Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 392: Cross-Training, Bloating, High-Volume Training for Women + More

Episode Date: November 6, 2024

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Welcome in everybody to another episode of the Dynamic Dialogue Podcast. As always, I'm your host Danny Matrenga. And in this episode, I'm going to be answering your questions on a variety of different topics. We're talking cross training slash hybrid training, bloating, water retention and nutritional strategies for managing these things, routines for new moms when it comes to fat loss and exercise, how to hold on to strength while dieting or using something like a GOP-1, my opinion on high volume routines, low volume routines,

high weight routines and low weight routines. Lots for you here, enjoy the episode. This podcast has some awesome partners and one of my favorite of course is Legion Athletics. Legion is my go-to supplement manufacturer for what I like to call my big rock supplements. This would be my protein powder, my pre-training formula, my post-training formula and creatine, and my kind of ancillary vitamins and micronutrient protection. So why do I like Legion so much? What sets them apart?

It's quite simple. Legion uses all natural ingredients. All the formulas include natural coloring and natural sweeteners. No artificial sweeteners, just stevia. And every single formulation, be it a pre-workout or a vitamin, contains clinically effective dosages of ingredients shown to work in humans in clinical research supported by robust trials. No filler, just legit ingredients in each and every formulation proven to work. The whey protein isolate is so light, it's fantastic, it mixes in water, it tastes amazing, and I drink it every day even as somebody who's lactose intolerant. That's just how high quality this whey protein is, and it's sourced from Irish dairy cows

that are raised well, eat their natural diet, and packaged in climate-friendly packaging. I love their plant protein too, for those of you who like something that's a little on the thicker side and you aren't a fan of animal products. Also, I love Legion's pre-workout, but specifically the pre-workout that does not contain caffeine. That would be their Stem-Free Pulse. I'm a huge, huge fan of beta-alanine and L-citrulline, but I don't like taking in wildly high amounts of caffeine. So if you are somebody who likes pre-workout with caffeine, you can try Pulse. Or if you like it without caffeine, because you maybe want to enjoy your

morning coffee or monitor your caffeine consumption, try the Pulse Stim Free. My favorite flavors there for sure are the New Grape and the Amazing Amazing Tropical Punch. As for my creatine, I get that from Legion's Recharge. 5 grams each and every day. I take it on the days I train as well as the days I do not because Recharge also contains L-Carnitine which can help with promoting muscle recovery and decreasing soreness as well as some ingredients to help with creatine utilization. And of course, my favorite supplements for my ancillary micronutrient health are Legion's multivitamin and Legion's greens powder.

Not only do these two products contain a ton of high quality vitamins and minerals, they also contain unique adaptogens like KSM 66, ashwagandha and reishi mushroom, which I like to take each and every day to promote my health. If you want to cover all your bases with a high quality protein creatine post-workout or the ancillary micronutrient health stuff like greens, powders, and multivitamin, I encourage you to go over to LegionAthletics.com and check out using the promo code Danny. That'll save you 20% on your first order and you'll rack up points that you can use the same way as Cash every time you use the code and you'll also be supporting the show.

Okay guys, so without too much pomp and circumstance, let's go ahead and get into the questions here. I have a bunch of different good ones from you guys. Again, these are all fielded from over on social media. So if you would like to have your question answered, your health, fitness, nutrition, performance question answered, and your fitness simplified in a once weekly Wednesday podcast,

this is the place to be and you wanna follow me on all socials. I've really been firing things up a lot lately on threads just because since Elon Musk's acquisition of X, I have not enjoyed the experience as much and I do like short written form content. And if you like that kind of engagement, you can find me on threads or X. But I like to write back. I like to reply on those platforms. It's easier than Instagram because at this point, the amount of engagement on there sometimes is kind of overwhelming depending on the post.

because at this point the amount of engagement on there sometimes is kind of overwhelming depending on the post. Okay, so first question. This one comes from Alcabria Zero. And the question is, bloating slash high water retention. Any tips to make it stop? So, something I often say, and this is very true of women, more true of women, is that the fastest thing to make you feel bloated and feel kind of like you're retaining too much water is eating

high amounts of ultra-processed food that's high in sodium, high in calories, and consuming that with alcohol. It seems to be the case that yes, too much food can bloat you, spicy food can bloat you, oily food can bloat you, high sodium food can bloat you, too many calories can bloat you, and alcohol can bloat you. But a lot of people who experience really severe bloating or GI distress are pairing multiple types of these things together at once. So for example, it could be spicy Mexican food and beer.

