Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 213: 6 Things You Can Do to Move/Feel Amazing (Mobility, Stability, Athleticism)

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome in everybody to another episode of the dynamic dialogue podcast. As always, I'm your host, Danny Matranga. And in today's episode, we're going to be going over six habits, behaviors and things you can do to move better and feel better when you move. A lot of you listen to this podcast because you are looking to lose body fat. A lot of you listen because you're looking to gain muscle. A lot of you are looking to increase your performance. But one thing I can say for sure is every single one of you would probably benefit from more fluid, pain-free movement across the lifespan. In fact, it's one of the most important things you can do to maintain your independence and make maintaining a fitness habit fun. Nothing will derail a fitness habit quite like pain. And for those of you who are very into your fitness, who remain active on a fairly regular basis, feeling and maintaining your athleticism across your lifespan is huge. And it's something that even those of us who are most active have the ability and tendency to kind of let fall by the wayside. So just want to

Starting point is 00:01:06 make sure that you guys keep this stuff in mind as you go through your fitness journey. And when I say movement quality, I mean things like flexibility, mobility, balance, stability, athleticism, and the ability to move like an athlete. So we're going to talk about six things you can do to maintain that quote unquote functionality and athleticism that won't cut into your training and will probably just generally be good overall for your health. Before we do that though, I'd love to read a few reviews that you guys were kind enough to leave on your podcast services of choice, whether this be iTunes or Apple podcasts, as it's now called, or Spotify, you guys take the time to leave some pretty

Starting point is 00:01:46 awesome reviews. And I want to share this one from Sarah Carney. Sarah says, I've been listening to your podcast for months now. You always share such knowledgeable information. I'm so grateful that you share what you know with us. The most recent episode is incredible with Dr. Mike Israetel full of content and laughing. Nothing better than a podcast from you. Thanks to you, Sarah, for the kind review and thanks to Dr. Mike for coming on the podcast. That's back in the library of episodes we've done. Dr. Mike was one of my favorite guests. And fun fact about the episode I did with Dr. Mike is that I had actually reached out to him when the podcast was much smaller. And he was busy at the time. And fast forward about six to 12 months, somewhere in there, I was sitting on the

Starting point is 00:02:29 toilet in the morning and I got an email right from Dr. Mike saying, Hey, Danny, I'd love to come on your podcast. And at the risk of sounding cynical, I understand that the more subscribers you get, the more downloads you get, the better guests you can pull. And so to be able to sit down with Mike and bring him to you guys, my audience, was really special. And quite frankly, wouldn wouldn't have been possible, in my opinion, without you. So thank you for continuing to subscribe, continuing to listen to the pod, and continuing to support me. You guys probably don't think about it, but when I do the podcast, it's zero cost. So it's completely free. And I've played with the idea of having a premium

Starting point is 00:03:03 portion of the podcast, maybe an additional episode a week for premium subscribers, those who want to get more content or more support on their fitness journey. But right now it's entirely free and it's paid for when you guys support our amazing partners, whether that's Legion, Seed, Element, Underdog. We have some awesome partners here on the pod and we're always looking to add more. But quite frankly, I stick to things I like, things I use, and the reviews that you guys leave have really, really helped and made a huge difference. So here are six unique, fun ways you can increase your mobility and move like an athlete across the lifespan.

Starting point is 00:03:41 So number one, and this one I think is just generally good for your mind, for your discipline, for your commitment, for a variety of different things when it comes to neuroplasticity, and that is to take up a new physical hobby outside of your current gym routine. Now, this can be shooting hoops in your backyard. This can be something more formal and organized like pickleball that you do with friends. It can have a social component. Pickleball is very popular right now. It can be something that you do with friends or on your own that has a very steep learning curve like golf, preferably something that you don't have a ton of experience doing that is a new

