Dr. Andy Galpin: Optimal Protocols to Build Strength & Grow Muscles | Huberman Lab Guest Series
[Music]
welcome to the huberman lab guest Series
where I and an expert guest discuss
science and science-based tools for
everyday life
I'm Andrew huberman and I'm our
professor of neurobiology and
Ophthalmology at Stanford school of
medicine today marks the second episode
in the sixth episode series with Dr Andy
Galpin a professor of kinesiology at Cal
State University Fullerton and one of
the foremost world's experts on the
science and applications of methods to
increase strength hypertrophy and
endurance today's episode is all about
how to increase strength speed and
hypertrophy of muscles Professor Dr Andy
Galpin great to be back
last episode you told us about the nine
specific adaptations that exercise can
induce everything from strength and
hypertrophy to endurance muscular
endurance so on and so forth and you
gave us this incredible toolkit of fit
tests for each of those adaptations so
that people can assess them for
themselves and then of course improve on
each and every one of them if they
choose
by the way people can access that
information simply by going to the first
episode in this series with you and it's
all there and time stamped and I highly
recommend people do that today we're
talking about strength and hypertrophy
and so right out the gate I just want to
ask you why should people think about
and train for strengthen hypertrophy and
that question is of course directed
towards those that are trying to get
stronger and grow bigger muscles
but I know that many people out there
perhaps have not thought about the
benefits of strength and hypertrophy
training and how beneficial it can be
not just for people that want to get
bigger biceps Etc but that have other
goals longevity goals and health goals
unrelated to what most people associate
with hypertrophy so what are the
benefits of training for strength and
hypertrophy for the everyday person for
the athlete for the recreational
exerciser and so on there's a wonderful
saying I think it was Bill Bowerman the
founder one of the founders of Nike and
he always said if you have a body or an
athlete and and I think that's very
important for people to understand
because one of the major disservices
we've done in this field is convince
people that things like strength
training are for athletes or for growing
bigger muscles and cardiovascular
training are for things like fat loss
and heart health
and that is a tremendous disservice
because it puts a lot of unnecessary
barriers and leads to a lot of false
assumptions and then therefore poor
actions classic examples of this are
people who are resistant to strength
training because they don't want to put
on too much muscle people who only
perform one type of exercise because
they want say fat loss or they're in it
for longevity and health and they don't
work they're not worried about you know
being an athlete and so right out the
gates we can actually draw back a little
bit to what we were our previous
conversation when I walked you through
the history of exercise science and the
reason I did that is to help you
understand these are the railroads that
you're running down and you don't even
realize it in terms of everyone thinks
of strength training and they
immediately default to our principles to
optimize muscle growth and that's not
the only adaptation one should be after
with strength training when we think of
endurance training we immediately
default to things like again
cardiovascular health or fat loss or
things like that what I really want to
do across this entire series and
conversations is to to just break that
immediately talk about all the other
things that you can do with your with
your training and so that people can be
comfortable and confident in doing an
optimal training program for whatever
goal they have whether that be specific
like growing muscle or non-specific like
just feeling better having more energy
being more prepared for life and
Longevity and so to directly answer your
question I could really we could do a
hundred episodes on the benefits of
exercise and we could run all the way
from mood and focus cognitive tasks to a
better immune function you'll get less
colds you'll be you'll fight them off
more effectively to mortality right so
some of the strongest predictors of how
long and how well you will live are
exercise however
there are independent benefits that come
from just endurance training and there
are independent benefits that come from
strength training and so to just give
you one categorically the way that you
want to think about this is resistance
exercise and strength training is the
number one tool to combat neuromuscular
aging
you cannot get that through any other
form of exercise besides heavy overload
strength training and we and we can walk
through in detail what that is but that
is reason number one in general human
movement is is a function of number one
some sort of neuromuscular Activation so
nerves have to turn on the second part
is muscles have to contract and the
third part is those muscles have to move
a bone all right
if you want to be alive and you want to
live by yourself you have to be able to
engage in human movement
if you have
any dysfunction in the neuromuscular
system there then you're not going to be
able to do that and again as I mentioned
the only way to preserve that or fight
that loss of Aging is to strength train
so people will tend to hear numbers like
you lose about one percent of muscle
size per year after age about 40. and
that's true however what they don't
realize is you lose about two to four
percent of your strength
per year so the loss of strength is
almost double that
the loss of muscle mass with aging
muscle power is more like eight to ten
percent per year
and so we can very clearly see the
problem you're going to have with aging
is not going to be preservation of
muscle although that is incredibly
important it's going to be very
specifically preservation of muscle
power and strength and why that really
matters is your ability to again stand
up and move your ability to catch
yourself from a fall your ability to
feel confident doing a movement that is
a function of muscle power more than it
is muscle size and so functionality is
really what we want to be right you want
to be able to do whatever you want to be
do physically and feel confident in
doing that as you age that's going to
only be obtained through strength
training so is it appropriate to say
that training for strength and
hypertrophy is also a way to keep your
nervous system healthy and young
absolutely it is the only exercise route
we have for that if you look at just
basic numbers like motor units you're
going to see that older individuals have
like a 30 to 40 reduction in total motor
units So when you say older
approximately what ages are you
referring to because I know many people
out there such as myself are
40 and older but I know many of our
listeners are in their 20s maybe even in
their teens and I can imagine that
people that start doing strength and
hypertrophy training younger will afford
themselves an advantage over time but
that everybody should be doing strength
and hypertrophy training for as much of
their lifespan as possible that's really
the message that I'm getting so if
somebody is for instance 45 would that
fall into the bin of older you're going
to start seeing decrements passed again
around that age of 40 or so now there's
a lot of genetic variation there and a
lot of other things go into that
equation like your sleep and your
nutrition but that's a fair number to
sort of think about one actually
responses it's actually sort of
counterintuitive the wonderful thing
about strength training is you don't
actually have to start at a young age
uh you can actually in fact I was
reading a paper this morning because of
our previous conversation it was an over
age 90. so these are folks 90 plus and
they saw improvements like 30 to 170
percent in things like muscle size and
hypertrophy over a very short period of
time I think it was 12 weeks so you
don't actually have to start there are
some adaptations that you're going to
need for health that you God you really
need to start in your 20s the reason I
like to mention that is because if you
are listening and you are 50 and you're
like oh [ __ ] I I haven't been strength
training you're not toast like you
should absolutely start now
um but you're going to be able to get to
a fantastic spot
very quickly
similarly though if you are 20 or 25 and
30 and you aren't lifting there are
still many reasons why you should do
that now and I I'd like to point that
out because a lot of folks will be like
oh my gosh they said I have to do it
when I'm 20 or 25 or you know I'll be
sort of screwed and that's not the case
at all there's really no age limit on
this in fact there's actually
interesting data that just came out
showing this reduction in muscle
strength and I perjury that I sort of
talked about is basically ameliorated
with a preservation of activity in other
words you don't lose these
functionalities because of Aging you
lose these because of a loss of training
to state that again you don't lose these
because of some innate physiological
thing that happens with genes become
less sensitive or you lose functionality
you pretty much can describe the loss of
function of strength and muscle and
aging as exclusively because of a loss
of training and nutrition and anabolic
resistance and some other things so
you can do a lot more than you think
when it comes to maintaining high
quality muscle and that's really
important to point out I'm reminded of
the words of the great sharington he won
the Nobel Prize he's a physiologist I
guess the neuroscientists try and claim
him as a neuroscientist because he
worked on the nervous system the
physiologists claim as a as a
physiologist he is 100 a physiologist I
would call him a neuroscientist maybe we
can argue about this later
um we will but I think one of the key
things that sharington pointed out was
that I believe the quote was that
movement is the final common path and
what he was referring to was the fact
that a significant fraction of the brain
itself is devoted to our ability to move
and our ability to engage in resistance
type movements and that resistance type
movements and the continuation of
movement throughout the lifespan
is what keeps the brain young and
healthy and vital and there are so much
data now to support that but I'm so
grateful that you brought up early this
fact that there's a neuromuscular link
because I think a lot of people think
about musculoskeletal they forget that
the nervous system is really in charge
of the um strength of the muscle
contractions and the types of muscle
contractions that occur I'm certain
we're going to get into that in a lot of
depth today you're close there we're not
totally right but we're close Okay well
I look forward to being corrected
um and to achieving the Precision that
you're known for uh around that
discussion so if we are to step back and
say strength training and hypertrophy
training is critical for people of all
ages yeah
for developing and maintaining the
neuromuscular system and for
our ability to function in the world
yeah
not just offset injury but the ability
to pick things up and move Etc
what are some of the other things that
strengthen hypertrophy training can
provide I know a lot of people use
strength and hypertrophy training for
changing their Aesthetics what is your
