Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 310: Reverse Dieting is Fake, How to Make Good Content + More (Interview)

Episode Date: August 8, 2023

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Hey, everybody, welcome into a special episode of the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. Today's episode is an interview, actually, a featured interview I did on the Fitness Uncovered podcast. You'll get a different dynamic in this episode. Typically, this is a solo podcast where I interview guests occasionally. However, it is rare that you will hear an interview of mine. So anytime I go on someone else's podcast and I think the episode goes well after I've given their audience the chance to listen to it, I love to grab it and share it with

you guys here because again, we're talking all things fitness, nutrition, productivity, here because again, we're talking all things fitness, nutrition, productivity, content creation, long leverage things you can do to live a healthier, more active life that set you up for kind of the best of all worlds, longevity, mobility, strength, having balance. And this is a really good conversation, great interview, fun time with three really good co-hosts. And again, this is from the Fitness Uncovered podcast. There's a video interview component, which I will link down below in the show notes, but enjoy the episode today. 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. 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 re-enter 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. I have the matte black out on my patio, and I absolutely love the way it looks with the fencing I have around the yard, but you can put this inside, outside, on the front porch, on the back porch, in the side yard. It's quite portable. It's very durable.

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like ice baths or cold exposure or sauna heat exposure can be really valuable for increasing that subjective sense of well-being and bringing you back to a place of alertness in a really chaotic world. It's also great for just cultivating resilience. I find I'm much tougher. Again, this is a more anecdotal thing, but I find that I am much tougher, ready to face the day's tasks when I am consistently exposing myself to the elements. Call it bromeopathy, call it anecdote, but I will tell you one thing is for sure, cold water immersion has made a huge difference for my health and well-being in just a few short sessions a week, and Ice Barrel is the sleekest, best-looking, cleanest, and most affordable way to do it reliably. You can head over to icebarrel.com slash Danny to take advantage of

their 100% satisfaction guaranteed with again, a 30 day money back guarantee and save 125 bucks on your ice barrel using the promo code Danny. So again, icebarrel.com slash Danny and check out using the promo code Danny to save 125 bucks. All right. Welcome back guys for another awesome episode. Like I said, we've got some amazing guests on board and this is the first of a few. Danny is one of possibly the most shared Instagram, social media trainers out there. You have undoubtedly seen one of his posts go viral, but along with that, the guy knows his shit. He is, he's got his bachelor's in kinesthesiology. He's got certifications for NASM, ACE, like pretty much every cert you could possibly think of for those guys. CSCS, like myself, always awesome.

And then also he is NCI certified. So he knows his stuff when it comes to nutrition as well. So welcome to the show, Danny. Thanks for having me, man. I appreciate the intro and going over the accolades. Always nice. They sound fancier than they are. A lot of the knowledge comes from just doing the thing, but it's always great to hear somebody rattle through the list. Sometimes I forget I've been doing this a long time. Yeah. Yeah. They kind of just stack on each other, right? You're just like, oh, yeah. Yeah. I'd forgotten until you mentioned it, but it's exciting to be here and chatting. And I'm always looking forward to connecting with other coaches and trainers. It's a really cool industry that we work in

and I like to build relationships. So thank you for having me on. Absolutely. Pleasure to have you. Because I mean, I really look forward to these discussions with the people that are, as the fitness industry likes to say, in the trenches. Because you work with real people.

We're not just spitting nonsense online because we saw our favorite influencers say it and we're regurgitating it. Like we've put it to work. Yeah, that happens a lot. And it's not a bad thing per se, but there's certainly a degree of practicality that comes from advice given from people who've actually trained clients who don't live exclusively in the world of the theoretical or the academic. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but most online fitness personalities, they want an online presence because they want to generate more money, not necessarily because they want to help more people.

And oftentimes it's because they want to stop coaching and just be a thought leader of sorts. my own work, it's never pulled me away from the gym floor where I still communicate with real people who are struggling to do better and be better with their health every day. And that's the reason the posts go viral sometimes or the reach is there with the written content that, to your point, yeah, a lot of people have seen it. Even I see it sometimes where I'm just on social and I'm like, oh my gosh, somebody who I follow has my post on their story. It can be very cool. But the reason that those things get out there the way that they do isn't because I'm some fitness Ernest Hemingway who can just really succinctly write these beautiful tweets. It's because they're things that I say to people in person when I'm having a real discussion. And I think when another person who's maybe in that

