Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 80 - Alcohol, LISS, My First Client and More!

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome in everybody to another episode of the dynamic dialogue podcast. As always, I'm your host Danny Matrenga and I want to say thank you again for tuning in. was sharing it like places like your Instagram story, texting to friends, leaving awesome reviews, leaving me questions on Instagram or filling out the question section for podcasts specifically on my website. It's all because of people like you. So I want to start today's episode off with a little gratitude. That's also something I just want to be a little bit better about in the new year. There are a few things that I really want to add into my routine. One of them is a consistent daily meditation practice, as well as practicing

Starting point is 00:00:54 a little bit more gratitude in doing a lot of what I'm doing right now, just verbalizing it, saying, hey, this is what's going good in my life. This is what I'm looking forward to in my life. This is a product of these things that I should be thankful for. And so just building some momentum off that. I am going to answer your questions today. This episode is going to be all Q&A format. I'm going to dive into about 20 really good questions from a lot of broad topics that I think will weave together really, really nicely. So we'll talk about facets of health from body composition to performance to supplementation. We'll really get into the weeds today and hopefully have a good talk about some stuff that's of interest to you, your fitness, your performance, perhaps your clients,

Starting point is 00:01:40 friends, family, loved ones, whatever. We're just going to have a good health fitness performance talk today. But before we do, I want to do a little bit more housekeeping. We are officially 15 days from the Christmas holiday. Whether or not you celebrate the holiday, I do think it is important to let the people in your life know you care about them this time of year. One of the things I always do is I like to make a note to send all of the clients who I see in person a card in the mail. And this can really be a quick thing to do. It doesn't take too much time. You can go to Target, Walmart, Amazon, the post office, wherever you really can buy cards. Get several cards in bulk.

Starting point is 00:02:23 A lot of them are inexpensive. I was able to buy 24 cards and envelopes for about $10. And I go to the post office, grab my stamps. I get all my clients' addresses compiled. And then I spend about three or four days writing five to six cards a day, just saying thanks. And this has become a lost art. So if you're a trainer, this is a really good way to let your clients know you appreciate them. But just in general, that we all have people that we really care about, that a card would mean a lot too. And taking five to 10 minutes of your day to write a couple cards, pop them in the mail so that people get to open them this time of year when stuff can be stressful,

Starting point is 00:02:59 right? Like we see commercials and movies that say, oh my gosh, Christmas, it's the best time of the year. It's snowing. You're going to have a Lexus with a big red bow in the driveway. It's going to be beautiful. It's going to be picturesque and idyllic, idyllic. But that's not how everybody's holiday season goes. There's usually a lot of drama. There's a lot of stress. There's a lot of travel. You got to please this family member, but you don't want to upset that family member. And cutting through the stress with something like a nice handwritten card can really go a long way. So, you know, that's something that I like to recommend. It was something that I recommended to trainers when I was working at gyms and managing departments full of trainers.

Starting point is 00:03:34 But again, simple stuff for all of us that we can do this time of year that makes a really big difference. So without further ado, let's get into our first question. So without further ado, let's get into our first question. All right. So first question comes from at Benny Jacket, and it's a good one. And she asks, alcohol and weight slash fat loss. How does alcohol prevent fat loss? So let's first take a look at fat loss in general. We have to unpack this.

Starting point is 00:04:04 So to effectively, reliably, and consistently lose fat, we need to maintain a calorie deficit. The calorie deficit is what provides the impetus for our body to go, hey, I'm not getting enough energy through food to match the amount of energy I expend doing things like my basal metabolic functions, breathing, pumping my heart, digesting my food, my exercise, and all the other stuff I do across the day. So I've got to borrow some of the energy I've got from my stored fat tissue. That is effectively how fat loss happens. But how does alcohol inhibit this? Well, first and foremost, alcohol has calories. Seven calories per gram, to be exact.