sense about its potency for changing
Aesthetics as compared to say
cardiovascular exercise yeah the the
Mantra I always like is the reason you
want to exercise is threefold right you
want to look good feel good play good
that that's really that comes from sport
comes from football specifically we
always say that and what that means
really is you want to look good people
want to look the way they want to look
whatever that means to them and there
are any versions of what you feel to be
aesthetically pleasing and that's
totally irrelevant but people want to
look the way they want to look number
two you want to be able to feel good
what's that mean you want to be injury
free you want to have energy throughout
the day you want to be able to execute
anything you want to so whether you want
to go surf in the morning you want to
play racquetball you want to hike or you
want to do all three of those in one day
you should have the ability to do that
and then you want to play good which
means you should be able to execute any
again activities that you want to
execute whatever that means all right so
backing all up what's that got to do
with your question
um one of the major benefits of strength
training is the responses tend to happen
extremely fast so you can see noticeable
changes in muscle size certainly within
a month absolutely within six weeks and
so we have this wonderful feedback loop
that sort of tells you am I doing the
same correctly
oh my gosh yes I am also it's very
addicting the feedback the response the
physical changes whether this is
actually point two or three look good or
feel good play good or it's even just
part one you're starting to see that
when you compare that to things like fat
loss that Journey tends to be longer
it's more difficult it's more Reliant
upon other factors like nutrition
Etc strength training is really about
like there's some very minimal nutrition
requirements outside of that it comes
down to the training and the feedback is
immediate that's powerful because if you
look across the literature on exercise
adherence you'll see that that is in
fact the number one predictor of
effectiveness of any training program
so what that means is if you were to put
any variable possible and figure out
what is going to determine
whether or not this program works this
is what we typically call the methods or
many in the concepts are few so the
methods of exercise the methods of
strength training the mess of the
methods of hypertrophy training which
we'll talk about are are infinite
however there are only a handful of key
Concepts that you have to achieve in
order for that program to work adherence
is one of them and again is often the
top one so you need to do something you
need to do something consistently
when you are getting that feedback and
you're seeing results in your appearance
immediately and you see that every
single day every time you take off your
shirt or every time you look in the
mirror you see that result that tends to
drive adherence
um really powerfully so it's important
to give people wins especially people
who are not maybe like you and I who are
like I'm gonna lift weights and I'm
gonna exercise like no matter what the
rest of my life because I just love it
not everyone's like that and so giving
them a little bit of carrot of success
and if you can achieve that in you know
say three to four to five weeks already
it's very powerful tool before we begin
I'd like to emphasize that this podcast
is separate from my teaching and
research roles at Stanford it is also
separate from Dr galpin's teaching and
research roles at Cal State Fullerton it
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levels.link huberman let's talk about
strength and hypertrophy
if you would please remind us what
strength and hypertrophy are in terms of
the specific adaptation they represent
what I mean by that is when somebody is
training for strength what are they
really training for obviously it means
the ability to move more weight but I
know that it includes a number of other
things as well and when one is training
for hypertrophy for the growth of muscle
fibers
what does that represent because I think
if people understand that they will far
better understand the methods and
protocols that are going to be best for
strength and hypertrophy at its core
you've basically described it when we
talk about strength we're talking about
an actual function so can you create
more Force across a muscle or muscle
groups or our total movement and when we
talk about hypertrophy now we're
specifically referring to just an
increase in size there's no actual
mention of function so a muscle can grow
larger without actually technically
being stronger for a number of reasons
however there is a strong relationship
between strength and hypertrophy so a
lot of the times in the general public
in the lay conversations we sort of lump
those two things in it's the same thing
and so we have to recognize people who
are new to training or people even are
intermediately trained there is a huge
overlap between strength and our perjury
once you get past that though they
become disentangled and a good example
of it is this if you look at the
strongest people in the world this would
be people who compete in the sport of
power lifting
right that's a true test of maximal
strength so it is a deadlift a bench
press and a back squat and you're going
to do a one repetition Max in all three
of those and so whoever wins is the
person who lifted the most amount of
weight one time that's it it's not like
World's Strongest Man where it is how
many reps can you do in a row or your
time right is a true maximal strength
test and you compare those to say
bodybuilders now both of those
individuals are strong and both of those
individuals have a lot of muscle however
it is extremely clear the power lifters
will be significantly stronger
than the bodybuilders on average right
there are individual exceptions but
we're just talking Collective averages
and the bodybuilders will have more
muscle than the other ones in addition
whether you look at Olympic
weightlifting or power lifting or
world's strongest man for that matter
there are weight classes and the reason
is as you go up in weight classes you
will always see the world records go
higher and higher and higher right so
you can clearly get stronger without
adding any muscle however there's a
point right where you simply have to add
more mass to get a higher number and
that's why we have weight classes in
those Sports and in Combat Sports and
lots of other things so
we have there's a lot of confusion right
because people think man either these
are the same thing or if I want to get
stronger I have to get bigger which is
not the case at all another misnomer
here is I can't get stronger
unless I add muscle that's not true
either right it's a similar idea
so what I'm saying is you have the
ability to do whatever you'd like if
you'd like to get stronger and add
muscle
great if you add muscle you're probably
going to bring some strength along for
the ride
however if you want to get stronger and
you don't want to add muscle for any
reason personal preference on Aesthetics
whether you're in a weight class and you
simply can't afford it it is quite easy
to get stronger and not add much muscle
mass either and so differentiating these
two things is one of them is simply a
measure of size and the other one is a
measure of force and when we talk about
strength what we're really talking about
are two unique components component one
is what I call the physiology so what it
what is the ability of the neuromuscular
system what is the ability of the muscle
fibers to contract and produce Force the
other one is what we call mechanics and
mechanics is simply things like it's
minutia down to how long your femurs are
relative to your tibia or or other
things like this is biomechanics this is
also technique this is skill this is how
smooth you feel this is are you firing
the right muscle group in the right
sequence and Order and all of these
things play into strength so somebody
who maybe has more Force capability in
their muscle fibers but their technique
in the movement is worse may lose in a
competition or somebody again who's
um like if you go into the world of
speed and power especially you'll hear a
lot of people talk about like the Rhythm
and there's just a certain Rhythm that
has to happen if you want to jump as
high as possible or run as fast as fast
as possible but that's all mechanics at
this fundamental level so when we look
at hypertrophy
it's just still simply about how big the
muscle is
so those are the really the the
similarities and distinctions between
strength and hypertrophy when strength
improves
and when hypertrophy increases
is there also involvement in the
ligaments and tendons that is of course
the ligaments and tendons are involved
in the movements and yeah but do
ligaments and tendons themselves grow
and or get stronger
this field is really difficult because
connective tissue is not vascular and so
their plasticity is significantly lower
than skeletal muscle in fact if you look
across all the organs a skeletal muscle
is one of if not the most plastic
meaning it's the most pliable the most
responsive the one that's going to
adjust it's basically it's paying
attention to everything that's being
said in the body you cannot change blood
pressure or pH or
macronutrients floating around without
muscle knowing about it it is in fact
this is why we call muscle an organ
people don't tend to think about this if
you were ever on like Jeopardy and they
ask you that question like what's the
biggest organ system in the body people
tend to say the skin muscle is actually
the correct answer all right well I'm
going to cite you when I get it yeah
Jeopardy I don't have any immediate
plans to go on Jeopardy but who knows oh
there you go Celebrity Jeopardy Angie
huberman wait I don't know about the
celebrity part but uh Jeopardy would be
fun yeah um but I will say the muscle
and I'll I'll if you get a phone call in
Jeopardy I don't know I haven't seen
that show in a very long time yeah uh
maybe ever then I'll I'll call you but
that makes sense
um so that muscles would be the largest
organ system in the body the reason I
was saying that is so muscle is both
listening and talking it is controlling
uh the immune system a lot it's
controlling blood glucose regulation it
is it is the central Depot for uh amino
acids which are needed to do things like
regulate the immune system build any new
red blood cells a lot of this stuff is
coming from skeletal muscle so when we
say organ by the way that's actually
like a physiological definition so
something that's communicating uh to
either another organ itself or uh
throughout the system so it's listening
and it's talking connective tissue is
not the same way and so we do see
adaptations with strength training in
connective tissue
it's just much lower it's difficult to
measure effectively what we know now is
you're going to have a combination of
adaptations throughout the connective
tissue it is beneficial this is probably
one of the major reasons that's that
strength training reduces injury risk
which is very very important because
people who tend to want to pick up an
exercise routine after say 10 years the
classic cliche is like I played all
these things in high school then I went
to college got a job now I'm 25 or 35 or
whatever and you sort of want to jump
back into what you did when you were 20.
