Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 265 - Q & A: Q and A: The *perfect* 4x/week routine, carb cycling, fat-loss for petite women, how to train around back pain, going from a bulk to a cut + more!

Episode Date: February 23, 2023

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Hey, everybody, what is going on? Welcome in to episode 265 of the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. This is a Q&A episode. And in this episode, we'll be discussing how to construct an optimal training routine for health, performance, muscle growth growth if you only have four days to train. What is carb cycling? What is that all about? Fat loss for smaller individuals and considerations one might need to make if they are below average height and weight. How to train around back pain, what to look for, what to look out for, and tools and tricks I've used as a trainer to help my clients when they've got back pain still find ways to train progressively, how to transition from bulking to cutting, and a whole lot more. So this will be episode 265, which is crazy. I can't believe we made it to 250 and beyond. And I couldn't have done that without the help of

you guys listening. So I want to say thank you first and foremost to each and every one of you, but also to my team, specifically my audio video guy, Christian. He is the absolute best in the biz. He helps me a ton with the podcast, helps me a ton with my video content, my photo content, just somebody who's been with me kind of from the very beginning. And he's really the man and he's really helped me out a ton. So big thanks to him. And if you want somebody to help you out with your content, whether that be video editing, audio editing, outsourcing, any of that, you can actually send me an email and I'll connect you guys. So I'm excited for the episode today. Lots of great questions. Thanks again for listening and subscribing. Brief message from our partners coming up and then we'll get into it. This episode is brought to you in special part

thanks to our awesome partners over at Ice Barrel. If you're like me, you want to get the absolute most you can out of your fitness and out of what it is that you're doing in life. I like to make sure that I'm recovering well and prepped for hard workouts. I like to make sure that my cognition is sharp and I like to make sure that I'm doing what I can to maintain my long-term health. And cold water immersion is a phenomenal tool I use and have used for a while to help me do this. Cold water immersion or taking ice baths is a great way to improve your recovery and performance. Just a few short sessions a week can really make a difference in how you recover. It can increase and improve your heart rate variability. It can enhance performance. It improves mood and

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And again, if you want to improve your cognition and performance, and you have those midday lulls, or you want to be more present for your family or for your friends when you get off of work, and you don't want to caffeinate, temperature modulation like ice baths or cold exposure or sauna heat exposure can be really valuable for increasing that subjective sense of well-being and bringing you back to a place of alertness and a really chaotic world. It's also great for just cultivating resilience. I find I'm much tougher. Again, this is a more anecdotal thing, but I find that I am much tougher, ready to face the day's tasks when I am consistently exposing myself to the elements. Call it bromeopathy, call it anecdote, but I will tell you one thing is for sure,

cold water immersion has made a huge difference for my health and wellbeing in just a few short sessions a week. And Ice Barrel is the sleekest, best looking, cleanest, and most affordable way to do it reliably. You can head over to icebarrel.com slash Danny to take advantage of their 100% satisfaction guaranteed with again, a 30 day money back guarantee and save 125 bucks on your ice barrel using the promo code Danny. So again, icebarrel.com slash Danny and check out using the promo code Danny to save 125 bucks. All right, guys. So getting into our first question here, and this question is from monosouls28. And the question is, I'm only able to train four days in a row.

So I'm assuming that means in a given week, a seven day period, this person can only train like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. How should I adjust workout weights slash intensity? workout, weights, slash intensity. So the question here really is, if I'm training four days in a row, what the heck should I do to make sure that I can get through that? Because for many people, if we're being completely honest, especially for people who are new to exercise, many of you are initiated, you're fitness enthusiasts, you go to the gym, you rock the merchandise, you have the bottles, you have the supplements, you know who you are. You aren't one of these people who's relatively new to this or looking to start a routine. And this is probably somebody who's like, I want to get the most out of my situation. If I had to guess based on the

