Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 75 - Meal Prep Hacks, Hydration, Calves & Hamstrings + MORE!

Episode Date: October 26, 2020

In this episode, Danny dives into some of your questions! We talk about hydration, meal prepping hacks, activating your lower body muscles, and much, MUCH MORE!Submit your questions via Instagram when Danny posts a "Any Questions" IG story prompt or HERE anytime!---Thanks For Listening!---RESOURCES/COACHING:Meal prepping made easy! 20% OFF your first order with code “DANNY20”! Check out ‘Eat to Evolve’ HERE!Legion Athletics Supplements and Nutrition, 20% OFF YOUR FIRST ORDER CODE: DANNY at ‘Checkout’! Click HERE!Check out my programs and E-Books! Click HERE!I am all about education and that is not limited to this podcast! Feel free to grab a FREE guide (Nutrition, Training, Macros, Etc!) HERE!Interested in Working With Coach Danny and His One-On-One Coaching Team? Click HERE!Want To Have YOUR Question Answered On an Upcoming Episode of DYNAMIC DIALOGUE? You Can Submit It HERE!Want to Support The Podcast AND Get in Better Shape? Grab a Program HERE!----SOCIAL LINKS:Follow Coach Danny on INSTAGRAMFollow Coach Danny on TwitterFollow Coach Danny on FacebookGet More In-Depth Articles Written By Yours’ Truly HERE!-----TIMESTAMPS:Eat to Evolve! 0:29“How much water should someone drink per day? Is it dependent on weight, height and activity?” 2:58“Any alternative for tricep dips when working out from home?” 6:57“Best isolation exercises for females wanting to improve calf and hamstring strength?” 8:17Do you think low back pain is more associated with tight OR weak hip flexors? 14:01“How do I stay consistent with my diet and exercise, post-collegiate career?” 16:27Danny’s Meal Prep HACK! Leftovers are the GAME CHANGER! 20:45Support the Show.

You guys, welcome in to another episode of the Dynamic Dialogue Podcast. As always, I am your host, Danny Matrenga, and today's episode is going to be all about answering your questions. We're going to talk a little bit about meal prep today, as well as the topics of hip dips, developing the calves, developing the hamstrings, and much, much more. But before we get into today's episode, I'd like to give a shout out to AtEatToEvolve. So EatToEvolve is a meal prep company that connected with me about a week ago via email and offered to send some amazingly prepared meals out to me.

These are pre-packaged, meal-prepped meals. And the meals that I've had so far are fantastic. I had crusted sesame chicken with scallion rice. I've had peppercorn brisket with asparagus. Mostly nutritious stuff. Lots of protein, lots of vegetables. asparagus, mostly nutritious stuff, lots of protein, lots of vegetables. There are options on the website for meals that are keto, paleo, or Whole30 friendly, or all three. I myself just opt for the traditional meals. I'm not super restrictive, and I look for the meals that are

the highest in protein. The thing that I have enjoyed the most about the partnership with Evolve is being able to walk right over to the fridge, grab a meal, and be ready to go. I don't always have time to cook, and when I don't, I have had a tendency in the past to rely too much on overly processed foods or either food delivery or picking stuff up. relying too much on grabbing food to go or again having food delivered is you get massive portions which are great but not necessarily if body composition is one of your primary goals you don't necessarily know how everything's cooked you don't always have macros and quite frankly the prices for that can add up really really fast especially if you're getting stuff delivered so evolve has really made this quite a bit easier for me. I've really enjoyed the meals and I would imagine you would probably enjoy them too, especially technically I am. I'm getting paid in food. But if you'd like to save 20% off your first order of meals and experience the same convenience and practicality that I have,

you can use the code DANNY20 at checkout. And that will save you 20% off on your first order of meals. Again, I don't get paid for that. I've really appreciated the meals Evolve has sent out. I might even continue ordering them myself because that's just how much I've really appreciated the meals Evolve has sent out. I might even continue ordering them myself because that's just how much I've enjoyed them. So housekeeping is done, guys. We are going to get into some of your questions. Starting first with a question from at Lee Porter Fitness. At Lee Porter Fitness asks, how much water should someone drink per day?

