Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 5 - How To Save Your Gains, What To Get At The Store, Home Workouts, Creatine + MORE!

Episode Date: March 17, 2020

In this episode, Danny talks about all things maximizing gains during the uncertainty of COVID-19, as well as big moves in the first day NFL free agency. The Q/A section will also cover:- home workouts- best lifts for advanced lifters- dieting on the coronavirus.- program design- detraining/stimulation - dealing with self-isolation on a physical, mental and spiritual level.For more information check out Danny on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danny.matranga/For coaching, programs, free guides, and more, check on the website: https://www.coachdannymatranga.com Support the Show.

All right, guys, so here we are on what is officially the first real kind of holy shit Monday in this whole coronavirus thing. Now, regardless of where you stand on this, it's here. It's real. It's impacting our day-to-day lives. A lot of people have a lot of different opinions from a geopolitical standpoint that are kind of irrelevant now. It doesn't matter where you think this virus came from, whose fault you think it is, or even whether or not you think it's real. Because some people don't even think it's real.

It's here and it's impacting our lives in a considerable way. It's here and it's impacting our lives in a considerable way. Just to give you guys an up-to-the-date kind of running of the events, I'm in California. They just shut down six counties in the South Bay, Central Bay area. So I'm north of that. So as it stands right now, I'm good. I am working and kind of operating under the assumption that my life and my county will shut down shortly. UFC gyms just shut down as of a text message I got at 2 o'clock.

And I'm under the impression 24-Hour Fitness is going to follow at 3 o'clock today. As of time of recording, it's 2.26 p.m. on the West Coast of California. They've already shut down all gyms in the tri-state area. So pretty crazy stuff. But what I want to talk to you guys about today is something positive. I'm going to answer a lot of your questions, but I want to open it up with training from home. But more importantly, to kind of put your mind at ease, I want to talk about something called detraining. Now, detraining is a response to not training for a long time, or not training hard, where we lose some of our strength or some of our muscle mass. Okay, a lot of people would simply refer to this as losing your gains or getting weaker.

In the scientific community, in the training community, we refer to it as detraining. Now, detraining, in many people's minds, occurs the minute you miss a single workout. You're already going backwards. But that's actually very far from the case. And there's actually reason to be encouraged. And let me explain why that is. So for training gains to occur, we have to stress out our body. That's why we train, right? Training with weights stresses our muscles and they grow bigger. That training adaptation or response where we grow bigger or get stronger or get faster is known as supercompensation. And supercompensation can only occur after that

training stress has kind of peaked and then we step away a while and we actually attenuate the gains. So right now, wherever you're at, in all likelihood, if you've been training decently hard, you might see some super compensation this week. You actually might see your physique tighten up. You might see your physique look a little bit better. You know, you might feel like you're operating on better recovery, perhaps even stronger if you're training from home. Like there's a lot of positive things that are going to happen in your body this week. Although I understand that it's crazy, gyms are shutting down, but you're not immediately losing gains. This first week might be super compensation. You might be peaking due to this newly kind of found recovery. And that's really, really big that we look at how we frame this time for us. So your first week in this whatever you want to call it situation,

whether you're quarantined, whether all your shit shut down, maybe you're in the middle of America and you're just proceeding as normal, this first week is not the week to freak out. Good things are happening in your body and we could most likely all use a time away from hard training that we don't take. I know damn well most people don't deload when they should. They probably take one too few rest days and they're usually kind of neurotic about going to the gym and stepping away from it can be incredibly valuable. Think about professional sports. They all have an off-season and a lot of those guys don't play any of that sport during that off-season because it's really important that they take a break. Almost every Mr. Olympia winner that I'm aware of

takes a significant time away from training after they win the Olympia. You need to step away every once in a while. And I know myself and a lot of the people who follow me spend almost every week going in and out of the gym. And they get into this situation where it's been perhaps years since they took a full week off. So even if you have to take an entire week off of training, understand that you're going to be okay. Now, let's talk about mitigating or managing the potentially negative impact of detraining. So we're all afraid of losing the muscle and strength, and we know that's not going to happen in the first week because we might still be super compensating or we might just be experiencing necessary recovery. But what about week two? What about next Monday? What about March 23rd? Okay, it's the 16th right now. As of this recording, it'll be the 17th when you hear it. What about next week? start to implement body weight programming, things that allow you to use the weight of your own body to create tension in your muscles, or using bands or kettlebells or dumbbells or TRX or going to the

