Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 267 - Q & A: My daily supplements, cold plunging and muscle growth, how to stick with it + more

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome in everybody to another episode of the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. As always, I'm your host, Danny Matranga. And in this episode today, I'm going to be answering your questions. We're talking specifically about supplements, the supplements that I take, my daily supplement stack, what I recommend, when I take it, and why I take it, and how that could help you with your health, fitness, performance, cognition, etc. We're going to talk about hot and cold therapies, again, specifically my protocols, how I use sauna and cold water immersion to enhance recovery and not detract from my gains. We're going to talk quite a bit about starting and stopping fitness routines, how to get through that. We got a great question on that. And we're going to talk about training to optimally grow specific tissue, how you might develop muscle in the fastest way possible if you have a suboptimal training situation like training fasted or maybe training while trying to

Starting point is 00:01:02 lose body fat. So lots of fun stuff coming up on the episode today. Can't wait to share that with you. This episode of the podcast is brought to you in proud part thanks to our partners Seed. Seed makes the best symbiotic on the market. A symbiotic is a prebiotic and a probiotic. It's not just a supplement or a pill loaded with random bacterial strains that may or may not be clinically proven to work in humans. And it's not just fiber. Seed is a symbiotic capsule that contains a unique pomegranate husk prebiotic fiber that feeds the clinically proven to work in human microorganisms inside the capsule. It's pretty amazing. Actually, it's this unique emerald green capsule. It's pretty amazing, actually. It's this unique

Starting point is 00:01:45 emerald green capsule that looks like a rare gemstone. I love taking my seed every morning because it just looks so damn cool. But the other thing that's amazing about seed is it's delivered on a basis that allows for all of the microorganisms to be alive, meaning they're active fluorescent units. So when you look at them, you see, oh my gosh, these microorganisms, these probiotics are actually still alive by the time I ingest them. So I can get the most benefit possible from my probiotic supplement. And again, seed uses the most clinically proven to work strains, clinically proven to work in humans. For example, seed has 3.3 billion AFUs of dermatological health-promoting probiotics. That means 3.3 billion microorganisms who have been shown in the research to clinically enhance

Starting point is 00:02:35 the health of your dermatological microbiome, your skin, not just your gut. 5.25 billion for cardiovascular health. 8.05 billion for micronutrient synthesis and nutrient absorption. And of course, 37 billion AFUs from specimens shown to improve digestive health, gut immunity, and gut barrier integrity. Seed is amazing. And in addition to being so evidence based, it's also vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, nut-free, shellfish-free, sesame-free, glyphosate-free, corn-free, and does not use binders, preservatives, and is compliant with Prop 66. So that is one hell of a product that you can get shipped directly to you. They even have a brand new PDS-08 formula. This is their new pediatric symbiotic formula that is specific for children and teens with no observed side

Starting point is 00:03:26 effects of GI distress. It's engineered to survive digestion, even in your kiddo's stomach, and it contains five grams of prebiotic fiber per serving. So an awesome thing you can work in there for your kids. When you go to seed.com, listeners today are going to save 15% off their subscription by checking out with the code Danny15. This is the only probiotic supplement I would consider taking. And if you're interested in improving the health of your gut, skin, and overall wellbeing, I'd look into seed as well. Okay. So my first question comes from a underscore Farias 91. And the question is, what daily supplements do you take? And so the caveat here of daily is important because I think it's worth talking about supplements more generally and why many of the supplements that I take, I don't take daily, but I do have a kind of a roster

Starting point is 00:04:23 that I do. But before we talk about what I take daily, let's talk about supplements more generally and the whole 24 hour timeframe upon which supplementation kind of fictitiously exists. So one of the things that really clicked for me in a undergraduate college nutrition class I took was a point made by one of my professors, Buelent Sokman. Him and I butted heads quite a bit, but I remember this point specifically, I should say Dr. Buelent Sokman. One of the points he made was that when you're ingesting a specific nutrient relative to the RDI, right? So like say it's vitamin C and you know that vitamin C has an RDI, I'll use something arbitrary, let's say of

Starting point is 00:05:13 200 milligrams daily. If you have 200 milligrams of vitamin C at 12.01 AM, So 12.01 in the morning, right? The first minute of the day. And you get to 12 PM the following day. So you've made it a full 24 hours. Have you run entirely out of vitamin C? I remember that question being posed in class. And the truth is the rates at which we use and assimilate different nutrients, whether they be vitamins, minerals, polyphenols, ergogenic aids, many of the things that we supplement with, the rate at which we metabolize them isn't always 24 hours. And it doesn't mean like that you can have seven days worth of vitamin C on Monday and not have any more vitamin C the rest of the week. Instead, what it means, if you have exposure to certain nutrients, you might not need to have a full RDI every single day. You might have more

