Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 215: 10 Fitness Challenges we ALL Face (and how to overcome them)

Episode Date: August 25, 2022

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Welcome in everybody to another episode of the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. As always, I am your host, Danny Matrenga. And in today's episode, we will be discussing the 10 fitness challenges you will face on your fitness journey. Whether you're completely new to getting in shape, you've been training for a long time, or you have more ambitious goals like competing or changing your physique and overhauling the way you look, these are 10 things that will act as thorns in your side. They will be a boulder in your path. There will be certainties, things that you just plain have to overcome if you live and exist in society as a social human being. These are the 10 most common boogeymen or challenges that I've seen in 10 years of coaching clients. These things show up consistently, and I have some systems, I have some tools that will help you better manage and overcome these

issues when they arise. And here's the thing, guys, they will arise. It is all but certain that you're going to have some adversity and that you're going to have some friction. So like I said, whether you're new to this, whether you've been doing this for a long time, or even if you're a coach and you just want to better understand how it is that you can help your clients, I have got some solutions for you today. Now, before we get into this, I want to share some reviews. This one comes from at Butterfly Fit with Viv. She says, the episode on birth control and hormone cycles were very, very informative. Good job, Danny. Viv, thank you for leaving a five-star review. This one was on Apple Podcasts. Again,

anytime you all leave reviews, it helps the podcast grow. It helps the podcast rank better, and it gives me feedback, which is really, really valuable. This review comes from Mommy Lars. Mommy Lars says, Danny's podcast is my favorite health and fitness-related podcast. The information he presents is well thought out and authentic. He does not sugarcoat anything or give out false information. I always look forward to the new episodes. Thank you very much for leaving that review. Again, I do the best I can. I'll be the first one to tell you I am far from perfect, but I do the very best I can to bring you guys free, consistent, and hopefully evidence-based slash professional anecdotal information. Not just what we see in the literature, what science tells us, what we can

glean from that, but what I see coaching clients every day in person and online. I want you guys to feel like you're clients of mine. I want you guys to have access to this information for free because it's quite literally my mission in life to help more people live healthier through resistance training, having muscle, having mobility, and being as capable as they can throughout the lifespan. And one of the big reasons I can bring that to you for free is because of our amazing partners. Specifically, the partner I want to highlight today is Legion Athletics. Legion makes the best sports performance supplements on the market. They are phenomenal when it comes to flavor, taste, and most importantly, formulation. I'm a big, big stickler

when it comes to knowing what's in my products and making sure that it's only the stuff I want, premium ingredients, and no fluff. I will pay extra for supplements of the highest quality instead of spending a ton on a bunch of crap that doesn't work, hides behind proprietary blends, and just doesn't do it for me. I want quality. I want to know that what I'm putting in my body is effective and is natural, sweetened only with stevia, monk fruit, no artificial sweeteners, which I don't technically mind sometimes, but with stuff like protein powder, stimulant-free pre-workout, creatine that I'm going to be taking every single day, natural sweeteners are really, really valuable to me. Additionally, Legion scores extremely high on Labdor. Labdor is an

independent third-party product servicer that rates the quality, integrity, and purity of products. So if you want the best supplements on the market, head over to legion.com. There's a ton of stuff back in stock from their amazing whey protein powder. My favorite flavors are, of course, simple stuff, but I really like the cocoa cereal and the honey cereal. The pre-workout is phenomenal. I like the stimulant-free pre-workout so I can still enjoy coffee in the morning on the days I work out in the afternoon. I love green apple and tropical punch is oh so delicious. If you are a more traditional pre-workout person and you love the taste of things like strawberry margarita and

mojito, there are so many fun summer flavors in stock right now, not to mention the world slash global creatine shortage that we lived through over the last few months seems to be calming down a little bit. And Legion has amazing new flavors of creatine back in stock, including a new exciting strawberry kiwi flavor of their Recharge Creatine Supplement. This is going to be a heavy hitter. I am a huge fan of grape, but knowing now that there is strawberry kiwi in the mix, we are going to have to give that one a try. So if you want to take your fitness to the next level,

if you want to expand your results and your recovery, consider checking out legionathletics.com for all your supplement needs. And if you check out using the promo code Danny, you'll save 20% on your first order and earn double points. If you set up a subscription for products, you will always save additional money on top of that, plus bank your points and your savings. It's a no-brainer if you are a regular supplement taker. And with that, guys, let's go ahead and get into the first challenge we all will face or have faced at some point in our fitness journeys and how we can overcome this. And that is not knowing where

