Dr. Bret Contreras on Huberman Lab: Why Overload Wins

1. 0:00 – 2:43

   Bret Contreras

   1. AHAndrew Huberman0:00

      Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Dr. Brett Contreras. Dr. Brett Contreras holds a doctorate degree in sports science and is a certified strength and conditioning specialist. He has over three decades of experience training everyday people, athletes, and coaches on how to get stronger and develop larger muscles. These days, Brett is best known as the Glute Guy for his pioneering of exercises for women and men to strengthen and build their glutes in order to be able to move better, prevent and heal pain and injuries, and of course, for aesthetic reasons. Today's discussion is a very important one because anyone interested in their immediate and long-term health needs to resistance train. The science is extremely clear on that. However, there are a lot of questions about how best to resistance train. Today, Brett clarifies how often to resistance train, what movements to do, and how to make continual progress and, in particular, how to build a resistance training program that is tailored to your unique aesthetic and performance goals. For example, we discuss how to prioritize the growth and strengthening of your glutes or arms or shoulders or calves or back, basically whichever body part or parts you need to emphasize while not losing progress in other areas and, in many cases, while still making progress in other areas. We also explain how to gain muscle while getting leaner, why the speed of your weight movements probably matters less than selecting the proper variety of movements to target all parts of a muscle, and Brett explains exactly which movements you should do in each workout to ensure well-rounded development of the various muscle groups including, of course, the glutes. Dr. Brett Contreras is considered one of the most trusted voices in this entire space, and that's because he's highly credentialed, meaning he knows the science inside out. He also has trained thousands of people, and he gets them spectacular results. In fact, the before and afters of his clients are nothing short of extraordinary. So if you currently resistance train or you want to start resistance training and perhaps you're one of those people who's wary about getting too big or you want to just grow one part of your legs and not another or just your glutes but not have larger legs or maybe if you just want to be bigger overall, today Dr. Brett Contreras shares the knowledge that anyone, novice or experienced, can incorporate into their fitness routine to achieve better results faster. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero-cost-to-consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, today's episode does include sponsors. And now for my discussion with Dr. Brett Contreras.

2. 2:43 – 10:45

   Resistance Training for Beginners, Tools: Training Frequency; Sets, Progressive Overload, “LULUL”

   1. AHAndrew Huberman2:43

      Dr. Brett Contreras, welcome.

   2. BCBret Contreras2:45

      Dr. Andrew Huberman. It's a, it's a pleasure. Thank you so much for inviting me on.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman2:49

      The pleasure is mine. I've been following your content for a long time now, and I and many other people are super interested in how they can resistance train best for the purpose of getting stronger and, let's admit it, most people who do some resistance training probably want some hypertrophy, some muscle growth, perhaps not in their entire body, some people do, but in specific body parts. They want to grow bigger arms. They want to grow bigger glutes. Um, they want to grow bigger calves. That seems to be a theme nowadays. Glutes and calves seem to be the new biceps, (laughs) as they say. So let's start off with the basics. Let's take the typical, if there were one, there isn't one, but let's, let's imagine the typical woman or man in their 30s or 40s who's never really done any resistance training, maybe done some yoga, some running, maybe did a sport in high school, maybe not, uh, and they are interested in building some muscle to shape their body the way they'd like to shape it. What is the frequency of workouts that you could give as kind of across the board what's too many, what's too few? Per week.

   4. BCBret Contreras4:03

      Yeah. So I would say two times a week full body would be, like, the minimum. Now, you could see results training just one day a week. Imagine if you, you know, and if you tracked your weights and, like, if you had a coach that was, that knew what they were doing, you could get good, good results just lifting weights one day a week. It would be a brutal day, but it would be full body. You'd hit mostly, you know, the big basic multi-joint movements, but if you stuck to that, you would see a lot of gains. And you could keep seeing gains for, you know, theoretically an entire year or two. If you want to maximize your gains, you need to hit a muscle probably twice a week. There's some evidence that you, that, you know, maybe three times a week is best, but that's hard to recover from. But I would say for the majority of listeners who are eager to get started, you get so much of your results from the first set.

   5. AHAndrew Huberman5:01

      Mm-hmm.

   6. BCBret Contreras5:01

      The first set you do.

   7. AHAndrew Huberman5:02

      The first work set after warming up.

   8. BCBret Contreras5:03

      The first working set you do.

   9. AHAndrew Huberman5:05

      Yeah.

   10. BCBret Contreras5:05

       Um, and then, you know, adding more volume, adding more frequency, it's not linear.

   11. AHAndrew Huberman5:10

       So it sounds like if somebody is relatively d- new to resistance training, uh, like they're in their first year of resistance training, the lower limit, given that most people don't have a coach and are probably not willing to put in the kind of intensity for an in- a whole body workout to just train once per week, seems like twice per week, hitting each body part twice per week, so whole body twice per week. Uh, is that... That's what I'm hearing. How many sets do you recommend, uh, per exercise after a sufficient warmup?

   12. BCBret Contreras5:38

       In my online programs, I always recommend three sets. When I train people in real life, it's typically two sets.

   13. AHAndrew Huberman5:46

       Mm-hmm.

   14. BCBret Contreras5:47

       But I, it's, a- a- and I would say most of the world does four sets, you know? Like, uh, most people just generically do four sets per, per exercise. It's just kind of what... And most people do bro splits. They do body part splits. Like, what, what the most of the world does...... isn't always what's best, um, and I... There's nothing wrong with doing four sets. It's just that people aren't focused. They just kind of go through the motions. You'll say, you know, "Hey, Andrew, what's your workout?" And if you go, "Well, I do, you know, b- bench press. I do 135 for 15, and then I do 185 for 12, and then I do 205 for eight, and then 225 for five." Well, that's what you do every week? Then why would you grow? Why would you adapt? Why would you see results from that? So a lot of people just go through the motions. When you have a plan and you're uti- utilizing progressive overload... So we can talk about volume, frequency, all these things, but the main thing is are you progressively overloading the muscles? Are you putting more tension on the muscles over time? And that's how people grow. So it's like you can, you can geek out on the variables, which I love to do, but if your program is working, then you're getting stronger over time. You don't need four sets to do that. You need to take notes, have a logbook or an app that keeps track of your progress, and you have a goal in mind. And I don't think most people do that. So it's like, if I have one of my female clients and we're doing a leg press or a hip thrust or something and, and say their main goal is to grow their glutes, and my goal for the day is for you to set a PR, PR meaning personal record, on hip thrust. And, you know, they've hit... They've done 315 pounds for eight reps. And I say, "Okay, I want you at least tying eight, but nine or 10 would be good." In the beginning, they... You can gain strength. Y- Newbie... We ca- talk about newbie gains. You gain strength every time you come in for the first few months. It's the greatest time to be a lifter. It's so funny. In fact, you get spoiled and then it's depressing when the newbie gains end. But if they reach the goal, if they... Say I have them warm up and then they hit 315 for nine or 10, that's... The, the goal is done. That's what I wanted. Um, and so, uh, do you need a second set? Yeah, you can do a second set. You can also... A lot of my colleagues would say, "You shouldn't go to failure your first set, 'cause then your second set you'll be fatigued and you should... You could do four sets where your fourth set is to failure." There's a lot of ways to do things, and every coach has their own system. My system that I've had success with is kind of, like, focused on gaining strength over time-

   15. AHAndrew Huberman8:31

       Mm-hmm.

   16. BCBret Contreras8:31

       ... so that d- you don't require so many sets. In fact, I would rather... I like my clients training three times per week, full body three times per week.

   17. AHAndrew Huberman8:40

       Full body, three times per week.

   18. BCBret Contreras8:42

       Or LULUL, lower-upper, lower-upper, lower.

   19. AHAndrew Huberman8:46

       With a rest day in between?

   20. BCBret Contreras8:48

       No. Monday through Friday, lower-upper, lower-upper, pro- take Saturday and Sunday off.

   21. AHAndrew Huberman8:51

       Wait, g- uh, step it through, 'cause you're speaking fast. Lower, upper?

