Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 105: Q&A - Electrolytes, EAA's, and the BEST workout split for EVERYONE.

Episode Date: June 21, 2021

In this episode, coach Danny sits downs and answers a ton of questions, including:Using EAA's and electrolytes to enhance performance.What's the best workout split given your unique situation?Can you deadlift on a smith machine?Best sources of dietary fiberAnd 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!----SOCIAL LINKS:Sign up for the trainer mentorship HEREFollow Coach Danny on INSTAGRAMFollow Coach Danny on TwitterFollow Coach Danny on FacebookGet More In-Depth Articles Written By Yours’ Truly HERE!Support the Show.

Hey everybody, welcome to the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. As always, I am your host, Coach Danny Matrenga, and today we are going to hammer out a monster Q&A answering all of your questions from a bunch of different areas. So sit tight and enjoy. We're going to go off the cuff, rapid fire, no script, try to get through as many of these as I can from hopefully as many different categories as I can as well.

So they can really answer, hopefully from a, you know, breadth of topics and really evolve the conversation as we go today. So this is something that I know you guys are going to enjoy. But before we begin, just a little bit of housekeeping, keeping you guys abreast of things that are changing in my world. We're getting very, very close to the launch of my new coaching company. I'm very, very excited to bring core coaching to you guys. And really try to blend the elements of in-person and online coaching together in a way that I just don't think has been done particularly well yet. And what I mean by that is try to create a team of coaches who have plenty of in-person and online coaching experience, because I find that in the online coaching space, coaches and trainers who have spent some time

training people in person tend to be better communicators. They tend to be better when it comes to program design. They're exponentially better at troubleshooting things that arise, particularly with regards to programming and exercise execution, and makes it way easier for clients to be able to turn to somebody who's actually coached someone in person rather than somebody who's kind of exclusively lived behind a screen in the coaching space, which isn't to say that if you've never trained a person to screen in the coaching space, which isn't to say that if you've never trained a person live one-on-one in person, you can't be an effective online coach using an intermediary like, you know, app-based online coaching, you know, Google Drive-based online coaching. The way people do things is totally, totally unique.

But this is going to be something particularly special. Something else I'm really excited about blending into core coaching is the ability to meet with and collaborate with a physical therapist, a doctor of physical therapy who specializes in helping lifters. So whether it's mobility restrictions, whether it's something more pain specific or injury specific, having a offering for clients or even people who aren't working with our coaching team to be able to come into the core coaching network get the help you need via telehealth wherever you are in the world to get a consultation to get an assessment to get whether it's mobility that you

want to improve looked at a sticking point on a lift looked at pain point on certain lifts looked at getting the assessment you need to get a treatment plan in place so you can get back to performing at your peak level. So really blending everything together that I think is integral for helping people optimize their fitness journey, whether that is as a athlete looking to perform at the highest level, a physique competitor looking to take your physique to a place it's never been, or even just general population individuals looking to improve their health and fitness. This is going to be launching very soon. The mentorship program you've heard me talk about a lot has been again put on the back burner, but that will launch as part of core coaching

methods offerings for trainers. So this is really, really exciting stuff, guys. I cannot wait to bring it to you. So that should do it for the housekeeping portion of the episode. Let's go ahead and answer some of your guys's questions. So first question is from Noelle Marvelli, and she asks, is it proper to do a deadlift with a Smith machine, a straight angled one? Okay, so first off, let's talk about the angle of a Smith machine. If any of you are familiar with the Smith machine, it's basically a triangular shaped frame with a bar that slides up and down on two kind of guiding beams that run perpendicular to the bar. So these beams run north and south and the barbell is usually bracketed to these beams and it goes up and down traveling on these beams. It keeps the bar very stable and it moves the bar on a fixed

path. Additionally, a lot of these machines are designed at an angle so sometimes if you are facing the rack the bar will go up and away from you. Sometimes if you're standing in the rack the bar will go up and away from you. It all depends on which way those support beams lean. Maybe they lean like 10 degrees in or 10 degrees out, or maybe they're straight up and down, which is the case here. But the directionality of those beams really is going to influence how we can use the machine. So for example, things like reverse lunges, things like deadlifts, things like rows,