Great combo, objectively super tasty. However, probably more likely to cause bloating than something that's a little more balanced, has a little more protein, a little more fiber, a little less grease, a little less spice, et cetera. So a lot of people who suffer from fairly chronic bloating are just eating food that they have a lot of sensitivities to or they're eating too many of these foods at once and too large of amounts. So I would just say, hey, pay attention. Is there anything that you're eating

regularly that precedes this? Is it overeating? Is it a combination of things? A lot of times it's that. Let's just say in general, you feel like you're bloated. You know, this sound might sound offensive, but ask the question, is it possible that I'm just overweight or have more body fat than I want? And that is accentuated when I'm also retaining more water could be for women at time around menstruation, for men, it could be after a lot of alcohol consumption. There's times where we naturally hold more water, but it might be more noticeable at a higher body weight in a higher body fat percentage. And I, you know, I joke about this all the time. Like a big reason why people say, Oh my gosh, when I started

taking a greens powder, like my bloating got better. And it's like, well, when you also started taking your health and fitness way more seriously, when you spent $75 on a powder of greens and you lost some body fat and just started feeling better and you're attributing all of that to a reduction in bloat. Because when I think of bloat and water retention, I think of that as being like relatively isolated to the midsection. And again, that can be an individualized, like an individual level, just the food choices

you're making. It might not require you to do anything or eat anything special other than to just stop making those kinds of food decisions could also just be weight loss. Now things that help improve muscular water retention like creatine, that might be good, but I understand why people don't want like water retention in between, you know, the space between their fat and their skin, uh, that can be caused by hormones, medication, a lot of different things. And I don't actually have that many tips for that other than having good

hydration and having good circulatory health. Okay. This one comes from Marina Belnyara. And the question is what's a good routine for a new mom trying to lose body fat who can't go to the gym every day? Good question. So, here's the cool thing. You do not have to go to the gym even half of the days of the week.

There's seven days, so let's say you don't even have to go to the gym four days a week to lose body fat. I will say you should go to the gym at least a few times because as a new mom, it probably benefit you to build some strength and some muscle, regain some mobility, and regain some connectedness to the strength of your core and pelvic floor. Now, where you start is going to be unique to how your pregnancy was and how long you've been postpartum. My wife's going to probably be having our baby or will have had our baby by the time you guys hear this episode, which is totally cool. I think that's such a blessing, but I know that by the time you guys hear this, we're going to be starting a unique journey for her

postpartum fitness journey. I don't know what that's going to be starting a unique journey for her postpartum, you know, fitness journey. I don't know what that's going to look like. We both hope it's easy and that the labor is, you know, not too intense on her body and that the work she's done going into it is going to make for an easy labor and delivery. But that's again, at something that most families don't deal with until they get to the hospital, unless they're going for a C-section from the jump. But point being, you only, you know where you're at post pregnancy, but I would say a few workouts a week with resistance would be really beneficial for improving your strength, muscularity, functionality, and physique. And

if you want to lose body fat, breastfeeding actually takes several hundred calories a day. So if you're breastfeeding, make sure that you don't under eat to the point where your milk supply is jeopardized. And if you're not breastfeeding, you will of course need to be in a deficit to lose body fat. But don't make it the most extreme deficit possible. Remember postpartum, and this again depends on how far, it's a stressful time on the body and over restriction might not be the best thing for a female in her long term health

and well being, and it might definitely impair your ability to be as present and focused as you want to be as a new mom. If you are really under nourishing, meaning like let's say you could lose weight on two thousand calories because of your maintenance, your movement and all these things that you're dealing with as a new mom. But you opt for 1000 a day, that could be way too low, way less than you need and make you lethargic and flat and make it harder to do what you have to do. You should practice grace, take it slow, reintroduce exercise in a way if you