gym when it's less crowded, depending on where you live. But notice this, okay? Understand that the likelihood of you losing your gains because you're not training is much higher than the likelihood of you losing your gains because you're training just a little bit. A little bit of training goes an incredibly long way to helping you maintain your muscle. Now, this is completely anecdotal, but I heard it somewhere and it has totally rung true across seven years of training. And that's that it only takes about 40% of the volume it took to build a physique to maintain it. Now, I'm sure at face value, that's probably not supported by the scientific evidence, right? I could pull up on my computer right now, some degree of scientific literature that would tell me about how much training volume or training

intensity or hard sets were required to maintain muscle mass. Now, I can't tell you exactly what it is, but why I like this 40% metric, or I forget who told it to me, but it tends to ring pretty true for most people, that you can step away from your training or train much less intensely than perhaps you were and maintain your physique. And I think this is going to be the case for almost all of us doing body weight programming or using TRX or kettlebells or dumbbells. I'm very confident that with the right programming, the right frequency, the right intensity, you guys are all going to be completely fine over the course of what could be the next several weeks, if not months. We're going to have

to make some adjustments. We're going to have to make some hopefully short-term modifications to how we train. But for the most part, it's going to be very much possible for us to train in the situation we are in, whatever that situation may be. Maybe it's home, who knows, we should be able to train to enough of a point that we can maintain what we've built. And I'm speaking for myself and hopefully all of you. And I'm only telling you this because I want to put your mind at ease. I know that many people work really hard to build their physique, to build their strength, to build something that they're proud of. And we kind of walk around with it like our suit of armor. Like, hey, look at me. You know, for the fit person, their body is like a car to a car person. When you have a car that you really

like and you drive it around and everybody looks at you, you know, that makes people feel good. Whether we can talk whether or not about that shallow or, you know, incessant need for self, you know, appreciation fromant need for self, you know, appreciation from other people is healthy. But one thing's for sure is when you identify with something, maybe it's being a car guy and your car's in the shop and you have to drive around that loaner, you don't feel the same. And if you identify as a fit person and your physique is a part of that and you feel like,

you know, maybe I'm going to lose some of this power, this fitness, this physique that I have, it can be scary. You know, you're dealing with somewhat of an identity crisis and I'm here to tell you that it's going to be completely okay. You're going to be able to maintain. And if you do lose some gains, everybody else is going to lose probably the same amount. So at the end of the day, we're all going to be right where we were. If you were buff, you're going to be buff. If you weren't that buff, you're going to be a little less buff than you were. So don't trip on it too much. Hopefully this 10-minute monologue isn't going crazy. But I wanted to start the episode off with sports talk, but I had to talk about this

because I got a lot of DMs about it. And I think it's really important. I think that it has a lot of, I think it has an opportunity to shift some mindsets and hopefully put some people at ease. But let's talk sports. Some huge moves in the NFL. DeAndre Hopkins, perhaps the best wide receiver in football. In my mind, he might be. Obviously, Michael Thomas is an absolute freak of nature, might be. Obviously, Michael Thomas is an absolute freak of nature and as sure-handed as they come, but from a pure route running hard to cover one-on-one perspective, DeAndre Hopkins is right up there and he's on the move going to Arizona in a shocker of a trade. I can't really wrap my head

around it entirely, but it's just wow. David Johnson, the former great running back, ended up on the Texans on the other side of that trade. The Niners brought back their star D tackle, Eric Armstead, and lost DeForest Buckner to the Colts. But that's really been it on day one of free agency. But beyond that, every other sport's been pretty quiet. There were some franchise tags and surprise cuts, but no big surprises. But we don't have a ton of sports to really talk about. So one thing I will say is, in the meantime, while we're waiting on these sports to come back, it's a good time to work on your reading. It's a good time to work on that audio book you haven't been focusing on. Maybe the project or career goals you've been working on, if they're not put on hold by this. It's never a