to start. So when I first started working out, I can give you guys some insights because I think it's probably valuable to explore a little bit of vulnerability and share with you some of the mistakes that I've made because I think so many coaches and trainers act like they've had it figured out. I went to the gym initially wanting to gain size, look more muscular so I could attract girls in my mid to late teenage years when I was heavily influenced by bodybuilding magazines, bodybuilding YouTube, and the early onset fitness culture that existed on social media. What this did to me was I ended up training too much too early, not getting enough sleep, over-prioritizing supplements, and not prioritizing food. So I started, but I started in a way that

was suboptimal. And I want to highlight that first, that it is so much more valuable for you to just start and start poorly than it is to not start at all. One of the main issues I see with people is paralysis by analysis. They want everything to be perfect from the jump. And that is just simply unreasonable, guys. It truly, truly is unreasonable to assume if you are new to fitness and you are new to health and you're new to changing your routine and your habits and your behaviors around the way you eat and the way you move, that you are going to start off at perfect or optimal. It's just a myth. You have to throw some fucking paint on the wall to find the art, right? You will have some droplets that fall on the floor. It will not be perfect. You will have

to learn, but at least get some paint on the wall. You can't have a masterpiece if the brush never touches the wall or the canvas, right? So understand that knowing where to start is a big deal, but I want to make sure you do not overcomplicate things. So assuming you are open to trying and learning as you go and fine-tuning and optimizing as you get into the rhythm and flow of having a habit and routine around your fitness, here's my advice to you, how to overcome the pitfalls of not knowing what to do. Number one, start with a number of sessions per week you can commit to every single week, even on the bad week. So if you say, hey, and this is what we do with our clients at Core Coaching Method, is we ask you, hey, how many times can you reasonably get to the

gym? Give us a range. And so people will always say, oh, four to six. If you say four to six, we are always going to go conservative on that metric and go four. Now, why would we do this? One, because if you say six and you hit four, that's going to frame it as a failure. That's a compliance rate of somewhere around 16 to 18% per missed session. So you miss two sessions, it's a 33% failure rate. That's not ideal. Now, if I say, okay, you can do four to six, let's do four. The expectation is four. And if you can add anything on top, that's going to be huge. Now, if you hit four, a hundred percent compliance, if you add five, that's extra credit, you get to six, double extra credit. So first off, find a range and pick the conservative end. Whatever that is, whether it's

one, two, three, four, five, six days a week, it's so much better than zero. So find a number of days a week you can commit to movement. Ideally, some of that should be resistance training. We've talked on the podcast ad nauseum. If you train less than three days a week, make a total body. If you can train four, go up or lower. If you can train more than that, start to specialize. But first and foremost is find a number of sessions you can commit to. That is the first place to start. The second thing, look at your nutrition and find one, I mean literally one opportunity for growth and expansion. If you are not eating enough protein, make a commitment to eat more protein. If you are not eating very many fruits and vegetables and fibrous foods that are good for the health of your gut, do that. Your gut health and your nutritional status, like the

nutrients and the micronutrients and the polyphenols that you get from fruit and vegetables, your nutritional status, how nourished you are, will be substantially better if you eat more vegetables. Your microbiome will be happier if you eat more fibrous fruits and vegetables. So find a big rock nutritional habit that you are not doing, whether it's more protein, more water, more leafy greens and fruits, and start by adding in one good habit. On the flip side, I want you guys to kick one bad habit. So that means if you're eating out every day, so you go to Chick-fil-A for breakfast, or you have a sandwich for lunch,

or you drink a beer after work every day, find one bad habit, or rather one habit that is antithetical to or works against what it is you're trying to do, and boot that habit. That's three things, and that is where you start. Identify a reasonable number of sessions per week. You can move your body, stick to it. Identify one area of opportunity where you can improve, stick to it. Identify one area of opportunity that you can kick to the curb and be better for it,

