Dr. Andy Galpin: How to Build Strength, Muscle Size & Endurance

1. 0:00 – 3:08

   Dr. Andy Galpin, Strength & Endurance Training

   1. AHAndrew Huberman0:00

      (peaceful music) 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. Today, my guest is Dr. Andy Galpin. Dr. Galpin is a full and tenured professor in the Department of Kinesiology at California State University in Fullerton. He is also a world expert in all things exercise science and kinesiology. Today, you are going to hear what is essentially a master class in how to build fitness, no matter what level of fitness you happen to have. He talks about how to build endurance and the multiple types of endurance. He talks about how to build strength and hypertrophy, which is the growth of muscle fibers. So if you're seeking to get stronger or build bigger muscles or build endurance, or all of those things, today you're going to learn how. You're also going to learn how to build flexibility, how to hydrate properly for exercise, and we'll also talk about nutrition and supplementation. What makes Dr. Galpin so unique is his ability to span all levels of exercise science. He has the ability to clearly communicate the sets and repetition schemes that one would want to follow, for instance, to build more strength or to build larger muscles. He also clearly describes exactly how to train if you want to build more endurance or enhance cardiovascular function. What's highly unique about Dr. Galpin and the information he teaches and the way he communicates that information is that he can take specific recommendations of how recreational exercisers or even professional athletes ought to train for their specific goals and link that to specific mechanisms, that is, the specific changes that need to occur in the nervous system and in muscle fibers, and indeed right down to the genetics of individual cells in your brain and body in order for those exercise adaptations to occur. It's truly rare to find somebody that can span so many different levels of analyses and who is able to communicate all those levels of understanding in such a clear and actionable way. Indeed, Dr. Galpin is one of just a handful of people to which I and many others look when they want to make sure that the information that they're getting about exercise is gleaned from quality peer-reviewed studies, hands-on experience with a wide variety of research subjects, meaning everyday people all the way up to professional athletes in a wide variety of sports. So it's no surprise that he's not only one of the most knowledgeable, but also the most trusted voices in exercise science. Dr. Galpin is also an avid communicator of zero-cost-to-consumer information about exercise science. You can find him on Instagram @drandygalpin and also on Twitter @DrAndyGalpin. Both places he provides terrific information about recent studies, both from his laboratory and from other laboratories, more in-depth protocols of the sort that you'll hear about today. So if you're not already following him, be sure to do so. He provides only the best information. He's extremely nuanced and precise and clear in delivering that information. I'm certain that by the end of today's conversation you'll come away with a tremendous amount of new knowledge that you can devote to your exercise pursuits. I'm pleased to announce that

2. 3:08 – 3:55

   The Brain-Body Contract

   1. AHAndrew Huberman3:08

      I'm hosting two live events this May. The first live event will be hosted in Seattle, Washington on May 17th. The second live event will be hosted in Portland, Oregon on May 18th. Both are part of a lecture series entitled The Brain-Body Contract, during which I will discuss science and science-based tools for mental health, physical health, and performance. And I should point out that while some of the material I'll cover will overlap with information covered here on the Huberman Lab Podcast and on various social media posts, most of the information I will cover is going to be distinct from information covered on the podcast or elsewhere. So once again, it's Seattle on May 17th, Portland on May 18th. You can access tickets by going to hubermanlab.com/tour, and I hope to see you there. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is