bad time to work on yourself, your family, your relationships, and dig deep into those things at this time because we don't have training as we know it we're gonna have to modify that we don't have sports as we know it we just have danny matranga's kind of up to the date um nfl free agency stuff so let's get into your questions but before we do i'd like to uh remind you that today's q a is brought to you by Plus Cannabis Infused Gummies, because I had some before I answered these questions. So they didn't actually pay for this, but being locked inside your house all day gets a little boring, people. So let's start with Yours Truly Scout asks, is creatine safe for 15 to 18-year-olds? So I guess the real question here is, is creatine safe for 15 to 18 year olds? So I guess the real question here is, is creatine safe for young people? And we can extend this to other populations, but

let's first clarify that I'm not a medical professional, so you shouldn't take anything I say seriously regarding any type of nutritional supplement or dietary protocol. But I think if I had to guess, creatine is completely safe for people age 15 to 18. Now, remember where we get most of our dietary creatine from? Meat. We also make our own dietary creatine, and it's a simple amino acid compound. Again, arginine, glycine, and methionine. Nothing crazy there. It's nothing hormonal. All right. That's where a lot of the confusion comes from. A lot of the confusion stems from this idea that because creatine has these otherworldly strength promoting properties and it makes you bigger and you need to be careful with it, right? People think it's hormonal. So they go, oh, okay, well, it's like steroids. That stuff must not be

safe for kids. And I don't think that people are off base and being concerned, but the physiology is just not really there for us to be afraid of creatine, even for young people. It's just something that time and time again has been proven to be safe. There's no reason to look at what it is from a mechanistic standpoint, like what it does within the body and be worried. There's not a huge reason to look at what it is from a makeup standpoint, like what it does within the body and be worried. There's not a huge reason to look at what it is from a makeup standpoint, meaning like the amino acid composition and be worried. There's not a lot there no matter how you slice it. What is probably important for 15 to 18 year olds that's more important than creatine is expressing upon them the importance of training, training hard, getting adequate sleep and eating right, because creatine

will not replace any of those things. So, you know, when you're working with the youth population, or you have a mentee, somebody who's younger, perhaps a family member who looks up to you and your fitness, it's important that we hit on the big rocks. Because while creatine is as effective of a natural supplement as exists in this world. Nothing's better than hard training, proper nutrition, and good sleep. Okay, so next question. At Sarah.Lin4 asks, best exercises slash mobility to reduce a flaring rib cage. So when people talk about ribs flaring, they're talking about the chest shooting up and out. So let's talk about the squat. That's a good example. As you descend in the squat, you'll notice a lot of people throw their head up and

back, look at the ceiling and throw their chest off and pump it out as much as possible. And while having a tall torso is not always a bad thing, throwing your chest up, right, and really puffing up your chest usually puts a big old bend in the back of your spine, right? We go into some extreme extension, what we would call hyperextension. And when we hyperextend our thoracic spine, right, or that middle portion of our back, we're going to lose our core because that rib flare pulls our abs and it actually stretches them out. Because what's the opposite of a rib flare, right? A crunch.

Ribs flaring is abs going into the lengthened position and a crunch is abs shortening. So the problem with a rib flare from a lifting standpoint is we often lose our core. So from a mobility standpoint, it could be plausible that you had really, really tight extensors in your mid back that were just really keeping you hyperextended. But that tends to be a little bit rare. Usually what it is, is it's improper breathing, improper bracing and improper setup, right? Because if we're not locking in that canister position and really bracing, breathing hard, creating tension through our abdomen, locking in our core, we might be more likely to rib flare. But if we hit on all

those things, right, before we lift, we take a big belly breath in, tighten up the abs, right? We brace the transverse abdominis and and the obliques and we create tension and lock our abs in. That's going to hold our ribs down. It's going to literally attach and be like, nope, you're not going anywhere. And that chest isn't going to be able to get thrown up, which is so problematic for most lifters. So as far as exercises, obviously strengthening your core is a huge one. But even beyond that, we need to talk about bracing and technique. So working on understanding technique, understanding where the rib flare is occurring and why it's a problem, how to fix it with proper setup and execution. Then we talk

about strengthening the abs. Potentially we do some mobilization work for some of the muscles that extend the spine like that, that promote that thoracic extension or that big rib flare. But for most people, believe it or not, a lot of those muscles are weak anyway. So like lower traps come to mind, but that's not always what needs to get work on just because there's a technique error and trainers listen up because this is big. Just because there's a technique error does not mean somebody has a mobility issue. I cannot tell you how many new trainers are like, hey, let me take a look at your squat. I want to assess you. And they're like, oh man, your squat's complete trash. Your heels are coming off the ground. Your hands are falling forward and blah, blah, blah. And then they're like, oh, well, I didn't know that was a problem.