stick to it. That is where you start, expand and refine from there. Do not overcomplicate it by trying to have a fucking Olympic level training program and dietician level nutritional intervention. A lot of times it's just too much at once. And if you want to go the extra mile, you can add some lifestyle stuff along the way, like sleep, like stress management, therapy, meditation, et cetera. You know how big of a deal I make about the microbiome. You could add some supplements in to help influence your microbiome, like our partner Seed. We love Seed. We love adding supplements like creatine that can help with performance. Those are small lifestyle tweaks you can make. Okay, the number

two kind of item on this list, this would be the second challenge that we will all face on our journey, is how to overcome the first plateau or when results slow down. When you first start lifting weights, results are going to be very fast-paced, rapid, and very noticeable. That's part of what makes the habit so addictive. When you see results happening, it is so encouraging to continue to go to the gym. Here's the honest truth. Your results will slow down because of the said principle, specific adaptations to impose demand. This is a physiological law that bodies and organisms adapt to imposed demands. The imposed demands of resistance training are huge when you first start, and the adaptations are huge as well,

but the more adapted you get, the slower the adaptations come and the imposed demand is diminished. So if you hit a plateau or results slow down, here's the first thing you need to do. Number one, audit your shit. Ask yourself the honest question. When I was losing weight when I first started this, and I was in a calorie deficit, did I let off the gas? Have I slipped on my tracking? Let's say you were adding a lot of muscle and now all of a sudden you're not. Am I just, you know, is my training age increased to a point where I need to reframe what's reasonable or have I been training a little less hard, a little less close to failure? Let's say you are routine and your habits are

kind of slacking. Ask yourself the honest question. Am I really sticking to those three things I said I would do? Am I sticking to my routine? Did I kick the good habits or kick the bad habits and add in the good habits? You need to audit your stuff if you notice results slowing down. The second thing to do, be reasonable. Understand physiology. Know that results will slow down as your body and physiology adapt to the changes, and you will experience a slowdown in results. It is normal. So don't be overly hard on yourself if results slow down. A plateau and results slowing down are not the same thing. Oftentimes, it's just that said principle and the imposed demand being a little bit less likely to drive an adaptation due to the natural adaptation curve of the human body.

You're not going to get newbie gains forever. So when you hit that plateau, audit your shit, newbie gains forever. So when you hit that plateau, audit your shit, check and make sure that you're not being unreasonable and get back to the grindstone. Do not allow yourself to be defeated by a plateau or a lack of progress because they will come. And here is a bonus tip for you guys, because this happens a lot. Understand that training is a component of your life. It is not your entire life. So if your stress, if your work, if your relationship are out of alignment or there's some issues there, some problems there, if you are bogged down with work, school,

or extracurricular responsibilities, you need to understand that it's very likely that there will be periods in your life where your ability to train hard and stick to your routine will be a little bit more challenged by what life throws at you. And being able to ask yourself, is this a better time to maintain than it is to pursue progress within reasonability? Is what I'm asking of myself reasonable or am I just frying my central nervous system out? Am I overly stressing myself? So I have a client. I'll use this as an example. She's about 50 years old. Her mother passed away nine months ago, nine to 10 months ago. She works in law enforcement in one of, okay, I'll just be straight up. She works in law enforcement in San Francisco, perhaps America's most insane city to work in as a police officer. They had for many months, one of the most radically

inefficient district attorneys who prosecuted nobody. So the criminals who were committing these crimes just ended up right back on the street. And so the police officers in this city are cleaning up the same messes over and over and over again. They're super stressed. They're super burnt out. She's pretty high up on the ladder. So in addition to doing all of the crime fighting, she's also doing all of the managing. Now stack on top of that, the unfortunate loss of her mother and all the stress and trauma that comes with that and being named a trustee, this person had to go from working 50 hours a week, starting at fucking four o'clock in the morning, commuting into the city, okay, which is a shit show, doing one of'clock in the morning commuting into the city, which is a

shit show, doing one of, if not the most stressful law enforcement jobs in the world, and managing through the trauma, through the damage, through the stress of losing perhaps the most important person in your life, your mother, and having to incur all of the logistics and paperwork nightmares that come with being the trustee when somebody passes away and allocating the funds and the accounts and selling a home. It was an insane amount on this person's plate. And it made achieving and reaching their fitness goals a lot harder. But here's the cool thing. That person maintained and towed the line. They didn't let their habits fall off. They didn't let their habits fall off. They didn't let their

