Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 56 - Mailbag: Training Splits, Anavar, Testosterone Boosters, Macro Ratios

Episode Date: July 24, 2020

In this episode, Danny answers your questions, including:The efficacy of over the counter testosterone boosters.What is "Anavar"/is it safe for women.What is the best training splitWhat macro ratios are best for athletesAnd MORE!Thanks For Listening!---RESOURCES/COACHING: I am all about education and that is not limited to this podcast! Feel free to grab a FREE guide (Nutrition, Training, Macros, Etc!) HERE! Interested in Working With Coach Danny and His One-On-One Coaching Team? Click HERE! Want To Have YOUR Question Answered On an Upcoming Episode of DYNAMIC DIALOGUE? You Can Submit It HERE!Want to Support The Podcast AND Get in Better Shape? Grab a Program HERE!----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.

Welcome, everybody, to another episode of the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. As always, I'm your host, Danny Matringa, and this is a platform for any first timers where you can come and learn about the latest and greatest in health, fitness and performance from myself and some of my friends who are professionals, educators, and PhDs in this space. So for all things health and fitness, be sure to subscribe and leave me a review if you enjoy it. And for everybody who's returning, welcome back. It's nice to have you. Today, we're going through a Q&A. All these questions were submitted directly for the podcast at www.coachedanymetrenga.com backslash podcasts dash questions. If you have a question that you want featured on one of the many mailbag episodes of this podcast, be sure to visit the link I just mentioned, or the link is also bookmarked at the link in my Instagram bio, which is at danny.matranga.

So without further ado, let's get into the question. So question number one comes from Leah McNally, and Leah has a question about testosterone boosters and drugs. Her question is, what are your takes on testosterone boosters? Do they work? And any advice on women taking small dosages of Anovar? So first, let's talk about testosterone boosters, because this is the first part of the question. So in general, testosterone boosters refer to a subset of supplements that tout their ability to increase or enhance the body's

endogenous testosterone production. Meaning, these are supplements that are sold over the counter that tout their ability to help men and women naturally produce more testosterone. and women naturally produce more testosterone. Some common over-the-counter testosterone boosting supplements or agents are Tribulus Terrestris, Long Jack, or the scientific name, Uricoma Longfoli, or Tongkat Ali. Both of those you'll see quite regularly. Long Jack has become perhaps the most popular way or the most popular, I should say, title or designer brand version of this particular agent. D-aspartic acid is another one that you'll see very commonly added to over-the-counter testosterone boosting supplements, as are things like fenugreek, which is trigonella fornum gracem, and dendelium methane, or DIM, which is effectively an anti-estrogen. So, these are natural, non-steroidal compounds that supposedly enhance testosterone endogenously, meaning they help you make more.

My take on these things in general is that they do not work well, if at all. And I think the reason for this is twofold. First, I think people go into testosterone boosting supplementation with very unrealistic expectations. People have a very firm grasp on the impact testosterone has on muscle gain. How much of a grasp they have is kind of all over the place. To put it simply, they have actually studied the impact exogenous testosterone in the form of anabolic steroids. Note the term exogenous, E-X-ogenous. Endogenous means made from within. Exogenous means added from external sources. So they have taken groups, had one group do resistance training, follow a proper nutritional protocol, and checked on their gains. And they had another group simply

take exogenous testosterone, and they checked on their gains. Believe it or not, the group that only took testosterone had exponentially more hypertrophy, or I should say statistically significantly more hypertrophy, than the group that was dieting and exercising properly. So, case in point, testosterone is incredibly impactful at boosting gains. And when people take these over-the-counter testosterone boosting supplements, I believe they go in expecting steroid-like results. And that is a recipe for disappointment. Many of these compounds can elevate things like luteinizing hormone. They might elevate things like serum testosterone, but they don't elevate the oh-so-important free testosterone that is critical for muscle growth,

