Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 54 - Tips for Trainers, Meal Prepping, Home Workouts + Slimey Science?

Episode Date: July 20, 2020

In this episode, Danny addresses questions he’s been asked frequently over the past couple of months when it comes to fitness. We talk about how to build up your brand, drama in the scientific side of the fitness world, and much more! We even discuss home workout techniques and some of Danny’s favorite ways to meal prep!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:Tips to ACTUALLY make fitness your career! Got to give more than you get! 1:49Why having a super-specific niche might hurt you in the long run! 10:31Certifications AKA alphabet soup, IF you don’t use them! 14:47Effective workouts in less time! 10-minute AMRAPS! 17:59Favorite ways to meal prep! It won’t taste like crap! 22:33“Drama” in the research industry! Skewing data? Squats vs hip thrusts for glute growth? 28:20Support the Show.

Welcome back in guys to another episode of the dynamic dialogue podcast. As always, I'm your host, Danny Matranga. And today I want to chat a little bit about some of the questions I have been getting particularly with regards to the fitness industry. While I know many of you guys are not trainers or coaches, I'm quite aware that a large percentage of my audience is, and even for those of you who are hobbyists and enthusiasts, I strongly encourage sticking around and hearing this out, or I should say hearing this through. I'm also going to chat a little bit about some of the things I've been doing with my home training that I've quite enjoyed. From techniques all the way down to specific exercises I've been deploying that have been very, very effective. I'm also going to share some of my favorite meal prep staples, as well as some drama in the fitness research world that quite frankly

is very damning and involves many of the industry's heaviest hitters in the scientific space. So I am quite excited to go over all of these things. But again, starting with the fitness space in particular for you, for you coaches, for you trainers, for everybody out there in the space who follows me or looks to me as an authority, first off, thank you very much. But one of the questions I have been getting recurrently, whether it's via Instagram DM, via Instagram question box, even via email, and I know a lot of people say, oh, I've been getting a lot of questions about this, just so they can talk about shit.

But in all actuality, I really have been getting a lot of questions about this. I'm not just saying that in an effort to hopefully get some clout. I have gotten a lot of questions about how to build a business, how to build a brand, and what to do as you are getting started in this space. And I get questions about certifications, I get questions about where to work, and we're gonna talk about all of that. But I think it's really important to start with what I believe to be the single most important,

most fundamental piece of our space, which is that as coaches, as trainers, we are willingly entering into a career path that is more about the people that we serve, their production, their success, than our own. Granted, you can be very successful. You can build a very, very successful business. You can be financially free and have a lot of freedom to do as you please as a coach. Many people do it because they want the freedom that comes with making your own schedule, blah, blah, blah. But the biggest thing to remember at all times in

this space is that what you do is less about you and more about the people that you serve. And so you have to, as much as possible, I understand that this isn't always the case, but as much as possible, come from a place of service. Come from a place where you're constantly asking, what can I do to better the experience of my clients? What can I do to deepen the understanding of the concepts we're touching on with my clients? What can I do to make this service more enjoyable for my clients, whether it's in person or online? What can I do to expand my clients' understanding of what we're doing and educate them? And this should be running at the most fundamental level of your decision making. And what that looks like is actually quite simple. And it answers most of the questions I get.

I used to have this conversation a lot when I was working in a big box gym and hiring trainers. And so again, remembering that fundamental undercurrent of I need to make decisions that will help me improve the lives of my clients. Through that, I can all but guarantee that you're going to have some success with your business. Because helping people get results, genuinely connecting with people, coming from a place of service drives referrals, whether it's in-person or online coaching, drives retention, all kinds of good things happen. And for the question of, hey, what certs do I get? I don't know. What certifications and

knowledge would help the clients that you have right now and help the clients that you want to have right now. How can I get more clients? I don't know. The real question is how can you help more people? So I always double down first when trainers ask me that question on, and I go into this vein of, okay, understanding this is a service driven career path. What are things that empower you to serve your clients more deeply or give you the bandwidth to serve more people? I get it. Everybody wants to be smart. Everybody wants to impress other coaches. Everybody wants to look like the smartest person in the room. And I think that this career path is inherently egotistical because it attracts a lot of former athletes. It attracts a lot of go-getters. It attracts a lot of people who are driven by personal development. And so you get this effectively career full of people who are innately competitive and they want to compete