clients that we work with, this might be somebody who works in like nursing or maybe some kind of first responder based job could be paramedic, could be firefighter. A lot of these individuals have consecutive days in a row of extremely grueling work or offsite work where they're not able to train. So they're like on a three on, four off thing. This might be somebody who's like, look, I want this so bad that every single day I'm off, I'm going to work out. And I would encourage that as a coach, even though quite frankly, training four days in a row is damn hard, especially for newbies. Because in the same way that when you begin exercising, you damage your muscles, they respond by growing, you get stronger, it generally slows down over time, and you're developing the

skill of weightlifting, the skill of training. If you're an endurance athlete, we're talking about running. If you're somebody who's in the business space and you're looking to expand and grow your business, you can see spurts of rapid growth and then stagnation. And for newbies, in the same way that you develop that skill, you're also developing these recovery pathways. But you don't start super strong, you don't start super jacked, and you don't start super capable of recovering well. Your body gets better at recovering over time as it develops the kind of unique ability to repair itself more rapidly from intense training. It's quite remarkable. I'm sure many of the enthusiasts listening can think back to when they very first

began training, way back when, and you remember the first time you couldn't walk after a leg day. remember the first time you couldn't walk after a leg day. And if you have not had that, you probably have not trained very hard. And I'm not saying like physically incapable of walking. I'm saying you probably have had days where you were like, oh my goodness, I have a debilitating level of soreness. So this person would probably be best off avoiding that kind of outcome. So how do you train effectively if you can only train four days in a row? So I would pursue an upper-lower split. And this is how we have things set up for both of our at-base programs. Through my company Core Coaching Method, we've got Elite Physique, our women's bodybuilding focus program. And then we have Elite, our home heroes, our home focus dumbbells bands bodyweight program. And both of those follow either an upper lower

or a kind of hemispherical slash front to back split. So we're training either the front half of the body one day, the back half the next day, or the top half of the body one day, the bottom half the next day. And both of those kind of are built off of four challenging days of training. And in fact, the way they're set up in the calendar, you can adjust the calendar to fit your schedule. You have four to five sessions a week to get through. You can kind of choose, you can space them out. But the way they're set up just for ease isn't a four day in a row rotation. And so if you have to do that, it's really smart to train the lower body first on the kind of introductory day, the first day, because that's likely going to be what I would describe as your most challenging physical session would be the first lower body day. So consider that to be

kind of your opportunity to really get in there and crush. And then I would actually follow that up with your easiest upper body session. And that's how I've structured things in both these programs. So oftentimes it'll go lower body, hardcore, heavy, challenging session, followed by a back and shoulders focused upper body day, or even a push focused upper body day, biasing these particular patterns and movements where the central nervous system doesn't necessarily have to come to the party the way it does for a vicious leg day. And so we go hardest lower session, easiest upper session, followed by challenging but not as hard lower body session, ending the week with the harder of the two upper body sessions as you then head into getting three consecutive days to recover.

So hardest legs, easiest upper, moderate legs, moderate upper. That is how I like to structure for men, for women, for whoever has to train four days in a row, but is really adamant about getting four sessions in. I think you could probably swing a total body strength session followed by a full day off, followed by an upper body hypertrophy session and a lower body hypertrophy session and get 80 to 90% of the same effect if you wanted to not have to train four days or if you could not recover from four days of consistent training. So what that would look like for me, for a client would be, okay, on your first session, we're going to train heavily to develop and cultivate strength using three to five sets of three to five reps, focusing on 80 plus percent

of your one rep max. If you're new, we'll focus on moving weights with good technique and execution. We'll do only compound lifts and we will focus on lifts with good strength standards that are easy to progress and track. These could be things like deadlifting, squatting, and I should mention there are different forms of deadlifting and squatting that would be fine proxies. So if you don't want to do a barbell deadlift, a hex bar, a sumo deadlift are fine replacements. Even a kettlebell deadlift as a regressed form for somebody who's new. Squats, you could use leg presses, safety bar squats, goblet squats, any of the lunge variations, but something that challenges knee and hip extension concentrically, consistently. So you got to do those. Then on the back of those, we want a hard push and a hard pull. So this could be body weight