well there's no tissue tolerance left
and what we almost always mean by that
is connective tissue the tolerance in
there is not ready for the load you're
about to handle and so you go through
some movement and then boom sprains
tears
um you know even like the more
significant ones are on Achilles tear
which is going to really sideline you so
those are some of the problems and we
know strength training as a large role
in injury reduction for stress and
strain and overuse injuries and that's
specifically coming from the connective
tissue adaptations again the difficult
part here is
it's very hard to assess we actually
um when I was a doctoral student we
played around with patella tendon
biopsies so I actually had one this is
like a there's a little piece of your
patella tendon missing yeah because your
own yeah own lab so now I've probably
had
I don't know how many hundreds of
biopsies I've performed on people
um probably well over a thousand
certainly well over a thousand I've
probably had 35 or 40 done in myself
there's no problem here I have no Scar
Tissue I have no loss of function and
I've stuck needles in every leg like all
over myself right quads uh my Soleus
gastroc like all up taking tissue out
yeah you want the needle looks like a
pen basically and you you know you're
alive and you go in and grab a chunk and
you pull it out and can I come to your
lab and get biopsy absolutely yeah
you're probably looking under the
microscope it'll just look like the
molecule caffeine there's a there's a
mutual friend of ours who came down and
did that he's a big big big gentleman
big into lifting very into strength
training uh and he he went through that
experience and he was like oh my gosh it
was not what he was hoping to get he
actually had
unbelievable muscle morphology his
fibers were the diameter of muscle
fibers is extremely large it's one of
the biggest cells by volume in all the
biology skeletal muscle and human and
how large I can't help myself
um millimeters
well you so you have length right and
then you have width right so lengthwise
it can be extraordinarily long you can
be the classic example is like your
Sartorius which is like the front of
your hip to the inside of your kneecap
theoretically those cells can run the
entire length which would be one muscle
fiber running that thing if I were to do
a biopsy on you and I and I pulled that
tissue out I could actually pull an
individual fiber out with tweezers and
hold it up and you could see that whole
muscle cell yeah I'm definitely not
going to get biopsy um you'd be stunned
how big they are anyways his was the
size of a rhino so the diameter of his
now he has a well-documented assistance
in the area of muscle growth we'll say
um but yeah those can be large so what
were we even talking about there well I
was asking about tendons and ligaments
um because I'd like to understand the
various tissues and organ systems that
adapt when one gets stronger when muscle
tissue grows and I I do want to ask
about bone yeah um and here I'm not
referring to Bone mineral density what I
was going to ask is whether or not
bone itself can grow and get stronger
and the reason I'm asking is there's a
favorite result of mine I have about
3 800 favorite results 3 000 pet peeves
and 3 800 plus favorite results
um but one of my favorite results is
from Eric kindel's Lab at Columbia Eric
won the Nobel Prize for learning and
memory and his laboratory got really
into the effects of exercise on learning
and memory yeah and they had this
incredible result
which is that
load-bearing exercise yeah stimulates
the bones to release something called
osteocalcin excuse me and then
osteocalcin acts as a more or less a
hormone travels to the brain and
enhances the memory systems in the brain
by enhancing neuron Health that's the
basic Crux of of the studies there were
several of these and
The Moment I Saw the first of those
studies I thought well here's another
reason to do resistance type exercise
and not just aerobic exercise and then
it brings to mind whether or not bones
themselves get stronger when we do
resistance training I don't know the
answer to that yeah that's very clearly
demonstrated and we've known that for
for many decades
um you have a
a diminishing ability to do so with age
particularly you need to do this in your
teens and 20s this is where you're going
to have the largest ability to enhance
bone mineral density and it's
particularly responsive to axial loading
now I'm a muscle guy I'm not a bone
specialist so we would have to consult
somebody who can give you more position
here but that's you explain axial
loading it's up and down it's vertical
okay so it's almost like a like a
cylinder putting the weight of the on
the small end of the cylinder on both
small end of the cylinders yeah if
someone doesn't do this in their 20s or
teens however
can we assume that some degree of
positive change will occur if they do
resistance training even if it's a small
fraction the answer is yes it is small
we have worked with a number of women in
our
um our rapid health program that come in
and they are in their 20s and they're in
their 30s and they have significant bone
marrow density problems and eight months
later we can see noticeable changes that
are outside of the measurement error of
a positive change positive changes
correct and if you worked with the there
are many Physicians that specialize in
this area you you're going to need a
Nutri nutrition here strengthening alone
is probably not going to get you there
particularly with women because you have
to figure out why and and there's a lot
going on with the physiology and
biochemistry so you probably like almost
surely needed to have some blood
chemistry done with that you have to
figure out what's going on menstrual
cycle wise in fact like oftentimes what
we'll do
for our women very specifically is we
use a thing called The Rhythm plus a
30-day test so you can actually do a
salivary test across the entire
menstrual cycle and you can take uh
samples it's about every other day so
you get 15 or 16 samples and you get a
really beautiful picture of what's
Happening hormonally across the entire
menstrual cycle and that's really really
important because typically for women if
you get a single sample or simple time
Point whether it's salivary urine or
blood you can have
um well like a order of magnitude
difference in any number of metrics
because of what phase are in this is one
of the many reasons why it's been such a
challenge to do a lot of physiology
research with females some metrics
change throughout the menstrual cycle
others don't like strength is a very
good example I can strengthen and I can
do a one rep max test on a woman at any
point I don't have to do that at a
certain phase of their menstrual cycle
because it's the evidence I think is
pretty clear at this point that number
won't change so I have no qualms
including female files in any of my
studies where strength is an absolute is
an important dependent variable because
I don't have to adjust around menstrual
cycle other factors like anything in in
blood anything hormone related you're
going to have to automatically account
for it so what I would say is those
folks should absolutely work with a
qualified physician and you you're going
to have to get some nutrition
supplementation potentially and then
maybe even some other stuff going on to
make that even more complicated
if you're on any form of birth control
or not that's going to change the entire
equation especially if it's a
hormone-based birth control so it just
gets really really complicated to answer
it though you can see adaptations they
are significantly diminished relative to
if you would have started in your teens
and 20s but there is hope you just need
to work with somebody who specializes in
that area
so for both men and women boys and girls
what are the major adaptations that
occur to underlie improvements in
strength and if you would if you could
just provide a bullet point list of that
and then we can dive into each of those
in detail
for instance
are nerves getting more efficient at
firing our bones enjoying adaptations in
different yeah bone connective tissue
relationships that that underlie
strength I have to imagine all these
things are happening but what are the
the major changes that are occurring in
those Origins and organ systems that
reflect someone's ability to on one day
lift you know 100 pounds and then a week
later to lift uh 105 pounds now I'll try
to keep this condensed again this could
be an entire University course
I will also try to give you a little bit
of Bones here so normally as a muscle
guy I only I take all the credit and
muscle
turns out the nervous system gets a
little bit of credit too here thank you
so as we walk through it just in as a
big picture if we think about again what
causes human movement basically
everything along that chain will improve
the strength training and I'm not really
being using too much hyperbole there
it's quite impressive so it's going from
the nervous system side of the equation
what has to happen for human movement is
a nerve has to send a signal through a
motor unit now a motor unit is comes
down and interface multiple muscle
fibers so if you think about your actual
muscle it's not a thing it is a
component of many individual muscle
fibers so you've got millions if not
more think of it like a ponytail so we
collectively say ponytail and you think
of it as like one thing but really a
ponytail is a combination of tons of
individual hairs okay muscles the same
way so this motor unit comes in and
innervates a lot of different muscle
fibers now every one of the fibers in a
motor unit is generally of the same
fiber type so fast switch or slow twitch
and they are not laid out next to each
other in the muscle they are spread out
across horizontally vertically as well
as closer to the Bone and further to the
surface so they're moved throughout the
entire way and this is what allows you
to have smoother contractions and you
don't have spasticity and things like
that so we see improvements from the
neuromuscular side like firing rate we
see synchronization improvements um that
are coming in you also see improvements
in things like acetylcholine release
from the presynaptic neuron so you're
getting it faster we see calcium
recycling is improved back uh to there
so in order for without walking into too
much of the biochemistry in order for a
signal to go from nerve to muscle
there's a little bit of a gap there's a
physical space that happens and what
happens is you release this molecule
called acetylcholine this goes into the
postsynaptic left and then that actually
binds to a receptor that receptor
actually opens up a door that lets
sodium in that's really what's happening
so it's not the acetylcholine without
acetylcholine then sits on that receptor
site it's broken down put back in and
recycled back up in the presynaptic
nerve site the faster you can do that
the faster you can recycle that signal
and so almost everything that I describe
in that entire system improves and has
been shown to to increase with training
so that alone is given to give you
benefits we haven't even walked into to
getting from an electrical signal now
into an action potential which is going
to cause a muscle contraction
so getting from nerve into the muscle we
see everything from improvements when we
call contractility which means the
muscle fiber themselves can produce more
force or more velocity independent of
muscle size changes this is another
component when we ask like well how is
it I got stronger
without getting bigger well in the
muscle fiber itself its ability to
contract Force increases and this is
because we have everything like the
sarcoplasmic reticulum which is the
place that stores and releases the
calcium which is what's needed for this
entire cross-bridge interaction from the
myosin and actin to happen I know a lot
I just lost a lot of people but you can
go look at some of these images the
sarcoplasmatricium gets gets activated
more it gets more sensitive it is better
at releasing calcium bringing it back in
and doing it again the bond between the
crossbridge the myosin actin gets
stronger the calcium Affinity is the
phrase that we use there increases so
we're literally walking through almost
the entire process of skeletal muscle
contraction here and every step along
the way we we see improvements so that
net result is we see again more Force
production independent of any change in
size independent of any increase in
contractile units we didn't add anything
to the equation we didn't change size we
did nothing but improve efficiency
effectively independent of that now we
can actually start talking about
changing muscle fiber type so we can
change our fibers from a slow twitch
fiber to a fast twitch fiber that alone
is going to give you more forced
production again independent of size