3. 3:55 – 8:20

   AG1 (Athletic Greens), Thesis, InsideTracker

   1. AHAndrew Huberman3:55

      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, I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast. Our first sponsor is Athletic Greens. Athletic Greens is an all-in-one vitamin mineral probiotic drink. I've been taking Athletic Greens since 2012, so I'm delighted that they're sponsoring the podcast. The reason I started taking Athletic Greens and the reason I still take Athletic Greens once or twice a day is that it helps me cover all of my basic nutritional needs. It makes up for any deficiencies that I might have. In addition, it has probiotics, which are vital for microbiome health. I've done a couple of episodes now on the so-called gut microbiome and the ways in which the microbiome interacts with your immune system, with your brain to regulate mood, and essentially with every biological system relevant to health throughout your brain and body. With Athletic Greens, I get the vitamins I need, the minerals I need, and the probiotics to support my microbiome. If you'd like to try Athletic Greens, you can go to athleticgreens.com/huberman and claim a special offer. They'll give you five free travel packs, which make it easy to mix up Athletic Greens while you're on the road, plus a year's supply of vitamin D3 K2. There are a ton of data now showing that vitamin D3 is essential for various aspects of our brain and body health. Even if we're getting a lot of sunshine, many of us are still deficient in vitamin D3, and K2 is also important because it regulates things like cardiovascular function, calcium in the body, and so on. Again, go to athleticgreens.com/huberman to claim the special offer of the five free travel packs and the year's supply of vitamin D3 K2. Today's episode is also brought to us by Thesis. Thesis makes what are called nootropics, which means smart drugs. Now to be honest, I am not a fan of the term s- nootropics. I don't believe in smart drugs in the sense that I don't believe that there's any one substance or collection of substances that can make us smarter. I do believe based on science, however, that there are particular neural circuits and brain functions that allow us to be more focused, more alert.... access creativity, be more motivated, et cetera. That's just the way that the brain works, different neural circuits for different brain states. And so the idea of a nootropic that's just going to make us smarter all around fails to acknowledge that smarter is many things, right? If you're an artist, you're a musician, you're doing math, you're doing accounting, at a different part of the day you need to be creative, these are all different brain processes. Thesis understands this, and as far as I know they're the first nootropics company to create targeted nootropics for specific outcomes. They only use the highest quality ingredients, which of course is essential. Some of those I've talked about on the podcast, things like DHA, Ginkgo biloba, phosphatidylserine. They give you the ability to try several different blends over the course of a month, discover which nootropics work best for your unique brain chemistry and genetics and goals, and with that personalization, design a kit of nootropics that's ideal for the different brain and body states you want to access. I've been using Thesis for more than six months now and I can confidently say that the nootropics have been a total game changer. My go-to formula is the clarity formula, or sometimes I'll use their energy formula be- before training. To get your own personalized nootropic starter kit, go online to takethesis.com/huberman, take a three-minute quiz, and Thesis will send you four different formulas to try in your first month. That's takethesis.com/huberman and use the code Huberman at checkout for 10% off your first order. Today's episode is also brought to us by InsideTracker. InsideTracker is a personalized nutrition platform that analyzes data from your blood and DNA to help you better understand your body and help you reach your health goals. I've long been a believer in getting regular blood work done, for the simple reason that many of the factors that impact your immediate and long-term health can only be assessed with a quality blood test. What's unique about InsideTracker is that while there are a lot of different tests out there for hormones and metabolic factors, et cetera, with InsideTracker you get the numbers back in terms of your levels, but they also give you very clear directives in terms of lifestyle, nutrition, and supplementation, that can help you bring those values into the ranges that are best for you and your health goals. And that's very different than a lot of the other programs where you get a lot of information but you don't really know what to do with that information. InsideTracker makes that all very easy to understand and very actionable based on the very easy-to-use dashboard at InsideTracker. If you'd like to try InsideTracker, you can visit insidetracker.com/huberman to get 20% off any of InsideTracker's plans. Just use the code Huberman at checkout. And now for my discussion with Dr.

4. 8:20 – 14:40

   Adaptations of Exercise, Progressive Overload

   1. AHAndrew Huberman8:20

      Andy Galpin. Welcome Doctor, Professor Andy Galpin. It's been a long time coming. We have friends in common, but this is actually the first time we've sat down face to face.

   2. AGDr. Andy Galpin8:30

      Yeah. I'm very excited.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman8:31

      Yeah. There are only a handful, meaning about three or four people, who I trust enough in the exercise physiology space that when they speak, I not only listen, but I modify my protocols, and you are among those three or four people. So first of all, a debt of gratitude. Thank you. Uh, you've greatly shaped the protocols that I use, and, um, I know there's far more for me and for others to learn. So you're a professor, you teach in university, and you have a tremendous range of levels of exploration. Muscle biopsy, literally images down the microscope, all the way to training professional athletes and everything in between. So you are truly an n-of-one. And just to start us off, I would love to have you share with us what you think most everybody or even everybody should know about principles of strength training, principles of endurance training, and principles of, let's call it hypertrophy, power, and the other ki- sort of categories of training. And this could be very top contour, but what do you think everybody on planet Earth should know about these categories of personal and athletic development?

