Huberman LabOptimize Your Exercise Program with Science-Based Tools | Jeff Cavaliere
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
160 min read · 31,521 words- 0:00 – 3:27
Jeff Cavaliere, Physical Training
- AHAndrew Huberman
(Upbeat 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 Jeff Cavaliere. Jeff Cavaliere holds a Master of Science in Physical Therapy and is a certified strength and conditioning specialist. He did his training at the University of Connecticut Storrs, one of the top five programs in the world in physical therapy and sports medicine. I discovered Jeff Cavaliere over 10 years ago from his online content. His online content includes information about how to train for strength, how to train for hypertrophy, which is muscle growth, how to train for endurance, as well as how to rehabilitate injuries, to avoid muscular imbalances, nutrition and supplementation. I've always found his content to be incredibly science-based, incredibly clear, sometimes surprising, and always incredibly actionable. It is therefore not surprising that he has one of the largest online platforms for fitness, nutrition, supplementation, and injury rehabilitation. Jeff has also worked with an enormous number of professional athletes and has served as head physical therapist and assistant strength coach for the New York Mets. Again, the content that Jeff Cavaliere has posted online has been so immensely useful to me over the years that I was absolutely thrilled to get the chance to sit down with him and ask him about everything from how to train in terms of how to split up the body parts that you train across the week, how to integrate strength training and endurance training, when to stretch, how to stretch. Indeed, we talked about nutrition. We talk a bit about supplementation. We talk about how to really avoid creating imbalances in muscle and in neural control over muscle. So one thing that's really wonderful about Jeff is he really has an understanding of not just how muscles and bones and tendons and ligaments work together, but how the nervous system interfaces with those. We talked about the mental side of training, including when to bring specific concentration to the muscles that you're training and when to think more about how to move weights through space and think more about the movements overall. I'm certain that you'll find the conversation that we held to be immensely useful and informative for your fitness practices and also for how you mentally approach fitness in general and how to set up a lifelong fitness practice, one that will give you the strength that you desire, one that will give you the aesthetic results that you desire, one that will set you up for endurance and cardiovascular health, basically an overall fitness program. I really feel this is where Jeff Cavaliere shines above and beyond so many of the other PTs and fitness so-called influencers that are out there. Again, everything is grounded in science, everything is clear, and everything is actionable. And while we do cover an enormous amount of information during today's episode, if you want to dive even deeper into that information, you can go to athleanx.com, where you'll find some of Jeff's programs. You can also find him at Athlean-X on YouTube. There, you will find videos, for instance, like the how to repair or heal from lower back pain, something that I actually followed directly long before I ever met Jeff, has over 32 million views, and that is not by accident. It is because the protocols there, again, are surprising and actionable. They relieved my back pain very quickly without surgery. So I'm (laughs) immensely grateful for that content, and it extends into everything from, again, hypertrophy, endurance, and strength training, and so on. Again, it's athleanx.com as the website, Athlean-X on YouTube, and also Athlean-X
- 3:27 – 8:38
Momentous Supplements, AG1 (Athletic Greens), Eight Sleep, ROKA
- AHAndrew Huberman
on Instagram. The Huberman Lab Podcast is proud to announce that we've partnered with Momentous Supplements. We've done that for several reasons. First of all, the quality of their supplements is exceedingly high. Second of all, we wanted to have a location where you could find all of the supplements discussed on the Huberman Lab Podcast in one easy-to-find place. You can now find that place at livemomentous.com/huberman. In addition, Momentous Supplements ship internationally, something that a lot of other supplement companies simply do not do. So that's terrific whether or not you live in the US or you live abroad. Right now, not all of the supplements that we discuss on the Huberman Lab Podcast are listed, but that catalog of supplements is being expanded very rapidly, and a good number of them that we've talked about, some of the more prominent ones for sleep and focus, and other aspects of mental and physical health are already there. Again, you can find them at livemomentous.com/huberman. 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, I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast. Our first sponsor is Athletic Greens, now called AG1. I started taking AG1 way back in 2012, so I'm delighted that they're sponsoring the podcast. The reason I started taking AG1 and the reason I still take AG1 twice a day is that it covers all of my foundational health needs for mental health, physical health, and performance. As I mentioned earlier, it has vitamins and minerals that cover any deficiencies I might have in my diet. It also has probiotics, and the probiotics are key for supporting the so-called gut microbiome. The gut microbiome are trillions of little microbacteria that live in our gut, from our throat all the way down to the base of our gut, that support everything from our immune system to our hormone health to the so-called gut-brain axis. That is, our gut and our brain are in direct communication with one another in ways that support our mood, our ability to think, and overall brain health. If you'd like to try Athletic Greens, you can go to athleticgreens.com/huberman to claim a special offer. They'll give you five free travel packs, which make it very easy to mix up Athletic Greens while you're on the road, and they'll give you a year's supply of vitamin D3 K2. Vitamin D3 and K2 are essential for an enormous number of aspects of your mental health, physical health, and performance by impacting things like hormone regulation, calcium regulation, and cardiovascular health. Again, go to athleticgreens.com/huberman to claim that special offer. Today's episode is also brought to us by Eight Sleep. Eight Sleep makes smart mattress covers with heating and sleep tracking, and importantly, cooling capacity.I've talked many times before on this podcast and on another podcast about the close relationship between temperature and sleep. That is, your body temperature has to drop by about one to three degrees in order to fall asleep, and waking up involves heating up of your body by about one to three degrees. Now, some people run cold during the night. They need to heat their sleeping environment. Other people run too hot during the night. I'm one such person, I tend to wake up in the middle of the night, if I get warm at all. With Eight Sleep, I'm able to cool my sleeping environment in a very precise way, even so precise that I can control the temperature at the beginning, middle, and end of the night so that I fall asleep easily, stay deeply asleep, and wake up feeling better than I've ever felt before. The Pod Pro Cover by Eight Sleep is their most advanced solution on the market for thermal regulation. It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking if you want to use that. Also has this nice feature that it'll vibrate in the morning to wake you up. I rather like that vibration feature too. You can add the cover to any mattress and start sleeping as cool as 55 degrees Fahrenheit or as hot as 110 degrees Fahrenheit. So again, it can be customized to your sleep needs. If you want to try Eight Sleep, you can go to eightsleep.com/huberman and check out the Pro Pod Cover and save $150 at checkout. They currently ship within the USA, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Again, that's eightsleep.com/huberman to save $150 at checkout. Today's episode is also brought to us by ROKA. ROKA makes eyeglasses and sunglasses that are of the absolute highest quality. The company was founded by two all-American swimmers from Stanford, and everything about ROKA eyeglasses and sunglasses is made with performance in mind. That said, the aesthetics of ROKA eyeglasses and sunglasses is superb. I've spent a lifetime working on the biology of the visual system, and I can tell you that your visual system has to contend with an enormous number of challenges in order to be able to see clearly. ROKA understands this and has developed their eyeglasses and sunglasses in a manner such that when you move from, say, a shady area To a brightly lit area, or when you are in different lit environments indoors, you can always see with crystal clarity. And they won't slip off if you sweat. In fact, they were originally designed for exercise, you can wear them while running or cycling, but they have a terrific aesthetic. So unlike a lot of so-called performance or exercise glasses that are out there that make people frankly look like cyborgs, in my opinion, ROKA eyeglasses and sunglasses look terrific. You'd be proud to wear them to work or out to dinner or when you exercise. If you want to try ROKA glasses, you can go to roka.com, that's R-O-K-A .com, and enter the code Huberman to save 20% off on your first order. Again, that's ROKA, R-O-K-A .com and enter the code Huberman at checkout. And now for my discussion with Jeff Cavaliere.
