Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - *BONUS* 5 Best TRX Moves, How is Star Wars like Fitness, Trainers and Covid-19 + TB12 to TB.

Episode Date: March 19, 2020

In this bonus episode, Danny provides an update on COVID-19 as well as some suggestions for bodyweight training and optimizing nutrition during these strange times. Bonus coverage of NFL free agency, star wars and cannabis included.Support the Show.

Guys, welcome in and welcome to the second day of my quarantine. Yeah, we're starting right off hot exactly how it's been. I'm in Sonoma County in the middle of this whole Corona virus and I have been put on a three week 21 day, essentially what they call shelter in place. And what it really means is if you're going to go anywhere within the next couple of days, it has to basically be to get essentials and that's it. So that's looking like my next three weeks. And I think just in general, we're committing to staying in the house and minimizing how much we expose ourselves to other people or vice versa, Minimizing how much we expose ourselves to other people or vice versa. Exposing other people to ourselves. Sorry, I drank one of those Lagunitas weed beers and I'm feeling it. They're actually really interesting because they have zero calories. It's essentially the water, like purified water, hops.

So they call it hop water. So it tastes like a beer. And then it's infused with THC. So it has like 10 milligrams of THC. So, um, I've been doing those and getting through my quarantine snacks. I'm working on things for you guys as well. I've, uh, created a Corona virus, what to do with your personal training business PDF. That's going to go up on the website at the end of the week. It's stuff you guys who are trainers, I know so many of your coaches and trainers can work on to help yourself through this time,

because this is going to financially change the way a lot of us live our lives. We've already been asked to change how we live our lives. You know, we've eclipsed 8,000 cases as of 7.13pm. And, you know, this has got no signs of slowing down and most trainers right now are not working. And quite frankly, we shouldn't be. But when we don't get, when we don't work, we don't get paid. I have the advantage of being able to help my online clients through this and that supports me. But, you know, my in-person business is essentially paused and I don't mind sharing that because I know a lot of people are going through it. And financially, I'm fortunate enough to be able to

keep myself afloat because I've made some good decisions. But from an investment standpoint, I'm watching the money that I've saved and invested over the years essentially drop to the principal, the amount that was in. like what I've gained over the years is effectively been wiped out. And it's hard to see, but it's so much less important than the people that we care about, our grandparents, our parents, and even young people. The idea that this does not affect young people is completely, completely false. And it's showing all around the world now that young people can get this and it can be quite impactful on their health. So don't run around thinking you're invincible just because you're young. It's really, really, really important that we do the things we

need to do to cooperate societally and make sure that even though we might not get it as bad as an older person, we prevent them from getting it. And so those should just be the things that are kind of number one on your radar, following the rules right now and taking care of the people in your life. Particularly, oh my God, man, this thing is hitting, particularly the people that can't take care of themselves in these moments. So be a leader, be somebody in your community who people can rely on, follow the rules and do your best. I'm going to go through these Q and A's now, and this is going to be like a bonus episode, a freestyle episode. So we're going to have fun with it. But the first question is how can I use TRX? This is from at Lindsay one dove. And how can I use TRX tricks and tips. So TRX is a fantastic piece of home equipment. So for

anybody who's looking at some type of potential quarantine, I strongly recommend getting your butt on Amazon or to TRX website. I'm sure TRX is sold out, but just get yourself a suspension trainer. So that's a, that's a hack right there. You don't need a bona fide TRX brand. You can get a suspension trainer, but there are some incredible moves you can do on the TRX. My five favorite moves, I didn't write these down. I'm just gonna randomly spout off lists to try to give you guys some value,

are the TRX row, fantastic exercise for the back. TRX T-fly, great for shoulders. You can do Y flies. You get a little bit more medial delt. T fly, get a little bit more lateral, or I'm sorry, posterior delt. You also get a lot of upper back and rhomboid. I'm also a huge, huge fan of lying hamstring curls on the TRX. That's something you can do that's going to give you the same type of effect as like a Nordic or even sometimes like an RDL, you're going to get that really intense contraction out of the hamstring. So that's really valuable. I love the atomic pushup, which is basically a pushup with a crunch. So you get chest,

shoulders and abs, but you also get some additional range of motion from having your body elevated. So you can get a little bit more stress on that pec. And then the last one is a tricep extension. I found that those are quite, quite good. On TRX, it almost is like a skull crusher, but you're using your body weight. And some, and I'm choosing these because they're some of the harder muscle groups to hit, like triceps and hamstrings people sometimes struggle with if they don't have like any weight. So I do definitely, definitely like the TRX right now. Next question comes from seraphina.ras, at seraphina.ras, and she asks advice for practicing healthy eating habits when quarantined.