   4. AGDr. Andy Galpin9:45

      Well, that's a great first question. (laughs) Holy cow. Uh, I think I'll start it this way. I tend to think about, um, there's about nine different adaptations you can get from exercise. Um, fat loss is not one of those. It is a byproduct, but that's not really what I'm getting at. Um, and so we can kind of categorize everything like that, and what we're going to, we can talk about are what are the concepts that you need to hit within each one, and then you could have infinite discussion of the different methodologies, right? And so that, that first thing to hit is the concepts are actually fairly few, but the methods are many, right? People have said that in iterations throughout time. Um, so if you walk from the very beginning, the first one to think about is what we'll just call skill. So this is improving anything from, say, a golf swing to a squatting technique to running. And this is just simply moving mechanically how you want your body to move. I'm just going to globally call that skill. From there, we're going to get into speed. So this is moving as fast as possible. The next one is power. And power is a function of speed, but also a function of the next one, which is strength. So if you actually multiply strength by speed, you get power. And the reason I'm making this distinction, by the way, is some of these are very close and I'm going in a specific order on purpose here. For example, power is, like I just said, it's a function of speed and strength. So if you improve speed, you've also likely improved power. But not necessarily, right? 'Cause it could have come from the force direction either. So there's carryover. So, like, a lot of things that you would do for the development of strength and power, um, they are somewhat similar, but then there's differences, right? So things that you would do correctly for power would really not develop much strength and vice versa. So, and we can get into all these details later. Once you get past strength, then the next one kind of down the list is hypertrophy. This is muscle size, right? Growing muscle mass is one way to think about it. After hypertrophy, you get into these categories of the next one is, um, these are all globally endurance-based issues, and the very first one is called muscular endurance. So this is your ability to do, how many push-ups can you do in one minute, you know, things like that. Past, um, muscular endurance, you're now into more of an energetic or even cardiovascular fatigue. So you've left the local muscle and you're now into the entire physiological system.... and its ability to produce and sustain work. And we can get into a bunch of differentiations with an endurance, but, uh, just to keep it really simple right now, the very first one, think about this as, um, I call this anaerobic power, right? So this is your ability to produce a lot of work for, say, 30 seconds to maybe one minute, kind of two minutes like that. The next one down then is more closely aligned to what we'll call your VO2 max. So this is your ability to kind of do the same thing, but more of a time domain of, say, three to 12 minutes. So this is going to be a maximal heart rate, but it's going to be well past just max heart rate. Then after that, we have what I call long duration endurance. So this is your ability to sustain work. The time domain doesn't matter in terms of how fast go- you're going. It's how c- how long can you sustain work? This is 30-plus minutes of no break, like that. So as just an high-level overview, those are the, the different things you can target. Um, and again, some of those cross over, and some are actually a little bit contrarian to the other ones. So pushing towards one is maybe gonna sacrifice something else. So as a, as an overall start, that's really what we're looking at. Within all those though, they do have similar concepts in terms of there is a handful of things you have got to do to make all of those things work, and we could talk about as many of those as you want, but one of them is functionally called progressive overload. So w- whichever one you're trying to improve at, if you want to continue to improve, you have to have some method of overload, and a- as you well know, you've talked about a lot, adaptation physiologically happens as a byproduct of stress. So you have to push the system. So if you continue to do, say, the exact same workout over time, you better not expect much improvement. You can keep maintenance, but you're not going to be adding additional stress. So in general, you have to have some sort of progressive overload, and we can talk in detail about what that means for each category. But this could come from adding more weights. This could come from adding more repetitions. It could come from doing it more often in the week. It could come from adding complexity to the movement, so going from, say, a partial range of motion to a full range of motion, or adding other variables. So there's a lot of different ways to progress. But you have to have some sort of movement forward. So if you have this kind of routine where you've built Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday or something, and you just do that infinitely, um, you're not going to get very far. So that's, I guess, the most high-level overview of all the things people can go after, and then we can go from whatever direction you want from there.

   5. AHAndrew Huberman14:29

      Well, I'd love to do the deep dive on each one of these-

   6. AGDr. Andy Galpin14:32

      Yeah, man.

   7. AHAndrew Huberman14:32

      ... for, uh, several hours, um, but, uh, and I imagine that over time we probably will. Uh,

5. 14:40 – 27:30

   Modifiable Variables, One-Rep Max, Muscle Soreness

   1. AHAndrew Huberman14:40

      I'd love to chat about a couple of these in a bit more depth. So in terms of defining what the progressive overload variables are-

   2. AGDr. Andy Galpin14:47

      Yeah.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman14:47

      ... for these different categories, maybe we could hit the, um, two most common combinations of these nine things, the first one being, um, strength and hypertrophy-

   4. AGDr. Andy Galpin14:58

      Yep.

   5. AHAndrew Huberman14:58

      ... and maybe we could lump power in there. Um, maybe not. Uh, you're the, you're the exercise physio-

   6. AGDr. Andy Galpin15:03

      Yes and no.

   7. AHAndrew Huberman15:03

      ... physiologist.

   8. AGDr. Andy Galpin15:04

      Yeah.

   9. AHAndrew Huberman15:04

      But strength and hypertrophy, which at least bear some relationship.

   10. AGDr. Andy Galpin15:07

       Yeah.

   11. AHAndrew Huberman15:07

       And then maybe separately, we could explore, um, sustained work endurance, this 30 minutes-

   12. AGDr. Andy Galpin15:13

       Yeah.

   13. AHAndrew Huberman15:13

       ... or longer continuously, 'cause I think many people train in that regime.

   14. AGDr. Andy Galpin15:16

       Yeah.

   15. AHAndrew Huberman15:16

       Um, and probably, uh, something like, uh, VO2 max a- anaerobic as-

   16. AGDr. Andy Galpin15:23

       Yeah.

   17. AHAndrew Huberman15:23

       ... well, because I know that a number of people now incorporate, um, so-called HIIT, or high-intensity interval training-

   18. AGDr. Andy Galpin15:28

       Yeah.

   19. AHAndrew Huberman15:28

       ... I think with the hopes of either shortening their workouts-

   20. AGDr. Andy Galpin15:31

       Yeah.

   21. AHAndrew Huberman15:31

       ... and/or, um, gaining some additional cardiovascular benefit. So if we could start with, um, strength and hypertrophy. I know many people want to be stronger. They want to grow larger muscles, or at least maintain what they have.

   22. AGDr. Andy Galpin15:43

       Yeah.

   23. AHAndrew Huberman15:43

       So what are the progressive overload principles, um, that are most effective over time for strength and hypertrophy?

