wanted to grab Lunar, you'll get it at probably the lowest rate you possibly could. Almost everything's 30% off, and you can use the code DANNY at checkout to save an additional 20% on your first order, or get double points if it's your second order, but you'll still get that additional savings. So definitely something

worth checking out. But again, work backwards. In my opinion, I think it's important to save 5-HTP and L-theanine and those kind of serotonin-based methods of trying to help you fall asleep. Opt for glycine first and then maybe try melatonin. Those tend to work really, really well. I know I've had good luck with them and so have many of my clients. All right. At underscore JRE patchy 22 asks, what is the most effective and healthiest way to bulk 10 pounds? So to gain 10 pounds. So anytime we're talking about bulk, the goal is to add as much fat-free mass as possible. That is, of course, muscle, hydration in the tissue, non-fat mass. However, it's almost impossible to gain exclusively muscle.

But the best thing you can do if you want to gain weight on the scale, bulk up a little bit, fill out a little bit without gaining a ton of body fat, is to go and do a reasonable or small calorie surplus. Now, here's why. Muscle is a very slow building tissue. It takes a while and a considerable amount of effort to build a very, very small amount of muscle tissue, particularly if you've been training for a while. Now, put this into context. If you go to the store and you see a steak, like a one pound, big 16 ounce ribeye, that's like a pound of muscle. And that's about what it would look like on your frame. Adding that much meat to your body

takes time. It can take up to a year if you've been lifting for a really long time. If you're newer, it can take a couple months. And eating more calories in no way, shape, or form expedites that process. Eating more calories will generally be better for your performance and your recovery, but your ability to gain muscle is kind of a rate-limited thing. It's only going to happen as fast as your body can genuinely build proteins and as fast as you can provide a stressful stimulus to the tissue through resistance training and recover. Eating a ton of extra calories will help with performance to a point, but only so many of them can actually go towards building new muscle tissue because, again, it's just a very slow process.

So eating more isn't necessarily better, and it can often end up in additional fat gain. So if you're willing to go slow, the road to 10 pounds might look something like this. For many of my clients, I recommend lean bulks of about 200 to 500 calories surplus per day with a goal of gaining 1% of your total body weight per month. So if you're 150 pounds, we would be looking for a cumulative gain of about 1.5 pounds across a 30 day period. Of course, you're going to have fluctuations, but if you add all those days up and divide by the number of days in a month,

you should get your approximate weight gain and you compare that to where you started. And so a 10 pound massing or lean bulk should take about six to eight months if you do it right. However, you will probably be a lot leaner and have almost all the same amount of muscle than you would if you did a dirty bulk and added 10 pounds in, let's just say, one to two months, which I do know a lot of younger people tend to do because they're in a very, very big hurry to put on as much weight as possible. But it's important to

note that gaining weight on the scale and lifting weights at the same time does not guarantee that all of that scale weight is muscle. And if you're overeating, you're eating an excessive amount of calories and your surplus is too big, your body has no choice but to put some of that ingested energy into stored body fat. And that is why a dirty bulk tends to result in worse body composition than a slower, more gradual, quote unquote, lean bulk. So aim for about 1.5% of your body fat, oh, I'm sorry, 1.5% of your body weight gain per month by eating in a 200 to 500 calorie surplus, being sure you hit your protein and you are progressing. And then a big one here is get

adequate sleep between seven to nine hours a night. So at Lauren Wires asks, what is the difference between a split squat and a Bulgarian lunge or Bulgarian split squat? So, the difference is actually quite simple. In both lifts, we are performing the lunge pattern, which is essentially a squat on the lead leg and a squat on the back leg with one of the hips in flexion and another hip in a little bit of extension. The traditional split squat is done by stepping forward and backwards into a stable split lunge position so that as you bend the lead knee and the back knee, they both reach 90 degrees at about the same time in that lunge position. Now, with a traditional split squat, both feet are flat on the ground. You generally will have a load or some type of implement for loading in each hand, oftentimes dumbbells, sometimes kettlebells, rarely barbells, and you will lower downward just before the patella hits the ground before coming up.

So you're basically doing a static lunge, minimizing any additional deviation from your center, working on bracing your core and being stable while you work up and down. A Bulgarian split squat is quite similar, but it elevates the rear leg, generally putting the forefront of the foot up against some type of rotational implement, some type of bench, something that will allow for additional range of motion through that lead leg by elevating the rear foot. It tends to be more difficult because there is less stability given that that rear foot is not anchored super firmly on the ground. And so it is also a more advanced progression. Oftentimes I teach people

this split squat first when we're working through a lunge continuum. I then will teach them a reverse lunge followed then by a Bulgarian split squat or a walking lunge. So as far as movement complexity, your split squat is going to be at kind of the base foundational point when you teach someone the lunge. It's the closest thing we've got to a traditional squat, given that it's very stable. We're not elevating any of the feet. We're not changing positions by going forward or backwards or even moving as in a walking lunge. And it's a nice, stable starting position. If you want to scale that and make it more difficult, that's when you do something like a Bulgarian split squat.