Is it dependent on weight, height, and activity level? So, yes, it is dependent on, we won't call it weight and height. We'll just call it body mass, right? How big you are is going to impact how much fluid you need. That is pretty sensical. Makes effectively a lot of sense. However, your activity level is going to impact how much fluid you need. People who are more active are generally going to require more water, but so does the climate

you live in. People who live in warmer climates, specifically climates that are both hot and humid, People who live in warmer climates, specifically climates that are both hot and humid, tend to sweat or perspire quite a bit more. So ensuring that you have adequate fluid intake is even more important if you live in a hot and humid climate. But what's a good benchmark? What is a rule of thumb? What's something you can kind of focus in on and say, hey, this is my daily water intake goal. sit on and say, hey, this is my daily water intake goal. While this does vary a lot from person to person, like I said, based on size, based on climate, based on activity level, I have found a generally good benchmark for my clients and myself is to aim for about half of your body weight in ounces of water per day. It's also really important to remember that the fluid we get in our diet

doesn't necessarily exclusively come from drinking water. You can get quite a bit of water from focusing on eating things like fresh fruits and vegetables as well. While they're not necessarily the equivalent of a glass of water, most fruits and vegetables contain quite a bit of water. So increasing your intake of fresh fruits and fresh vegetables is another way to ensure that you're staying adequately hydrated. One thing I always like to hit on, and it comes up every time I talk to a client about hydration, is the importance of at least replacing some of the electrolytes that can be diluted with overly hydrating. Drinking a ton of water can actually create a dysbiosis of electrolytes in the body. Now, for most people, this is not going to be an issue.

But for people who do sweat a lot, right, water isn't the only thing that comes out with your sweat. We also lose minerals in our sweat, particularly sodium. That's why if you've ever licked or tasted your own sweat, hopefully you just tasted it. If you made like a conscious effort to lick your own sweat, it's kind of weird. We're not going to go there. But it tastes salty. That is sodium along with some of the other minerals that are exchanged through the skin when we sweat or perspire. So including things like electrolytes in your water can be a great way about going about doing this. I, for one, though, prefer to salt my

food. I particularly like using Himalayan pink salt, which does have a few more trace minerals in it than traditional table salt. And those trace minerals, many of them actually end up being electrolytes. Remember, electrolytes are generally going to be those minerals that don't really fully dissolve in water. So guys, if you're going to be exercising regularly, if you're taking your fitness remotely seriously, you've got to dial in on the hydration.

Nothing is more frustrating, in my opinion, than when you have somebody who goes ahead and they're working really, really hard with their training, they're doing really, really hard work, quality work with their nutrition, but they're slacking off with their hydration. It's the lowest hanging fruit out there, guys. Don't mess that up. It's too easy to mess up, in my opinion.

So dial the hydration in, aim for about half your body weight in ounces, and maybe add 10 to 20 ounces with electrolytes if you're in a hot and humid climate. Again, not a doctor, just my general recommendation for increasing sports performance. comes from Anita Devi B and she asks any alternative for tricep dips when working out from home. So I am a much bigger fan of close grip push-ups when it comes to targeting the triceps. I also really really like to use bands and you can toss a band up and over a door right you can get a hook put over your door and do banded tricep extensions. So if you can get a hold of a band, which are fairly available at this point in this strange COVID-19 post-gym fitness landscape, or just work on your close grip push-ups, I think those might be more fruitful in the long term than doing the conventional tricep dip exercises that people do from home that are often called bench dips and maybe even more so than conventional dips i find a lot of people have a

really hard time creating the dynamic stability required through the lower trap to actually hammer their triceps with dips it becomes a also a little bit of a chest exercise which is fantastic if you're looking to develop that too but if you really want to isolate and provide a lot of stimulation through the triceps i do prefer a closer grip push-up paired with something like a band extension you can toss a band up over a door next question comes from at oh wow vicky likes. I don't know why I read that first as Viking likes vegetables. And she asks best isolation exercises for a female wanting to improve their calf and hamstring strength. So let's first talk a little bit about the posterior chain musculature. That'll give us a better platform to continue discussing the calves and the hamstrings.