typically we want to have that bar path, and I'm just bringing this up because these are exercises I see people do in the Smith machine. We technically want to have that bar path be pretty vertical on most of the stuff we do, specifically with the barbell deadlift. And so when we look at it, we go, okay, Smith machine, pretty stable on a guided path. We know it's vertical. Can we emulate that, you know, traditional conventional deadlift in here? Yes, but I don't think it's optimal for performing the deadlift. One reason is on a Smith machine, you're not ever pulling the plates from the ground. You're only pulling them from the bottom of a Smith machine. And even with 45 pound plates on the bar, you're not actually ever going to have those

plates touch the ground. So you'll be pulling from a slightly higher position than you would if you were doing a conventional barbell deadlift. Additionally, because the bar is on a fixed path, you're not going to be nearly, it's not going to require nearly as much lat activation to keep the bar close to the body, right? Because one of the functions of the lats is shoulder extension, okay? Or moving the arms back, like if your arms were in front of you, towards your back pockets. Like you're going to scratch your butt and your hands going back. Just like you see on a cable row how that arm moves back or a straight arm pull down,

how that arm goes forward to back. Or a lat pull down, how those arms go from above the body to the sides of the body. Those are forms of shoulder extension and on a deadlift one of the things we want to do is we want to keep the bar close to our shins by activating our lats. The activation of the lats creates irradiation and tension along the entire backside which is great for helping to develop your back and that's one of the main reasons people love the sensation they get in their back when performing the's one of the main reasons people love the sensation they get in their back when performing the deadlift, because the lats tend to come to the party, the erectors come to the party, a lot of times you'll even feel some of the traps come to

the party, and so much of that is from stabilizing the bar. Now, I don't dislike doing deadlifts in the Smith machine, I don't think it's going to hurt you, but I don't think it's the best way to do them, because I think you're going to miss out on some of that posterior chain activation and you're never going to have the bar being pulled fully from the ground but I don't think it'll kill you I don't hate Romanian deadlifts in the Smith machine if anything I might like them liken them to something like a dumbbell Romanian deadlift in some ways even though that bar is really stable in a way it probably wouldn't be with dumbbells. I find that those sensations are pretty similar and people who like one tend to like the other. So I'm a big fan of using the Smith machine intelligently, but I don't think deadlifts is an

example of that. And I don't think that in general people use the Smith machine particularly well. I don't really like any of the big barbell lifts, bench, squat, or deadlift, if you will, in the Smith machine. Okay, so this question comes from KKKKKChris, 5K's Chris, favorite sources of fiber. So fiber is really important, guys. And, you know, we probably don't talk about it nearly as much as we should. But fiber is effectively carbohydrate that our stomach can't break down fully for us to digest and turn into fuel. And one of the things in our body that loves fiber is the microbiome or the bugs that live in our gut that help us with a variety of different things. And those guys really enjoy snacking on fiber. It's one of their preferred

fuel sources. So one of the best things you can do for the health of your gut and your gut microbiome is to eat a plethora of fiber, particularly from different sources and resistant starches or starches like potatoes that have been cooked and then cooled is another thing they quite like. But really looking at fiber as an awesome way to feed your gut bacteria. So it's really important for that. It's wonderful for your digestive system with regards to regulating bowel movements, right? And it's very satiating, it keeps you quite full. And we already outlined that our body doesn't really break it down and extract calories from it. So it's a low calorie way to stay full. And one of the reasons I keep referencing fiber

as being really low calorie is the sources of fiber that I most enjoy, which is this question, tend to be things like fruits, vegetables, and whole grains that are minimally processed, usually in their raw or semi cooked form. And those impart a lot of fiber to the diet. So things like fruit with the skin on it, pretty much any vegetable, and even a lot of things like whole grains and beans are wonderful sources of dietary fiber. And we should be aiming to get a certain amount of dietary fiber every day so that we can take care of our digestive systems, so that we can stay full, and most importantly, so that we can take care of our digestive systems, so that we can stay full, and most importantly, so that we can take care of those bugs that live in our gut because those guys