have it. You definitely don't have to do it every day. Your diet is going to drive most of the weight you lose. Okay, from CMVR-3, if I lose weight and fat, will I also lose strength? So this is a really good question and I think there's a few different ways to look at it. So I'll use myself as an example. I'll use a novice as an example and I'll'll use myself as an example. I'll use a novice

as an example and I'll use an intermediate as an example. Let's use the novice. If the novice lifter is going to start a new lifting program that's focused on strength and be in a calorie deficit, they're going to gain strength and lose fat because they're so new to weightlifting. Let's say they're an intermediate or an advanced lifter like myself or many of you, and they've been training for strength exclusively for a couple years, and now they're in a deficit, and they stay with the strength training stimulus.

It's probably the case that those gains in strength and muscle might slow down because you have less nutrients to fuel that hard training and that recovery by virtue of being in a deficit. Now let's say you take an intermediate or advanced lifter like you guys or me and we go from a very hypertrophy focused, high volume, long, eccentric, lengthened position, biased protocol into a very low volume strength protocol, something that is well below our recovery threshold. Maybe we're just doing six sets of bench one day,

like six sets of squats the next day, and then resting, and just repeating that three day cycle, only trying to build squat and bench strength with some slow, low level accessory work. You and I both, even though we were in a deficit, because it's a new stimulus and the volume is really low, we might be able to develop and cultivate strength even as we lose weight and body mass. But in a, you know, in a situation where you

want to max out strength gains, you probably want to have enough calories. Muscle gain, same thing. Weight loss, you need to be in a deficit. So it's natural to be frustrated and need it, but you need to make some concessions. If you lose a little strength in the gym while on a cut you wouldn't be the first person try not to worry too much about it Okay, Sydney let fit your opinion on running and lifting weights three to four times a week I think this is totally fine. Some people now call this hybrid programming, which is just the douchebag way to say cross training Look, this has been around forever. People have been doing a combination of like some type of cardiovascular training and or aerobic training and anaerobic training for a really long time. And you know what? I think a big mistake that the

resistance training community made was saying like, oh, if you do cardio, you'll lose your gains or it'll make fat loss harder and that's just not true. It's not the case. It never has been the case. It's, I think a relatively incomplete way of looking at things and what it did was it kind of created camps of should I lift and give my all to the lifting? Should I be cardio person and give my all to the cardio and we've kind of lost the plot and in that you know there's some details for sure around preference and what you're you have available to you, but we're aerobic organisms and we need to be an aerobically developed as

well. So an optimally functioning human probably trains their aerobic capacity as well as their anaerobic capacity, their strength and their speed in a pretty balanced way. And if you were going to run three days a week and lift four days a week, that sounds pretty balanced. You rest from your runs while you lift, you rest from your lifts while you run. And that's seven days a week of training. So I would probably at least take one full day off, but that's up to you. That's a hybrid, quote unquote, hybrid program,

but I would call that cross training. What's going on guys? Taking a break from this episode to tell you a little bit about my coaching company, Core Coaching Method. More specifically, our app-based training. We partnered with Train Heroic to bring app-based training to you using the best technology and best user interface possible.

You can join either my home heroes team, or you can train from home with bands and dumbbells or elite physique, which is a female bodybuilding focused program where you can train at the gym with equipments designed specifically to help you develop strength, as well as the glutes, hamstrings, quads, and back. I have more teams coming plan 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. You have your aerobic days and you have your anaerobic days. Those are two different physical properties. The development of each will benefit you in the long

term. And I think it's smart. If I think, you know, if you said running's more important, I'd lift two to three times a week. If you said aesthetics and physique are more important, I'd lift three to four times a week. You can split it however you like. You could do four lifts, three runs. Or if you only have three to four days a week to train, you could do something like a two one two or a two and two. Okay, Stories We Sing says, can women train six days a week? So this is the other end of that spectrum. And I'm also actually gonna say yes here. In most of the programs I've written, whether they're the PDFs, the app based programming we have now for women's

bodybuilding, which I think is very good, elite physique. There's some stuff in the podcast notes about that. You can also check it out over on my Instagram. Free first week if you haven't trained with me on any of my app programs yet by the way, so definitely worse taking me up on that. Additionally, just six days a week is a lot. That's why in all of those programs for women's body building, I'm maxing the programming out at five, especially if there's two plus leg days because it takes a while to recover from hard leg training. I think it's pretty demanding on my nervous system.