   22. BCBret Contreras8:55

       LULUL, lower-upper, lower-upper, lower. Keep in mind, 74% of my followers are women. I'm the Glute Guy, so peop- so my, most of my followers are women. So they, women and men, have different... They sh- they can train the same way for their gains. There's a lot of, kind of, experts coming out now saying women and men need to train totally differently. They don't need to train differently as per, like, the ve- the, e- the variables and stuff. The, the thing is, they have different goals. A lot of women want their glutes. They prioritize lower body more than... Whereas men want more upper body, so then our exercise selection is gonna differ and our splits are gonna differ, if we do, if we do split it up. They want, typically, three lower body days and two upper body days, whereas men would want probably the opposite, thr- three upper body days and two lower body days, for example. But, uh, anyway, this is... There's so many ways to do things that ma- (laughs) I could go on... We could go on and on for an hour about the different ways to do things, but you, you... A lot of... Many roads can lead to Rome, but you do need to make sure that you're gaining strength over time if you want a muscle to substantially change. Um, but you can't have that increase, that PR can't come at the expense of decreased range of motion or sloppy form. That's probably the number one tenet of strength training, uh, is progressive overload, and the listeners need to understand that, because oth- otherwise, you're just gonna is- be spinning your wheels. Now, not, it's not to say you can't make gains not utilizing progressive overload. In fact, we talked about this on the... when we were working out yesterday, how to use the mind-muscle connection. But ultimately, how do you know you're placing increasing demands on the muscle over time? Your barometer should be like, you know, the loads and, and the s- the sets and reps that you're doing.

3. 10:45 – 13:57

   Sponsors: Rorra & Carbon

   1. BCBret Contreras10:45

   2. AHAndrew Huberman10:45

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4. 13:57 – 21:31

   Frequency & Exercise Flexibility, Tool: Switch Exercise Focus

   1. AHAndrew Huberman13:57

      Let's just, if you, uh, don't mind, um, I'll just want to take a slight step back and highlight a couple things that you said and, and maybe clarify a few of them for myself and, and for the listeners. The goal of going into the gym to train is foremost to create a stimulus that you need to adapt to so that the muscle grows and gets stronger. In theory, one could do that by training the entire body once per week, but that would be a very taxing workout, probably requires a coach to do properly, and in general, most people are probably gonna benefit from training two or three times per week minimum. Okay. It does seem to be the case lately that most of the papers, as I understand, point to every muscle should be trained twice per week. Um, perhaps not as intensely in the two wor- workouts, but, um, at least twice per week. And you said three times per week is probably even more beneficial. I like this lower, upper, lower, upper, lower, LULL. (laughs)

   2. BCBret Contreras15:03

      LULL. (laughs)

   3. AHAndrew Huberman15:04

      Uh, five days per week, um, format that you listed out. Um, when I see that, I think, "Okay, lower body three times per week. Wow." Right now, I train my legs once per week intensely, so that's calves, tibs, hamstrings, quads. I know. Because of your, uh, tutorial. Train adductors, the inner thighs, and glutes all in that one workout, and then four or five days later, I do a sprint workout, which is my second leg workout. It's not an in-gym workout. It's a sprinting workout. Training legs three times per week in the gym with weights and machines, et cetera sounds like a lot, so my question is for the three, or even the two, lower body workouts that men or women are doing, are they doing the same exercises in every one of those lower body workouts for the same muscle groups? Or, and in addition to that, are they hitting quads three times a week or twice a week directly? Um, because many people can't recover, or at least the soreness doesn't go away, uh, in between workouts. So, how are you splitting up lower body if somebody is training lower body, uh, two or three times per week?

   4. BCBret Contreras16:17

      Great question. So, first of all, I want to mention, before steroids became a thing, the bodybuilders back then, if you can look up like Steve Reeves, Reg Park, John Grimek, they did three full bo- f- I think they d- all did three full body workouts a week. Or they trained mostly full body, but they'd hit muscles frequently. The thing is, they didn't do w- now we have so many machines, we have so m- they did, they did mostly barbell training, and you know what I mean? They focused on the big basics. And they would repeat movements. So-

   5. AHAndrew Huberman16:47

      So squatting three times per week.

   6. BCBret Contreras16:48

      Yeah.

   7. AHAndrew Huberman16:48

      Deadlifting three times per week.

   8. BCBret Contreras16:50

      Yeah. The goal is gaining strength. So with every person, it's unique. And there's so many ways to do this. If I have some people deadlift hard twice a week, they might get back pain, even if they're using good form. What if they're really weak, have really weak hamstrings in isolation, and I start giving them seated leg curls, and it transfers to their deadlift? The seated leg curls doesn't put stress on their low back. You get stronger by identifying weak links. Um, and there's a lot of transfer between the different lifts. So, I don't believe you need to repeat the same movements all the time, and I also think you should switch it up every month. And that's one thing I've had a lot of success with. With my system, I've had a lot of success, we have like a squat and bench press month. Then the next month will be a deadlift and chin-up month.

   9. AHAndrew Huberman17:47

      What does that mean? That means that during all lower body work- workouts, you're doing squats and deadlifts?

   10. BCBret Contreras17:52

       No. You do- always do all the movement patterns. It's what you do first and what you focus on. That's what you're going for the PR on.... but I'm not trying to have you get stronger at squats every single month. And if you don't like barbell squats, you can do, you know-

   11. AHAndrew Huberman18:06

       Hack squat.

   12. BCBret Contreras18:07

       ... uh, hack squat, leg press. It could be a single-leg movement, but it's the movement pattern. From the side view, does it look like a squat?

   13. AHAndrew Huberman18:14

       Mm-hmm.

   14. BCBret Contreras18:14

       So that could be a squat, hack squat, lunge, belt squat, leg press, V-squat, l- uh, step-up, Bulgarian split squat, (laughs) a lot of different things.

   15. AHAndrew Huberman18:23

       It's a buffet. People can pick what works best for them.

   16. BCBret Contreras18:24

       It's from the side view, does it look like a squat on one or two legs? The, it's... They all work very similarly. So, I want you getting stronger at those, uh, but not every month, because the next month, I might switch to, like, deadlift and, uh... And, but they all have different rules. So here's what I kind of realized. Have you ever focused on... You, you say you don't want... Your, your chest and back, you're not trying to grow maximally, but if you... Let's say you were just trying to get as big as humanly possible. Have you ever said, "I wanna see if I can work my way up to 20 chin-ups"?

   17. AHAndrew Huberman18:56

       Uh, I haven't, but, um... You mean in a single set?

   18. BCBret Contreras18:59

       Yeah.

   19. AHAndrew Huberman19:00

       Um, no. I've n- I have not done that.

   20. BCBret Contreras19:01

       Well, if you did do that, your back muscles would probably get bigger, right?

   21. AHAndrew Huberman19:05

       Sure.

   22. BCBret Contreras19:05

       And, but you'd, you'd be like, "Okay, I have this chin-up goal. I wanna get 20 chin-ups." How many are you gonna get their best? "I'm gonna start doing more chin-ups." Maybe you don't like chin-ups all the time, so you do heavy supinated pull-downs. I've realized they transfer... There's like a one-on-1, 1:1 correlation. I never realized that till the last couple years. Supinated, treating it like a chin-up.

   23. AHAndrew Huberman19:27

       Okay, so for those that don't know, supinated means palms facing you.

   24. BCBret Contreras19:29

       Palms facing you.

   25. AHAndrew Huberman19:30

       Basically, palms facing you, pull-down, or, um, on a pull-down machine-

   26. BCBret Contreras19:34

       Yep.

   27. AHAndrew Huberman19:34

       ... uh, to, you know, your chest level or something in th- that, to the front, obviously.

   28. BCBret Contreras19:38

       You can recover quickly from those, so you could do chin-ups or pull-downs three times a week. But what's gonna... What else will help your chin-ups? Training more biceps. When I have my female clients start doing barbell curls and easy bar curls (laughs) , their chin-ups went up. So, it has its own rules. When you focus on like, the chin-up month, you can hit these movements frequently. You can recover from them. But what about deadlifts? If I said, "You're gonna focus on deadlifts this month," I don't know many lifters that can deadlift really hard twice a week. They beat you up, especially when you get strong. So you might have... You might, if you're hitting three full-body workouts a week, maybe only do heavy deadlifts once a week. But the other time, you're doing a more, uh, like a hinge-y, like a stiff-leg deadlift or a good morning, real strict, not going crazy. You might leave some reps in reserve, or you're just really strict so you don't get so s- you don't get as sore from that, and then the other day might be a ham-, so you start out with a hamstring movement or something. These lifts have different rules that you figure out over time, and it also depends on the individual. Some people can squat three times a week. Some people can- can't get away with that. They'll develop hip pain, knee pain, low back pain. So, there's kind of this art of how to design programs that allow the masses to, to, to build strength. But whenever you work with someone individually, you have to... You stray from it a little bit. But anyway, I do believe hitting a muscle three times a week is a little bit better, but it's, it's more risky. It's... You can overtr- you can spin your wheels. I don't want to say overtrain, 'cause overtraining syndrome is something, but what... We all know what it means. It means stagnating because you're not properly recovered. You're spinning your wheels. You're not... And it's really hard to recover from three times a week. Um, so that's why the safest bet is hit a muscle twice a week. But I think, if you know what you're doing, you can do three times a week.