Starting point is 00:04:20 physical task that will require you to move your body in unique ways and explore what its potential is. You'll have to rewire existing neural pathways. You'll have to dust off some cobwebs. Learning new physical tasks is great for neuroplasticity, and it gets quite hard as we age to form these new motor pathways and develop unique skills required for sport. And it's good for your brain. It's good for your brain. It's good for your mind. It's good for your commitment and discipline to take on a new physical task. Now, you don't have to go pro. You can simply just do this for fun, but I'll use myself as an example. When I picked up the game of golf as somebody who played baseball, basketball, and football, I had to

Starting point is 00:05:00 really learn to move my body in a unique way for really the first time as an adult. I picked up weightlifting early enough too that even learning new, more technical movements or some cues and nuanced form technique on moves I already knew, like applying new things, that came so natural. And golf, certainly I was able to lean on my past athleticism, my mobility and flexibility that I have from weight training and the power that I have to really hit the shit out of the ball. But the problem is aiming it, making sure I hit it with a square club face, making sure that I have the right velocity of swing. I'm taking the club back far enough. I'm rotating through my hips and my mid back. There's so many unique nuanced things that you really feel out of your element for a while and you have to

Starting point is 00:05:44 learn. But over time, I became more fluid. My tempo got better. My balance got better. My touch got better. My finesse got better. And all of these things will have carryover into your life. Learning new skills, trying new physical things is great. And every single one of these things that I mentioned, you will obviously be burning more calories. Many of them you can do outside. Many of them you can do with people. They're social. That is really, really good for your health. Okay. Number two on this list, spend more time barefoot, particularly exercising, walking, not like walking outside where it could be dangerous, but walking on grass, walking on unstable or novel surfaces. Give your feet something to work with. The majority of the

Starting point is 00:06:27 proprioceptors or the cells that really play a role in balance and maintaining your body position, they're a part of this large vestibular cochlear system that includes the inner ear, all this machinery of the brain, the cerebellum that helps with balance. And you have proprioception, which is feeling basically your body in space, knowing where you're at, having coordination. And a lot of the cells in your body that are responsible for proprioception are located on the bottom of the foot. And we wear these really, really cushioned shoes all the time, especially when we're doing athletic tasks, because oftentimes that's what's required. You either need to wear shoes in the gym, basketball shoes to play basketball, certain

Starting point is 00:07:05 shoes to run, et cetera. But spending some time barefoot, walking on your lawn, standing on one foot, walking across a balance beam, walking across a battle rope, doing fun little games where you practice balancing or running or hopping or low-grade barefoot plyometrics, depending on your fitness level, of course, can be a phenomenal way to build coordination, to build ankle mobility, to again, really make sure that the proprioceptive machinery of the bottom of your foot is online. That is huge for your athletic ability. So much I think of the struggle people have with maintaining athleticism across the lifespan and balance and the dexterity and the fluidity that we see when

Starting point is 00:07:45 we look at children is children spend a lot of time without shoes on. And the older we get, the more time we spend with shoes on. Oftentimes we wear very constrictive footwear for work, especially women. And this really limits our ability to use the musculature of our feet, you know, to really have mobile and dexterous toes. Our toes are in these really tight closed shoes and those aren't horrible, but in the long run, you know, you will lose connection for lack of better description with your feet and your feet. You know, if you think of the human being as a primate, you know, look at how other primates use their feet. They have substantially more dexterity. And I know that we're mostly bipedal

Starting point is 00:08:23 and we're a completely different organism, but spending a little time barefoot is a really good way to enhance your athleticism, your fluidity, your feeling of connection kind of to the earth beneath you, not to get too woo-woo. And there's some unique and interesting science around grounding or exposing the bottom of your feet to the earth. One thing that I can say using myself as an example again, when I went on a recent golf trip, this will ironically combine one and two, I actually broke my toe on the plane ride wearing sandals stumbling down the jetway for a bachelor party event because I decided to get up during heavy turbulence. We were playing a golf course by the name of Bandon Dunes, which is known to be one of America's