Starting point is 00:06:18 one day and less the next, and it's totally okay. And if you're going to take supplements, some of them should be taken daily to optimize the full effect. But the idea of like missing one day being catastrophic, that's not the case. I think this generally tends to be more true for pharmaceuticals where missing a dose could have a more serious consequence. But there's a lot of people who DM me like panicking about having missed a day of creatine supplementation. Like, Danny, I missed taking creatine for the day. Should I take twice as much the next day? And it's like, I don't think so. And I wouldn't recommend that for a vitamin either. So,

Starting point is 00:06:54 you know, I think daily supplementation and daily supplementation protocols make sense, but there are certain supplements, I'll use multivitamins as an example, that I be sure to take regularly. I make sure to take regularly, I should say, but I don't always take them daily and I don't beat myself up because if I get two, let's say I have a full RDI dose in a multivitamin versus an RDI, like something that's three, if I take a vitamin that's like three to four times the RDI dose, like many of them are meaning it's yielding three to four times the daily recommendation. I'm not going to sweat if I didn't supplement with that vitamin the next day, because I eat a very nutrient dense diet. Okay. So, uh, let's talk about the stuff that I do take daily that I have a reason for taking daily. I definitely take a

Starting point is 00:07:46 multivitamin that is more sporadic. That's something that's spread out that I take on an as-needed basis. I take melatonin on an as-needed basis, especially with lots of travel, right? Those are supplements that I don't take daily. What I do take daily, and I'll work through this from a a.m. to p.m PM timeframe. So hopefully it makes some sense to you. Immediately, first thing in the morning, before I train, immediately upon waking, meaning this is basically the first thing that hits my stomach each and every morning. I have my seed symbiotic. This is a probiotic that I quite enjoy that I think is really, really high quality. Somebody asked me the other day on Instagram, is seed worth the price? Because

Starting point is 00:08:31 as far as supplements go, I think probiotics are premium. It's certainly not something I think everybody needs to take. I'd start with getting your diet right first. And as the individual probiotics go, it's one of the more expensive ones. And I said, yeah, to me, it's totally worth it because they actually use strains shown to work in humans. And then they include those strains in the dosages that were shown to be effective in those trials. So that to me is really important. So I start with a probiotic and symbiotic. And I do this because I think it makes a big difference for my gut health. Not necessarily like when I stop taking it, like, oh, my gut goes to shit. In fact, not at all. I generally have good gut health, knock on wood. But I think of it as an insurance policy for a very important part of my body, specifically my gut, in the same way that you'll hear about some of

Starting point is 00:09:20 the supplements that I take for the health of my brain. While I do love to build muscle and stay fit and athletic, I take a lot of what I take for my general and long-term health. So we start with a seed probiotic, and then we wash that down with one half of an element recharge packet. Element T is my favorite. You can call it element. You can call it element T. My favorite electrolyte. It is absolutely fantastic. I loved raspberry. It's so funny how this works. I loved citrus when citrus came out. It's my favorite flavor by far. Then raspberry took the top spot and now orange is taking the top spot. So it's funny how I've cycled through a number of flavors. I love these three specifically, which one's my favorite seems to jump around a lot,

Starting point is 00:10:05 but I start the day with electrolytes to help me get hydrated and a symbiotic probiotic supplement to help my gut health, skin health, et cetera. And the reason I start with those in the morning is there are specific directives for getting that probiotic in on that schedule. And then as far as the electrolyte, I train fasted every morning. And we're going to talk a little bit more about fasted training and how you can optimize around that later in the show. But I like to have my cognition tip top when I get to work and I get to the studio because I've got trainers there. I've got physical therapists there. I have clients there. Obviously, you guys know that I have the podcast. I have the online business. I have the

Starting point is 00:10:43 social media presence, and I love doing all of those things. But I also love being in the studio and working with people each and every day on their health and fitness and seeing what the trainers in my studio are doing with their clients. It keeps me really tapped in and helps me make content that I think feels a lot more authentic, helpful, and real in the fitness, personal development, health, wellness space, because I'm seeing this every day. And I want to be energized for my training, but I also need to be energized for being at the studio anywhere from four to 10 hours on any given day. So if I wake up and just slam caffeine or coffee or like pre-workout right away, I get lethargic and really start to