with each other and outshine each other. And I think that growth is very important. But at the same time, I think it's very critical that you focus in on avenues of growth that will help the people who are already in your network and will help you expand your network. I think in a race to understand the most finite nuances of biomechanics and nutrition, many trainers get lost in what I call the dick measuring contest that is being smarter than your peers, making content that makes you look smarter to your peers, but perhaps might go completely over the head of the people who you are wanting to help. And so just keep that in mind. Something else that I

think is really important for new coaches, and it sounds quite crass, but it just tends to hold true. sounds quite crass, but it just tends to hold true. You have to be prepared to eat shit. You're not, in almost all instances, going to come out of the gate ready to charge a couple hundred dollars a month for online coaching or a hundred plus dollars a session for in-person coaching. You build up to that through doing the right work and creating a reputation for yourself and providing a service worthy of those prices. For many new coaches, you might have to eat shit. And I know that sounds terrible, but you might have to spend a year charging a little bit less while you build that reputation, while you build that value, while you build that knowledge base. You might have to work for a big box gym, or you might have to get an internship, and you might not start out balling. You might have to have online clients that you charge perhaps

less than you want and over deliver on that price so that one, you stay connected with that service driven piece. I fundamentally believe that giving more in value than you're receiving in compensation will very quickly let you know if this is a career for you. A good coach, a good personal trainer, in my opinion, will never be paid what they're worth. Let me say that one more time. A good coach or a good personal trainer will never be given what they're worth. And I told trainers this for years. A lot of them initially struggle with selling. You got a $1,500 package, perhaps. Maybe it's a $1,000 package. Maybe you're selling 20 sessions at a time. Maybe you're selling six months up front online coaching. And these are

$1,000 packages. And for new trainers who are broke, they're like, dude, I can't believe I'm about to ask this person for $1,000 plus. And I would always ask trainers, hey, reframe that. If you were incredibly unhealthy, unfit, unhappy with your body, and you needed change more than anything, would you pay a thousand plus dollars for that? And I think in almost all cases, the answer is yes. If your biggest problem is your health health and somebody can help you make a significant dent in finding a solution to that problem for around $1,000, whether that's 10, 20 sessions, a couple months of online coaching, whatever that looks like for you, that investment

is going to be worth it. And so for trainers, I think it becomes really important to understand that if you're doing your job right, even if you have high-priced sessions, moderately-priced sessions, low-priced sessions, high-priced, moderately-priced, low-priced online coaching packages, if you are delivering, wherever you're at on that continuum, you can almost guarantee you're going to over-deliver on the investment of your client. And that should always be your goal. I want this person to get their money's worth, learn something, feel empowered, no matter what it is that you're comfortable charging. And you want to know what's funny is the more you do that, the more you get to charge because you start to bring people into your network.

People start to say, wow, this person takes the time to help me and educate me and get on the phone with me or get down on a knee and help me with my form, all kinds of stuff. They take the time to talk to me about where I'm struggling with in sessions instead of just blasting through and saying, hey, next set. They take the time to see what it is that that person needs to unlock the piece of themselves that they need to unlock to achieve their fitness goals. For some people, that's with nutrition. For other people, that's with training. But coaches, you have to understand fundamentally this is about them and your worth is directly tied to your ability to connect with these people, get them results, and give them a service that will get more people in front of you, whether that is in person or online. And all of that goes into content creation in the online space. If you're not willing to deliver quality content, you're not going to get quality clients. If you regurgitate content, copy people,

simply rip other things off, half-ass it, you're not going to get very far. And I hate to say it, but it really just comes down to doing the work with regards to building a fitness business. And that takes years. So if you're not willing to get in the trenches, eat a little bit of shit, over-deliver for at least a year, probably two, it's not a career you're going to do very well with. It's not a career that you're going to make a ton of money with. It'll be a great side hustle. And I think for some people, that's all they want. But if you really want to be successful, you have to be willing to get your hands dirty. You got to be willing to work with

a ton of different people. Quite frankly, this idea that I'm going to start training and train only powerlifters, only bodybuilders, only athletes, that doesn't really pan out. You're not going to have a lot of clients. What have you proven in the space that would make me want you to be the coach to prep me for a bodybuilding show, or to peak me for a powerlifting meet, or to train me and bring me into a competitive season in sport? If you like sports, you've played those sports, that might give you a leg up. But it's an incredibly competitive field. Quite frankly, almost every coach I've ever known who trains people at the highest level at some point has spent time training