So as I alluded to two seconds ago, the calves and the hamstring exist on the back of the body and are working in tandem with the glutes, the low back, the lats, the low trap to create this sling effect, if you will, called the posterior chain. It's those muscles on the back half of the body, and they all kind of actively work to propel hip extension and to stabilize joints like the ankle, the knee, and the pelvis. And so a lot of the movements that we do for those hamstrings in particular really hit the entirety of that posterior chain. Things like Romanian deadlifts end up working the calves, they work the lats, they work the low traps, they really work the glutes, and they work the hamstrings. Another interesting note about the calves

is that they actually contribute quite a bit to knee flexion. And when you think about knee flexion, I want you to think of the lying hamstring curl machine in your gym, the one where you lay on your stomach, you lock the pad up just on the backside of your ankles, and flexing your hamstrings, you end up curling that pad and that weight stack upwards towards yourself. And that's an exercise we typically look at and say, hey, that's a machine. It works the hamstring. So it's got to be an isolation exercise for the hamstrings. But early in my career, a lot of my clients kept

telling me, I feel this in my calves, I feel this in my calves, I feel this in my calves. Not knowing a whole lot better, I just said stuff like, well, maybe your calves are just really, really weak, so they fatigue more quickly. I didn't know why it was that people kept feeling lying hamstring curls, which in my mind were an isolation exercise training knee flexion, which is one of the primary functions of the hamstring. Remember, knee flexion, hip extension. And I just couldn't figure it out. But then I took a biomechanics course about three years ago from N1 Education. Shout out to Kasim Hansen, who is the leader of N1 Education. Of all of the biomechanics courses that I have taken, leader of N1 Education. Of all of the biomechanics courses that I have taken,

or am currently taking at this point in time, the N1 Education course on biomechanics and execution was by far the best, the easiest to follow along with. It had the most structure. It's something I revisit all the time. I strongly recommend you check it out. If you're listening to the podcast and you have any questions about N1 Education, you can send me a dm i will happily answer it i'm not affiliated with them in any way shape or form i just learned a lot from my experience taking that course i really really enjoyed it um and i think they do a good job of putting out legit information and i think they're just good people over there even though i don't know them personally. I get the right vibe from them. Great course. And so all of this to say, when I took this N1 education course, I actually learned that the calves contribute quite a bit to the first 10 to 15 degrees of knee flexion.

So that bottom part of the hamstring curl, the calves have the ability to actually help the hamstring perform that movement. So to answer the original question as to how do we train the calves and hamstrings with isolation movements, it might actually be really hard to disassociate their isolated functions using a lot of the typical machinery we have in the gym or the conventional movements that we end up doing. So I really like the seated hamstring curl versus the lying hamstring curl for targeting the hamstrings. I just set the machine up so that I can kind of bias just the hamstrings and take that first 15 degrees out. I'll try to do the same thing for the lying hamstring curl. As for isolated calf training,

this gets quite a bit more simple, right? Because when we talk about the calves, we're talking primarily about plantar flexion. But when we talk about the calves, we're talking about two muscles, really. The soleus, which is the muscle deep, or the more, I guess you would call, it's deeper on the actual lower leg. And the gastrocnemius, which is the actual calf. That's the two-headed muscle that's on the surface. So you've got your soleus tucked underneath your gastrocnemius, which is the actual calf. That's the two-headed muscle that's on the surface. So you've got your soleus tucked underneath your gastrocnemius, that whole unit we tend to refer to colloquially as the quote-unquote calves, okay? And those two things work together to perform plantar flexion, which is basically just pointing your toes away from your nose,

like when you're on your gas pedal or your brake. That's plantar flexion. So if we want to train plantar flexion, we pretty much always do that in an isolated situation, whether that's with a standing calf raise, a seated calf raise, right? Most of our calf raise movements. It is important, though, to remember that the gastrocnemius, or the more visible head of those calf muscles, the two pieces of the calf that really sit on the surface of the lower leg that we can see, those are better targeted, or I should say better stimulated when the knees are extended. So when the legs are straight, so thinking about

standing calf raises, or something like jump rope. And then we have this soleus, which does respond a little bit better at creating that plantar flexion when the knee is bent. So that would be your seated calf raise. So if you want to get the best calf growth possible using isolation exercises, I recommend a combination of both seated as well as standing calf work. Next question is from at Kirk Simpson. He says, how common do you feel weak hip flexors leading to low back pain is as opposed to tightness? So the question is, do I see lower back pain more commonly associated with tight or weak hip flexors? And I see quite a bit of both in my