want that fiber bad and we need to respect them and give them what it is that they need. Okay, next question. This question comes from Kelly Schmidt, and she asks, what creatine do you recommend? So if you guys haven't already, go ahead and queue up episode 104, the episode directly before this one. I talk all about creatine, why I think it's so effective, and why I recommend it for people who don't even resistance train, which is kind of a unique take. I wouldn't call it a hot take, but I've seen more people kind of parroting this take, and I didn't hear too many people talking about it before I did, which doesn't mean it was my idea initially, but I take a lot of pride in the fact that I think that

creatine should be looked at as more than just a performance-enhancing supplement, and the research is continuing to support my kind of idea here, because we know that creatine is beneficial for more than just resistance training and it tends to be studied as its kind of plain old jane form creatine monohydrate and so that's the form of creatine that i recommend the creatine product that i take is legion's recharge which i really enjoy i like the taste of it post-workout i mix it with a little bit of ice and i sip on it, especially during the hot California summer months. I go crazy for the strawberry lemonade. That's my favorite by far. And it has a little supplemental L-carnitine and some other things to help with insulin sensitivity and uptake of the creatine

post-training, which for me is a big deal. I really care about getting the most out of my supplements. And again, I do work with Legion, so shameless plug, but I do think that Recharge is a fantastic recovery product and it's loaded with creatine. You get a clinically effective dose of five grams of creatine monohydrate, which is the clinically studied dose that's shown to be effective at keeping your creatine stores saturated for performance, which is the clinically studied dose that's shown to be effective at keeping your creatine stores saturated for performance enhancement, muscle gain, and recovery. So if you don't want a more premium option, again, I do really recommend Legion's Recharge, but if you want a perhaps more budget-friendly option, a plain, simple, and

effective creatine monohydrate dosed at 2 to 5 grams a day should be sufficient. If you want to try Recharge and you want to support the podcast, head on over to legion.com, check out the Recharge post-workout supplement, and use the code DANNY at checkout to save 20% and get double points on your first order. So this question comes from Kawai Katrina, and she asks, Is doing a 200-calorie deficit too slow of a cut? Is 300 usually better? So I think when we look at cutting, we have to establish that we need to know how much weight you want to lose and if the weight loss is time-sensitive.

If you have more weight to lose and you're on a time crunch, your deficit is going to have to represent a greater percentage of your total daily energy expenditure. So if your total daily energy expenditure is 2,000 calories and we put you at 1,500 calories or 25% energy deficit, that's pretty aggressive, right? And for many people, that might be too much. But if you have a lot of weight to lose and not a lot of time to lose it, a more aggressive deficit is going to be more effective. However, if you are looking to lose weight slowly so you can preserve as much muscle as possible, if you want to stave off the negative performance implications of being in a

deficit for too long, because the truth of the matter is, the longer you're in a deficit and the more aggressive that deficit is, the more you will start to feel the effects of that deficit. So I often recommend clients select a deficit, or I don't recommend this for clients, I give clients the deficit. But for non-clients or people who are asking me, oh, about how much should I bulk or about how much should I cut with regards to how much should I reduce or increase my calories, I tend to recommend longer bulks and longer cuts with less intense energy deficits or energy surpluses, particularly for bulking, I recommend 250 to 500 calories max. And for cutting, I generally recommend between 400 and 600 calories of a deficit, you can go more than that, I think it really depends too on your size. So for smaller women,

600 might be way too much, maybe even 400 could be way too much. But again, all of this is context dependent. So you guys will often ask me questions. What should my macros be? What should my cut be? How many calories should I eat? How many grams of protein should I eat in a day? And those questions aren't bad questions, but I need to remind you guys that they are incredibly context dependent.