Starting point is 00:11:27 feel a dip in my energy on the back half of the day. So instead what I do is I have a big, big, big glass of water. I'm talking about 32 ounces of water with a half a pack of LMNT. And I sip on that around four, four 30 in the morning while I am preparing for my gym session. On my way out of the door, I take one to two scoops of Legion's Pulse Stem Free. This is the caffeine-free version, and I go train. If I train legs, this would be around 4.50, so I've been up for about 40 minutes. I will have one scoop of pulse with caffeine. Okay. So those are supplements that I take almost daily. Now, do I take the pre-workout daily? No, I don't because I don't train every day. And I think that's an important caveat. So daily,

Starting point is 00:12:18 we have probiotic and electrolyte in the morning, fasted essentially the first thing I have. probiotic and electrolyte in the morning, fasted essentially the first thing I have. Now, not every single day, but about five days a week, I take Legion's stimulant-free pre-workout. Big ingredients there are betaine, beta-alanine, and L-citrulline, and a little bit of alpha-GPC for cognition and focus, and then I'm off to the gym. And so most mornings, that's what we're starting with. With my first meal of the day, meaning when I have food, I make a point to supplement with vitamin D3, 5,000 I use a day. It seems to me that despite living in California, when I do my regular lab panels, I am a little bit deficient in vitamin D. This seems to be something that shows up quite a bit despite being relatively tan and getting a good amount of sun and knowing all of the things a vitamin D does in the human body. It's not a vitamin

Starting point is 00:13:17 slash hormone I want to be particularly deficient in. Now, I don't know at all if this is true. I am speaking purely hyperbolically, but I have heard that vitamin D is like a blast of sunlight hitting your system. I have heard this. So I try to take it in the morning hours. Does this mean you can't take vitamin D at night? I honestly don't know. But what I will say is I've been taking it in the mid morning slash early afternoon for quite some time. And I really like that. I will also include regularly, but not daily ashwagandha, which is an Ayurvedic herb that can help with stress management. I quite like that. And magnesium, but that is also in my LMNT, and that's something that I do take later on in the day. If I have a

Starting point is 00:14:14 really intense session that day, training-wise, I might take a capsule of magnesium in the evening and in the morning, but usually it's just going to be reserved for the evening. So those are the early day hours. Now let's talk about mid day. This is usually when I take my creatine monohydrate. I'm big on creatine monohydrate. I get mine from Legion's recharge, which is a premium creatine supplement. It contains creatine monohydrate. Okay. Which is what you want. You want about five grams. You can take that recharge from Legion. If you want which is a premium creatine supplement. It contains creatine monohydrate, which is what you want. You want about five grams. You can take that recharge from Legion if you want premium. I love the strawberry kiwi. I love the grape. If you want to go online and just buy creatine

Starting point is 00:14:53 monohydrate, you want to buy it from a reputable producer. You can buy it in pills. You can buy it in capsules, but I like to have about five grams a day, usually around 11 to 12. This often is what I'm sipping on while I'm eating this first meal. But I like to get creatine in because I think it helps with my acute cognition. I'm really, really interested in the ways in which it might help with brain health. And it's definitely the best performance enhancing supplements you can take that is natural, non-hormonal. Remember, creatine is an amino acid derivative. It comes from arginine, glycine, and methionine. You make it in your own body. So I take five grams of creatine every single day. So a scoop of Legion's

Starting point is 00:15:39 Recharge every single day. That's really big for me. Another supplement that I take almost every single day, but not every day, but almost every single day is a whey protein powder. Okay. I love Legion's whey plus it's a whey protein isolate digest super easy. And I'm somebody who can't eat certain milks and cheeses because of my sensitivity to lactose, but I can easily handle two scoops, 45 grams of pure whey protein isolate from Legion. I love that. Helps me hit my daily protein. Now, if I'm in Hawaii, which I was last week, and I eat two pounds of poke, ahi tuna poke in a day, which is probably like 120 grams of protein on its own. Guess what guys? I'm not going to have