practice. I would say more common than either of those. I think the number one thing that I'm seeing when I see weak, quote unquote, tight, sensitive lower backs is weak lats and weak glutes. Just generally the two muscles that really integrate quite heavily into that thoracolumbar fascia or that big piece of connective tissue in the lower back. And when they're strong, they kind of work to pull it tight. And so I generally see weak lats and weak glutes as being the biggest contributor structurally to lower back pain. With specific regards to the hip flexors, I can't say that I see a ton of people that come to me and I go, oh my gosh, you've got like clearly weak hip flexors. I do see some people that come to me and it appears as though they have very tight hip flexors. And one of the things that you can do, because particularly the iliopsoas,

right, the psoas and the iliacus running together, they do run into that low back area. If they are super, super tight, it can create some dysfunction or some pain. It seems to be pretty common. You can do some general mobility for that tissue that's quite easy and assess very quickly if a client has a tightness in that area that might be contributing to some pain in the lower back. But if we're talking about, hey, what should I look to strengthen if I've got a weakness that I'm seeing and lower back pain that my client is experiencing or I'm experiencing. While hip flexors could certainly be a player, I would first look to glutes and lats and then maybe secondarily to that, of course, the core. We hear about the core all the time,

specifically in like the clinical setting. People will say, oh, you got low back pain, you got to strengthen your core. But what does that mean, right? We're talking about particularly the rectus abdominis, right? We're talking about the transverse abdominis, the obliques. Those are really the big players there that can work to stabilize the core. So before I focus on those hip flexors with most clients, right, I really, really want to focus on those glutes, those lats, and those core muscles with regards to strengthening work for low back integrity. All right, so this next question comes from at Lauren Donovan, and she asks how to stay consistent with diet and exercise post-collegiate career. So this is a really good question, and it's something that actually comes up for a lot

of people. And I've worked with a lot of clients over the years who are former collegiate athletes or are still collegiate athletes. And one of the things that's difficult for those people when they transition out of sport is becoming responsible for the creation of your own routine. And this is a really interesting thing to talk about because it expands outside of the world of people leaving the athletic space to just anybody looking to get in shape. But what happens is most of these people have a sporting background that extends all the way from early in their youth into college, or sorry, into high school and into college, where they are showing up for practices, conditioning sessions, strength and conditioning sessions, skill sessions, because they have to. A lot of times it's because they want to, but much of that ends up being scheduled for them. You go to practice so you

can play. You go to conditioning so that you can practice. All of this stuff is scheduled for you when you are a younger person, particularly at the collegiate and high school level, right? You have to go to your practices so you can play in your games. You have to go to your conditioning sessions to be on your team. For collegiate athletes, a lot of them have to do extracurricular academic work to maintain grades or to stay out of trouble. That's not super uncommon. But when that academic-related athletic career is over, meaning there's nobody overseeing you at the high school or collegiate level to make you do these things, and you have the unfortunate departure from sport if you're not able to play at the professional level, which can lead to some legitimate feelings of loss.

And it can really challenge the identity of a lot of these young athletes because, again, your whole life you've identified as an athlete. And then when that athletic career comes to an end, it's really hard to say, hey, where is my identity as an athlete? What is my identity as somebody who's moving, as a human being who's looking to find my fitness? And then in addition to that, where is my structure coming from? Because for the last 10 years, I did what my coaches told me to do when they told me to do it and now I don't have any of that. So the number one thing I do when I work with clients like this is remind them, hey, you are now responsible for this stuff. You can find a competitive outlet for you that you enjoy. Maybe that seems as a listen, I'm not going to bag on it. But maybe that's CrossFit. Maybe it's powerlifting. Maybe it's bodybuilding. Maybe it's, you know, those post, not quite super formal, but maybe they're what we might call co-ed leagues for people where they can go and play in an intramural setting where they can play with other people and still play that sport.