same situation reads it, they go, man, this guy just gets it. And to anybody who wants to produce content like that, I would just say, keep actually helping people and you'd be surprised it can be done. Absolutely. It is, I think, because like a lot of your posts almost come off as like, you're a voice of the trainers. Like pretty much you have a group of people behind you that aren't super duper, like huge on building content, but they're like, this guy gets it. And they just share it around. And it definitely hits home very, very well in a sea of optimal, of fad diets, of all this other stuff that confuses the hell out of people. So yeah, you're definitely doing a service. Those things are good. I can get pretty nerdy. And I, especially when I'm talking to another coach, I'm sure we'll

have multiple rabbit holes of deep, thoughtful discussion about some of the nuanced elements of coaching, of psychology, of performance enhancement. But 70% of the people in this country are overweight and don't exercise. Those are the people that I can help the most by taking these advanced concepts and kind of whittling them down to the most practical thing. And that is what I focus on. Not because I don't see value in optimization or working on the margins, but I want to help the most people I possibly can live the healthiest life they possibly can. And I do a better job of that when I am a voice of what I would like to think is reason and actionability. Very few of the things I post or suggest, whether it be to clients one-on-one or to people who might find my things on the internet internet are things that I think are a big ask. What I like to do is present people with actionable steps that I think have the

longest lever, eat more protein, eat more fiber, take some walks, lift some weights. And you're right. When trainers see that, they're like, that's pretty much it. Yeah, that's what it takes. And so sometimes I feel like every once in a while, like good friends of mine who are very accomplished trainers and have followings on social media will occasionally comment on posts like, that's common sense, bro. And I'm like, yes, to us, 100%. It's like so obvious.

But you have to tell people things 50, 60, 70, 80 times when you're working with them one-on-one in person to get them to do something. Imagine how many times you need to get that message out there for somebody on the internet who sees your blurb on somebody else's story. So it takes a lot of simplicity and repetition, but it never gets old. It never gets old to, you know, to get to do this. And, you know, just talking to other coaches is sick too, because, you know, no matter where we're at on the path, if you're on the way up or you're, you know, doing well, or you've been at the top for a while. uh, you know, I, this whole industry has such an unfortunate tendency to be competitive and operate like fitness is some zero sum thing. There's only so many results that can be given out and I want to be the trainer giving them all out. It's like the more we collaborate, communicate, work together and network, typically the more people we will help and the more money

we will make. So, you know, a scarcity and mindset in this space keeps a lot of coaches off of podcasts and keeps a lot of coaches from networking with other coaches. And that just ends up hurting the 70 to 75% of people who need help. Exactly. It all comes down to helping the clients first and foremost. And I think it does, like back to your point about how we kind of take it for granted, like, oh, that's common sense. People don't realize how muddy the waters are when it comes to nutritional advice, fitness advice.

And we're very fortunate to be like loaded with our feed of amazing information, like yourself, like Mind Pump, like all these other places where we can get amazing info, but we're like the one source of a lot of people, a lot of people's feeds. So that's why it's always awesome to bring more people in. Like, let's get this web of really, really good practical advice, because I know I'm not putting out every single thing that somebody needs on the specific day, but you might be. Yeah. And you can't. And it takes a village, right? And I have been very fortunate. I'm sure you're aware. I had the opportunity to work with MindPump closely in the infancy of my fitness

career. I worked for six years at 24 Hour Fitness. I donated time at the university gym. I did an undergraduate degree where I personal trained the entire time. And when you train in a college town, you get a mix and match. Sometimes you get people who are too young or too broke to afford it or people that are professors. or too broke to afford it or people that are professors and they're a little bit skeptical and dubious of what a 19-year-old trainer could bring to the table. And one thing that I've loved about every step of the way, whether it's finding mentors, whether it's kind of eating a little bit of shit and just, as many people say, paying your dues, I've had the opportunity to meet people who are above me, who have done what I'd like to do or who reach even more people.

And I, at first, would be intimidated or maybe a little bit competitive or maybe be like, oh man, hey, that guy did a better job of explaining that thing. And the minute I started realizing and say, hey, I'm going to share that to my people, even if that person looks smarter than me or they're cooler than me or they're more popular than me, my people started learning. And you made a great point. You build a web. And if we can get all of the voices of reason to build a big enough web, we can fight back against so much of the conventional misinformation and quite frankly, BS that's permeated the fitness space for decades.

Yeah. And I mean, there's a rule or something out there. It's like you have to hear the same thing. I think it's like seven times before you actually believe it. So if we're saying it, like if I'm saying it, Danny's saying it, and five other influencers are saying it, I it, chances are it probably holds some weight. Absolutely. Yeah. Now, I like that you brought it back to your origins. I'm curious.

