Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 179: FIVE Exercise Programming Commandments

Episode Date: March 29, 2022

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Hey, everybody. Coach Danny here. Welcome into the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. This is episode 179. And in today's episode, we're going to go over five programming principles that I think are integral and kind of are at the bedrock of my coaching philosophy. These are things that I think can really help you see success in the gym, regardless of what your goals are or where you're at on your journey. I think these are foundational, but they're also highly versatile. So you'll be able to kind of take them and mold them to your situation specifically. Before we do that, though, I want to tell you about my new training app. This is coming out through my online coaching company, Core Coaching Method, where we work with

clients all over the world of all different fitness levels. For a while, I've offered standalone PDF programming to complement the full spectrum online coaching we do where we work with clients to customize programs, sets, reps, as well as customize nutritional and macro protocols to make sure that they're getting the most support possible paired with unlimited email support and kind of constant accountability and communication so they stay tailored towards their goals. But what I noticed was, okay, a PDF program is great for people who are very hands-off, want to be on their own, they're very independent. And online coaching is phenomenal for people who want to get the absolute most, put their fitness on autopilot, and really just make sure that

there's somebody in control who really knows what they're doing. But there's a big middle ground there for people who want community. They want intelligent training that's well designed by people who know what they're doing, who've been programming for a while. And they like to actually check boxes. They like to have something to do. They do better when they're paying for something or they're signed up for something or they're part of a group that's doing something. And so this app kind of encompasses all of those things. I partnered with Train Heroic, one of the best apps in technology and training space, to make sure that you guys have a smooth, easy to use user interface where you can log your sets, log your reps, check in every single session. I, on the other end, of course,

can see your compliance. I can see how you're doing. I can message with you in and out of the app. You can message with your team members in and out of the app. You'll all be following one of two programs here to start. There's Elite Physique, which is an extension of the very popular female physique programs I've put out on my website. These are female-centric bodybuilding programs designed to help with glute development, hamstring development, back development, shoulder development, core development, a five-day a week, four-to-five-day a week, the fifth day is optional, physique-specific program that every month is going to change quite a bit. Each mezzo cycle or actual month long cycle will be very different, but the micro cycles, the week to week training are progressive. They'll allow you to track your reps. I can see how you're doing. The other teammates you have in the elite physique community can see how you're doing. You can message each other. You can encourage each other. You can upload videos of PRs. You can upload videos of how your form and technique are progressing. It's a phenomenal space to train and get coaching from me and my coaching team. It's not specific to you. It is a little bit more of a group coaching,

but it's a phenomenal value at $37 a month. And that is coming this Friday. Additionally, in conjunction with this, you're also going to have the option to train from home with our other training community, Home Heroes. Again, this isn't some jumping around gimmicky crappy up and down, sacrificing in every area, half-assing in every area home program. This is a really intelligently designed compound-based program that you can do from home with very minimal equipment. All you need is bands and dumbbells, one light pair and one heavy pair of dumbbells. Now, the more you have, the better you can do. Elite Physique does use a whole gym, but if you have a garage gym, you could do Elite Physique too if you make some substitutions and

engage with the community. Home Heroes is designed specifically for those of you training at home. It follows a four-day-a-week upper-lower, upper-lower split, so there's plenty of opportunity to get walks in, to recover. Each workout takes between 40 to 60 minutes, whereas elite physique takes anywhere from 45 to an hour and 15. But realistically here, these are programs that should fit within the schedule of, I would say, most folks. So the elite physique community is generally going to be female-specific hypertrophy training. I say female-specific because these are the goals that I find most from my clients who are female. On the other end, Home Heroes is a little bit more global,

very compound focused. It's not a bunch of jumping around. It is home strength training with bands, dumbbells, a big focus on the core, very good for beginner to intermediate lifters who want to maximize efficiency. Maybe you're a busy professional, maybe you're a mom, maybe you don't have the opportunity to get away and train. Home Heroes is phenomenal for that. But if you're looking to take your physique to the next level, specifically in the areas of the glutes, hamstrings, core, quads, et cetera, elite physique will probably be the best track for you. And guys, those launch Friday, but their big launch is going to be Monday. That's when the programs start. That's when

the actual schedule starts. So on Monday, you and your team will engage, get together and go for it. Meaning the actual programming starts Monday, April 4th. So you're going to want to get in before that. So you can get to know me, interact with the community, get in there, see the workouts, plan them out in your schedule. And then from there, it's just rolling. Like it's really cool. It's just rolling. Like every single week that you are in there, you're going to get programming that's progressive. But then when we move to a new mesocycle, you're going to get entirely new programming.