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. Next question. This is from at Navolat Nav Navolok. And she asks, what should my macro ratio be if I'm trying to re-comp considering high protein? Well, you're considering the right stuff. So first things first with a re-comp,

we're generally going to have protein a little bit higher. I would say at least 0.8 grams per pound of body weight, as high as 1.2 to 1.3 grams. That is again, the goal of a re-comp to lose a little bit of body fat while maintaining or gaining muscle. And this is easier for new lifters, but I like to keep dietary fats actually a little bit on the lower end. So closer to around 0.3 times body weight to 0.35 with the remaining calories coming from carbs. And so generally what I will do for a client is I'll calculate approximate maintenance calories. I'll then give them a little bit of bandwidth by giving them a higher protein intake and a lower fat intake with quite a bit still coming from carbs.

But given that protein is so high and we're eating somewhere close to maintenance, I found that the thermic effect of food, of eating all of that protein often leads to a little bit more burn off of what's actually being eaten. So we might end up in a small, small deficit, but the high amount of carbohydrate and protein is very effective at sparing muscle tissue. And if the training stimulus is correct, it might even be enough nutritionally to support building a little bit of muscle tissue. But given that we have lower dietary fat intake, we're not necessarily in a surplus.

We're probably in all likelihood at maintenance or in a deficit. And we have a high thermic effect of food working in our favor. We'll often see positive changes in body composition, not too quickly, but relatively quickly compared to other minor tweaks eating in the same calorie range. One thing though to be very, very, very focused on when making the attempt to recomp is still striving for progressive overload and looking to challenge yourself in the gym. The the training stimulus is not there, you can expect to see a ton of huge changes. Simply modifying your diet might make some, if not quite a bit, of the difference, but you should still be striving for progressive

overload and training pretty hard in the gym. And that's why as a coach, I like to keep my clients who are re-comping on a relatively higher carb intake to better facilitate the demand, well, recovery from training, but also fuel them for the demands of their training while being at maintenance or perhaps even a small deficit. At Kiera Reina or Sierra Arena asks, what is my current workout split? So I am currently working out five days a week. I work out Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday. I do not work out on Mondays and Fridays. I have in-person personal training sessions almost all day on those days, quite a bit of Zoom sessions, and I do a lot of work for my online clients in content creation on Mondays and Fridays. So I generally work out

five days a week, three days on, one day off, two days on, one day off. I am currently doing a modified push-pull leg that kind of is a rolling push-pull leg, given that it's three on, one off, two on, one off. And so I'm focusing primarily on reintroducing some of the machine work that I haven't been doing for the last four months due to COVID, now that I'm back at the gym work that I haven't been doing for the last four months due to COVID now that I'm back at the gym. So I'm doing more hack squats, more seated and lying hamstring curls, and even some leg extensions in conjunction with my traditional squat deadlift based leg work. For my push days, I am adding in quite a bit of cable work like cable flies cable lateral raises as well as some of my

favorite machines like the prime fitness incline bench press and the prime fitness machine lateral raise again i want to incorporate these more novel training stimuli because i can get quite a bit of stimulation with very little volume given that i have not used these in so long. They're quite novel. As for my pull days, again, doing much of the same stuff, a lot of cable work just because I haven't had a ton of access to this stuff. And I like a novel training stimulus because I want to go back to the gym and feel like I am enjoying it, but I'm still sticking to a very low volume because I want to be sure I can recover. So I'm getting about anywhere from 10 to 15 sets probably per workout spread across anywhere from three to seven exercises. For my last push day, I did like seven different exercises

for just two sets. For my leg day today, I did three different exercises for five sets. So basically what I'm doing is I'm slowly adding more sets and more volume as I re-acclimate to the training stimulus and some of this machine work. Because I've been doing almost exclusively barbell and free weight work for the last three months. And I was getting a little burnt out on it. So I want to add some stuff in to keep things fresh and to keep me motivated. But I know that I need to do that smart. So that's what I'm doing right now. And that's what my training looks like. At Roxanna Yaladet asks, how can I stay in shape while on vacation? No gym available. So this is a really good question and it is tough, But in many cases, depending on where you vacation, people actually