If we were to take it even further back, I love hearing what got people into it because everybody has a really interesting thing that got them into working out in the first place. I know mine was girls and football. What was yours? Yeah, a little bit of girls in football. You know, it's not uncommon. I'm hugely into sports, super athletic growing up, not particularly tall, not particularly big, very particularly white and moderately athletic. So the ceiling for athletic potential was low. And I did what I could to raise the floor by, you know, getting into the weight room, trying to add some speed, some size, some power that would have some sport carry over. And, um, I really got a lot of attention from chicks because I was already pretty lean. So the minute I started working out, I just looked like shredded, like, you know, like 138 to 145 pounds shredded. But, you know, in 2011, if you

had abs, you were killing it. So, you know, I got pretty hooked on that because I was like, oh, shoot, like I touched the weights. I got a six pack now. I'm getting attention. I could get used to this. But what made me what made me kind of consider it professionally was, you know, growing up, I was very close with my dad and he developed Parkinson's disease when I was about 11. And he got it pretty early in his life. It's typically a disease people don't develop into the 60s and 70s, but he got it in his 40s. So by the time I was graduating from high school, I'd watched him deteriorate physically

to a point where he was wheelchair bound and I was driving him around. And that was challenging to watch because with degenerative illness like that, there is, even now, 12 years later, there's no cure. There are only therapeutics, and there are modestly effective interventions that only delay the progression of the disease. And I developed a little bit of a complex of like, okay, I can't save the person who is the closest to me from this health complication. And it really broke me, and it brought me down and I was very angry and I was very depressed and it affected my ability to do well in school and a lot of

behavioral issues. And unfortunately, as an angsty teenager with a lot going on, working out was always there. So I said, this training, this output, it's always been there for me. It makes me feel good. It helps me fight against the frustration. And I have this person who I would desperately love to save, but I'm not in a position where I can do that. What can I do as a completely disinterested in academics, ADHD, career 3.0 GPA guy, whatever it takes to stay eligible. I just one day found out about kinesiology and personal training and the ability or the idea that you could get paid to help people make healthier decisions and choices. Coming from a small town with no real gyms, choices and coming from a small town with no real gyms uh that didn't seem possible i'd never seen anybody model personal training but i said you know what screw it like this is the only way i'm

gonna pay my way through this state school that somehow let me in to study the only thing i'm remotely interested in learning about um and i got hired at a 24-hour fitness, five minutes from my university. And I was awful when I first got started. But I was fortunate enough to have a lot of really thoughtful and cool people come into my life as clients and help me mature and grow and communicate better. And in my undergraduate coursework, I learned about a great deal of things from Native American studies to geography to political science and history. And as a 19-year-old, that stuff helped me more in my personal training business than my knowledge of fitness because I had nothing to connect with my clients about.

I'm like, you don't like any of the stuff I like nothing to connect with my clients about. I'm like, you don't like any of the stuff I like because you're 65 and I'm 19 and you don't listen to Joe Rogan. And I don't particularly like to read very many books. So what the heck are we going to talk about? And so I would tell them things that I learned in school or talk to them about things I was learning in school. And if it wasn't for that time kind of marinating as a listless, you know, post-teen slash early 20s kind of young guy and all of these people who needed my help with fitness but were kind enough to reciprocate by paying me with both money and wisdom, I'd probably be off doing drugs. I'm sure of it. And I don't say that hyperbolically. There's been a lot of challenges and difficulties that have come up in life that I have not made a ton of great behavioral choices around. And having had personal training, get people in front of me who needed my help that I didn't know could help me. It was a total lifesaver. Yeah. And you're definitely not alone in that because I mean, it's funny, there were a lot of parallels there to my own journey too. Like I had someone close to me get confined to a

wheelchair really early on and you kind of fall into that trap of like, well, I'm going to live every day like it's my last. And that could go one of two ways. And then you get caught up in all that. But when you find the direction, it's like off to the races. Totally. Totally, totally. It sounds like you found it pretty early, which has gotten you like a leg up, like a huge leg up when it comes to experience. Now, out of those people that you said have guided you along the journey and like helped

you grow, what are some of the like big influences? Some of like the, whether they're like people that are huge in the space or like people that maybe are lesser known. Sure. Well, you know, a bunch of different things come to mind, so I'll just kind of work through them. There's been a number of clients who come to mind first as just being people who have helped me better position myself outside of fitness, whether it's with financial advice or helping me stay the course in my own maturation. those people kept me on the tracks

in life. And if I didn't stay on the right track in life, I would have never ended up on the right track in fitness. And so there's five or six clients that come to mind as being very important and integral people for keeping me on the right track. As far as fitness goes, you mentioned the certifications, but within those certifications, there are course instructors. I've had a number of really good course instructors, both in school, less in school, but also at some of these live workshops and seminars that taught me a ton of stuff whose names I don't remember. So I feel like, oh my gosh, I'm terrible. I don't want to be the guy who's just like, yeah, Lane Norton. But of course, the titans of fitness that have created a lot of content and education and