Starting point is 00:16:24 a protein shake that day. So I don't take protein shakes every single day, but I do more days than not to no ill effect. Another supplement that I have every single day, if I have a protein shake, because it's really easy to just mix it in there, but not every day, almost every day is Legion's Genesis, which is their greens powder. I take it not necessarily because it's a greens powder. I'm not going to say I'm upset about the fact that it contains like, okay, a shit ton of high quality nutrient dense greens and spirulina, which I quite love on its own as an individual ingredient. But I take it because it has reishi mushroom, which is one of my absolute favorite

Starting point is 00:17:03 individual things to supplement with. I'm a big reishi fan. So most days we're having protein. Most days we're having greens powder. Every single day we're having creatine. That's the midday block. Let's talk about the back half of the day and kind of into the evening. There's really only two supplements that I take every single night and it it's magnesium. I take bisglycinate. You could take threonate. Both of them are good. Both of them can help with sleep and relaxation. And zinc picolinate. I take zinc because I think it really helps with my skin. I think it helps with testosterone formation and production. And I'm just more generally a big fan of the minerals when it comes to individual supplementation,

Starting point is 00:17:46 because I have had a tendency to take too much zinc before. It can just wreck my stomach. So I like to be really thoughtful about how much I take it, when I take it, and the kind that I take. And I like zinc picolinate at about 10 milligrams a night. I like my magnesium bisglycinate at about 200 milligrams a night. If I train hella hard, I might take another 200 milligrams midday. The other half of my LMNT pack, right? Like, cause you can take, I have no problem with getting between 3,500 and 4,000 milligrams of sodium a day with my sweat rate and my current blood pressure. That works for me. You might not want to take a full packet of element if you have high blood pressure, but if you take a half a pack in the morning, like I do,

Starting point is 00:18:28 you save the half a pack for the evening sauna. So a few more electrolytes. Got a sauna set up at the house here at the end of the month. So we'll finally be adding sauna in at home. But now, unfortunately, my sauna is kind of public gym only, which isn't my favorite, but by the end of the month, we'll have sauna, which will probably mean that I'll be having a, uh, at least three nights a week. I'll probably use the sauna nightly because at my home, I have solar. Um, so I can just crank that heater and out here in California, the sun will power all of it. So that's my supplement routine guys. Super what I would describe as simple, um, and reductionist relatively speaking as a quote unquote influencer in the

Starting point is 00:19:11 fitness community. I think I could partner with a million brands and tell you a million different things that you should take. But really what I'm taking is protein powder, creatine greens, powder, and occasional multivitamin, zinc, magnesium, a probiotic, and an electrolyte. I ate so much fish in the month of February that I didn't actually supplement with omega-3 or what many people will call fish oil. Now, if you don't eat a lot of cold water fatty fish, you might also want to consider supplementing with a fish oil in your own supplementation. It seems to be one of the more evidence-based supplements you could take to increase your

Starting point is 00:19:49 performance, but I'm not going to tell you that you have to do that. I think that there's beginning to be a pretty interesting, you know, body of literature supporting supplementation of omega-3 rich fish oil for brain health, for heart health, for skin health, for recovery, right? But if you're vegan, you don't have to take omega-3 fish oil and you don't have to take whey protein. You can take a plant protein and you could take an algal-based omega-3. I always like to try to give people options if they have an alternative lifestyle. I always say I remember that term. I doubt any of you want to get too political on a largely fitness self-improvement podcast, but I always remember

Starting point is 00:20:30 the term alternative lifestyle used to be how the GOP in the late nineties and early two thousands referred to, uh, uh, uh, the GOP referred to the LGBT community. Anybody who was gay was living in an alternative lifestyle, which now it's like, we've so normalized that culturally, thank God, that I can't help but laugh sometimes when I look at people who choose to live a more plant-based, quote unquote, lifestyle, because it really is. And a lot of people are really into that. So I try to always deliver something on the podcast positive for that community rather than just being one of the fitness influencers who tries to make a bone at bashing vegans. I'd much rather save that for the carnivores, if I'm being honest. Hey guys, taking a break from the show to tell you about our

Starting point is 00:21:17 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

Starting point is 00:21:59 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

Starting point is 00:22:38 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. So next question, I love this question. It comes

Starting point is 00:23:22 from Lori Never Holt. And the question is, how do you incorporate hot and cold therapy into your lifestyle? So I do a type of hot therapy that many of you are probably familiar with. It's just regular sauna use. Other forms of hot therapy could include infrared sauna use, perhaps hot tub or steam room use. And then the cold therapy that I like is cold water immersion. The other cold therapy that you might be familiar with could be things like cryotherapy. So when it comes to hot and cold therapies, I totally, totally lean into the old school shit. And I know that infrared sauna and cryo are probably a lot sexier than hot sauna and cold water immersion or cold plunging. But here's the thing, guys, the evidence in the literature for cryo and for what we would describe as IR or infrared sauna is emerging and encouraging.