5. 21:31 – 31:37

   Individual Recovery, Women & Adjusting Variables, Tool: 4 Training Patterns

   1. BCBret Contreras21:31

   2. AHAndrew Huberman21:31

      My understanding and my experience is that, if you do a proper warm-up and then you train close to failure or to failure for one or two sets, maybe a third set, that it takes at least three or four days for that muscle to recover. Now, I realize some people recover much more quickly, but I feel like most people don't. So for me, it's always been hard to wrap my head around three-times-a-week training, unless people are not going to failure or they're switching up the movement so that the muscles are being targeted differently each time.

   3. BCBret Contreras22:03

      First of all, there's... What you're saying about most people, you're in- you're, um, insinuating that people have different recovery genetics.

   4. AHAndrew Huberman22:11

      Mm-hmm.

   5. BCBret Contreras22:12

      And there's research on that. There's pu- Some people experience way more muscle damage than others, s- and some people have like, a recovery gene. Like, I'm sure there's-

   6. AHAndrew Huberman22:21

      Really? They just recover quickly?

   7. BCBret Contreras22:22

      Yeah, it's an old paper I read, but-

   8. AHAndrew Huberman22:23

      Okay. Well, I don't, I don't have that gene.

   9. BCBret Contreras22:24

      I don't have it either.

   10. AHAndrew Huberman22:25

       Yeah (laughs) . Clearly.

   11. BCBret Contreras22:25

       And I'm very envious of people who do, because-

   12. AHAndrew Huberman22:27

       Mm-hmm.

   13. BCBret Contreras22:28

       ... the, the listeners... You'll, you'll probably have people split in half, people going, "I can do these crazy marathon workouts, and the next day, I'm not even sore," and other people, like you and I, going, "I get so sore. I wish I could." But it... But here's the thing. You could train at three times a week. You have to adjust the variables. If you're always training when you're fatigued and beat up, you're never gonna get stronger, so you might have to adjust the variables. You and I might not be able to do as many sets as we could when we were 23. You know what I mean? Now that we're approaching 50, we have to do a little bit less volume. Maybe we can't train three times a week, but we could train twice a week, but everyone's unique. But in general, s- t- everyone can recover from two times a week, but you might not be able to recover if you do, you know, touch-and-go deadlifts, you know, to... Failure being like where you're maintaining really good form, but some people can just round their backs and keep going, and then the next day, you feel like you got hit by a bus. And it's... A lot of times, it's the muscle damage, but it c- it might not just be muscle damage. It could be connective tissue. It could be fascia and other, you know, structures too that are just... If they're damaged, it signals the central nervous system, "Hey, don't maximally recruit these muscles." So, if- if pain inhibits muscle activation, damage, it's probably a wise, you know, evolutionary strategy for the body to say, "Hey, chill. You're not recovered yet. Let's, let's limit the gas pedal, how, how much, you know... Let's put the brakes on a little bit, so this person can't keep hurting themselves."... but you wanna be recovered, so you sometimes have to adjust the variables. Which are exercise selection, that's probably the most important, volume, effort, how hard you push yourself. These are the- these are your tools. Program design is a awesome concept and it's, uh, there's an art to this. We have a lot of science, but there's an art to combining them all, and that's why, like, strength training is an applied science. It's very, it's, uh, that's why it's fun for me. There's an art to this, and you can't just read a research pu- like, a review paper and be like, "Oh, here's how, here's how everyone should train." But could you recover from, um, hitting a muscle three times a week? You mentioned that you want your hamstrings to grow. You know you could do two sets of lying leg curls three times a week, especially if you stopped your sets two reps shy of failure. Y- Lying leg curls don't beat you up as much. It's when you throw in the stiff-leg deadlifts, the good mornings, even seated leg curls the way we did it yesterday where I enhanced the eccentric and made it harder on the way down and really made you upright in that seated leg curl position so you got a stretch on the hamstrings. That tends to create a little more damage. So, some of these exercise that give you the most bang for your buck and they're the most efficient exercises, they sometimes aren't the best exercises if you're training on one muscle frequently. And I like to- I like to say walking lunges are probably the best glute exercise there is. The problem is they're too good. If you really go to failure, to where you (laughs) can't get another step with a, you know, um, they, they can beat you up a lot. If you do three or four sets to failure and then you're trying to train legs two days later, there's no way. Like, you're gonna be so sore it'll be counterproductive. That's why I like step-ups more than lunges, not 'cause I think they're more effective, they're just more conducive to training a muscle frequently, and this doesn't get talked about enough. There's an art to training frequently. So when men, we grew up in the, we're almost the same age. We're both 49 right now. We grew up where bodybuilders trained legs one day a week. You know, w- everyone trained, you had your body s- part split routine where you train a muscle one day, and then you damage the hell out of it and you need a whole week to recover. The ex- the, the workouts back then were like, four sets of squats, four sets of stiff-leg deadlifts, four sets of leg press, four sets of leg extensions, and then maybe two types of leg curls or something, and then you'd be annihilated for the whole week. Can that work? Yes. The bodybuilders got big legs back then. But I think better results are seen when you don't go so crazy. So you're saying, okay, my girls train their l- my, my programs and my glute squad, I have one in San Diego, one in Florida. They train their legs, they train lower body three times a week. They do one squat pattern, uh, squat lunge pattern.

   14. AHAndrew Huberman26:49

       Per workout?

   15. BCBret Contreras26:50

       Yep. One, and three sets. But when I train them in person it's typically two sets, 'cause I push them harder and we have a goal in mind. And also, what I've realized is I typically only push them really hard during their first exercise 'cause I realize if I sit there and hover over them for all four exercises, well, three of the exercises are hard. One's a squat lunge pattern, one's a hinge pull movement, meaning a type of deadlift, stiff-leg deadlift, good morning, or a 45-degree hyper, reverse hyper. And then, uh, and then you have your thrust bridge pattern where it's either a hip thrust or a glute bridge, and we have lots of different hip thrust tools. But those don't create as much muscle damage because you're training the glutes in a shortened position. Anyway, they don't m- the, the squat lunge hits your quads, glutes, and adductors. The hinge hits your hamstrings and glutes. The thrust m- mainly just works the glutes. And then you throw in an abduction movement at the end, which is glute medias or upper glute max, and they, and they, that tends to be reco- you can recover from that. Also I wanna mention, women can recover b- a little bit better than men. The research is mixed, but having trained (laughs) men and women my whole, like, for literally, like, 30 years now, I will tell you women recover better. (laughs) Like, I don't need studies to tell me that. They can do a little more volume. Also it might matter if you're on a specialization routine, meaning, m- men, we're hitting our traps. We're hitting all three heads of our delts. We're hitting all the muscles in the body. So the, the, a lot of the women, they, their upper body workouts, if they train full body, they might just do an up, a compound or multi-joint upper body press and pull, and that's it.

   16. AHAndrew Huberman28:30

       No direct arm work, for instance.

   17. BCBret Contreras28:32

       A lot of 'em, yeah. Don't-

   18. AHAndrew Huberman28:33

       Because they don't want their arms to grow?

   19. BCBret Contreras28:34

       They don't care as much as men do about arms.

   20. AHAndrew Huberman28:36

       Mm-hmm.

   21. BCBret Contreras28:37

       They, and they're gonna get decent arm development focusing on one upper body press and one upper body pull, but do that three times a week. We might do 36 sets a week for glutes. And you think, "Oh my God, that's so much." It's 12, 12, I mentioned the four patterns. So you got your squat lunge, hinge pull, uh, thrust bridge, and then your abduction. And those can be in any order. Sometimes we prioritize the squat lunge, sometimes the hinge. Some- and it makes it fun 'cause it's fun to PR on your favorite type of squat or hack squat or lunge or whatever. And then the next month we might prioritize a hinge. But you're always doing all three of 'em.

   22. AHAndrew Huberman29:17

       Mm-hmm.

   23. BCBret Contreras29:17

       But we- you're, you're going for PRs on one of the movement patterns each time, and then you mix it up throughout the, the... That's my system that tends to work well. There's a million ways to do-

   24. AHAndrew Huberman29:26

       Mm-hmm.

   25. BCBret Contreras29:26

       ... to do it. But anyway, you can recover from that because it doesn't beat you up so much, but there's rules to it. You alternate with the squat lunge pattern, you alternate with the bilateral and unilateral because the unilateral tend to get you more sore.