So the biggest thing you can do is, in my opinion, is cook your food and work on getting into a rhythm of cooking recipes that are healthier, macro-friendly, mostly whole foods, and things that you can replicate and take with you when this all blows over. Next question is from at Carly K. Clark, and she asks, cannabis? So cannabis is something that I've been doing fairly regularly for the past three years, and before that, I think the first time I smoked weed was in high school, but I'm sorry, consumed cannabis. And I find that it is an exponentially better mix for me than booze. I have a lot of alcoholism in my family, a lot of mental health issues in the family. So I definitely shy away from alcohol. But cannabis I found is quite nice for limiting anxiety. And it's a good way for me to get into a creative space.

I've also got no problem stopping whenever I want. Sometimes I go days on end without smoking, two, three, four, five days in a row. I go, oh, shoot. I didn't even realize I hadn't done it. Then some days I'll smoke or have an edible three days in a row. Every day I've been on quarantine, I've been using it to manage anxiety and try to get into a space where I feel comfortable with what's going on in the world around me. And it's been a, it's been a very valuable tool for me in this time. Okay. So at fit trition, underscore PD asks, can we just have an entire bonus episode dedicated to all things Star Wars?

entire bonus episode dedicated to all things Star Wars. Yes, I can get that done for you, man. And I think that is coming. At Captain Unimpressive asks, oh, two Star Wars questions, three Star Wars questions in a row asks, weird ass question, but what can you transfer from Star Wars to fitness? So that's one that's a little existential and it's probably something that might help being a little bit, you know, elevated or medicated for. But let's think about Star Wars as a story. So all three trilogies, whether we're talking about the OT, original trilogy, prequel, or the sequel trilogies, are the hero's journey tale in some way. So the hero's journey is the most common story that's told. It's been repurposed and reskinned. It's something that we like, and it's something that media and people who produce content know we like. And basically, the hero's journey goes like this. You have a hero who, in these cases, would be Luke Skywalker, Anakin Skywalker, slash Obi-Wan Kenobi, or Rey. And hero has a existential crisis where they're thrown into a situation that's bigger than them so for example in the original trilogy luke's

aunt and uncle were killed by the empire and he runs off to fight the empire way bigger than him for ray she gets sucked into this chase and she's all of a sudden on the millennium falcon fighting the first order way bigger than her and the the original, I should say the prequel trilogy, the original sequels, I like to call them sometimes, the prequel trilogy, same story with Anakin, just gets swooped up into this whole Trade Federation war and he's battling his internal demons, the dark side, all that. So the main thing you can gain from Star Wars is that this hero's journey thing gets repurposed. And it shows up a lot in stories, and it shows up everywhere, which is, again, it's formulaic.

Original hero ends up facing something way bigger than himself, has a problem, can't overcome it, finds a guide. So we've got, again, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luke Skywalker, and, of course, Obi-Wan Kenobi in the prequel trilogy as well as Yoda. And what these people do is they act as a guide for the hero. They teach the hero everything that they are going to need to know to be successful. And then usually they disappear right at the end. So the hero's left all by themselves. Usually what happens is the hero will lose their first battle against the big bad guy. So again, in the original trilogy,

Luke got his hand cut off by Vader. In the second, in the prequels, Anakin gets his hand cut off by Dooku or Obi-Wan loses Qui-Gon Jinn to Darth Maul. There are things that they have to overcome. And then when the guide character steps away, they realize their true power, they overcome it. And I mean, these things are not too different from fitness, which is to say that we all have these goals that are usually bigger than ourselves. They're hard to accomplish. We either go about finding the knowledge for ourselves and create this guide-like space in our mind where we learn and we do trial and error, where we hire a trainer, we hire a coach, somebody to take us most of the

way there. And then with that added knowledge and experience, we're able to finish it off and do it by ourselves. So the idea of being able to take something on, but with the health, help of other people and the assistance of the communities around us and the ability to just simply practice trial and error, we can take on things that day one would have never been possible. You know, first day in the gym, you're never going to be able to put 315 on a bench press and wrap it out. But if you dedicate years of training to it, it can become second nature. So next question is from at the maple leaf man, and he asks expectations for the Obi-Wan series. And I just, I'm glad Kathleen Kennedy is off of it.