evidence-based avenues for us to explore. And, and, you know, I've also had the opportunity to work closely with brands like mind pump or Sisu sauna or Legion or ice barrel, where you then get connected through a web of sorts to other people that you can learn from. So like, I can't, I, there's no way I could give a list without leaving like 90% of the people who deserve to be on it off of it. Um, but like that, I don't believe in the myth of the self-made man, like for as much as I've accomplished, like a lot of it is on the back of other people's knowledge, success, and just desire to help me along. I've certainly worked hard, but, um, you know but a lot of what I've learned is from people that if you go to my Instagram and click following, I only follow about 600 people and it's because

those are the people that I've learned from and that I think are doing a great job. And if those people didn't come before me, I would have no ability to use social media to have a voice because they paved the way. Yeah. And we could always go with the traditional like Oscars speech. If I didn't name you, you know who you are. Yeah, totally. Right. I want to thank my mom and my dad. And it's like, there's even the people in my life who at the time I thought were holding me back or challenging me or in the way were giving me tools to help the people that I'm capable of helping with the gifts that I have. It just took me a couple of years to really realize that. Isn't it always funny? Those are the ones that you look back like years later and you're like, that asshole, he really did help me or she really did help me damn it 100 happens all the time and i'm probably that asshole for a lot of people too when it comes to

coaching i have at least one text or email a week from somebody whose name i can't even remember who's like yeah you coached me a long time ago i i just saw one of your posts you're totally right by the way i'm down 30 pounds. I'm sorry it took me so long to finally believe you. And I'm just like, what? Like, wow, it's crazy. I thought we didn't connect. And you know, sometimes, sometimes, like you said, it takes seven or eight times. Yep. And sometimes people just got to like stew in it. I mean, that's one of the things like one of the big topics I keep revisiting lately is like, people just have to sometimes sit in what they're doing and realize it's not working.

Totally. Have you found, are there any like big topics that you've been kind of like on lately that seem to take up a lot of your like mental space and like what you're conveying in your messaging or anything like that? In regards to fitness or just generally? Fitness, nutrition, anything like lifestyle wise gotcha so topics that have piqued my interest or that have changed my mind on yeah something that you kind of catch yourself like posting about more than the others and you're like damn this

is like the third or fourth time i've done this in like a week yeah i definitely go on tangents and i oftentimes will use the um blue pill red pill um analogy so like it for those of you who aren't initiated when you red pill somebody you are essentially telling them how it is with very little nuance, oftentimes cynicism, and a tremendous amount of pessimism. So an example of red pilling someone or a red pill would be there are only two types of people in the world, people who have time to work out and people who have deluded themselves into thinking they don't. So there's a red pill tweet. Sometimes I'll do the blue pill tweet, which would be like, some people have it figured out that only a few hours a week can completely change your health. And other people are still stuck in the idea that you need

to work out every day to get in shape. Remember folks, even a small amount will work wonders. Those are two ways of saying the same thing. And a lot of times what I will do with my content is I'll think of the thing I'd like to say, and then I'll say it blue pill, and then I'll say it red pill, and then I'll say it purple pill. And I am more of a purple pill guy, somewhere in the middle, not too soft, not too difficult, or coarse. But when you work with people like I do, you'll know very quickly, all right, that's a red pill person. Okay, that's a blue pill person. Okay, maybe that's a purple pill person. And so oftentimes, when I'm sitting with a concept or an

idea or something I'd like to share, I'll share it multiple ways. And I will see how that idea is best received by using the internet or real interactions. But that's kind of how I would categorize it. And sometimes I catch myself like, oh, I'm definitely been talking about fiber a lot. Or I'm really on that eat your protein kick. And sometimes I think it's repetitious, but everything that you want to be great at requires repetition. And if you want getting enough protein and fiber to be nourished and have a lean body composition so you don't die early and develop type 2 diabetes, you should probably practice eating a lot of protein and a lot of fiber every day. And that probably requires somebody barking it at you. 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. And so sometimes I think, this is a little boring, kind of a little sick talking about

fitness. Maybe I'll take a spin down the political road, risk it all. But that doesn't help me. It doesn't help my audience. So usually it's just different ways of communicating something that is central to my view of how you can live a healthy life. It's just, how do I spin it? Yeah. And I think we all fall trapped to that, especially election season or some hot topic comes around and you're just like, oh, I want to say something, but it's just not going to hit. It's just, it's not worth it. It's not. And one thing I thought, and I'll take it off into a political tangent, is so much of our political appetite is unnecessarily adversarial. We've been conditioned because of legacy media, as well as many of the political influencers

in the world to think of everything as so adversarial um that even though nutrition and fitness and access to these things has some very serious economic political implications and connections it's just like i think that politics has become so unnecessarily adversarial partisan toxic performative and at times like hilariously silly and stupid, that allowing it to live on my page is putting more toxicity into people's lives. And I've really tried to be aware of this is a fitness space. And not to toot my own horn, but there are a lot of influencers in the fitness space who think they understand politics, who have absolutely zero understanding of how government works.