and that is really the biggest thing when people take anabolic steroids that they are getting. They're getting an elevation in free testosterone. Many of these over-the-counter testosterone boosting supplements have compounds that reportedly block something called sex hormone binding globulin, or SHBG. And SHBG binds to testosterone, and quite honestly, most of the testosterone in your body is actually bound to SHBG. And so, they can help elevate free testosterone by inhibiting, in some capacity, SHBG. But again, if you look at the literature, if you look at the effectiveness of these supplements, and you just kind of generally look at both the body of scientific and anecdotal

evidence, they don't work that well. There are certain components that you'll find quite commonly, like horny goat weed and tribulus terrestris, or terrestris, it's quite hard to say, that have been shown to increase libido. And so, libido is kind of a proxy, especially for men, for testosterone production. And so, if you give a guy something like this, and he has a hormonal response of any degree, and say that impacts libido, there might be some placebo from that that goes over into how hard they train, the type of gains they notice or do not notice. So there might be something going on there. if you do have the disposable income to purchase supplements that are going to enhance your ability to secrete testosterone, I wouldn't spend them on these over-the-counter testosterone boosters. Instead, I would spend them on supplements that

might help improve sleep like magnesium, glycine, and melatonin, because getting an adequate amount of sleep is massive for helping you produce the right amount of testosterone. Something else that's worthy of noting is that testosterone production is generally better in leaner individuals, because as we produce more testosterone, there is something in the body called aromatization, which is rare, but it does happen, a conversion of testosterone to estrogen. And I shouldn't say rare. It's going to happen. But the rate at which it happens is contingent on how much body fat a person has because this aromatization actually occurs in adipose tissue. So, leaner individuals of the testosterone they make, more will stay as test, less will be

aromatized over into estrogen. For individuals who are heavier, there's a greater likelihood of aromatization occurring. So instead, if you are somebody who has body fat to lose or isn't optimizing sleep, get supplements that will help you improve performance and recovery. That way, you can get better gains and get leaner more quickly or buy supplements that help you with sleep. If you're looking to purchase something to help you improve your testosterone, save your money on stuff like this. As for the back half of Leah's question about advice on women taking a small dosage of Anovar, first let's cover what exactly Anovar is. Anovar is a steroid and its trade name is oxandrolone. Now, it's really important here that we define what type of steroid oxandrolone exactly is. There are two main types

of steroids people will take. Anabolic steroids, which help with muscle tissue growth, and androgenic steroids, which help with the supplementation of testosterone into the body. Androgens are male sex hormones, so androgenic steroids generally, well, I shouldn't say generally, always impart male sexual characteristics. Anabolics often are enhanced by the presence of androgenics, but don't always impart the same noticeable male sexual characteristics. So, a woman taking testosterone anentheate or testosterone cypionate, which are two common forms of just steroidal testosterone, would notice absolutely male side effects. She would probably see a deepening of the voice. She might see acne,

skin issues. Certainly there would be gains in strength. The androgenic steroids are very, very popular for how much they can increase gains in strength. But anabolic steroids, which for men are almost always included with androgenic steroids because many of the anabolics have the ability to suppress natural testosterone production. So you pair them with supplemental testosterone in the form of an androgenic steroid to still get that testosterone base level. Usually it's way above base level and the anabolic benefits, but the anabolics don't contribute the androgenic effects. So they tend to be a little bit more popular with women. Now, I'm not endorsing female

steroid use. And I think I should say before I talk about any of these things, I might be a little bit late. I am not a medical doctor. Do not take any of this advice seriously. But oxandrolone, or as it's commonly referred to in the physique space, anivore is very popular with women because it is very, very light. When you look at the spectrum of impact an anabolic might have, it's quite light. It doesn't tend to have many, if any, male sexual, I should say, characteristics that seem to pop up at low doses, but that doesn't mean it's healthy. I wouldn't recommend it for anybody, especially women, given the fact that it's very popular. And this might come as a surprise to you in the bikini space. A lot of