fast switch fibers 10 to be larger than
Soul touch fibers but not always
especially in the presence of endurance
training so if you do a lot of
consistent endurance training it's very
common for us to find slow touch fibers
that are as similar size if not larger
often very often larger than those fast
touch fibers if you take slow fibers big
slow very metabolically effective
vibrous so extremely fatigue resistant
so it's not a bad thing to call them
slow is like we tend to say fastest low
and slow has this negative connotation
but it's like quite healthy like fiber
type to have outside of that now we
haven't even gotten into things like
penation angle so this is an angle at
which your muscle fibers interact with
your bone so we tend to think about this
as like a muscle fiber is pulling on a
muscle well some some of these are
oriented are almost a 90 degree so a
fiber runs perpendicular into the bone
and some of them are closer to like a 45
degree and some of them are closer to
almost parallel and that confers a lot
of unique mechanical benefits so in one
area it's actually going to increase
Force production you go the other
direction increases velocity and so we
have all kinds of changes in the angle
at which the muscle inserts into the
bone now we're already on the mechanic
side of it right so we've we've
influenced how effectively it pulls and
with any of these things it's always a
give and take so you're going to give up
in the case of a Nation angle you're
going to give up strength but you're
going to increase of a lot shortening
velocity or if you want to increase the
velocity you're going to give up sort of
the strength right we haven't gotten to
any of the energetics at all so we
haven't talked about increasing storage
of phosphocreatine which is the energy
system needed to power that muscle
contraction at the fastest possible rate
so we can continue to go as long as you
want here but hopefully you're getting
the point of a little bit of the
adaptations that occur the reason I want
to actually why I think that stuff is
important to bring it back maybe for
some Muslims I know I took you on a
journey there and you're just like what
the hell just happened
that matters because again this is the
specific explanation for how is it
possible that I got stronger but I
didn't get bigger and this is also why
strength and hypertrophy are intertwined
and heavily overlapped but are not
necessarily the same thing so for
example we can increase muscle size
and actually reduce strength because of
what's called lattice spacing so what
happens is you have to kind of remember
your muscle fibers are these long
cylinders and the way that they contract
requires an optimal space and so what
happens is you have this molecule called
actin and you have this molecule called
myosin myosin sits in the middle and
there are six actin that surround each
individual myosin in a three-dimensional
Circle here so you got a myosin in the
middle that has all these globular heads
and they can reach up and grab man
acting and again there's six sort of
around them right
um well one of the things that can occur
is if those those actin are too close
together so I imagine my hands
um I'm reaching out and doing a giant T
right so I'm horizontal out there well
if my fingertips are the tips of the
myosin and I'm trying to reach up and
grab an actin and I want to pull those
actins closer to my face well those act
and stack on top of each other and
that's what actually makes your muscles
grow up like if I flex my bicep it
actually you know grows up three or four
inches
because you're stacking these these
sarcomeres or what they're called on top
of each other all right great well if
I'm reaching out to grab them and the
muscle is stretched too far I can't
actually make that strong of a
connection it would be like if I reached
out and grabbed something but I can only
reach my longest fingertip on it when I
go to contract I can't make that strong
of a contraction because my grip is weak
my grip's gonna break before I reach my
strength limit if I'm too close there's
nowhere to go I'm already as close so if
you actually disrupt that lattice
spacing too much you can actually lose a
little bit of strength so it's not that
getting bigger will ever make you weaker
it's simply that you're not optimizing
for strength You're simply optimizing
for size and so that can that can
explain a little bit of the of the
disconcurity between growing and
performance
I'd like to take a brief break and
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special offer what are a few of the
major changes that occur in muscle nerve
Etc when
we experience hypertrophy
I've heard of protein synthesis changes
I'm assuming that's true maybe you can
tell us a bit more about that
changes in blood flow yep
perhaps changes in neural innervation
who knows maybe even changes in fascia
I'm not aware of any specifically but um
I have to imagine that they're somehow
involved sure so the when we talk about
hypertrophy a lot of the adaptations are
going to be similar because the the mode
of training is close enough so your
nerves probably aren't smart enough to
differentiate between a set of five reps
or a set of eight repetitions they're
smart enough to differentiate anything
like they know everything that's going
on but it's going to be a huge overlap
the primary difference with hypertrophy
is a couple of things so if you think
about the muscle microstructure
um I have a whole series of videos on
YouTube if you want to see the visuals
behind this in fact in there I include
the specific diameter size of muscle
fibers that I've failed to give you a
few minutes ago we will provide an
active link to this right so
um what happens is this when we talk
about and you hear that this classic
Buzz phrase of muscle protein synthesis
generally what we're talking about there
is is contractile units and so when we
say contractile units we're talking
about the myosin and actin and so what
we're really trying to do
is say okay there's some amount of
protein turnover where we're coming in
and we're trying to add more proteins to
the equation and so what has to happen
there is a series of steps so step
number one is there has to be some sort
of signal from the external World um
this could actually oftentimes it's
things like stretching of the cell wall
which is what happens with exercise
right so you're Contracting a short and
you get this big stretch of the cell
wall it can come from a simple things
like an amino acid infusion this is just
eating protein this is why protein
ingestion alone is anabolic right it'll
help you grow muscle independent of even
moving so just eating
protein will grow your muscles yeah
certainly and those that those data are
very clear
um of course like anything there's a
saturation point
in terms of total amount you need to get
to and and things like that but yeah if
you were to walk into a laboratory
fasted overnight and I gave you 30 grams
of protein we would see a very
measurable increase in protein synthesis
quite clearly for several hours probably
four to five plus hours um we could
maybe bring us to people that would know
those data better but many hours with no
waitroon correct I am betting that most
people are not aware of that fact you
know what's actually interesting about
it is if you do the exact same study
again and you just did strength training
you would also see an improvement in
protein synthesis right but those
factors are independent and the
mechanisms are independent such that if
you do them both together they stack on
top of each other
which is really wonderful and if you
were to add carbohydrate into that mix
now you're actually adding fuel for the
entire muscle protein synthesis process
and now you're going to see even
additive benefits and this is why for so
many years uh this is what bore the
whole like post exercise anabolic window
thing which is like you got to get carbs
and protein in post exercise to maximize
um mostly perjury now that turned out to
be like not totally true in terms of the
Windows window to not be as strict as
people initially uh asserted as I recall
but but still I think that's super
interesting these are parallel Pathways
for for protein synthesis simply eating
protein
um or training each independently
increases protein synthesis uh I can't
help but ask is the same true if one
doesn't endurance type exercise if I go
out for a 45 minute jog where I can
nasal breathe the whole time but if I
were to go any faster I would have to
kick over into mouth breathing as well
so-called Zone 2 ish cardio will I see
an increase in protein in synthesis as
simply as a consequence of that jog now
this is one of the unique factors of
strength training you're not going to
say that in fact you would it's
difficult to measure protein breakdown
that's been as extraordinarily
challenging to do in the laboratory but
you're not going to see those benefits
in fact you're going to see quite the
opposite it's an entire molecular
Cascade
so this is kind of how it works so you
have to have some sort of signal on the
outside and this can be an energetic
signal so this could be glucose uptake
it could be protein intake it could be a
physical stretch what happens is on the
cell wall there is some sort of it could
be testosterone right testosterone could
bind to beta adrenergic receptors and
this activates a whole series of
Cascades of signaling proteins and these
proteins basically play a game of
telephone so one tells the next one this
is the next one and I sort of walk this
entire way well that molecular Cascade
is fundamentally the same thing with
regardless of the insult but they're
different Pathways and so
the pathway from strength training or
protein ingestion is going to go to the
same nucleus it's going to activate a
whole set of Gene Cascades that are
going to tell you to to go through this
entire process of protein synthesis
which I'll walk through what that is in
a second if you do endurance training
it's a different pathway and so instead
of activating this entire thing of like
mtor and akt and this is anabolic
signaling Cascade it's going to do a
different one which you can think of
more of like as ampk an energy signaling
thing so there's a crossover Point here
in fact one of the things you'll notice
is mtor and akt don't really influence
ampk but there is some literature that
years ago showed ampk will activate
another protein called tsc2 and that
will actually inhibit mtor and that was
the first molecular explanation for the
quote-unquote interference effect of
endurance training on hypertrophy could
you just take a highlight for people
what this is because as you describe
these signaling Pathways I just want to
um maybe just put a top Contour
explanation the mtor pathway is
synonymous with cell growth yeah both
during development as organisms humans
included mature and cells get larger
mtor's abundant in the system to put it
quite simply and then the ampk pathway
and some of the metabolic signaling that
you're referring to is more synonymous
with cardiovascular exercise in this at
least in the context of this discussion
and fuel utilization yep and what you
described as a crossover point where
certain forms of exercise can tap into
both of these yep but
at least for sake of this conversation
we're largely separating them yeah
because the the byproduct is the thing
that uh that matters here so the result
of uh mtor and akt getting into the
nucleus is going to be increased in
protein synthesis the result of ampk
running down to the mind is going to be
result in increasing mitochondrial
biogenesis so the net outcome is
different now
I do want to flag it very quickly
this is an extraordinarily complicated
thing and um in fact in our laboratory
we were able to to be one of the first
that figured out how to measure all the
different subunits of ampk and
individual muscles by fiber type so
because you're ripping people's muscles
out of their knees and their patellar
tendons uh so anxious teasing they're
they're gently removing with under IRB
protocol of course
um so even when we say something like
ampk it's not one thing Amy we say
things like mtor it's not one thing
either it is you have the total amount
that matters you have the activation the
activation sites or many of them so it's
not a simple
um as what I'm laying it on I just wanna
a big concept of kind of what's
Happening Here to actually kind of
answer your question
which is okay so how is the muscle
actually growing what you have to
understand is is a little bit of how
um protein synthesis occurs so what I'm
generally meaning is you have a whole
bunch of amino acids and this actually
goes back to maybe like middle school
biology class right so if you take a
bunch of amino acids and you combine
them together we get these things called
a peptide right and if anyone who's ever
