Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 232: 7 Fitness Myths That Need To DIE!

Episode Date: October 27, 2022

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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 are going to be going over some of the most pervasive fitness myths that just tend to persist year after year in the face of evidence that quite frankly frankly, refutes any rationalization for continuing to believe these things. Now, if you've paid any attention to the greater science communication space, the political space, quite frankly, much of the culture war that's going on in the world right now, you'll be very much aware of the fact that you can essentially believe

whatever it is that you want, and you can kind of isolate and incubate yourself from information that refutes it. Social media oftentimes actually amplifies this kind of distancing effect, the ability that we have to kind of wall ourselves off from what might be actually factual in favor of what we wish were factual. or we can at the very least, in some capacity, kind of adjust where it is that we get our information so as to better surround ourselves with what's comfortable. And so a lot of what we're going to be discussing today are going to be things that challenge conventional belief systems in the fitness space. And quite frankly, this isn't necessarily to say that you have a particular reason to be

consistently skeptical, but practicing skepticism on a semi-regular basis is a really good idea. my regular basis is a really good idea. Truthfully, I think that most fitness influencers and most of the people who create fitness content outside of the, of course, direct marketers in the supplement and fitness company space are doing their best to spread what I believe they believe is truthful information. But a lot of times they are just spreading mythology that simply won't go away. And unfortunately, a lot of times that leaves people like you, whether it's a personal trainer, a fitness enthusiast, somebody who's just getting started to either parse through what it is that they're saying or learn by failing. I used to believe so many of the myths that we're going to go through on this list today, and I want to unpack them in a way that will kind of meet you where you're at. So starting off with the first

fitness myth, and this one is quite pervasive, and it is the myth, I'll call it of starvation mode, or let's just say the myth that if you restrict your caloric intake for long enough, meaning you do not eat enough calories for a long enough period of time, that that will actually result in body fat accretion or body fat gain. And I completely understand why this myth is somewhat sensible, right? Because it is born out of a very, very noticeable and reasonable struggle that people have losing weight at a certain caloric intake level that might even lead them to believe that like, is it possible that, you know, I'm trying to really eat low calorie, I'm eating too low to lose weight. And almost always what we see here is human beings making a completely unintentional

mistake when it comes to actually reporting what it is that they're eating. Many people think they're eating substantially lower calories than they are. There's a study from Lichtman et al that shows people misrepresent and under-report what they eat by up to 50% when locked in a metabolic ward, quite literally being examined and saying, okay, we know exactly what you're eating. We want you to guess what you ate, and you're going to be off by 50%. Even dieticians. Dieticians. I don't know who conducted this study, but this one blew my mind. Dieticians have been studied to be off by as much as 20%. These are people who are trained in the technicalities and the finer points and the most nuanced components of nutrition and nutritional tracking. And so what we tend to see is that people have a pretty substantial capability to under-report what it is that

they're eating. So they think they're eating 1,200 calories. They're actually eating 2,000 calories. And they're saying, I should be able to lose weight on 1500 calories. Maybe I'm eating too little. And one of the things that makes this myth ever more persistent is the kind of surrounding mythology within the reverse dieting community, which is, hey, add more calories in, add them in slowly, rev up your metabolism, you'll see fat loss. And what happens oftentimes is somebody who thinks they're eating 1,200, they're actually eating 2,000. Somebody that they work with in a coaching relationship says, hey, let's pump you up to 1,300.

They go, whoa, I'm only eating 12. And they track insanely diligently. So as to really stick to the plan, maybe there's a level of financial investment here that makes so much sense, especially if you're working with a coach. They start eating 1,300 calories and voila, they're losing weight, eating more. When in fact, they're just losing weight in a very substantial deficit, but the change in prescription, the inclusion of somebody whose job it is to hold them accountable, somebody else providing that prescription is leading to substantially better dietary adherence.

