Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 307: Breakfast, Steam Room, Plateaus, Should You Eat Organic + More!

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, everybody, welcome in to another episode of the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. As always, I'm your host, Danny Matranga, welcoming into what I hope is one of your favorite health, fitness, productivity and performance podcasts. These quick, digestible and actionable podcasts can be listened to in between 30 minutes to an hour, sometimes even less, with the central goal of helping you take your health, fitness, performance and productivity to the next level. This is a Q&A episode in which we are going to be discussing why your body might not be changing, even though you're exercising regularly. Should you eat breakfast, whether that be for compositional change or optimization?

Starting point is 00:00:46 What is the difference between a steam room and a sauna? Saunas are all the rage for health, cognition, and longevity, and steam rooms seem to be kind of getting forgotten about. Is there any validity to using the steam room? We're also going to talk about exercise selection for muscle growth and strength. Should you do more exercises and cycle them frequently or stick to the basics? I'll give my opinion on organic food, as well as some discussions around shoulder injuries, plyo boxes, and how to use plyometrics appropriately for explosiveness, how to build a great home gym to save time and make progress, as well as how to get better at pushups. Okay, folks, enjoy the episode.

Starting point is 00:01:32 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 brain function.

Starting point is 00:02:15 It also provides an awesome boost of energy and focus because when you hop in an ice bath and you get this amazing vasoconstriction effect and your body starts releasing epinephrine and norepinephrine, it kind of lets you reenter the world awake, energized, excited, and enthused. And I would much rather take an ice bath in the mid-afternoon, especially if I had a hard training session in the morning, than consume more caffeine. Ice Barrel allows me to do this in a super sleek, aesthetically pleasing packaging. It's a beautiful barrel that comes with a matching lid for keeping the ice cold and water inside clean, a nice step up stool, a cover it's portable and durable, and it comes in a beautiful matte black and a gorgeous tan.

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Starting point is 00:03:29 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 wellbeing 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,

Starting point is 00:04:06 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. Okay, folks. So our first question of the day, all of these come from over on Instagram. So if you would like to have your question featured, please follow me over on Instagram. You can also

Starting point is 00:04:51 follow me on threads. Threads is something that I'm using quite a bit, and I have a way better opportunity of engaging with you over there. But questions that you ask on Instagram story are more than likely going to get featured on the podcast if I think they can help. So this question comes from Sammy XO. And the question is, I feel like no matter how much I work out or eat differently, my body stays the same. Ideas. So assuming you want to see positive change in your body composition, meaning you'd like to gain some muscle and lose some fat. And I mean positive in the body composition, meaning he'd like to gain some muscle and lose some fat. And I mean positive in the general sense. Gaining weight is not inherently negative,

Starting point is 00:05:30 nor is losing weight inherently positive. But when people tell me they want to change how they look, I assume it's an increase in muscle mass and probably a decrease in fat mass. Now, that basically comes down to, from a nutritional standpoint, eating enough protein and being in a calorie deficit. I recommend calculating your total daily energy expenditure to determine just how many calories you burn at rest. Now, any calculator on the internet is going to give you its best guess, but it's not going to be perfect or 100% accurate. But it's a great starting point. Once you've established your TDEE, again, that is total daily energy expenditure, you must eat fewer calories than that number to lose body fat. If you ate enough protein, which is usually somewhere between 0.6

Starting point is 00:06:18 to 1 grams per pound, that's where we set our clients at when we work with them through Core Coaching Method, my coaching company. We like around 0.6 to 1 grams per pound for clients who want to lose body fat, for clients who want to gain muscle, for clients who want better blood sugar regulation. That's a great place to be. So if you are doing those two things every single day, I would venture to guess that your body is not changing because you're simply not training efficiently. Many people go to the gym with the kind of central, let's call it the central focus on simply completing the workout. They have a routine, they want to go, they want to do it. But if you are not training diligently, close to failure, with an intelligent routine and a volume level that, let's be honest,