heard of like peptides that's all it
really means you put a bunch of those
together you have a poly peptide you put
a bunch of those together and we now
have a protein so any protein I want to
make is going to go through the exact
same system the exact same steps it
doesn't matter if that protein is going
to be a red blood cell it doesn't matter
if that's going to be a hair follicle
doesn't matter if it's going to be
skeletal muscle that's basically protein
synthesis so when we tend to think of
protein synthesis we we just paint this
picture of growing more muscle and
that's not the only thing and so when we
talk about the benefits of having high
quality muscle as being this place
that's going to regulate most of your
protein synthesis we tend to lose some
people because they're thinking oh I
don't need to gain muscle
and that's not what we're talking about
we're talking about regulating the
immune system or regular we're talking
about regulating any protein turnover so
any Protein that's degradated or needs
to be broken down in your in your system
at all autophagy this is the end like
this is such an important buzzword
um that's just protein breakdown of an
unneeded or damaged protein right that
whole thing is going to go through
protein synthesis to be able to come
back and replace the things the only
reason you go through autophagy so you
can clean that garbage out and then come
back and build in a more properly
functioning protein so it's not just
about growing more muscle mass it's why
you want these systems to be operating
well
so the protein ingestion is going to
just activate that Cascade because it's
basically saying oh hey look we have an
abundance of Supply here why don't we
make something out of it because we
don't know the next time this thing is
going to be around carbohydrates and fat
are very easy to store protein is very
challenging it's more transient and so
you can store some of it and keep it
around but most of it you're going to
lose and so when it's available your
body wants to act very quickly it
doesn't necessarily care if you have
extra fat floating around in your system
it's all right let's package it up and
store it we can easily bring this back
out but if you've got protein around
you're going to want to use it and so
that's why it alone will activate and
increase protein synthesis independent
of exercise so those effects are
additive like I said because that
signaling process is independent and
once you hit a rate limiting phase then
it you are you're there but at its onset
those things will work independently
okay so that being said what is skeletal
muscle hypertrophy in general we think
about it as this increase in contractile
proteins so those myosin and actin
effectively get thicker okay now what
happens is since they are thicker and as
I talked about a second ago that
influences and actually hurts the
lattice spacing and so what your body
does as a result is say hey let's
increase the diameter of the entire cell
so that we can maintain our spacing
between these things right it's
effectively like if you know the two of
us were sitting in this room and you
doubled in size and I was like well
you're in my personal space like and I
doubled in size now we're in each
other's space the at some point we just
have to make the room larger and that's
exactly what's happening in the cell and
so as you can continue to
increased muscle size you're going to
get a muscle myofibular accretion you're
going to continue to increase muscle
fiber size
for years there was this other comment
about
non-functional hypertrophy
and this is often called sarcoplasmic
hypertrophy now this is not sarcoplasm
particular this is a fancy way of saying
my muscle is larger but it has no
function and the question would be why
the hell is that possible if I have more
contractile units and I can make more of
these cross Bridges perform more of
these power strokes this is what these
contractions are called how could I
possibly be losing function
well
that was challenged for that was Bro
Science for a very very long time in
fact what it really came down to was are
there different types of hypertory
training some that induce contractile
protein hypertrophy and some that induce
the sarcoplasmic hypertree and that was
the significantly challenged until
recently
Mike Roberts did at Auburn did a series
of wonderful studies that showed quite
clearly that sarcoposmic hypertrophy is
probably happening and in fact there's
probably a pretty easy explanation in
general what happens is it is it is a
increase in fluid
in the muscle fiber
and so this would allow for the diameter
to be larger but since there's no
addition of contractile units no more
forced production happens and so he
actually has a wonderful review paper I
believe it's open access where you can
go look and he created a wonderful graph
um I think that's in my hypertrophy
videos on YouTube as well and you can
actually see that it's likely happening
in phasic changes throughout your
training experience so at the beginning
of your training but as as the years and
year or weeks rather than months and
then eventually years go by in your
training we have a change in the
hypertrophy that's coming from
contractile units versus sarcoplastic so
I think that is an important note
because
again people are wondering like how the
hell is it even possible for me to get
larger muscle and somehow I'm not
stronger well if it came from Simply
fluid retention and this is not bloating
this is not there's no negative really
to this it is simply holding a more
hydration in the cell diameter gets
larger and then everything works that
way
what you just described calls to mind
something similar in the nervous system
which is neuroplasticity which of course
is the nervous system's ability to
change in response to learning and
experience and damage for that matter
yep and we think about it as one term
but there are many different forms of
neuroplasticity a discussion that we
don't need to get into now but there's
Spike timing dependent plasticity and
ltp and long-term depression which has
nothing to do with psychological
depression and on and a pair pulse
facilitation and on and on and on in
short-term elasticity and so what I'm
starting to understand is that there are
many paths to what we call strength
increase and there are many paths to
what we think of as hypertrophy many of
these are going to operate in parallel
it's going to be rare that any one of
them is going to be active alone in
order to create hypertrophy or strength
changes and that certain forms of
exercise and certain ways of doing
exercises in terms of sets and
repetition schemes and rest intervals
between sets and between training
sessions are going to tap into different
mechanisms but also overlapping sets of
mechanisms which is why if I understand
correctly you mentioned at the beginning
that often not always but often strength
increases are associated with some
hypertrophy changes and hypertrophy
increases are often not always
associated with strength increases do I
have that right correct and the beauty
of this whole thing is while we don't
yet know the mechanisms specifically and
there's a lot of Confusion And there's a
lot of changes that happen there's uh we
actually just submitted a paper a few
days ago
um my stuff uh Jimmy Bagley at San
Francisco and Kevin murick at uh one has
a wonderful muscle physiology Lab at
Arkansas and we we actually this is a
very late article actually it's
incredibly easy to read
um we describe the the role of
myonucleation
in uh muscle my per tree
and there's actually a lot of energy
stuff we get into there but
um we're learning more and more about it
uh as a quick example so
skeletal muscle is unique in the fact
that it is so large in diameter it's
also unique in the fact it's
multinucleated what that means is
typically in biology you see like a cell
has one nucleus that's the place that
houses and holds the DNA and it's the
control center that was a degro shrink
die repair that whole thing well
skeletal muscle and human is awesome
because it has thousands if not more
there's nuclei which gives it that
plasticity and so a normal cell has one
place it has to go to for any time it
wants to upregulate down regulate do
whatever the thing is your muscle fibers
have these little control centers all
throughout them and for years we were
like okay great
the amount of hypertrophy that you can
experience is probably limited by the
amount of nuclei you have because you're
not going to exceed a certain size of
muscle fiber if that's going to mean you
lose control and so we're like okay
great we found and identified a limiting
factor to what will determine how much a
muscle can actually grow and then the
next question was and then where are
these things coming from and this is
where satellite cells come in and so it
was very clear a satellite cell that's
lying dormant sort of on the outside the
periphery of the fiber will then go in
um into the into the fibroid will turn
into a myonuclei and then it can
actually you know increase your diameter
like that and so then actually it was
like hey you're actually limited by the
amount of these satellite cells you can
get in and turn into nuclear and then
the evidence came out that showed hey
what if you D train so what if I used to
lift weights like a long time ago and I
got big but now I've lost a lot of my
muscle if I train again you actually get
that muscle back faster than it took you
the very first time to build it
like that's what we call muscle memory
like in our film now on your side
equation muscle memory is something
different rights and nervous when people
talk about muscle memory
um like the ability to ride a bicycle
after so many years of not having tried
to ride one that's actually
largely independent of the muscle it has
something to do with exclusively
Independence it's basically a nervous
system phenomenon 100 so muscle memory
uh has been co-opted by different
communities to mean different things
yeah so on our side muscle memory is
going to mean that ability to remember
that muscle size right that hypertrophy
because as you explained the motor
control thing is that it's a totally a
nerve thing that's the one I'll give you
this one right you guys the nerve people
can have this one well it seems to me
that there are a tremendous number of
parallels between strength and
hypertrophy
changes and neuroplasticity this is
coming up again and again in this
conversation
um because we know for instance that if
you are exposed to a couple of different
languages early on in life you will
learn any number of different languages
far more easily later in life of course
and that's because there's some
crossover between different languages
especially Latin based languages that
allows for that there's a substrate for
it it's similar to the the ability to
hop on a bicycle again phenomenon or
play an instrument phenomenon but it's
broader than that and again I think this
speaks to the huge number of different
adaptive changes that are occurring in
the cells and in the nerves that
innervate these cells when one
experiences increases in strength and
hypertrophy so to round that out
um and to go back to what I was saying
there what we're actually learning now
is that nucleation thing
and by the way this entire trajectory
story is probably over the last like
eight years like this is how fast we've
changed our understanding of how muscle
grows uh the sarcoplasmic reticulum
thing five years ago was was Bro Science
now it's it's pretty well established
the mononucleation thing was eight to
ten years ago it's changing every week
this paper we just submitted this week
showed actually why we had generally
thought a few years ago and in fact you
can find me on podcasts and probably in
some of my videos talking about this and
I'm going to tell you right now those
things are wrong like we've just had new
things come out these last couple years
where that D training effect we thought
was a reason of well what happens is if
you had the muscle before
and you've brought in these nuclei and
they differentiated and turned into into
nuclei
and then the muscle got small again you
would preserve those nuclei and that's
why when you go to train again they were
already around so the muscle grows
faster the second time they did the
first time well now it looks like that's
actually not the case in fact it's
actually probably hap what's happening
is it's a it's a epigenetic change
in the nuclei's ability to access the
DNA needed to grow muscle it's
effectively
the analogy we used it's the nuclei are
remembering how to ride a bike so it's
quite funny that you said that because
it's not really necessarily that they're
being preserved over time they have
learned the sequence it takes to grow
the protein there and it goes it happens
faster the second time and we've also