   24. AGDr. Andy Galpin15:51

       Yeah, okay. So I'll actually go a little step back. With every one of those categories I talked about, you have what we call your modifiable variables. So this is a very short list of all the things you can modify, the different variables within your workout that can be modified that will change the outcome. A fancy way of saying if you do this differently, then you're going to get a different result. Um, so modifiable variables. Um, the very first one of those is called choice. So this is the exercise choice that you select. Now, one of, um ... I'm gonna go double back here. So I'm kind of doing a little bit of inception, so follow me here as I'm going up a layer to come down a couple layers. Um, I have these fundamental laws of strength and conditioning that, that I'll ... they're kind of like a little bit of a joke. But progressive overload is one of those laws. Another one of those laws is your exercises themselves do not determine adaptations. So here's what I mean. If you're like, "I want to get stronger," you can't select an exercise that doesn't determine you getting strong. If you don't do the exercise correctly, and I'm not even referring to the technique. That, of course, matters. But if you don't execute it in the right fashion, then you're not going to get that adaptation. So if you choose, "I want to get stronger. I'm gonna do a bench press," well, if you do the wrong set range, the wrong repetition range, the wrong speed, you won't get strength. You maybe get muscular endurance and very little strength adaptation. So the exercise selection itself is important, but it does not determine the outcome adaptation. So the very first thing that you need to think about if you're like, "I want to get stronger or add muscle," is not the exercise choice, right? It is the application of the exercise. What are the sets? What are the reps? What are the, uh, rest ranges that you're using? That's going to be your primary determinant. Now, some exercises are certainly better for some adaptations. For example, um, a deadlift is probably not a great exercise to do for long duration endurance. Like, you could theoretically do 30 straight minutes of deadlifting, but it's probably not our best choice, right? It's probably a pretty good choice for strength development, right? Because you're going to do a low repetition, high set range. Um, you could theoretically do bicep curls for power, but probably not your best choice, right? Single joint isolation movement is, is not the best for developing power. If you've ever, ever done a bicep curl as fast as you possibly can, like, that's not going to go well. So in theory, any exercise can produce any adaptation given the execution.... is performed properly. So, now that we've understood that a little bit, the exercise itself does not der- determine the adaptation. Coming within each one of these categories, exercise choice is an important variable, because it does lend you to things like what movement pattern you're in. So in a- other words, if, if you want to get stronger and you're thinking, "Okay, what exercise do I do?" You need to thank- think a little bit about, "What muscle groups do I want to use?" And that's going to be leading you towards the exercise choice. For example, I want to use my quads more. Okay, fine. Maybe you're going to choose more of a front squat type of variation, a goblet squat, so the bar, the load is in front of you. If you want to emphasize maybe more of your hamstrings and glutes, you're going to maybe put a barbell on your back or do a different one. So the exercise choice is important to the prescription because it's going to determine a lot of your success. Okay? Another kind of simpler way to think about this. If you're a beginner, or moderate to intermediate, or maybe you don't have a coach, you probably want to hedge towards an exercise selection that is a little bit easier technically. So you maybe don't want to do a barbell back squat. It's actually a pretty complicated movement. Maybe you want to do a little bit more of, um, again, a goblet squat, or even use some machines, or a split squat, something that's a little bit simpler because you don't have a coach, you're not a professional athlete. The likelihood of success is higher and the risk has now gone lower. So the very first variable within all of these is the exercise choice. The second one is the intensity. And that refers to, in this context, not perceived effort, like, "Wow, that was a really intense workout." It is quite literally either a percentage of your one rep at max or a percentage of your maximal heart rate or VO2 max. So for the strength-based things you want to think about what's the percentage of the maximum weight I could lift one time? And that's, that's what we're going to call one rep max. Or it's a percentage of my heart rate, right? So if I tell you to get on a bike and I want you to do intervals and I want you at 75%, I'm typically referring to 75% of your max heart rate or VO2 max or, you know, something like that. If I tell you to do squats at 75%, that means 75% of the maximum amount of weight you could lift one time, or close.

   25. AHAndrew Huberman20:12

       Uh, uh, in terms of de- determining what rep max, I confess, um, I've never actually taken the one rep max for any exercise. But I have some internal sense of what that might be, or-

   26. AGDr. Andy Galpin20:22

       Yeah.

   27. AHAndrew Huberman20:23

       ... what range it might be. Is it necessary for people to assess their one repetition maximum before going into these sorts of programs?

   28. AGDr. Andy Galpin20:32

       No, not at all. I think a more intuitive way is to take a repetition range. Well, you can do this a couple different ways. So there are, um, equations you can run, and you can just Google these anywhere, and, and these are called conversion charts. And so it says, okay, if I did 75 pounds on my bench press and I did it eight times, you can just run an estimate to say that, okay, you're probably going to be able to bench about 95 pounds for one rep max or something. So that's a very easy conversion chart. So just pick a load that you feel comfortable with, but it's, it's kind of heavy, but not like crazy heavy, and do as many repetitions as you can with a really good technique, and then look what that number would be. So conversion charts-

   29. AHAndrew Huberman21:11

       Probably safer than doing it one, one repetition maximum.