- 8:38 – 13:27
Tool: A Fitness Plan for General Health
- AHAndrew Huberman
Jeff, such a pleasure for me to have you here.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
I'm glad to be here. It's amazing.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Uh, I'm a longtime consumer of your content. I've learned a tremendous amount about fitness, uh, both in the weight room, cardio, nutrition, things that I've applied for over a decade. So for me, this is particularly meaningful, and my goal here is really to ask a bunch of questions to which I'm interested in the answers, but also, uh, for which I know the audience is really curious about. So one of your mantras is, uh, you know, if you want to look like an athlete, train like an athlete, and I think that's something really special that sets aside what you do from what a lot of other, um, very well-qualified people do. And in terms of the use of weights and resistance, whether or not it's body weight or weights in the gym or pulleys versus cardio, y- you know, in terms of overall health, aesthetics and athleticism, is there a way that you could point to, you know, the idea that maybe people should be doing, you know, 50% resistance training and 50% cardio! Maybe it's 70/30, maybe it's 30/70, and, and here I'm talking about the typical person who would like to maintain or maybe even, um, add some muscle mass-
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... probably in particular areas for most people-
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... as opposed to just overall mass, although we'll talk about that later, and people who want to maintain a relatively low body fat percentage and be in good cardiovascular health. What's the sort of contour of a basic program that anybody could think about as a starting place?
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Um, I, I think it's like a 60/40 split, which would be leaning towards, uh, weight training, so, you know, strength and, and, and, uh, and then, you know, the conditioning aspect would be about 40%. So if you look at it over the course of a training week, I mean, five days in the gym would be a great task, and obviously not in the gym, it could be done at home, but three days strength training, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, conditioning, Tuesday, Thursday, you know, two days. It's a, it's a pretty easy roundabout way to split that up. Of course, depending upon training goals, and as you said, the aesthetic goals, like that will shift dramatically, but if you wanted to see the benefits of both, that's probably the, the effective dose for strength training and the effective dose for conditioning at the bare minimal level. Again, being a much better performer conditioning-wise, you're going to want to do more than that.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And in terms of the duration of those workouts, what's your suggestion? I, I've been weight training for about 30 years, running for about 30 years, um, and mainly for health, a- and have found that if I work hard in the gym or at resistance training for more than 60 minutes or so, it's very hard for me to recover. I start getting colds, I start getting weaker from workout to workout, but amazingly, at least to me, if I keep those workouts to about 10 minutes, 10 minutes of warmup and 50, five-zero-
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... minutes or so of really hard work for resistance training and I keep the cardiovascular work to about 30 to 45 minutes, I feel great, and I seem to make some progress at least some place in the workout from workout to workout.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Yeah, I mean, it's, those are good numbers, 'cause those are the kind of numbers that we usually preach. We try to keep our workouts to an hour or less if possible. Now depending upon the split that you're following, if you're on a total body split, there's just going to be more that has to be done in a given amount of time. Um, that, and again, if you're training primarily for strength, that could prolong the workout 'cause of longer rest times in between sets. But in general, when you're not focused on that one aspect but the overall health picture, then...... you can get the job done in, in under, in under an hour. And again, I always say, on top of if, if you want to look like an athlete, train like an athlete, is you can either train long or you can train hard, but you can't do both. And I really believe that the focus for me, I have a busy life, I have a lot of other things that I do, believe it or not, and it's like, I, I want to go hard and I want to go get out. And I find that my body also responds to that, and I think a lot of guys' bodies respond to that. And particularly as you start to get older, I think it's the, it's the length of the workout that actually causes more problems than the intensity of what you're doing, particularly if you're warmed up properly, like you said. I've found personally that my warmup has had to become more of an integral part of my, my workout than it ever has before. I never... I could get in the gym when I was 20 and I'm going right over, I'm doing the one set, two sets, I'm in, and I'm ready to go, you know? And I'd never do another workout warmup set for any of the other exercise I do the rest of the day. Um, that's not, that's not true anymore, you know? And I found that as long as I'm willing to sort of give myself a little bit of a warmup, the intensity is not what bothers me. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm very much in control of the weights that I use and, and it doesn't bother me, but if I start to go pretty long, I start to feel achy or I start to have problems. So again, depending upon age, that also plays a factor in the length. But again, I think everybody can achieve, on, on a standard program, can achieve the results that they want within an
- 13:27 – 20:12
Tool: Optimizing Body Part Training Splits
- JCJeff Cavaliere
hour.
- AHAndrew Huberman
In terms of splits, you mentioned splits.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And so for those who aren't familiar with this, uh, term, "splits," it's really which body parts are you training on which days. Um, seems like al- almost everybody follows a weekly workout schedule.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Although the body, of course, doesn't care-
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Right. (laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
... about the week, right?
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Exactly.
- AHAndrew Huberman
There's no reason to think that once every seven days-
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Right. (laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
... or twice every seven days makes sense physiologically.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
It's just the body doesn't work that... But that's the way life is structured. Um, I've seen you discuss, you know, three days a week, whole body workouts.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Uh, I've heard of splits like a pushing one day, uh, pulling another day, legs another day, a day off, repeat. I mean, there's so many variations on this.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
What are some general themes that we can throw out there, and in order to avoid the, the huge matrix of possibilities? You have some wonderful content that points those, and we will cap, uh, in our caption show notes, we'll link out to some of those-
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... that, uh, different ways to design splits. But in terms of giving people a logic of how to think about splitting up body parts, uh, what's governing the, the split? What, what are the rules and the logic that dictate a split?