learned that there are specific nuclei
we've known this for actually a while we
found this in our lab and we didn't
Discover it we just we saw this in our
sum of our Harbors but there are
different shapes the nuclei some are
more oval some are more elongated and
the shape determines a lot of the
functions some of them are hanging out
more towards the periphery and some of
them are hanging out right around the
nucleus well it looks like there's
actually probably different types of
nuclei a lot of them that are specific
to the mitochondria in fact you can see
like on some of the Imaging we have
you're just like they're just packed
around the the ma the mitochondria and
there are some that are probably
specific to injury repair
and so this is probably explaining a lot
of the the individual variation I mean I
know you've you've said previously like
you're just a very you're very slow at
recovery
there's a lot of things that go into
that and I would I would love to walk
through sort of all the buckets uh maybe
later into recovery but one of the
inherent genetic variations this could
be simply that you maybe have more or
less of the nuclei responsible for
tissue repair
um that's something that's been
happening in the last like handful of
months that's been coming out we'll see
if that holds up as true or not
um so as we're learning more and more
almost every day about muscle physiology
what's super fun and interesting and I
think the most exciting
what to do in order in terms of like how
to train and how to eat and how to do
everything else to get these adaptations
has been pretty well established for a
long long time we're just figuring out
how like what's happening in the muscle
now but we know what to do so from a
practical standpoint putting together
protocols for any outcome that you want
or don't want
for any modality you don't have a gym
you have uh weights you have dumbbells
only you only have kettlebells you don't
want to you only use body weight we can
you only have three days a week you have
seven days a week you wanna maximize
muscle growth you want to get a Little
Bit Stronger any of these variables you
want to throw at me we have a large
evidence base for exactly how to get
those adaptations and not others so
while we have a lot to learn about the
mechanisms and the physiology we have
pretty good legs to stand on in terms of
what to do to get whatever adaptations
you want so what are the essential
components of an effective strength and
hypertrophy protocol okay so what I
would like to actually do is is walk you
through both of those because as we
mentioned before they overlap but the
training needs to be differentiated so
that you can optimize either strength
hypertrophy or if you actually want you
can get a combination of both this
allows you to then get the adaptation
you want avoid ones you don't want and
then get it even a combination if that's
the preference so a lot of people will
talk about I want to get a little
stronger I want to add some muscle
that's a different answer than someone
who wants to truly maximize muscle which
is a different answer from somebody who
maximizes wants to maximize strength
which is a different answer from
somebody wants to Max my strength but
not actually gain muscle so we have all
these combinations what's important to
understand before we get into the
details
there's a couple of things number one
we've been teasing this concept so far
of the concepts are few but the methods
are many and so I want to hit those
Concepts right now these are as you as
you say these are the non-negotiables
that have to happen in any training
program and I'm referring to these in
the strength and I particular
conversation but these are true of power
development speed development muscular
endurance uh endurance any other thing
these are things that just have to
happen for any training program to work
I mentioned one uh a little bit earlier
which was adherence and so that my
frequent collaborator Dan Garner will
constantly say consistency beats
intensity
um again in fact the literature will
show you very clearly inherence
um is the number one predictor of
physical fitness outcomes so we want to
do something that you will engage in
we'll uh you'll put effort into and
you'll be able to repeat consistently
over time so that's number one
the second one is and this is a major
reason that people don't hit their
fitness goals in fact I would argue
outside of not doing it the number one
mistake they make is Progressive
overload so I'm going to walk you
through exactly how much you should be
increasing
um your sets and Reps and weight Etc per
week per month later but that's the
biggest thing you have got to have some
sort of overload the body works as an
adaptation mechanism right so in fact we
talked previously about the Harvard
fatigue lab and one of the things
actually people don't realize is the
concept of homeostasis is actually comes
from research of the Harvard fatigue lab
it was um work that they did on an
endurance Runner I forget his name and
they sort of realized that after a long
period of time working out this is an
acute exercise spell the body actually
comes back to some stable place despite
the fact he was continuing to work and
that's exactly what bore the phrase
steady state
and that actually then they launched off
and said wow there's this state that the
body wants to be in and we'll call this
homeostasis so those all Concepts came
out of exercise physiology which is
really really cool right um we don't get
a lot of love a lot of times
scientifically but that's a good one
that we took so why that all matters is
we have got to achieve some sort of
overload without uh going excess so
we'll cover that later uh exactly what
to do and we'll potentially get into
over training and monitoring and
mattering things like that but you have
to have some sort of consistent
predictable overload that's what's going
to cause adaptation to continue to cause
stress if you don't do that you can
still do things like burn calories you
can still get some of the other benefits
of exercise like improved mood cognitive
function
etc etc flexibility increases all those
can happen without a progressive
overload but if you want to see these
gains in strength and hypertrophy you
really need to progressively overload so
that's concept number two
the third one here is going to be
individualization and this is where we
can get into things like personal
preference
you know equipment availability you have
kettlebells or dumbbells you only have
bands we have none of that these are all
smaller details but that's an important
component to it
the last one I really want to get into
is picking the appropriate Target and we
went through this when we talked about
the fitness protocol and and if you run
through something like that and you run
some testing and figure out where your
biggest limitations are that's going to
help you identify where you need to go
so if you can do all those things
you're going to be in a good spot to
balance specificity
and variation
all right so if you want to make sure
you grow your biceps you better make
sure your biceps are working having said
that if you over rely on specificity
you're going to increase the likelihood
of overuse injuries which is going to
come back and actually hamper
consistency over time
all right so this is when hedging
towards specificity is important but too
much can cause a problem if you go the
other direction and you go with too much
variation so imagine you're just sort of
doing all kinds of different exercises
every time you you work out that's
actually not enough stimuli directly on
the muscle or muscle groups or movement
pattern if you're wanting to learn a new
movement
um to get you very far and so this is a
classic problem of I'm doing a lot of
work but I don't have a very clear
Direction I lack specificity so I'm
working but I'm not seeing a lot of
improvements and this is like in the
business World Etc this is like doing a
whole bunch of different things means
you get nothing really done so that's
the game we're gonna play here right how
do we overload this stuff how do we make
sure we're balancing specificity and
variation how do we make sure I want to
do this and then how do I individualize
it for my needs and circumstances and
and movement restrictions and of time
availability and my calendar and desires
and all these things so those are the
concepts we absolutely have to hit
the methods that we choose
run across a handful of variables and we
call these things modifiable variables
because as you modify them or you make
different choices within these variables
you get different outcomes or
adaptations this is exactly what
determines the nine adaptations that
we've been talking about so the way that
I like to say this is
exercises do not determine adaptation
so you can't simply go I want to get
stronger therefore I'm going to choose
these exercises
that's not how it works what determines
adaptation is the execution
of the exercises so a deadlift is my
favorite example a deadlift is a common
example that people think of when they
want to choose a lower body strength
exercise but a deadlift will not
increase your strength unless you're
executing it in the proper fashion I'm
not even talking about technique here
I'm talking about these modifiable
variables the same thing for power
exercises we'll commonly see mistakes of
doing uh activities like a box jump
which is great people think oh I'm going
to improve my power
which we know is extremely highly
correlated to activities of daily living
and particularly living unassisted as
you age right is reduction in power so
they'll do an activity like a box jump
what they're failing to realize is
unless you do it powerfully
you won't actually increase power
if you don't move fast you won't get
faster so the the way that we manipulate
these variables is everything to
determining the adaptation you get or
again don't get so with that Foundation
I think we can kind of run right into
these things and we can start off with
perhaps speed and power and what I would
like to do is walk you through
all those modifiable variables what to
do with them and then hit you with as
many different methodologies as we
really have time for
and then we'll move on to strength and
hypertrophy and kind of round the entire
thing out and then maybe at the end we
can talk some other variables like
what happens if I have a training
protocol
and I'm halfway through and I can't
finish my workout what should I do
reduce my weight or reduce my duration
or things like that so there's lots of
what-if scenarios that we can go through
that potentially a lot of people
listening have questions about so sound
like a plan sounds like a plan
I'd like to take a brief break to
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that's insidetracker.com huberman to get
20 off so just interrupt briefly and
make sure that I and everybody else have
in mind the proper nine adaptations that
we've been referring to and that were
discussed in detail in episode one
I have listed number one skill and
technique number two speed number three
power which is speed times Force number
four strength number five hypertrophy
number six muscular endurance number
seven
anaerobic capacity number eight maximal
aerobic capacity and number nine long
duration steady state exercise yep you
nailed it thank you for for that it was
probably important clarification for
everybody
um so that being said let's jump right
into speed and power now I'll do these a
little bit simultaneously they are
different if you're a high performance
athlete you really need to separate
these two things
for the most people that we can probably
think about them is is the same thing
there's not a lot of pure speed training
that the general public is is interested
in um if you want to actually further
break down speed there are multiple
components there's acceleration there's
top end velocity there's change of
direction or agility and things like
that so we'll just kind of call All That
speed and power for now now at the onset
there's this three to five concept that
we talked about many times
where this is really fairly true for
speed power or strength now I I didn't
develop the three to five it's just an
easy way to help you remember one
concept that will run true across all
these things so three to five it refers
to
three to five days per week
uh pick three to five exercises and
you're gonna do three to five
repetitions per set
you'll do three to five sets and you'll
rest three to five minutes between each
set
if you do that and you execute any of
the exercises that you choose at a high
intent and that part is critical you
don't get faster by moving kind of fast
you can't improve Power by moving like
and powerfully you have to be trying
regardless of whether actually moving
faster or not
anytime you're talking about speed or