pushups to failure, chin ups to failure. It could also be a heavy row, a heavy press, be it an overhead press or a bench press, but something that allows us to train a push, a pull, a squat, and a hinge heavily. So we would do that session and you could add some accessory or volume work, isolation work, some accessory or volume work, isolation work, aerobic work, mobility work, any of those kinds of, let's call them supplemental to strength work at the end of this workout. But we're just going to assume for this particular case that we're wanting to optimize for time. Because I find it's easier to communicate to you guys situations with the most constraints possible. And then you had the laxity if your routine or schedule is a little more practical. So after that heavy demanding

on the nervous system, mechanically tension based session, uh, we're going to take a day off followed by two sessions, a either upper or a lower slash a push or a pull, meaning a front or a back half, uh, hypertrophy session. So this might be, if we said push, it would be chest, shoulders, triceps, and then the pushing muscles of the lower body. So quads and the pulling muscles would be essentially on the posterior chain, rear delts, upper traps, lower traps, lats, glutes, hamstrings, calves. Um, so you could do that and that would be three total body sessions. But those back two sessions, the front back or the upper lower or the push

pull would mostly focus on accumulation of volume. So being able to do more reps, more work with the same or greater weight over time, Taking these sets very close to technical failure, feeling for a big pump and a sensation in the tissue that we're working, if possible, if you are eating enough food or training late enough in the day to get this effect. Many people can't get great pumps in the morning. That's why we love LMNT, the electrolytes for morning training, because it just helps you get a pump because you can just get hydrated faster and get water into your system. Cause that's kind of what a pump is. You should basically look and have more of a pump focused session than a pro can, can traditionally

progressive overload, um, strength session. So that's how I would train if I had to do four days a week. And I'd also say it's very possible that this could be a fantastic routine for you or anybody listening. We've had a number of clients follow routines like this over the years and it tends to work pretty damn well. I find four times a week training is the sweet spot for about 60% of the clients that we work with. Some do five and six, especially those that we're working with that are either competing in bodybuilding or have aspirations to compete in bodybuilding. For people who work with us that just want to be in great shape and feel really good and move really good and be in that top 10% physique. So if they walk into a room with 100

people, they're one of the 10 fittest people. They like the confidence that comes with that. Four days a week with a maintenance approach or a deficit to get fat loss off and a really intentional focus on sleep, high protein intake, and eating a lot of plants while being mindful of processed foods, that'll get you right there into that top 10%. And we work with people all the time. So assuming you can do four workouts a week and be mindful of those nutrition parameters, you can build a great healthy physique that has a body mass and body composition that should stave off metabolic disease and illness as you age, should keep you sharp. I think that that's a fantastic position to be in. And that's how I would attack it if I were in your position. Interesting and kind of fun question here from Va Otazo. Question is, I'm a five foot one restaurant critic. Okay,

so this is a five foot one female restaurant critic. I eat out five times a week, 2000 a meal. Should I increase training or fast for better fat loss results? Wow. So this is a fantastic question to unpack really unique situation to like a restaurant critic. So this is somebody whose job requires them to eat 10,000 additional calories a week spaced out across five, approximately 2000 calorie meals of foods that likely contain protein, but might not always contain protein and could very well be considered quote unquote unhealthy. Meaning most restaurant dishes are going to optimize for taste and flavor over something like health and the inclusion of ingredients that are health promoting and nutrient dense. It's mostly about flavor and being generous enough with portion sizes

that customers feel excited and anticipate eating at your spot. So, you know, this means that in all likelihood, as a five foot one female, that's a very, very petite female, anything below five twos, I think considered quite short, you're going to have a lower metabolic output and total daily energy expenditure than an average woman by virtue of just being shorter. So you'll probably be in terms of your total daily energy expenditure or what we trainers and fitness professionals call maintenance calories, meaning the number of calories that you would need to eat in a given day to maintain your weight. I'll use myself as a five foot nine and a half, 190 pound male who gets about 15 to 20,000 steps a day. I get generally between 2,900 and 3,300 calories per day and maintain that weight. So my maintenance is probably 31 to 3,100 calories, right? So if I were to then add in 2,000 calories five nights a week,