Starting point is 00:09:05 premier golf destinations. It has five of the world's top 50 courses on it, and it was absolutely stunning, gorgeous, perfect golf the way it's meant to be played on the Oregon coast. Here's the problem though. When you play Bandon Dunes, you don't get a golf cart. So I had to walk between seven and 10 miles per day with a broken toe that did not fit in my golf cart. So I had to walk between seven and 10 miles per day with a broken toe that did not fit in my golf shoes. So I played barefoot. And because the course is so beautifully manicured, save a few awkward paths of tree bark or, you know, pebble slash pea gravel, I was able to maneuver barefoot across the entire golf course for over 30 miles of walking over the course of a weekend. And here's the funny thing. I played great. I felt fluid. I felt like I was very in touch with my

Starting point is 00:09:51 body. It was an amazing reminder of just how big of a deal those proprioceptive cells are that live on the bottom of our feet. The longer I played barefoot, the better I got. The minute I put my shoes back on, I really felt like I lost something. Now, I understand that when you swing a golf club, you need to be able to have the ability to break and accelerate and rotate. And so shoes with spikes make sense. But I really felt the difference being barefoot. And I felt the difference coming home with better dexterity, better fluidity, better movement. So if you have the opportunity to play a little bit and spend some time barefoot, definitely do that. Hey guys, taking a break from the show to tell you about our amazing sports nutrition partner, Legion. Legion makes

Starting point is 00:10:35 the best evidence-based formulas for sports performance, sports nutrition, recovery, and fat loss. I don't recommend many supplements. In fact, I think you can get the majority of the nutrition you need from a whole foods diet. But let's be honest, many of us are either on the go and need assistance, or quite frankly, we're not going to settle for average and we want to get the absolute most we can out of our training. So Legion is the company I go to for all of my supplement staples, whether it's creatine, which I get from their product Recharge, my protein that I get from either Whey Plus or Plant Plus, two of the best tasting proteins on the market. They come in a variety of flavors

Starting point is 00:11:13 and they don't have a ton of fillers and gum. Just Whey made from grass-fed cows from Ireland in a plant protein blend with a fully comprehensive dose of amino acids. I like to take a pre-workout. Sometimes I like it with caffeine. Sometimes I like to take a pre-workout. Sometimes I like it with caffeine. Sometimes I like to enjoy coffee in the morning and have my pre-workout later without caffeine. Legion makes both. Both the pre-workout with caffeine and without come with a full dosage of clinically effective ingredients like beta alanine, betaine anhydrous, and l-citrulline to help you perform your best. They also make a phenomenal greens powder loaded with one of my favorite things, reishi mushroom, and a men's and women's multivitamin that contain a few different things that men and women might need for their unique physiology. So when you

Starting point is 00:11:53 think of your vitamins, your fish oil, your pre-workout, your protein, all of the things that many of you take every single day, I'd encourage you to check out Legion. They have an amazing line, wonderful products, wonderful flavors, naturally sweetened, no dyes and colors. You can't go wrong. You can shop using the show notes below or by going to legionathletics.com and checking out using the promo code Danny.

Starting point is 00:12:16 That will save you 20% and it will actually help you get two times points towards future orders, which you can use the same as cash. Pretty cool, guys. So head over to legionathletics.com and check out using the promo code DANNY to save on all your sports supplement needs. Back to the show. What's going on, guys? Coach Danny here, taking a break from the episode to tell you about my coaching company, Core Coaching Method, and more specifically, our one-on-one, fully tailored online

Starting point is 00:12:43 coaching program. My online coaching program. My online coaching program has kind of been the flagship for Core Coaching Method for a while. Of course, we do have PDF programming and we have app-based programming. But if you want a truly tailored one-on-one experience with a coach like myself or a member of my coaching team, someone who is certified, somebody who has multiple years of experience working with clients in person online, somebody who is licensed to provide a macro nutrition plan, somebody who is actually good at communicating with clients because they've done it for years, whether that be via phone call, email, text, right? This one-on-one coaching program is really designed to give you all the