So theoretically, you could sign up for this one time or try the free trial one time and have your training taken care of for the rest of your life. I think you guys are really going to like it. And I think it's a good segue into what we're going to talk about today, which is five programming principles that I think are really important and

that are really difference makers in how I've built things for clients that I work with for hypertrophy, muscle growth, athletic potential, even just general population fitness clients. And so philosophy in kind of what I would describe as central tenant number one is don't jump around from trainer to trainer. Don't jump around from trainer to trainer. Don't jump around from program to program. Don't jump around from class to class or technique to technique. Stick with something for the long haul. Don't be a flip-flopper or a program hopper. A lot of what your training is going to look like, whether you're training for fat loss, for athletic performance, for muscle growth, even for just general fitness is going to be probably quite

repetitive because it's better, as Bruce Lee would say, to practice one punch a thousand times than a thousand punches once. And what I mean by that is this, if you don't actually get to repeat the movements, the patterns that you're, if you're a general fitness client, if you don't know how to squat, hinge and push and pull properly, you're going to need to work on those for a while. If you're a bodybuilder, I hate to bring it to you, but you're going to need to do a lot of isolation and compound work close to failure with great technique. If you're a power lifter, you're going to have to bench squat dead until you are absolutely bored as shit. If you do CrossFit, you're going to have to get really, really good at climbing ropes. You're going to have to get

really, really good at cleans and snatches. You're going to have to get really comfortable on the assault or echo bike. There are just some non-negotiables. Whatever your approach may be, even if you're just an enthusiast and you just want to say, hey, I just want to have a different workout every time. You know what? You're probably going to have to get really good at mentally getting where you need to be to take on a challenge that's unique every time. So repetition and boredom, I think, are a standard feature of effective, good exercise programming.

You're going to want to see a lot of the same exercises in the same slots that they would occur across your workout. So you have time and the ability to actually get better and focus on that central tenant that's so important in all of this, which is progressive overload. Now, progressive overload is not just important for bodybuilders. You need to progressively overload or progressively stress your tissue. If you want to age gracefully, if you want athletic potential, if you want better body composition, right? All of these things are good for building muscle, maintaining muscle, maintaining mobility, maintaining strength, stuff that I think is substantially beyond the, I think, general interest of bodybuilders. I think more people than just bodybuilders are interested in maintaining and developing their fitness. And this stuff, this boring, repetitious, proven to work, proven to

be effective stuff is substantially better than some cutesy bullshit that you see on an Instagram swipe video that somebody's trying to come up with that's creative because they think it's fun. A lot of girls that I've spoken to over the years have said, well, you can just go on Instagram and find a workout, which is very true. You literally can. And if you did a different workout every day, you could probably get in great shape, but you'll never build movement, quality, strength, and muscle like you would if you gave yourself the opportunity to stick with something and repeat it. And I find that in sticking with programs, programs that are built around compound lifts or analogs of the compound lifts, where you're moving multiple joints through multiple different ranges of motion with a lot of focus on technique and execution are great for all

training populations. That's effective and applicable for almost all training population, right? And don't let your boredom hijack your gains. Give yourself time to generate project progress. Let me say that again. Don't let your boredom hijack your gains. A lot of times people quit programs that are working really well because they see something that looks like it's cooler when in fact I think your training is allowed to be basic, repetitive. That is what's driving the progress for people who are, even my older clients, like I'll use my client Karen, who's almost 85 as an example. She does the movements that really agree well with her body and progresses them well over time. And we've had to make adjustments and concessions as her body has changed with age or when she has pain. But