Now, I've said this before, and it might seem insensitive, but if you think about countries in the developing world, starvation mode doesn't seem to exist in places where starvation actually occurs. Like if you were to go to a country where starvation is quite prevalent or malnourishment is quite prevalent, like Haiti or many of the Central African countries where food scarcity is abundant. And you were to say, hey, you know, in America, when people eat too little food, they actually gain body fat. These people would be like, dude, fuck out of here, okay? You know, like we literally have people all around the world who die every day of malnourishment, but how privileged we are in America to sit back and go, you know what? I have starvation mode kicked in. That's why I can't lose body fat. Having talked to Dr. Eric

Trexler a number of times now, who's my go-to when it comes to all things nutritional science and metabolic adaptations, I believe that the down-regulatory effects of being in a diet for a long time, having your metabolism downregulate, that's very much something that can happen. But the degree to which it can happen is relatively manageable. It's something that when you re-add calories and reintroduce calories, it tends to get better. But I can't help but wonder, you know, if the discussion around metabolic adaptations and metabolic damage has also kind of moved the argument for starvation mode in the wrong direction because yes, these adaptations certainly

can occur, particularly for individuals who've dieted for a very long time, but they are reversible. So we know that it's very unlikely that anybody who truly believes they're at a point where a low calorie intake is actually leading to body fat gain would be stuck there. It is possible for these adaptations to occur. However, the notion that eating too few calories is actually leading to body fat gain just doesn't seem to line up with the massive amount of evidence that we see. And so I just, for that reason, can't with good faith in any way, shape, or form sign off on the idea of starvation mode existing. All right, moving on to the second myth. And again, this is specific and it's contextual, but it's the myth that the deadlift or any

type of deadlift, not just the conventional barbell deadlift, we'll throw the Romanian deadlift to the hex bar deadlift to the dumbbell Romanian deadlift that movements that include the terminology deadlift in the name are bad for the back. Now, as somebody who has struggled over the years at numerous different points with back pain, specifically back pain related to disc specific ag. So, as somebody who has dealt with agitation to my lumbar spine in the form of a bulging disc, I can tell you that heavy deadlifting will agitate pre-existing back pain, specifically if you have a specific form of back pain. There's nonspecific back pain, there's idiopathic back pain, right? But if you have

a genuine issue with your lower back, particularly in that lumbar spine, deadlifting could agitate it. But for individuals with healthy spines who do not have any specific reason for back pain, who do not have back pain, who are performing the deadlift with good form, proper bracing, at submaximal loads that are not taking these sets to failure, what I believe to be true is that these lifts are actually good for your back. In fact, they create resilience in your back. They will make the structures in your spine stronger, more resilient. They help you resist flexion. They help you resist extension. resilient. They help you resist flexion. They help you resist extension. They help you promote stability. They help you strengthen the glutes, the hamstrings, the isometric capabilities of

the back. Things that over time will actually strengthen your spine, strengthen your back. And so this isn't to say that deadlifting is a panacea for back pain, but if you have an otherwise healthy pain-free back, deadlifting in a progressive manner with good form and technique will probably only make it stronger. And as a benchmark, if you're somebody who, like myself, has dealt with specific spinal issues that create a lot of pain, I had to dial back the amount of barbell squatting I was doing. I had to dial back the amount of barbell deadlifting I was doing, but I still did hinge movements and I still did squatting movements using the barbell bench press and the barbell, or sorry, the barbell squat and the barbell deadlift ultimately as kind of like,

Hey, once I'm able to do these again, pain-free, I am at a new threshold. And so I regressed from squatting heavily with a barbell and doing deadlifts with a barbell to doing single leg Romanian deadlifts, goblet squats, and lunge variations. And once those became tolerable and the disc was tolerant of those movements, I slowly progressed them up until I had a bar on my back and I was picking a bar up from the floor. And those movements actually became a part of rebuilding the resilience, rebuilding the tissue tolerance. But it all starts with making the decision at the very beginning, at the very beginning of like, okay, I've identified there's pain here to pull, probably pull those movements out and begin again from kind of the introductory point and starting over and starting from scratch and rebuilding.

