Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 329: How much cardio is TOO much, mobility vs. flexibility + MORE!

Episode Date: October 17, 2023

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Hey, everybody, welcome in to episode 329 of the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. As always, I'm your host, Danny Matranga, excited to be talking with you today about things that will hopefully improve your health, well-being, productivity, and peace of mind. In this episode, I'll be answering listener questions from over on Instagram. You can follow me on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, pretty much everywhere. But I field most of my questions for the podcast from over on Instagram. Today, we'll be discussing the difference between mobility and flexibility. We'll be discussing how to improve mobility, build muscle.

If you have one side that's tighter or one side that's larger than the other, what ought you to do? Should you maybe train that bigger side less and that smaller side more, the tighter side less and the weaker side more, et cetera. We'll discuss how to include cardio in your weight training program, whether or not there is a problem with doing a certain amount, looking at the interference effect, my thoughts on finishing leg days with HIIT training, as well as my favorite easy to digest pre-workout protein sources. Lots of things that you can take with you and put into action to train harder, feel better, move better. It should be a fun episode. Let's get into it.

This episode is brought to you in part thanks to some of our amazing partners like LMNT. LMNT makes the best electrolyte product on the market. In fact, I've actually started drinking my LMNT each and every morning before I have coffee so as to optimize my circadian biology, make sure that I'm hydrated, and make sure that I'm getting ahead on my water intake throughout the day and not reliant on stimulants, but instead being somebody who's reliant on hydration and the proper balance of minerals and electrolytes. If you want to feel your best all day, mentally and physically, it's imperative that you stay hydrated. LMNT provides a balanced ratio of

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I looking to take your fitness to the next level. My favorite flavors are definitely the raspberry and citrus. When I put a box together, I try to load up on raspberry and citrus. And when you put your box together, you can get a free sample pack containing all of Elements' amazing flavors like mango chili, citrus, raspberry, orange, and more. To get access to this free gift with purchase, scroll down to the show notes and check out using the special link for Dynamic Dialogue listeners. listeners. Okay. Getting into our first question. This one comes from why Guzman one for three. And the question is, I need a protein powder that digests fast for a five 30 AM workout. Any questions? So good question. If you're training early in the morning on an empty stomach, you probably want a very easy to digest protein. Now, proteins digest at different rates,

depending on two primary things, the structure of the protein itself and the total fat that is with the protein. So I will give you an example. Chicken breast will digest more quickly than chicken thigh because there is less fat in the chicken breast. Fat tends to slow down digestion. But if we look at the exact same thing, let's use dairy protein as example, the cheese and yogurt products tend to digest more slowly in large part due to fat, but also due to the presence of casein protein than does milk products, which are a better balance or a more balanced whey to casein ratio. Whey protein is probably the fastest digesting protein out there. Let me teach you something about protein using a nursery rhyme that I'm sure you've heard. Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet eating her curds and whey protein. Curds are used for cheese.

So when you're producing cheese, you take the curds and you remove it from the filtered whey. Well, what is that whey? It's literally just milk protein, the fastest digesting of the dairy proteins. You take the casein loadedloaded curds that are a slower, more gelatinous protein. That's why you kind of use them for things like cottage cheese and cheese in general. And for dairy manufacturers, whey just kind of gets shipped off, where supplement companies love to buy it, process it, filter it, and get a high quality, pretty much pre-digested milk protein. So as far as proteins go, nothing's going to digest faster than whey because all of

the stuff that would slow down the digestion of dairy protein, like casein protein and fat that is found in cheese, like cottage cheese, it's all removed during the process. So little Miss Muffet getting you gains and fast digesting protein. But you can also, if you're not into dairy, find other options. Just make sure that whatever it is you're choosing is limit. You'll limit the amount of fat. You limit the amount of fiber. You chew it well. And for 5.30 a.m. training, you're probably okay to just go at it fasted. Like, let's say you're a vegan and you're like, I'm never going to have fast digesting whey protein. Fuck that. That's not for me. Okay. Well, what if we trained fasted