   26. AHAndrew Huberman29:39

       Yeah, could you clarify bilateral/unilateral?

   27. BCBret Contreras29:42

       Bilateral is double leg.

   28. AHAndrew Huberman29:43

       Mm-hmm.

   29. BCBret Contreras29:43

       Or d- t- um, double, like, two, two limbs at a time. And then u- unilateral is single, single arm or single leg.

   30. AHAndrew Huberman29:51

       Like rear foot elevated, uh-
6. 31:37 – 40:41

   Maximum Recoverable Volume (MRV), Determine MRV, Tool: Flexing & Loadless Training

   1. AHAndrew Huberman31:37

      Okay, this is a- an extremely important concept that most people, I believe, have not heard of. Um, certainly in exercise science circles, I- I'm sure everybody knows, but maximal recoverable volume. I think this is so critical because it frames basically everything we've been talking about up until now, and I also think it can help clarify a lot of confusion for people. In particular, people that are starting to do resistance training and want to better understand what works and what doesn't work over time, both men and women. Uh, but also experienced lifters because, uh, my, uh, sort of weening and understanding, uh, around resi- resistance training came from, you know, the high-intensity folks. Okay? This was years ago, and this can be basically summarized as you warm up, you do a super intense focused set, maybe two, maybe three, and then you maybe do that for another muscle group, and then you take a couple days off and then come in and train other muscles. And really, you're hitting each muscle directly once per week very intensely, both with mental focus and with physical, uh, you know, intensity obviously. And then you leave it alone, and you try and get stronger every single workout. That was kind of the- the idea. Nowadays, I'm hearing a lot more about the kinds of things you're describing, like training each muscle group two or three times per week, dividing upper and lower body, so not dividing the body up as finely into, like, chest and back one day, shoulders and arms another day, legs another day, and so forth, and doing a lot more volume, but maybe not going to failure, and certainly changing exercises each workout. So these two things, obviously they both can work. I- I think we were talking about this yesterday. Uh, they both can work, but there was this additional kind of element to it that I- I wanna frame up here, which was the idea from Mike Mentzer and- and Arthur Jones of, you know, and all the Nautilus folks that really believed in these sh- really brief, super high-intensity, infrequent workouts was one that I do think is true, at least in my experience, which is, as you gain more experience with resistance training, you are able to generate more directed intensity, not by coming into the gym with more energy, but being able to really focus your mind and energy on s- let's just say, like, a, um, a- a pull-up. Rather than just trying to get one's chin over the bar, which is what we do early on when we're trying to get pull-ups and then just count pull-ups, you drag yourself slowly out of the bottom position, paying attention to really using your lats and not using the biceps, so, like, focusing on elbowing someone behind you. You get to the top. You try and bring the bar to your chest or even lower to, like, the, you know, for lack of a better way to put it, to the nipples, um, and then really squeezing the lats and then lowering yourself slowly. This is very different than trying to rep out chin-ups. And the idea always was that doing things in a more focused way comes with experience, that it- it- the- the beginner can't generate that kind of intensity. They don't know how to do the movements. Which led me at least to believe that, at the beginning, when somebody's in their, say, first four to six months of training, that a bit more volume is necessary in order to really learn how to do the movements properly, really develop the mind-muscle connection, really understand how to train without getting hurt, and really learn what that MRV... We didn't know that concept back then. But really learn, you know, "Okay, I can train my legs twice per week, it's fine, but if I go to three times, I'm- I start getting weaker in my workouts, not stronger." Or, if you're like me, "I can train my legs once per week really intensely, but you know what? Not every muscle in my legs is growing the same way. Maybe I need to do twice a week for hamstrings because one muscle group is lagging." So the reason I'm- I'm th- sort of spooling out this essay here is that I think there's a lot of confusion for people about where to start and where to go, and MRV seems like it- it should be the- the kind of governing factor, the compass in all of this. So for instance, if a client walks into your gym, and let's just say she because you train a lot of female clients, but this could be also a man, uh, talking about chest training, but let's talk about a woman comes in and she just says, "Listen, I don't wanna be big," right? This is a comment I want you to hear. "But I really want my glutes to be a bit bigger, and I would like to see some abs and, you know, and I..." Um, and she's athletic, you know, she's done cardio, done, um, maybe a sport, maybe played some soccer, but she wants to really focus on her glutes and her quads.What do you do to assess MRV? Are you looking for her to get stronger every single workout? Or, do you spend two or three weeks just, like, teaching her the movements? Do you spend two or three weeks teaching a guy, "Hey, you know what? You think you can do a biceps curl? But let's do a biceps curl where you really learn to activate the biceps at the beginning of the movement. You're not swinging your elbow forward, you're- you're- you're contracting the biceps. Let's really learn how to bring, like, your pinky higher than your thumb at the top, and really learn how to cramp that thing down." That, to me, is a skill. It's something that requires time and it- and it eats into recovery. So, the- the bigger question in here is, how do you determine MRV? And is skill and ability in being able to target muscles a factor in MRV? Because, to me, it seems like the most important factor. Forgive the long question.

   2. BCBret Contreras36:58

      So, yeah. That's the hard thing about working with people online compared to in person.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman37:02

      Mm-hmm.

   4. BCBret Contreras37:03

      Online, you kind of have to have a generic cookie cutter approach. In person, you can individualize it and assess where they are. If I c- if I have a beginner, yes, I agree with you, they benefit from more volume to have the motor learning and gain the coordination. Also, you should, like, I remember standing in the mirror is- when I was, like, 15, 16-year-old flexing, and I'm like, "H- I can't f- how do I flex my lats? How do I flex my..." If you can't flex your muscles, how can you flex your muscles against resistance? Like...

   5. AHAndrew Huberman37:32

      Super important point.

   6. BCBret Contreras37:33

      Yeah.

   7. AHAndrew Huberman37:33

      I mean, I'm just gonna highlight it. I'm interrupting you to highlight that. If, folks, if you can't contract a muscle without a weight in your hand or on your back or whatever it is, you're not going to be able to properly train that muscle.

   8. BCBret Contreras37:46

      So, you can use what Mel Siff back in the day, this, uh, legendary sports scientist, he passed away too soon, but he wrote the book Super Training. But all of us strength coaches back in the day, that was our bible. And, uh, and he called it loadless training. But yeah, you- you want to flex and sque- but then after a while, you don't need to do that. You can- you can use that, you can feel that muscle doing any movement if you want.

   9. AHAndrew Huberman38:08

      Do you think people could do a self-test, for instance, where just on their own, in their bathroom, uh, with no one around, they could just kind of walk from, you know, uh, calves up, you know, just, uh, not walk physically, but just move from calves up. Like, can you flex your calf on both sides? Can you generate a hard contraction? Can you do that for your quad? Can you do that for your hamstring?

   10. BCBret Contreras38:28

       Absolutely, yeah.

   11. AHAndrew Huberman38:28

       That, to me, seems like the most important thing to do before touching a weight or a machine. Because then one can get a real sense of, you know, what kind of neuromuscular control do they have, 'cause it's gonna vary by sports, by injury history, by genetics, by all sorts of things, right?

   12. BCBret Contreras38:45

       Men probably have an advantage with when they start out because, you know, when we were going through puberty and you're like, "Oh, wow, my body's changing," and you, no one was looking and you're in the mirror. I remember, I mean... (laughs)

   13. AHAndrew Huberman38:54

       Every d- every dude flexes his- his- his bi- biceps.

   14. BCBret Contreras38:57

       His biceps.

   15. AHAndrew Huberman38:58

       Yep.

   16. BCBret Contreras38:58

       And you're like... You- you practice flexing. Well, that's- that's training. That's resistance training. Um, you're flexing your muscles, you're pr- you're providing the resistance, you know? Um, and there's some evidence that you can gain muscle that way. There's a classic study by Brittany Counts, um, you know, where with the biceps, where one- one side used a dumbbell, the other arm just body weight, just, like, concentrating using no load, four sets of 20, flexing your arm throughout the range of motion, trying to squeeze your biceps. And interestingly, this arm grew the triceps because you're using your triceps to provide some of the res-

   17. AHAndrew Huberman39:34

       The- the no weight arm.

   18. BCBret Contreras39:35

       ... some of the resistance. Yeah, the no weight arm. And so...

   19. AHAndrew Huberman39:37

       That's pretty wild.

   20. BCBret Contreras39:38

       Yeah. So- so, you can, but then how... But that- that...

   21. AHAndrew Huberman39:41

       I'm not suggesting that's the training people stick with.

   22. BCBret Contreras39:43

       Right.