She was responsible for these sequels and George Lucas is back in charge. And I always liked the character. So I'm quite excited. At LG fitness, uh, two 15 asks back injuries and exercise to help slowly correct posture injury and pain. So back injuries are tough because a lot of them are idiopathic. We don't know where the pain is coming from. A lot of people with back pain have pain that's not connected to a tissue abnormality or a disc issue. Thank God I didn't say dick issue. A disc issue. And a lot of back pain is learned behavior. It's learned response. Remember pain

exists in what we call the biopsychosocial model. So bio means biology. And that speaks to the tissues, the nervous system, right? Psycho speaks to the mind. That's the expectation of pain, what you've been told to expect of pain. And then the social piece, that last piece, right? We got bio and then we got psycho and then we got social. That whole word is biopsychosocial. That's again, how things are communicated to us by professionals, people around us who tell us about their pain. And we form this understanding of pain that really has been much more representative than the old model of pain science. So when we talk about back injuries, it's really important to do our best to understand, again, the bio, the psycho, and the social. The biology, is this client having a legit back pain issue? Do they think that

deadlifts are going to bother their back? So, they bother their back. Is it a confidence issue? Is it a guarding thing? Like, what is the history here? What's behind this pain? And you can usually get to that by communicating with people. And exercises that I find generally don't create pain are a good way to undo some of the psycho and the social piece. If the bio piece is there, if the damage is there, there's not a ton you can do besides stuff that's genuinely not going to agitate it. But building confidence and building competency I found is the best way to address the psycho and the social piece. So exercises I generally refer trainers to for back pain or people who have chronic back pain

start on the floor with things like dead bugs bird dogs and bridges move into things that are basically core rigidity based exercises like planks through the pots things with mild perturbations then work on teaching the mechanics of the squat and the hinge while bracing and stabilizing the lower portion of the back by integrating the core. And then you can load things like hinging, lunging, and squatting. And that is usually a continuum that we can build some competency, some confidence, and also address the tissue. And that's a really valuable way to look at back pain because we can't fix everybody by assigning specific exercises for specific problems because without an MRI, it's really hard to do. But we can always have a

dialogue and try to apply things and integrate things that don't cause additional pain. And usually that's a good thing. All right, next question. At Codding Dev Box, tips for upcoming personal trainers. So keep it very simple. Be friendly, be on time, be clean, and be prepared for every session that you do. Don't be afraid of selling because it's a part of your job. Always make that decision that you're proud of and always come from a place of integrity. It's always better to under-promise and over-deliver than it is to over-promise and under-deliver. Remember that. All right. At C Meadows 11 asks, Tom Brady to the Bucs, prediction on whether he is a systems quarterback or will he be successful? So I have a few opinions on this Brady to the Bucs move, and I've been thinking a lot about it and talking to some of my quarantine mates here.

But we are dealing with a Brady who's not mobile at all anymore, and he doesn't have the big arm. But he's still fairly accurate, and he didn't have his best season last year, but he still had flashes of his excellency. He's great at calling things hit the line, and he's got weapons. As it stands right now, he has the best receiver tandem in the league, in my opinion, in Godwin and Evans. Those are two dudes that are legit. They're big bodies. Godwin's not the deep threat that Evans is, but he is absolutely a mismatch over the middle for most DBs, particularly the guys he plays against in the slot. And there's rumors that Antonio Brown is looking to join the Buccaneers because him and Brady have a pretty

special relationship. And that would be, in my opinion, the greatest trio of wide receivers ever assembled. You're looking at probably three top 15 guys on one team any way you slice it. From a fantasy standpoint, Antonio Brown would absolutely kill the value of Evans and Godwin. But if you're telling me that we can put Cameron Brait, who's been incredibly effective in the NFL, O.J. Howard, who's a first-round tight end talent, Mike Evans, who's elite, is an elite red zone threat and an unbelievably good receiver. He is top 10 in this league. Chris Godwin, who's an animal in the slot, especially with Bruce Arian's system