and you sipped on water, electrolytes, maybe creatine, maybe essential amino acids, just throwing it out there. That might be a, not a terrible idea for a vegan. Um, and then post-workout, you just had a protein source that works for you and you get that protein in after your training where the rate of digestion isn't as important. Cause I hear you. If you're training in the morning, one of the worst things to do, I've done this a million times. I still fuck it up. Have a huge breakfast, then go to the gym early when your digestive motility is slow

and you just feel heavy. I hate that. I think you can avoid that by training fasted and then just selecting a protein that works for you if a whey protein isn't going to be your vibe. But if you can handle the dairy, I would say whey protein all the way. All right. This one is from Maloof Nicholas. He asks, what's the difference between mobility and stretching? And so I think this is a really good opportunity to define some terms, mobility, flexibility,

and stretching. So let's start with stretching. I just want you guys to think of stretching as lengthening a muscle. Okay. So if you're listening in the car, um, you know, keeping both hands on the wheel, of course, uh, if you just turn your head gently to the side, the muscles on the side of your neck that you're turning towards are going to shorten and the muscles on the side of your neck that you're turning away from are going to lengthen. If you can drive with one hand, which, you know, or maybe you're walking when you listen to the podcast and you just simply take your hand that's not driving and place it on the back of your head, you're going to stretch your pec a little bit. You're going to stretch some of your external

rotators. So anytime you're lengthening a muscle, you're stretching it. Imagine a bicep curl. You're curling up and you're flexing. Well, when you're going down, you're stretching the bicep under load. So that's stretching. That's going to contribute to hypertrophy, especially if it's loaded. And if you do like prolonged 60, 90 second stretches of, you know, specific tissues, it might lengthen them. And that tissue quality of passively, usually passively being able to get your tissues into more lengthened positions without pain, that's typically flexibility. But mobility has a component of control, which is to say, I don't want to see that you can do the splits, which is a more passive, flexible thing. I want to see if maybe you can squat down or

load into the splits, or can you load your adductors in that lengthened position? So mobility is a little more active. I'll give you an example. The 90-90 base position on the floor is a good passive stretch. But when you do the 90-90 hip switch and you start flipping side to side, you're incorporating a component of neural control. It's a little more active. It's not all passive. And I think that is the best way to drive mobility. Mobility is flexibility you can use. It tends to be flexibility you can load. And that's about as complicated as I think these things need to be. And I think when you start breaking down, do I want to be more flexible? Do I want to be more mobile? I would say for most people, you probably want to improve both.

You'll find that having greater range of motion, greater control in, uh, like more lengthened positions and more vulnerable positions. That's mobility. That's a good tool, but not being so tight and bound up all the time, being a little looser, having a more lengthened quality to the tissue, that, that more flexible component, not a bad thing either. Just know that there's a continuum here. Stretching can lead to a

flexibility and sometimes mobility. If you're flexible, it then becomes more easy to be mobile. And if you're mobile and you have great mobility, you probably also have excellent passive flexibility and stretching is not so much a problem. But typically you will work your way through that continuum with a variety of stretches and mobility exercises, which leads me to this question from Deb W 0 7, uh, one zero short of the big time, my friend, almost Deb W double Oh seven, but you're just Deb W seven. Um, she says restricted ankle mobility in one ankle, increased range of motion on the single side or continue with both. Um, I give the same recommendation here that I give for people who ask me, what do I do?

And this is like an insanely common question. What do I do if I have one butt cheek that's bigger than my other butt cheek for men? It's what do I do if I have one arm that's bigger than the other? And the cool thing about it is, uh, first off, what you don't want to do is do 200 reps for the small glute and then 100 reps for the bigger glute in the hopes that you'll balance it out. If you just do the same work for both, the body has a compensatory ability to allocate resources towards the smaller side. How do we know this? We actually know this from rehabilitation science. If somebody breaks their arm and trains the

non-broken arm, there is a hypertrophy response in the non-broken arm. So if you have one side of the body that's a little bit more developed than the other, instead of trying to do way more work for the underdeveloped side and way less work for the side that's more developed, ask yourself this, can I include more unilateral work where each side has to work on its own? And if I can do that first, and if you're already doing that, just ask that what you can of the weaker side to stay paced with the stronger side. And once it's gassed, just stop. Over time, those things tend to balance out. Additionally, nobody notices those asymmetries the way you do. So there's a very good chance what bothers you is completely unnoticeable to other people.