for the most part, she's doing stuff she's really good at that she can have a high output with instead of me having to teach her new things every time where we're focusing more on motor unit coordination than we are actually having high output effective training. So moving on to principle number two, this is something that I think has been true specifically with the clients that I've worked with in person, but I think it's really true for the clients that I train online as well. But this is something I try to really pound into the heads of people who come to work with me in person, where we have the ability to really focus on technique and execution in a new way. And a lot of these lifters are newer, they're new to lifting. Not all of my clients are super advanced. And this is something I like to impart to them, which is

never be afraid of training heavy. Training heavy is a really good idea. Training heavy and pushing your limits is central to the progression of tissue and strength and all the things we're looking to develop that are so important. However, never sacrifice form or full range of motion training in an effort to squeeze a little more weight on the bar. And so what I mean by this is if you started day one, Astagrass, gorgeous full range of motion squat with a 45 pound bar on your back, and we put you up to 135 and at 135, you can still do that perfect, gorgeous, full range of motion, ass to grass squat. But then we put you up to 155. And for some reason, you can only squat halfway down. I would rather you drill that 135 until that became butter,

145 until that became butter, until you could get to 155. Preserving that full range of motion at all times. Pushing your limits is important. And one to two reps from failure is a very good place to be for muscle growth. I think two to three reps from failure is also a good place to be there. And three to four reps will even work for just general fitness, muscle maintenance, muscle preservation, right? But your lifting should be in some capacity like shooting a basketball or throwing a football or running a route in football or hitting a golf club. A really good analogy would be hitting each club in your bag and each club being representative of a different exercise. And you might be a really good squatter. Maybe that's your driver,

but you're terrible with the Romanian deadlift. Maybe that's your chipping wedge, right? Or one of your many wedges. And what you've got to do is you've got to look at each exercise as an opportunity to train and execute at a really high level. Rehearsing each rep and each set with the opportunity to become better at it like an artist, right? I think that's a really cool way to look at it. You're practicing different elements of your sport or your art every exercise. And doing a rep with good form, good technique, and good execution, in my opinion, is always going to be better than doing a sloppy rep with a lot of weight. And so preserve range of motion and preserve technique at all times. You know, this is a big central fundamental tenant for what I do. If you have limited range of motion, if you have

an injury, you want to make sure that you're making modifications. Absolutely. For a lot of clients, goblet squats, for example, might be better than a barbell squat. And just simply progressing the goblet squat or maybe the hack squat will in the long term be more efficient than what many people are apt to do, which is to force the issue with a movement that just doesn't gel with their anthropometry, their mobility, or their limitations. I get it. But pick movements that allow you to train muscles through a full range of motion. That's going to enhance your mobility, your strength, and your strength through all ranges of motions. And remember that partials are fine. You should always push yourself, but never sacrifice form for weight. 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. Number three, and this is a tenant and a philosophy that I've kind of developed and honed with the evolution of the hypertrophy literature. And when I first started training and I got certified from the National Academy of Sports Medicine in 2012, I remember that they were really big on repetition ranges, which I do think there's still some general truth here, which is one to six reps is generally best for strength. I still very much agree with that. They said eight to 12 reps is generally best for hypertrophy. I find that to be a little bit misrepresentative of the literature. We'll talk about that in a moment. And that 15 plus reps is good for muscular endurance, which I think is

a little bit true, a little bit not true. So again, just tying this all together, rep ranges matter, but let's talk about what for. So that one to six rep range, I think that's really good. Okay. The, um, eight to 12 being best for hypertrophy thing, I think that leaves a little bit left to be said. 1 to 7 reps is still going to be fine for hypertrophy. Up to 30 reps could be fine for hypertrophy. I actually heard Andy Galpin talking about this on Andrew Huberman's podcast. Sets just need to be hard. They need to be stimulative. They need to build either some form of metabolic byproduct or some form of mechanical tension over time. This is what's going to allow you to eventually get to a place where you can push yourself and develop muscle.