They don't understand how elections work. They don't understand how legislation works. They have a very rudimentary understanding of politics overall. If they have any understanding that isn't completely warped or biased by moronic influencers or hilariously stupid partisan media. So when I see that, I go, wow, that guy looks like an idiot. I don't want to be an idiot. I don't want to drag people into politics because it's such a drain on our energy and it's so adversarial and it's so partisan. And I notice when my content is adversarial and partisan,

it does better. But I don't want to contribute to that space because I look at the way people look at news and the way people look at depictions of what's happening politically. They're incapable of seeing what's going on because they can't get past... Well, it's not that they're incapable, but they get caught in the drama and the partisan hackery. And I'm like'm like okay that's what's happening with the vegan and the carnivore shit right now and you have a bunch of morons not eating protein and you have a bunch of bigger morons not eating vegetables and it's like how the hell did this happen i go oh my god wait a second this is literally like what happens when politically speaking you have the two loudest fringes making the most noise and

everybody in the middle being like, well, you guys just shut up so we can figure out something workable here. And once I caught myself bringing that negativity to my content and seeing it in other people's content, I made a pretty concerted effort to try to stay apolitical, even during election seasons, which is nigh impossible. But there's just so much conflict and negativity that people deal with. I'd prefer to insulate them from that and just be like, there's certainly a lot of things I'm in a position to talk about, but I don't think you need that on your feed right now. You just need to be reminded of actionable fitness tips. Exactly.

And I mean, I think it also comes down to like the broader discussion of like mental health overall. Sure, sure, absolutely. I know you said you like only follow like 600 people and it's the people that provide you the most and you actually get something from them. So I'm like, what do you think about people like curating their feed?

Because I know like personally, when the whole deep fake with the presidents, like playing call of duty was on, I gave it one like, and then all of a sudden it's all political stuff. Like they just, the algorithms jump all over it. Yeah. Because hyper-inflammatory partisan content, it promotes an agitation that is much more likely to keep you using the technology than a nuanced, long-form conversation like this. and that's horrible for people's mental health. Imagine opening up your phone and every day being bombarded with content that is essentially telling you lies about the world we live in and telling you that people who you have a lot in common with are horrible because they feel a certain way about a certain policy issue. That's kind of the world we live in. I imagine it's awful for one's mental health to think that I'm in an entirely adversarial relationship with 50% of the country

because of the memes that I get fucking pumped. Like whether you're on the left or you're on the right, you believe you're on one or the other because of what you've been conditioned to believe, most likely. And a lot of people love that negative content and they wake up every day and they're like, God, I'm hella depressed all the time.

And I'm super anxious. And I'm aggro. It's definitely not the fact that I started my day with a 20-minute sprint on TikTok through all this negative world's ending. Here's how bad things are. Crap. And I'm not saying to stick your head in the sand and ignore what's going on. I'm definitely not.

I'm just saying, look, if you can curate your social media experience so you follow people who are educating you and inspiring you, and you don't go on Twitter's For You page, or you don't go on TikTok's For You page, which will most certainly serve you up things that they're aware will evoke a negative emotional response more than a positive one, you'll have a much better relationship with social media. I would recommend audit your following. If somebody is mostly posting negative shit that makes you mad, just mute them, unfollow them. If they take it personal, they're sensitive, way too sensitive. If you unfollow somebody, it doesn't mean you're like, unfollow them. If they take it personal, they're sensitive, way too sensitive. If you unfollow somebody, it doesn't mean you're like, I hate you. But if it's like your crazy uncle who posts nothing but negative political shit and every time you see it, you're rolling

your eyes, unfollow them. If it's an influencer that you follow just so that you can shit on their bad takes, I see this all the time in fitness. Like, oh, I follow them because they post stupid things. Why? Why? Like, what are you gaining from that? It seems like everybody, especially in the strength and conditioning world, just feeds off that stuff like no other, like shitting on other coaches. Yeah, because fitness is full, and this isn't a surprise to you of a bunch of wildly insecure men who weren't good enough to play sports at a high level so they're trying to be the fucking uh lebron james of you know strength and conditioning and dunk on everybody with their their good takes and identify everybody who's been even partially incorrect about anything and