Mary Muffintops, general pop people. If you can train those people and you can build buy-in with those people, it's going to make you even better when you get to that highest level. And quite frankly, when you're first starting out, acting as though, yeah, I have a niche. I work with clients. The thing that drives me absolutely fucking nuts is this shit that people put in their Instagram bio because somewhere somebody told you, oh, you got to have a niche. And they're like, I help 39-year-old moms who work behind a desk unlock their ultimate power and tone their tummies. And they put these hyper-specific call to actions in

their Instagram bio. And it's really comical because you can see who's either hired a shit business coach, somebody who's either just plain out doing what they see. They have no idea why they're doing what they're doing. They're trying to make a plea to their target audience and say, hey, if you're that 39-year-old mom who wants to tighten their tummy and unlock their full potential, and you read my Instagram bio, you become a very hot lead because I spoke directly to you. However, anybody who does not fall into that category is like, oh, well, guess this isn't the coach for me. And I think it's fucking comical because I look through all the coaching applications I get. And I get people of all different ages, goals, colors, creeds. I get people who've been killed by other bodybuilding coaches who need help with their health. I get

people who are completely new to fitness. And for example, like when I ask, what is your nutritional history? And they don't talk about diets. They don't talk about things that they've tried. Their literal answer is, well, I've been trying to eat healthy lately. So they're on one completely different end of the continuum. And I think that for me, one of the best pieces or one of the best things I've done is I've refused to go into a niche. While I do believe you can become an expert in certain areas and I would encourage you to follow your passion and become an expert in those areas, I think that branding yourself super specific as this niche only coach can be a little bit stickier than people want to admit, quite frankly. I think you have to be willing to work with everybody. And I think that a coach

who's capable of working with everybody, not only does it give you the ability to physiologically have a pretty wide breadth and bandwidth of things you're capable of doing because you understand different people of different physiological positionings in their life, doing because you understand different people of different physiological positionings in their life, whether it's a menopausal woman, a high school male athlete, an overweight dude in his 70s, you know, whatever it may be, you start to really understand people, where they're at, how the body works, how to connect the dots. And quite frankly, that makes you a better coach. It forces you to expand, explore, to pull different levers. Coming right out of the gate and throwing yourself into a niche, I think, puts people

into a position where they're competing way too much. And I don't think they have to. I think that your niche can slowly develop with you as a coach, but you develop that niche from working with people and seeing, hey, what is it that I truly love? And if somebody comes to you and says, hey, I love your content. I love your message. You help my friend. I've heard good things about you. And they're not in your niche. You don't have to take them. If you want to take them, take them. But if you're new and you're turning people away because they're not aligned with this niche that you think you deserve to be in, I think you're

fucking up. I really, really do. And so that's it for that, guys. And with regards to certifications, because I said I'd talk about it, I don't think you need many of them. I think you should pursue them if it makes you happy and you're truly able to learn from them and you enter into them with an open mind. And for me, there have been certifications that I've done where I have genuinely forgotten to take the final step for certification. I just wanted to learn. I went to

the workshop and maybe I forgot to turn in the final exam. It wasn't about the cert. When I was younger and in the industry, all I wanted to do was collect certs. And I had this stupid alphabet soup after my name. And people would always ask, dude, you must know everything from those certs. And I would actually say, you know, I've learned a bit, quite a bit, but about on par with what I learned from my university education. And in defense of certifications, the 25, 30 certifications I've taken were less expensive in aggregate than my undergraduate degree. And I did learn a lot. But the things I've learned the most from were podcasts, YouTube videos, research reviews, actually coaching, asking the instructors questions

outside or inside of the curriculum that helped me connect thoughts. I think certs are cool, but I think they exist in a space almost like a vacuum. If you're not going to do anything with them, they just become letters. If they're going to become avenues for further exploration, they can be one of the single best entities for growth possible. If you're building a network and you're learning from the instructors and creating a relationship with the people you take the course with, they can be exponentially more valuable than if you're just chasing letters. So what you get out of your certification experience is effectively going to be tied to what it is you want to accomplish in your career. If you want to

just collect letters, it's very easy to do that. If you really want to understand stuff, you have to get those certs and go into application. Actually, you have to train people. I can't tell you how many fucking kids have messaged me, hey coach, I have a cert, but I'm not ready to start training people yet. Like, what? Are you kidding me? Dude, I was fucking 15 years old telling my friends what to eat, telling them how to train like a complete fucking moron because I had the confidence and the know-all to be like, dude, this is what I want to do. Granted, I was probably doing them all, you know, I wasn't doing them a disservice, but I wasn't giving them advice. I give them now, but I wasn't paralyzed by this fear of everything has to be perfect before I can start helping people. That is one of the biggest mistakes you can make. Just get started. Once you

have that cert, get a job, get an internship, get into a position where you can actually learn something and apply something. Don't think you need three certs just to be qualified to work with somebody. Again, that goes back to the niche thing. If the niche is what you want and you think you need five certs to start working with these particular clients in a niche, you might get them and show up and not know shit about training, not know shit about human communication, not know shit about pivoting in and out of weird situations that pop up when you're training all of the stuff that you learn From actually doing it so get off your ass Eat a little bit of shit