Let me try it again. And then they bang out a perfect squat. And most of the time, I didn't know that was a problem. Let me try it again. And then they bang out a perfect squat. And most of the time, I don't want to say most of the time, but a lot of times trainers are looking for problems that would be otherwise non-existent if they explained the exercise, how to do it properly and went from there. But instead, somewhere along the way, probably around like 2014, it became super sexy to be what I call a mobility douche, where you hyper highlight everybody's mobility restrictions and like rub it in their face. And that's not an effective way to train. A lot of novice people don't have so many mobility issues as they have genuine lack of understanding of technique and execution. And you can obviously find a mobility issue if you really

want to look for it. But I think in the case of ribs flaring, and again, I'm not minimizing mobility work. People need to do it. A lot more people need to do it. That sounded very Trumpian, right? People need to do it. A lot more people need to do it. It's very important. Mobility is very important. Okay. Number one thing to work on. I don't know why I went there, but it is important, but the rib flare is more than likely a technique issue. is more than likely a technique issue. So thank you to Sarah Lynn for at Sarah Lynn for for that question. Next question comes from at William J. Lem and it's what's your favorite compound lift for experienced lifters? Now, this is a fantastic question. I didn't take any notes for today's podcast. So we're just going to go with this one off the cuff. But the first one that comes to mind right away is the front squat. The front squat is an unbelievable movement for developing the thighs, particularly the quads,

because for most people, they get a lot of quads, the upper back and your abdominal strength, right? To be able to front squat two plates for a dude, I would say is more impressive than back squatting three plates. For a chick to walk up to the bar and take 135 for a ride for a couple reps on front squats is freaking impressive. It's rare. The movement is hard and people just don't want to do it because, and again, I'm giving mobility some credit here, so you can't call me a mobility poo-pooer, but if you have tight lats and tight wrists, which a lot of people do, right? Because we bench, we use our lats, we deadlift, we use our lats. A lot of people train a lot of lats. A lot of people have a problem being too internally

rotated. Tight lats, tight pecs, tight wrists can all get in the way of a really pretty looking Olympic grip front squat. And that would be, of course, where we have our fingers under the bar and people have to do that cross grip or the zombie grip where they balance it across their rear delt. And it's just nasty, uncomfortable when you're first starting. So a lot of people just toss it out. But one of the things I love about it is because of the location of the bar, it's more anterior or more towards the front of the body. That counterbalance effect lets us sit back. It often lets us sit deeper. The other thing too, is there seems to be more forward knee travel because of the more vertical torso, right? You can't fall forward with a front squat or you'll totally lose the bar in the way

that you can with a back squat. So that more vertical torso paired with that anterior distribution of the weight, like leads to this gorgeous depth that people just don't always get with a back squat. And pair that with the fact that you get a ton of upper back and core, and you can really make this a fantastic hypertrophy exercise, an incredible strength exercise, a great supplemental exercise. Shit, it's even one of those ones where you can say it's really helping reinforce proper posture by again, accentuating that thoracic, vertical thoracic column, that big open chest because we can't fall forward, that deep squat where we express ankle and hip mobility.

So it's one that's definitely, in my opinion, going to take some work, but it's one of the few movements that when you really, really do it and do it well, people can't help but really look at you and go like, damn, okay, that person knows how to lift. If you can just go beast mode on a front squat, you will get a lot out of it. So that's a favorite lift of mine for experienced lifters. Now I'm inclined to go upper body here, but I'm going to go next with the Turkish get up. Now the Turkish get up is way harder looking than it is executing. A lot of trainers don't know how to do get-ups because they take one look at it and they're like, shit, that has like six steps. And they go right back to when they learned how to do the power clean, which is as technical a movement as you're

probably going to find beyond the snatch. And learning cleans for most people is a bitch, right? There's a lot to learning cleans. And Turkish get-ups is like, oh crap, that's like just as many steps as a clean and it's a kettlebell but you start on the floor and it's like oh my god that's crazy but really it's not that hard of a movement to learn there's a few cues that you'll have to remember like same side arm same side leg whatever you have to remember thread the needle pull the leg through um there's a few cues but it's an interesting lift because when you get from position to position to position, there's really only one way out of some of those positions. And so it somewhat feels intuitive. But the reason I love it is it's got an incredible shoulder