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Uh, for me, the first rule is, will you stick to it, right? Like if you... 'cause there are split... I don't, I don't particularly like full-body splits, and I was actually talking to Jesse about that the other day. Like, I don't necessarily like to have to train everything. Now, of course, the volumes will come down per muscle group, but if you don't like to do that, and you actually don't look forward to your workout because you're dreading having to do everything and feeling maybe too fatigued by the time your workout's over, or the fact that those generally do take a little bit longer and don't fit into your schedule, I don't care how effective the split is. A split not done is not effective. So you need to find one that fits. So maybe you go into an alternative option, like a, um, a push/pull/legs, like you mentioned, and that could be done either one cycle through the week on a Monday, Wednesday, Friday split, or it could be twice in a week, so you're actually training six times, you know, where, where you repeat it, you know, pull/push/legs, pull/push/legs, or, or, you know, uh, you know, however you want to do it, with, with either a day off in between the three days or at the end of the six days. Um, and again, that actually impacts your schedule. I've broken that down before where it's, you know, if you put it in between the three days, it's good because you're giving yourself an extra rest day in between, but it starts to shift that day off every week as we wrap around. So for those guys that were choosing that seven-day schedule out of convenience in our heads, you know, it starts to mess with that off day. So others like to just keep it predictably, let's say, on a Sunday, and train six days in a row. Um, but that's a, but that's a, a better way to maybe group similar muscle actions together, which I think I, I definitely prefer that, because if I'm going to be training, you know, pulling movements, at least there, there's a synergy between them and I feel like I'm looking to achieve one goal that day. Um, and then, I mean, quite honestly, you can go back to the bro split days, and those, those still work effectively. There's a reason why they worked in the past. Like, I think that science shows that there's smarter ways to do them these days. Like, you can, you can come back and hit a related muscle. So you could do, let's say, biceps on one day, and then come back two days later and do back, realizing again, synergy between the, the exercises there. Your biceps are gonna get restimulated again. So you could figure out ways to make that work, but the thing that I think is, is effective there is that tends to be one of the ones that people like the most, because they can go in, they get their pump, they feel good, the... it's, it's pretty solely focused on one muscle group, so-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Is that the definition of a bro split, one, one-
- JCJeff Cavaliere
One muscle group a day, yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I see.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
So it's very much geared towards strength and aesthetics, really maximizing-
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... you know, chest one day.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Probably, probably more, more aesthetics than strength, yeah. Yeah, you're just-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Hence the bro-
- 20:12 – 22:33
Two-a-Day Training
- AHAndrew Huberman
is there ever an instance where two-a-day weight training makes sense for the non-drug assisted, um, typical recovery ability person?
- JCJeff Cavaliere
I, I actually... I, I think it makes sense in some scenarios, but it doesn't make sense practically for a lot of people's schedules. So like, if you could break down... Let's say you were gonna do even a, uh, a, you know, a, a, some version of a, of a total body session. Or maybe like you're gonna do a, an upper/lower split, right? You could do an upper workout and do the anterior chain, or the pushing portion of that in one session, and then come back and do the pulling session later on at night, if you had the opportunity to. The thing that you benefit from there is the freshness of focus. Again, like, something in my head sac- is sacrificed by the time you get towards the latter half of whatever workout you're in. To the same point you made before, like, when you start to approach that 50 minutes, an hour, you know, mark, you are either losing focus, you're losing energy, you're losing contractile ability, you're losing something. And if you're relegating whatever it is, the pulling portion of that, to the end of that workout, something suffers. So that, okay, in that... If you realize that's happening, then maybe you switch 'em up the next time you do the workout, where the pulling portion of the upper workout goes first, and then the pushing goes later, so you're at least not just continuing that cycle. But at the same time, if you were able to kind of split them up, you get a chance to kind of take a break, you could have that freshness of focus again, and you could actually get a better effort in. 'Cause again, I think effort drives the results. So if the effort is not compromised, then you should be able to do that. But systemically, is that a problem? And I think that it is a problem for a lot of people. It's just hard to... It's hard to rev the engine up a lot of times, you know, in the day. You know, you warm that thing up once... It's like that car in the winter. You get it going once, you're lucky. Okay, now you got to drive it the rest of the day. But you know, i- i- if you put it in the garage (laughs) and try to start it the next day, i- it's, it's a problem. So, you know, young people can get away with a lot more than, than older people could, you know?
- AHAndrew Huberman
Well, I've never had a strong recovery quotient, but if I stick to this one day off in between, every once in a while, two days in a row of training, maybe because I have to travel and I want to make sure I get all the workouts in kind of thing-
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... I seem to be okay. I like your example of warming up the car, spoken like a true East Coast, uh, E- East Coaster.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
Those of us who are on the West Coast-
- JCJeff Cavaliere
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
... took a moment there, but, uh, uh, like, we... F- f- folks from the East Coast and the Midwest get it, and certainly from, from Europe.
- 22:33 – 28:24
Cardiovascular Conditioning, High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) & Skills
- AHAndrew Huberman
In terms of the mixing up of cardiovascular training and resistance training, um, same day, different day, which one should come first, which one c- should come second? If one's g- main goals... Again, everyone listening has different goals, are most people would like to either maintain or gain some muscle. I don't know many people that want to lose muscle.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
They maintain or gain some muscle, usually in specific locations on their body. Most people would like to be a bit leaner or a lot leaner. There are a few people out there that are either naturally lean or don't want... Or actually just want to gain weight. But assuming that people want to get leaner, put on some muscle, maintain muscle, and want to have a healthy heart and a healthy brain, which basically requires a healthy cardiovascular system, w- how would you incorporate cardiovascular work into the overall weekly regimen?
