Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 284 - Q&A: Advice for New/Aspiring Trainers, Intermittent Fasting, Should You Make Time to Stretch? + More

Episode Date: May 2, 2023

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Welcome in everybody to another episode of the dynamic dialogue podcast. In this episode of the podcast, we will be discussing a variety of your questions. We're going to talk about pursuing personal training as a career, and what certifications I might recommend, or at least the best one you can start with. We're also going to talk about the best supplements you can take for gut health and for optimizing the health of your microbiome and whether or not you should even look to supplements. We'll discuss intermittent fasting and time-restricted feeding as tools for weight loss and body fat reduction. We'll discuss stretching and how stretching can impact recovery, muscle length, and elasticity, and whether or not I recommend pre-workout prior to training, and if that is something that could be potentially detrimental to the heart. So sit back and enjoy today's fitness, nutrition-themed question and answer.

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So first question of the day comes from Instagram. All of these questions are fielded over on Instagram. If you would like to have your question featured on the podcast, there's two really effective ways that you can do that. The first is by leaving it in a review. So if you leave me a review on Apple or Spotify, I'll get the opportunity to see your question right there in the review because I check the reviews often. But probably the most efficient way is by following me on Instagram at danny.matranga. And about twice a week, I drop an opportunity over on the podcast for you to go ahead and leave a question.

You can do that on my story by simply clicking the little story button and asking your question. I can't get to all of them. and asking your question. I can't get to all of them. In fact, I usually only pull about 20% of them, which is why if you for sure want to get it, I would leave it on one of the sites, be it Spotify or Apple, but you can also leave it over on Instagram. And sometimes I even answer them on Instagram, which I think is a lot of fun too. But we can always get longer form here. So first question from Instagram from Jenna Tellia. The question is, I'm considering pursuing personal training. What certification would you recommend? There are so many. So I think when people get into personal training, it is important for them to have one, a considerable amount of people skills

because no certification will give you those. But two, you should have a certification or a license. I think that your customers deserve to know that you have some form of formal, certified, accredited training before you start working with their body. One thing that's really crazy to me are the individuals, or the individuals aren't crazy, it's just crazy that this happens, who get in really good shape for a bodybuilding show. They then go ahead and start marketing themselves as a coach without any accreditation. And then they start taking general population clients through a bodybuilding style training program and prep. And then they start taking general population clients through a bodybuilding style training program and prep. And the problem with this is those two things don't

really go together well. And certifications and licenses, even the worst of them, will help you at least have the level of discernment required to hurt people less frequently than you would if you just take adults or general population people who make up the largest percentage of clients in the personal training industry through some 20-somethings bodybuilding program. There are some certifications that I think are better than others when it comes to specialized training and technical training. For example, I really like Precision Nutrition and Nutritional Coaching Institute for practical nutrition coaching. I really like N1 Education for a look at how you

can understand anatomy or functional anatomy rather with the kind of base level physics that are required to really understand how to load a muscle. They really market themselves as like a hypertrophy specific thing, which I think is very true. But I think just more at face value, like the functional anatomy in that course is really good. And if you just want to understand how to actually load a tissue, what movements load what, what tissues do what. That's a really good way for you to do that and to learn. I've done Muscle Nerds Health, which is very comprehensive, based out of Australia. Very, very big, very, very detailed, multiple weeks long. I've been to live events with Eugene Teo. I've been to every sports performance symposium in the Bay Area.

I've been to many NSCA events. I've been to Alan Aragon's events, Brett Schoenfeld's events. I'm sorry, Brad Schoenfeld's events, Brett Contreras' events. I've done FRC. All of these workshops, all of these specialized trainings are great. But when you're getting started, I think you want a base level certification that one is accredited and will get you hired at a gym because I think a lot of people should get started at like a 24 hour fitness or a big box gym, a gym where you're quite frankly going to get the opportunity to train people. You might not get a lot of money for that training, but you'll get the opportunity to train, which is really, really difficult to do. If you don't have friends, family, and loved ones that are willing to train with you at free for

first, at free, for free at first, you're probably going to need to start at a gym like 24 hour fitness or LA fitness, and they look for accredited certifications. And I think the best one you could probably start with is either the NSCA, the National Strength and Conditioning Association, or it's either going to be the NASM's National Academy of Sports Medicine. Uh, both of those are fantastic. And I'll say this, I worked at a gym for 10 years or six years, really. I've been working in gyms for 10 years, but I've worked at the same gym for almost six years. And in that time I spent more of it managing trainers, um, and having my own client roster than I did not. So it was managing trainers at that gym for about four years. And hiring was a big part of the process. And I remember having a really hard

time finding good candidates that we could trust with clients early on in their training career. You'd have a client come in, join the gym, you'd convince them and essentially sell them on the idea of getting started with a personal trainer. And then you would feed those clients to trainers who you thought they would gel with, who you thought that they would click with. The problem is a lot of the trainers just weren't well equipped, but the ones who got NASM and the ones who got NSCA always seemed to be very well equipped, which was super, super encouraging for me as a manager to know that if somebody had one of those two certifications, I could really trust them.