Starting point is 00:04:46 And most alcoholic beverages, like wine and beer, contain calories from carbohydrate as well. So we've got calories from carbohydrate as well as calories from alcohol. So in the same way you might look at a 150-calorie soda, I would encourage looking at alcohol the same way. You're drinking your calories with zero nutritional value with the exception of a few antioxidants and carbohydrates that, let's be quite honest, if you really gave half a shit about, you could just drink grape juice, right? So alcohol has calories. Drinking your calories is a habit that in general I would say is not ideal for optimal fat loss. Why? Because we get almost zero satiety when we drink calories with the exception of things like protein shakes, which have a macronutrient protein, which is exceptional at keeping us

Starting point is 00:05:35 full. That being said, a 40 calorie or I should say 40 gram protein shake, which might be, let's say 12 ounces of protein shake, is never going to fill you up the same way that a 40 gram equivalent piece of chicken breast would because of the amount of chewing and the amount of mass that actually makes it to your stomach. So that's the first way that alcohol, quote unquote, would prevent fat loss. The second thing we have to look at, given that that first one is what I would describe as more direct, it's directly interacting with the energy balance continuum. It is directly swaying our caloric actual intake, actual net amount by the end of the day. specifically our REM sleep. And that's really, really important for performance. But getting good sleep has been correlated very closely with body composition. There's some indirect stuff that happens when we don't get enough sleep, like not making enough

Starting point is 00:06:35 testosterone, not making enough growth hormone, generally making worse decisions across your day, which can sabotage our diet, right? So that's a big one. So alcohol's impact on sleep, we have to consider that. And then the other thing is alcohol, and this you might remember from like seventh grade health science classes, it directly lowers your inhibitions. So if you were going to be perhaps considering taking home a girl at the bar and you were like, oh man, I'm not so sure about her. You know, she's kind of like a five and a half and and you know, my cutoff is about a six and a half. Well, the more you drink, the closer she gets to a six and a half because well, quite frankly, your inhibitions are lowered. Your decision-making skills are lowered. We know that people make worse decisions when they drink.

Starting point is 00:07:20 That being said, if you're trying to stick to your diet and you have a glass of wine with dinner and you say, hey, another glass isn't going to hurt. Now you've had two glasses. That's, let's say, 283 calories. But now you've had enough alcohol that the ice cream in the fridge might start to pique your interest. And you go, well, I know that that's definitely not going to fit in my macros, but we can pick it up again tomorrow. Like our decision making is directly impacted by the amount of alcohol we have. So having less of it for most people is probably going to be better aligned with your long-term weight loss decision making. So I generally recommend that my clients don't drink any alcohol if their goal is losing body

Starting point is 00:08:01 fat. I find that it's very hard to fit it in the macros for a lot of people as well as make good decisions when you start drinking more. So if you can abstain from alcohol while trying to lose fat, it will make a huge difference. I've had clients cut out sugar, cut out carbs, try low fat, try a bunch of different diets and go, man, you know, I've tried all these diets, they haven't worked.

Starting point is 00:08:21 And I say, hey, why don't we try this? Why don't we try tracking your calories, tracking your protein and not drinking? Bam, tons of weight loss. And could be from tracking the calories. It could be from eating more satiating protein. But a lot of it comes from removing the amount of kind of nutrient devoid calories and bad decision making that can coincide with regular high amount of alcohol consumption. that can coincide with regular high amount of alcohol consumption. Okay, next question comes from at guoji.z. And the question is, how much water should you drink in a day? This is a blanket recommendation, but I generally tell my clients to aim for about half their body weight in ounces of

Starting point is 00:09:00 water. A new philosophy that I've kind of adopted that I really like from my good friend Eric Trexler, who has been a guest to the podcast. If you haven't heard the episode I did with Eric talking about metabolism, listen to it. It has by far been my most downloaded episode of the show, and it is fantastic. But Eric recommends something that I really, really appreciate and look to develop within my own kind of fitness routine. And I really look to have this implemented with my clients. And that is don't try to get hydrated, try to stay hydrated. And so Eric recommends starting your day with a big glass of water and then adding to that reserve across the day by continuing to sip water. If you can combine my recommendation of about half your

Starting point is 00:09:44 body weight in ounces per day and Eric's recommendation of starting your water consumption early, I think you'll have a benchmark but also some actionable steps to being quite hydrated. And again, hydration is really integral to performance. It's the lowest hanging fruit. It's not very hard to be and stay hydrated. And it's one of those things that if you're working really hard on the gym, you're working really hard on your diet, but you're not staying hydrated, you're really selling yourself short on something that in actuality isn't nearly as difficult to do as training hard and eating a good diet. All right. So next question is, if at maintenance calories, how many sessions slash minutes of less cardio do you recommend?