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Um, so again, I, I, I think that the, you know, the bare minimum is probably twice a week in terms of cardiovascular, if you want to have some semblance of cardiovascular conditioning. But I think most people who actually need it more or want to pursue it more than that are gonna need more time to do that. So, um, at some point it can't just be relegated to a day off, or a day off from the, from the weight training workouts. So, at some point it has to occur on the same day, you know? And in that case, I just like to put it... If that is your, not your primary goal but you're looking more for the, just the overall picture, you know, the aesthetics you mentioned, putting muscle on in certain areas, then I would put it at the end of the workout. 'Cause you don't want to, in any way, compromise the weight training w- workout. And as we've sort of referenced a couple times already, the i- the intensity of those workouts is important. And-... we know there's a strength component to those workouts also that is going to, you know, he- be a helpful stimulus for growth. So the conditioning, the cardio, that stuff done prior to any training, you know, strength training workout, is likely going to impair your ability to perform at your best. So unless it's just done for a quick little warmup in the beginning, but then it's not sustained long enough really to be of benefit for cardiovascular conditioning. So I just like to, you know, put that at, at the end, realizing that even if my effort level is lower or my output is lower, if it's still placing a demand on my cardiac output to get that conditioning effect, because I'm fatigued, it still has a demand on my cardiac output. So it's still achieving its goal, but it didn't interfere with my main goal of being able to increase my performance in the gym.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Got it. And in terms of the form of cardiovascular training, I've seen you, um, do a number of, I have to say, uh, very impressive, uh, high intensity interval type work. So burpee type work or push-ups with, you know, with crunches mixed into them. Anyway, people can see your videos to, to... I didn't describe those, um, in the best way, but, um, rather than, uh, on the treadmill or out jogging for 30, 45 minutes, is that because you prefer higher intensity, um, higher heart rate type, um, training or is it because you live in cold Connecticut, um, and you don't want to be out jogging on the roads in the middle of winter? Um, what-
- JCJeff Cavaliere
I, I think all the above. I mean, those are factors, you know, from a personal level, but I think that if, if you are... I- if we could blend function across these realms and not have such a delineation between, "This is my weight training and this is my conditioning," but figure out a way to, to blend them together, I always think that you've, you've got a better opportunity to get that more well-rounded result. And I like to kind of mix up that straight conditioning work and also some of the footwork, you know, drills. Like we have, we, we have some high expectations for guys that come into our programs, like to just do some footwork drills.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Like ladders.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Like ladders or, or line drills or something. And you know what happens? People become intrigued and interested. They're like, "I never, I haven't tried this since, uh, high school." You know? And they become interested in just the challenge of it, and then as we become almost distracted by the challenge, we're now like finding ourselves conditioning, you know, and, and I always think that's an important part, that sometimes you got to draw people in, um, to f- get... to show them what they might be interested in. And from the output or the effect of it, I just think that when you're able to blend some of, some... you know, still maintain some of that strength training into the exercise, so as you mentioned, let's say I'm doing some kind of a push-up or a burpee, I mean, there is, there is a, um, an anaerobic component to that that is going to be helpful, um, that then... rather than just walking or just jogging. Um, not just, not to say that that isn't an effective means for strict cardiac conditioning. It's a... it's one of the ways that we've had for, you know, centuries, you know, to do it. But I just think that if we can blend it, then it becomes maybe a little bit more interesting and you get some of those crossover benefits and it doesn't become so segmented in terms of what we're trying to do.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I love the idea of bringing some mental challenge and some desire to improve a skill while conditioning. That's not something that I've thought of before and it, and it's simply because I've overlooked it, but it makes sense because my sister, who's reasonably fit, although I'm always trying to get her to do a bit more-
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... um, she always asks me, you know, "What should I take?" And I'm a, I'm a believer in supplements, so for certain people in certain instances, but I keep telling her, you know, it's... behaviors are going to-
- JCJeff Cavaliere
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
... and nutrition are going to have the, the greatest outsized positive effect. And she loves things like, um, dance classes and things that-
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... um, or kickboxing-
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... these kinds of things, which... so it makes sense that if you can hook somebody on the conditioning aspect or the skill aspect and kind of trick them into doing more cardio-
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... uh, so to speak, that, that's terrific. Also, the neuroscientist in me just has to say, forgive me, um, that anytime you're engaging the, you know, the two sets of motor neurons, the ones in your brain, the upper motor neurons and the ones in your spinal cord, anytime you're engaging those upper motor neurons, which are for deliberate, uh, well-controlled action, you're doing a great thing for your brain in terms of brain longevity. So, um, I'm... now I need to incorporate some actual skills into my training (laughs)
- 28:24 – 35:05
Tool: Mind-Muscle Connection, The Cavaliere Cramp Contraction Test
- AHAndrew Huberman
. Um, going back to weight training a bit, one of the most important things I learned from you, so over the years, was that when training to increase muscle size, to really think not so much about moving weights, but more about challenging muscles.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I also heard this from my friend Ben Pakulski who's a very well accomplished... he was a bodybuilder, now he's into other aspects of fitness, teaches fitness, but don't move weights, challenge muscles, unless you're trying to power lift or something of that sort, which I'm not. Immensely helpful. But the other thing that I learned from you that, uh, combined with that was this idea that certain muscles will grow better and get stronger much more easily, maybe even will recover better because of our ability to contract them really hard. And this, uh, what I call the cavalier test, which is, um, at least if I could paraphrase the abil... so for instance, if I can... um, f- f- ... it's always the bicep, isn't it? Let's use the-
- JCJeff Cavaliere
It's easy.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... let's use the calf or the bicep. If you can, if you can flex your bicep to the point where it hurts a little bit, like it almost feels like a cramp or a cramp, or you can flex your calf to the point where it really cramps up a little bit, almost feels like it's knotting up, that's a pretty good indication that you're going to be able to stimulate that muscle well under load if you're doing the movement properly.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And that's the feeling to actually aim for each repetition, maybe even throughout the repetition. For me, this completely transformed my results.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And this was, I think, maybe five, six years ago that I first heard this from you, body parts that, for me, lagged behind that I thought maybe genetically weren't going to work for me, immediately just started growing.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Right? And I was getting stronger and stronger and I thought, "This is really something." So much so that I've dedicated a portion of my research along with... in collaboration with another group to try and understand...... what's happening in these upper motor neurons in the brain that can engage the muscles even more. And that it's not just about progressive overload or putting a pump into the muscle. Um, that it's really this mind-muscle connection is a real thing when it comes to predicting results, and that you can get better at it. So, uh, forgive me for paraphrasing, uh, your incredible content around this. It made a tremendous difference for me and a number of other people that I've passed that along to. But, uh, what can you... First of all, how did you arrive at that? Um, because we hear about the mind-muscle connection, but I really heard it first from you. How did you arrive at this kind of cramp test, the Cavalier test, as I'll call it?
- JCJeff Cavaliere
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
Um, it's always weird when people name things after themselves-
- JCJeff Cavaliere
(laughs) All right, right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... in science, but other scientists can name things-
- JCJeff Cavaliere
I'll take it.
- AHAndrew Huberman
So there is now officially, the Cavalier test is whether or not you can cramp the muscle in the absence of load-
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Right, right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... just flexing it to the point where it hurts a little bit. That would be an in- a good indication that you could grow that muscle well. So how did you come up with this?