Starting point is 00:24:28 The evidence for hot sauna, traditional Finnish style sauna, meaning like 180 degree plus stove sauna, and cold water immersion or cold plunging is still expanding, still extremely promising, immersion or cold plunging is still expanding, still extremely promising, way older, a lot more robust. And I'm not saying that new technologies aren't good. I'm always keeping my eye on new and emergent technologies. But when it comes to hot and cold therapy, I want to know what have people been doing for a long time, what works and what does the evidence in science point to? And it still points to the old school modalities of thin, hot sauna and just dumping your body into cold water. I swear a 50 to 60 degree bucket of cold water is probably going to outperform a negative 200 degree cryotherapy session based on what I've seen when it comes to markers of muscle inflammation and recovery. I don't think that the sauna has any ability to negatively affect my training. I do think that too much cold exposure could negatively affect my gains. We'll talk about that. So what I like to do

Starting point is 00:25:37 is aim for 60 minutes a week in the sauna in the form of three 20-minute sessions or four 15-minute sessions. You can go above or beyond that, but that is my threshold. That is my benchmark. And I love doing it post-workout when it makes sense. Okay? Why? Maybe expansion of blood vessels, maybe increased blood flow to those specific tissues, maybe decreased, maybe a more rapid state shift or a greater decrease in sympathetic tone upon leaving the sauna than I might otherwise get just waiting to come down from my session. So I really like it. I really like it post-workout. Now, what about the cold water immersion? Because you're going to hear a lot of people say that it's bad for hypertrophy or muscle growth. And there's evidence to support that too much cold plunging and cold water immersion would actually inhibit

Starting point is 00:26:32 your body's ability to recover. It's a little bit of the too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. And so I like to keep my sessions there really short. I think a lot of people take a lot of pride in being like, just did 10 minute primal ice bath, alpha male. I am super tough, blah, blah, blah. This whole machismo bravado, pseudo caveman bullshit crap. I don't like that. That's not for me. Personally, I want to get the most out of my cold water immersion and the most out of my training. And while I love the fact that dumping in my ice barrel, which is far and away the most efficient way I found to do this, guys, when I did cold water immersion in a bathtub, my first apartment when I moved out, it absolutely flooded the bathroom because it's really kind of uncomfortable to do it in a bathtub. I stopped doing it for years. With the ice barrel, it's super, super easy. It's aesthetic

Starting point is 00:27:32 as shit. It sits in the backyard. It holds water forever. I only clean it once a month and it stays damn cold. Half of the time, I don't even need to put ice in it because the water stays below the temperature threshold required to get that cold water immersion effect. So as long as the water is like 50 degrees or below, I'm pretty stoked. And during the winter months, it'll stay cold like that even in California. So I jump right up in the ice barrel. I drop down. I try to stay in there for at least one minute, but no more than three minutes, three to four times a week. My ideal spot is about 10 to 11 minutes. And that's a protocol I borrowed from Andrew Huberman. I love 10 to 11 minutes a week. Really have not seen

Starting point is 00:28:21 any negative effects on hypertrophy after having done this now for like six plus months, no negative effect at all. Definitely feel supercharged after the fact, like I feel so energetic and boosted and like present, like I'm just a totally different person after an ice bath in a good way, even if it's one to two minutes. And my soreness and acute fatigue across the week is reduced. So it's definitely something. As far as standalone recovery modalities that you could make a one-time investment in, I think cold water immersion is tip top. If you can just... I like the ice barrel cause it works really well for me. So let's say you get the ice barrel, you throw it in the backyard, you buy it one time,

Starting point is 00:29:09 that thing's going to last you forever, has a warranty forever, holds a shit ton of water. You can take it with you. It's easy to move. So you fill that sucker up. The fact that you could jump in there for one to two minutes, just a few times a week, we're talking about, like I'm talking about doing 10 to 11 minutes a week. That's nothing. That's way longer than your gym commute. And we get a lot of really interesting, unique benefits as an organism when we expose our body to extreme hots or extreme colds, that's one of the most fascinating things about the human body. Okay. The human body just seems to be an unbelievably adaptive machine