But as a general rule of thumb, to say that deadlifts are bad for the back, simply an incomplete thought. And it's got to be highly contextual. It's got to be individualized. Myth number three. This is the myth that creatine and protein are particularly bad or dangerous for your kidneys. Now, I think it's important to note that protein as well as creatine do have a particularly unique renal requirement, renal meaning the kidney, relative to things like dietary fat and dietary carbohydrate. We see this a lot with nitrogenous-based compounds. Protein is nitrogenous. It contains nitrogen. Creatine is made of amino acids. It contains nitrogen. There seems to be a particularly unique strain placed on the kidneys by substances that contain nitrogen. This does not mean, however, that they

are bad for your kidneys. There's even a pretty robust amount of literature that would lead us to believe that not only are high protein diets safe and not only is creatine supplementation safe for people with functional kidneys, that combining the two also is probably safe. And so, you know, parroting the ideology that creatine is bad for the kidneys could dissuade somebody from taking one of the most well-researched supplements that can help stave off sarcopenia, build muscle, increase performance, enhance recovery, and is clearly being shown in a bunch of emerging literature to be beneficial for the brain. As far as high-protein diets are concerned,

you certainly don't need to follow one, but if you're somebody who's body composition focused, you want to be leaner, you want to have more muscle, you don't want to suffer from a lot of the metabolic disease and metabolic illness that comes from being over fat and under muscled. Having a lot of protein in your diet might be a good idea. And again, dissuading people from that with misinformation, such as the notion that, hey, high protein intakes are going to damage your kidneys. It's simply untrue. Creatine is going to damage your kidneys. Simply untrue. What we need to do is parse out the fact that if you have pre-existing kidney or even liver dysfunction, high intakes of nitrogenous-based compounds could cause problems. This does not apply to people with functioning, healthy kidneys, functioning, healthy bodies. Those tend to be relatively resilient to high amounts of protein intake

and supplementing with creatine. The literature shows it. The anecdotal evidence shows it. Fear-mongering around these compounds, I think, has a net negative in a society where over 60% of people are overweight. We should be focusing on having better body composition. I understand that in 2022, it might be a hot take to say you probably should not walk around with the body composition of an infant. You probably should not walk around with no muscle and a ton of body fat, but it's the honest truth. I know that conventional media and a lot of what we've seen in the hyper glorification of accepting bodies of all size is a generally inclusive criterion

that might encourage more people to exercise. I'm not against saying like, hey, fitness doesn't have one look. But what I am saying here quite clearly, and I want to make it clear, is that having low amounts of muscle and having high amounts of body fat, regardless of your genetics, regardless of your socioeconomic status, things that are obviously going to influence the outcome here. But it's a recipe for disaster. You need to have some muscle. You shouldn't be over fat. And having a high protein intake is honestly very helpful in doing this. So I don't like dissuading people from eating protein with haphazard advice that it's bad for their kidneys in a world where I'm serious. 60 plus percent of Americans are overweight and damn near 50 percent are obese. We're just playing with fire there by not completing the thought and not having a really thoughtful kind of well thought out discussion.

discussion. Another myth. This is the myth that no pain equals no gain. Now, we have a ton of evidence and accumulated a ton of evidence that shows that you can train and withstand very hard training and that that's probably the best place to train to optimize your fitness results, especially if your goals are gaining strength and muscle. However, there's also a good amount of evidence that shows you do not need to train to failure. And there's also a ton of good evidence and anecdotal evidence to support the idea that training through an injury or training through pain could actually lead to greater problems, and it's probably better to adapt. And while I think that pain and discomfort can be a harbinger of an effective set, you know, if you're starting to feel the burn in the gym, that's probably a good idea. It is worth noting that you do not have to be in extreme amounts of pain, that you do not have to

train to failure, and that you do not have to suffer for a workout to be effective, especially if your goal is just general fitness. If you have higher aspirational goals, such as goals related to performance, body composition, maybe you want to compete in strength or even physique sports, you're going to have to have some uncomfortable training. This is just a fact, unless you are content with being mediocre. However, this does not mean that every exercise and every set and every session needs to be exhausting, painful, and damaging to your body. This seems to persist.