stability component on both arms, right? We have to extend our shoulder on one side and keep our shoulder flexed on the other side while we balance usually a kettlebell. And then there's a lot of abs going on. There's a lot of hip stuff going on. It's a very fluid movement. It's very organic. And it's something that you could just say, hey, fuck it. I'm locked in in quarantine and I'm going to do 10 minutes of continuous Turkish get-ups, two per side. So I'll bang out two, switch sides two for 10 minutes nonstop. You're going to get an incredible total body workout. And this is something that I'm working to implement with the clients that I two, switch sides two for 10 minutes nonstop. You're going to get an incredible total body workout. And this is something that I'm working to implement with the clients that I have right now, because it's not necessarily easy to run an online coaching business or even an in-person

coaching business. And remember, I do both when a lot of your clients just lost access to their gym. And a lot of them are like, dude, I have these goals. What do I do? So we have to come up with things that are beneficial and give you bang for your buck in a limited space. Kettlebell work does that. And the kettlebell Turkish get up is one that I think does that exceptionally well. All right. And then the last one I'm going to pick for this, I wanted to pick something for the upper body. Cause again, I was like, okay, upper and lower front squat just came to mind immediately. And then I was on my way over to the upper body and I was like, damn, stop in the middle here and talk about this Turkish getup because this move is sick. But I think it's going to have to be variations of rows. When executed properly, rows are a really good exercise for developing the lats, upper back, mid back, and just overall moving a fuck ton of weight.

And seeing somebody execute like a high level chest supported row, kettlebell warrior row, renegade row, even barbell rows. Like they're not necessarily easy. So when I see people execute them at a high level, it's always, especially with load, I would say a high level with load, like just for a newbie lifter, not having slop form on your rows is like, damn, this person knows what they're doing. But like, if you see somebody bent over rowing or one arm dumbbell rowing a considerable amount of weight with good form and not just going to complete shit, because that's the problem with rows is when most people do them, they go to complete shit.

And just seeing somebody do them well is always like, wow, that's exceptional. And you can tell that the person takes pride in how they do things. So those are the three I really like for advanced lifters, the front squat, the Turkish get-up, and then well-performed variations of the row. This is a good question. It comes from at Jake Wagner underscore underscore. How would you diet slash eat during the 2K20 coronavirus to stay healthy? It sounds like this is slowly becoming like my descent into madness in this coronavirus apocalypse 2020. Like people are listening to me ramble about this virus. Like by the time we get to like day 30, I'm going to be like, it's day 30 in my house. I've resorted to eating my baby wipes. But I'll

answer these questions because I know a lot of people are going through it. I just understand it's early for me and answering these still seems super surreal because it's just like, wow, this is really happening. So how to stay healthy with your diet during coronavirus 2020. This is one where I wish I had a co-host to bounce some ideas off of, but work it through macro by macro. Like this is big. We got to consider things that are non-perishable if we're going to be in our house for a while, or even if just getting to the store is tough. So macro by macro, if I'm going protein, I want something that's affordable and high in protein.

So maybe I'll go with lean ground beef that I can freeze, different cuts of fish that are frozen. Certainly chicken breast and ground turkey would be fantastic options. Those are great protein sources. And then we can go to dairy protein. We have our whey protein shakes, obviously. We have our, you know, yogurts, kefirs, cottage cheeses. Those things all have some potential to keep for a long time. So if you're limited with how much access you have to the store, how frequently you're comfortable going out, those would be your big proteins, particularly things that you can freeze or dairy proteins that will keep well. Because again, you don't want to always be running to the store. We don't know how long this is going to be.

I would imagine we'll all be able to go to the store on a fairly regular schedule. But those would be the things I might want to have around as essentials just in case my store trips became a little less frequent. Then I would go to carbs. Let's look at the carbs. We're going to go to carbs next because fats are going to be easy. Fruits might be tough because they don't keep that long, but you could always opt for some frozen fruits or fruits with peels. They tend to last a little bit longer. Now might not be the best time to be looking for berries, even though summer is coming up, but it might be a little bit tough to get your berries or at least get them or hold them long