Remember, this is a service industry and give people what they need And a little bit more than they expected you to give so moving on To some of the garage workouts I've been doing. For those of you who follow me on social media, you've probably seen that I have transformed my garage through multiple dump runs and multiple button mashing attempts at getting equipment before it sells out into a relatively respectable garage gym. And given the fact that I don't have a ton of machines and I don't have a ton of time to work out, given that I'm producing podcasts, making content on multiple platforms, I am training

clients in person still, I am training many clients virtually, my workouts are effectively about an hour long, and so what I fit into that hour in the garage have actually been some things that I think I'm going to take with me as, you know, my training evolves. You know, one of the things I've really loved is time constricted AMRAPs. And so what I will do is I will just set a timer for like 10 minutes and I'll end a pull day with a 10 minute AMRAP of chin-ups or a 10 minute AMRAP of pull-ups or a 10 minute AMRAP of TRX face pulls or a 10-minute AMRAP of pull-ups or a 10-minute AMRAP of TRX face pulls or a 10-minute AMRAP of split squats. I will put these time-constrained AMRAPs on as a way to bake in a little bit of volume and give myself the ability to say, okay, last time I did a 10-minute chin-up AMRAP, I got 75. You know, that's the number to beat today. And those are consistent pillars and blocks in my training, given I do

have some equipment limitations. So I have found that those time-constrained AMRAPs have really, really worked well. A movement that I've been absolutely hammering is Bulgarian split squats, and I've been incorporating deficits by elevating my lead foot on top of a plate and enhancing or increasing that range of motion. And man, oh man, has that brutalized my quads and my glutes. I've done distanced base movements. Like for example, I'm going to lunge down the block and back to finish my leg day. That has been brutally effective. It's helped me gain quite a bit of tissue in my legs. And I'm always sore afterwards, which do with that what you will. I find it to be not the most effective measure of a quality

workout, but it definitely says something about what I was able to accomplish at the level of the tissue. 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. continue to improve. Thanks so much for supporting the podcast and enjoy the rest of the episode.

I've really enjoyed the incorporation of anti-extension work like planks and ab wheel rollouts. That's something I've gotten away from in my own training and I quite like a lot. It's definitely helped me manage quite a bit of my back pain. Interestingly enough, as I sit here right now recording this podcast, I'm sitting on the couch speaking into my back pain. Interestingly enough, as I sit here right now recording this podcast, I'm sitting on the couch speaking into my microphone and I'm very, very comfortable. And I'm really, really enjoying, like I'm enjoying the way my back feels. And I can't tell you the last time that I've been able to say that because for most of my adult life, I've had a relatively temperamental back that can flare up. And sitting, leaning forward, talking into a mic can be a bit problematic after 30, 40 minutes. And so now, you know, with the implementation of some of this stuff, and you know, frustratingly,

these are things that I know I needed to do. And even as a coach, even as somebody with a lot of discipline, I don't always do what I need to do. But given my time constraints and making myself do these things like ab wheel rollouts has really changed the way my back feels on a day-to-day basis. And I'm quite happy about that, to be honest. And so those are just some things that I've incorporated. I've also really enjoyed exercises where I'm lengthening my hamstring or focusing on the eccentric contraction of the hamstring, like a hamstring slider, or I actually use my glute ham roller. I quite like that. And it's really helped me with my, uh, some of the lower body development work. I've really wanted to develop my hamstrings. And for whatever reason, that's always been something that I've really prioritized machine work on like seated and lying ham curls. I do think RDLs and

deadlifts are great, but I've always loved machine work. And in the absence of having machine work, I've done quite a bit of glute ham roller work. And I found it works quite well. I don't have a full GHD where I can do that legit glute ham raise. And I haven't done a lot of your traditional Nordic ham curls. But the glute ham rollouts have been quite awesome. So those are things that I've really enjoyed. Lastly, before we get to this research fiasco that's really exploded this morning, this is now, this is July 19th. So we'll get to that in a second. But I wanted to talk about some of my favorite ways to meal prep