routines fall off. So even though they maintained and made small incremental progress during that time, I refuse to call that a plateau. And even if it was a plateau or a period of time in which this person didn't make the goals and results perhaps that they wanted, they didn't fail. They didn't let it beat them down. They did what they had to do to keep it going. And so sometimes plateaus or periods of maintenance are okay, depending on what life throws at you. And you guys need to understand that there is more to life than training. So that is an example of a client who I think is kind of a superstar, somebody who does everything right to toe in the line when shit hits the fan and a lot of people will quit. So hopefully you can glean some inspiration from that if you're going through a tough time and just know that maintenance is

substantially better than regression and backsliding and framing it that way is okay. Hey guys, taking a break from the show to tell you about our amazing sports nutrition partner, Legion. Legion makes 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, 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 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 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. 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 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 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 accountability in 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 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 coaching company, Core Coaching Method. More specifically, our app-based training. We partnered with Train Heroic to bring app-based training to you using the best technology and best

user interface possible. You can join either my Home Heroes team, or you can train from 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 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. So here's the number three challenge that we will all face, and I have been facing this a lot more recently, and that is the natural loss of motivation to train. Over the course of your training career, your desire to train will waver.

In fact, the longer you train, the less motivated you will be to train. This is something that I think a lot of influencers and coaches do a pretty shitty job of communicating, which is that, yes, we have killer physiques and we're really dedicated and we show up and we make videos with rah-rah bullshit background music that are supposed to be motivational and inspiring, but almost every single coach, trainer, and fitness influencer I know does not love training the way that they loved it when they first started. Their love for it has changed. Their motivation has kind of morphed more into a dedication, into a practice. It's almost a monk-like ritualistic attachment to the process, but the actual excitement around

going to the gym and getting after it will fade. And that is why it is so important to habitualize this. It is so important to turn this into a routine and a habit. You cannot allow yourself to fall victim. In my opinion, I think this would be a victim thing to do to the kind of natural loss of motivation and frame it as just, well, this is not for me. That is one of the silliest, most foolish things that people do, guys. It is absolutely normal to not want to train on a day where you're stressed, on a day where you don't sleep a lot, after five to six years of training. It is normal. You have to understand this. The lack of motivation is normal. The loss of motivation is normal. And my challenge to you is this, what the hell are you going to do about it? Are you going

to quit? Are you going to fold? Are you going to say, oh, I need to flip around to some crazy shit and try something new. You shouldn't lean into dedication, lean into the habits, lean into the routines. That is what it's going to take to be successful. I promise you that. You will feel a loss of motivation at different points throughout your training career, and you need to know what to do with it or what to do about it. Number four, this is a very, very, very good one because I think it's extremely relatable, especially after the last two years, and that is how the hell do you get back on the horse after you get sick? Now, when I first started training, I trained at a commercial gym and I had a really bad habit

of not washing my hands a lot, even though there was hand sanitizer everywhere. And I was sick all the time because I was underslept and constantly going to and from school and to and from the gym. So I was sick probably every month, at least once a month. And whenever I'd get sick, I would try to train through it or train around it or be respectful of the space or train at home once a month. And whenever I'd get sick, I would try to train through it or train around it or be respectful of the space or train at home, do whatever. And then with COVID hitting more recently, that changed everything. And so now that being more ubiquitous, I have to ask you the question, like, okay, if you're in a routine, you're jamming, but you get sick, what do you do? And I think the most important thing to do at first is to practice grace and

acknowledge the importance of recovery. Your immune system will work better if you allow it time and opportunity to recover. I'm not saying don't train. In fact, when I got COVID, I trained every damn day. I had nothing to do. So I just microdosed little workouts where I would go down to my garage gym and hit a set of 20 tricep extensions, a set of 20 pushups, a set of 20 pull-ups, take the dog for a walk, take Coop out for a walk with my shirt off, get some vitamin D and some sun. There's ways to stay active while you're sick, but understand over the course of your lifetime, you will miss workouts because of illness. And one thing I have to impart upon you, this has been a very big challenge for me. I think it'll be beneficial for you.