I do think 15 plus reps would probably be better for endurance than 10 to 12 or 1 to 6, but I don't necessarily know if that's the best way to build endurance. All this to say that rep ranges in general are important for developing certain facets of stress within the body. So you might want to use those eight to 15 rep ranges for hypertrophy because you will be able to train with good technique through fuller ranges of motion and less form, then you might be trying to use highly stimulative sets of one and three where you've got bone crushing amount of weight to be one to two reps short of failure. But this third philosophy of mine, I had to preface this, is to train across a variety of rep ranges, whether you're a bodybuilder, powerlifter, general pop client, and to pair those rep ranges intelligently

with exercises that make sense. You want to do the squat pattern? Awesome. That's going to be great for the quads and glutes. Do you want to use that to drive squat or knee extension strength? Cool. Maybe a barbell or a hex bar deadlift. Do you want to use it to drive hypertrophy? A barbell squat might work, sure, but you could do better with something like a leg press or a hack squat that's nice and stable. Oh, you want to maybe do something that's more endurance based. Okay. Maybe we're going to select something different, like an air squat, a body weight squat, a weighted vest squat, right? You can train patterns. You can train desired adaptations, but you should make sure that your repetition ranges match with exercises. So if I said, okay, let's train leg endurance, would you want to do that with a barbell on your

back? I don't know. I don't think so. If you said, I want to train leg hypertrophy, would you want to do that with a barbell on your back? You definitely could. But when I feature squats in the program using elite physique, for an example, I feature squats early in the workout as a strength and motor coordination development exercise. I might then include something like a leg extension to really challenge the quads in the shortened position, but I'm not exclusively relying on the barbell for hypertrophy and I'm not exclusively relying on a heavy rep range. So training across a variety of rep ranges is really cool. So what I mean by like, this would be like making the pairings make sense. It's like, don't do it. Don't pair a 20 rep exercise or a 20 rep stimulus with a five rep exercise, meaning don't do 20 rep deadlifts to get a back pump. The risk reward

ratios misaligned. Deadlifts are awesome for strength development, but think about this. They require so many other muscles to come to the party. They require so much coordination. If you're trying to form like, or generate a metabolite stimulus in the lats, a high rep deadlift is probably not the best move. You might be better with a straight arm pull down, right? You can layer in metabolic work to add volume and develop accessory muscles and high rep work can be great for motor coordination and rehearsing exercises. But you don't always have to do that shit with a barbell. You've got machines, you've got dumbbells. And like movement complexity and stability are other components to this, meaning like a movement that's more complex, like a snatch might exhaust you to a point where

even though you're working on your technique and you're using a lightweight, you still might not do 20 at a time because each rep is really complex and exhausting. Whereas something like a leg press where you're really stable or a leg extension where you're really stable, you might actually be able to load up a lot of weight and still do high reps because the stability and the complexity are actually reduced. So the point here is train across a variety of repetition ranges, pair your repetition ranges intelligently with the exercises as you select them, and you'll be off to the races. Tip in central tenet number four, and again, this is almost as big for gen pump clients as it is for bodybuilders, powerlifters, athletes, and that is make sure that you are doing your unilateral training. So unilateral is basically one side of the body working at a time like a lunge. Bilateral would be both sides working at the same time like a

squat. So those are similar knee flexion, dominant knee extension, dominant patterns with some hip extension components. But really the difference between a squat and a lunge is one's bilateral and one's unilateral. I'm big on unilateral work because it's great for symmetry and performance. Uh, meaning like if you have a basketball player who occasionally drives pushing off their left foot, and then we'll occasionally drive pushing off their left foot and then will occasionally drive pushing off their right foot going in different directions, um, respectively, that player would do well to develop their ability to create similar ground reaction forces going to their left and going to their right. If they don't, and they have a clear explosive variance

and somebody says like, dude, that guy's way more powerful going to his right. He can get to the hoop at any time, but going to the left, he's a total pansy. He's got no juice off that other foot. Let's force him left. Okay. So unilateral work makes sense in the athletic world. Cause it's like, Hey, I want to train lunges. So each leg gets the opportunity to independently work on being explosive. Cool. But it's also great for physique development too. Cause there's a number of unilateral or lunge basic specific exercises, if you will. Like for example, they don't have to be just lunges. The split squat's a great one for physique development. But you know, you might want to do isolated arm work where you're working one arm at