- JCJeff Cavaliere
I mean, it just, uh, honestly, it's something that, that made sense to me because during my, eh, workouts, even as a, as a young kid just starting out, like, I always wanted to know what is it working, you know? A lot of people ask that question more so than you think. Like, what is this supposed to work? And a lot... And, and I don't know if you've ever noticed, but, like, when people ask that question if they're, if they're being trained by a trainer, and the trainer's saying, "Well, just do this. Do this exercise," and they'll show you how to do it. But then they'll say, "But what is it supposed to wa- Where am I supposed to feel this?" Right? People, th- they just inherently ask that question. A lot of people will. I was one of those that did that, and I asked that question, not because I knew what I was doing but just because I don't know. I wanted to know what was supposed to be doing the work. Once you do that, and you start to seek that out and say, "Okay, well, if the bicep is what's supposed to be doing the work, then I wanna make sure the biceps doing the work," right? So then I would just sort of really, like, tweak the movement to make it do more work or feel more uncomfortable or get a stronger contraction, knowing if that's supposed to do the job. It wasn't until PT school that I'm, you know, learning, oh, well, you know, flexion of the elbow is the brachialis and the bis, and the bis that's responsible for supination. Like, you start to l- I learned other components of it, but all I wanted to know was to bring my arm up in a curl, what is supposed to do the job. So I would seek out ways to make that happen better, and when I was able to do that, I could feel the stronger contraction, and I just, I don't know what it w- I just, I was no visionary. I just felt like I c- I knew that that was going to be better for me if the muscle I was trying to grow was being stressed more effectively. So when I was, um, attempting to do this across different exercises, I would notice that what I could do potentially on a curl when my arm is up, you know, where you asked me to flex my bicep, that position, I couldn't do if I was, you know, doing a concentration curl, or I couldn't carry over to a cable curl. And that shouldn't really change, right? 'Cause the function is still largely the same. There's still elbow flexion. There's still supination. Like, why am I not able to do it there? And that's when it sort of clued into me that, like, y- your mind-muscle connection on not just w- your mind with one muscle but on every exercise matters, and it varies from exercise to exercise. And even if you don't gain muscle size from doing that, although I think it's very hard not to, especially if you're not used to doing that, there, there's a term I like to call muscularity, you know, which is a difference, right? It's the level of sort of resting tone in the muscle. That improves dramatically. You know, if you can learn how to just start to e- engage that muscle better, the muscularity, the, the resting tone of that muscle is harder, it's more, it's more, uh, at attention. It's just more, it, it's, it's more alive, you know? And that's all driven from being able to connect better neurologically with the muscle that you, that you're trying to train. I've talked about a lot, inefficiency is really what you're trying to seek in movements when you're trying to create hypertrophy. When goal, when strength is your goal, efficiency of the movement is what you're looking for. You're looking to have muscles tie together and work well efficiently, the chest, the shoulders, the triceps, to get a bar off of your chest during a bench press. You're not looking to make it a very inefficient, you know, leverages for your chest to try to grow your chest in a bench press. You're trying to let the whole package come together for greater output. But when you're trying to go and create muscle hypertrophy, or even this muscularity that I talk about, you need to seek ways to make it feel more uncomfortable, right? If you don't feel the discomfort, then you're doing something wrong, and, uh, I struggle to this day on certain muscle groups to still do that even knowing what I'm trying to work and knowing what the goal of, uh, everything I'm preaching here. It's very difficult for some muscles and for c- certain people to do this on certain muscles. But, as you mentioned, practice does help, and the more you become, you know, consistent and deliberate with what you're trying to do, the more of an, of a result you actually
- 35:05 – 41:31
“Muscularity” & Resting Tone
- JCJeff Cavaliere
get.
- AHAndrew Huberman
It's, um, c- couple of really important points I'd like to, to, um, delve into further. Um, first of all, eh, my hunch was always that the muscle groups that grew easy- most easily and that I could contract hardest without any, um... The, the first time I did the Cavalier test, got 10 outta 10-
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... if we give it a 10 outta 10 scale.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
You know, it could just, uh, like, cinch, isolate those muscles, cinch them, grow them easily. I mean, there's certain body parts, I don't want to say which ones 'cause it doesn't really matter-
- JCJeff Cavaliere
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
... um, that I always felt like if I just did push-ups, they would grow, and these muscles are far away from any of the muscles (laughs) that are supposed-
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... to be involved in push-ups, even though I like to think I'm doing push-ups correctly.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Um, you'll tell me if I'm, if I'm not. Um, but some of that, I think, is genetic, and some of that has to do with the sports that I played when I was younger. So I swam, I played soccer, I skateboard.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Yep.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And then later, I boxed. And so, um, the muscles involved in those sports were always very easy to engage later when I went into the gym.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Uh, so I guess a, perhaps, a call to parents, you know, having kids do a lot of dynamic activity, um, seems like it might be a good idea. The other thing is this issue of mu- of muscularity. I am so glad you brought that up. There are, and I have to imagine, a large number of listeners who don't want to get bigger. They don't want to take up a larger clothing size.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Um, they don't want to take up more space. In fact, some of them would like to take up less space, but they w- they want that quality.... that you're describing, which is the, you know, oftentimes you hear it more in the, um, here I'm stereotyping a bit but, with, uh, kindness, you know, you hear, uh, from women who haven't weight trained they say, "I don't want to get big," often. Sometimes they do-
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... but most, most women that I've helped weight train, or talked to about weight training say-
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Tone.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... "I don't want to get big, I want to get tone."
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And I think what they're referring to is this quality that, of muscularity.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
100%.
- AHAndrew Huberman
This idea that at, at resting, or at close to rest, or any time someone reaches out and grabs a glass, that, that the muscles almost look like they're kind of twitching underneath the skin.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And yet it's not Saran wrap skin anatomy chart type skin.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Um, so this thing of muscularity, or, or resting tone, you know, has a physiological basis.