   30. AGDr. Andy Galpin21:14

       For, for the, the general public who has, again, no coaching, it's safer. For a professional athlete, it's not any safer, but, uh, or not even a professional athlete, but a trained person with a coach. But for most people, yeah, that's a good way to go about it. Um, you can also just kind of do it with feel in the sense that, say you want to do a set of five repetitions and you do the load and you think, "I could have done one or two more." And then, then you kind of have an idea of, of what that number's going to be. Um, if you think, "Man, that last one, I had to kind of really, really, really get after it," then maybe just call that that number, right? Um, so you don't have to get overly concerned. In fact, when we start getting into these number ranges, you're going to see that they're all ranges. Uh, we're not going to give a specific 95% for one of these exact reasons. It's not that precise, um, for most of them. In fact, some of them, like hypertrophy, have enormous ranges that you, like, almost can't miss. So the, the intensity in that case doesn't even matter for the most part because that's not the primary determinant. Um, some of these you're going to see intensity as a determinant, and some of these you're going to see volume is the true determinant. Um, so intensity though is, is that second one. Choice was the very first one, uh, manipulable variable. Intensity was the second one. The third one is what we call volume. And so this is just how many reps and how many sets are you doing, right? So if you're going to do three sets of ten, that volume would be 30, right? Five sets of five, that volume is 25. It's just a simple equation, how much work are you totally doing? Uh, the next one past that is called rest intervals. So this is the amount of time you're taking in between typically a set. Um, then from there you have progression, which is what we started to talk about, this progressive overload. Are you increasing by weight, or reps, or rest intervals, or complexity, or whatever? So all of those things, um, can be changed as a method of progression. And so maybe you want to go, um, progressing from a single joint exercise, like a, a leg extension on a machine, and you want to progress by moving to a whole body movement like a squat. That in and of itself, you don't have to change the load, or the reps, or the rest. That is a representation of progressive overload, and it's probably a pretty good place to start, because number one, especially for beginners, you want to make sure that the movement pattern is correct. Don't worry about intensity. Don't worry about rep ranges or any of these things. You need to learn to move correctly, and you need to give your body some time to develop some tissue tolerance so that you're not getting overtly sore. Um, in general, soreness is a terrible proxy for exercise quality. It's a really bad way to estimate whether it was a good or a bad workout, especially for people in that beginner to middle to moderate, in fact even that for our professional athletes. Um, we do not use soreness as a metric of a good workout. Um, it's, it's a really bad idea for a bunch of reasons. On the same token, because stress is required for adaptation, you don't want to leave a gym and feel like, "I don't really do much." Like... (laughs) there has to be there. So if you think about soreness on a scale of one to ten, you probably want to spend most of your time in like the three.
6. 27:30 – 43:50

   Modifiable Variables of Strength Training, Supersets

   1. AHAndrew Huberman27:30

      what I'd love to know though is if we could define some of these modifiable variables-

   2. AGDr. Andy Galpin27:34

      Yep.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman27:34

      ... in the context of strength. So let's say I was some-

   4. AGDr. Andy Galpin27:37

      Oh, okay. Yes. I see what's going on.

   5. AHAndrew Huberman27:38

      ... was somebody who-

   6. AGDr. Andy Galpin27:38

      Yeah.

   7. AHAndrew Huberman27:39

      ... I come to you and I say, um, and, and let's just say for sake of, of, of balance here, um, 'cause she actually does do some weight training. I bring my sister in, and I say, "Me and my sister both want to get stronger."

   8. AGDr. Andy Galpin27:51

      Yep.

   9. AHAndrew Huberman27:51

      What modifiable variables should, um-

   10. AGDr. Andy Galpin27:54

       Okay.

   11. AHAndrew Huberman27:54

       How should we, uh, modify the variables?

   12. AGDr. Andy Galpin27:55

       Love it. All right, great. I'm going to do inception on you one more time. So one of my other laws, this will be fast I promise, of strength and conditioning, is in general the default is all joints through all range of motion. So this is important because it's going to answer your very first question on this strength category. So in general, the ankle should go through the full range of motion in the ankle. The knee should go through the full range of motion in the knee, the hip, the elbow, et cetera, et cetera, right?

   13. AHAndrew Huberman28:21

       Across the workout, not in a single movement.

   14. AGDr. Andy Galpin28:24

       Well, right. (laughs)

   15. AHAndrew Huberman28:25

       (laughs) I would hope.

   16. AGDr. Andy Galpin28:26

       Well-

   17. AHAndrew Huberman28:26

       Unless there's an amazing exercise I haven't heard about.

   18. AGDr. Andy Galpin28:28

       Well, there are some exercises that we're gonna call more full body. Think about a full snatch.

   19. AHAndrew Huberman28:33

       Mm-hmm.