your high level bikini athletes take Anivar. It's almost a given in the figure space along with several other drugs, but it is a more popular with women than it is with men. Because as far as anabolics go, it's a little bit on the weaker end and many men will just opt for something quite a bit stronger and pair that with the testosterone. But I get this question a lot from women who are working with coaches and these coaches goals are to help them be successful in the competition space. And they recommend that these women take Anovar because they'll get much better gains and much better results with dog shit coaching because they're on steroids. And I think it's actually very irresponsible. I think if you have a coach that's telling you to take Anovar and not communicating with you effectively about the impact that might have on your physiology or your long-term physiology, it's classless. I think it's dangerous. And I think you should fire that coach immediately. So if somebody is telling you to take Anovar, but not doing a good job of explaining how it works, what it does, its impact on the body,

short-term, long-term, fire that coach, move on. And if you want to be successful in the highest level of bodybuilding as a male or a female, we have to stop skirting around the myth that steroid usage is optional. You should pursue natural bodybuilding if your goal is to compete in what I believe to be one of the healthier ways. But if you want to compete in the IFBB or NPC, most of your competition is going to be using drugs. And at the highest level of even bikini, it's almost a given. So I would say stay away from those federations if your goal is to compete at a high level and you don't want to take drugs. If you do, that's your choice, but I wouldn't recommend it. Again, I'm not a doctor, so my opinion is irrelevant, but that's really the case for testosterone boosters and Anivore. So second question is from Lucy Zamora. She has a question about programming

and she says, hi, Danny, listening to all your podcasts and following you for the last year. I've learned that squats, deadlifts, lunges, and hip thrusts are all great and strength building exercises. They also build muscle. However, I've experienced low back pain, probably from the excessive use of these taxing exercises. Often I've done these exercises on the same day and three times a week. Could you guide me on how to effectively program these lifts and how to avoid probable overtraining? Thank you. So this is actually a great question. And you know, I think it's worth noting that the squat, the deadlift, the hip thrust and lunges are all excellent exercises for developing hypertrophy

in the lower body. And I think when performed properly, they're all very, very safe. Outside of perhaps the deadlift and the barbell squat, I think that lunges and barbell hip thrust are almost foolproof. I mean, yes, you can do lunges quite sloppy and they can be dangerous, but you know, I think in general, they're technically a little bit easier than squats and deadlifts. And then even those two are pretty darn safe. Where you might run into problems is doing these exercises all on the same day and not having a lot of attention or focus or education as to how to structure these exercises in terms of order. education as to how to structure these exercises in terms of order. So let's say somebody shows up to the gym and does deadlifts, squats, hip thrusts, and lunges in that order. So here's the problem. Deadlifts, while extremely effective, do have a tendency to burn the spinal erectors out a little

bit, which can lead to low back pain or tenderness, which is what Lucy's asking about. So you do three sets of 10 on deadlifts, and then you move right into three sets of 10 on squats. Well, if your lumbar extensors are already fried or they're feeling it, they're only going to get more and more agitated as you move on to squats. As you move from squats to hip thrusts, you're asking a lot of some of this tissue. It's not that your quads, calves, hamstrings, glutes, all that stuff aren't working. It's just there seems to be a limitation for people when it comes to volume, where once you cross that line, that low back gets a little fatigued.

And I don't think it's ideal to do all four of these exercises on the same day with extremely high volumes. If you're going to do them all on the same day, dial the volume back and select where you apply intensity. I don't know if I would do super heavy deadlifts, super heavy squats, and then just volume hip thrusts on the same day with everybody. One of the things I might encourage you to do, and this is one of the things I do on my female physique program, which is available on my website, is I try to stagger these exercises. So the female physique program does use a three-time-a-week frequency, but squats, deadlifts, lunges, and hip thrusts are sprinkled across that in a way that I think better allows for, I don't want to say recovery, but it lowers the, it does allow