   23. AHAndrew Huberman39:44

       I mean, this is sort of like an assessment.

   24. BCBret Contreras39:45

       An assessment is...

   25. AHAndrew Huberman39:46

       Like a self-assessment.

   26. BCBret Contreras39:46

       Yeah.

   27. AHAndrew Huberman39:46

       Yeah.

   28. BCBret Contreras39:47

       If you can't feel your muscles, you know, if you can't flex your b- it's- it's kind of hard to, like, "How do I flex my delts just standing here?" But, like, yeah, you- you start t- t- tweaking the body and contorting, and you're like, "Oh, I can feel my delts when I do this." Uh, flaring your lats, that took me some time back, you know, 30 years ago when I started. And then you start to realize, "Oh." And then another thing, sometimes you go to a gym that doesn't have a lot of equipment or you're limited in loading and you're like, "You know, I'm gonna do lat pull-downs," and you figure out, "Wow, I- I feel my lats more doing it this way." Um, li- lifting is a lifelong journey. You can always be improving your form, you can always be learning new skills. Um, but in the beginning, yes, you want to learn how to flex your muscles, you want to learn how to perform the exercises with good form, gain the coordination factor, the neural gains. Then over time, most of your gains i- in strength will come from the muscle growing, from hypertrophy.

7. 40:41 – 48:52

   Low-Load Glute Activation; Life-Long Strength Gains, Avoiding Pain & Injury

   1. BCBret Contreras40:41

   2. AHAndrew Huberman40:41

      I think these are incredibly informative things to do, because then when you arrive in the gym, perhaps you put more, um, priority on the muscles that you have a harder time contracting.

   3. BCBret Contreras40:51

      Well, the... This was, like, proposed by this researcher, Vladimir Janda, Janda, whatever, um, and- and kind of got trickled down. I know Stu McGill, you've had him on the show, he started talking about glute amnesia, and then it gets a lot of backlash because people are like, "Oh, you really have glute amnesia? Your glutes don't activate at all?" But what we're talking about is some muscles... And I- I- and I learned this from doing EMG, elec- electromyography testing back in the day. I'm like, man, when people walk upstairs, their quad activation is through the roof. When you just stand up from the couch, quad activation through the roof. Glute activation doesn't get very high during everyday normal movements.

   4. AHAndrew Huberman41:31

      Mm-hmm.

   5. BCBret Contreras41:32

      Um, so they're probably more prone to atrophy. And, you know, disuse, you're just gonna... Your- the muscle will shrink. You're also not activating as much. Why would the neural gains be as efficient? And then probably there's a genetic element too with your anatomy and with your sport history and stuff. Um, so there's kind of, like, neural pr- think of it as neural programming. I know glute activation gets a lot of flak from people 'cause it got so popular back in the day. Low load glute activation. It's funny 'cause I'm a personal trainer, but my roots come up as a strength coach. Um, I wanted to- I wanted to work with athletes earlier in my career, and I think that's what differentiated me from...... all these co- these bodybuilding coaches have a different mindset. I have a more of a functional outlook on things. But also, we were doing glute ac- low-load glute activation back in the day, and there were all these coaches, the popular strength coaches were doing it in the early 2000s, uh, up until the late 2000s.

   6. AHAndrew Huberman42:30

      What's low-load glute activation?

   7. BCBret Contreras42:32

      You're using lower loads, body weight or bands, and you're just doing like, you know, movements trying to... You're not going to failure. It's not a working set. You do it in the, in the general warm-up, you know, with your dynamic warm-up. You might be able to do 100 glute bridges, but you're doing two sets of 10, trying to really squeeze the glutes and feel them moving you. Lateral band walks, things like that. So, we were doing that in the early 2000s to wake up the glutes. And there is evidence of this, though. It's, there's a, there's probably 15 studies on it, main- like, cri- key studies. A lot of them show no benefit, but a couple of them, um, show definitely- definite neural gains. Like one study just in one week that people doing like an hour a day of isometric, like a, on all fours, you put a band around the knees and you did like kind of this weird movement where it's like hip extension, abduction, external rotation at the same time, kinda lifting your leg out to the side.

   8. AHAndrew Huberman43:27

      So, sort of like a dog peeing?

   9. BCBret Contreras43:28

      Yeah. Almost like a fire hydrant, but also extending-

   10. AHAndrew Huberman43:31

       It's called a fire hydrant?

   11. BCBret Contreras43:32

       (laughs) The fire hydrant movement, yeah.

   12. AHAndrew Huberman43:33

       Oh, like, 'cause like a dog peeing on a fire?

   13. BCBret Contreras43:34

       You're on your forearms and you lift a leg up. Yeah.

   14. AHAndrew Huberman43:36

       All right. Yep.

   15. BCBret Contreras43:36

       But they, they want it to be isometric 'cause they thought isometric, you're focusing, you're using the brain.

   16. AHAndrew Huberman43:42

       Isometric, uh, folks, is where you're, you're pausing the movement typically in the fully contracted position, but, you know, where you're holding the movement and really trying to contract the muscle. So, the- there's o- obviously you got to get the knee up f- to pee on the fire hydrant.

   17. BCBret Contreras43:55

       Yeah.

   18. AHAndrew Huberman43:55

       But then you're holding it there and really trying to contract hard.

   19. BCBret Contreras43:57

       So, you did, they tried to do like 20 minutes three times a day for a whole week. Like, that's crazy.

   20. AHAndrew Huberman44:01

       20 minutes of isometric holding?

   21. BCBret Contreras44:03

       So it was like, "As much as you can tolerate, but three times a day for a whole week." 'Cause they did the study in one week, but in one week, they showed significant... I don't know all the terms, 'cause this is the, the... You would know these terms.

   22. AHAndrew Huberman44:14

       The neural side.

   23. BCBret Contreras44:14

       You would know the neural side of these.

   24. AHAndrew Huberman44:15

       We could ju- it's, uh-

   25. BCBret Contreras44:16

       The motor cortex, you and-

   26. AHAndrew Huberman44:17

       One way or another, there's a strengthening of the neural connections.

   27. BCBret Contreras44:20

       Yeah. The brain, the a- the, the area in the brain, the motor cortex responsible for activating the glutes saw increases in just one week. But it's obvious, like it's obvious you can improve that side of things. So, but then here's the thing about what we're talking about. People get car- carried away. You can get sidetracked. MRV can s- can distract you. People get obsessive with the number of sets. And the main thing is, are you gaining strength? And I don't mean all-time PRs every single... Like, especially if you've been lifting for a lot of years, like you and me, can we keep going up in strength? But you set a baseline on week one, and can you gain strength for three weeks in a row after that? And then you switch. Then you start at a baseline. Can you gain strength? And are you kind of moving up over time? Um, you know, you said it yesterday that it's gonna be a, a jigsaw... What did you call it?