   20. AGDr. Andy Galpin28:34

       Like you're gonna take a lot of your muscles, a lot of your joints through a lot of the range of motions. Um, other ones like an isolation, we call these single joint exercises. So imagine a, a bicep curl. You have one joint in that particular case, the elbow moving. The shoulder and everything else is pretty much stable. And this is how we'll differentiate multi-joint from single joint movements. Um, but yeah, so across, I would even say it doesn't even have to be the day, but maybe throughout the week. Try to get every joint through full range of motion. Now, a couple of quick caveats to that. I am not advocating using full range of motion and allowing really bad exercise technique. So when I say full range of motion, that's the default. That doesn't mean every single person can do that for every single exercise. It means that's where we should be striving to and that's our starting point. You're going to see a lot less injury and a lot more productivity out of your training sessions. In fact, the science is fairly clear on this one. M- strength development as well as hypertrophy is generally enhanced with a larger range of motion of training, um, and the mechanisms are, like, somewhat understood on that. Um, so that being said, if you have to get into, say, a bad r- uh, position with your, say, low back. The spine is a very good one. Your, in general, the spine should stay, it's very neutral, is what we call it. So no, no flexion, no extension, especially in the lumbar region. So if you n- if you're doing a, say, a deadlift, and in order to take your knee through a full range of motion on a deadlift, you have to compromise your back position, that's no bueno. So, caveats there aside, don't kill me. Like, in good positions always.

   21. AHAndrew Huberman30:05

       And don't kill yourselves-

   22. AGDr. Andy Galpin30:06

       Yes.

   23. AHAndrew Huberman30:06

       ... more importantly. (laughs)

   24. AGDr. Andy Galpin30:08

       So why that matters is if we walk through strength, the very first thing I'm going to go through is the, the exercise selection. So let's choose an exercise which ideally has a full range of motion or close to it-... that doesn't induce injury for you, that you can still maintain good neck and s- low back in, in position and everything else, um, you feel comfortable with, so you can feel strong, but you don't feel like, oh my gosh. If you've never snatched before, having you do a snatch for a maximum even, you know, 75%, like it's terrible idea. You're not going to feel confident. It's going to be a train wreck. I would rather put you on a machine bench press so you can go, "I feel stable. I feel safe here, and I can just express my strength." So exercise choice in generally, in general, full range of motion, and you want to kind of balance between the movement areas. So this is an upper body press, so this is pushing away from you, bench press, things like that, upper body pull, pulling an implement towards you, uh, bent row, pull-up. Um, the pressing should be horizontal, so perpendicular to your body, as well as vertical. So this is lifting a weight over top of your head, lifting a weight away from you. The pull version is pulling horizontally to you, and pulling vertically down, pull-up, things like that. Um, for the lower body, we typically call these hinges. I- it's sort of a funny muscle thing that no one's going to laugh at, but like maybe me and you here, is we'll categorize muscles as, or movements, exercises as pushes and pulls, right? So like a squat is, tends to be a push 'cause you're pushing away the ground. A deadlift is a pull 'cause you're pulling the implement up to you. But in reality, every single exercise is only ever a pull, 'cause muscle doesn't push things away. Muscle can only contract and pull on itself. And so again, super nerdy thing that like most people are like, "Yeah," and everyone's like, "That's so dumb."

   25. AHAndrew Huberman31:48

       No, but I think it's a really important point because it also, um, speaks to something I think we'll get into later, which is that, you know, posterior chain, anterior chain-

   26. AGDr. Andy Galpin31:56

       Totally.

   27. AHAndrew Huberman31:57

       ... um, and if that's, uh, mysterious to people, it'll become clear, uh, before long.

   28. AGDr. Andy Galpin32:00

       Yeah.

   29. AHAndrew Huberman32:00

       Posterior chain, anterior chain, uh, makes a lot of sense to me because of the way it's grounded in the firing of motor neurons, which is ultimately what controls muscle. So it's also I think that-

   30. AGDr. Andy Galpin32:10

       You hear it in your nerves all the time.
7. 43:50 – 58:45

   How to Select Training Frequency: Strength vs. Hypertrophy

   1. AHAndrew Huberman43:50

      y- I had the great, uh, benefit of a long time ago when I was in, uh, high school actually, I paid for a, a session over the phone with Mike Mentzer.

   2. AGDr. Andy Galpin43:59

      Oh, lovely.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman44:00

      You know, the Mike Mentzer.

   4. AGDr. Andy Galpin44:01

      Sure.

   5. AHAndrew Huberman44:01

      And we got to be friends, um, over time.

   6. AGDr. Andy Galpin44:03

      High intensity training.

   7. AHAndrew Huberman44:04

      I, at the time I was pretty young and my mother kept saying like, "Why is this like grown man calling the house?" And then we would talk all the time about training, but he tried to convince me to train once every five to seven days, (laughs) uh, very few sets, very high intensity. Um, and I must say, it worked incredibly well.

   8. AGDr. Andy Galpin44:23

      Sure.

   9. AHAndrew Huberman44:23

      It was, uh, I think with my recovery, um, quotient, which was not very good, I think it's improved over time but it was not very good, it was remarkable. But of course this was a time when I was, you know-

   10. AGDr. Andy Galpin44:34

       Full of the most animalism you've ever had in your life.

   11. AHAndrew Huberman44:36

       I was 14. I was, I was sort of on my own version of, of anabolics, right?