for good recovery, but it lowers what I believe to be the taxation on some of those lumbar extensors with how the exercises are paired. Also, you have to ask yourself, if in fact you are getting fatigue in the low back extensors, how much are you going to be gaining from the subsequent exercises you choose to do with that stuff flared up. In all likelihood, that will, at the very least, distract you from getting the absolute best out of your exercises. So I like to pair deadlifts and hip thrusts together. I like to pair squats and lunges together. I like to pair lunges and deadlifts. I tend to avoid pairing heavy squats and heavy deadlifts with each other. Not that it can't be done, but I think it becomes exponentially more important to be selective with how you pair exercises when you're going to be doing something three times a week, right? So as Lucy said, she's experienced lower back pain from excessive

use of these exercises. I've often done these exercises on the same day, three times a week. Let's say she does three sets of squat, deadlift, hip thrust, and lunges three times a week. That ends up being nine sets of squats, nine sets of deadlifts, nine sets of hip thrusts, and nine sets of lunges paired with all the other exercises she's likely doing for upper body and probably more that she's doing for lower body. That's 36 total sets. 10 to 20 sets a week is probably the sweet spot for most people when they're training hard. So if we look at those volume landmarks, which do vary from person to person, you're almost doubling what I believe to be that normal high range for moderate trainees. You can absolutely go above 20, but do you want to go above 20 with the deadlift,

the bench, I'm sorry, the deadlift, the squat, the hip thrust, and the launch. That would be my argument. If we look at those volume landmarks and we say, hey, 10 to 20 tends to be the best place for people to recover, shit, load it up. Go 10 to 20 on those big ones. But if you want to sneak in more volume, I might shy away from exercises that have a tendency to fatigue the body the way these exercises do. Because they load the spine and they can load the spine pretty intensely, they tend to fatigue the central nervous system and they can definitely fatigue the spinal erectors, which might lead to lower training outputs across the week.

So I would split those up a little bit more intelligently. 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. Maybe you do squats and hip thrusts on the same day, deadlifts on one day and lunge and hip thrusts on another day. And then you borrow extra volume from more stable exercises like perhaps lying

hamstring curls, leg press. There's so many things you can do if hypertrophy is the main goal, but maybe we don't just go massive amounts of volume with barbell work. That would be, in my opinion, the most feasible and easy to implement strategy for managing the back pain, especially if you're pretty darn sure this is where it's coming from. the back pain, especially if you're pretty darn sure this is where it's coming from. So my next question is from Deanna McCallum, and she wants to know about isolated lifts versus upper lower body lifts. And she asks, which is better for your body when trying to build muscle? Isolated lifting days or upper lower lifting days? What about push-pull days? Does it matter? So Deanna's question, or I'm sorry, Deanna's question

is, are we talking about single muscle group days, like the traditional bro split of chest, back, arms, shoulders, legs, or upper-lower days, where you do upper body, lower body, upper body, lower days, or push-pull leg, where you do a push day that's chest, shoulders, and triceps, a pull day that tends to be lats, upper back, and biceps, do a push day that's chest, shoulders, and triceps, a pull day that tends to be lats, upper back, and biceps, and a leg day, which is, of course, legs. If we're talking about building muscle, I think that it's important that we look at the data, and the data does seem to smile upon a frequency of about two times per week training per muscle group. I believe that upper-lower

splits, which is what my foundations program on my website is all about, and push-pull legs, which I run a push-pull leg upper-lower hybrid in the female physique program, are great programs for spacing out work across a training week to hit that two-time-a-week frequency but not smash anything too much. There are some people who respond better to one-time-a-week frequencies, and there are some people who respond better to three-time-a-week frequencies. If you really want to dive into the nuance, you can even look at it at the level of the actual tissue. For me, my arms and shoulders have grown much more in recent months, increasing my arm training

frequency to about four times a week. Sometimes it's less, and the volume is quite low. Sometimes it's two to three sets. But I will work it in there more regularly, and my arms have responded super well to that. I've also had muscle groups in the past that respond beautifully to one time per week. So I think the safe thing to do is to understand that the data and the body of anecdotal evidence generally says that two times a week per muscle group is fine. I think that upper lower training and push pull leg training allow for a better opportunity to nail that frequency. You could do four times a week up or lower and hit