a time or each arm is working independently. Or like when you do a cable fly and each arm gets to move independently. Those I guess you could define as semi-unilateral movements. They're oftentimes not considered unilateral movements because I find that most people don't oftentimes think about unilateral movements beyond like a hip thrust is bilateral and a single leg hip thrust is unilateral. It's like, no, no, no. Unilateral work is great. It's great for athletic development if you're doing unilateral strength work, it's great for hypertrophy. If you need to really isolate and work one side over the other, it's great for making sure you don't develop imbalances where one side works harder, right? It also allows for really good nervous system stress support. Like if you're not trying to

actually load everything, like if you want to do a high output leg set and you can do a single leg press or a Bulgarian split squat over like a massive hack squat, a massive barbell squat where you really can load it up, that can be good for managing stress because you could do like a heavy, heavy one arm dumbbell row that would be substantially less stressful and load your spine less than an equivalently heavy barbell row where you've got twice as much stability because you got two hands on the bar, but you got to really grip and rip to get a stimulus. So moving on to the fifth and final component of what I think is effective programming principles, the bedrock of what I like to do

is just remember more is not better. More exercises is not always better. More sessions are not always better. I think somewhere between three to four main exercises with three to four accessory exercises is going to be more than sufficient for literally almost anybody in almost any situation. The more trained you get, the better you get. You can probably get away with doing less exercises per session. But the clients that I work with, I think it's interesting, they get the worst results of anybody are usually the clients that are training too much. Those are the ones that stay in the same place. They might be in good shape, but they're not actually able to get in any better shape because they're training beyond their recovery capabilities.

If you're brand new and you're not doing anything, obviously you'd get the worst results. But like if you're brand new and you start doing three days a week, you'll get way better results than somebody who's been training for 10 years, um, training six days a week week in large part just because they're not as susceptible or sensitive to those changes. But the point I'm really getting at here is that more training volume isn't better. More training sessions isn't better. Better training is better. And you can break that down into its most fundamental component. Better sets, better reps, better execution, better setup. It doesn't have to just mean like I'm choosing better exercises, but literally if you can go to the drawing board and try to optimize before you just add more shit in, you'll find that's great. Like seriously, three to four days

a week with some zone two cardio on top of that is probably all the average person needs to be in like top 10, five to 10% worldwide shape. Four to five days a week following like a good program for a number of years can get you to like, in my opinion, elite athletic potential, elite strength or a borderline world-class physique in somewhere between one to 10 years, depending on your genetics, which is insane when you really think about it.

But I don't know if you ever need to train like six or seven days a week unless you're at the peak of the peak of the peak of the highest, highest levels. And that's one of the things that we really wanted to focus on in the app is like, let's make sure that whether it's elite physique or home heroes, the programming is sound, it's sensible. And it's not just bringing some people up to the level that they need to be at to see results, but it's also bringing some people who are doing too much down to a level where they

need to be to actually recover. And that's why the community piece is so important because for a lot of people, it's hard to train five days a week. They want to do six, they want to do seven, but that might very well be the thing that's holding you back. So guys, thank you so much for tuning in and listening to these five principles. Again, they are stick with your program, stop flip-flopping, stop jumping around, be okay with boredom. That's number one. Number two, don't be afraid to train heavy, but never sacrifice weight for full range of motion, well-executed training. Number three, make sure to train across a variety of rep ranges, pairing exercises and rep ranges that work well together. Number four, do your unilateral work. And number five, make sure that you remember more is not better, better is better. And again, just to

remind you guys, core coaching method, core coaching collective app, pairing with train heroic coming out this weekend, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, you'll have the opportunity to join the app, get in the community, interact with me. This is going to be April one, April two, April three, but April 4, Monday, April 4, both of those programs start. They go live with day one. You and your teammates getting after it. Cannot wait to see you in there, and I'll catch you on the next one.