Starting point is 00:10:26 And this one comes from at taylorkeever.hair. And so let's just assume that when you say you're at maintenance, that you're at maintenance with a goal of maintaining your body weight. And then we'll say, hey, we're going to be at maintenance with a goal of adding in cardio to lose body fat. So if your goal is to lose body fat, I would say doing several sessions of about 15 to 20 minutes per week of low intensity steady state cardio would be great for your health, as well as expanding the calorie deficit required to lose some body fat. So I would recommend between 60

Starting point is 00:11:04 and 90 minutes spread across various sessions. If your goal is maintenance and you just want to maintain your body weight, you can do about the same amount of cardio, 60 to 90 minutes, but you'll probably need to add in a few extra calories per day to maintain your body weight because, of course, exercising is going to increase the amount of calories that you burn. That all is common sense. I think the main thing we should look at when we consider integrating cardiorespiratory exercise into our fitness routine is that having a strong cardiorespiratory system, a robust set of vessels and a strong heart will only help your resistance training performance. It will only help your health in the long term. If you start to do a ton of lists, like just tons and tons and

Starting point is 00:11:49 tons, it might start to inhibit your ability to build muscle. But how much of you're going to do before that happens is one going to be highly individualized, but also probably more than 60 to 90 minutes. So I would say about 60 to 90 minutes spread across several sessions. I like to take the dog for a walk. You probably just heard him. He's actually in the middle of spinning around in circles on his little baby Yoda bed right now. Spoiler alert, I call it the Grogu bed. For those of you who haven't watched season two of The Mandalorian, you won't get that. But he loves to plant himself on his little baby hood of bed, spin around in circles, sit down and watch me record. So he's kind of just peeping at me right

Starting point is 00:12:30 now after he went on a nice long walk and finished training one of my clients. And she actually brings her dog to the session. And so after each session, this is actually a great segue, I have her do low intensity steady state cardio to expend more calories. So she goes on a two mile walk. She walks a mile to the end of the street and then comes a mile back. And today I had her take Cooper with her dog. And so that's one of the ways that for a client who's just general population fitness and wants to lose some body fat, she comes in, we do an hour of resistance training, and

Starting point is 00:13:04 then she goes on a nice little 30-minute walk. She does that a couple times a week to supplement the calories we burn when training, and she's losing a lot of weight. And this was something we did in place of removing more calories. So fun little actionable look at some of the stuff that you can do to help you lose weight and the integration of lists into your lifestyle. Hey guys, just wanted to take a quick second to say thanks so much for listening to the podcast. And if you're finding value, it would mean the world to me if you would share it

Starting point is 00:13:37 on your social media. Simply screenshot whatever platform you're listening to and share the episode to your Instagram story or share it to Facebook. But be sure to tag me so I can say thanks and we can chat it up about what you liked and how I can continue to improve. Thanks so much for supporting the podcast and enjoy the rest of the episode. All right. So this question is from at Jenny B Wellness. It's a question I get a lot, which is when was the moment that you realized you wanted to go into the health and fitness industry? So growing up, I had a really close relationship with my dad. My parents got divorced when I was seven, and I spent the bulk of the time being raised by my dad. And I've always been and still am really, really close with my dad. But when I was about 10 years old,

Starting point is 00:14:26 my dad got diagnosed with Parkinson's disease really early in his life. So early, in fact, that a lot of the specialists he saw told him it was one of, if not the earliest cases of Parkinson's disease that they've ever seen someone develop. So from the age of about 10 to 16, they've ever seen someone develop. So from the age of about 10 to 16, I watched as my dad slowly lost his ability to walk. He lost his ability to communicate effectively because the musculature required to speak. Some of the muscles around the vocal cords started to get weaker. He became essentially confined to a wheelchair by the time I was graduating from high school. And I spent a lot of the earliest years of my life as a teenager, I should say, not the earliest years, but the earliest years of my adult life helping, you know, my dad take care of everything that I could around the house and doing everything that I could to try to make things normal. And it was really, really difficult as a young person to see this happening and try to understand and make sense of it with my limited view of the world

Starting point is 00:15:30 at, you know, 12, 13, 14, all the way up to 18. It became really, really difficult to, you know, one, make sense of how could this happen to somebody that I care about? You know, this isn't fair. Why does this have to happen to my dad? Working through that, but also going, hey, you know, this is something that has a genetic link. Is this something that's going to happen to me? Do I want this to happen to me? What can I do about it if I don't? And that really piqued my interest with regards to living a healthy lifestyle and taking my nutrition and my health seriously. Lifting weights was something that I had to do for sports and something that really piqued my interest with regards to building a nice physique