everything twice, or you could do five to six days a week, push, pull leg and hit everything twice. If you did push, pull leg up or lower, that would be five days a week and you'd hit everything twice. If that's too much and you're not getting the gains you want, maybe you go to a one time a week split or a front to back split where you do like an anterior chain day and a posterior chain day. There's so many ways to play with it. But I think what really becomes important is that we just understand that generally two times a week is going to be better than one and that three times a week isn't always going to be better than two. And if you can find a way to constructively space your workouts out and you remain open to the idea that at the level of the actual muscle, there might be times where

you do three or four. There might be times where you do two. There might be times that you do one. You could try hitting a muscle group. Like I know a lot of people do abs or calves after every workout. And these muscles have different abilities to recover based on the amount of blood supply they get, a myriad of factors. There's many, many things that can influence recovery at the tissue level. There's also no doubt that we all have certain muscle groups that tend to grow with relative ease and certain muscle groups that might be a little bit more stubborn. And training those stubborn muscle groups more frequently might help you better select exercises across your training career that help you load them more effectively or efficiently. And muscle groups that tend to grow with relative ease,

you might want to back off on your volume and intensity to keep your physique in balance if that is in fact one of your goals. So those are things to consider when, as you asked, you're kind of looking at how exactly one can fit all the training volume you would like to fit in across a week. And I think for most people, upper lower or push pull legs will be a little bit better than your traditional isolated day bro splits. All right. And the last question comes from Raman Muragatos. And the question is, macronutrient split. For an athlete playing a high demanding sport, basketball and football, what should be a fitting macro split? Would 50% carbs, 25% protein, and 25% fat work? carbs, 25% protein, and 25% fat work, actually, I think in terms of ratios, that would probably work pretty well. When we consider the demands of most sports, particularly the big three in America,

right, being baseball, basketball, and football, but then we have other sports that are quite similar like lacrosse and soccer, many of these sports are what we would call glycolytic. They need some power, and they require quite a bit of fuel, especially if you're playing a full-blown game. And we can most easily get that fuel from carbs. There isn't a single athlete in baseball, basketball, football, lacrosse, soccer, mixed martial arts, that I think would be better off on a keto diet than a traditional higher carbohydrate diet, unless there were some specific intolerances or things like that. There's always an outlier. There is always an outlier. But in most cases, I think athletes

should have the greatest percentage of their total calorie intake coming from carbohydrate. And that's going to include physique athletes, bodybuilders, recreational hobbyists, and enthusiasts. And carbs get a really, really shitty rap. Think about things like this. Multigrains, fruits, vegetables, technically all fall into the classification of carbohydrates. Those contribute, outside of really high quality meat and organ meat, some of the most nutrient dense foods we have available to us. And athletes need fuel, but they also need nutrition. And so a high amount of quality carbohydrates can give us both the fuel we need and the nutrition we need to optimally recover, minimize tissue damage and maximize repair. So I like a 50% carbohydrate. Let's talk about 25% from protein. I think this could go up or down depending on the split. The reason I think it could go up or down, I think is dependent on the sport. I think that sports in which acute tissue damage is quite common, or there's a high amount

of collisions, or there's a massive requirement for high amounts of resistance training, which if you look at traditional American sport, all of these athletes do off-season and in-season resistance training in most instances. And for your collision sports like football, rugby, and lacrosse, there's going to be potentially acute tissue damage, bruising, things like that. And more protein will help expedite the healing from match to match, bout to bout, game to game, practice to practice. That stuff becomes really, really important for those populations. For populations where contact and collision aren't as common, maybe we could bring protein down a little bit. I think we also have to look at the gender here. Men and women both have some acute, obvious things that happen when we bring dietary fat too low. Women, and particularly,