I think that a stimulating training effect can be had well short of failure, maybe one to four reps short of failure. I like to be around two to three. We program almost all of our clients to be around two to three, but it's important to note, again, that training to extreme failure or complete muscle failure all of the time might have a greater demand on your nervous system, could place you in a position where you do increase the risk of developing pain or dysfunction, and it doesn't necessarily equate to better gains. Seems to be that if you flirt with that failure point, it's probably just as likely to be very stimulative without so much downside. 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

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And this is one I actually got in a huge disagreement with when I was an undergrad with my exercise physiology professor, who quite frankly, I shouldn't pull, I should pull more punches, but the guy was an absolute asshole. Like I literally hated the guy, did not treat me well, did not treat me with a whole lot of respect. You know, one of those situations where when I was going through undergrad, I was like, why am I paying? Why am I paying for this this level of uh, Mediocre education i've learned so much in being a personal trainer From mentors and from other trainers and from textbooks and from podcasts

About the topic of exercise physiology that I do think it's relatively disappointing that you know a education I paid thousands of dollars for, granted at a state school, so it wasn't a huge amount of money, was probably the singular worst way in which I was absorbing exercise physiology information, like bad teacher, bad curriculum, bad coursework. I've learned so much more. But I specifically remember having a discussion about rep ranges, and the guy was adamant, adamant about the notion that the hypertrophy rep range was eight to 12 repetitions. And I was taught the very same thing through the National Academy of Sports Medicine when I got

certified in personal training in 2013. But what I ended up finding out through years of kind of anecdotal evidence and just listening to bodybuilders, listening to people who specialize in gaining muscle, working with thousands of clients, was that clearly a stimulative set done with five to six reps or with 15 to 20 reps can actually elicit a substantial amount of hypertrophy, especially if we're training hard. And like I mentioned in the previous point, maybe one to two reps short of failure. And so we were divvying up class projects and I was asked to write about these rep ranges. And I had an extremely hard time pulling any research that supported a kind of irrefutable eight to 12 rep range as being optimal. And I shared this with him and he was in disbelief. There was no room for discussion. It was a non-starter

that multiple different rep ranges could be stimulative. And now we know this to absolutely be true. And there's a good amount of evidence being done. There's a good amount of evidence that's been generated more recently to support this idea. And this is why for all of the clients that we work with, we are programming across multiple rep ranges and trying to select rep ranges that actually go well with certain exercises. So if you know that a five rep set can be great for strength, let's focus on selecting exercises that generate really functional whole body multi-joint strength. So let's do squats, deadlifts, lunges, presses, pulls as our strength work.

Now, if we know that eight to 12 repetitions is great for mechanical tension, progressively overloading, you know, we can allocate those eight to 12 repetition range sets to machine work, dumbbell work, a variety of different unilateral movements. And if we know we get a unique metabolic effect from 15 to 30 repetition sets or even time-based sets, but we know that the complexity of movements like deadlifts or the stability requirement of movements like dumbbells make those high volume repetitious sets potentially a little bit less easy to control and to target, let's use machines, let's use isolation exercises, let's use cables, and let's play with

all of these rep ranges so that we can have a concurrent effect of developing strength, maintaining mobility, accessing those metabolic pathways that can drive hypertrophy. You know, you can do this aphasic approach where you're like, we're, we're focusing on a neurological demand or strength demand in this block. And then we're going to focus on a metabolic tension or, sorry, a mechanical tension, traditional, you know, progressive 8 to 12 rep range block. Then we're going to have a more metabolite high rep focus block. Or you can have training blocks that are pretty consistent and incorporate all three of those features. Maybe you work with that neurological heavy stuff first, then you move into that mechanical tension based work. And then when you're most fatigued,

heavy stuff first, then you move into that mechanical tension-based work. And then when you're most fatigued, especially from a central nervous system perspective, you go into a higher repetition isolation work structure that accesses those 15 to 20 repetition range sets with isolation movements and machines. That can be so, so effective. But if you are pigeonholed into the notion that if I'm doing any less than eight or any more than 12 reps, I'm somehow magically not building any muscle, you are going to lose out on some gains. Okay. The next myth is the myth of genetically weak muscle groups. And I don't say this to shit or poo-poo on the notion that certain people have better genetics for certain muscle groups. In fact, this isn't a myth at all. There's no denying that there is a genetic predisposition for developing certain muscles. A good example of this, my girlfriend's sister and niece love watching

Dancing with the Stars. And so I was over there about a month ago and it came on after Monday Night Football and Arnold Schwarzenegger's son was on the show. And it was very apparent from the way the man was built all the way to the actual structure and insertions of his muscle groups that this is Arnold Schwarzenegger's son. It's like, okay, dude's got the same chest, same arms, same broad shoulders. Like, wow, there's obviously a genetic predisposition to look great when Arnold Schwarzenegger's your dad. Duh. But those genetically weak muscle groups that oftentimes might be handed down like, oh, I got shit calves. Oh, I got this and that.