The reason I have an online coaching business in an online coaching company is because there are no cookie cutter answers to these questions. If the answers were as simple as everybody should eat this much protein, everybody should eat this many carbs, everybody should eat exactly this many calories, there wouldn't be an industry of personal trainers and nutrition coaches. But because your lifestyle factors, your current body mass, your training age, your training goals, your hormones, your genetics, your lifestyle all play a unique role in how we prescribe exercise and nutrition. I just can't give blanket answers. So I've never really touched on that here. But I do think it's important to remind you that there isn't a way in which I could give you a straight up answer without

really breaking down and diagnosing what it is that's going on in your life. Because you could have, let's create an example here, two women who are twins. And the reason I'm using the caveat that they are twins is if you look at the scientific literature, if you want to get the best picture of how two different interventions work, you can use twins because genetically they're more similar than any other pairing of people. So let's say we have two women, 35 years old, twins with the exact same goals. Let's say they both want to compete in the exact same bodybuilding show in the exact same date. One of them, they're both the exact same current height, current them, they're both the exact same current height, current weight, current body mass, current training age. However, one of them has an extremely

stressful, high intensity job that requires a lot of additional movement. Maybe let's just say that this person works in construction. And then the other twin works from home and has much less movement, but way more emotional stress because she's at home with three kids running around going crazy. Even though we have the same genetics, we have the same starting body mass, the same training age, and the same training program, and the same training goal, we would have to make macro considerations because we have clear lifestyle and stress differences. and their macros would look very different even though so much of the stuff was similar so imagine now fielding questions from 40,000 plus followers and getting questions like how much protein should I eat or how many calories should I eat I can't answer those questions you guys because it's not enough

context so if you've asked questions like that and you're frustrated that I haven't answered them it's not because their answer is not there. It's just because there's not enough information and this stuff is all really nuanced. And when you make a plan for something, you've got to take everything into account. OK, so next question comes from Abby Holter. And she says, how many steps do you recommend hitting each day? And this is kind of a funny question to me because my fitness pal and you know, fitness activity tracker apps have really, really fetishized the whole 10,000 steps thing as if getting 10,000 steps is going to like totally, totally, totally change your life forever.

And all you need to do is get 10,000 steps a day and you'll be good. But I think the truth is how many steps you should get in a day should be dependent on, again, your training goals, your aerobic health, and your overall desire to spend some time outside. I think that 10,000 steps might be a really good benchmark, especially if you can do that 10,000 steps in nature, not on your phone, perhaps doing something productive like listening to this podcast or an audiobook. Those are all wonderful, but the activity of going on a nice walk, getting some additional steps, increasing your caloric expenditure, elevating your heart rate, all of those things are very beneficial. If you have a lot of weight to lose and you don't want to restrict your calories, you might want to take more steps. If you're looking to gain weight and every additional calorie burned means you have to eat more on the back end, you might want to take more steps. If you're looking to gain weight, and every additional calorie burned

means you have to eat more on the back end, you might want to take less steps. So again, this is a question that's highly context dependent. And so I like to think about walking as or getting steps as being outside and giving myself the opportunity to enhance my life by disconnecting from technology, enjoying the sun, potentially getting some vitamin D, enhancing my digestion through maybe a post-workout walk. I do not track my steps, but I know I get a lot of steps. When I used to wear my Apple Watch, I ended up taking the thing off

because I felt like I couldn't get away from technology. I was getting 25,000 steps a day on average working as a personal trainer doing eight to ten sessions a day and I get quite a lot of steps now even though I'm working from home and I'm training my clients from my garage space which is absolutely wonderful. I don't think I will ever change that. I love it. I can go in and out from managing my online business to my in-person business seamlessly. It's safe for my clients.