I'd start gaining weight pretty quickly. But I'd probably gain less weight than a 5'1 female because women have generally less testosterone and less, like, I'm going to guess this woman has less mobility throughout the day because mine tends to be higher than average. I'm going to guess this woman lifts less than I do because I lift more than average. So I would be giving myself the best opportunity possible to use those extra calories to grow muscle, but it's still going to be limited by my training age. Meaning I can't just gain muscle and perpetuity with an extra 2000 calories. Yeah. I'd totally be quote unquote bulking, right? I'd be in a bulk for sure. Cause I eat at maintenance and if I added

2000 calories a day, that's quite a bit. There's no shot and shit that I'm going to end up putting on nothing but muscle. In all likelihood, I'm going to gain a substantial amount of fat. I'm going to do what's called overshooting. I'm going to be sitting there with my thumb up my ass like, well, I bulked like a mofo, got huge. And when I cut down, I noticed I only gained like three pounds of muscle because I've been training for a long time. And now I haven't been training like a bodybuilder for a long time, but I've been training long enough that I'm not going to just massively bulk into a completely different human being who's all lean tissue. And we can probably assume the same for this person because what's likely happening here is they're eating their normal diet and then having a 2000 calorie dinner

and a maintenance that you would have to be fairly active at five foot one to have a maintenance of 2,000 calories. So just dinner alone is placing you into a substantial surplus. I would imagine, because the question is, should I exercise more or should I try fasting? I would imagine that it would be easier to do fasting. And this is an interesting recommendation because conventionally, I think fasting is pretty darn impractical and not really a great idea for the adherence to a fat loss diet because of the level of restriction. I've had clients who are quite successful with fasting. And I think it can be a very, very effective tool for creating the level of dietary adherence, sticking with it, that's required to actually lose fat.

And in this situation, knowing that five days a week, you're going to have a big, big dinner, I might try what is known as a protein sparing modified fast. 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 macro nutrition 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, we'll put you on a waiting list, but we'll be 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. So I'd wake up and for my first meal, I'd have protein and fruit. And for my second meal, I'd have protein and fruit. And then for my third or critique meal, hopefully that's your final meal, you have what you need to have to do your job. And the first two meals promote a feeling of satiation via protein inclusion and fiber inclusion. So fruit has fiber, okay? And protein is pretty filling. So combining the two will allow you to have a filling, relatively low calorie food that's

going to provide nutrients. It's going to provide an opportunity for you to maintain a recovery stimulus from your training. I'm assuming if you follow me, you're probably exercising or doing some kind of exercise or training because you're also asking, should I just train more? So I might play with a protein sparing modified fast before I try to do a ton of additional cardio. And the reason for this is simple. As a five foot one individual, you will also burn less calories exercising, which kind of sucks, but you'll have to exercise really fucking hard to offset that. And we've talked many times on the podcast before about the importance of acknowledging the limitations of exercise for fat loss.

We just have to be fair about the fact that it sounds crazy to say this as a trainer because it's almost like mildly blasphemous to in any capacity undersell what it is that exercise can do. And I think you guys know me pretty well at this point. As far as people go, I'd say I'm probably one of the, like in the fitness space, at least as far as I'm concerned, I'm probably one of the more positive and encouraging people when it comes to exercise and doing as much of it as possible. So don't hear what I'm not saying when I say this, but I think exercise gets way too much clout for enhancing fat loss directly and absolutely none of the right clout for how it enhances fat loss indirectly. Think about it like this. You're not burning a shit ton of calories when you

exercise. That's just the facts. You will never be able to exercise so intensely or most people will never exercise so intensely that they can burn off the shit they're inclined to eat. But one thing we can say for sure with a pretty high probability is that people who exercise regularly generally have a more regulated appetite. They generally sleep better. They generally have more muscle. They generally have better sensitivity to insulin and they have a better ability to control their blood sugar. All of these things in the longterm can help with maintaining a lean body mass a lot more than the two, three, 400 calories you're burning, working out. So don't think about exercise as this like incredible fat loss hack tool.