Starting point is 00:13:19 support you need with custom training designed for you, whether you're training from home, the gym, around your limitations and your goals, Nothing cookie cutter here, as well as easy to follow macronutrition programs that are non-restrictive. You'll get customized support directly from your coach's email, or they'll text you, or they'll WhatsApp you. We'll find the communication medium that best supports your goals, as well as provides you with the accountability and the expertise you need to succeed, as well as biofeedback monitoring, baked-in accountability support, and all of the stuff that you need from your coach when you check in. We keep our rosters relatively small so that we can make sure you get the best support possible. But you can apply today

Starting point is 00:14:03 by going over to corecoachingmethod.com, selecting the online coaching option. And if we have spots available, we'll definitely reach out to you to see if you're a good candidate. And if we don't put you on a waiting list, but we'll be sure to give you the best shot at the best coaching in the industry. So head over to corecoachingmethod.com and apply for one-on-one coaching with me and my team today. What's going on guys? Taking a break from this episode to tell you a little bit about my and apply for one-on-one home with bands and dumbbells, or Elite Physique, which is a female bodybuilding-focused program where you can train at the gym with equipments designed specifically to help you develop strength, as well as the glutes, hamstrings, quads, and back. I have more teams coming planned for a

Starting point is 00:14:57 variety of different fitness levels. But what's cool about this is when you join these programs, you get programming that's updated every single week. the sets to do, the reps to do, exercise tutorials filmed by me with me and my team. So you'll get my exact coaching expertise as to how to perform the movement, whether you're training at home or you're training in the gym. And again, these teams are somewhat specific. So you'll find other members of those communities looking to pursue similar goals at similar fitness levels. You can chat, ask questions, upload form for form review, ask for substitutions. It's a really cool training community and you can try it completely free for seven days. Just click the link in the podcast description below. Can't wait to see you in the core coaching collective, my app-based training community. Back to the show. Number six, another great way for those of you who are busy or have busy schedules and especially extra responsibilities like kids to burn a few more calories and expand your movement practice is to play. Play more games, play with less structure, get outside, get moving. So I know

Starting point is 00:16:03 for many of you, when you hear play more games as an adult, you're like, I don't have time. And you might not, but many of you have kids. My girlfriend has a niece and nephew who are eight and four. And regularly we get together and I'm usually the only person who doesn't drink or doesn't drink much. So people tend to congregate around the food and the alcohol, get to sitting, get to chatting. And the kids will often come up to me and ask me to play in their games because they know that I will get up and do it. Whether it's monkey in the middle or four square or fun little games like that, I always catch myself moving in unique, fun ways. And there's been more than a couple occasions where after playing with them the next day, I'm sore and muscles, and I just can't quite figure it out. And I remember one situation in particular, when we were in Mexico, we were in Cancun and I played soccer on the beach, barefoot with her niece. Could not tell you the last time I ran

Starting point is 00:16:57 barefoot on the beach with anybody, but I was chasing around a soccer ball for the first time in probably a decade in bare feet for 15 minutes against a nine-year-old. And I was absolutely cooked. My feet were sore. My calves were sore. My hips were sore. I worked muscles and trained muscles in ways I never thought possible. And so that does kind of combine one, two, and three here, but don't be afraid to play within a reasonable level. Things that you either used to play, get your body moving, be responsible, warm up, but have unorganized, unstructured movement in your movement practice. And for those of you who have kids and they're always coming up to you, trying to get them, trying to get you to play with them or trying to get you to engage with them, expanding this movement practice to include things like that could really deepen and enrich