Give yourself some motherfucking grace, y'all. Seriously, allow yourself time to recover. Acknowledge that, hey, if you're a regular trainee and you lift normally or you're active all the time and you get sick, a break won't hurt you. Most people skip their deloads or don't take adequate time to recover anyway. So if you get sick, work that in as a kind of pre-planned or unplanned, I should say, opportunity to step away. Practice grace. Stay active within reason. Take the advice, of course, that your doctor might give you depending on the sickness and illness that you have, but that's also a really good opportunity to double down on lifestyle habits. Okay, if you get sick, try to get into a better sleep routine. Try to get into a better food routine. Try to work on those lifestyle and nutritional side of

things while you kind of let the training stuff naturally and slowly kind of build back up as you start to feel better. But you're going to get sick, guys, at some point, you know, unless you just have like the world's greatest immune system. At some point, you'll get a bug here and there and you need to know how to manage it and train around it. And the best piece of advice I could ever give you is not to beat the shit out of yourself, but instead to get right to recovery and take care of your body. All right, number five, perhaps the most unfortunate one on the list. And this doesn't always happen in the gym, but it does happen. And that is training around an injury or pain point or a dysfunction. And this can be really tricky for a number of folks, which is, hey, you know, I've got this

recurrent and chronic injury, this chronic pain, this thing that's bugging me and and we'll push through it and we'll work Through it and we'll just try to grind through it and we will never let it heal and and we get these nagging pain points Nagging injuries or sometimes it's a little bit more intense. I've had clients who have had you know They're training all the time. They're crushing it. They go out and they play flag football once and they have a non-contact ACL injury and it's a complete fucking nightmare. Injuries obviously vary a lot in terms of severity, but they're going to happen. Pain and injuries and dysfunction will happen. So here's two things I think will help you through this no matter what. The first is find a physical therapist in your area who specializes in working with active adults and who will give you homework to do to help you rehab. Somebody whose job it is to diagnose injuries properly is hugely beneficial.

So many athletes, active adults, bodybuilders, powerlifters, CrossFit athletes, they're going to self-diagnose, which is never a good idea because here's the truth, guys. There are so many things and so many opportunities on the internet to find something that you think might be wrong with you that isn't, and then you self-treat and you actually make the problem worse. Find somebody who specializes in diagnosing soft tissue or muscular injuries or whatever you've got going on and who will work with you. The second thing is do not stop training. As a more general rule, this of course is not concrete. Training around an injury, training in a way that brings blood flow in and out of the areas and does not cause pain,

if that's an upper body injury, continuing to train your core and legs. If it's a lower body injury, continuing to train your core and upper body are really beneficial for maintaining that habit and that routine. The unfortunate truth, guys, is that injuries are oftentimes unpredictable and not necessarily something we can prevent. The number of times I've had a small tweak when lifting with perfect form is so frustrating. And then the number of times I've done something with bad form and not gotten hurt is really confusing. And so my stance on injuries is that they're wildly unpredictable and that they will happen oftentimes outside of the gym and knowing how to work around them and having a professional in your corner who can help you is so, so valuable because this is the truth, guys. The more active you are,

the more you train, the more resilient your body is, but you are not invincible. And we might all one day have to face working through a little bit of pain, a little bit of an injury, a little bit of a dysfunction. And I want to make sure that you guys don't try to grind through it and make it worse. Find a professional to work with you and find ways to modify your routine to keep it going. Number six, I suppose this isn't something you are guaranteed to face because not everybody takes vacations, but assuming you are like most people, you probably take somewhere between one to four vacations every year. Every 365 days, you're going to exit from your routine. And here's the first piece of advice I have for you. You do not have to fucking train on vacation. Okay?

Sounds crazy to say this, but life is way too fucking short. Way too fucking short. I know I'm swearing a lot, but I'm passionate about this. Life is way too short to force yourself to train on vacation. If you like to train on vacation, do it. I love to train on vacation. When I go to Mexico and I stay at the Moon Palace, my favorite resort down there, it's badass. They have three amazing gyms and I go to each one. I go to the sauna. I go to the steam room. It's part of my vacation. I love it. But if I miss a workout, I don't feel guilty. When I go to the big Island, my favorite place in Hawaii, I have two amazing gyms that I love to train at. And my joints feel like a million bucks because of the humidity. I love to train on vacation. I'm not saying not to, I'm just saying, if you are like