Starting point is 00:07:06 you can actually recover from, don't expect to change too much. I know that that might be disappointing, but nine times out of 10, the only thing wrong with your program is your execution. You're simply not working hard enough. We've got Elite Physique and Home Heroes, which are our app-based programs, about 100 people in those groups. Looking at that kind of group training and the general trend, I can see the data on the back end. Same thing with online clients. I can see the data when they submit check-ins. Same thing with in-person clients. I am actually there watching. The clients who work the hardest, who increase weights weekly or look for small areas to make progress unequivocally, unequivocally make the

Starting point is 00:07:52 most gains by far, by far compared to the people who simply show up and just do what it is that is prescribed. So I would challenge you to ask yourself the question, are you being intentional in your training? Are you training close to failure? Are you making progressions? Are you actually building a program and executing this program under the umbrella of it needs to be progressive. I need to accomplish some form of progressive overload or am I just showing up? And if you're just showing up, there's nothing wrong with that, but expect your progress to go a little slower. The last caveat I have for you, let's say you're doing everything right. There is something that can happen and it happens to a lot of people

Starting point is 00:08:42 and it's just simply being impatient. Do not let impatience deter you from your path of building your best body. It is not easy to build a great body, a body that you're proud of, a body that can do a lot of things, and it takes time. So some combination of the right nutritional strategies, training your butt off, and simply being patient are the only real viable solutions. Okay, this question is from Batul Morales, and the question is, if I eat breakfast, I gain weight. How come my body is like that? Here's the truth. Your body is not unique in that adding breakfast means you gain fat. What happens when you skip breakfast is you are more than likely much closer to your total daily energy expenditure or the weight at which you maintain your weight, right? So let's say you maintain your weight at 2000 calories and you eat breakfast that pushes you

Starting point is 00:09:41 up to like 2300 calories. But when you skip it, it's like 1,800 because you eat a 500 calorie breakfast. That's not rocket science. You can skip breakfast, do intermittent fasting, eat way too much for lunch and eat way too much for dinner. And quite frankly, end up in a situation where you are not going to be losing weight because you are skipping a meal, but you're still eating too many calories. One thing I really try to communicate to my clients and really anybody who I'm working with is keep in mind and think about this often. What nutritional strategies will you stick to? Not necessarily what nutritional strategies do you think are best? Have you heard our best? But what can you stick to? And if skipping breakfast helps you lose weight, then by all means, folks, go ahead and skip breakfast. There is nothing wrong with that at all. Go ahead,

Starting point is 00:10:37 skip breakfast, stay in the deficit. The other thing you have to remember is that the magic of that meal or any meal, quite frankly, is not going to trump the total caloric value. If you eat breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a couple snacks, but they're all portioned appropriately so that you are in a deficit, you can eat 10 meals today. Remember the whole eat 10 small meals a day to boost your metabolism. What was really happening when people were doing that was they were eating 10 small meals, okay? Not five or three or four huge meals with a bunch of snacks and a bunch of grazing. So it has nothing to do with breakfast. It has nothing to do with fasting.

Starting point is 00:11:18 It has nothing to do with blood sugar. I would bet my house and everything I have in every investment account that when you eat breakfast, you eat more calories across the entire day. And when you eat too many calories, you gain body fat. And that is not to quote you, Batul Morales. If I eat breakfast, I gain weight. How come my body is like that? Everybody's body is like that. It's math. It's physics. Isaac Newton figured this out a long time ago. There might be some individualized response to that meal, but the truth is if you get the calories right, it truly will not matter. Okay. Great question from somebody with an amazingly cool name. Danny Coates, 1402 wants to