That's literally going in and burning fat. It's like leveling up your video game characters so that fat loss happens more easily in the background all the time when your diet is right. Exercise should be a part of your toolbox or in your toolbox for fat loss, but it should not be something that you think of as the fat loss driver. The fat loss driver is food. It's being in an energy deficit because the amount of food you have to eat in a hyper palatable environment to expose yourself to the kind of calorie level it would take to gain fat. You do have to eat a lot of fat or a lot of calories to gain a pound of fat, but there's, they're out there. There's no shortage of them, right? Absolutely no shortage of them. Everywhere you fucking turn, dude, you're going to see them.

You're going to see calories. So think about exercise differently. And I think you'll get a little more out of your relationship with it than if you just expect every hard workout to result in meaningful and measurable fat loss. That's just simply unfair and unreasonable. So try the protein sparing modified fast, VAT or OTAZO. Maybe the first name VAT, last name OTAZO. Maybe it's VATOZO. All right. This question, I like this one a lot too, is from Dodge City Gal. And the question is, how do I heal a back from losing form and deadlift, getting over worrying about doing it again? So back injury, deadlifting, and then trepidation and fear about potentially doing it again. So I'm not going to diagnose your back injury because I don't know what it is. And it could be a number of things. What I will say is what it's like most likely to

be, meaning like the outcomes that are probably the most likely given the quote unquote MOI or mechanism of injury aren't catastrophic. There are things that will allow you in most instances to regain the ability to deadlift quickly. I have seen and have had a number of injuries occur performing the barbell deadlift. Thankfully, and I am knocking on wood at my desk as we speak, I have had a remarkable low prevalence for client injury over the years. And this is as somebody who, while I'm pretty big on form with my clients, I'm not like one of those in your face, like, no, no, no, move your knee here. Do this. Oh, core tight, core tight, core tight, elbows down, elbows up, eyes down, eyes to the left, knee in, okay, activate your glute med. Like that shit is so performative and garbage.

And it gives the athlete way too much to think about and actually detracts from it. So I find that just kind of letting people figure out their training as they go, let the body self-organize and cueing them a reasonable amount is so much better than just throwing cues at people. But I have seen a number of injuries specifically on heavy hinging exercises specific to the low back. And a lot of times these resolve themselves in like four to 14 days with a good amount of movement, getting some extension in, continuing to train the upper body, not sitting too much. And that's all I'm going to say. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a physician. It could be something more serious that could require consulting with a physician, a physical therapist, something to

that effect. But what I have seen over the years, and what I generally believe to be true about the deadlift is that it is a very, very safe, very, very effective lift for developing strength when done properly. And so that should give you some peace of mind immediately. You got to think, okay, well, it is safe when you do it right. And I did have a bad rep, but I don't have to have bad reps. I probably lost form for a reason. So hopefully that helps you get over worrying about it again or getting hurt again. I'll give you another story, a personal one about an injury I had doing the deadlift. I had a pretty bad disc bulge that resulted from a pretty crap deadlift rep the day before getting on a six hour

flight to Hawaii. I then, like an idiot, wanted to deadlift front squat hella hard with my friends. And then I think maybe the second day of our trip, so I have this terrible back pain. I want to lift with my friends at the gym, so I go do two 20 fucking five front squats with this low back that hurts, put a belt on, keep my core tight. Obviously, this is six years ago. my core tight. Obviously this, this is six years ago. So I was in my, I was 21. I was very early. Hmm. Yeah. I would have been 21 on this trip with my boys. And so then I fucking end up hurting or like, I don't remember what I did. It might've been like a rib outage or something. It was in my mid spine and my thoracic spine. It felt like it was one of my erectors that just totally just like sprained or strained itself in the middle of this lift in this front squat.