It leaves me feeling a little fatigued, a little flat, a little deflated. Now, look, I fully respect that some people have more juice to bring on leg day and some people have more juice to bring on upper body days. And that really is something that varies a lot person to person and oftentimes we see trends gender wise like dudes have more juice for upper and chicks have more juice for lower body sessions this tends to be a pretty common theme but if you're doing two leg days a week you probably need at least one rest day for every leg day and so I wouldn't recommend training six days a week unless you truly want to and you have some really good recovery protocols in place. Okay. Question from Caitlin

Bond, username I am Caitlin Bond. Cheat meal in a deficit, how to manage? So, okay. I would say before we go any further, let's change the phraseology of cheat meal to what I use with my clients, which is free meal. And I'll tell you why this matters contextually, because cheating is a term that people use to communicate something negative. people use to communicate something negative. If you cheated on your diet, you broke a rule. This was not planned, and this was clearly against the protocol. But here you are asking in advance, how do I work this quote unquote cheat meal into my diet? That doesn't sound like a cheat meal. That sounds like a planned meal or a free meal, a meal where in which you have free reign. Now, bad examples of a free meal, a ticket to the all you can eat Chinese food buffet, a fucking thirty two piece KFC five gallon bucket.

Right. These are not great free meals. Now, here's a great example of how I use free meals with a client of mine who has a muscle gain goal. I have a client, her name is Lindsay. She wants to develop her lower body musculature. So she trains with me. And when we train, this is an in-person client, we hit the lower body really, really hard. Now Lindsay is a healthy weight adult, maybe an underweight adult by standards, but she's

very lean and muscular. And we actually need to make sure, in my opinion, that she gets enough calories throughout the week. So for somebody in your case, you're talking about being in a deficit, you are probably not going to be in the luxury of doing this, but you could do something close to this. So I make sure that twice a week on her leg training sessions, my client,, gets a free meal, a high protein, semi high calorie meal that's designed to help her recover from the hard lower body sessions and it brings her closer to maintenance or even a slight surplus on the days that

we go about training legs, which I think is kind of a big deal because if ever there was a day that you could get away with having some extra fuel, it's the day you're training the largest muscles in your body. So maybe we could schedule your free meal for those days. And in the context of it needing to be in a deficit, whereas with my client Lindsay, I recommend what she likes best that has high protein. So sometimes that's like a cheeseburger or something I would recommend for you to find a food or a enjoyable meal that you can look forward to that can bring you to maintenance calories and no higher. Okay.

That would erase one day of being a deficit. However, let's say, you know, every day you are in a 500 calorie deficit, that's 1500. Your maintenance is 2000. On Sunday, you eat 2000. You have a smaller breakfast, smaller lunch, but you have a thousand calorie quote unquote free meal of a burger and fries that you like. That is a meal that is more than typically not going to be conducive to dieting and fat loss. But in this context, it feels like a gentle deviation, a planned deviation. And those can be very, very beneficial. Okay, question from

Shrammy. Does it matter when I drink protein, take creatine, any pros or cons to the timing? So it doesn't really matter that much. The main thing is you want to get enough protein and enough creatine every day. When you take it, it doesn't matter so much. However, and enough creatine every day. When you take it, it doesn't matter so much. However, if you can time it around your workout, if I like a little protein on both the front and the back end and I like my creatine somewhere around my training. Now, does that mean I get all my protein

in throughout my workout? No, ideally I want to spread that out across the day into four feedings. Ideally being the operative word. You see, if I don't get enough protein, spacing it out doesn't do Jack Diddley. So I got to get enough. Once I've checked that box, if I can spread it out like baseball, first base, second base, third base, home base, I got four bases I got across meal one, meal two, meal three, meal four. Oh, well, all I know now I got to get between 35 and 50 grams of protein