Starting point is 00:12:00 know, do you get the same benefits from steam room as you do from sauna? Yes and no. So a situation where you would get the same benefits is if the steam room is actually hot. I have a Sisu sauna, which is an unbelievable sauna. I absolutely love it. It has a beautiful home wireless heater with some amazing rocks that I can pour water over and create steam. So I can turn my hot rock sauna into a steam sauna. Now here's the most important part. Okay. The most important part is the temperature in the sauna stays around 175 to 200 degrees. In my personal opinion, okay, in my personal opinion, that is the best spot for taking advantage, okay, of hot or heat therapy. Temperature matters to me. I know a lot of people, a lot of people are big fans of steam because it's a little lower temperature. It loosens mucus. It feels really nice. It makes

Starting point is 00:13:16 the skin feel supple. And I get it. But I have noticed in my research and what I found in the data and from personal experience, higher temperatures work great. Another thing that people really love is infrared. Um, like I'm sure you guys have heard of infrared saunas. They don't get as hot inside, but they purport to heat you up from the inside. Uh, in my personal opinion, I would opt for a hot rock sauna over steam and over infrared. But if you are like me and you have a high quality sauna with a good heater that won't be destroyed if you pour water over it, that is incredibly important. And you can create steam and heat in the same experience. That is a fabulous way to go. But more often than not, if you are picking between a steam room and a sauna, and you're looking for the health benefits that come from temperature adjustment or temperature modulation, I would go for the hotter of the two. All right, we have another good question here. This one

Starting point is 00:14:20 comes from tagtag65. Question is, wanting to build muscle. Should I stick with the same movements and just add more weight? Uh, yeah, for the most part, uh, you know, guys, this is the truth. A lot of the content you see on the internet of highly, uh, you know, varied exercises, influencers with crazy bodies, insane physique, super jacked, super ripped, always doing something different. Check out this cool exercise you've never seen. None of those fuckers actually do that shit. That's such garbage. They're all doing some variation of squatting, lunging, hinging, pressing, pulling. Okay. And if all you ever did was like barbell squats, barbell deadlifts, barbell rows, barbell bench, barbell overhead press, barbell walking lunge.

Starting point is 00:15:06 Let's say you only had a barbell and plates and you did those movements for like 10 years, training four days a week, adding like a quarter pound to each lift every month. You would be so much more jacked and so much more strong than somebody who has all the equipment in the world and just bounces around. 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,

Starting point is 00:15:44 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 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,

Starting point is 00:16:25 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. Getting good at movements so much that you can actually produce tons of force, train close to failure with good coordination, that's the key, folks. And so if you want to build muscle, stick with the same movements, movement patterns, play with tempos, play with range of motion, increase weights, train across a variety of rep ranges. That is going to be so much better than constantly looking for a new exercise. New exercises are not the answer. Getting better at

Starting point is 00:17:10 the exercises that already exist are in all likelihood the answer. So what I want you to think about is, would you rather have boring training that's productive and a, let's say, morning training that's productive and a, let's say, minimal to low total number of arrows in your quiver, meaning you only have 25 to 30 exercises to choose from, but they're efficient. They work for your body. They don't cause pain. However, they're boring. Or would you rather have like 200 exercises to choose from, constantly bounce around, have no guarantee of progress, probably have a higher rate of injury or tissue agitation because you're selecting for novelty over efficiency? To me, it's quite clear. If you want to build muscle, find the shit that works for you and do it.

Starting point is 00:17:59 And the more I train, I've been training for a decade, the smaller the library of exercises I regularly use gets, the library itself gets bigger. How frequently I deploy the various exercises in that library decreases quite a bit with each year because what continues to happen, the longer I do this professionally is what has always worked for the most people continues to work, the longer I do this professionally, is what has always worked for the most people continues to work for the most people and really stands out as being efficient. These are compound movements that you can train through a full range of motion without a ton of pain that should be the bedrock of your programming. Okay, this question comes from Heidi Coyle. The question is how important do you feel eating organic is? Great question. Organic food was like the original buzzword in food many, many years ago. And you know what organic really means like organic food,