busy, we'll get to this in a little bit. You're chasing kids around all kinds of stuff like that. Okay. You don't need to force yourself. okay? You don't need to force yourself, okay? You do not need to force yourself to train. It's okay to take a little break. I promise you that. It is okay to take a little break. I know that's a big deal for a lot of you, to allow yourself to step away from it, but it's all right. And if you just get some steps, you stay active, you move, that is going to be more than enough. Or even if you just get one to two quick sessions in, that'll work great. A lot of the clients that we work with at Core Coaching Method when they're traveling, what we do to help them stay on track varies a ton. I had a client travel to New Zealand recently, and we trained with TRX and bands. I've had a client

travel to Turkey recently, and we found a gym for her to go and train at. And now she's an endurance athlete. She trains for a lot of high mileage running. So that worked really well. We could run through the streets of Turkey and have a few supplemental workouts. I had a client travel to Greece and all we did was TRX and bands there too. So there's so many ways to make it work, but just know first and foremost, you don't have to do it. You're allowed to just enjoy vacation. And just like I said, with training around an illness, if you need to have an unplanned or slash pre-planned deload, there's your opportunity. Nobody travels out of the country or to crazy places like that with less than at least a couple days or weeks notice. So if you say, hey, even on the most

spontaneous of trips, I know in two weeks I'm leaving the country. So I'm going to plan a deload for that and train my ass off before I leave. And then when I'm out there, I'm going to get some steps through a few body weight workouts. It's all you need to do guys. You're not going to lose much muscle, even if your vacation is two to three weeks long. Okay. Number seven is training around the holidays or training around times where gyms are closed. Many of you have access to 24 hour gyms. Uh, I definitely do. I have a home gym and I have this gorgeous gym that I can key fob in and out of. So I'm never going to miss a workout, but a lot of gyms close during holidays. A lot of gyms close, uh, you know, early, or it's hard to get to the gym,

or maybe you're traveling during the holidays and you're going to miss workouts, paired usually with eating more than normal. So again, what are you going to do? And I would give you the same advice I gave you for when you're sick and when you're on vacation. Give yourself some grace. Understand that life is way too short to bombard yourself with negative self talk if you miss a session around Christmas. Take it from a guy who's trained clients for almost a decade and who's done this themselves. Hammering yourself to work out on Christmas morning is not the move. It's not the move. Life is too damn short. Okay. So again, pre-plan, work around it. If you can find a gym to drop into, say you're visiting your parents on your way, you're going home to your parents. There's a tiny gym in that town. I'll use myself as an example. I'm from a really small town and, and, uh, it's called Sonora,

a really small town in Northern California. That's super rural. It has two gyms. Both of them are like insanely hard to get into because it's just, it's, it's really hard because there's not always people working there. One of them you fob in and out of one of them has really weird hours. And then on the flip side, they're closed during all major holidays. So if I go during the holidays, I'm probably not going to get in. So what can I do? Well, I can go on walks. I can pack TRX. I can bring dumbbells. I can bring a kettlebell. I do a little bit of something to help me stay the course. But I also practice grace and say, hey, how many holidays do I have with my parents? My dad's in his 60s. my mom's in her late 50s,

and I see him a couple times a year. I don't have many of these holidays left. I don't have many opportunities to see them left. And that shit, I'm going to regret a hell of a lot more than a missed workout. So reframe the holidays, reframe those social settings as beneficial for your health in a unique way, and try to train a little bit going into it. And always remember, you can take steps and you can travel with small things like bands, dumbbells, or a single kettlebell, even if you're flying like a TRX is wonderful. Okay. So pre-plan, plan ahead, but do not punish yourself because these are some of the most important times and opportunities in your life. Okay. Number eight, getting into the kind of nutritional side of things. And this is something we're all

going to face. And that is figuring out how to manage your relationship with food and alcohol in a social setting. So here's the thing, guys, you're probably going to have friends that do not want to take steps to improve their health and fitness. So they will punish you and project on you when you go out to eat and you choose to drink water and eat a salad instead of having a quadruple bacon, onion ring cheeseburger and slamming back 14 margaritas. Okay, so check it out. Fuck those people. If somebody's got something to say about you

watching your health, it's almost always a projection or an indictment on their inability to do the same thing. They want to make you feel bad because they won't take those steps. So that's step one. Do not let anybody project upon you their insecurities. If you have a friend that says, oh, come on, live a little, say, hey, I really respect where you're coming from. I'm living a little by being social with you and being out of my element, but it's still really important to me to stick to my goals. Alcohol isn't good for me, so I'm drinking water.