enough to be fresh. But apples, bananas, oranges, pears, frozen fruits are probably all really good at carbohydrate fruit options for you. Then we have those obviously never, never, never going to go bad things like oatmeal and rice. There's just some certain grains. Their shelf life is just plain stupid. So you have those. There's plenty of microwavable options for those now. If you're not one to just keep a huge bag of rice around, you can always do those microwavable rice packets. Vegetables, I know there's always a ton of different options as far as frozen vegetables, how you can steam them and it's super convenient. If again, you're not going to be going to the store that often and keeping fresh vegetables in stock might be tough. Maybe you'll supplement 50% frozen fruits, 50% frozen vegetables

with some fresh stuff that you kind of rotate in whenever you go. And then I think for your main carb sources, we might want to stick to things like rices, oats, potatoes tend to keep pretty long before they start sprouting and looking like an alien. But yeah, you want things that you're going to be comfortable with for the foreseeable future. Because one of the things none of us know is what this is really going to look like. Is this the peak? The experts are trying to say that this could last a long time. I'm watching CNN as we speak, and President Trump says the coronavirus reality could last until July and August. And the only reason I say that is because this is a president who, and now here I go on a political tangent, but this is a president who said this thing would be gone by April. And so whether or not you choose to believe him, and then one of the unfortunate

things is he tends to grade himself very highly. He thinks he's handling it well, and he says July. Kylie, he thinks he's handling it well, and he says July. And it's March 16th as the time of this recording. So that's why I'm answering this question, because a week ago it would have seemed silly. But right now, if we're believing what we see on the media, which I tend to be very biased and very, very callous and very, very, I shouldn't say biased. I should say calloused and very, very tough. I'm not a shill, you know, I'm very skeptical of what I see, but it looks like this is here to stay. So that brings us to fats. Fats are very easy because they store quite well. You've got things like butter, which can last forever in the refrigerator. I would say grass fed tends to

be a better option from my understanding of nutrition. Olive oil is always a fabulous fat source. Nuts keep forever and they're loaded with fiber. I would definitely be prioritizing whole nuts or these nuts over nut butters and nut oils because I think it's really, really important that we get the right protein and carbohydrate and fat in our diet. And nuts can bring that to the table, but nut butters tend to bring it with a little more sugar, added oils and stuff like that. Okay. I can feel it kicking in. I can feel it kicking in. I can feel, I can feel it kicking in. I can feel it kicking in. All right. So at Murah, M-U-R-A-H-A asks, if you want to write yourself a program, how do you structure it? So I'm guessing this is her

asking, you know, from the perspective of she maybe wants to write her own program. Um, but she doesn't know where to start. She doesn't really know how. Now, before I answer this, I want to tell you guys, go to the website, go to www.coachedannymatranga.com, click the free resources tab. I've got an entire like 20 page ebook that answers exactly this question and programs that you could purchase that'll solve it for you. Although it's probably not the time to be buying those. And again, that's how I get paid. So here I am telling you not to pay me. Just let me rip content from my couch. But listen, the books are there, the ebooks are there to help you guys understand some of the basics,

but I have no problem answering these questions. So if you want to build your own program, first and foremost, we have to say, what's the main goal? And I even get more specific than that. So if somebody says, if I say, what's your main goal? And they say, I want to build muscle. My next question is going to be what muscle? Because we will put you on a hypertrophy program that will particularly develop, you know, it's going to develop your whole body. But we can only specialize on so much at once. And if someone says, I want to get strong, I usually say pick two. You want to get strong during this training block on deadlifts or bench or squat and bench, because we can't crush squat and deadlift together. Usually that wrecks people or whatever. But you pick the priority. You say,

okay, my main focus of this program is going to be strength. Or for this case, let's say hypertrophy because it's better for explanation. My main focus is hypertrophy or muscle growth. And then I would ask you, okay, what muscles? Pick two to three. Two if they don't talk to each other very much, three if they talk to each other a lot. So two that wouldn't talk to each other very much three if they talk to each other a lot so two that wouldn't talk to each other a whole lot would be chest and quads they're like okay my goals are chest and quads and i'm like oof not a lot of crossover there but if they said back and hamstrings i might go oof we got rdls we got bent rows we got deadlifts we got a lot of movements that work both okay anything you want to add to that and then maybe they go uh triceps.