that make your food not taste shitty, which is surprisingly important because a lot of people will meal prep, get like two days in and be like, not only is this food not as enjoyable as the crap I was eating that put me in this position where I feel the need to meal prep, but it doesn't taste good and it doesn't keep very well. And if you don't use the right cooking methods or you don't find ways that make the food taste good two, three days after it's been cooked, you might be in a little bit of trouble. And so I'll chat about some things that I've quite enjoyed. The first is the implementation of different ways of cooking my protein. A lot of people will cook protein on a stovetop and they will pre-cut it and then they will cook it. For example, cutting up chicken breast and sauteing it in a pan

might be the single most common way people prepare meal prep chicken. Or they will use a processed form of chicken like ground chicken or ground turkey or even ground beef. And don't get me wrong, I think ground meats are fine, but here is the issue. When you cut into the actual muscle fiber of that protein, so when you actually cut that, it's much more likely to lose moisture because, again, that entire protein, right, that sarcolemma has been punctured. All of that stuff has a greater likelihood of leaking out. And then when you reheat those, they become exponentially more dry and less flavorful. So learning how to cook proteins in their complete form, meaning can you cook an

entire chicken breast? Can you cook a chicken thigh? Can you cook a salmon filet? Can you cook these proteins in a way that allows them to maintain their integrity before cutting into them? That will help them stay moister or more moist. Oh God, I just hate hearing that through the headphones. Such a funny word. And then you can even get down to cooking modalities. So in general, cooking things on a lower heat and slower can help them maintain some moisture. Or for example, if we're going to do chicken breast, a lot of people will chop that into a million pieces and saute it, which might be the fastest way to drive all the moisture out, when instead you might do better throwing it in a slow cooker or a crock pot, where all of that moisture remains captured,

and then as you shred it up, you can actually reintroduce moisture there by adding things like salsa, hot sauces, or various seasonings, low-calorie seasonings, or even broth, for example, to add a little bit of body and a little bit of moisture to the protein. I'm a huge fan of smoking meat or grilling meat as a way of cooking it a little bit more quickly in its whole state on the grill or cooking it a little bit more slowly in its whole state on a smoker. Now, we could argue back and forth about the healthiness of cooking with these implements, but I think in general, it makes things like meats, vegetables a bit more palatable

as you go through the week than chopping them up or cooking them in the oven or sautéing them. So that I'm really big on. Another thing I love to do for meal prep is pre-slice fruit and vegetables and put them away in a glass Tupperware. I store all of my food, especially anything I have to warm back up, in glass because there is a transferal of some chemicals when you reheat certain types of plastics, particularly the types of plastic that appear to be most common with your traditional Tupperware you're going to be buying at your general grocery store, Target, Walmart, etc. So I cut my vegetables and proteins up. And if I'm going to reheat those, those always go in glass. But even when I'm storing like vegetables and fruit, things that I might not heat up in all

instances, I still aim to store them in glass. But the reason I pre-prepare them and pre-wash them is I found that they keep longer, particularly berries, which have like this weird thing they do where you buy like a perfectly good box of blackberries and then you open it like a day later and it's just this massive fucking den of mold that's overtaken everything. And you're like, how is this even possible? And so what I found is washing them and sealing them helps them keep a little bit longer. Other things I keep around are I really enjoy Greek yogurt, but I like to pair that Greek yogurt with things that I can add to it relatively quickly. So I'll get a lower fat Greek yogurt, but I'll add omega-3 rich hemp seed,

protein and fiber rich hemp seed, and even this PB2 powdered peanut butter, and it tastes quite good. And the macros are like stupid good. It has like 30 protein, 15 fat, mostly from omega fats, and like 20 carbs. And I quite like that ratio for a snack that takes almost no time. Another thing I've really been enjoying is biltong. And biltong is a dried jerky that is basically meat that's cured with salt, pepper, and vinegar. And so it doesn't have a lot of the additives like liquid smoke, sugar, preservatives that you're going to find

with like 90% of the store-bought jerkies you grab. And so those two things, a little Greek yogurt medley that I mix some other stuff into and, um, Piltong have become absolute staples for me. So we've gone over training guys. We've talked a little bit about my own workouts and we have talked of course about meal prep, but I wanted to bring your attention to something interesting that I saw on Facebook this morning, um, from Menno Henselman's and Menno Henselman's, if you guys are not aware is, um, somebody who creates a lot of really high quality fitness, educational content in our space. And he's somebody who, at least in my experience, seems to have quite a bit of integrity. And he shared something,