And these foods are very high in calories and they don't fit my goals currently, so I'm just going to enjoy what I'm comfortable with. If that makes you feel some type of way go fuck yourself dog Like I know that sounds really intense But people will make you feel bad and project things upon you because they feel bad watching you try Other people's efforts, right? Like when people see other people putting an effort that they won't put in they oftentimes try to sabotage them with negative Bullshit to make themselves feel better or to try to bring them down

It's the ultimate sign of peer pressure like nobody robbed a bank alone Okay. Hey, man, you want to do this shitty dumb thing with me? You see that all the time But nobody ever says hey, man, you want to go out to eat and get something healthy? We can still be social but let's be smart about our choices. Holy crap How amazing would that be but this is the truth guys? That's not going to happen. You're going to find yourself in social situations. And the first thing I will tell you is if you are really tight and really good with your nutrition and where it needs to be most of the time, you can go out and have a beer and a burger, no problem. It'll probably fit within your macros. Or maybe you take half the burger home and have it the next day, or you stick with one beer.

Just know this. You need to be steadfast in your quote unquote why. You need to know what matters to you when you enter into these situations because nobody ever is perfect. So allow yourself the opportunity to be imperfect, but stay steadfast on your why. And if you have people bagging on you, just be straight up with them and say, hey, I don't appreciate that. I'm working on something big and for me. And if you're my friend, you're going to let me do that without pounding me with this guilt trip bullshit. I'm allowed to live a little when I feel like it, but right now I'm really committed to my goals or, Hey, I'm going to have a half a burger. You want to split one? I need to have a salad and a little bit of water. I'm not drinking today because that doesn't help

my goals. These things are going to happen a lot and knowing how to manage them is huge. Okay. Number nine, this is for the parents out there. And that is, you know, how do you eat healthy when you got to find things that your kids will eat too? And this is really tricky because a lot of parents graze on the snacks and the yummy food that they get for your kids or their kids. And so one thing you can do is you can try to find more nutritious foods for your children. I understand that that's challenging, but a big one is really focus on drinking lots of water, eating lots of protein, eating lots of vegetables, things that keep you satiated. Because if you're making chicken nuggets and crackers and little cookies and little Cheerios and the stuff that kids tend to snack on and you're grazing on that, it will

lead to an increase in caloric intake. And if your goals are to lose body fat and change your composition, that can work against you. So planning ahead, having more healthy options around the house is really, really big, and it will really, really help a lot. And then the other thing too is as a parent, that's probably a greater priority for you than your body composition performance goals. So give yourself grace. That is going to be something that we talk about regularly. And number 10 is managing recreational drugs and alcohol, whether it is alcohol, cannabis, or some of the more intense recreational drugs like MDMA. There's a lot of recreational drug use in our culture, and there's more alcohol use prevalence than all of that stuff put together. And I know from experience, you cannot tell people

not to do things, so they will do it. And finding a helpful way to integrate drug usage into your life if you are going to do that is very, very important. So have a relationship with these substances that is reasonable. I would highly recommend minimizing alcohol intake and drug utilization across the lifespan for your health and longevity. Most specifically, I would think that of all the drugs that probably have the lowest prevalence of causing issues, I'd probably say that's going to be cannabis. Of the drugs that have the highest likelihood of causing health implications, most of you

would never even touch them because you're listening to a health podcast, but number one would probably still be alcohol. So reframing your relationship with alcohol and how that impacts your sleep, your recovery, your body composition, your insulin sensitivity, your stress management, trying to bring that down will be really, really big. And I live in Sonoma County where wine is king. There's probably no single community slash county in America where alcohol is more prevalent than in Sonoma County.

We have breweries and wineries coming out the wazoo. So being able to have a more, I hate to say it, adult relationship with these substances is going to be a big deal for you. If you cannot manage these, your health will probably pay the price. And learning how to say no or how to work them into your life in a more holistic way will help a ton. Okay, guys, that is 10 fitness villains, 10 fitness boogeyman's, 10 fitness pitfalls that you will face as an adult pursuing better health, fitness, and performance. And those are some tips and tools to better manage them. I hope that you learned something today. And if you did, please share this podcast, share it with somebody you love, share it with a friend,

leave a five-star rating and review. Nothing will help me better achieve my mission of helping more people live a healthy and well-balanced life than you sharing and reviewing this podcast. Thank you so much for your time, and I will catch you on the next one.