Now, most coaches will also talk quite a bit about nutrition with their clients. And I do believe NASM offers a nutrition certification in conjunction with their certified personal trainer certification. That I have not done, but I do know a number of my clients who are also coaches who have, and they quite liked it. So those might be things that you do to get started, give yourself a base. But truthfully, listening to podcasts like this, truthfully, listening to podcasts like this, listening to podcasts like Stronger by Science, Revive Stronger, Mind Pump, listening to creators in the health and fitness space like Lane Norton, Alan Aragon, Thomas DeLauer. Again, I'll throw myself in there, somebody who's trained for a number of years, reading various textbooks specific to things like anatomy and physiology and nutrition.

These are all going to be probably more practical and functional ways of learning than, say, simply going out and just accruing certifications. I did this very early in my training career and I kind of regret it. You know, I wish I had just done a little bit more actual learning than I was certification chasing. So just be wary. Most of the best knowledge in this space is free and it is not paywalled behind a certification. All right. The next question, and this one comes from Tina underscore and fitness is what is the best supplement for gut health? So I'm going to share with you what I believe to be the two best supplements that you can probably find on the market that will help with the overall well-being of your microbiome.

Before we do that, though, I think it's important to communicate that I don't think there's anything you can do for your microbiome from a supplementation standpoint, they can come anywhere close to what you can do with the right lifestyle decisions and the right food choices. So when it comes to having healthy gut, okay, quote unquote, a healthy gut and doing better with quote unquote gut health, the first thing you should probably do and wisely do is see a gastroenterologist if you believe you have legitimate GI problems. So if you are noticing or you are detecting perhaps, let's say, symptoms of gas, irritability, newfound allergies, newfound sensitivities, what I don't want you to do is self-diagnose yourself with a condition.

If you're in actual pain and dealing with actual discomfort in your gut, get in front of a gut specialist because this can be so freaking debilitating and so damn difficult to deal with that just throwing random supplements at the problem is really, really, really risky. Okay. I want to make sure that you guys understand that we're going to talk about some options for optimizing the health and wellbeing of your gut. Okay. But we're also going to just level with each other here and say that even the best, most educated guess from a supplementation standpoint, if you're dealing with any health problem, like, oh, I'm just going to throw a supplement at it, not always the best move. What's going on, guys? Taking a break from this episode to tell you a little bit about my coaching company, Core Coaching Method. More specifically, our app-based

training. We partnered with Train Heroic to bring app-based training to you using the best technology and best user interface possible. You can join either my Home Heroes team, or you can train from home with bands and dumbbells, or Elite Physique, which is a female bodybuilding-focused program where you can train at the gym with equipments designed specifically to help you develop strength as well as the glutes, hamstrings, quads, and back. I have more teams coming planned for a variety of different fitness levels. But what's cool about this is when you join these programs, you get programming that's updated every single week, the sets to do, the reps to do, exercise tutorials filmed by me with me and my team. So you'll get my exact coaching expertise

as to how to perform the movement, whether you're training at home or you're training in the gym. And again, these teams are somewhat specific. So you'll find other members of those communities looking to pursue similar goals at similar fitness levels. You can chat, ask questions, upload form for form review, ask for substitutions. It's a really cool training community and you can try it completely free for seven days. Just click the link in the podcast description below. Can't wait to see you in the Core Coaching Collective, my app-based training community. Back to the show.

So here's what I do think can help more generally as it pertains to gut health. The first supplement is actually collagen protein. And I know what you're thinking. Haven't you said on the podcast before that collagen isn't ideal for building muscle, and then it's kind of a lower tier protein. And the truth is that yes, collagen is a lower tier protein and that it's not particularly well-rounded in its amino acid portfolio or profile. You can use either term to describe this. But what you'll notice, I think, is that it's high in glycine,

it's high in amino acids that specifically might be beneficial for the gut. In studying a little bit about red light therapy, interestingly, for a summit or symposium talk I will be giving here. I learned that, you know, red light therapy is particularly good at replenishing structures like skin and collagenous structures like skin, nails, hair. And, you know, most of those things also respond fairly well, I'd say, to collagen protein, collagen supplementation. And so if you look at the similarities between those structures and the protein structures found in collagen, you'll find some same thing with the lining of the gut. So because a lot of our digestive tract really needs glycine and glutamine, which are found in collagen. A lot of those tissues are made from those amino acids. That's something that I would consider