   28. AHAndrew Huberman45:11

       Oh, uh-

   29. BCBret Contreras45:11

       A saw, but it's-

   30. AHAndrew Huberman45:12

       A s- uh, up and to the right sawtooth pattern.
8. 48:52 – 51:54

   Sponsors: AGZ by AG1 & LMNT

   1. BCBret Contreras48:52

   2. AHAndrew Huberman48:52

      We've known for a long time that there are things that we can do to improve our sleep, and that includes things that we can take, things like magnesium threonate, theanine, chamomile extract, and glycine, along with lesser known things like saffron and valerian root. These are all clinically supported ingredients that can help you fall asleep, stay asleep, and wake up feeling more refreshed. I'm excited to share that our longtime sponsor, AG1, just created a new product called AGZ, a nightly drink designed to help you get better sleep and have you wake up feeling super refreshed. Over the past few years, I've worked with the team at AG1 to help create this new AGZ formula. It has the best sleep-supporting compounds in exactly the right ratios in one easy-to-drink mix. This removes all the complexity of trying to forage the vast landscape of supplements focused on sleep and figuring out the right dosages and which ones to take for you. AGZ is, to my knowledge, the most comprehensive sleep supplement on the market. I take it 30 to 60 minutes before sleep, it's delicious by the way, and it dramatically increases both the quality and the depth of my sleep. I know that both from my subjective experience of my sleep and because I track my sleep. I'm excited for everyone to try this new AGZ formulation and to enjoy the benefits of better sleep. AGZ is available in chocolate, chocolate mint, and mixed berry flavors. And as I mentioned before, they're all extremely delicious. My favorite of the three has to be, I think, chocolate mint, but I really like them all. If you would like to try AGZ, go to drinkagz.com/huberman to get a special offer. Again, that's drinkagz.com/huberman. Today's episode is also brought to us by LMNT. LMNT is an electrolyte drink that has everything you need and nothing you don't. That means the electrolytes sodium, magnesium, and potassium in the correct amounts, but no sugar. Proper hydration is critical for optimal brain and body function. Even a slight degree of dehydration can diminish cognitive and physical performance. It's also important that you get adequate electrolytes. The electrolytes Sodium, magnesium, and potassium are vital for functioning of all the cells in your body, especially your neurons, or your nerve cells. Drinking LMNT dissolved in water makes it very easy to ensure that you're getting adequate hydration and adequate electrolytes. To make sure that I'm getting proper amounts of hydration and electrolytes, I dissolve one packet of LMNT in about 16 to 32 ounces of water when I first wake up in the morning, and I drink that basically first thing in the morning. I'll also drink LMNT dissolved in water during any kind of physical exercise that I'm doing, especially on hot days when I'm sweating a lot and losing water and electrolytes. LMNT has a bunch of great-tasting flavors. I love the raspberry, I love the citrus flavor. Right now LMNT has a limited edition lemonade flavor that is absolutely delicious. I hate to say that I love one more than all the others, but this lemonade flavor is right up there with my favorite other one, which is raspberry or watermelon. Again, I can't pick just one flavor. I love them all. If you'd like to try LMNT, you can go to drinklmnt.com/huberman, spelled drink L-M-N-T dot com slash huberman, to claim a free LMNT sample pack with a purchase of any LMNT drink mix. Again, that's drinklmnt.com/huberman to claim a free sample pack. Real quick

9. 51:54 – 1:00:18

   Tool: Brett’s “Big Six” Lifts; COVID Pandemic, Competition & Exercise Variety

   1. AHAndrew Huberman51:54

      question and then, um, more about what we were just discussing. You mentioned six lifts, and you rattled them off very fast. I, I caught them. People can slow it down, but yeah, I, I heard squat or hip hinge in there. Could you r- list off the six things that you consider? And I realize there are many, many more exercises, but what are the six that you listed off as-

   2. BCBret Contreras52:12

      My top six are squats, bench press, dead lifts-

   3. AHAndrew Huberman52:17

      Mm-hmm.

   4. BCBret Contreras52:18

      ... military press, chin-ups, and hip thrusts.

   5. AHAndrew Huberman52:22

      Great.

   6. BCBret Contreras52:22

      And if you do those six lifts, so it's like, I loved power lifting, but if you just did the three lifts, your shoulders might not be maximally developed. Your lats might not max. You're, you might be leaving some glute, some room for glute growth on the table. Um, and so this, in my opinion, you're gonna develop all your muscles with these six lifts.

   7. AHAndrew Huberman52:42

      Squat, bench press, dead lift, military press, which is overhead press-

   8. BCBret Contreras52:46

      Overhead press.

   9. AHAndrew Huberman52:47

      ... could be standing, could be seated, front of the, you know, et cetera.

   10. BCBret Contreras52:50

       Well-

   11. AHAndrew Huberman52:50

       Then chin and hip thrust.

   12. BCBret Contreras52:52

       So-

   13. AHAndrew Huberman52:52

       And there could be var- and variations on those.

   14. BCBret Contreras52:54

       All the variations of those.

   15. AHAndrew Huberman52:55

       Great. Okay.

   16. BCBret Contreras52:55

       But let me tell you a lesson I learned. In 2020, we have the quarantine, right? We're all so bored.

   17. AHAndrew Huberman53:02

       And stressed.

   18. BCBret Contreras53:03

       I'm in Cal-

   19. AHAndrew Huberman53:03

       People were bored and stressed at the same time.

   20. BCBret Contreras53:04

       Bored and stressed.

   21. AHAndrew Huberman53:05

       Yeah.

   22. BCBret Contreras53:06

       I have a gym in San Diego, and it's like, I remember, like, week one of the quarantine. I'm like, "Okay, I can do this. I c- I'm lucky I have a gym. I can go to the gym. I don't have to do these silly body weight workouts that we're telling everyone (laughs) to do. I can actually still use all of the machines and the free weights." And I had my client Allegra call me, "Coach, you know me. I'm gonna go crazy. You know my mental health. I have to be lifting weights." I'm like, "Well, come to the gym with me. Who's gonna know?" And then, you know, California was pretty hardcore. But I'm like, "I don't want my me-" You know, I know it was, like, a, this is a sensitive topic 'cause people were dying back then. How tragic. But I'm a very social person, and I'm like, "All right. I'm gonna let my clients come and train with me." Well, long story short, 2020 was, sad enough, probably the best year of all of our lives. We'll say (laughs) it was the best year. We lifted weights all day long 'cause you didn't have to... You weren't so focused on your career back then and posting to social media. You were just trying to survive each day, and you weren't even allowed to post on social media about, like, your workouts and stuff 'cause you weren't supposed to be in a gym. So, my clients would come to me for two, three hours a day, six, six days a week. I was in the gym all day long, and all of a sudden I'm like, "Jesus, my clients are getting so freaking strong. They're, they're insane right now. They're so strong." So, that's when I thought up the idea of strong lifting. It's like power lifting is the three lifts, strong lifting is the six lifts.... those six lifts I just mentioned. We're gonna start competing." And I did this, like, psychological trick where I'd have my computer up, and I'd have the spreadsheet, and I'd, I'd have all my clients' names and all their strength. And they'd start looking 'cause I gave awards out, like the f- so if you got the absolute best or the relative best, strength divided by body weight, at any lift, and then we had the total lift, and then we had strongest upper body, strongest lower body, s- strongest presser, which were squats, military, and bench, strongest puller, which was chin-ups and, um, you know, deadlifts. We... so, I... strongest lower body, strongest upper body. We could mix it around. And I had, like, 55 awards I'd give out. But the point was pe- the, the women would go... like, my clients, like Amanda would be like, "Carly just hit a PR. Ugh, I gotta beat her." Like, they got competitive, uh, with it. And so, they-

   23. AHAndrew Huberman55:27

       Were they training these every single day of those six days per week?

   24. BCBret Contreras55:30

       No. I would say we did kind of like the lower-upper, lower-upper, lower, 'cause they wanted to come in every day. They were bored to death. So we'd have three lower body days, and we would do, uh, um, uh, probably a variation of each, but you'd... some days it would be like we're trying to hit squat really hard. Some days, we're trying to deadlift hard. You can't squat, deadlift, an- you could hip thrust hard three times a week. That works you in the s- short... the squeeze position. It doesn't beat you up as much. But s- as we started getting stronger at deadlifts, we realized some things. We were doing touch-and-go, meaning you bounce the weight up. You don't reset. You don't set the weight down, reset it, then lift it up. You're stronger when you do touch-and-go compared to reset reps. And I remember my client Ashley Hodge hits 315 for 18 reps, and, like, Dominique gets it 315 for 11 reps. And, and it's... the environment's crazy. We have their PR song going on, you know, "What song do you want to hear?" It's, it's, it's, you know, blaring it at max volume. And you have t- 10, 20 of your lifting partners, your colleagues around going, "Come on, you got it. Come on." The, the videos back then were crazy. And they're hitting these crazy PRs?And then they say to me, "Coach, I don't know. (sighs) I... cool, I set a deadlift PR, a touch-and-go PR, and then I'm sore for... my next week and a half is shot." It can take... when you're really training, that kind of psychological arousal, when you're training that hard and doing, like, some lifts, like, uh, like that hack squat you have at your place-

   25. AHAndrew Huberman57:04

       Mm-hmm.

   26. BCBret Contreras57:04

       ... it's, it's more horizontal. You can keep going with it. If I'm there going, "Come on, Andrew, you got this. Keep going," you get, you get in some zone. There's some lifts where you can just keep going and then it annihilates you so bad, your knees are sore for a week. So we kind of realized then we're not gonna train with that s-... we're not gonna yell at each other. We're not gonna train with music. It beats you up too much. We're not gonna do touch-and-go. We're gonna do reset reps, and we're gonna do lower reps with stricter form 'cause they beat you up too much. So we learned during the t-... when we were training for it, we learned some stuff can beat you up too much. And you don't know that until you've hit it... you... u- till you've worked that hard and you got really strong. Most of the listeners, you know, Ashley Hodge weighed 130 pounds and hit 315 for 18. Now, she's even stronger. But you don't... most people never train that hard. Most people need to train harder. Then there's the category that people who train too hard. What we now know is that, um, that Arthur Jones back in the day, the, the Mike Mentzer approach, hit once, all out, set to failure, that probably is the most efficient way to train-

   27. AHAndrew Huberman58:11

       Mm-hmm.