Okay, cool. Maybe we'll pick three. So you build a whole hypertrophy training program. You pick compound exercises that work multiple joints and you spread them out across the week. Maybe do three times a week total body, four times a week upper lower, five times a week upper lower push pull leg, or six times a week push pull leg. Wherever your training's at, you can make these types of adjustments. But in the back of your mind, you're thinking, okay, my primary goal is building muscle, particularly in my back

hamstrings and triceps. So I want to prioritize movements that hit my back hamstrings and triceps. So maybe you design your program to have a little bit more time spent on things like deadlifts, Romanian deadlifts, bent over rows, lat pulldowns, and then a little bit of work for triceps. And you make sure that those things show up in your program a little bit more. But you don't neglect everything else. And then when you're executing the program, you have to say, okay, I'm looking at either adding more weight week to week, adding a little more volume week to week, which would be doing more work, adding a set here, adding a set there, jumping up a little bit here, jumping up a little bit there, and doing that as long as you can. And then when you start to go, oof, okay, it's harder to add weight,

I'm really pushing, but I'm just kind of running into a wall. That's when you go, okay, maybe it's time to take a deload or change my stimulus. But realistically, training can be something that's really organic. We push hard. We're going to get feedback from our body to change. We're going to change as quickly and adapt as fast as we can. And then once we push that training threshold to a place where we can't quite recover from it, we either back it down and keep going, or we take a little break and move on. But there's no one way to do this training thing. One of the things I found is we have these methods we really like, and they work well for a lot of people, but they don't work the best for everybody. So you have to have a set of principles, but you have to tailor and curate those principles to the needs of the client.

And so for you, when you design your own program, you have the advantage of knowing your body better than anyone else, but you also have the disadvantage of believing all of your bullshit and having all of your bias. So I don't recommend people write their own programs if they can afford to have a coach or purchase a program from somebody that they respect. I instead recommend that they auto regulate their program, meaning they push when they know they can push and they back off when they know they need to back off. That's something that a coach can only see if they're working with you in person. It's really hard online, even with biofeedback and running questionnaires and

having a lot of questions. But trainers or clients, I should say, often get in the way of their programming by picking lifts they know they're already good at to work on muscles they're already good at or have developed or strong suits. And they usually neglect in the areas they know they shouldn't neglect. It's the same thing that athletes do. If you're really, really good at dribbling and passing, you'll probably just play every at dribbling and passing, you'll probably just play every game dribbling and passing and you won't take the shots you need to develop your jumper to become a great player. If you're a really good shooter, you might just play lazy defense and you just kind of default to what you're naturally good at. This is a problem that a lot of lifters have

and it's a mistake that I see quite often with even intermediate and advanced trainees. They just want to do what they're good at. So when you build your own program, just go to the website, download the book, Training Fundamentals, but start with what you really want to work on. Make it, highlight those things, hit them hard, make sure it's balanced with everything else, but you're putting a little more volume or intensity on a couple things. When you reach that wall, back off, recollect, go at it again, or change your stimulus. All right, guys. Now, last question is from, and this is a deep one because, again, it's here, is from Miriam.S. She asks,

to what extent should we self-isolate? How to keep your goals, mental, career, physical. So we talked a lot today about the physical goals. Things you can do. You can work out from home. You can get some weights delivered, some bands delivered. You can do all that you'll need to do to maintain and even make some progress in some unique ways from home. Your physical is going to be covered so long as you believe and have faith in the fact that these types of workouts are worth doing, that it's not all going to go to shit because you missed the gym for a little bit. Now, from a career standpoint, that's a really interesting question because a lot of us aren't going to be able to work at all. But I know one thing's for

sure, and that's that a lot of people do a job that they don't like and not being at work right now might be the way that you can get out of that situation. Maybe you're somebody who really wants to be a personal trainer and you're going to take this time to study and work towards your certification. Maybe you're somebody who wants to do hair and you're going to take this time to read up on it or take some classes if you can't. Well, you're not going to be taking any classes, but you understand what I'm saying from a fundamental standpoint, which is that you have the ability right now to work on your personal development. Listen to podcasts, you know, like the cool ones, like Joe Rogan Experience, Mind Pump, Dynamic Dialogues Podcast, whatever you want to do in this time, work on an

audio book, things that de-stress you call somebody, see if you can get a couple of phone calls in with somebody who you really look up to. And you just want to learn from like, don't throw your personal development away. You have so many things that you can do. Um, and then again, this one kind of, this one kind of hit close. because again, she asks about the mental side of it. And it's tough, but I think that during times of isolation, physical isolation, we don't have to have spiritual isolation. We don't have to have emotional isolation. We already have enough of that in our society where we feel alone on all fronts. enough of that in our society where we feel alone on all fronts. And we don't want to add any more to that than this situation already does. So, you know, this is a time to be on social media. It's totally a good time to be on social media. We're on social media too much, but during a time where we can't leave our house, social media has incredible potential to bring us together. We might see this shine in a way we've never seen it shine before.