Starting point is 00:18:59 for example, typically just means that it was grown without pesticides, or at least that's what we are supposed to think. We're not using GMOs and we're not using synthetic chemicals. I came to found out after a while that that's not actually true. And there are some organic vegetables that still use these practices, organic fruits and our compounds, or, you know, not organic compounds, but organic food products, they just use a below the threshold that one might need to use to get away with organics or labeling something organic. You are not supposed to use artificial chemicals, hormones, antibiotics, and GMOs. Okay. A lot of people believe that is healthier. What I am going to tell you is that pretty much any vegetable, pretty much any fruit, pretty much any whole grain, organic or non-organic,

Starting point is 00:19:54 is going to have health-promoting properties by virtue of the fact that it is still a healthy fruit or vegetable, regardless of how it was grown, when it was picked, organic or non-organic. And what I don't want to do is scare people away from eating what it is that they can afford, because it is undeniable that organic products are more expensive. Now, there are studies that have shown organically grown crops have better micronutrient profiles, specifically when it comes to antioxidants and vitamins, like vitamin C, zinc, and iron. One study even showed a 69% increase in antioxidant levels in organic food. A 2003 study found that organically grown berries contained 58% more antioxidants. contained 58% more antioxidants. Very, very cool. Something else interesting,

Starting point is 00:20:54 the nitrate level in organic produce is generally a little bit lower, about 30%. And that organic dairy, particularly organic milk, contains higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids, as well as vitamin E, iron, and certain carotenoids. Does that mean organic is better? If you cannot afford it and it makes you not eat health-promoting foods, I don't believe organic is better. I think that organic is an option. It is an option for people who want to get an A plus on an assignment that otherwise they might have gotten an A. I eat a good balance of foods that are organic or labeled organic, but this is the thing. You need to know the difference between something that is 100% organic, labeled organic, or made with organic ingredients. The United States Department of Agriculture has a certification

Starting point is 00:21:45 program for labeling organic foods. Okay. Farmers and food producers must meet these government standards. Doesn't mean they always do. Doesn't mean some people don't get away with it. Now, here's what you need to know. 100% organic labeling means there are no GMOs, organic labeling means there are no GMOs, no pesticides, none of the stuff we talked about, 100%. If something is labeled simply organic, not 100% organic, but simply organic, okay, that means that 5% of the ingredients are allowed to be GMO, have pesticides, you name it. Only 95% of the total ingredients need to be organic. Another labeling tactic you'll see is made with organic ingredients, which leaves a 30% variability. Only 70% of the ingredients are required to meet the organic standard.

Starting point is 00:22:37 A lot of people pay a lot of money. They pay organic prices, if you will. They pay the 100% organic prices for things that are just organic or made with organic ingredients. I'm saying organic so much, it does not even feel like a real word anymore. So there you have it, folks. I think it can be valuable. Although in my opinion, is the dose that makes the poison and a lot of the genetic modification, pesticide usage, and various ways in which crops that are non-organic are cultivated is not what I would like to focus on because the nutrient density of the food still stands. Okay. From Dodge City Gal, we got a question about any tips on healing a rotator cuff strain. Some days it's fine. Get in front of a physical therapist.

Starting point is 00:23:26 Seriously, pay out of pocket to go meet with a good physical therapist who can get you in fast, who specializes in sports performance or whatever it is that your goal is. Okay. I don't want you guys sitting around waiting for a terrible experience with your insurance to not get any benefit, to not have somebody give you more than five minutes before they hand you off to an aid. Get in front of somebody, get an assessment, get a diagnosis, get a treatment plan and get to work. It is that simple. If you have an injury that is keeping you from training hard, what the hell are you doing going and just trying to train through it? Get it assessed, get it taken care of, get it fixed. You can still train your lower body, especially if you have a

Starting point is 00:24:09 rotator cuff problem, but get it assessed. Okay. This question's from Jules TD. I would like to get a wood pile box. What is a good height to look for? So let's talk about plyometrics in general. So plyometrics are like small ballistic jumps, hops, things that can create tendon stiffness and build explosiveness. But a plyo box is for box jumps, depth jumps. Okay. Um, things where you're either jumping up or jumping down and taking that jump down energy, uh, kind of, let's say as you land, you accumulate energy, um, in the tendon, particularly Achilles tendon, and then you explode up. So you're taking advantage of that stored energy. Now let's be very clear about this.

