Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 389: 7 moves for an athletic core - Vitamins, Lifting while Pregnant, Changing macros + More!

Episode Date: October 16, 2024

Join my app based training teams, free for 7 days! HERE! Interested in Working With Coach Danny and His One-On-One Coaching Team? Click HERE! Help the show (and enter for a chance to win some swag) by leaving a review on: - APPLE PODCASTS - SPOTIFYOUR PARTNERS:HERELegion Supplements (protein, creatine, + more!), Shop (DANNY) !The best hydration and pre-workout on the planet! Get your  LMNT Electrolytes HERE!   SISU Sauna: The best build it yourself outdoor home sauna on the market. Save hundreds of dollars by clicking HERE! (CODE: DANNYMATRANGA)RESOURCES/COACHING:    Train with Danny on His Training App HEREGrab your FREE GUIDES (8 guides and 4 programs) by clicking the link: https://mailchi.mp/coachdannymatranga.com/free-guide-giveaway----SOCIAL LINKS:Follow Coach Danny on YOUTUBEFollow Coach Danny on INSTAGRAMFollow Coach Danny on TwitterFollow Coach Danny on FacebookGet More In-Depth Articles Written By Yours’ Truly HERE! Sign up for the trainer mentorship HERESupport the show

What's going on everyone? Welcome in to another episode of the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. As always, I'm your host, Danny Matrenga. And in this episode, we're talking about my seven favorite moves in the gym for developing a strong functional core. I'll give my take on various different questions specific to vitamin supplementation, fitness and fitness specific to pregnancy, both pre, during and post pregnancy. We'll talk about how often it is you shouldn't really change your calories around. I'm going to deep dive into protein intake as well as talk about my prediction for the Superbowl. Enjoy the episode.

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. Elementi provides a balanced ratio of sodium, potassium, and magnesium to support brain

and body hydration. This combination of electrolytes improves health, performance, body and brain performance, mind you, helps to reduce cramps and soreness and gets you more hydrated. There's no sugar. Elementi is sweetened with stevia. It's perfect for exercise and perfect for the sauna because the flavors are natural, tasty, delicious, and not overpowering.

And if you're like me, you'll use them multiple times a day across your training sessions to get hydrated early, to replenish after sauna use. And again, it's not just me. LMNT is the official sports drink of Team USA weightlifting, and it's used by athletes in the NBA, NFL, Major League Baseball, as well as athletes like you and 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. Welcome into the episode, folks. Just like you heard in the intro, a lot of fun stuff on the docket. Today we're talking about movements that I particularly enjoy for training your core, developing athleticism, strength, power, resilience in the core and the spine and the mid-back.

Also diving into some listener questions that I fielded from over on my social media. If you want to have me answer your question directly, I throw a questioned from over on my social media. If you want to have me answer your question directly, I throw a question box up over on Instagram at least two times. Oh, probably a month, maybe once a week. And if you see that over on my Instagram story and you drop a question, there's a good chance I'll answer it there or here. So do be sure to follow me across all the socials, including X, including threads, including YouTube, so we can keep in touch and I can keep providing you with these fitness and health resources. But we have some cool questions today. We have protein intake questions, calorie intake

questions specifically for female fat loss, postpartum questions, vitamin questions, and even a Super Bowl prediction. But let's first get into seven moves I really like for developing good, I'm gonna use a word I don't use often, a functional capacity at the core. Now, when people think ab training, they tend to think of flexing the spine, crunches. And crunching or spinal flexion is definitely a component of training your core. However, it's only

one component of many. There's only, it's only one function of many, shall we say. So one function that I think is really, really misunderstood is the function of creating core stability. And we have a couple different core stability ones on here. We have some rotational ones on here, some power ones on here, stuff that I think will really up your game, no matter what the heck your goal is. So the first movement that I'm a really big fan of, I do it quite a bit in the studio. It's a tough one It's great for shoulder core and hip pelvic stability it trains the abs the obliques and it trains some of the muscles of

the sling that we kind of construct between our hip flexors our adductors our obliques stuff that kind of our hip flexors, our adductors, our obliques, stuff that kind of brings our hips and core together. And it's a Copenhagen plank. Copenhagen plank is a form of side plank where you actually contract the adductors against something like a bench.