I have a wonderful facility in the garage with tons and tons and tons and tons of equipment. I absolutely love it. Wouldn't change it at all. But because I have Cooper, my puppy, I get those steps in. Even though I'm not walking around a massive gym all day going, okay, hey, we just finished kettlebell swings. Now we're going to go all the way across the gym

and do rotational med ball slams, because that's where we do those. You know, you do that across eight to 10 sessions a day, you get a lot of steps in. And working in a smaller facility where things are closer together, and I don't have as much of a step count. I wasn't walking as much, but getting a puppy, I added those steps in in a different way. And I don't think there's a definitive number here. But I would say on average, I recommend getting 15 to 20 minutes of sun exposure a day so you can synthesize adequate vitamin D. And if you walk for that 15 to 20 minutes a day paired with, you know, additional walks, be it parking far away from where you want to go taking the stairs instead of the elevator,

blah, blah, blah, blah, you can get to about 10,000 and I don't think that that's a magic number but I do think it's a fair benchmark and I think it's something that we can all accomplish without being massively fatigued or it draining or taking away from our other physical goals but your aerobic health is important and while walking is a good way to work on it, I wouldn't go so far as to say it's the best way. In truth, I don't even know if it's effective at all. Because the intensity just tends to be so so so low. And it's not that it's ineffective. I just think it's ineffective for super well trained people are super healthy people as a singular means of aerobic training. So for people who are deconditioned, going on walks might be great. For people who are in great

shape, going on walks might be great for recovery. But for building your aerobic health in the long run, I think you need a little bit more oomph in your aerobic training than just getting like 10,000 steps a day. Hopefully that makes some sense. All right, next step comes from Allie Conway, best workout split to do throughout the week, looking to gain muscle upper and lower body. So how I design workout splits generally has to do with lifestyle, training age, and recovery. So lifestyle meaning, okay, how many times a week can you get to the gym with all the other things that you have in your life. If you are a college student and you're, you know, not working, your primary goals are studying and, you know,

messing around with your friends, you might be able to get to the gym six days a week. If you're a college student and you are taking 20 units instead of 16, you're double majoring, you have two jobs, you're studying like crazy, you might only be able to get to the gym three days a week. And even though you might be the same age, and perhaps even the same training age, different lifestyles will dictate how many times a week you can get to the gym. And the number of sessions you can do is going to dictate program design, big time. Let's look at training age as well. So you know, if you've been training for six years, you're probably going to need to train a little bit more intense and with a little bit more frequency than somebody who just

started training. And then lastly is recoverability. You only make the gains that you can recover from. I say that on here a lot because it's true. More training isn't better. Better training is better. But even the best training that you're not recovering from isn't as effective as it could be. So when it comes to figuring out what the best workout splits are, we have to look at number of times you can go to the gym in a week, what you can recover from, and what your training age is. So let's create some hypotheticals. We'll say we've got group one. Group one includes people who are busy, people who are new, and people who don't recover particularly well. Maybe that's because they're new, because they're stressed, whatever.

And for those people, I recommend two to three times a week at the gym training total body. The reason I recommend total body is because if your frequency is reduced, meaning you're only going to the gym a set number of sessions a week, two or three, you want to stimulate as much muscle tissue as possible. And the research is fairly clear here that for most natural lifters, two times a week stimulating tissue, meaning two training sessions versus one will probably be better for hypertrophy. And I will tell you right now, it's definitely going to be better for strength. However, let's take a look at another

group. Let's say you can go to the gym four to five times a week, and maybe you've been training a little bit longer. So this group is people who've been training a little bit longer, people who recover fairly well, people who maybe have more free time to go to the gym. If you can get there between four to five times a week, I would recommend an upper-lower split. is two upper body days, two lower body days, staggered. So we go lower upper off, lower upper off. And then that last day I often have as a hypertrophy day, an accessory day, a lagging body part day, a fun day. If a client comes to me, let's say she's a woman, and she goes, okay, I really want to develop my glutes and upper back.

I would go, okay, we're going to do four upper body days. I'm sorry, four days, upper, lower, upper, lower. And then our fifth day is going to be a glute and upper back specialization day. We're going to do that for the whole training block, four weeks, look to progress, look to layer volume in for those muscles, see how you respond. If you like the response, we can either pivot to some new muscle groups, or we can continue to hammer with a different stimulus in our next training block. So four days a week is wonderful upper lower. If you can add that fifth day, I tend to recommend adding it in the form of a lagging body part day, a you know, specialization day, if you

will, that's what I really like. And then the last group, let's just say it's people with either a ton of free time who love to train, who you know, maybe they're competing, maybe this is their lifestyle, maybe it's their livelihood. If you're training six days a week, that's when we can just absolutely specialize and tailor your split and your workout to wherever you are at. So you could do upper lower six times. You could do push-pull legs, push-pull legs. You could do everything hyper specialized, chest and quads, back and hands, arms and shoulders.