power you're by definition using sub
maximal weights so you're going to be
able to lift it that's not the question
the question is how fast can you lift
that Implement and so intention is
incredibly important so if you do that
the same for strength by the way
so if you land on that that allows you
to run the gamut from as little as three
days a week
you're doing a three exercises you're
gonna do three sets of three which is a
very very low volume it's a a very low
amount of days easy to handle all the
way to five sets of five of five
exercises five days a week so it it's
again it's just one sample that's
something easy to remember and is quite
effective for a very long time and this
has been tested quite extensively in in
both the coaching Realms as well as the
scientific Realms to be quite productive
and easy to follow and grasp if you do
that all you need to do is slightly
increase the load
or the volume but mostly the load over
time and the number we want to look for
there is something like a three to five
percent increase
per week so an example would be if
you're going to do
an exercise at 100 pounds you can't
necessarily just add five pounds every
week that's going to touch you pretty
quickly and so you may have to run some
a smaller increment if you're doing like
a lower body exercise where you might
have a couple of hundred pounds on the
weight you can probably get away with
adding five pounds because it's still a
low percentage of the total load so
that's roughly uh the guide that we want
to get to for speed power and strength
so that sounds incredibly simple and
effective
yet I have a number of questions
first off
if somebody is using the three to five
approach does that mean they should not
be doing any other weight training of
any kind
in those workouts or at all
no you can certainly do that in
combination with anything else you would
like especially if you think about speed
and power those are very non-fatiguing
and so if you can imagine you're going
to go to the beach and you're going to
take a 10 pound to 20 pound medicine
ball with you and you're going to do you
know four different exercises or you're
throwing the medicine ball as high as
you can in the air four times in a row
taking a break and you two or three hits
that you do maybe three or four
different types of throws that's very
good for improving power extremely good
but it's not very fatiguing so you could
certainly finish that workout in 20
minutes and then run on and then do any
number of other things so you could do
some high intensity and aerobic capacity
work you could do steady state stuff you
could you could even do hypertrophy on
top of that so there's a there's two
major categories of what we call
periodization there's there's many many
of them but the two that have the most
scientific literature are what's called
linear periodization
and another is called undulating or
often daily undulating periodization and
I'm flagging these two
again despite the fact there are many
many more because they represent two
different concepts which you actually
just touched upon so linear
periodization is a hallmarked by
basically saying we're going to train
one adaptation at a time so imagine
going say six to eight weeks and you're
only doing strength or you're only doing
hypertrophy you're endurance for that
matter so in that particular case
you you would not do anything else in
combination
if you contrast that to undulating
periodization you would actually be
doing multiple different styles of
training even with either within the
same day
or just different days so it could be
Monday is power Wednesday is strength
Friday's hypertrophy whatever or it
could be a little bit of strength every
single day a little bit I perch for
every day a little bit of power every
day and you would just change the amount
of each that you do within the day to
alter the emphasis all right now
if you look at the studies and there
have been many uh rcts on this
the result of both of these training
programs is generally basically the same
thing they are equally effective
here's the major difference though one
if your goal is very specific to one
outcome you want a hedge toward
specificity so if you're like hey I'm
trying to maximize the amount of muscle
I can build in the next eight weeks then
you don't really anything else besides
that is just distraction and potential
interference
does it really matter or not it doesn't
matter but it's not helping anything
else
so linear periodization is is
fundamental at providing focus and
therefore the the adaptations tend to be
oftentimes larger in that specific area
that downside is you now go six to eight
to ten weeks of doing nothing else and
so you were losing those other
adaptations that are great at a faster
rate and you can imagine doing something
like speed work only again speed work by
definition is non-fatiguing so when
oftentimes we think of speed work it's
like oh I did ladder drills and I did
all these things and like I threw up at
the end
that's not speed work you just did a
different type of endurance training
okay which is great and important so
true speed work is very high rest
very low fatigue and actually truly
trying to reach a new level of speed or
velocity
so non-fatiguing if you did that
exclusively for 10 weeks you would be
pretty unfit by the end of it because
you did you would also lose a decent
amount of muscle mass not because
there's an interference effect but
simply because the fact you have not
stimulated muscle growth for eight to
ten weeks and so neither one of these is
better than the other we're going to see
this classically across all program
design or periodization strategies is
it's just a it's a give and take there
are tons of different systems and and
perhaps at the end we can talk about
some of the more advanced periodization
Styles these ones are are both effective
you could do these with beginners you
could do these with Advanced athletes
you can do them any Spectrum but they're
they're some of the more well-documented
ones it's just a pro and con game right
it's what are you willing to give up
the way that you solve that problem is
going back to that fitness assessment
and your analysis and really truly
understanding what your goal is is your
goal to do a little bit of strength and
a little bit okay great maybe undulated
periodization is an approach if your
goal is really to maximize strength
and maybe you can wait on putting some
muscle mass on maybe a linear
periodization is a better report or
another style of periodization that's
optimal for strength gain so it's just
simply about addressing your things one
of the major problems folks have in
addition to lacking Progressive overload
is they don't have any foresight past
the next day of the training right and
so it's really important that you set
off blocks that are anywhere between six
to 12 weeks long
where you're going to have the specific
plan ideally you have an idea for the
whole year I actually have like a
structure I could walk you through for
that but even if you don't have that
really think about what you want the
next 12 weeks and then maybe the next 12
weeks after that and that's going to
give you a lot of guidance about what to
do and what to focus on
terrific what about warming up
I was taught that one should do higher
repetition movements with lighter
weights in order to warm up and then one
of the things that did make a big
positive difference for me in terms of
strength and hypertrophy training was to
do a moderate repetition warm-up with a
fairly lightweight but then to actually
keep the number of warm-up repetitions
fairly low
and work progressively toward the first
so-called work set when you say three to
five
that's three to five work sets correct
yep
are you also going to tell me three to
five warm-ups no are you also going to
tell me it has to be done between three
and five pm
so in terms of five friends in all
seriousness uh what does a good warm-up
look like yeah and I realize this will
vary depending on how cool your training
environment is time of day Etc but as a
kind of umbrella for a good warm-up okay
what should people do
the you've already sort of jumped the
gun with with my answer it it is
honestly very dependent upon the person
so some folks respond very well to a
minimum work well others I've had lots
of actually
um professional fighters I've worked
with where they'll actually have a major
league baseball player right now he's
one of the best pitchers in the game
probably the best and the longer we warm
up the better his numbers get we
actually did a vertical jump test with
him he's gonna kill me because he got so
mad uh I wanted to see how long it sort
of took him to reach a peak vertical
jump
and most times this takes people
something like five to ten sort of reps
and I said take it up all the way to a
maximum vertical jump
and then what I want you to do is
continue to Jumping until you have three
consecutive jumps or you're down lower
than 90 percent
and so what we're trying to look at is
sort of when is he going to break
because in baseball he's going to throw
like 100 pitchers or so and we're trying
to figure out when is his Peak velocity
on his fastball gonna drop and sort of
basis conditioning on that so it's a
different style of conditioning it's
power endurance is really what it is
um he called me in the middle of it I'm
like oh you're done whatever and he's
just like no like how many of these am I
supposed to do
and I was like what are you talking
about he's like I'm on rep 130 or
something and I was like what
and I'm like what rep did you peek on he
peeked on rep 70. something like that 69
I think technically because he's goofy
um so he's a classic example I've worked
in for many many years we have a ton of
data on him a ton of biological data a
ton of um neural muscular stuff like all
kinds of stuff and it just the more he
warms up an absurd amount of warm-up the
better he gets and the better he gets in
power production and the better he gets
in speed and velocity so his warm-up
prior to games is it's totally absurd
and just the more volume we throw at him
the better he does I have other folks
you get past like two or three reps and
fatigue starts to set in and now you're
actually like reducing power production
so there is a ton of variation that goes
in that I can give you some guidelines
though
you need to differentiate if you're
training for speed power strength or
hypertrophy here's why
if we understand a little bit about
what's causing the adaptation that's
going to tell you what you need to do or
avoid for example
volume is the primary driver in
hypertrophy
intensity is the primary driver in speed
power and strength
all right which what that means is you
need to preserve intensity for the first
three you need to preserve volume in the
second one at most so if your warm-up is
so extensive in the hypertrophy training
that it compromises your training volume
because of fatigue even if it
compromises the last set of the last
exercise then you're actually probably
walking yourself backwards by doing that
extensive you would have been better off
starting your first working set slightly
sub-optimal
right because it's not really you're
just trying to accrue volume at that
point
strength Empower is the opposite
until you're moving very very fast or
powerfully you're not really causing the
adaptation so there's no point of
starting your working set until you're
really basically at a hundred percent so
the warm-up should be as long as it
takes you to get to where your Mobility
is in the right spot like your joints
feel good you feel fresh you feel
activated and you really feel Peak power
anything before that is a warm-up set in
the sport of Olympic weightlifting a lot
of times the coaches will measure
barbell velocity Travis Mash has done a
fantastic job with this he's got a lot
of data on what's called velocity-based
training I'm Brian Mann at Missouri and
Miami tons of work here and generally
those communities are not going to count
any repetition as a working set until
you exceed 70 of your one rep max
where that's changed because of a lot of
people doing the velocity-based stuff is
now they're basing that simply on an
achieved velocity
and so really the warm-up is irrelevant
they don't even it's sort of just like
do whatever you want and we're going to
measure the barbell until you actually
hit an outcome and now you're at what a
working set
um so different ways to think about it
um depending on what you're training for
that'll give you a little bit of a
guideline if you're training for
anything past hypertrophy then really
and especially even hypertrophy it just
comes down to
are you feeling
um ready to work are you cold are you
moving to the correct positions and if
all those things are fine I don't care
if you start a little bit early and save
some gas then especially if you're a