This exercise is gonna create a ton of stability in the midsection and at the shoulder and strength in the adductors, which are a very important muscle that frankly, I don't think enough people really spend a lot of time on. Now, I'm a huge fan of any side plank in general. You could replace this with a side plank with hip abduction, a side plank with T-spine rotation. These are all exercises that we kind of litter and feature throughout the clients we work

with, whether it's in person, online, in the app. I love side planking. That won't be a surprise to any of you who are currently training with me, but the Copenhagen plank is probably the least talked about variation of the side plank, and I remain a very, very big fan of it. Additionally, in that same core stability category, we have heavy carries. It's our second exercise. So heavy carries, whether it's loaded on one side or on both sides or one up high, one down low, uneven, farmer's carry, suitcase carries, you name it, right? No matter what, carries are going to train core stability and probably a little bit of shoulder

stability, which is really cool because you get some added benefits. I also find that they really challenge my traps and develop the muscles of my upper back when I do them heavy. And while I do think heavy carries are more commonly programmed than things like the Copenhagen plank, I really like them and I don't think they get enough representation in general population fitness programming because I do think they allow you to improve gait mechanics, core stability, upper back stability, shoulder stability, and of course grip strength. Okay the third one on the list, I'm a huge fan of this, is a wood chop. And that's an exercise that's rotational in nature. You usually do it

on a cable but you can do it with a band or even a low to high swing with a dumbbell or a kettlebell. But a wood chop is a transverse plane exercise. It's rotational like a tennis swing, like a baseball bat swing, like a lacrosse swing, a hockey swing, a golf swing. And most lifting that we do takes place in the sagittal plane in front of the body. Some of it in the transverse plane, some of it in the frontal plane, the lateral plane, but most of it in the sagittal plane. So anytime we can incorporate rotation, especially with strength, and we'll talk about some speed elements here in a second, I think it's a good thing because it strengthens your obliques and the muscles that control stability and rotation at the hip, which also

means we're going to get some glutes. So I'm a really big fan of the wood shop. I have a lot more wood shop programmed for all the app programming. That's now programmed through to the end of the year in anticipation of the baby coming. You guys will probably get this episode in mid September, maybe even October, just because I'm ahead on the podcast, but I'm so far ahead with the programming for the app. It's a really great place to be and featuring a ton of these core exercises across all three programs

without taking up too much time. Another one, this would be number four, is a rotational medicine ball toss. So also working in that transverse plane, but to create power. I know a lot of people who do overhead med ball throws, med ball chest passes to develop power in specific planes, but I like a wood medicine ball chop almost in the same path as the wood chop, a medicine ball toss, I should say, to build that rotational power,

something that'd be great for throwers and pitchers and quarterbacks alike, overhead athletes, but also just general population adults who want to have more strength. One I've loved a lot too is decline crunches, dragon flags, things that really allow you to get a ton of additional flexion or resist flexion. So those are two you'll see a lot. And the final two I have are probably my two favorite to do in combination. So number six is a cable crunch, which is a form of loaded flexion that I really like. The contraction you get at the bottom is definitely easy to distinguish. A strong exhale at the bottom of a cable crunch and you know a 15 to 20 rep range will just obliterate your abs. And the focus really there from a cueing standpoint is

on like bringing your chest to your rib, your the top of your rib, your sternum to your pelvis. And with the hanging leg raise which is the final one, we are more emphasizing bringing the pelvis up to the ready page. And I find the training spinal flexion with those two different cues, a crunch that brings the sternum to the pelvis and a raise that brings the pelvis to the sternum, I really develop a strong ability to create flexion in my spine, develop my abdominals, develop my hip flexors and get them together. That's a super set you'll see a lot in the programming. I do it a lot. Cable crunch, hanging leg

raises. So those exercises that I really like for the core are the Copenhagen plank, the wood chop, rotational ball throws, a decline crunch or a dragon flag, cable crunches, hanging leg raises, and any type of carry. Alright, I got some questions here from over on Instagram. The first question comes from the Kunch and they ask daily vitamins question mark. I think this person is doing their best to communicate in English, so they probably didn't have a huge vocabulary to, you know, ask a more nuanced question, but frankly, daily vitamins question mark really is a great question because a lot of people are on the fence about whether or not a multivitamin

is even worth their money or whether it's something that could be bad or should they take a bunch of individual vitamins. So here is my honest opinion on vitamins and how I use them and how my wife uses them and how I recommend my clients use them. So one thing you have to consider with supplements is always cost and cost efficiency is really