- 41:31 – 50:39
Tool: Muscle Recovery & Soreness, Grip Strength
- AHAndrew Huberman
to just touch on, uh, a couple of things. Uh, if the goal is to challenge muscles and one is dividing their body into let's say, you know, a three or four day a week split or so or maybe up to six, um, how do you know when a muscle is rel- ready to be challenged again? I've heard okay every 48 hours is, you know, protein synthesis-
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... increases and then we'll get into this and then it drops off, but frankly if I train my legs hard I can get stronger from workout to workout or at least better in some way workout to workout, uh, leg workout to leg workout, training them once every five to eight days.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
If I train them more often I get worse so the, whatever that 48 hour to 72 hour thing is somehow my legs don't obey that but (laughs) , you know, or maybe something else is wrong with me but I'm sure there are many things else wrong with me but, um, how do you assess recovery at the local level, meaning at the level of the muscle-
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... so we'll talk about soreness and getting better, stronger, more repetitions etc, and then the systemic level, the level of the nervous system? And I'd love for you to tell us about the-... uh, the tool that, again, I learned from you, which is actually using a physical scale.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
Because it turns out this is ... That we'll let you tell what the tool is, but that tool is also actively being used for assessing cognitive decline and cognitive maintenance and cognitive function in people with Alzheimer's and dementia.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Interesting. That makes total sense. Makes total sense. I, I, I ... All right. (clears throat) So (clears throat) regarding the, the, um, the first part of the question, like, you know, how do you, how would you kind of dictate when a muscle's recovered? So I do think that what you're experiencing is totally real, uh, that different muscles recover at different rates. And I've always been so fascinated by this concept, um, I talked about it internally with my, with my team, but, like, I feel like what we really need, the holy grail to, to training is going to be when we're able to crack the code on an individual basis when a muscle is recovered, and that is going to dictate its training schedule. And the fact that you might have a bicep that could be trained, you know, via, via a pulling workout, a regular bicep dedicated workout, forget the split at the moment. You might have a bicep that's been able to be trained that can be trained again the next day, you know, and then the next day, and then maybe you need a day off after that. But like, you know, and that, that can vary from person to person, for sure, and it can vary from muscle to muscle in that person over the course of time, a- as you mentioned, 'cause the systemic recovery's gonna impact all those muscles anyway. Mm-hmm. But let's say you're systemically recovering. Every muscle itself is going to have a, a, a, you know, a recovery rate. And I think what's fascinating is that when you talked about before, we like to train this week, or we have a, like, the way our mind looks at training, well, if that was the case with the biceps, that bicep is a slave to the rest of your training split. You know? Where it's like, well, why does it have to be also at the end of every s- eighth day or, you know, or whatever, when it might respond better to something much more frequently? And your legs are also being thrown into that mix. There's a Mike Mentzer concept where he's like, you know, train it, you know, one set and be done for 14 days. I mean, you know, it ... there's, there's, there's such variability between muscle groups, and you're, you're linking them all together. Um, I, I think that coming back and using muscle soreness as a guideline for that is, is one of the only tools we have in terms of the local level. You know? We don't really have, you know, being able to measure, let's say, uh, CPK levels inside of a muscle would be amazing, you know, at, at a local level to see how, how recovered that muscle is. But that becomes fairly invasive, at least to my knowledge. It becomes fairly invasive. Mm-hmm. So what are our tools? I mean, I, I think that at the basic level, that's the one that most people can relate to and easily identify and then use that as a guideline. And if you're training when you're really sore, um, it's probably not a great idea. And that, and it's probably a good indication that that muscle's not recovered. But at least hearing what you and I are saying here might be a comfort to the person to say, "Yeah, it is possible that it's not recovered." Just because 48 hours is the recommendation and just because research points to muscle protein synthesis needing a re-stimulation, well, maybe not. Maybe you're not necessarily there yet. You're in that ... For that muscle, you're not there yet. Um, so it's all really interesting stuff, but as far as the, the, uh, the systemic, you know, recovery, I think there's a lot of ways, you know, people talk about resting heart rate measured in the morning, um, (clears throat) all different kinds of, of, um, you know, core temperature and things like that, that might become altered in a state of, uh, non-recovery. But grip strength is very, very much tied to performance and recovery. And when I was at the Mets, we used to actually take grip strength measurements as a baseline in spring training all the time. Now obviously, as a baseball player, you're gripping a bat, you're a pitcher, you're gripping a ball. Like, you know, grip ... Having good grip strength is important, so if we noticed somebody had a very weak grip, it's just a good focal point of a specialized training component for the program.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Would you do this every day with those guys?
- JCJeff Cavaliere
No. We would do ... I- in spring training, we'd do sort of a baseline entry level measurement, and then we would, we would measure it throughout the season, maybe once every two weeks or three weeks, and, and, and, you know, the, the idea there was to, to manage, to, you know, manage the recover, measure the recovery. Um, but I just gave it away. You know, there, to, to, to do the, you know, to determine overall recovery, your grip strength is pretty highly correlated. So we have found that wh- with one of those scales, those old-fashioned bathroom scales at like, uh, Bed, Bath & Beyond or wherever you can get, which by the way, almost impossible. I believe Jesse and I were searching for the last scale to put in that video, and we almost couldn't find one, 'cause everything is like digital and every-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm, yeah.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
You know, it's like ... This ... I'm looking at the old-fashioned dial controls, and-
- AHAndrew Huberman
It's like old Macintosh computers.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
There's a, there's a huge market for them, and old phones.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Right, right. I had one. (laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
Kids, keep your phones now. In 30 years, the, the lame phone now-
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... will be worth a lot of money.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Will be worth a lot.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
So, you know, I wound up, um, uh, you know, finding one, and it's a great tool for just squeezing the, the, the, uh, the scale with your hands and seeing what type of output you can get. Um, and I think we, we all can relate to this when you just visualize. Imagine the last time you were sick or that when you ... Or just try this, you know, the next time you wake up in the morning. When you first wake up in the morning, you're still groggy. Try to squeeze your hand. Try to make a fist as hard as you can.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
You're gonna sit there angry at your fist because it won't contract as hard as you know it can.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
You don't have the ability to just create the output, and that is because in that state, you're still sleepy. You're still fatigued. You know, you're, you're not even awake, uh, uh, uh, at the, you know, the whole level at this point. Well, that is the, that is still, uh, uh, uh, an actual phenomena that happens that, you know, a, a lack of recovery or a lack of wakefulness or whatever you want to say is, is gonna lead to a decreased output there. So when you start to measure that on a daily basis, you can get a pretty good sense of where you're at, and I think when people start to see a drop-off of 10% or so or, or even greater of, of their, uh, grip output, um, you really should skip the gym that day, because I don't think there's much you're gonna do there that's going to be that, that beneficial, even if it is the day to train legs or whatever day it is.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm-I, I love this tool. It's simple, it's low-cost, if you can find such a scale.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
(laughs)
- 50:39 – 57:24
Sleep & Sleep Position
- AHAndrew Huberman
also. Um, no, I think recovery is key. We always hear about sleep. You grow when you sleep and incidentally, your brain, you stimulate learning when you're awake obviously, but the reordering of neural connections happens in sleep. This is why sleep is the way to get smarter, provided you're also doing the learning part.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
Sleep's the way to get stronger, provided you're also doing the training part. You've had some really inter- you've put out interesting content over the years, in terms of, um, even sleep position. Uh, one of the major changes that I made to my sleep behavior is to not have the sheets tucked in at the end of the bed.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Yeah, right, right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And I'll tell you, this had a profound impact on several things. First of all, my feet have always been the bane of my existence. Broke them a bunch skateboarding. They, I, and I noticed when I'd run, I'd get shin splints and, and then I started to notice that my feet sort of, um, uh, you're the PT, they were kind of floppy and-
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... them, you know, it's as if I was pointing my toes slightly all the time at rest if I was. Um, and I realized that based on listening to you previously, that my sheets were wrapped tight. Not hotel tight.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Right, right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Right?