   28. BCBret Contreras58:11

       ... the most economical way to train. You're in the gym. You can be in the gym 45 minutes twice a week and make good gains. The problem is it leads to injuries over time if you don't swap, rotate the exercise and you don't have to perform every set to failure. In fact, there's some evidence now emerging that you can get just as much hypertrophy, similar strength gains, but, like, you might want to leave a rep or two in the tank and do a little more volume. So everything's very nuanced. But when I moved away from San Diego, I moved to Vegas, um, my... now my squad is left to train on their own. Well, I was always there to watch them, you know? And so if, if, if, if I'm training you, Andrew, and you're like, "Uh, coach, my, my low back feels a little off," and then I'm going, "Okay, we're not deadlifting today." Or if you're like, "My, my knee feels weird today." "Okay, we're not gonna squat today. We're gonna do this instead." I'm there to swap it out. But if, if I'm not there, and you push yourself through it, and you do that for a few weeks, now it becomes a chronic problem, and it takes a long time to go away.

   29. AHAndrew Huberman59:15

       Yeah.

   30. BCBret Contreras59:15

       So now my clients are getting... with me not being there, they're getting injured more often. They start developing nagging low back pain and things like that. So now I've learned to s-... I still love strong lifting, but we... you need to... you can't just keep getting stronger at the main barbell lifts week in, week out. You've got to introduce more variety. You have to... so we now cycle things around and we stray, but we, we still... it's still about progressive overload, but we incorporate more machines, more, like you said, overhead press. It could be dumbbells. It could be Smith machine. It could be barbell. It could be seated, standing. But you can pick a lift f- like what Louie Simmons would do back in the day. You can pick a lift and get stronger at it for a few weeks, you know, for a month, and then recycle it. So we're always using progressive overload, but you can't always just go set all-time PRs every week in the gym. It doesn't work that way. And that's the hardest thing to instill into people, is this topic of progressive overload. What does that look like over the long haul? What does it look like over a 30-year lifting career?
10. 1:00:18 – 1:11:16

    Difficult Final Reps; Tempo & Hypertrophy; Autonomy & Progressive Overload

    1. AHAndrew Huberman1:00:18

       have gone by in order to generate hypertrophy and strength increases, but not necessarily by always trying to add more weight, is to change my mindset around lifting, where after a couple of warmups, do the work sets. Um, typically, for me, that's two to four work sets per exercise.... generally, it's two, occasionally three, rarely four. But the idea is to make the final reps of each set, each work set that is, as difficult as possible. It's completely transformed my progress in the last, I would say, two or three years, where I'm making more progress in the last two or three years than I did in the previous eight, despite having been at the resistance training thing for a long time and not really changed much else. So the idea is always trying to do repetitions in really good form, always trying to isolate the muscles that I'm trying to target. For compound movements, I'm not trying to isolate one muscle, obviously, but to execute the movements properly, in the case of compound movements. And then as the set gets harder and I can say, "Okay, you know, failure is approaching somewhere," to stop counting repetitions and just focus extremely hard on the form and execution and the targeting of the muscles, so that a lot of times, I don't even really know how many repetitions I did. Of course, I know how much weight I'm moving, but I just keep telling myself, "Make it harder, not easier. Make it harder, not easier in the final two to three repetitions of the set." Sometimes I'll go to failure where I can't move the weight anymore. Sometimes I get close to it and just stop. And I've noticed that for me this has translated to better strength and hypertrophy increases, but also just better ability to execute the movements and far fewer little nagging aches and pains and things like that. So it's been an inversion of the mindset of, like, comp- you know, complete X number of repetitions at a given weight, then increase it every couple of weeks or every workout ideally, you know. My mindset is, "Nope, I'm going into the gym to use the weights as a tool to generate adaptation, strength and hypertrophy increases, and I'm going to make each work set as hard as possible by making the final two or three reps harder and resist the temptation to move the weight just to complete more repetitions." I just would like your reflections on that 'cause I'm actually interested in getting better at what I'm doing. (laughs) And I imagine that it's useful, but you're probably gonna tell me that there are times when I should just actually try and max out the number of repetitions I can do.

    2. BCBret Contreras1:02:55

       Well, I watched you lift yesterday, and I, and you do a good job of that. So there are people who use sloppy technique, and you come in and as a coach, you know, "Oh, God. I gotta really clean up the way they lift, their form, their tempo." Then there are people who are really, really strict and you're like, "Okay, you could benefit from..." Um, you typically, with women, you'll see this with, like, people who are real big on yoga and Pilates, and then they come to lift weights and they think everything needs to be so slow and controlled. And, and, um, this is gonna be a shock to the listeners. Tempo doesn't affect hypertrophy that much. Um, you can have, like, a one-second repetition and an eight-second repetition, and it builds muscle similarly.

    3. AHAndrew Huberman1:03:38

       Really?

    4. BCBret Contreras1:03:38

       And it blows people's mind 'cause they go, "What? You don't have to control the negative?" You can't just, like, let the weights crash down, but as long as you're- uh, you are controlling the weights on the way down. Also, the lift matters. Some lifts are less range of motion. Like, I used s- like, I used to laugh at when I'd see people... This is how you know who's really a coach and who's not. When you see them prescribe an exercise and you're like, "Do this with a two-second concentric and four-second eccentric, six seconds per rep," and it's like a shrug. Imagine what that would look like. Shrugs are like explosive, you know, one second per rep, if that. You know, some lifts are just quicker. And then if- if you see that they prescribed a set of 12 and it- and it's a, you know, six-second... Okay. 6 times 12 is 72. You're sup- that's a 72-second set, and then you're telling them, and it's a, say it's a step-up. So you got one leg, then you go right on the next leg, and then you're saying, "Rest one minute." You'd be breathing so fast, you would not have a productive second set. But I digress. I think tempo matters mostly for longevity. Um, if you're just like being very erratic and so explosive and not controlling the weight, you have a big better chance of getting injured over time. And so I think tempo is more important for hypertrophy in the long run by preventing injury. My clients, they will do hip thrusts explosively and people will say, "You got to control the weight on the way down." Well, there aren't a lot of- there aren't tons of studies on this topic, but it- it appears that they're wrong. You can explode up. You can lower it slowly- I mean, lower it quickly, or you can go a lot lighter and really control it. I- it makes more sense to me to try to explode, uh, at the bottom and like really "Boom!" I mean, but you want to control it, but you want to use that explosion because you're trying to create maximum force in the stretch position, the bottom position, but then you still want to use full range and control it the whole way and maybe have a brief little pause at the top. But, uh, that, but yeah, people get too strict on tempo, and those are the same types that, that when they're s- you're so focused on tempo and form and feeling that you don't use progressive overload. Like what you just said, you don't even count it, you don't even know how many reps you did, but you saw results this way. So, a lot of times people see results just from doing something different. Um, you and I talked about how when you were in your teens learning how to lift weights, you were influenced right away by Mike Mentzer. So you right away learned how to get your all out of one hard set or like, you know, low volume, low volume training. I was the opposite. I learned from Arnold, and Arnold and Mentzer were like opposing. They actually didn't get along in real life.... a- so I read Arnold's encyclopedia and I'm like, "I gotta do all this volume." So, I did high-volume training for eight years. When I was, like, 24 years old, I started doing low-volume training, one set to failure. It took me a while to get good at it. I sucked at it initially, and then I, I... you get really good at pushing one. It's a skill. You get so much better when you're only doing one set. You get really good at getting your all out of that one set. You mentioned that then you saw good results, realizing, "I can benefit from more volume, doing more sets." Same with when you said, "I'm gonna focus on making the last reps harder, not, not using momentum or body English to squeeze out a couple more to make it easier." And you definitely see gains that way. But it's eas- it's this c- concept where something that can get you gains, then it can al- uh, it can limit you eventually, because your focus is now on... So, you're relying on your m- mind. You're relying now on your mind to use progressive overload, meaning you're not gonna progress with weights, you're gonna try to produce increasing amounts of muscle force through a mind-muscle connection, through an internal, um, attentional focus and y- and you're... you lie to yourself. It's the same as if I don't have my, my, my logbook in front of me and I go, "Um, yeah, I, I c- I hit 315 for 6 last time." And then I get it for sev- I get it for seven, I'm like, "Yeah." And then I l- a- and I, and then I get my, my book and I'm like, "Oh my God, I hit it for eight. I forgot." I could have probably gotten more. That's what I like about taking notes and writing it down. You lie to yourself and you limit yourself and you're like, "God, if I knew... Somehow, if I knew that I had hi- hit in... I had to hit eight before, I probably could have hit nine."