A lot of times what people chalk up to bad genetic is just bad training structure. Like, yeah, do your calves suck because you have genetically small calves or do they suck because you train them at the end of every session? Do your arms suck because you have genetically small arms or are they small because you train them at the end of every session? Do your arms suck because you have genetically small arms or are they small because you train them at the end of every session? It's very important that you make a concerted effort to practice what is known as the priority principle in certain amount of your energy. You need to allocate a certain amount of your intensity, and you need to prioritize certain muscle groups to optimize for growth. And if you are always positioning these genetically weak muscle groups at the very end of your training sessions, when you're already tired, you're already fatigued, and you've already allocated a tremendous amount of your training resources to other muscle groups, especially, and this happens a lot, muscle

groups that are already developed because you want to train the stuff you're good at because it fluffs the ego. I have a really strong chest, so I start every push day with chest press, but I have genetically shitty shoulders. So it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. If your shoulders are genetically inferior and you'd like to develop them and your chest is genetically superior, and it's already quite well developed, train your shoulders first. When you're the freshest, you can apply the most intensity. You can have the proximity to failure earlier on in the session and really damage the tissue that you most want to ultimately grow and develop. Same thing can be said for movement quality. Same thing can be said for strength work.

Same thing can be said for mobility. Prioritize, prioritize, prioritize what needs the most work. Do it when you're the freshest. Do it when you have the most time. Don't throw it in at the end. That's always a bad idea. Okay, obviously we couldn't have a myth-busting list if we didn't talk about spot targeting, which of course is the notion that you can burn fat in a selected area by training the muscles

in that area. And again, there's just not a ton of literature to support this. And more specifically, I don't think there's even enough anecdotal evidence. With things like compression-based things like, okay, waist trainers, I'm going to wear this around my waist to warm the tissue and probably enhance fat loss in the area. We do not see that happen very often. If anything, it's just local water loss, right? I'm going to do a million sit-ups and I'm going to try to burn the fat off my gut. We do not see this. What we do tend to see in human beings is when they lose body fat, they lose it from the areas they have the highest predisposition to store it first. And there's probably some resistant areas as well. I'll use myself as an example. I have a very, you know, I guess this is a good predisposition,

the way that many people think of bodies and what they tend to look for in bodies. I have the predisposition to store a lot of body fat in my glutes and my face. So when I lose weight, I see that my glutes and my face change pretty quickly. Now, my abdominal region does not have nearly as genetic of a predisposition to accumulate fat in the midsection. I just don't accumulate a lot of body fat in the midsection, even at higher body fats for me. Now, that might change with stress, that might change with age, but what I'm typically used to seeing is that I store body fat in my face and my glutes, and that's where I lose it first. I store a body fat in my midsection on a semi-rare basis. I have to get to a high body fat level, but when I'm getting really, really, really lean,

it does take a little bit longer for some of that low back and midsection fat to come off. And those are often, for many people, some of the more resistant areas where body fat tends to just accumulate. So the notion that you can spot target is kind of half baked. Uh, we don't see it a lot in the literature. A lot of the anecdote around it is misplaced specifically when it comes to wearables and compression garments that, that enhance fluid loss in an area. And it's just not something I would lean into. Another myth, which is, again, it's persistent. It's

the myth that cardio kills your gains. Now, doing too much cardiovascular exercise, particularly low intensity exercise that might require a lot of type one slow twitch muscle fiber recruitment and might require a level of aerobic running economy that would shift your body's predisposition for heavy developed muscle mass kind of in the quote unquote off position. You know, those kinds of running volumes, that kind of aerobic volume does exist. You can certainly look at people who do marathons, ultra marathons, cycling. They just have a very hard time maintaining large voluptuous muscle mass because there probably is some type of fiber orientation switch from slow or from fast twitch type