Starting point is 00:29:56 that totally, totally responds to these cold temperatures or these hot temperatures. Can you spend 10 minutes a week working out and see gains? Yeah. Can you do sauna 10 minutes a week and maybe see something? Yeah. But if you have 10 minutes a week to spend in cold water immersion, you're going to see reductions in pain. You're going to see increases in dopamine. You're going to see increases in mood. And one of the really cool subjective things, it will improve and increase your mental toughness and capacity for discomfort. That might mean something to you. It might not. But when my fiance and I were in Hawaii going snorkeling in the morning, going snorkeling at night, and the water doesn't feel cold at all,

Starting point is 00:30:40 then you're in there with these giant mantas. Like one of the things I kept thinking about was water doesn't feel cold to me. So there's all these cool and unique benefits that you get for your health, right? But the psychology, and we've known this forever about cold water immersion. That's why every single damn sports team in every single profession has cold pubs available for their athletes. And that has not changed for years. And it's really kind of a pain to have these big ugly ones and living in wine country. I wanted a barrel sauna and an ice barrel because I wanted that aesthetic, uh, that winery aesthetic. So that's just something that has worked really well for me. That's my routine. Sisu's, uh, working with me to get a sauna out here from Ohio, which I love. I love American made. I love cedar saunas

Starting point is 00:31:25 and I love wifi heaters. So that'll be in by the end of the month. And I'll make some more content around how I'm using hot and cold therapy to improve my fitness and cognition. Okay. A good question here from harsh tag. And the question is I find myself starting all over again the next day if I mess up on my diet and exercise? How do I overcome that mindset? So this can be a really common trap that a lot of people fall into, which is the idea that you need to be perfect and string together multiple days of perfection in order to achieve results. And if you have a day that is in any way less than perfect, you somehow failed and you need to start all the way over again and get it right. And I think a lot of this unfortunately comes from the fitness community.

Starting point is 00:32:12 I think the fitness community is a huge, huge culprit when it comes to this penetration of the idea that it's perfect or bust. And I think that a lot of influencers push that ideology into the minds of the people that follow them because all they ever do is share their highlight reel. They only ever share themselves being totally perfect. They never, ever, ever show themselves enjoying their vacations. They very rarely show themselves eating junk food. They very rarely show themselves on a deload lifting like low weight or not looking their absolute best, right? I have found that for the most part, influencers and fitness influencers tend to only share the best of what it is that they've got going on. And so people that follow

Starting point is 00:33:06 them think if I'm not perfect every day, I'm failing. And that's not the case. Like I have so many days where I eat way more than I should, or I under, under hit a macro. It happens a lot less than it does for most people. There are very few days where I miss a planned workout, almost never, but it does happen. And I'm here telling you that right now, which is very, very rare. You know, I think it's, it's kind of ridiculous when you think about it. It's, it's actually more than quite ridiculous when you think about it. It's, it's antithetical to what it is that people are trying to do when they get into the fitness industry. When people get into the fitness industry, the number one thing they'll tell you,

Starting point is 00:33:45 the number one reason they say they're getting into it is to help people, which is why it's frustrating to see trainers and coaches who do not communicate to their clients or their audience on social media that they are human too. You're not helping people by only sharing the highlight reel stuff. You're really not. What really helps people, and I think more coaches and trainers should do this because I think that the fitness industry writ large is responsible for this perfectionist, obsessive fitness culture that they've created. But more coaches would do their audience a huge service if they actually shared the way in which they fit fitness into their lives and also the way in which they fit enjoyable things into their lives, like enjoying

Starting point is 00:34:35 food, like enjoying being social, like enjoying travel. Way too many coaches only share the highlight reel. Way too many coaches only share the highlight reel. Way too many coaches and trainers and fitness personalities and influencers contribute to this notion that I'm perfect all the time. I have all these perfect meals. I never have a bad workout because all they fucking share is the PRs and the good shit that they eat or the healthy shit that they eat. They never ever share, oh, going to the pantry for a third time to grab another cookie. They never share how to dog shit workout, but I'm going to post that top set. It's this projection of perfection, no rhyme intended, that actually hurts their audience. I think you have got to be in a position to share a normalization of having a balance between fitness and what you enjoy in life if you want to