This is a really brilliant opportunity for social media to bring us together in a positive way. Just don't buy into the bullshit and the fear mongering all over it because everybody wants to capitalize. The other thing you can do is just call someone, FaceTime someone. One thing I've done is I've called my older clients and I've asked, is there anything you need me to bring to your house? I strongly encourage you to ask people in your community. Hey, maybe we don't have toilet paper. You need one of my 48 rolls of toilet paper? I'd love to give it to you. Hey, I know that you are 65 plus and you have a respiratory condition and it might be hard for you to go get your groceries.

Can I run and go get your groceries for you? Or hey, client who doesn't know anything about working out on their own at home because we've been training in the gym together. Is it okay if I FaceTime you and you can put me up on your freaking piano over there and I'll guide you through a body weight session so things make sense? Get outside of yourself. In times like this, helping other people and being productive can be some of the most unbelievably fulfilling things you can do and distracting things you can do. So if there's books you've been meaning to read, if there's courses you've been meaning to take, if there's a certification you want to go get, if there's a career path you've wanted to look into but you've been afraid to, maybe a tough conversation with a relative that you know you need to have or a loved one that you know you need to have, now wouldn't all necessarily

be a bad time to work in and work on those things that we know are so valuable. Mentally, I think the best thing we can do is communicate, talk. If you can get people on the phone or talk to the people that you're kind of hunkering together with, my friend calls this the cell, I guess. There's a name for this, the people in your cell, because it's like, obviously, your cellmates is the reference, but pick a good cell. Pick a few people that you're like, hey, it's just going to be us kind of seeing each other here and there for the next little while or however the hell this thing goes. And have some good conversations.

There's something incredibly enlightening about good quality conversation with the right people. And get outside of yourself and offer to help. And guys, I think that's going to do it because I really do see myself doing these daily or every other day while we go through this. I want to provide you guys with as much content as possible. So what I'm thinking is home workout videos. I'm thinking home workout videos, blogs, body weight training guides, more things that will help you, podcasts certainly. I'm kind of finishing up the gym in my garage. I just got a hex bar, some bumper plates,

some dumbbells. So I'll be able to work out at home without a problem, which is just such a blessing with weights. I'm very grateful for that because it could be a lot worse. grateful for that because it could be a lot worse. But yeah, I think we're at a place now where we've got to come together and I'm going to be making more content to help you guys with this because I know that one of the gifts I was given was the ability to create things. And maybe they're not the best things. Maybe it's not the best podcast or it's not the best Instagram page or it's not the best YouTube video. But one thing I am is I'm consistent. And that's important for me in the relationships I have with my friends and my family. I'm consistent and I'm reliable. And I want to be that for you guys on this content.

You know, shit, if you get even the slightest bit of joy out of the 45 minutes this podcast is going to run or learn something from one of my posts and I can just put that out there to the number of people that I reach, that's great. That's awesome. That's making a small impact and it keeps me busy and doing things that I want to do, me working towards my career goals, which is helping as many people as possible. So guys, if you want to read something, go to www.coachedannymetranga.com, download any one of the free guides, work on, you know, improving your fitness knowledge. Send me a DM. Send me a question. I'll either answer it in my DMs or I'll answer it on the

podcast. And then just do your best to continue to work forward right now. There's a lot of things we can do with bodyweight training alone that have incredible potential. And I think we're going to get there. We just have to stick together and remember that other people are going through this too. No matter where you're at economically, no matter how scared you are, you're not alone. There are many, many people out there right now going through this for the first time. We've never seen anything like this. And we need to stick together and trust in one another. Because again, we're all feeling it. We're all going through it in our own unique ways. And guys, again, together. That's it. That's the word of the day. Together,

together, together. All right. We will check in soon. Thanks again for listening to Dynamic Dialogues. This was Danny. You have a good one. Stay safe. Wash your hands. Take your vitamins.