You know, like there's a million ways to do it. The more you go, the more specialized you can get. The less you go, the more globally you have to train. And again, so there isn't a option here that I could, there isn't a best option, generally speaking, but there are best options for each person. And I find that most people can go to the gym between four to five days a week. When I do online coaching intake calls, when I work with clients and I ask them, okay, what can you commit to? Most people say I could go probably four, maybe five times a week. And I do online coaching intake calls, when I work with clients and I ask them, okay, what can you commit to? Most people say I could go probably four, maybe five times a week. And I found that to be very, very like a recurrent theme for people that just seemed to be the most

common answer more often than not. So when I made my programs, foundations, power build and female physique, I made sure that they were four times a week with that optional fifth day, because I felt like those were very, very applicable. And again, again guys if you want to check out the programs if you're just going to the gym and you're just going through the motions and you're doing things that you like but not the things you need to get better and you're not progressing and you're not writing shit down you're not going to get that far I'm just being totally honest with you like even if your goals are hypertrophy it helps to follow a. It helps to do something that's on paper that you fucking know you need to do, but you're not going to do if you didn't pay for the program or you didn't commit to finishing the program. If you're

just going in and winging it, that doesn't work that well for people. You got to do something like a program. Only, I know very few people that bring it that hard in the gym without structure. So if you need that structure, which I find most people do, head over to www.coachedannymatranga.com. Check out the Programs tab. Check out the programs. We have bundles. We have individual programs.

I mean, the bundles are an incredible deal. We're talking about two 12-week programs for under $60. So that's going to last you 24 weeks. That's like half a year, basically six months of training. If you take a week deload after each 12 week program, it's, you know, over 30 weeks of training. If you take a deload in between each block, however you want to do it, um, the, there, there are tremendous value. And if you want that extra oomph, and you really want the tailoring of that program, you want it made to measure for you where you're at, head over to the coaching tab and apply for online coaching. I do have a few

openings here as we move into July. So if you're hearing this now, I would get on that because spots went crazy fast in May and June. And with the reopening post pandemic, I found that more people are looking to get in shape than ever before, which doesn't really surprise me. Okay, next question is from Scream in Spanish, and she asks, best way to begin weightlifting for women? I love this question, and I want to answer it simply, and I hope that I can answer it with some tact and without sounding sexist in any way, so I'm going to give it my best shot. I think that going to the gym is a particular and particularly intimidating process for women compared to men. And the reason that

I believe that to be true is because I think that men at the gym, and again, I'm speaking generally, this is not true of all men, can be fucking so annoying. And I really mean that. Like, I worked at a gym, commercial gym setting for years, and I cannot tell you how many women were uncomfortable going into that gym for no other reason than the fact that men just stare, they make unsolicited conversation, they can be really annoying. And this is not all men.

This is like 5% to 10% of the men at the gym. They can be really weird like that. The other thing that's intimidating is we have a lot of social stigmatization about what women should look like. You know, body image issues run rampant with both men and women and going to the gym when you're not already in great shape can be very intimidating. And so looking for, okay, how can I get started? How can I create a positive association with this space so that I'm comfortable going and I'm comfortable executing at a high level? Well, the first thing that I tend to recommend doing is, you know, hiring a personal trainer, working with somebody in person who can show you how to use weights, who can show you how to resistance train, who will be an advocate for you, who will be there to support you. you. When I was working with clients, particularly younger women who were in their late mid 20s to early 30s, those just again, speaking generally here, those are often the women that are made the