Starting point is 00:35:26 actually influence real people. If you want to influence the militant fitness obsessed people, go ahead. It's really fucking easy. Just post hardcore shit with fucking Jordan Peterson quotes in the background. It's so easy. But if you want to reach the people that aren't being reached, you need to do something about this idea of perfection and share the human side of what it is that you're doing. And as far as getting back on track or how you can get back on track after a kind of derailment, just start up the next day. Like literally just start up the very next day with the routine that you fell off. It can be that simple. next day with the routine that you fell off. It can be that simple. Okay. Last question of the day comes from OG water snob and it's, is it okay for growing your glutes to train fasted? Does this

Starting point is 00:36:13 break down too much muscle? So let's just replace glutes with muscle. And we'll talk about training fasted for muscle growth because your glutes are a huge, extremely powerful muscle, but they are going to respond similarly to every other muscle from fasted training. So fasted training is not optimal for muscle growth. Fasted dieting is not optimal for muscle growth. What is optimal for muscle growth is to essentially lay on the couch and sleep every time you're not training and to perpetually be on like a protein IV. Okay. So let's, let's be honest. That's not going to happen. So we need to optimize for your situation. And if you're like me and you train fasted, cause that's when you train, you train early as fuck in the morning. Um, and you're not

Starting point is 00:37:02 particularly interested in having a meal before you train because it sits too heavy in your stomach, that's a situation that a lot of people are in. So how do you optimize it for muscle growth? A couple of things you can do. The first is get hydrated before you get to the gym. You got to do it. It's very hard to train without fuel in the tank. All right. A lot of people communicate the idea of having the pre-workout carbs. You got to add the pre-workout caffeine. You want the fuel in the tank. I love that. That's great. Definitely make the argument for that. Do we have some of that fuel stored in the form of glycogen? Sure. But you don't have your own caffeine. So look, I get that fuel,

Starting point is 00:37:40 but nobody talks about pre-workout hydration. If you take a legitimate college nutrition class, and I'm not trying to sound like some elitist snob here, because it's not like I fucking went to Harvard. I went to a California state school and slacked my way through school while I trained 50 sessions a week as a personal trainer. But everybody wants to talk about pre-workout carbs. Everybody wants to talk about pre-workout caffeine and supplementation. But if you take any college level nutrition coursework, you talk a lot about hydration, specifically pre-workout hydration and how it is you need to optimize for hydration. And nobody

Starting point is 00:38:21 really talks about it. A lot of people literally wake up, don't drink shit for water all day, slam an energy drink or a pre-workout three to four hours later, go to the gym already dehydrated. And they're like, Oh, I can never get a pump. It's like, well, no shit, dude. You have about as much water in you as the inside of a camel's hoof. And I don't know how much water is in a camel's hoof, but I'm going to assume it's quite low. And if you want to train really well and you want to train really hard and you want to get sick pumps, bro, then you should probably be remotely hydrated before you go to the gym. I know that's remarkable and an electrolyte supplement could help with that. Um, but you don't need to do

Starting point is 00:39:02 anything, uh, before you start hyd hydrating when it comes to your training session. That fluid is going to help a lot. So it's really important to get hydrated. I love to have LMNT when I train fasted because I find that the sodium, magnesium, and potassium help me retain more of that water and help me get a better pump. You might want caffeine to help with your training intensity. me get a better pump. You might want caffeine to help with your training intensity. But as far as like, like this is the big one, as far as maximizing your opportunity to grow any muscle

Starting point is 00:39:32 when training fasted and you hit on this in asking the question, you nailed it. You said, does this break down too much muscle? It can, It can. And that's if you keep fasting after the training session ends. And that's why you want to have that post-workout meal with a balance of carbs and proteins to elevate your insulin and provide your body with a signal to spare protein, to hold on to protein, right? Carbohydrates raise insulin. Proteins independently anabolic, right? But the carbohydrates that boost the insulin, blunt. The breakdown, the protein helps with the recovery and repair. So definitely prioritize that post-workout feeding if you want to train fasted and still build muscle. All right, guys, I want

Starting point is 00:40:17 to thank you all so much for tuning into this episode. And every episode, If you haven't yet, please hit subscribe over on Apple podcasts and Spotify. Leave me a review there. I'm actually in the process of getting merch for all of my awesome reviewers. So stay tuned. I will be sure to throw some merch your way here and there as a surprise for anybody who leaves a review of the podcast. It helps it grow so, so much. So please be sure to subscribe and review and I will catch you on the next one.

Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 267 - Q & A: My daily supplements, cold plunging and muscle growth, how to stick with it + more

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