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
I don't want their thing in the hotels.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Can't get your feet in.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And I started, um, releasing the, the sheets at the end of the bed.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And I also started doing some tibialis work.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Um, front of shins work essentially. Changed everything. My back pain from running, my shin splints disappeared, my posture improved, although I, my audience will tell me that it still needs improvement. There are always five or 10 people that want-
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Just maybe sit up straight.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I've actually had chairs sent to our mailing address.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
(laughs) Very nice chairs, right? So I'm trying my, I'm trying there. Um, but this is fascinating, right? Um, how, the position that one sleeps in. Um, I fortunately have never had any shoulder issues, knock on wood, but maybe you could just talk, talk to us a little bit about sleep and sleep position for sake of waking position and movement. 'Cause this, I think, is a very unique and very powerful way to think about sleep. This podcast has done a lot of episodes about keeping the room cool, getting sunlight in your eyes, et cetera, how to get into sleep.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
But you've talked about physically what positions might be better to sleep in, so, uh, please, please, uh, enrich us.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Yeah, I mean, well, first of all, there, You know, some people's opinions of, of that type of content is that you, you know, you sleep in the p- the position that's most comfortable so you ensure that you're sleeping. Oh, great. I, I understand that. We all want to sleep. That's the goal when we put our head on the pillow is to actually fall asleep and wake up in the morning and not know what the hell happened unless you had a dream, but, you know, beyond that, there are certainly physical components to sleep that that is why a lot of times people wake up and say like, that, that you can incur pretty serious injuries in sleep. People will wake up and have like a shoulder that did not bother them at all be humming the next day or even for weeks after because of the one sleep position they put themselves in in a prolonged way and they happen to have a deep sleep even through the discomfort. Um, that can do actually some, some, some damage. So it's understandable that the body can incur some strain and stress if you're sleeping in the wrong way. One of the things I say right off the, the bat is, sleeping on your stomach just doesn't really have many benefits, you know? You're, you're putting yourself into a position that is depending upon the, the, the orientation of your, your mattress or how many pillows you're using, but you're basically putting yourselves into a excessive extension of the lumbar spine, which for most people isn't very good. If you're, if you're a disc patient, um, I guess that might be helpful, you know, for, for relocating the disc. But I mean, for the most part, um, your hands are then usually not at your sides, but they're up under your arms so you've got them into sort of internal rotation up over elevation in your head. It's just not a great position. You also have to crank your neck from one side or the other in order to breathe or you're going to be putting your face down straight into the pillow. So I would skip that one, and there's some people that are total belly sleepers and I, and I would just say, listen, I don't think that is the, the most healthful long-term way for you to sleep. Try to adopt a different position. Um, sleeping on your side oftentimes is, is also brought along with that, the legs and knees coming up towards the chest.... prolonged hip flexion. Listen, we're doing enough of that during the day. (laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm, yes, what we're doing right now.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Right, right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
We really didn't do like 10 hours-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Right.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
... or eight hours or something-
- 57:24 – 1:07:23
Active (Dynamic) vs. Passive Stretching, Timing & Healing Muscle
- AHAndrew Huberman
I'm glad you mentioned stretching. I was gonna ask about stretching a little bit later, but let's talk about stretching. Um, when's the best time to stretch for particular types of results? And maybe you could define some of the different types of stretching. Um, so you just mentioned a l- a, a little bit of, um... Would you call it light stretching or...? Uh, okay, I'm completely naïve here on stretching, so let me just say I can think of stretching where I hold the stretch and really try and ex- um, "lengthen." I don't want the PTs jumping all over. I don't know what it is, but nutrition and the PTs online are really... They've got pitchforks in both hands. Academics- (laughs)
- JCJeff Cavaliere
That's a, that's a recent-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
That is a recent evolution, I think, for sure. I see. Uh, not the nutrition as much, but the PTs have become a little bit angry these days.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I see. Well, I always say with feelings-
- JCJeff Cavaliere
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
... of powerlessness comes aggression.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
Remember that, folks.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
There you go.
- AHAndrew Huberman
So, um, in any, in any case, um, there's stretching where I'm, I'm, you know, trying to consciously, um, "lengthen," again in air quotes, the muscle. I'm not, um, yanking on the limb or-
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... bobbing up and down. Maybe you could define the different types of stretching for people, maybe give us some rough guidelines about whether or not to do it cold or warm, before training, after training, et cetera.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
So yeah, there, there's obviously... There's a lot of different types of stretching. It can get into, you know, PNF stretching and things that are a little bit more, um, you know, niche, but like i- in general the two basic forms of stretching are active stretching and passive stretching, and your... Or, you know, your dynamic work. And, and your passive stretching is done with the goal of trying to create an increase, uh, in, uh, the flexibility of the muscle. So whether you're actually increasing the length of that muscle, you know, more so what you're doing is increasing the resis- or decreasing the resistance of that muscle to want to stay at a certain level of flexibility. So when we can sort of take the brakes off and allow that muscle to, to allow us more range of motion, we're inherently in- increasing flexibility without necessarily having to increase the length of that muscle. Um, that is usually done at a time far away from your workout because they have shown where this type of stretching done prior to an activity, and it could be, uh, like a structured activity like l- like lifting or it could be a little bit less structured like competing in a sport in a, in a spontaneous type way, that there is a period of recalibration that is needed after doing this because you're disrupting the length tension relationship of the muscle that causes you to not necessarily be able to rely on these, I've talked about before, stored motor engrams in your mind in terms of this is the pattern for how I swing a golf club, say, you know, and now introducing a little bit of flexibility or added flexibility or range because of the stretching I did before. It takes maybe a hole or two or three to match up again, "Oh, this is the... This is what he's trying to do, that golf swing thing I, that I remembered again." Like, it's not remembering the every component like, "I have to bend my right wrist back 10 degrees and I have to bend my elbow and I have to b-" Like your body stores these patterns for motor efficiency, so... And when I have to start matching up that stored pattern with what's feeling new because of the increased range, I can impair performance. And again, it could happen even in a, a gym workout where you're talking about your first, second set, third set, um, where maybe the repercussions aren't as big 'cause I'll just do a few extra sets, but in performance if you screw up your first three rounds, you're playing on a PGA Tour and you shoot... You know, y- you're six over after three, you're, you're, you're done, you know? (laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
So I think it matters there. Um-... as far as the dynamic, you know, so we, so we relegate that, as I mentioned, sort of towards the end of the day, when it's not going to impact performance but even maybe have the additional benefit of creating the, the feeling of length or the increase or decrease in resistance to this length, um, at a time when I know my body is going to try to tend to heal, and heal shorter. Never longer, but heal shorter. So if I can introduce a little bit of that extra, uh, length or, or decreased resistance to, to that length, it's a better time to do it. So we'll... I think it promotes a, a better recovery. Um, if I wanted to do-