they've oh they've gotten to the point now where they've so over intellectualized fitness people are like hilariously debating what angle is best for hitting the you know uh seventh region of the the deltoid the most the posterior most angle this is the arm path it's like bro i i i'm sorry but i'm sorry your dad didn't tell you you were a good boy and smart, but you know, like proving to everybody you're the smartest person on the internet and all of your content just taking people out at the knees who aren't yet there. That is not helping. Like it just does. It's helping you. And our space is like polluted with people like that. How do I know? I used to be that douchebag. And then I realized, fuck, I don't help any people when I'm doing this. And then when I stopped doing it, my account grew. It's like, oh, okay, I get it now. There are those who make content to help people. And then there are those who make content to seek validation for intelligence that they

might just be regurgitating in the first place. that they might just be regurgitating in the first place. But that is not, in my opinion, helping other people. And it's oftentimes presenting you as a, you know, you're kind of hurting people. The trainer that you're making fun of might have made that content because they were trying and they're wrong. And it's completely okay to be wrong. But when you drag somebody out like that, now you have an enemy. Now you've made somebody embarrassed.

Now maybe they'll think twice before they post something that could have been helpful. So I prefer not to contribute to that because I think it's toxic. And I've had people that I look up to come on my posts and shit on me when I'm wrong and it fucking burns. It burns real bad. Um, and you know, I don't want to do that to somebody else. Yeah, absolutely. Cause it is, it is toxic. And I mean, I was fishing for something inflammatory there and that's going to be what gets posted. We're going to be calling out all these people. I know. I tell people all the time, you're super worried about inflammation why are you on your fucking phone all day all that is is inflammatory content exactly exactly now let's get into the um fitness and nutrition side of things because i do think that mental mental health conversation is a huge huge thing and it holds so so much value but yeah let's have

some fun and talk about the fun stuff. So you have your own space that you train out of, right? Yeah, I own a studio. It's dual purpose. So strength and conditioning and physical therapy. Yeah. So if anybody here listening in Northern California, that's the place to go. Yeah.

So when it comes to, I know you have a really good setup. You got the good rack in there, the cable and all that. I know a lot of people that listen to this, in particular, are people over the age of 40 that are just trying to get into better shape. Sure. Are there super complex exercises that you find yourself programming or do you stick to the basics? What makes up the bulk of what you give your clients that gets them the insane results? Yeah. So with most of the clients that I work with, they can commit to two to three sessions a week. For the ones that can commit to more, we get a little more complicated. We get a little bit more nuanced, but I'd say 85% of the people that I work with online or who come to the studio, they only have so much time. And if you have a limited amount of time to allocate to your

resistance training and you want the highest return on investment, I think that there are some very, very simple big rocks and boxes that you should check. I'm a huge proponent of using compound movements, which are movements that train multiple muscles together. That way, you don't have to take a longer term approach to training the whole body. If you do like a curl and then a tricep extension, and then a lateral raise, and then you do a chest fly and a lat pull down, you will hit your whole upper body. Or you could do a bench press and a one-arm row, which hits all the same muscles in two movements. And then you can move on to the legs and the trunk. And so one of the things I think about is efficiency. And compound movements are very efficient. Training through a full range of

motion or the fullest range of motion that a person has access to, that's going to be great for strength. That's going to be great for coordination. That's going to be great for muscle growth. Those things are all really important. So what the bulk of the training I do looks like is we're going to try to find a push, a pull, a squat, and a hinge. The squat can be unilateral. It can be a lunge. And we're going to get through those. And if we get through those, I already know I've trained every muscle in your body. And if we get through those through a full range of motion, I also know I've made you more mobile. And if we get through those close to failure through a full range of motion, I know I've made you more jacked. So to put it succinctly,

it's like got to do a push, pull, squat, and a hinge close to failure through a full range of motion, I know I've made you more jacked. So to put it succinctly, it's like got to do a push-pull squat and a hinge close to failure through a full range of motion, somewhere between five to 30 reps, depending on your pain tolerance, two to three times a week. There we go. That's my formula. I use barbells. I use dumbbells. I use cables. I've got clients that can do full pull-ups. I've got clients that can only do lightweight lat pull-downs. They're both forms of pulling the bar vertically, right? So I don't really train movements. I train patterns. I got to like, look, I got to have you train this pattern and we're going to figure out the best way to do that for your body. So it does end up looking a