important when it comes to supplementation. And really good high quality vitamins tend to cost money. There are some cost efficient and cost effective options out there, but they tend to skimp on quality bioavailable absorbable forms of vitamins. These minerals and vitamins that are in the product are bound to lower quality compounds and it might affect their viability and they might be lower quality, less expensive forms of certain compounds. So what I do is, and this again,

might seem a little redundant because I do have a sponsorship with Legion. So in full transparency, I get a certain amount of supplements every month. So there's really no reason for me to do this, but I take the Legion multivitamin daily, but I only take two tablets. Two tablets is one quarter of a serving, but I eat a very, very high quality diet most days that contributes a ton of nutrients. I often take Legion's greens powder,

which contributes a ton of phytonutrients. I often take, I everyday drink a smoothie with multiple servings of fruits and vegetables. And one thing I have noticed when I take large servings of multivitamins, and Legions got a lot of capsules because their multivitamin is loaded with so much high quality stuff, I tend to either fall behind on the serving size or I take vitamins on an empty stomach and that never has worked well for me. But taking two vitamins in the evening with dinner is a routine that I'm really sticking to. And frankly, with how loaded that vitamin is, even a quarter dose is providing me tremendous nutritional insurance. And how I would scale that up would

be if your diet is not that great, I would take a half to a full serving. And if your diet is not that great, I would take a full a half to a full serving, and if your diet is really good, you could take a quarter to a half serving, and economically, even though again, I don't pay for them, I'm trying to put myself in the perspective of somebody who's looking to take a daily vitamin. You might be able to spread that out, and the nutritional insurance provided by the vitamin will, of course, always be at its best in a full dose. That said, I think it's probably in your best interest to work on eating more whole foods anyway. And if you buy a vitamin and commit to taking at least a half a serving every day, it'll

last twice as long and you'll know, hey, I got to get some of this from food. Now with individualized vitamins that are specifically used to treat a potential deficiency, for example, I don't make enough vitamin D. That you're probably going to want to take a full dose of. Many of the supplements that I take, I champion taking a full clinically effective dose. And I don't feel as passionate about certain vitamins and minerals that I know I get in my diet.

But I do feel that way about creatine. I take five grams of creatine every day. I feel that way about protein as a macronutrient. I get 180 grams every day, and I get 45 grams a day from a supplemental shake. I do this with vitamin D. I take 10,000 IUs every single day. Magnesium, I take 200 milligrams every single day.

And occasionally, I take pre-workout for performance, but that is totally optional. And I take electrolytes when I go in the sauna, which yield a really high form, good form of potassium and magnesium. But everything else I kind of add in when I feel it is convenient. An immunity product, only when I need it. Zinc, most days, not all days. I don't really subscribe to the idea of there being like a 24 hour nutritional clock, like, oh, if I don't get a vitamin in every 24 hours,

I'm screwed, like, I think it's more fluid than that, and I think, you know, if you, this is gonna sound bad, but like a lot of bodybuilders who take steroids, they take things every other day day or add compounds in every other day. And I think you could do the same thing with vitamins. Like, Hey, I take the four every other day or two every day, or I take a zinc every other day. You can spread these things out. If you eat a relatively healthy balanced diet, a lot of supplementation ends

up being overkill, especially when it comes to vitamins, because you do end up pissing out all the water soluble vitamins. But I would still recommend a daily multivitamin for almost everyone as an insurance policy. But you can really spread it out if you pair that with eating better. What's going on guys? Coach Danny here taking a break from the episode to tell you about my coaching company, Core Coaching Method, and more specifically, our one-on-one fully tailored online coaching program.

My online coaching program has kind of been the flagship for core coaching method for a while. Of course, we do have PDF programming and we have app based programming. But if you want a truly tailored one-on-one experience with a coach like myself or a member of my coaching team, someone who is certified, somebody who has multiple years of experience working with clients in person online, somebody who has licensed to provide a macro nutrition plan, somebody who is actually good at communicating with clients because they've done it for years. Whether that be a VV, a phone call, email, text, right?