   12. AGDr. Andy Galpin44:39

       Tear, t- yeah. (laughs)

   13. AHAndrew Huberman44:39

       I was, I was, you know, really had a ... I had a long arc of puberty, so-

   14. AGDr. Andy Galpin44:41

       And you were untrained.

   15. AHAndrew Huberman44:43

       And I was mostly untrained. I'd been running cross-country-

   16. AGDr. Andy Galpin44:46

       So everything was.

   17. AHAndrew Huberman44:46

       ... and skateboarding and playing soccer, so it w-

   18. AGDr. Andy Galpin44:47

       And doing all the things that are like the antithesis of growing muscle.

   19. AHAndrew Huberman44:50

       Yeah. It was literally, and people will probably say impossible, it was something like 40 pounds of muscle inside of 12 months. It was crazy, and, you know-

   20. AGDr. Andy Galpin44:56

       I would believe that.

   21. AHAndrew Huberman44:57

       But th-

   22. AGDr. Andy Galpin44:57

       Yeah.

   23. AHAndrew Huberman44:57

       But, and so then of course that stopped working over time.

   24. AGDr. Andy Galpin45:01

       Sure.

   25. AHAndrew Huberman45:01

       And then you start going down the, the, um, the odyssey of trying to find the thing that's going to work that well, and you eventually realize that it was because you were untrained, right? Um, so training frequency is, is crucial. Let's say that people are doing these whole body workouts-

   26. AGDr. Andy Galpin45:17

       Yeah.

   27. AHAndrew Huberman45:17

       ... as you've described, and not alternating upper body, lower body, 'cause there's so many different splits that we probably-

   28. AGDr. Andy Galpin45:21

       Totally.

   29. AHAndrew Huberman45:21

       ... it doesn't, probably doesn't make sense to go into, um, splits in, in right now.

   30. AGDr. Andy Galpin45:25

       Yeah.
8. 58:45 – 1:08:50

   Hypertrophy Training, Repetition Ranges, Blood Flow Restriction

   1. AHAndrew Huberman58:45

      repetition ranges broadly for strength training, so five or less.

   2. AGDr. Andy Galpin58:48

      Yep.

   3. AHAndrew Huberman58:49

      You said frequency could be as often as every day.

   4. AGDr. Andy Galpin58:51

      Yeah.

   5. AHAndrew Huberman58:52

      Rest two to four minutes, maybe even longer if you're going for one repetition maximum.

   6. AGDr. Andy Galpin58:57

      Yeah.

   7. AHAndrew Huberman58:57

      For hypertrophy-

   8. AGDr. Andy Galpin58:58

      Sure.

   9. AHAndrew Huberman58:59

      ... what are the repetition ranges that are effective, and what are the ones that are most effective if one is trying to maximize some of the other variables? Like, people don't want to spend more than-

   10. AGDr. Andy Galpin59:09

       Yeah.

   11. AHAndrew Huberman59:09

       ... an hour to 75 minutes-

   12. AGDr. Andy Galpin59:11

       Realistic.

   13. AHAndrew Huberman59:11

       ... in the gym. Because I think that, uh, while the rep ranges might be quite broad, as you alluded to earlier, there's the practical, there are the practical constraints.

   14. AGDr. Andy Galpin59:20

       Yeah.

   15. AHAndrew Huberman59:20

       So what a- what repetition ranges or percent of r- one repetition maximum, um, should people consider when thinking about hypertrophy?

   16. AGDr. Andy Galpin59:28

       Right. Um, the quick answer there is anywhere between, like, five to 30 reps per set. That's gonna show across literature pretty much equal hypertrophy gains. Um, and we could have a really interesting discussion about why that is, but I'm just remembering one thing from a second ago. I want to give a better answer for the frequency. You can do every single week for strength, or every single day for strength. If you want though, like, what's probably minimally viable, two. Twice per week per muscle. So hamstrings, strength, twice per week. That, that's a good number to get most people really strong.

   17. AHAndrew Huberman1:00:00

       Okay.

   18. AGDr. Andy Galpin1:00:00

       You can do every single day. You don't need to, though. So I, I want to make sure that, like, I wasn't saying you have to train a muscle 85% every single day to get it strong. Two is a good number. Three is great, but probably even two is really effective.

   19. AHAndrew Huberman1:00:12

       Got it. And this explains the, the high frequency of, of training for strength athletes. That's always mystified me. Um...

   20. AGDr. Andy Galpin1:00:18

       Yeah.

   21. AHAndrew Huberman1:00:19

       And the very long workouts make sense, because very long rest-

   22. AGDr. Andy Galpin1:00:21

       They're gonna even train twice a day.

   23. AHAndrew Huberman1:00:22

       Wow.

   24. AGDr. Andy Galpin1:00:22

       Like, even though it's a squat in the morning, squat in the afternoon every day.

   25. AHAndrew Huberman1:00:25

       With their eating and their sleeping, they probably don't have time for anything else.