end up moving quite a bit more, especially on vacations to places like Europe, which ain't happening if you live here in America, because they basically said you ain't allowed here anymore. They kicked us out. They said we're done traveling because we can't handle COVID, which is crazy. That being said, most people tend to walk around quite a bit more, so they increase their NEAT. There is usually an increase in caloric intake because people tend to eat out more. There's usually alcohol involved. So if you can pack things like a TRX that's very easy and portable and light, vans, or try to book a hotel or Airbnb that has a gym or has proximity

to a gym. That can often be a really good way to stay in shape. And just set aside some time every other day to get in there for a half an hour or an hour and do something. And if you can't, just make a point to walk more. But you know, I think it's really important when we talk about fitness that we express the importance of balance and that we understand that part of the reason we all strive to be healthy, fit and active is to enjoy life and be able to take it in stride. And that certainly includes things like vacations. So if you are going on a vacation, don't make the priority, am I going to be able to get my workout in and maintain my results? You will never lose muscle that quickly.

So don't throw your vacation down the drain all in an effort just to maintain the way you look over the course of two weeks. That might make your vacation exponentially less enjoyable. Go into it knowing that, hey, I've done a tremendous amount of work up until this point to maintain my physique. I'm not going to eat like a complete asshole. I'm going to try to focus on getting my protein. And if I can squeeze in a workout here and there, I'm going to do it. 90% of my clients have seen tremendous results simply following that protocol when they go on vacation. So I would strongly recommend doing something like that. And again, remember, enjoy your vacation. Life is too short not to. And there's bigger fish to fry in this world than getting a workout in,

especially when you're doing something like going on a vacation with family and friends and loved ones. It's an important time to practice balance. So do what you can, but don't be hard on yourself and know that the likelihood that you're going to go backwards is quite, quite slim. Additionally, and I think it's worth bringing up, a lot of my clients actually see themselves attenuating or getting those gains that they've been working so hard for and diligently for when they're on vacation because their stress load is so low, they're sleeping so much more, oftentimes they're eating more, that their body actually hyper-adapts or super-compensates. And they see improvements in their physique from that minimized stress, that better sleep, and all of those gains kind of come

marching in. It's actually a really cool effect. So sometimes I tell my clients to keep an eye peeled for small improvements in body composition the first few days of a vacation. Now, can't guarantee that for everybody, but it is something I've seen in eight years of coaching people and having had hundreds of clients, many of whom choose to go on vacation and text me, man, I look better than the day that I left, which to me is just totally awesome and kind of crazy. All right, guys, bear with me. The puppy is up on the couch right now and he he's in the quote-unquote studio. So if you hear that little jingling in the background, it's probably his collar, but I'm not going to tell him how to live his life. He's just a pup. Conor, and he asks, can exercises like squats and deadlifts build more muscle everywhere else because of hormones? So it's long and touted in the bodybuilding community that doing heavy exercises like squats and deadlifts releases free testosterone that's bound up in the lower

extremity musculature. And there may be some truth to this. Now, whether or not that's enough testosterone to have like a steroidal effect, I think that might be a little bit of a reach. But what I will tell you is getting stronger at squats and deadlifts will almost assuredly make you a better lifter in every other lift that you do. There's a tremendous amount of carryover and these movements use a lot of different muscles. So getting strong in these fundamental movement patterns will have great carryover that will allow you to lift heavier on almost all your other lifts and will all likelihood allow you to accumulate a greater volume across your training block.

So in one way, shape or form, whether it's from hormones or whether it's simply just from getting better at lifting and getting stronger, I think that working on becoming better at the squat and the deadlift are certainly one of the few things you can do to really make a big difference really fast in how quickly you are able to gain size. I wouldn't entirely say that's only because of hormones. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it probably has a lot less to do with hormones than we might think. But if you do look at the literature, people who were not lifting, who started doing compound lower body exercises, they do see a pronounced increase in IGF-1, testosterone, and human growth hormone. So there is definitely

something there, but I don't think that's the reason that we see hypertrophy with those populations. I think it's simply because they are getting better at lifting and getting stronger and able to handle more volume across a similar time of training. All right, guys. So that about does it for today's episode. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you want your question featured on the podcast, keep your eyes peeled for any time I drop a question box on Instagram. I'll often field my questions from there,

but if you wanna get it featured on the podcast, the best way to get, well, I shouldn't say guarantee it, but the way to give yourself the best chance is to go to the link in my Instagram bio, scroll all the way to the bottom. And right there, I have a block that says, have a question, ask it on the podcast. So you can fill that out. It'll send me an email and I put those specifically in a folder for when I do shows just like this because I tend to find the more verbiage or the more words that you can put into the question,

the better an answer I can give. So if you want your question featured and it might even become a whole episode depending on how good of a question it is or how many people I think you could help, definitely go there. Thank you all so much for watching. If you haven't already, share this

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Anything you can makes a big difference. Thank you guys again so, so much for tuning in and have a great day.