2, type 2X, the stuff that's bigger, larger, and more muscular to that slow twitch stuff. But that's not happening for people in the gym who are doing a little bit of cardio and are petrified of losing their gains. I think a little bit of cardio can be beneficial because it's good for your mitochondria. It's good for your aerobic health. It helps with nutrient partitioning. It helps with heart health, vascular health. That level of conditioning can lead to better workout quality, better set to set endurance, better set to set performance. And you have to do an awful lot of cardio to kill your gains. Look at most athletes who compete in professional sports. They you have to do an awful lot of cardio to kill your gains. Look at most

athletes who compete in professional sports. They're able to maintain their muscle despite having a relatively high aerobic demand in practice and in sport. So again, I think the myth that cardio kills the gains is one that we've got to kick to the curb. Now, here's one that I think is mildly controversial. It's the notion that artificial sweeteners are somehow worse for you than sugar. And I'm not saying that artificial sweeteners are innocuous, meaning I don't think that they're entirely harm free. I think if you slam back a ton of the wrong artificial sweeteners very consistently, it could be potentially damaging to your microbiome.

We're beginning to understand more about how these substances interact with our gut, and our gut is just so important. We're learning more and more about how important the right microbiome makeup, having a microbiome that's comprised of the right bacteria and microorganisms is for our health. compounds that are high in sugar, high in refined grains, maybe artificial sweeteners. It can augment what's in there. It can disrupt the naturally occurring kind of healthier profile of the right bacteria. In the same way that eating a lot of resistant starch, a lot of prebiotic fiber, and having probiotics can help promote the right bacterial climate. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is the notion that occasional artificial sweetener intake is better than chronic sugar intake. I think that that's pretty half-baked. We know that there's a daily as well as like a kind of weekly as well as kind of like a cumulative amount of sugar intake that could be deleterious to your health, especially

the health of something like your pancreas. When it comes to things like body fat reduction, sugar often gets a bad rap because ultimately that does come down to calories. But high sugar intakes can be damaging, especially if they're chronically high sugar intakes. You're not going to find a whole lot of studies that show a lot of elevated markers of good health associated with high sugar intakes. So while I'm not saying go out and slam all the artificial sweeteners you want, I'm saying think about this contextually, that occasional artificial sweeteners are probably better than chronic sugar intake. And if you want to mix and match, like, oh, I have a soda a couple of times a week, you know, I might go so far as to say that, hey,

the diet soda is probably going to be better just because, again, you're saving 200 calories off of a traditional soda and like 40 to 50 grams of sugar. And one diet soda might not be at a dose dependent response that would cause microbiome disruption. So the last one, and this is a very pervasive one, and I always feel the need to touch on it, is the notion that lifting heavy will create a masculine look within female trainees, which is to say that lifting heavy makes women bulky. We generally don't see this. A lot of the bulky qualities of muscle growth that we think of when we think of masculinizing effects from resistance training, such as larger traps, larger deltoids, big upper backs, those are driven by androgen receptors in men, which are more densely packed in the neck and shoulder areas due to the obvious genetic

differences between males and females. Males have more androgen receptors than women in most instances, and they are kind of accumulated in that neck and shoulder area. So those muscles develop very quickly with resistance training as it has an effect at elevating testosterone. And obviously, things like anabolic steroids enhance the muscularity of those regions because when you inject androgens, where do you think they're going to bind? Obviously, to the androgen receptors, which are more densely in that neck and shoulder area, which is why so many men who claim to be natural but have a wildly disproportionate amount of development in their traps and deltoids

always raise a red flag for me. But with women, the notion that lifting heavy has a masculinizing effect, we just don't see it. Again, muscle growth is a slow process, even for men. Not so much for men who are enhanced or women who are enhanced with anabolics, but it is a slow process that you can pump the brakes on. So nothing to be afraid of. Building muscle is usually going to be a great idea for your health for almost every instance I can think of. And if you are afraid of turning into a man or your physique becoming manly because you gain some muscle, I think you're severely misguided. So that's one that I always like to hit on. All right, guys, that does it for this episode of Mythbusting with the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. I want to thank you all so much for tuning in. Remind you to leave a written and five-star

review on Apple Podcasts, leave a five-star rating on Spotify, and share this podcast. The best way to help it grow is by word of mouth. Share it with somebody you know who maybe believe some of these myths or who you think would save a lot of time and energy by hearing the truth earlier on in their fitness journey. Thanks so much for listening and I'll catch you on the next one.