Then we fucking went out snorkeling. This is the best part of the story. I get caught in this rip current essentially that's making it really hard to come back into the shore. So we're getting pushed out like 10 meters, swimming eight meters, and then getting pushed out again, another eight meters because of where we are oriented to the coastline. And I now know that there's a trick to get out of these particular currents with regards to how you swim, but none of us knew it. So we were swimming hella hard for like, it felt like way longer than this, but probably like 10 minutes. And my back is just absolutely wrecked while this is happening. I'm in like seven, eight out of 10 pain. I am grinding this out and I'm floating there. And as I'm floating there, I'm looking at my buddies and I'm like pretty convinced that if I have to ask one of them,

they'll at least give it a go. But these guys are not going to be able to help me. Like I'm, I'm as good as dead if I can't get back to this shore. Um, and so obviously we're recording the podcast. So I got back to the shore, which is very encouraging and lucky for me. And this is why you shouldn't go snorkeling without a life jacket. But those two back injuries or those two, let's call them back problems that flared up quickly took me almost 12 months to get over. And the way I got over them was by finding all of the things I could do that didn't result in pain, discomfort, immobility, stiffness, and doing more of those, scaling them up slowly. And so I couldn't deadlift or squat for a while. So I did light leg presses, and then I would work on just hinging a band or

hinging a dowel. And it was so humbling to have to rebuild, but it was through actually the reintroduction and inclusion of small, meaningfully scaled back, thoughtful exercises that I built this thing back up. So it was the things that hurt it that ended up helping me heal it. And if you can get back to doing that kind of pattern slowly and at a point and wait until, be careful to wait until your body tells you you're good to do this. So like try doing a dowel. And if your back says, fuck that, that hurts just to do a wooden dowel, then wait and try body weight. Wait for the pain to go away and always maintain a braced core. Be stable. Okay. Reintroduce load slowly. When you get that feedback, use positive and reinforcing language.

When you describe the injury to yourself and to other people, that's really important. Don't sell yourself short and be like, Oh, I have this weak bitch back. Like I can't do this. I can't do that. You need to be telling yourself, I I'm building a resilient back. I'm this weak bitch back. Like I can't do this. I can't do that. You need to be telling yourself, I'm building a resilient back. I'm building a strong back. These things can really, really help you get through an injury. All right. Super good question there. I love that one. This one comes from Lauren Donovan. And the question is, if I go from a bulk 2,500 calories, to maintenance, 2,100 calories, will I lose my glutes? So the question here is essentially this. Will my glutes or my butt get smaller if I go from being in a deficit, okay, or being in a bulk, I should say, being in a calorie surplus, eating more than I

need to, to eating the exact amount I need to maintain my body weight. So here's what's interesting. If you bulked long enough to build muscle and 2,100 calories was your old maintenance, your new maintenance might be a little higher, not a ton higher, but a little higher. might be a little higher, not a ton higher, but a little higher. So let's say you go from 25 to like 2150 or 2200. You will maintain the muscle almost assuredly. You might lose a little bit of fullness in the muscle, meaning hydration at the level of the muscle, usually from the reduction in carbohydrate intake. You might look a smidge flatter and less pumped at your absolute most pumped in the gym. The other thing you have to remember about the glute muscle, the glute muscle is essentially like it is in a situation that's quite unique. There is a large

amount of body fat deposited on top of the glute tissue, which tends to be rather ideal if you want the largest, most voluptuous gluteus you can acquire. Like you just grow the muscle underneath, it pushes the fat out. That's awesome, right? This sounds kind of weird, and I am a little bit surprised that nobody has ever asked this question, but you have to consider it's like mildly unfortunate, or it's, I should say it's mildly fortunate. If you think about the architecture of the muscles, and when I say this term architecture, you're probably like, what the hell are you talking about? But a muscle's architecture basically just means a muscle shape. So think

about the architecture of the abdominal muscles. They're long. And then think about the architecture of the glute muscles. They're round. When your round glutes grow out and hypertrophy out, they push the fat out and away from the glutes. That's what people want. They want glutes grow out and hypertrophy out, they push the fat out and away from the glutes. That's what people want. They want glutes that are out and voluptuous and in your face. Good job, human body. Think about the abs. They're kind of up and down. They also don't have as much depth. So when they hypertrophy, they don't distend as much. So if you had a big old gut and you developed your abs, wouldn't push your gut out very much. Interesting. I don't know. Kind of cool. You know, you could make the argument there that maybe the evolutionary capacity of the human being wanted to optimize for the display of