little different, but really at its base is about fundamentally training through a full range of motion using the highest leverage movement types. Yeah. And I love how you said you train movements because that is like a really good sign of a seasoned coach because back to the people that love to argue on the internet, like they'll say, you got to do a certain type of vertical pull to hit a certain type of muscle. But it's like, when you break it down and say, listen, I just got to pull something vertically up to down or horizontally forward to back, you've got a million exercises at your disposal. Totally. And people need more variety, like not more variety, but more options to fit their body. So what are some

things I know, like in the population, like general population, we come across a lot of injuries, a lot of things that people are dealing with. What are some simple tweaks that you do that you catch yourself doing with a lot of clients with similar type of injuries? Super, super good question. So, uh, with gen pop, you, you see a lot of immobility in the shoulders, very common for people to not be able to press overhead or, you know, really use a lot of the space above their head that they're limited in their shoulders. To put it in a way most people would understand. There's a way to communicate like there's not enough flexion at the glenohumeral joint, but that's not who I want to be. Calm it down there, Eric Cressy.

All right. Yeah. A lot of people can go overhead. A lot of people can't. If you can't go overhead, it's a great idea to strengthen the muscles on the back of your shoulder. It's a great idea to mobilize the muscles on the front of your shoulder. So when I see that, when I see people come in who are

clearly restricted at the shoulder, I'm like, hey, we're going to do a lot of rowing. We're going to do a lot of face pulls, external rotation. We're going to limit how much we press. But when we do press, maybe we'll press on an incline and we'll use dumbbells so you can put your shoulder in the position where it's the most mobile. Another super common one, probably the most common one, is low back pain. Anytime I have a client with low back pain, I'm thinking strong core, strong glutes, strong lats. Those are the muscles that have the greatest ability to provide stability to the low back. Without being able to diagnose people, I have a physical therapist in the clinic, but I'm not going to be like, hey, bro, drop your patient and tell me what's going on with

this person's back. As a general rule of thumb, like strong glutes, strong core, strong lats, pretty much is what you need to have stability and safety and confidence in the low back. And you can spin that a million ways and complexify it and be like, well, what core muscles? What glute muscles? What movements are best for the lats? It's like, listen, okay, it's really a lot less about that. And it's more about gently finding movements that you can do in the absence of pain. And if we can do that, we can get you away from low back pain. And another really common one is, we can get you away from low back pain. And another really common one is just knee pain. A lot of people have arthritis. They need a knee replacement.

Their knees are just achy from too much sitting or being too heavy. And for those people, I really like to focus on strengthening the hamstrings, the glutes, and the calves. Muscles that are posterior to the knee, they're behind the knee. Most of people's knee pain is in the front. And wouldn't you know it, if something bothers you in the front and you strengthen it in the back, it usually gets better. Wildly unscientific and reductionist, I'm aware, but it fucking works. And if you don't believe me, try it. It's hilarious. And if something bothers you in the back, try strengthening it in the front it's it you know you're moving the joint you're just not loading the agitated tissue uh that that is how i

deal with about 85 of the general population pain that i see because about 85 of it falls into those three areas yeah well said and i mean that pretty much like covered everything I was like hoping we'd covered. So I don't even have to ask you more on that, which is great. But one of the, one of the things that I heard you say that is huge when it comes to people getting the best results is the fact that you have a PT in house. Like, and honestly, that's one of the biggest things I miss from working in a gym because we had one too. And it really comes down to having a good network. So you got the PT. Are there any other things that you recommend to your clients that you're like, listen, if you want to get the best results possible, find a really quality this or that. Yeah. I think having a good relationship

with your primary care physician is helpful. That's just a general thing. I think if you had a PT who you trust in case you have a training injury, that can be helpful. Some people really like chiropractors. I'm not a huge fan of chiropractic medicine, but to each their own. Same thing with manual therapy. Some people really love massage. For me, I'm just not a huge massage guy, but I see the value in all of those. I would say somebody who can oversee your health from a general perspective, someone

who can help you if pain or injury arises that you can't train through, that's the start of your network. I would also recommend a couple of friends who are interested in fitness, who might push you along or hold you accountable. Great to add more fit, engaged, enthusiastic people to your network. Of course, I'm biased. I think having a coach or a trainer is important too. But, you know, I think what most people miss that is the lowest hanging fruit is having insights to their laboratory work, which can be done for very inexpensive. You can use a company to run between 40 and 80 different, let's call them diagnostic markers or biomarkers, once a year, once every couple years. And not necessarily because you suspect something to be wrong, but because maybe you just like to have an idea of where you're at on a bunch of different vitals, whether it be