Try to keep as much of that in your life as you can, but you are now responsible for getting yourself to and from the gym, and nobody's going to punish you for not showing up. And that can be really hard for people who were kind of working under the thumb of a coach, a strength and conditioning coach, whatever, and doing this stuff because they had to. It becomes really hard to do it and you no longer quote unquote have to. And again, maintaining your fitness for a lot of these athletes is a byproduct of trying to maintain your sports performance abilities, right? Because you were playing a sport, you were in great shape, but now that you're no longer sport, you were in great shape, but now that you're no longer playing, do you have that same love for the strength and conditioning world that you did when you had to do it?

And for a lot of people, the answer is no. And that's totally okay, but one of the things you really want to focus on is transitioning away from sport into a long-term focus on your health. So if you can include sports still, that's awesome. I certainly recommend that. You need to formulate a schedule where you can get into the gym and work on your training

that you can hold yourself or have somebody else hold you accountable to. That is really, really important. If you can find a workout partner who you can use to hold you accountable and you can hold them accountable, that is massive. Those are the big things I really recommend Find a workout partner who you can use to hold you accountable and you can hold them accountable. That is massive.

Those are the big things I really recommend for athletes as they transition away from sport more into kind of that rest of life experience with fitness where we're looking at just maintaining and building new avenues of fitness and creating a relationship that's more about your body than it is the sport that you're necessarily playing. That's more about your body than it is the sport that you're necessarily playing. All right, guys. So I did want to close with a little meal prep hack that I have been doing this week that's been working really, really well. Like I said, Evolve has sent me a ton of meals. So that has made things really, really easy.

But I eat a lot of food. And one of the things I've run into with my clients in the past that has become problematic and if you've ever meal prepped, you've probably done this yourself, is preparing a bunch of meals in advance that don't necessarily taste that great five or six days after they've been prepared. Lest I remind you, of course, of the five-day-old hard rice with chicken that's as tender as a brick

and broccoli that's effectively turned to just mush. We've all opened that Tupperware at work, put it in the microwave, stared it down and gone, I just don't have the ability to eat this today. So a system I've put in place with a lot of my clients that I've been using lately that's really, really worked that I want to share is doing your meal prep daily as a function of leftovers from a healthy dinner the day before. So what I mean by that is taking some time in the evening to prepare a really high quality meal that's got macros that are aligned with your goals that you're going to enjoy, but making enough so you can take it for

lunch the next day, whatever that might look like. Maybe you have to take multiple lunches, but at least getting one extra meal out of it. And what this does is it ensures that, one, you have a nutritious meal aligned with your goals in the evening, and two, you have a nutritious meal aligned with your goals the following day. The awesome thing about this is that that food tastes ten times better than when it's five day old prepared chicken, broccoli, and tilapia or brown rice or whatever. It keeps stuff quite a bit fresher. And every evening, you can actually formulate a new meal. So one of the things I like to do when I go grocery shopping is I like to shop for five meals that I'm going to make for dinner. I find that keeps me more closely connected with

the food I'm eating. It prevents me from eating out extraneously, even though I very much enjoy that I do find it to be somewhat wasteful. And it ensures that I have a plan for the next day's lunch that is fresh and tasty. So instead of knocking out all of my meal prep on Sunday, I just make bigger dinners Monday through Friday and pack the leftovers to lunch for lunch the next day, which I almost always end up enjoying way, way more. So guys, that does it for this episode of the podcast and this Q&A. If you want to do me a favor, subscribe to the show. Whether you're on iTunes, Spotify, or Stitcher, every subscriber makes a difference. If you don't mind leaving me a five-star rating and review, that would be awesome as well. Regardless of where you're at, I hope that you

found this episode helpful. If you have a question for me, keep your eyes peeled for my Instagram story question boxes that I drop in there from time to time. I tend to get to those a lot on Instagram, but some of them I pull specifically for the podcast. But if you do have a question for the podcast in particular, you can head on over to my website and go over to coach www.coachjanniematranga.com slash podcast dash questions to ask your long form questions. I have a few of those to get to over the course of the next week as well. And those will be featured on upcoming mailbag episodes. You can also expect to hear more guest interviews from me moving forward, as things have calmed down quite a bit with my puppy and he is being a lot more cooperative with me recording these episodes. So I do appreciate your guys's patience and I really look forward to chatting with you in future episodes. Have a great weekend if you're listening to this on

Friday and have a great week if you caught it over the weekend or on Monday.