Starting point is 00:16:13 and maybe attracting some girls. But that also became a form of therapy for me as a young person as I was dealing with a lot of the frustrations of having to effectively take care of my dad at, you know, in my teenage years and having to see him suffer. You know, that wasn't easy given, like I said, that I had a limited worldview at 16 years old. I didn't know how to communicate, how to make sense of all this stuff. And lifting was a safe haven for me. And health became something I was so

Starting point is 00:16:41 obsessed with by the time that I graduated. When I went to school for kinesiology, of course, I wanted to get a job that allowed me to do and practice what I was learning at school. So I passed my NASM and I did what I could to get hired at 824 Fitness. I worked there for a little while before going independent, taking my clientele with me and now doing what I do now some eight years later. But a lot of this was spurred on by seeing somebody who I cared about suffering with something that they didn't have a ton of control over, and using fitness as a way to maintain and preserve my health to the best of my ability, and also as a form of kind of therapy to deal with

Starting point is 00:17:21 some of the pent-up frustrations and emotions that are common with young people, especially when they're going through traumatic experiences or things that they just don't necessarily know how to deal with. All right, so Pat P05 asks, safer alternatives to train chest with shoulder issues? So great question. First and foremost, just want to say, not a doctor, not a therapist, not qualified to give advice about training with specific injuries. But when I hear the terms shoulder issue, and I hear chest training, I tend to go, okay, we're definitely going to shy away from the barbell if we can. of different shoulder issues, whether it's a rotator cuff issue, whether it's a stability issue, whether it's an impingement related issue. It just tends not to mix super well for long-term pain-free shoulders. I have been benching really, really heavy and really, really frequently with my current block of programming and I bench with damn near perfect technique. And what do you know, when I go out golfing of all things on the backswing of my drive, I feel a little nastiness in my shoulder that wasn't there at the beginning of the training clock.

Starting point is 00:18:28 Barbell benching isn't as friendly on the shoulder as dumbbell benching, in my opinion, in my practice, and what I've seen, nor is it as effective as stuff like cable flies. I would recommend if you have access to cables, incorporating more cable flies for training the pecs, and if you have access to dumbbells, incorporating more dumbbell pressing. I find that both of those tend to be just as effective at hitting the pec as they are at kind of keeping the shoulder nice and happy. The barbell press is one that I'm working on right now because I just want to get my bench up for selfish bro related purposes, but it's not necessarily the best for longevity of that shoulder and just general happiness of the shoulder. So next question comes from at HP performance and he asks, how did you get your first client? So I just kind of told you the story about how I got hired on at A24HourFitness. And it was probably my fourth or fifth day on the job. And a lot of the trainers that were in and out of that club when I spent some time there, a lot of them weren't really invested in being a great trainer. It was just a job. And I totally respect that because our industry has a high turnover rate and it's not for everybody. And so a man had walked in to do a consultation, which is effectively just an opportunity to sell someone personal training, show them some stuff when they're new to the gym. And the trainer who was supposed to give it to him wasn't there. The guy who was managing the

Starting point is 00:19:59 training department at the time was like, ah, shit, I'm in the middle of a consultation too. Why don't you just take this guy and take him for a workout? And this was the first person that I had ever trained that wasn't a friend, a family member, a loved one. This was my first legit shot at training somebody. And so I took this guy through a workout and he actually really enjoyed it. We hit it off and he said, well, I was thinking about getting set with a trainer anyway when I came here. So, you know, I really liked what we did today. I'd like to buy some sessions. And I said, cool, I don't know how to do that. Let me go grab my manager. And so my manager helped him purchase some sessions and I had my

Starting point is 00:20:39 first client. It was about as easy as it gets. Then I went on a five-week cold streak where every single person that sat down in front of me didn't want anything to do with buying any type of training from me. They just wanted to learn what I had to say. And I had to learn the skills and craft that is selling people on something that I didn't realize they needed to be sold on, which is starting with a trainer. As somebody who's invested in fitness, it makes a ton of sense. But for people who aren't as invested, it's not necessarily an easy thing to spend a ton of money on, which I totally, totally understand. And so that is the story of how I got my very first client. I remember his name well, Jason.