most uncomfortable by these obnoxious men in the gym. They were never bothered by these guys when they were with me because they know better than to walk up and interrupt a personal training session. So you get an extra layer of security there. When you're with your trainer, you won't be bothered. You're there to work. The trainer is going to make sure that your form and technique are great if you have a good trainer. And they're going to help give you a plan, keep you committed, and keep you coming in. And I think so that's my number one thing is if you can afford a personal trainer and you're new to this, I cannot recommend getting started on the right foot with somebody whose job it is. It's going to teach you there, who's going to be your kind of gym buddy, but also, you know, tutor you throughout this process. It's a great way to kind of cut some corners, if you will, and make the gym a really safe place to

be. Another option is if you're new to this, there are plenty of programs available. But you can really start quite simple, even if it just means learning the basic movement patterns like pushing pulling squatting lunging hinging all of those things you know you can use some of the many wonderful youtube channels that we have as resources for how to do exercises correctly you can ask a friend perhaps who's already quite competent and confident in the gym if they'd be willing to go with you so that you can go together. I do recommend going with another person. I think that commitment tends to rise when we have other people that we're committed to than just ourselves. And again, if you can't afford a personal trainer, a gym buddy is a wonderful place to start,

even if it's also a newer gym buddy, because we all start somewhere. And even if you don't start perfectly because you're just learning and your technique isn't perfect, and maybe you're not putting exercises together in the right order, that's totally okay. You have a lot of time to improve and you'll improve quite quickly if you make a habit out of it and it's something that's enjoyable. So one of the things I really recommend for women is do what you can to either go with somebody or partner with a trainer who's going to make the gym in a less intimidating environment. If that's something that intimidates you, definitely wear

your headphones so that you can block out the extraneous noise or the weirdos. There aren't like, again, I'm not trying to paint dudes as weirdos, but there's just weird dudes at the gym that tend to bother women more than there's weird women who tend to bother dudes. Like that's just the truth of the matter. And if you if you fucking don't believe me, you've clearly never spent any time in a gym. You clearly never worked with any female clients. It's a thing. And there are a lot more women intimidated to go to the gym than there are men, which is not to say that the gym is not an intimidating environment for men as well. But those are the best ways to get into it. Either partner with a trainer, partner with somebody who you know who knows how to exercise, ask for help, or partner

with a friend who's looking to start the journey at the same time. Be patient, support each other, go together. That will really, really help you, I find in my experience. Next question is from Duran underscore Duran 17. And he asks, is there such a thing as too much protein? And the answer is yes and no. High protein diets appear to be pretty darn safe. When you look at the literature for healthy adults, if you have existing kidney problems, perhaps existing liver problems or secondary health complications, you should always monitor your protein intake. And you should talk to your doctor about these things because nutrition is highly individualized and very nuanced. But for active adults who are resistance training, I think a higher protein intake, somewhere between 0.7 to 1.2 grams per pound of body weight, will be pretty

darn safe for a pretty long time. And if you're looking to lose weight, a high protein diet is a wonderful option. And it's certainly better for your health in the long run than being overweight. So I think we can look at high protein diets and give them the two thumbs up. Go for it. Again, like I said, if you're already a healthy adult. Okay, at Kaylin McNeil asked benefits of electrolytes in a bulk specifically or essential amino acids. So electrolytes are particularly valuable for maintaining your hydration. The more water you drink, the more you dilute things in your blood like sodium, potassium, and magnesium. Those are all electrolytes. And so if you're drinking a ton

of water and you're sweating a lot, we end up losing electrolytes through sweat. That's why our sweat tastes salty and like minerals. And we end up replacing it with pure water, which is awesome, but we want to have electrolytes in that water to replenish the sodium and magnesium and potassium that we lose from sweat. So one of the things that I will often recommend for clients whose goal it is to, you know, optimize performance, maybe if they sweat a lot, is to really key in on that hydration. And one of the best ways to maximize your hydration is to use supplemental electrolytes or to just salt your food heavily with things like pink Himalayan salt that includes sodium, but also quite a few trace minerals that are also electrolytes.

As far as EAAs or essential amino acids, I do prefer essential amino acids to the branch-chained amino acids, or BCAAs, because they contain a full spectrum of amino acids. And while I do think they are inferior to a protein supplement, by and large, they're kind of the same thing. And so I think that if we're talking about supplementing with amino acids to help with recovery, to promote recovery, so for example, I'm going to be performing a little bit of an experiment here that I'm quite excited about.