supplementing with as a baseline. If you're like, I really care about my skin health, my hair health, my gut health, add some collagen. If you're like, yo, I really want to build muscle, I don't give a shit about that, add another protein-like way that's higher in leucine, which will trigger more growth. But if you are interested in dermatological well-being, the lining of your gut, I don't think collagen is a bad addition. The perhaps best probiotic supplement on the market that I'm aware of is Seed. Seed makes a dual capsule delivery system. And this is the only real probiotic I'll recommend on the podcast. Legion does make a probiotic called Biome that contains some very interesting strains. And that might be worth adding into the mix as well. But I love Seed strains because they're all clinically proven to work in humans as are legions, but there's just a

bit more of a robustness there. I like the dual capsule delivery and I like the fresh monthly delivery. And personally, that's the one that I've had the best luck with. And I won't recommend something I haven't, you know, had a lot of luck with just to level with you guys. A lot of probiotics gave me the shits over the years. So a pretty poor experience with those supplements. No problems with legion's biome, no problem with seed, both evidence-based manufacturers that I think do a really good job of providing quality strains to the body. But that's really it, folks. I mean, you can supplement with some other stuff. But truthfully, I think our ability to augment our gut health with supplements is limited. And I don't think it's the best way to go about augmenting our gut health.

So that's why I'm not going to just straight jump to recommending that. I do think there are supplements that can help with gut well-being. I think if you have gut dysbiosis or dysregulation, working with a practitioner who specializes in that and selecting the right supplements can be beneficial. I know people who are like, oh, I have SIBO. I'm going to take oregano, which is so antimicrobial. You can eradicate your good bacteria with it. And the one thing I want to be sure we're doing on the podcast is keeping you guys safe, keeping you fit, keeping you healthy, keeping you productive, and taking

shots in the dark at supplementing your way out of a real health problem. It can work. I've done it myself. Wouldn't recommend it though, folks. Get in front of a gastroenterologist if you do have actual gut problems. Okay, this question comes from ITR Walker. And the question is, what are my thoughts on intermittent fasting and time restricted eating? So I actually like intermittent fasting for fat loss personally, despite all the evidence saying that it doesn't make a difference. And I think it's important as a communicator of fitness and a communicator of, let's say, science at times, to be honest about my personal experience and to be honest about my, you know, what I'm trying and what I am doing in practice. And when I want to lose body fat,

When I want to lose body fat, I have had a lot of luck using tools like fasting because I have long periods of work where it's actually easier for me to stay working than it is to take a break from eating. So that's a really effective tool for me personally to reduce my total caloric intake, which is the only thing that matters for fat loss. I want to make that abundantly clear. The only thing that matters for fat loss from a diet selection standpoint is are you going to get enough protein to hold on to muscle, and are you going to be in a calorie deficit? And you can do this with any diet. For our clients, for the people that me and my company work with the most closely, I think tracking your macronutrients and making sure you're getting the right amount of protein, carbs, and fats without demonizing any foods and leaving everything on the table with the

understanding that you'll aim for mostly whole foods most of the time is for sure the way to go. But sometimes I integrate periods of fasting for body fat reduction because it works well with my schedule and it works well with my lifestyle. Just keep in mind, if you think it's a unsustainable enterprise and you're doing it for short-term fat loss, you're just honestly going to be way better off finding something else you can stick to longer. And don't mess with fasting if you don't think it's like going to work with your schedule. If you're like, oh, it's perfect for me to eat mostly in the evening because I'm not hungry in the morning and I have great mental clarity at work when I don't eat, have a protein shake in the morning, wait eight

hours, eat all your calories in the back half of the day. As long as it adds up, you're going to be fine. And I think that's a really important framework here with fasting is it works about as well as every other fat loss diet, assuming you stick with it and it doesn't do shit, assuming you don't. Now, there are a lot of people who will talk to you about things like autophagy and growth hormone release and all of these secondary benefits that might come from fasting. One thing I've learned more recently is that caloric restriction writ large, which is just to say creating a net energy deficit, having less total calories in your system is one of the best things you can do

to promote autophagy and to promote insulin sensitivity and to promote digestive well-being, all of which are things that fasting is really touted at being great at. So it's important to note some of the benefits we're getting might come from fasting exclusively, but it's also possible that some of the benefits are just coming from the caloric restriction. And I won't say that there isn't a time and place for fasting. I'll just say, speak specific to fat loss here for a second. I think it can be a good tool, but I don't think most people are going to really love it. I think most people are going to find it's difficult and that they're probably better off having a calorie cap, having a protein