- AHAndrew Huberman
So st- sorry to interrupt.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
But so stretching later in the day, um, because I, I'm, I'm intrigued by this concept of heal shorter.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
So part of the healing and recovery process means a shortening of the muscles. This is the tensing up in sleep.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Yes, yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Uh, could you elaborate just a bit on that? And then, sorry to break your flow, but then to continue.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
No, that's okay. Yeah, no, just basically, you know, what, what's been shown is that when I'm, when the, the repair process, muscular repair from, let's say, strength training during the day, the repair process usually results in a muscle that is slightly shorter rather than increased in length. You know, i- it's just a, it's, you know, muscles prefer to sort of, you know, ratchet their way down into that, th- that, uh, contraction and then, you know, maintain that, that, that more comfortable length-tension relationship. So when you're sleeping, it, it tends to, you know, err on the side of shorter rather than longer, when ideally, we don't really want that. We want to maintain as much of that length, because with more length, we actually have more leverage, right? That muscle has more leverage to contract. If it was all the way contracted, you know, you really can't, obviously we know, generate much force in a muscle that's already maximally contracted. So I think we, we want to do something that we, whatever we can, whatever little weapons we have in our arsenal that could allow us to do this prior to sleep. And again, it's just making it a, a conscious choice to do it at a time of the day that makes a little bit more sense. Um, dynamic stretching is really not done for that purpose of trying to create any type of, of feeling of, uh, act... Or, or increasing the, the potential length, as you said, of the muscle, but more so the readiness of the muscle to perform. And increasing, you know, exploring the ends of that range of motion in a more dynamic way so you're not hanging out there and disrupting that length-tension relationship, but just sort of touching the ends of those barriers so that when you feel movement again, it feels looser, it feels more ready. And, uh, and obviously at the same time, warming up, blood flow, all the benefits we get from just warming up in general. So like, you know, that's, that's a series you've probably seen a bunch of times, but like, you know, leg swings and, and, you know, butt kicks and, you know, lunge, walking lunges, and all types of dr-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Toe touches.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Toe touches.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
All those kind of drills, those active stretching drills. Or, you know, lunging with rotations of the upper body to try to get some of the thoracic spine involved too. Those are the drills that people will do prior to training that are both excitatory in terms of just the nervous system, but also helpful for just the general warm up the body 'cause of the blood flow, but from a muscle readiness standpoint, not impairing the performance while at the same time exploring the increased ranges. 'Cause as you know, the first toe touch you do is not as high as the last toe touch you do (laughs) .
- AHAndrew Huberman
For me, it doesn't even include the toe. (laughs)
- JCJeff Cavaliere
(laughs) Right, right, the shin touch, the knee touch.
- 1:07:23 – 1:12:56
Tool: Jumping Rope
- AHAndrew Huberman
Um, it's true, it's, it's a remarkable thing. I'm glad you mentioned jump roping. I, uh, used to skip rope for warmup for boxing.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Mm-hmm, yep, of course.
- AHAndrew Huberman
You know those different, like, three, three-minute rounds or something like that. Um, but I, I'm glad you brought it up, because, um, skipping rope is something that, uh, obviously has a cardiovascular component, there's the conditioning component, there's timing, and, and it is kind of interesting, right? You can-
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
It's frustrating when you don't get it.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Especially when it whips you in the air if you're using an improper rope.
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Yeah, yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I'm just curious if you could just give us a quick, um, skipping rope 101. Do you like to see people jumping with, um, both feet and toes? We'll, we'll link to a video if- I'm s- if there was one and I missed it. Do you like to see people doing high knees? Do you like s- people basically, like, shuffling? Uh, you wanna see people doing double Dutch? What do you want to see people doing, over time?
- JCJeff Cavaliere
Uh... All of the above. Maybe not the double Dutch, but all, all of the above. I mean, I think that, that's the cool thing about it, right? Like, once we sort of master the skill, 'cause for all of us, that first jump with the two feet going together is a challenge, 'cause you just gotta time that rope and you gotta time your jump. And then we get bored, as we often do as humans, we get bored with what we can do and we want to take on new challenges, so then it becomes one leg at a time, or then it becomes side to side hops, right? And all of those things are beneficial, I, I believe neurologically, to enhancing the ability to do the skill as a whole, but also just because, um, I'm such a believer in training in all three planes. So like, just doing straight up and down versus now I can do frontal plane side-to-side motion, and then I can even do small little twists, or corkscrews we call them, um, it requires a different... You would know more bet- better than I do, there- it requires different neurological patterns to be able to coordinate that, because you're changing the orientation of your body in space. So it's not just that I'm changing the exercise, but I'm changing how my body interprets that exercise because what's happening to my body in space. So I, I love, you know, whatever people wind up doing, but, um, I am amazed. There are people... I just started following this young woman on Instagram who is like, um... I, I'll give her a plug, I think it's like Anna Skips or something, and she is ridiculous. Like, I, I watch her and I'm, like, mesmerized at what she can do with the rope, you know? It's, it's like... It is an extremely athletic endeavor, really, when it gets to be at that level, and the speed and the precision and the, you know, and, and... You know, I think one of the goals that you want to be able to have is to where you're feeling as if you're almost effortlessly dancing without a rope, like, where you're just bouncing off of the ball of your foot, um, w- a- and it's an important skill to learn, too, whether you go back to run or, or, you know, or even, even jog, right? Just like, you know, more casual running. Learning how to land is so important. One of the drills that people should try is, like, try to jump on your heels. So just stand up, pull your toes off the ground, right, and just jump from your heels and land on your heels. You'll feel it in your jaw. You'll literally feel your jaw rattle when you land on your heels. There is no shock absorption capabilities through your heels. Meantime, a lot of people land on their heels a lot when they, when they run, and you're just, your body's not built to absorb the forces like the ball of your foot could. It's really built as a spring. And the, and the foot is a... To me, as a physical therapist, the foot has always been one of the most amaz-... You know, you talk about having bad feet, I have flat feet. It looks like I got flippers if I took my, if I took my shoes off, like I'm wearing scuba fins. There is no, there is no adaptability of that foot to the surface. You know, when you, when it's completely caved and flattened like that, the job of the, of the foot is to be a-adaptable. Well, there is, maybe there is some adaptability because it's so floppy, but at the same time, at some point, that critical juncture when you're going to then step through and you need to be able to push off, the foot has to actually change this in the mid-foot itself to become a rigid lever, is what they call it. You're, you're going from a mobile adapter to a rigid lever. That rigid lever literally locks up the midtarsal joint to become solid so that you can push off of it with leverage. If you lack that ca-capability, all those stresses that are supposed to be borne by the foot go up into the ankle, into the knee, into the hip, into the lower back. So learning how to land and, and start to train your, your body to, uh, to, uh, experience ground reaction forces the right way is so critical to all other function and all other disability up the kinetic chain, and jumping rope is, like, one of the best ways to learn how to do that.
Episode duration: 2:40:46
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