especially at the youth level, deal with something called REDS, Relative Energy Deficiency Syndrome. This was formerly known as the Female Athlete Triad, which is almost exclusively from not eating enough food, but particularly not eating enough dietary fat, and trying to maintain a figure while competing at the highest level of sport. And those two things don't always mix. Some athletes are lean and have amazing, beautiful bodies. And a lot of young women see models and magazines and social media, and they want to have the beautiful, sexy body and be an athlete. And that's really hard to do because a body needs fuel to perform. And with women, REDS, relative energy deficiency syndrome, can kick in pretty quickly. And you'll actually see things like amenorrhea, the loss of

the menstrual cycle, abnormal appetite, poor recovery, poor performance. So it is important to get the right amount of food and particularly the right amount of fat. And while younger women and women in particular tend to have a harder time getting protein than men, in general, gram for gram, they need less because they are smaller. So you could go below 25%, but I wouldn't go lower than 20%. And I think for fats, for most athletes, I don't want to say I want to have fat super high, but I want fat to at least be at an essential level, essential so that we can guard against the loss of something like a menstrual cycle, protect a young female from something like amenorrhea that can have lifetime deleterious

impact if she's unable to get that back. I think for young men, because they're in the surge of their testosterone production, effectively, no matter what you do, reducing fats could potentially limit that. I don't know how much, but I don't think you should be below that essential line. I think for athletes, anywhere from 0.7 to 1 gram per pound of body weight is great. I wouldn't go above that because then you're just robbing from fats and carbohydrates that we could use for fuel performance. And again, that increased density of micronutrition that comes from some of those carbohydrate sources like B vitamins, vitamin C, fiber, polyphenols, a lot of our plant compounds, our antioxidants, a lot of this stuff in our diet that helps us manage the stress of

sport and the stress of, if we're talking about youth athletics, just life being, for example, in high school, that's not fun. That's not easy. When you've only been on the planet for 16 years and any drama feels like it's going to end your life, at the very least, we'd want you to be nourished. So if we're an athlete playing high demanding sports like basketball and football, I think 50, 25, 25, 50% carbohydrate, 25% protein, 25% fat is a great macronutrient split. But I wouldn't say it's the only macronutrient split. I wouldn't go a whole lot lower on carbohydrates. I wouldn't go a whole lot higher on protein and I wouldn't go a whole lot lower on fat. You could definitely play with it, but it really comes down to a few key things. We need to make sure we have adequate carbohydrate to fuel performance, supply the body with very important micronutrients and fiber,

help us manage cortisol, and in general, having more carbohydrates available increases dietary adherence. With regards to protein, it's very critical that we get enough protein to facilitate muscle recovery, particularly muscle repair after intense training, whether that is in sport or strength and conditioning. And then of course, dietary fat is really important for the maintenance of our cells, for the maintenance of our hormonal systems, and for the maintenance of our brain. And if you are a young developing person, those things are just as important as if you are an athlete in middle age. And a lot gets made of young people being able to eat whatever they want and still perform

at a really high level. But it's also important to remember that with regards to youth athletics, it's important that we teach kids more than just how to be good at sports. We need to teach them habits that will help them in their professional world, the academic world, and I think in the health world. And if we can make sure that kids and youth athletics are eating well, that might stick with them for life in a way that I think is really important because not all kids are going to play at the highest level of sport and turn it into a profession. So guys, that is it. Thank you for tuning into another episode of the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. Again, I'm your host, Danny Matranga. Every single one of you listeners matters to me. I appreciate you all tuning in so, so much. If you could, if you enjoy this episode, if you learned something, share it. You never know who might need to hear what we talked about today. And if you have the time, leave me a five-star rating

and review on iTunes. It helps the podcast rank higher and helps more people find it and appreciate it in the same way you do. If you have a question or a problem with something, send me an email. I'd love to talk about it. That should do it, guys. Thanks so much for tuning in. I appreciate you all. Have a good one.