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'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. I think for mobility, it's the same thing. It might not make as much sense to allocate as much time to that joint that already has great mobility, but I wouldn't just skip it altogether. I would definitely still work on incorporating mobility for both sides of the body and both joints, just to make sure that you maintain, you know, a pretty equal and pretty well, well-rounded amount of mobility at each of those joints. Even if you're playing catch up, um, it's not bad in any way, shape, or form for the joint that's already mobile for you to continue working on that. Not bad in the slightest, not

even close. So, um, that's one where I can't say definitively that improving mobility on the weaker side will enhance mobility or on the looser side or on the tighter side will enhance mobility in the already loose side. The way that I can say hyper, uh, building muscle on an uninjured side will allocate resources to the injured side. I just think it's best to, you know, in that situation, you know, just do the work on both sides and know that eventually they'll run together. Because what I would not want to see happen is losing mobility on the more mobile side to kind of meet in the middle, just drive the adaptation as much as you can in

the lagging side and let the other side excel as you work your way there. Okay. Good question here from Lupita Perez XX, uh, thoughts on finishing up an intense leg slash glute day with cardio. Does this minimize gains? And so this pairs beautifully with another question from AJ945, which is if you're doing a mix of lifting and cardio, is it possible to do too much cardio? So this is one of the most hilariously stupid things I've seen in the fitness industry for the past, let's say, eight to 10 years. And I'm not going to name names. I'm not going to say who perpetuates this shit, but there are so many people who say that cardio is going to lead to substantial muscle

loss, or it's going to lead to fat gain, which is unequivocally one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. Like, do you have eyeballs? Have you watched sports? Have you seen people who do tons of aerobic training, be it the NFL, be it the NBA, be it even things like CrossFit? Do you not see these hyper aerobically fit adults also holding on to huge swaths of muscle. And look, I understand professional athletes are elite high caliber physical specimens. And guess what? You're probably not one of elite high caliber physical specimens. Um, but like doing a considerable amount of cardio, uh, is not going to cause you to lose your gains. And it's definitely not going to cause you to gain fat. That's what shysters and shucksters want to sell you. The truth is the

interference effect, as it's called, does not kick in for a considerable amount of time. And if you're not logging legit miles, I would not be stressed about doing aerobic fitness or building your aerobic capacity through cardio. In fact, it will probably help you build more muscle in the long run. If you have a decent level of aerobic fitness, you have better blood flow to the tissues you're training, you partition nutrients better, and you're just healthier with greater mitochondrial density. Anybody who tells you doing cardio is going to make you fat or make you lose gains is somebody that you should probably just stop listening to because they're not applying enough nuance. And in truth, they probably know that they're just bullshitting. It's very, very possible to gain a ton of muscle and do a considerable amount of cardio. But if you

are running multiple miles a week and noticing that that amount of volume, and it doesn't have to be running, it can be any other aerobic adaptation, right? Like I find it very interesting swimmers who spend like six, this is, this is one of the funniest things in fitness. Again, the same people, they all say, Oh, cardio is going to make you lose muscle. Oh, cardio is going to make you gain a ton of fat. It's going to actually make your metabolism slow down. It's like, um, why does that only apply to women who do the stair master too much, but it doesn't apply to like freak high level athletes who run so much or even better yet, a better example, swimmers who are like in the pool for five, six hours a day swimming, literally just doing cardio. They're all pretty jacked. They're not losing any muscle

from swimming and they are swimming for hours. And yes, I know there is resistance from the water, but this notion that doing cardio is going to lead to a loss in muscle, to me, is so obviously a cop-out to one, not do cardio, and two, sell people on the benefits of resistance training. And let me just make it abundantly clear. If you need to bash cardio to encourage people to lift, one, you're bad at coaching. Two, you're bad at explaining and communicating science. Three, you're probably not helping people build a robust and well-developed physique that will not die of a heart attack. You should have good cardio, period, end of story. It does not take a ton of cardiovascular work to not die of a heart attack, and it takes a fuck ton of cardiovascular work to lose muscle.