Starting point is 00:17:44 the relationship you have with your child. If you look at it as, hey, no, I don't want to get out and do this right now, but it's a good way to move. It's a good way to burn some extra calories. It's outside. It's going to challenge me a little bit to do whatever the heck it is, this made up game that my kids are doing is, or again, there's a lot of fun, unique, less formal games that you could probably throw into the hobby category, but things like cornhole where you're just tossing something and using hand-eye coordination, things like spike ball that are a little bit more dynamic, even shooting hoops in your pool if you have a basketball hoop or shooting hoops on a mounted fun little nerf hoop,

Starting point is 00:18:21 like these kinds of things that require a slight little bit of focus, a little bit of hand-eye coordination, a little bit of additional movement, they're actually surprisingly good for keeping things fresh, for keeping you moving well, and for having fun. Okay, number four, attempt to add a new movement practice that is mobility and core-centric. So these two come to mind specifically, and that is yoga and Pilates. I think about yoga as more of a passive stretching mobility based practice. And I think of Pilates as more of a core total body stability and strength practice. But both of these are really good at training muscles in unique positions, whether it's lengthened positions, whether

Starting point is 00:19:02 there's isometric positions, whether we're holding stretches, expanding into new space, they tend to be a little bit less intense on the central nervous system, depending on the type of yoga and Pilates that you do, compared to weightlifting or other forms of arduous exercise like running, but a really good way to expand your movement practice. Yoga can be quite peaceful, quite serene, and good for helping you unwind, but there's no doubt about it, that kind of stretching can expand your passive flexibility and oftentimes enhance your mobility, which is basically just to say the range of that flexibility in which you have strength and control. Pilates is a little bit more core-centric. They're not

Starting point is 00:19:42 a kind of two sides of the same coin thing. It's a different discipline altogether, but it is unique. And these are not things that you have to do daily or even weekly. A class here and there or working some of these into your routine at home can be really beneficial. I'll tell you the story of my client, Patrick. My client, Pat, is an extremely active flooring contractor who came to me to do personal training in preparation for a series of joint replacement surgeries. After 20 plus years of working as a flooring contractor, he needed two hip replacements, one on each side, of course, and a knee replacement. And his doctor said, hey, we'll schedule your first surgery, which was the right hip, in three

Starting point is 00:20:21 months. Do what you can to build fitness and muscle in the meantime. I trained Pat in between each one of these surgeries, making sure that he kept his physical fitness high and his muscle mass high. And he was very, very adamant with his recovery. So he's done a phenomenal job of bouncing back. But one thing Patrick had struggled with his entire life was his mobility and cutting into somebody and replacing joints won't make that any easier. was his mobility and cutting into somebody and replacing joints won't make that any easier. We worked on mobility quite a bit and rehabilitation quite a bit when Pat was coming off of these surgeries, but there was more room in his routine for expanding that movement practice because getting him back to baseline was getting him back to still being,

Starting point is 00:20:59 as his wife describes, a tight old man. He's very tight. He's very restricted. So one thing I noticed that Pat does every single day is watch baseball, especially during baseball season. But even when it's not baseball season, he's often watching basketball or football when he gets home from work. So I told Pat, I want you to, for at least the first two innings of every game or the last two innings of every game, I want you to do a series of yoga stretches, something that you can find, something that you can pop up on your laptop and do while you watch TV, a simple yoga flow that you find on YouTube. It doesn't have to be anything crazy. At this point, Patrick didn't have any

Starting point is 00:21:36 specific mobility limitations that would surprise you. Obviously, some hip and knee mobility, specific issues post-surgery, but it was more of a general lack of mobility. This habit stacking technique allowed him to work something in a movement practice in, and it was almost passive. And by the time he'd done it for about a month or two, he was really noticing a big difference. And this was just habit stacked to something he was already doing. You could obviously regress this to something much simpler and just set aside time to stretch while watching TV or to train your core while watching TV, but it doesn't have to be crazy. Okay. Number seven is full range, or I'm sorry,