This one-on-one coaching program is really designed to give you all the support you need with custom training designed for you, whether you're training from home, the gym around your limitations and your goals. Nothing cookie cutter here as well as easy to follow macro nutrition programs that are non restrictive. You'll get customized support directly from your coach's email or they'll text you or their WhatsApp. You will find the communication medium that best supports your goals as well as provides you with accountability in the expertise you need to succeed as well as biofeedback monitoring, baked-in accountability support, and all of the

stuff that you need from your coach when you check in. We keep our rosters relatively small so that we can make sure you get the best support possible. But you can apply today by going over to corecoachingmethod.com, selecting the online coaching option. And if we have spots available, we'll definitely reach out to you to see if you're a good candidate. And if we don't, we'll put you on a waiting list, but we'll be sure to give you the best shot at the best coaching in the industry. So head over to corecoachingmethod.com and apply for one-on-one coaching with me and my team today. Okay, this question comes from Amara Dean and the question is,

best advice for a fit pregnancy if strength and postpartum fat loss are my main goals. So I have you know, I can speak to this as someone who's not only trained many women through pregnancy and has some certification specifically for training women, but I'm also about to be a dad and I'm supporting my wife right now through our pregnancy. She's seven months in, she's gained about 13, 14 pounds. All of the ultrasounds say that the baby is progressing really well. She's eating about 200 to 400 extra calories a day. Although when the cravings show up, she definitely obliges them and I'll run to the store or the gas station or whatever to grab her something quick. But for the

most part, she's eating a healthy, well-rounded whole foods diet, rich in things that will benefit the baby like protein, like omega-3, like leafy green vegetables, these things that can be very healthy. So I think that would be my first piece of advice for a woman who wanted healthy postpartum fat loss is to try to have a healthy pregnancy where you gain an appropriate amount of weight. And every woman will work with her physician

to monitor her rate of weight gain, her insulin sensitivity, and how her body is changing throughout the pregnancy. But there is definitely a culture in America. My wife is Mexican, and so her parents are from Mexico. And culturally, there's a little bit of a difference there. And frankly, I was surprised, but my wife was, you know, has maintained a thinness during her pregnancy and hasn't kind of given into the massive overindulgence that oftentimes is associated with pregnancies

in America, like just have whatever you want, eat junk food. My wife is definitely hungry, but a lot of the stuff she chooses to oblige her cravings are healthy, nutrient dense things that will benefit the baby. So you know, instead of having so I want to try to give you an example that doesn't make it sound like a food purist or like a leadist, but like she's always craving breakfast now or like elitist, but like she's always craving breakfast now and she loves toast and instead of having like French toast she's having avocado toast with two eggs and avocado and while she loves both the sweet and the savory she's

just choosing the savory because it does oblige a craving and it yields tremendous nutrition. The second thing that's been cool to watch and two of the trainers at my studio are also their wife. One of them is a woman having a baby. The other one is a guy whose wife is about to have a baby. The babies are all one month apart. So me and my three two best guy friends basically are all about to pop out a kid here in the next couple months. So all the gals are, all our wives are pregnant basically and they're all staying pretty active and pretty fit and like you know I think one thing that we continue to

talk about in the studio is just like hey you want to be fit going into pregnancy and maintain as much of that fitness as you can safely throughout your pregnancy assuming it's not high risk. It can help with having a better labor. It can help with managing symptomology of the pregnancy. It's a very, very helpful thing to get into exercise as you prepare for pregnancy. As you go through pregnancy, you want to stick with it as long as possible. When you come out, you want to jump back in once you're fully cleared with something reasonable. Not try to do it all

at once from a fat loss perspective, but jump back into that consistency and that routine and that habit formation. If you are in a position where you're going to breastfeed, you'll use a considerable amount of calories producing milk. So that's pretty cool. If you go back to eating your maintenance calories before you were pregnant, it might not be enough to actually produce milk supply. So you need to eat enough to produce a supply of milk, and many women need things like electrolytes to produce enough milk, from what I've heard.

They need lots of water, lots of fluids, lots of calories. But a lot of those calories are used in producing the milk and lactating, so many women lose weight pretty quickly if they don't overeat during a breastfeeding stage. But I just wouldn't rush fat loss postpartum. I think the most important thing you can do is practice grace and take it easy, and let it kind of come to you. But a lot of the mechanisms that work before

will still work after. OK, this one's from Niana Joy. How often should you be changing calorie intake A lot of the mechanisms that work before will still work after. This one's from Niana Joy. How often should you be changing calorie intake for female fat loss? One of the best, I just want to share a story here. One of the best fat loss transformations I've had in the last couple years was a client of mine named Christy. Christy lost a substantial amount of weight.