your blood sugar, your blood lipids, your hormones, things that when you go to your doctor, a lot of times are difficult to get drawn up. But that's a really good thing you might add is just like, hey, once a year, I do a lab. Once a year, I take a look at some deeper markers of my health. And wouldn't you know it, I was deficient in vitamin D and my cholesterol is a little too high. So I'm going to work on that. Once you hit about 40, you really want to start looking at what's going on under the hood. You got to take the preventative maintenance a little more seriously. I'm getting into that now. I've been doing that for a couple of years. I've got a bunch of my clients doing that. I really recommend it. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the GP will run it,

do what they do. But I mean, at a certain point, it's sad to say, but our clients are in the minority of people that really care about their fitness and their health. So, they're going to have to take extra measures if they really want to get to that level of doing what's best. Because right now, the medical model is very logistical. It's like, how can we help the most people with the, in the best way possible? And that doesn't always equate to what's best for the individual. So taking that step, doing this extra stuff pays off big, big time. It really does. Yeah. And I'm curious, I saw that you have your own method. You call it the core method, right? That's what my company's called. I would imagine that everybody has a method.

Yeah. You would hope. Whether or not they use their method in their company branding. Yeah. But the reason that I use the term core is because I really think you have to look at the whole person from the inside out. And if you look at clients as bodies versus people, you won't do very well in this industry. So the succinct way of communicating what that brand means is, you know, the method by which I coach starts with the human being that is inside the body, not the body itself. People and their psychology and who they are and understanding and connecting with that is really important for helping people. If they don't trust

you and know that you care, they're probably not going to buy in. And so that's, that's where that name came from. The method is, you know, Hey, let's lift through a full range of motion, load up on protein, fiber, go for walks, get some sleep, uh, you know, have the hard conversation. So it's not sticking on you and making you feel awkward. Be social, get some sun, pet a dog, call it a day. You know, that's the method. You got to come up with names in business, you know? Exactly. It's got to be catchy. But that, I mean, I feel like we're all pretty much doing very, very similar stuff and it's because it works and it's really not as complicated as so many people make it out to be. You're completely right about that, my friend. Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate that.

Now, I think we went over some big things that are going to help a lot of people. And I want to be respectful of your time because I know we're coming up on it. And I got to ask you the biggest question that I never let a guest leave without asking. Sure. Sure. Okay. It tells us a whole lot about you. So are you ready?

Yeah. Don't do pineapple on pizza though. No. Don't let that be the question. Absolutely not. Cause that'll be inflammatory. Yes. There you go. The question is what's your favorite movie and why? Oh gosh.

Everybody hates me because I don't watch very many movies. I'm like a totally not a TV guy could be a book too i have let some people i have a favorite movie uh my friends kind of roast me for it i'm not a huge science fiction guy but the film ex machina um if you've ever seen it it has os Oscar Isaac. That's kind of it. Other than him, it's kind of like a mediocre cast. It's a 2013 film nominated for a couple of different Academy Awards about an artificially intelligent robot who is trained by a, you know, kind of entry-level programmer at some meta slash Google spin-off company for the for the movie yeah um

but it's a it's a it's a fantastic movie um i don't necessarily like it because it has some deeper meaning i just find it to be wildly entertaining and just super cool to watch and everybody who i've shown it to now that we're at this weird societal kind of junction with generative AI was like, oh my gosh, wow. Remember that movie? I'm like, yes, I watch it every year. It's amazing. So that is a movie that I would highly recommend. I don't have a deep, heartfelt answer, unfortunately. Hey, I mean, that was a good answer. I mean, those ones definitely hold a place where it's like, all right, they kind of predict a little bit of the future. And if you're into that sort of thing and you don't mind a little horror spin,

Megan was up that alley too. And that was pretty good. Totally. Totally. Yep. Yeah. Very similar. Yeah. Good times. A little scary though, because I totally see it happening. similar. Yeah. Good times. A little, little scary though. Cause I totally see it happening, but anyway, I really appreciate you coming on spitting some knowledge and helping my audience really simplify everything and see it from another coach's perspective. Cause I know it just holds so, so much value. So thank you again for coming on. Really, really appreciate it. Thanks for having me dude. Anytime. Awesome. And now where could the people find you if they want to get more of your content, get in touch with you? Sure. Yeah. I got a podcast, Danny Matrenga, put that into your podcast app. It'll pop up. It's called dynamic dialogue. I've got a YouTube, got a Tik TOK, got a Instagram,

got a Twitter. Um, if you just put my name in on even Google, you'll probably find all my stuff. Awesome. And to make it even easier on you guys, I'm just going to put it in the show notes. So click away, find Danny and get in, get, uh, his stuff because it is so, so good. And it'll keep fueling the conversation that we were just having. So again, thank you for coming on and for everybody listening, hope you have an amazing rest of your week.