physical, let's call it physical characteristics that would promote sexual engagement. And, you know, a flatter stomach and a larger glutes might be something that would be more attractive to a mate. No idea. I think that's mildly interesting because also the glutes in the core work so reciprocally, but oftentimes these reciprocal tissues or, or muscles that move antithetically to one another, they look so damn different. Like your pecs and your rhomboids and lats, their architecture is so different. Your quads and hamstrings architecture is kind of similar. Biceps and triceps, things are super different. Who knows? Just something to think about. But yeah, I would say, yeah, this is a situation where if you're going to lose body

fat because you're dropping down slightly, that's probably like the place you might notice it the least because you have a good amount of it accumulated there anyway, just because that's how it goes. So I think you could expect to lose fullness, but I wouldn't expect to lose muscle. Okay. The last question comes from Alicia Marie 6556. And the question is, what is carb cycling? How do you carb cycle? And why do you carb cycle? It's actually what slash how slash why and do you carb cycle? And so the question here is threefold. So let's start with what carb cycling is the cyclical inclusion of carbohydrates on different days of your training

timeframe or dieting timeframe with the goal of creating a calorie deficit and getting creative with the availability of carbohydrate. So you might have low carbohydrate intake days or no even carbohydrate intake days, a couple of days a week on the days you don't train. You might have your highest carbohydrate intake days, a couple of days a week on the days you don't train. You might have your highest carbohydrate intake days, a couple of days a week on the days you train the hardest. And you might have some moderate carbohydrate days thrown in there on the days where your training is more average or you don't need as much to recover. And so that seems pretty darn simple. And quite frankly, it is pretty darn simple. It's about as simple as it sounds. Carb cycling can literally be like, oh, I have 200 carbs on my moderate training days. I have 300 carbs on my

hot, hard training days. I'm zero carbs on my non-training days or 100 carbs. The goal there is that you essentially have enough low carb days. If you're using this as a diet strategy, you have enough low carb days to warrant being in a overall net energy deficit. And so that is how it works for fat loss. It's not special for fat loss. It's just like, hey, you get the same amount of fats and proteins every day, but then overall, we're setting your carbs at maintenance. and then we're picking a couple days to go way below that target and a couple days to maybe go a little above so that it looks like you have some higher carb and some lower carb days. So psychologically, you know, a good day is coming around the corner on the heels of a day where you're like, man, I wish I

could have a little more carbs. It might be a good opportunity for compliance for some people who like that. For me, I'm not a huge fan of it. I think that having certain days with more fuel is pretty smart and certain days with less fuel is pretty smart. But I think more generally just having the same targets every day tends to work best. You can still optimize for having a lot of carbs in your diet if you like. Now, there might be some benefits for blood sugar regulation if you are somebody who's really responsive to carbohydrates and you're looking to kind of better sensitize yourself to them. Like you're just maybe struggling with your insulin sensitivity or you are, you know, somebody who's really responsive to carbohydrates in terms of overeating. And so having days where

their intake is lower could eliminate a binge opportunity and could also be positively affecting your blood sugar regulation, then sure, you know, it could be good for that. But again, I think that's getting a little too advanced. So guys, there you have it. Another episode. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you have not yet hit that subscribe button. It really helps a lot and it makes a huge difference for me growing this podcast. The best way to grow it is via word of mouth and simply sharing it. So if you haven't yet, toss it up on your IG story, send this episode to a friend who has these questions. I want to help as many people develop, cultivate their best body ever. I was actually just talking to my girlfriend about this. She said, what are your big goals for 2023? And I said, I want to

grow this podcast. I want this to be a huge health and fitness, personal growth, productivity enhancing podcast. I want this to be a place that people stop for inspiration and to grow and develop starting with their health, but expanding out and beyond that into their relationships, into their career, into their connection to whom they are. I think that stuff's going to be so important for me as I develop as a person and as a communicator and somebody who takes great pride in wanting to motivate and inspire others in the way that I've been motivated and inspired by the people who have come before me and paved the way for me. So you guys help me a ton when you help me grow the pod. And I want to thank those of you who have not, or who have done this with reviews and with shares and with sending it to friends

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