Starting point is 00:21:20 I remember that the first actual workout we did after he purchased his sessions, he puked. Jason, I remember that the first actual workout we did after he purchased his sessions, he puked. We went on to work together for about six months. And Jason was somebody who I was really close with and I still have really fond memories of because you really never forget your first client. Okay, so next question comes from at NorCalFitBabe, and she asks, best split for a barbell home gym setup? Prefer five to six days. Okay, so this is just going to be on the fly, but if you were working mostly with barbells, I would follow a push-pull leg split if you're going to be training six days a week, and an upper-lower push-pull leg split if you're going to be doing five days a week. Let's break down the six day a week. I would reduce the number of total exercises you do

Starting point is 00:22:11 and have your push days be a barbell bench press and a barbell overhead press. Your pull days be something like a pindle a row and a deadlift and your leg days be something like an RDL, a back squat or a front squat or a barbell reverse lunge. Some pairing of those exercises. And those are going to be the big main exercises that you do. And I would probably do somewhere between four to eight sets, depending on how advanced you are. If you want to keep things just, hey, this is what we're doing. We're focusing on big barbell compound lifts. And I want each day to have a little bit of a different focus. I think a push pull leg push pull leg would be smart. But what I would probably do is I would move your push in between your pulling your leg if you can, so that you don't have like

Starting point is 00:22:56 an RDL on on a leg day directly after a pendlay row. Maybe I would do you know, I would mix those around so you weren't spending too much time loading the same position. So that's just what comes to mind there. And it seems like it's very quick and on the fly because it is. So next question is from S. Spanch. And she asks,

Starting point is 00:23:19 what would your advice be for trainers starting in the new year? And my advice is very simple. Start right now. Start putting in the work. Start implementing the advice is very simple. Start right now. Start putting in the work. Start implementing the habits that you know will help you be successful with your business in the new year. Whether that's posting on social media, reaching out to old clients, sending cards to your current clients, making sure that you have a dedicated book for

Starting point is 00:23:39 your schedules, making sure that you have your tax stuff set up if you're doing this independently, right? Do everything you can to set yourself up for the new year. Don't wait for the wave to start January 1 and still have preparation to do. Make sure that you are fully prepared to take advantage of the wave of people that are motivated in the new year, and make sure you're ready to capitalize on having those discussions with people. If you're not comfortable selling, do a little work now on helping yourself sell, whatever it is that you're looking to connect with people on in the fitness space. Just

Starting point is 00:24:07 my biggest piece of advice is don't wait for January to get started. All right. So next question is from at Katie underscore mom. And she says, I can't get past two pull-ups, uh, past two reps with pull-ups. How can I increase my reps? So I really like eccentric pull-ups, jumping pull-ups, and banded pull-ups as a way to get more pull-up volume in. Obviously, these aren't as difficult, but they're analogs of the pull-up that will help you get better with time. Another thing that's worth training is the strength of your core and, of course, the strength of your grip. So farmer and suitcase carries are great, as well as exercises like planks and exercises like hollow rock. All right, so last question is from Phoebe Crazy K, and her question is limited range of mobility

Starting point is 00:24:58 or limited range of motion on squats. Whilst working on this, what is the best substitute for squats for hitting my legs? And so my answer for this is lunges. I think that the lunges, and if you listen to the podcast for any amount of time, you know I love lunges. You know I think they're underrated. But lunges are fantastic for developing the glutes and quads. Specifically, the split squat would be my specific recommendation here. I actually did a four-week training block where I didn't squat for the entire block. All I did was split squats, and I lost almost no strength on my squat. When I picked squatting up again, it felt a little bit foreign, right? I had to decrease the groove, as Pavel would say,

Starting point is 00:25:44 but it was very, very beneficial for the maintenance of the strength. My quads were great. My glutes were great. I didn't lose a step working on a lot of split squat work. So that would be my recommendation. All right, you guys, that is going to do it for the Q&A. I squeezed recording this episode in between my nine o'clock and 11 o'clock client. So I hope you guys enjoy it. It's December 10th as I record this. Like I said, we're getting closer to Christmas. Text a friend, text a family member, tell them you're thinking of them, that you're

Starting point is 00:26:14 wishing them good luck to finish the year and great luck in the new year. I am appreciative of every single one of you and I hope to connect with you soon on any one of my various platforms. If you want to support the show, consider sharing this episode, leaving me a five-star rating and review on iTunes or going to www.coachedaniemattrank.com, reading a blog, downloading a free guide, or purchasing a program.

Starting point is 00:26:36 Thank you all again so much and have an awesome day. you

Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 80 - Alcohol, LISS, My First Client and More!

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