and the way he likes to use the slot receiver. Need I remind you of guys like Hines Ward and Larry Fitzgerald, both successful in that system. Then you add Antonio Brown, who so long as he stays sane, is a top three wide receiver in this league from a production standpoint. And you pair that with the greatest quarterback of all time from a pressure standpoint. Even if it is the system, it's hard to imagine Brady doesn't have a good season with Evans and Godwin and an incredible season if they're able to add and sustain some degree of Antonio Brown in that offense but I think we kind of all know that that is a ticking time bomb that tends to be it doesn't seem like they're gonna run things typical out there um in tampa bay they kind of

haven't as long as they've had this staff in place anyway but i can't think of a reason why you would risk adding antonio brown to the mix unless that's what tom wanted and a lot of people say he had some very very very interesting requests uh in this contract so we're going to see. That being said, guys, let's talk a little bit now about some questions I got in the DMs. Now, this one is from X Dimension Fit. And I actually really liked this question. He says, and this is long form, and I don't want to air his information. So basically, the question was, along the lines of his club, his fitness club is closing. He wants to continue to work with his clients, but he's got a non-compete clause built into his contract and he's worried about training his clients. So let's just say he works for Gold's Gym,

Anytime Fitness, 24 Hour Fitness. He works for a big box health club. And a lot of these big box health clubs have non-competes. And what a non-compete basically says is you can't train any of the clients that you have here or anywhere else because then we'll sue you because you're stealing our clients. That's the long and short of it. Now, here's my two cents on it. No company in this situation right now is worried about you taking a couple clients with you and helping them maintain their fitness and getting paid for it. They're worried about you taking a couple of clients with you and helping them

maintain their fitness and getting paid for it. They're worried about going bankrupt. Fitness clubs are worried about going bankrupt. There are so many big players in the fitness game right now. There's so many gyms. There's so many up and coming new things that people are doing. It's incredibly competitive. A lot of the people who work out are splitting their membership fees across 10 to 15 different modalities. 24, Lifetime, Anytime, Planet Fitness, Crunch, UFC Gym, Orange Theory, F45, SoulCycle. The list goes on and on. Obviously, we have CrossFit. We have small gyms, independently owned gyms, personal trainers. There's so many different things in this industry. Everybody is clinging to life. And if you're a trainer and you have clients and you want to help them and you're worried

about your gym coming after you, imagine the PR nightmare that would come from a big box gym suing a trainer for working with their clients while their door was closed, while their doors were closed. I just don't think it's likely. Having worked for these guys in the past and seeing how they kind of run things, I wouldn't put anything past them. But in my opinion, this seems like it's a bit of a stretch. I really think it's a bit of a stretch. So that answers that. If you're a trainer, you work at a big box gym, you're nervous about what you're going to do or how you're going to do this, you're going to have to get creative over the next couple of weeks, hopefully not months.

And don't be tripping about non-compete clauses because you got to keep the, you got to keep the bread coming in. And I'm just going to be honest with you right now. But I think it's going to be tough. And I think that if, if you're worried about stuff like that, you might dig yourself into a little bit deeper of a hole. And that's really, really important right now to keep our heads above water, to keep doing the things we love, to maintain normalcy. And if you're in a situation where you can follow the rules and still work with clients, whether it's over FaceTime or at their house, or maybe they come to you, do it. Do it if it seems right and nobody's sick and limit

your exposure. But if you can maintain normalcy and help people with their health, that's going to be huge because now is not the time for Americans to run away from working on their health. In fact, other than home workouts being more than likely suboptimal to what people would do on their own time if they were going to go out and work out, right? It's probably not going to be the same as if you were lifting weights, but now more than ever, many of us have the time to educate ourselves on nutrition, to educate ourselves on improving our sleep, to educate ourselves on improving our lifestyle, to do that diet we've wanted to do, to track those calories. A lot of these excuses are out

the window. We have the time. And like I said a couple episodes back, if we have the opportunity to find things that we can take with us from this situation that will help improve our health forever, help improve our life forever, help us recover as a nation because who the hell knows where we're going to be after this. We have 8,736 coronavirus cases in the U.S. We have 8,736 coronavirus cases in the U.S. with 149 deaths at 7.42 p.m. tonight. That's a lot. And people are scared. But if you can improve your life in any way, shape, or form right now, where you will be at the end of this, when we come out of this, you'll be happier for.