Starting point is 00:25:08 me very clear about this. Plyo boxes in general can be very expensive. A good rogue plyo box can be anywhere from 200 to 700 bucks if you want to get like a set. I don't necessarily recommend a set. What I would recommend is a box that has different dimensions. So like a 24 by 20 by 16 or a 30 by 24 by 20, because then you have three different heights for three different exercise types. I might also recommend instead of doing wood or metal to do foam just in case you fall or slip. I have seen so many injuries on wood and metal plyo boxes from people simply missing a jump and then skinning their shin on the edge. It's brutal. It's not fun. If you can afford a foam one, get a foam one. If you can't get a metal or a wood one, but take a small amount of tape. You can use black tape and cover any edges that might scrape your shin. Because if you miss on a box jump and you drag your shin from the ankle all the way up to

Starting point is 00:26:15 the knee on the edge of a box, oh mama, that is not fun. Okay. Another great question about home gym design. This one's from Chelsea Haslam. Recommendations for setting up a home gym. I recommend you check previous episodes. We've talked about this a lot. Get dumbbells, get kettlebells, get TRX, get bands, start there, then level up, get flooring, get barbells, get plates, get squat rack. Then one more time, get a yoga ball, get a bench, start small, start with the highest leverage, most versatile pieces. Those tend to be dumbbells, TRX bands. You can get a big kettlebell for hinging, for swinging, for deadlifting, a pair of small dumbbells and light dumbbells.

Starting point is 00:26:59 In fact, I actually wrote a blog about this on coachdanyatranga.com and corecoachingmethod.com. And I've made multiple posts about this. If you want to build a home gym, think first about versatility and spaciousness. Do not be an accumulator. And what I mean by that is do not buy things simply to buy things. Okay. What I'd like you to do is focus on your space, be thoughtful. Okay. About what it is that you are adding into the space. Don't just add shit to add shit because what you'll find, like most people, uh, you'll, you'll get into a little bit of a collector's kind of, uh, tendency, if you will. Uh. And then you have more shit than you probably need and definitely more shit than you'll ever use. And that is suboptimal for somebody who has

Starting point is 00:27:54 limited space in their home. Okay. Last question from Tara Ann Jones is cannot get more than three pushups. What muscles do I need to work on? So the pushup is the chest, the shoulders, the triceps, and the core working together to create a pressing motion. Most people have weak pecs, weak triceps. So strengthening your chest and triceps using cable flies, I would recommend things like dumbbell presses, elevated pushups, plyo pushups on an elevation, like dumbbell presses, elevated pushups, plyo pushups on an elevation, tricep extensions, supplemental shoulder work. That's really all you can do. But if you want to get better at pushups, it's important to work on pushups. So I would recommend pushup variations, whether they be elevated or assisted, in which you can do more than three. That will help you rehearse the pattern, get better at it,

Starting point is 00:28:45 and ultimately, in the long run, be able to do more push-ups. Okay, folks, that does it for this episode of the podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in. Please do me a favor, share this to your Instagram story and tag me so I can say thank you. And if you haven't yet taken the two minutes to scroll down to the bottom of the podcast notes to leave a five-star rating and review, be that on Spotify or Apple podcasts, please do that for me. It helps more people find the podcast. And my goal this year is to have all time downloads cross a pretty high threshold and we're getting there. And it is really all thanks to people like you. So please continue to help as much as you can by sharing and reviewing. It really is that simple. Okay,

Starting point is 00:29:31 folks, thanks so much for tuning in and I'll catch you on the next one.

Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 307: Breakfast, Steam Room, Plateaus, Should You Eat Organic + More!

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