    5. AHAndrew Huberman1:08:13

       Mm-hmm.

    6. BCBret Contreras1:08:13

       B- so the set still felt hard. But we're capable of a lot more, but you gotta be reminded. That's why, for my clients, I give them autonomy. So say I'm... we're, we're doing hip thrusts first and I... and they say, "Coach, what should I do?" I alwa- I want them involved in on it. It just... I think things work better when you get them involved.

    7. AHAndrew Huberman1:08:31

       Mm-hmm.

    8. BCBret Contreras1:08:31

       So I'll go, "Okay, which hip thrusts do you wanna do?" At my gym we do rotisserie hip thrusts, ramp hip thrusts, and thruster pro. You won't know what those mean, but, "Which hip thrusts do you wanna do?" Or say it's... say they're doing a squat. "Do you wanna use the Glute Builder squat machine 'cause it's really good? Or do you wanna do," um, "a Smith Machine squat? Do you wanna do a barbell squat, box squat? Do you wanna use the T-bell and do the, the squat that way? Which squat do you wanna do?" And I let them choose. And they go, "Um, uh, uh, let's do... l- let's do a rotisserie hip thrust," or, "Let's do a T-bell squat." "All right, what's your... what are your records?" And then they say, "Well, I've done... You know, my record with the T-bell squat is... I've done 100 for 16. I've done 125," 'cause we load up 25-lb plates on that. "I..." They are very involved in the process. And I go, "Okay, which do you wanna beat today?" And I give them some autonomy. So yes, m- a lot of my... the coaches listening to this would say, "So, you only have him go hard on one set? You should have him go do th- three or four sets, and then the last set, go hard on." But th- that can work well. And there's also some evidence that you can trade off volume and effort, meaning if you left three reps in the tank but did an extra two sets, that might be equal to doing a couple less sets but go... training to failure. There's some evidence for that. But I'm just saying, my system, I want them focused on progressive overload, and when they have autonomy and they say, "Okay, Coach, I think I wanna go for the 125 for seven. I wanna get eight." I'll go, "All right, let's do it." And then they're focused on it and then you go all out, you hit eight, great. They set a PR. Now, I'm not gonna follow 'em through the rest of the workout. Now get your volume in, but you achieved the goal. Everything else is icing on the cake. You achieved that goal. People don't understand how hard it is to continue us-... you know-

    9. AHAndrew Huberman1:10:22

       Mm-hmm.

    10. BCBret Contreras1:10:22

        ... to keep using progressive overload. Most people stop after a year or two. They just quit, quit paying attention. I think you've done that because we get older and you're like, "Ugh, I can still get awesome workouts. I can still improve my physique, but what you're talking about is using my muscle connection to produce increasing m- muscle force, m-" putting more mechanical tension on the muscles through your mind, but your mind plays tricks on you. It's not objective. What is objective is the load on the bar, but that can play tricks on you, too, where you're setting PRs but using sloppier form, not controlling it, using a different tempo or different range of motion. So, that happens, too. That's why you gotta have this yin and yang, the external and the internal, like the, the, the progressive overload with the mind-muscle connection. Those two are the yin and yang that keep each other in check, and those two pathways are necessary to optimize hypertrophy over the long run.

    11. AHAndrew Huberman1:11:14

        Yeah,

11. 1:11:16 – 1:13:22

    Progressive Overload, Quantity & Quality, Injury

    1. AHAndrew Huberman1:11:16

       I definitely pursue progressive overload still. I should have been, uh, clear about this.

    2. BCBret Contreras1:11:21

       What you're describing is using progressive overload. You're just de- t- keeping the same weight.

    3. AHAndrew Huberman1:11:25

       Mm-hmm.

    4. BCBret Contreras1:11:25

       But I like t... I used to make... I remember writing an article, like, "10 Different Ways You Can Progressive Overload." And that's just confusing people. No, there's two main ways to progress related. You use the same weight for more reps-

    5. AHAndrew Huberman1:11:36

       Mm-hmm.

    6. BCBret Contreras1:11:37

       ... or more weight for the same reps. But in a way, you are using progressive overload 'cause you're using the same weight, not necessarily getting more reps, but having more control over it, which does produce more tension on the muscles and can lead to muscle growth over time. It's just, it's not as objective. It requires you to come in fresh and work your hardest. And you can... uh, there's no studies on this topic, by the way. It would be cool to see one group focus on, just on the, the numbers, quantity, and the other group focus just on the quality-

    7. AHAndrew Huberman1:12:07

       Mm-hmm.

    8. BCBret Contreras1:12:07

       ... for a whole year. And maybe in your first year, you might tie, but over the years, like, I don't know, it's-

    9. AHAndrew Huberman1:12:13

       I'll tell you who are... who I think will look better, men and women, I think the people that focus on quality. And that raises a, a, a new question, which was-

    10. BCBret Contreras1:12:20

        See, I would disagree. I'd say the quantity group, but th- this is-

    11. AHAndrew Huberman1:12:23

        You mean just heavier for more reps?

    12. BCBret Contreras1:12:24

        Either beating the reps or the load-

    13. AHAndrew Huberman1:12:27

        Mm-hmm.

    14. BCBret Contreras1:12:27

        ... but... 'cause I think people can get too caught up on quality-... to where they never go heavier and they're, you're c- cool you're-

    15. AHAndrew Huberman1:12:34

        Well, this is your-

    16. BCBret Contreras1:12:35

        ... could, could-

    17. AHAndrew Huberman1:12:35

        ... this is your area of-

    18. BCBret Contreras1:12:36

        But, but, but, but-

    19. AHAndrew Huberman1:12:36

        ... study, so you would, I trust your answer.

    20. BCBret Contreras1:12:37

        ... people will agree with you on that, like, it'll be s- divided, um, if, if, if you put up a poll, "What do you guys think about this?" You'd have 50% say quality and then 50% say quantity because the q- and, and over the long run, quantity leads to injuries. I mean, we don't talk about this enough because it's like the, the, the typical bros in their 20s that are like, "Just squat, deadlift," and, you know, okay, how does that pan out 30 years, you know, 20 years from now when you've been, you know, lifting all... you don't, they don't even understand. They haven't gotten there. You have to have the nagging pains. You were like, "Ugh, c- should I deadlift today or should I do, you know, single-leg RDLs or, like, a seated leg curl?"

    21. AHAndrew Huberman1:13:20

        I have a, um, (smacks lips)

12. 1:13:22 – 1:23:38

    Gym vs Real-Life Constraints, Motivation, Tool: Individual Training Frequency

    1. AHAndrew Huberman1:13:23

       a, a thought around the role of the gym in training and recovery as it relates to how one feels outside of the gym. Okay? I don't think I'm alone in this, although I've never heard anyone bring this up as a kind of like... formally introducing the topic, which is, for many people, including myself, the reason I train three times a week different body parts each time I train is because I also like to run. The other reason is I love to train, but after three or four days a week of resistance training, I'm not as excited to resistance train. I wanna arrive in the gym excited to resistance train. I also have other things in my life and it's not just a matter of time. If I'm training with the kind of intensity and frequency to maximize hypertrophy, a lot of times I'm tired, you know? I, I, I need more, a bit more sleep and I'm not gonna get that sleep. I have a very, very full life, you know? I often say my dance card is very full (laughs) . And I think I'm not alone in this. So I feel like for a lot of people, the ideal f- training frequency for them has something to do with, yes, they want bigger glutes and, yes, they wanna be leaner and, um, yes, they're willing to work hard in the gym, but that they also have to acknowledge, like, the real w- real life constraints. Like, how often are they, um, really able to train five days a week? Maybe in certain phases of the year they are, but I've found it to be very beneficial to kind of set a, a minimum of three workouts per week in the gym, resistance training, two or three cardio workouts per week, and then stay with that and adjust the intensity and do these various things that we're talking about so that I wake up in the morning feeling pretty fresh, so that I can focus when I work, so that I'm not, you know (laughs) , dragging and that I can, you know, like, carry my luggage through the airport like I had to do the other day without feeling like m- my body's gonna explode in pain or, or something like that. Because at some point the gym i- for many people is the endpoint, but I think for far more people the gym is a tool to create a body that can do things in the outside world, including feel refreshed. And so that's why when we started off to- today and you said, "Well, in principle one could get away with training once per week whole body, but you'd have to put so much intensity you'd probably feel like garbage for the next two or three (laughs) days and then pretty good for the remainder of the week," let me divide that into, like, two or three workouts, right? Mm-hmm.

Episode duration: 3:03:56