I'm not going to share how much. It's not my business to share, but let's just say it's an amount of weight. I'm not going to share how much, it's not my business to share, but let's just say it's an amount of weight that most people say they'd like to lose and try to lose 15 times over 15 years and never do it. More than 30 pounds, let me put it that way. And that's really hard to do for somebody who, frankly, when they started, wasn't super heavy,

wasn't super out of shape, was actually quite fit, but really needed to dial in nutritionally. And to get all of this weight off, it took very few adjustments to calories, much less than you would think. And I remember being so astounded by this and I thought to myself, wow I have actually gone several weeks, months even, without adjusting my clients calories and she's continuing to lose body fat at a pretty steady rate. I wonder what's happening here. And what was happening was she had tremendous execution and attention to detail.

She tracked so effectively and efficiently that she truly was in a calorie deficit like every day and that initial 500 calorie deficit lasted for many many months and tens of pounds like like a lot like more like a lot of people are going lost five pounds and you change my macros dude try losing 20 and not tweaking a thing. That's awesome. So my answer is actually you should tweak your macros only when you are compliant at a high enough degree for at least seven days consecutively. And you ask the question specifically for female fat loss. So I would say to pick seven days, not right after your period, not right before your period, but maybe, maybe if you track your cycle, I would say something

like five days after your cycle finishes, track for seven to 10 days. And if you track consistently and your weight doesn't go down because you don't want to be influenced by any externalities that affect the female physiology, if you're tracking 100% and it doesn't go down at all an ounce, you're probably not in a deficit and we need to retarget. But to use my client Christy's example again, she was on target every damn day and for many months that target resulted in a daily deficit, weekly deficit, monthly deficit and we made very few changes. It was the execution and the original target that was set that paid off. So

the best thing you can do is to pick the right macros from the jump or work with a coach who's qualified to do that and fucking let it rip consistently and don't try to lower them at the first sign of stagnation. Instead, check my really dialed and a lot of times the answer is no. All right, Matt C two one five asks what's my way too early Super Bowl prediction? So I'll give you my Homer prediction, which is going to be the Los Angeles Rams, my favorite team taking on the Miami Dolphins. I think this year these might be the two best offenses in football. I think Blake Coram and Kyron Williams for the Rams

are an incredible backfield. They're going to run behind a decent line. That's really good in the middle and I think has one of if not the deepest wide receiver rooms in the league with Pukin Akua, Cooper cup, Jordan Whittington, two, two at well, DeMarcus Robinson. And I think Matthew Stafford's the best quarterback in the NFC, especially if we're talking playoffs, the dude can absolutely deliver the ball everywhere all over the field. And I think McVeigh is an offensive genius. And if Chris Shula first year defensive coordinator can take a jump with a young defense to cause some turnovers, you know, give up big

plays but not give up a ton of touchdowns. They're going to be an incredibly fun team to watch. The dolphins are incredible offensively. Their coach Mike McDaniel is definitely like McVeigh and offensive genius. I love the Tyree kill Jalen wattle combo in the running back room with most are a Chan, Jeff Wilson and Jalen right is going to be insane so much team speed and on defense. They have incredible edge rushers. I love the back end. I'm a huge fan of Jalen Ramsey and Javan Holland. I think

there they could be very good defensively and frankly, you know the chiefs and the Niners have been duking it out for a while. I think teams like the Lions could do it. I think teams like the Packers could do it, but you know my opinion is that it's probably going to take an incredible offense in the AFC to out score my homes and I only think the dolphins can do that because I think the chiefs will be better and out of the NFC. I think Stafford is the best quarterback and they can make it out of the first round. They can make a run. I also could see

bangles and lions. I think that'd be cool like burrow this year and I think the lions are amazing on offense. Okay, last question from Jennifer Hankel. Is there such thing as too much protein? I'm going over by 50 grams a day. So yes, there is, but very rarely are people in a state physiologically, like say one of chronic kidney problems or chronic liver problems, where a high protein diet would be contraindicated or a bad idea. And I think for most people, eating 50 grams of protein more than what you need is going to contribute

to a lot of extra pooping and a lot of fullness and feeling bloated probably. But it depends on how you're calculating what you need. If you are an adult and you think you need 50 grams and you go 50 grams over to get to 100 grams, that might actually be a better amount, especially if you're active. So without context here, it's really hard to say, but in general, a good range for protein intake is 0.6

to one grams per pound of body weight. And the more you eat, generally speaking, the easier it'll be to build muscle and lose fat because protein will keep you so very, very full and preserve all of your very valuable muscle. Okay, folks, hope you enjoyed this episode. Thanks for tuning in. Please subscribe to the podcast, hit follow on Apple Podcasts, subscribe over on Spotify, share it to your story,

tag me so I can say thank you and I will catch you on the next episode. you