And guess what? You're not doing enough cardiovascular work to lose muscle. And guess what? You're not doing enough cardiovascular work to lose muscle. So don't worry about it. Back to that question from Lupita Perez XX. Do I think you should finish an intense leg day with more cardio? Does it minimize gains? Now, this is a different question. She's not asking, does cardio cause muscle loss? She's asking, does doing intense cardio after leg day minimize gains? Here's where it could. Let's say you're training very hard in the gym, breaking down muscle, and maybe you're not eating a ton of calories. And then you go do a hit after you just train those muscles and you ask even more of them

and you keep that protein breakdown occurring because hit is very different. Intense cardio is very different than say, just going for a walk or doing like a little, I call them like a flush, like 10 to 15 minutes of zone two cardio on the bike to help with circulation, getting lactate out of the tissue. So you can minimize DOMS. These are things you can do. That's fine. But doing hit after leg training, that might minimize your gains because one, you might overshoot on output. You might do a little bit more than you were hoping to do. You might burn more calories than you're going to then go and replace. You might damage more muscle and again, delay what could also be time spent eating, could be time spent recovering, could be time spent

working on other things. And HIIT is so different than low intensity, steady state cardio. Okay. It's just so different. Um, and I actually have been scripting out videos for a shoot that I'm doing on October. I'm, this is recorded on September 20th. So the video itself might actually be done by the time you hear the podcast. Cause I'm, I'm right now about a month out. So I'm getting married on October 14th. Very excited about that. Going on a honeymoon for five days at Mexico. I'm going to spend five more days in Mexico with my buddies before that going to Hawaii, trying to get myself to Japan. And so, you know, I've got, you know, 300, this is episode 329 of the podcast. And I think right now I just aired three 21. So, you know, two a week, I'm four weeks ahead. So you won't hear this until this video has been filmed,

but I literally just filmed a video where I'm going to to film a video when I see my videographer in 10 days, on the number one reason that your glutes aren't growing. And of course, that's a catchy hook, but the reason I gave and I'm going to discuss in that video is the prevalence of women who train very hard and do very high volume leg days and follow it up with even more cardio. That is a not so great idea, folks. It's really, really not smart. Super, super good way to overshoot, to do a little bit too much and to end up in a situation where you're not recovering optimally from your training. So cardio, great for muscle. Cardio, great for health. Post-workout HIIT after legs, not so great for your leg growth, glute growth. That is a much more nuanced approach. If you told me, you know, I'm going to do low intensity, steady state cardio, awesome.

Oh, I want to do HIIT? I'd say just do it on a day you're not training your legs. It can be that simple, folks. Okay. Thanks so much for tuning into that pretty rapid fire Q&A episode of the podcast. Again, folks, if you want me to answer your fitness questions, I'm happy to do it. Just follow me on Instagram. And when you see the question box go up in my story, that's your time to strike. Ask a good question, provide as much nuance as you reasonably can, and you might be featured on the show nuance as you reasonably can, and you might be featured on the show. If you're a fan and you like listening and you want to help other people get in shape, there's two easy ways to do it. Screenshot this, share it to your Instagram story and tag me, or share a link with friends. And probably the best thing you can do is leave a

five-star rating and review on Apple or Spotify, because that helps more people find the show organically just when they search. So anything you can do to help me help more people and help people live fitter would be awesome. I know we're all on this journey together. You wouldn't be listening if you weren't into your health, fitness, and you tolerate my nasally broken nose voice, which I really do appreciate because your time is valuable. And there are so many fantastic podcasts. I listened to about 15 different podcasts on sports, football, science, nutrition, training, real estate, finance, all these things, right? So I know this is probably just one of the many podcasts you listen to, and I'm committed to keeping them short, digestible, and actionable so you can get the most out of them.

Thanks so much for tuning in and I'll catch you on episode 330.