I'm going to be using an essential amino acid supplement for the first time in quite a long time. I used to take BCAAs when I first started training because I was an idiot and I got duped into the marketing hype before I was literally scientifically literate enough to read the literature and go, wait a second, hold on, I don't like this. And first thing I drink in the morning when I wake up every day is I have two scoops of Legion's Grass-Fed Whey and one scoop of Legion's Genesis with a bowl of oat and flax with a little bit of almond butter and a shot of espresso. That's my breakfast. I have that every morning. I often train shortly thereafter.

And after training, I don't have the best appetite. There are only a few foods that are particularly palatable for me. But I understand the importance of trying to time amino acid availability around your training. And even though I have two scoops of protein in the morning, and I certainly have an abundance of circulating amino acid available when I finish training, I want to see what happens if I do a big post-workout carbohydrate feeding with some essential amino acids. So what I'm going to be doing is having a big old bowl of cereal as I'm going to try to transition here to a leaner bulk. I'm fairly confident with my physique now. I like where I'm at. But now that we're getting out of the pandemic here in California, I'm going to be going back to the gym on a more regular basis. I still train from home three days a week at least. But I'd

like to go to the gym at least an additional two, maybe three and maybe replace one of those days that I have here. And, you know, having more machines available, having more equipment available that I don't have in my garage, even though my garage is fabulously equipped, you know, I might have some more intense training stimulus. And so my post-workout training window will be very important. So I'm going to be having a big old bowl of cereal, which is, you know, simplified, or I shouldn't say simplified, but a very simple form of carbohydrate that will, you know, spike my insulin, help blunt cortisol, those are inversely proportional. So when that insulin goes up, that cortisol comes down,

that stress response goes down. And oftentimes I would pour whey protein over my cereal. But because I've shifted my whey protein in the morning, and I don't want to have that much whey across the day, just because I kind of get sick of it and it goes that much faster, I'm going to try supplementing with a post-workout essential amino acid. And I just want to see how it goes. You know, this is an N of 1 experiment. I'd love to share the results with you. So I'm going to be using Raw Nutrition is the brand.

Again, no affiliation with the company, but I like the look of the website. I loved the look of the ingredients profile. When I took a look, I saw that they had batch numbers available, so I could actually check the testing, which I thought was fantastic. And some of the people who I enjoy in the space, who I consider to be colleagues and peers, work with this company. So I'm going to try their essential amino acid supplement with about 80 grams of cereal post-training

and see how I recover as I ramp up my training volume, see if I notice a difference at all. And I can't say for sure whether I will or I won't, but I'll have a better answer for you with regards to the second portion of that question down the road. So you guys, thank you so much for tuning into this episode of the podcast. Touched on quite a few different things related to training and nutrition that I hope you guys will enjoy. If you do, if you enjoy the podcast in any way, shape, or form, the way that this works, the way that podcasts get out there is with things like shares and reviews. So share it with your friends. Share it to your Instagram story. Tag me so I can say thank you and share it to my page.

That makes a really big difference. And if you are listening on iTunes, do me a favor and leave me a five star rating and written review. It helps more people find the podcast in a space that's loaded with bullshitters, shysters and crap. I really think that it's important that people hear an evidence based quality message and health and fitness space. And I'm certainly not the only voice, but I am one of the voices out there that I think can make a positive difference in people's lives for their performance for their aesthetics for their well being. And every review that you guys leave helps me make that difference. And I am just so so appreciative to have every single one of you as a listener, as a subscriber, as a follower.

The last year was a very, very stressful year for me, but the podcast was certainly a bright spot. And as busy as I am, and as much as this falls onto the back burner, you guys never cease to amaze me with your support. And I want to bring these episodes to you more regularly. I know I've said that before, but I really want to commit to it. And the way you can help me do that is by continuing to share and show your support. So thank you so much for listening. Stay tuned for more to come. Get out there, crush your lifts, crush your weeks, and have a wonderful, wonderful day.