target, a fat target, and a carbohydrate target that are well aligned with their fitness goals and their performance goals. And then just going from there. Okay. So next question comes from live healthy 3130. And the question is, honestly, is stretching really that big of a deal? I'm in a hurry most days and I just do not do it. So, you know, I think stretching, first of all, let's communicate what I mean when I say stretching. I mean, static stretching. I don't mean dynamic stretching. I don't mean foam rolling. I don't mean yoga. I mean, just stretching. Okay. Sitting down, lengthening a tissue, the old seated hamstring stretch that you used to do in high school, the sit and reach, a passive kind of stretch for the hamstrings. These types of exercises are really good at lengthening tissues, but you have to hold them for, you know, two, three, four or five minutes

sometimes to get the actual muscle tissue to lengthen. Now, do I think you should stretch pre-workout? I really don't. I think that's a pretty inefficient enterprise at preparing your tissue for training. You are so much better, so much better off simply doing a dynamic warmup, a low level cardiovascular warmup that just elevates tissue temperature, some type of body tempering, like foam rolling, you know, percussion massage. I talked about these in my spiel that I'm giving at the 2023 Sleep and Performance Summit. But stretching itself as a pre-training modality is not something I'd make a ton of time for unless you had a very tight and restrictive tissue that really limited your ability to perform a certain movement pattern.

And even then I might see if we could find a secondary movement pattern before I allocated a ton of time to stretching. I think full range of motion resistance training has been shown in the literature to be very effective at promoting mobility. So your ability to actually generate mobility from just lifting alone could be enough to say, hey, I'm not going to stretch. But for some people, people who are chronically tight, people who want to relax, people who have certain tissues that are really tight from work, or usually occupational things that they do for multiple hours a day, not just training, they might benefit from stretching. And doing post-workout static stretching is a great way to reinforce mobility or passive

flexibility, as well as getting stuff out of your tissue, whether that be lactate or hydrogen or any of the metabolites that accumulate from hard training. So I definitely think that there's something there. Although I'll be honest with you, I don't stretch a ton myself being that I'm quite mobile. And I think of all of the ways you can spend your time. It's one of the lower efficiency enterprises in the gym. Okay. Last question comes from Susie Cruz. And this question is, do you recommend pre-workout? Is it bad for your heart? So I like this question because I've heard this before that energy drinks can be bad for the heart. And I'm not an expert on canned energy drinks. So I will speak about pre-workout in this context

because I've heard conflicting things about canned energy drinks. But with caffeine consumption of any type, be it tea, be it coffee, be it energy drinks, be it pre-workout, there is an increase in catecholamines or stress hormones. This could be, if you abuse it, bad for your heart. I think a lot of people are sensitive to caffeine. It can enhance anxiety, increase anxiety. And in fact, when I pull caffeine out of my routine, I noticed a lot less chest tightness, stress, raciness, and anxiety. So if you are somebody who already knows you have a pre-existing cardiac issue or anxiety issue or chest tightness, stiffness issue, I wouldn't add a ton of caffeinated pre-workout to that.

Do I think the ingredients like L-citrulline, beta-alanine, betaine that are found in good evidence-based pre-workouts, do I think that those could be bad for the heart? I'd say I doubt it. I've taken a lot of these individually or in really good, thoughtfully put together pre-workout compounds without caffeine and with caffeine for years, and I haven't noticed any negative effects. Now, not all pre-workouts are created equal, and some could contain banned substances or just general crap that might not be good for your heart. So the best thing you can do if you want to have a pre-training formula that increases performance and has the lowest likelihood of

causing any agitation to that kind of cardiac tissue is to stick to a reputable manufacturer who makes high quality products and offer one that has a little less caffeine. And also, again, just a general theme of this episode, talk to your physician, talk to your doctor before you start taking any supplements. All right, folks, there you have it. That's the episode for today. A quick Q&A. Happy to get in and out on that one for you guys. I want to say thanks so much for tuning in, leaving reviews for the podcast, both written on Spotify and on Apple. It makes a huge, huge difference in helping me grow this thing, helping more people live healthier. I feel like I'm kind of finding myself here as the host of

this show as we close in on 300 episodes. It's crazy to think we've come this far. I've wanted to stop a number of times, but I really do enjoy it. I think the conversations are helpful. I think the dialogue around health and fitness is necessary. So please share this, please keep listening, subscribe if you have not yet. Twice weekly content dropping Tuesdays, Thursdays, and occasionally a third drop in there as well. Thank you so much for tuning in, and I'll catch you on the next episode of the podcast. you