   26. AGDr. Andy Galpin1:00:27

       Well, that's why they're pros. So that's their job, right? That's what they do. Um, so yeah, right, hypertrophy. Um, strength training programming is...... somewhat complicated, right? Because of, that's not the danger, but you're going to have to pay one way or the other, right? The risk is a little bit higher 'cause the load's higher and you have to be a little bit more technically proficient. When it comes to hypertrophy training, the way I like to explain it is, it's kind of idiot proof. The programming is idiot proof, the work is hard though. So, here, here's your range, anywhere between, th- you know, five reps and 30. Can you hit somewhere in there? Perfect. It's all equally effective. You can't screw that up. The only caveat for hypertrophy is you have to take it to muscular failure.

   27. AHAndrew Huberman1:01:10

       And you need enough rest for the adaptation and protein synthesis to occur.

   28. AGDr. Andy Galpin1:01:14

       Yep.

   29. AHAndrew Huberman1:01:14

       Yeah.

   30. AGDr. Andy Galpin1:01:14

       Right, and if you recover faster, you can maybe do it more frequently, and if you don't, maybe less frequently.
9. 1:08:50 – 1:10:48

   Tools: Protocols for Strength Training, the 3 by 5 Concept

   1. AGDr. Andy Galpin1:08:50

      are my set of 30 days. And you can have all kinds of fun there and it's hard to screw up.

   2. AHAndrew Huberman1:08:54

      Great. I lo- that phrase is always reassuring. (laughs) So for strength, is there a, um, sets and reps protocol that-

   3. AGDr. Andy Galpin1:09:02

      Yeah.

   4. AHAndrew Huberman1:09:02

      ... that is, um, pretty surefire?

   5. AGDr. Andy Galpin1:09:04

      So a way to, to just think about a really fast answer for power, well speed, power and strength, is what I just call the three to five concept, right? So pick three to five exercises. If you're feeling better that day, choose on the higher end. If you're feeling less that day or you have a shorter timeframe to train, go less. So this would be three sets or three exercises rather, or five exercises the most. So three to five exercises. Do three to five reps, three to five sets. Take three to five minutes rest in between, and do it three to five times a week. So that can be as little as three sets of three for three exercises, three times a week. That's, that's a 20 minute workout three times a week. It can be as high as five sets of five for five exercises five days a week. So it's very broad and allows people to still stay within the domains of strength and power while still being able to move and contour toward their lifestyle and, and soreness and time and all those things. The only differentiator to pay attention to between power and strength is intensity. So if you want strength, this is now 85% plus of your max, right? If you want power, it needs to be a lot lighter, 'cause you need to move more towards the velocity end of the spectrum, because power is strength multiplied by speed. So while getting stronger, by definition can help power, you probably want to spend more of your time in the 40% to 70% range, like plus or minus. So that's it. Both of them conceptually though work, everything else, the exercise, the reps, the, the frequency, all that can be still in the three to five range. Just change the intensity depending on which outcome you want.

   6. AHAndrew Huberman1:10:45

      The nervous system obviously plays an important role at the level

10. 1:10:48 – 1:16:16

    Mind-Muscle Connection

    1. AHAndrew Huberman1:10:48

       of nerves controlling the contraction of muscle fibers. But of course we have these upper motor neurons, which are the ones that reside in our brain that control the lower motor neurons that control muscle.

    2. AGDr. Andy Galpin1:10:57

       Yeah.

    3. AHAndrew Huberman1:10:58

       And this takes us into the realm of where the mind is at during a particular movement. And to me, this is not an abstract thing. I can imagine doing workouts that are mainly focused on strength or mainly focused on hypertrophy. And in the case of strength, am I trying to move weights? And when I'm t- trying to generate hypertrophy, am I trying to, quote unquote, challenge muscles? In other words-

    4. AGDr. Andy Galpin1:11:25

       Yeah.

    5. AHAndrew Huberman1:11:25

       ... if I am just trying to move a weight away from my body, you know, push- pushing a bench press or an overhead press, I don't know that I want my mind thinking about the contraction of my medial delts.

    6. AGDr. Andy Galpin1:11:36

       (laughs)

    7. AHAndrew Huberman1:11:36

       I think I want my mind in getting the weight overhead with the best p- proper form. Best, excuse me, and proper form. And certainly with hypertrophy training, best and proper form is going to be the target as well. But that simple s- or I should say subtle mental shift changes the patterns of nerve fiber recruitment. So can we say to get stronger focus on moving weights, still with proper form and safely, and to get hypertrophy focus on challenging muscles still with proper form and safely?

    8. AGDr. Andy Galpin1:12:10

       It's very fair. Yeah, as a, as a snapshot answer, it is a very fair thing to think about. Um, intentionality matters for both. In other words, if you look at some interesting science that's been done on power development and speed development, the intent to move is actually more important than the actual movement velocity. So if, if you're doing say something for power or strength and you're doing just enough to get the bar up, that will result in less improvements in strength than even if you're moving at the exact same speed but you're intending to move faster.And this is one of the reasons why good coaching matters. So if you're coaching an athlete through a power workout especially, and they're doing enough to just lift 50% of their one rep max, it's not going to generate as much speed development as them trying to move that bar as fast as they can, even if the net result is the same barbell velocity. Turns out nerves matter.

Episode duration: 3:31:27