Starting point is 00:22:16 number seven, number one, two, three, four. This is number five of seven. Do more full range of motion weightlifting. Strength training through a full range of motion, meaning the entirety of the range of the joint, not necessarily the entirety of the range that you can move the weight. So meaning like, okay, you might not be able to move a shit ton of weight through this range, but you can move a good enough amount of weight through this range. You're loading a range of motion that is considered to be complete for that joint's current limitations or current capabilities, we should say. This is a great way to build strength, but also reinforce mobility, strength, and control through ranges of motion because every lift includes a weighted stretch. Remember, there's a concentric

Starting point is 00:23:00 or shortening phase of each lift where the muscle fibers come closer together. And there's also a eccentric or lengthening portion of each lift where the muscle fibers come apart, unless we're doing things like isotonic, isometric, or isokinetic work, which we're not really going to talk about here. Most lifts are going to involve a weighted stretch and controlling the eccentric and doing exercises with load through a full range of motion is a great way to expand your mobility and stay light on your feet as you age. You probably already knew I'd say something like that because I'm such a proponent of weight training, but that was just the beginning of what's basically a three-part kind of finisher here. That's how we went from five to six to seven in terms of the numbers of items on this list. Number, I guess

Starting point is 00:23:46 we could call it 5B or six, is more full range of motion body weight slash calisthenic exercises on a more regular basis. So things like pushups, pull-ups, lunges, squat sits, squat holds, hanging from the bar, anything from the FRC library of FRC cars, 90-90 more active body weight movements that could be described as mobility flow movements, calisthenic movements, where you train still loaded but without external loading through full ranges of motion, I find are a great way to expand mobility and movement quality even more, especially for those of you who are lifters. I find it to be quite common that lifters are pretty adverse to doing mobility work or adding

Starting point is 00:24:30 that stuff in because they just don't enjoy it. But body weight training or calisthenic training can be fun to throw in the mix to kind of spice things up, if you will. So if it's been a while since you did a few dead hang pull-ups or a few handcuff push-ups or a few deep squat sits where you played with some of the 90s or Cossack squats or some movements that really require your body weight to be kind of moved through some pretty interesting spaces and places, definitely try adding that to the mix. And then a last one, a pro tip for all my lifters and bodybuilders out there is to include intraset stretching. So what do I mean by this? I mean, if you did a set of straight arm pull downs

Starting point is 00:25:10 for 15 to 20 reps, and that set took about a minute, use your one to two minute rest period, pretty standard there, and stretch your lats, stretch the same muscle you just trained in between sets. There's some literature floating around that might lead you to believe that intrastate stretching could actually enhance muscle growth. So nothing wrong with that. You could definitely keep some form of mechanical tension on the tissue by lengthening it in between sets. I would not do this during heavy or maximal effort work, only during hypertrophy work at moderate to higher rep ranges, but stretching in between sets some of the muscles that you are using, I don't think is so much as going to benefit your muscle

Starting point is 00:25:51 growth. If it does, it might be negligible or small, but it also just really squeezes in your mobility practice. And the one thing to be mindful of, like I said, is not to stretch so deeply that you end up with a problem or a pull or a pain point and not to stretch in a way that's going to lead to decreases in performance. So don't do this during super, super heavy loaded work, but this is a great way to sneak it in. All right, you guys. So just going over that list one more time, things you can do to increase the quality of your movement, the fluidity of your movement, your dexterity, and expand your movement practice. Take up or learn a new skill or sport. Try to spend more time barefoot, moving around, especially outside. Play more games and have more unorganized,

Starting point is 00:26:37 unstructured movement. If you can make this social or engage with your kids, this is a great way to model behavior for them. Try things like yoga and Pilates, mobility and core-centric movement practices, full range of motion lifting, calisthenics training, and stretching in between sets can be great too. All right, guys, I hope you enjoyed this one. If you did, be sure to leave me a five-star rating and review on the iTunes store. Takes one to two minutes, helps the podcast grow a ton. Thanks for tuning in and I'll catch you on the next one.

Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 213: 6 Things You Can Do to Move/Feel Amazing (Mobility, Stability, Athleticism)

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