If you give in to fear, you give in to uncertainty, if you break down, if you let everything you've worked for fall apart because it's hard and it's easy to let everything fall apart, it's the default. Break down and give up is the default. We have to be better than the default. We have to be better than our programming, right? Fuck the default. Understand that we are all struggling. Everybody in America is struggling. We're looking at a 20% unemployment rate on Monday morning. It's going to be really, really tough for us. But now is not the time to lose control of your health and wellness. Do the best you can. It's not going to be perfect, but do the best you can because we're going to get through this. And what you have on the other end is going to be reflective of how much you were able to embrace where we were at for the last couple months. Wherever we end up, whenever we get back to normal, you're going to be left with scars. It might be where your body's at because you didn't work out. It might be your nutrition

habits because all you did was eat junk. It might be that you have additional issues with skin or autoimmune problems because you let stress completely overcome you. You might have financial turmoil because things were hard and maybe we didn't make the decisions we should have made or read the books we should have read or who knows. But you're going to have to answer for the mistakes you make here. I don't want to call them mistakes because that sounds insensitive, but you're going to have to answer for whatever baggage you bring with you out of this situation. And it's not fair. But if the government bails out airlines and they bail people out in this economy, that's one thing, right? They bail out businesses. That's one thing. But they can't bail out not taking care of your health. They can't bail out not taking care of

your fitness. And there's a lot of things we can control, such as simply cooking mostly whole food, one ingredient meals, right? Putting simple things together to make good food, going for a walk outside, doing a little bit of resistance training with a kettlebell or some bands. These are things that we have complete control over. And nobody's going to be able to bail us out if we don't take control and don't express the things we can do at this time. So guys, quick, short, little episode, 20 minutes. I'm doing everything I can right now to send you a daily email, to have some type of normalcy built into your day. If all you have through this time is a daily email from me and a daily podcast from me, I'll feel good about it.

You know, I want to upload my workouts. I want to create videos. I want to make content that inspires people, motivates people to get on board and help the people in their communities. But it's hard for me too. And tonight, I only have 25 minutes in me. That's all I have. I'm tired.

I'm feeling run down. I'm taking my temperature, but I don't believe I'm sick, but I'm taking my temperature. I just don't feel run down. And I'm going through it too. But if you can learn anything from this, it's that I'm here to support you guys as a voice in the fitness and health space, as somebody who wants to motivate and inspire you to be a change maker in your community. And I'm going to be on here as much as I can. Like I said, I'm taking inspiration from FDR and Ramit Sati. And that might sound pretentious because obviously I'm not on that level, but I'm somebody who understands the importance of routine and the importance of normalcy. And I want to be here for you guys with consistent content, consistent

podcasts, consistent questions being answered about your fitness. And I'll be honest, there was a lot less questions today than there have been in the past because we're facing new problems and we don't even know what questions to ask. And I think that's probably the case for a lot of people. But we are all in this together and we're all going to get through this together. But to do that, we need to get on board and we need to understand get through this together. But to do that, we need to get on board and we need to understand the severity of this situation. We need to understand the scale of the situation. And we need to understand that we are incredibly, incredibly strong together, but we crumble when we separate. So remember, it's the old analogy of one stick breaks easily,

but a lot of sticks together becomes hard to break. So let's bend together, but not break apart. Guys, have a good one. Thanks so much for tuning in. Leave me a rating and a five-star review on iTunes. They finally went through so I can see them now. It's so amazing. It's so awesome. We did a thousand downloads in the first 10 hours of the show being live, which was crazy. Couldn't be happier. This has been a fantastic project and I'm really excited to share more. I've got interviews lined up. Everything's crazy, but as of next week, we should be sitting down with two to three really amazing guests for you guys. Two women who absolutely know their shit in this space and are fucking amazing. And then one guy

who I really look up to and I think does a fabulous job. And you're probably familiar with all of them or have at least been familiar with some of their work. And we're all in the same boat, myself and them in terms of how this is affecting our business and how this is impacting our time. And they've been generous enough to at least give me some of that. And I want to share it with you. So stay tuned for some interviews. Have a good one, you guys. Stay safe.