one, two, three, four times. And I end up somewhere between 0.7 to 1.1 grams per pound of protein per gram of protein per pound of body weight. Bingo. Now with the creatine, it really doesn't matter. However, you might get better absorption and utilization with a meal, and you might have less GI distress around a meal. However, truly, if you were talking about like a shake protein with like a scoop of creatine in it, you could time

this in whatever is practical for you. Okay. This question is from Adrian Saronci, and the question is, which protein bars, if any, do you recommend? Should they be just an emergency food? So I think a lot of people ding protein bars for being like artificial and bad, and they definitely mess with my stomach. I think a big reason why they do is because they use sugar alcohols, which of the artificial sweeteners, those are the only ones that really mess up my stomach. So sugar alcohols, and I think also the

synthetic fibers that they use make me feel a little gassy after and they also usually use a lower quality protein. So if it's a whey protein in a bar it tends to be a concentrate and my lactose intolerance is a little more sensitive to concentrate than something like an isolate. I would generally like if I were at the gas station and I could choose between jerky animal based protein that has like added sugar and is cured meat and probably carcinogenic or a protein bar that's full of some synthetic fiber artificial sweeteners and whey protein. Like I think I'm going to be okay. I would

more than anything like probably say, hey, is this like a gas station that has those Greek yogurts? Could I get a drinkable shake? Those are usually better options. So in the context of being on the go, yeah, a protein bar would probably be pretty low on the list. I'm also like quick to run into a gas station,

and just get a drink, maybe like something like a sparkling water and a bag of like almonds. They often sell that just to bridge the gap. If I'm like literally on the freeway, but I'll stop at a grocery store if I have time. And a lot of times this is way faster than fast food, not as fast as a gas station, but stopping in a grocery store, man, you can run in there and grab a, like an one apple and you can, you know, you can grab a multitude of small, oops, kicked something under the desk, a multitude of small individual things that in aggregate add up to a great snack, couple of small Greek yogurt, piece of fruit, and you're out the door way faster than fast food. So protein bars are great to have in a pinch, but just

like ready to drink protein shakes, they tend to be a little bit lower quality because of the preservation and the texture, let's say preferences of consumers. Whereas like just I'd rather have a bag of high quality whey and stop and grab nuts or an apple or a jerky if I were on the road. Okay, two part question. This is Dex's can show 35% body fat. Where do I start to begin reducing that? I already lift two days a week and walk 40 minutes four days a week, thanks. So this is from KK Harriman.

This is a great question. The exercise routine is actually fine. And I noticed that's what you shared. Hey, like this is my workout. I train two days a week with weights and I walk 40 minutes a week. What do I need to add to this? You need to add a calorie deficit. You need to add nutritional tracking. If you want your body fat percentage to go down and you're already in the habit of moving your body four days a week and lifting twice, if you are not currently in the habit of tracking your

calories, you will get way further adding 30 minutes of calorie tracking a week than you will 30 minutes of additional movement. I promise you that. And that's not me dinging movement. It's just me being straight up with you. That's the only way to reliably lose body fat. Let's see here. One more. We have some good questions today. All right. This one's from Lexi K of Sky. It's one of my favorites. High rep, low weight versus low rep, high weight. Which to do for what? So I like lower and moderate rep ranges between three to 10 reps on compound lifts that are complex and use multiple joints, rows, squats, push, pulls. I like higher reps, 10 plus, 15 plus even on isolation, simple exercises that use smaller

muscles and less complicated joint patterns, raises, curls, triceps, leg extensions, et cetera. I actually do a combination of high rep and low, high load, low rep and high rep, moderate, low, low training for all my clients because all reps that are hard or close to failure build muscle and you can get close to failure, heavy or light, different exercises work better for different contexts. So it's not an either or you really do want to do both. All right, folks, that does it for the episode. I want to thank you so much for tuning in and remind you to subscribe on both Apple Podcasts

and Spotify. Leave me a five star review and stay tuned on social media for the question box if you want to have your question answered on the show.