and I'll read it verbatim. He says, I hereby award the Sickest Burn of the Year to Andrew Vygotsky, Greg Knuckles, James Krieger, Brad Schoenfeld, James Heathers, and James Steele for their paper, Improbable Data Patterns in the Work of Barbalo et al. So what that group did was they took a look at another group's research, and this group has very recently been in the media for some contentious findings. Barbalo et al. published a study about five months ago in the wake of the glute guy fiasco that was going on. You know, Brett Contreras was in the media for some reasons not related to fitness. But then this Barbalo study came out that effectively said squats are

better than hip thrusts. We'll just get straight to it. It said squats are better than hip thrusts for hypertrophy of the glutes. And while I do think that that could be boiled down to just biomechanics, training age, general fondness for squats over hip thrusts, anthropometrics, all that shit, it's really irrelevant. Because what this group did, Vygotsky, Knuckles, Krieger, Schoenfeld, Heathers, and Steele, was they took a look at all of Barbalo's work, including his mentor Paulo Gentil from their lab out in Brazil. And Henselman goes on to say, no single paper they authored has anything clearly wrong with it. But when you put all the evidence together, I can't imagine how much work this has been compiling all of their data and contrasting it with the general exercise science literature. The trend is clear.

Their data are incredulous at best and show strong signs of being tampered with. For example, in one sample, all strength values for one exercise were exactly 8 kilograms higher than another exercise in every one. And by every one, he means everybody in that study. I do not say this lightly. Fraud is a very serious accusation. I asked the authors for comment about this several months ago, but they chose not to. And so Menno goes on to highlight some of the fundamental issues with this research. And this isn't to shit on Barbalo. This isn't to worship Henselman's knuckles, Krieger Helms, or not Helms, sorry, Schoenfeld, all these guys. I think that everybody who was involved in this study does really good work. I invest monthly in Greg Knuckles' research review

mass. I'm very familiar with Andrew Vygotsky, and he's been on many studies. Schoenfeld has been on a ton of research. So has James Krieger. I'm not familiar with Heathers and Steele, but I would imagine that if they are in alignment with this group, they mostly do good stuff most of the time. But it is really discouraging that there are people who may actively be flubbing their scientific findings. And I bring this up because I think it's very important that as people who perhaps maybe look to research or maybe look at research, that this does not make you jaded about the scientific method. While it is becoming more apparent just how easy it is

to flub your way through and bullshit your way through. And that science is an imperfect thing in nature because humans can, again, skew data and be really shitty. There are good people out there who I don't want to call it policing, but who will look at data and they will be incredulous. Or not incredulous, they will be skeptical. They will dive into it. They will say something about this seems off. I want to take a deeper look. And so kudos to everybody. Kudos to Menno for posting this and kudos to everybody who wrote this effectively counter paper. And learn from this, guys. And what I want you to learn and gather from this is if something stinks, if something doesn't look right, if something that you found in your own coaching and training appears

to be more effective, don't dismiss science. Use science. Use the scientific method. Use research to generate an opinion. And if everything checks out, awesome. If everything doesn't, continue to look. Don't reject science because there are a handful of bad people. Lean further into it and look to it to answer questions about things that don't quite add up.

And what this looks like for some of you who aren't going to read studies and literature is, if I see advertisement out there in the space that I think is shady or slimy, I'm going to see what the research has to say about it. And if I can pull studies from people or sources that I think are reputable that refute this, and that helps me better communicate to my clients about concepts like calorie deficits or training volume, all this stuff, that's going to make you a better coach. And it all ties back to being skeptical, having an open mind, and being able to look at things and say, hey, something about this is off, or I want to follow this trail and see if I can gain better understanding. But again, it is quite a shame that people are flubbing data in the fitness space, but props to the people who

are out there paying close enough attention to the research to see that. So that's pretty cool. And again, it just makes me happier that I support these people financially. And again, that product that I read monthly is called Mass Monthly Application and Strength Supports. It's a research review from Eric Helms, Eric Drexler, Greg Knuckles, and Mike Zordos. Very good product. Strongly recommend. They're in no way affiliated with the show, although I have had a couple of those guys on here. Just a good group of people. So guys, that'll do it for today's episode. It is Monday. So if you've made it this far, it's probably the start of your week. I just want to remind you

to do something of substance, to give back, have a good week, try to remain in a positive frame of mind with all the craziness going on politically with gym closures, with how you might be affected financially. Just do your best to keep your head on straight and keep moving forward. Have a good one. you