person like you who may be a bit more
inclined to fatigue quickly relative to
Trevor who's just has no response to
fatigue whatsoever
is it useful to do more warm-up at the
beginning of a workout say before the
first exercise and then once one has
achieved both local and systemic warm-up
in air quotes
um then perhaps on the second or third
exercise fourth exercise Etc
one or maybe even zero warm-ups yeah
fair point we generally think about
warm-ups in a couple of ways this is a
really actually this is a very clever
question
you want to have some sort of General
Global warm-up scheme we tend to prefer
Dynamic warm-ups so this is whole body
movements rather than like sitting and
stretching static stretching things like
that so something that involves momentum
yeah momentum or movement right so this
is like
uh
think about this in like old gym class
it's like your high knees and your butt
kickers and just different things like
that where you're moving in different
planes you're moving joints through tons
of range of motion you're getting a lot
of movement there so you're getting the
local warm-up you're also getting the
the total systemic activation everything
else is going on there so that is what
we consider to be a general warm-up five
minutes
is a very sufficient number perhaps 10
if you're a slow goer achy and some
things like that and you really got to
get the ankle warmed up if you're doing
lower body stuff really make sure that
that's moving correctly the hips and
knees will follow
um upper body stuff really get the
shoulder blades and the neck like making
sure you're going there and the elbows
will follow after that
um so five to seven minutes of a general
warm-up a lot of times like classic
exercise science it will even just put
you on a bike cycling for five minutes I
don't like that personally Dynamic
movement is more preferred if you really
just move for five to seven minutes
you'll be fine there now specificity
within each movement it's very important
that your first exercise of the day is
generally the thing you've prioritize
that's oftentimes the most important
you're going to do it often times is
also the most complex and the most
moving parts so it tends to be
multi-joint it tends therefore you need
to have movement precision and skill
diode right you don't typically start
your workouts off with the forearm curl
all right like this you don't need a
tremendous amount of warm-up to get
going on that you're going to start off
with medicine ball throws or a snatch or
some agility work you you need to have
the whole system going because multiple
joints are moving position matters
technique there's just a lot of skill
requirement
Etc
so the individualized workout
um or the specific workout for the
specific movement for that very first
one
my general rule of thumb is like
whatever it takes
to move perfect in that first exercise
past that you don't necessarily need to
do individualized warm-ups for your next
movements unless it is a movement you're
trying to learn or just even get a
little bit better at
like drop the load a little bit work on
some accruing some practice reps
fantastic or it's another dissimilar
complex movement so let's say your first
exercise was
a front squat and you got loaded for
that and now you're going to move into a
pull-up but your mechanics aren't the
best there and so you really need to
change and do some maybe more specific
activation warm-ups for that or
something else or it's running or
something totally different so yeah you
don't need to re-warm up for every
single exercise as you go generally once
you're good to go the same muscles that
you're going to use in the next exercise
are warm same joints
then you're good to go
you talked about intent
within the movement
what about specific cadences for
repetitions yeah I was taught that one
should lower the weight slowly the
so-called eccentric portion of the
movement and then to try and
explode the weight through the
concentric phase and then also make sure
that one is using full range of motion
and perfect form yeah as it were now of
course that is one tiny slice of the
possible
rep cadences and ways to approach
resistance training although I think
it's a pretty good one yeah what are the
general parameter sets that one needs to
consider you could imagine lifting you
know four seconds concentric pause for
one pause for two
eccentric I realize there's an infinite
number of variations here yeah but is
there a way to use rep Cadence
repetition Cadence that is as a way to
work through weak points
um and to be strong in every position of
the movement yeah a lovely question I
think the
the way I would like to answer this
is
maybe going back just a touch to get
directly to that so I think if we walk
through Power strength and hypertrophy
and I hit you with the concepts that are
specific to each one
that's going to lay out your answer
because the most true answer there is it
depends on the goal the answer for what
is optimal for strength is diametrically
opposed for potentially what's optimized
hypertrophy the same exact thing can be
said for momentum so we've classically
heard things like this you know don't
bounce at the bottom you're cheating
right so if you're doing a lap pull down
or something you know you don't you
don't bounce and rebound you don't you
stop at the bottom slow down all these
things are thought to be truisms of
strength conditioning but guess what
those are all truisms assuming
or trying to grow muscle
and that's that actually goes back to
our conversation and and episode one
about a lot of the things we think are
just fundamental truths about strength
training are just fundamental truths
that came from the bodybuilding world
and they're not wrong they're good ideas
but they're all their adaptations one
needs to get from strength training that
are not just maximizing muscle growth so
what I will lay out to you is a case for
which you should bounce
a case for when you should go fast a
case for when you should be under
control all these things are are
different variables we can modify and
get different adaptations for it is
there a way that you could lay out for
us
optimal repetition cadences for
strength specifically versus hypertrophy
specifically just to sort of bookend the
conversation and then migrate toward the
middle in terms of rep cadences that
would satisfy the desire to have a bit
of both we can get pretty close
yeah so when you're talking about
strength versus hypertrophy remember
strength is a movement
hypertrophy is muscle size
that's that's the the key to your answer
here so when you're trying to get
stronger what you're effectively trying
to do is get better at producing a
certain amount of Force 3 movement okay
now Force
is mass times acceleration
so what's the mass in the bar multiplied
by how well I can accelerate it
intentionally going slower
is only reducing acceleration
right so it's hard to argue that going
slower
is going to improve strength because
you're simply reducing acceleration
so you need to practice
lifting heavier at a faster rate now
does that mean if you're trying to get
stronger there are no phases of your
training in which you'll slow down or
plus no of course not there are certain
rules in different organizations where
you have to pause the bottom like
there's all kinds of little things like
there but in general we want to think
about what are we trying to do here
we're trying to get better at moving a
heavier Mass
at a faster rate of acceleration that is
more force that is more strength
hypertrophy is not that
the goal here is not a functional
outcome it is what is needed to cause
the most amount of hypertrophy
and when you get to ipertory then your
optimal Cadence
is up to you
you can do any combination in fact you
could do it the same exact Cadence that
you did your strength training with and
get the same adaptations as a poetry if
you modify the other variables
appropriately or you could go slower or
you could do pauses or you could do a
thing that is called triphasic training
where you spend the first phase several
weeks of your training where you do
eccentrics only so you're just lowering
the bar and you're basically stopping
you can then do the next phase of your
training which is isometrics you're just
holding at that bottom position and then
the next phase you're training you're
focusing on the concentric portion of it
right triphasic one two three eccentric
isometric concentric so that's a
fantastic way of developing actually
strength a little bit of hypertrophy but
you're manipulating the variables in
terms of how you execute the repetition
range you can actually induce a lot of
hypertrophy moving the weight fast as
you mentioned even down slow under
control now
one thing one will never Advocate is
moving any sort of weight or load
uncontrolled the Assumption here when
I'm saying go fast is you're always in
control I never want you bouncing and
crushing your sternum with the barbell
Off Your Dust but you you can move at a
lot of rates you can um the isometric I
mentioned because this is when things
like body weight training come into play
absolutely you can gain strength and
even a little bit of hypertrophy
especially in the upper body doing
isometrics is much harder to do this but
the lower body
um you just you just you outrun that
coverage really quickly you need load
but there's a lot of ways this is also
probably why people have done things
like
gone to yoga only or Pilates or some of
these things that are body weight based
and there's no external load and they've
actually increased muscle size so I'm
getting the picture there are a ton of
options in terms of rep cadences
however
can we say that one should pick a given
rep Cadence within an exercise rather
than changing it from set to set within
an exercise or that one should perhaps
even pick a certain rep Cadence for an
entire workout I'm suspecting that your
answer is going to be it depends yeah it
is but if you know I'm not going to use
the if you had a gun to your head kind
of situation but if you had a gun to
your head what would be the rep Cadence
that you would prescribe yeah
for strictly strength or as much
strength with as little hypertrophy as
possible and in picking that rep Cadence
then it therefore has to thread
throughout the entire exercise bout so
you're actually right you can because of
that undulating periodization stuff I
talked about you can actually do this in
a lot of ways so you could do one
exercise at the beginning where you have
a set Cadence say a three one one it is
like a very one so that's con so that's
Lifting for three pause for one lower
for one uh be generally the opposite
okay so the first number is always The
Eccentric generally okay so depending on
exercise lowering the the weight for a
count of three yeah pause for one yeah
it totally depends on the exercise like
a deadlift starts concentric and
finishes eccentric but a bench press
starts yeah okay so it's start to finish
start to finish is the better way to
think about it yeah so in
I'll clarify actually
when we say 3-1-1 we're generally
talking about almost always The
Eccentric is the slower portion
regardless if it's the first or the last
right so whether you're doing a bench
press or The Eccentric is lowering the
bar to your chest that's the first part
of the movement one two three pause one
one up which means accelerate as hard as
you can the way up that's what you
describe right as opposed to say a row a
row which is actually going to be
starting off concentric
so you're going to be pulling that thing
to your chest as fast as you can under
control not slamming off your chest
holding for one second and then taking
three seconds to lower it back on the
rack or on the ground or whatever so the
reason we do that is somewhat intuitive
but it is again to make sure you're not
advancing a bar or an Implement onto
your physical body at an extremely fast
rate that that's very difficult to deal
with so a three one one is a very
standard
um strength protocol that is something
you can just run with if that's all you
ever wanted to do it'd be absolutely
fine lower the bar for a count of three
it actually ends up being approximately
three hardly anybody is counting off
seconds precisely I mean it's I suppose
it's doable but then pausing briefly yep
and that brief is almost uh that pause
is almost
um unmeasurable it is simply are you
under control before you transition from
the center to concentricular
concentration it's just a safety thing
so once you feel down you've reached
complete range of motion you're ready to
transition then just go you don't really
need to go like 1000 Watts and then go
up it's just making sure again we don't
slam weights off of body parts and that
final one in the three one one the
execution of the usually concentric
portion of of the exercise yep as fast
as you possibly can okay so that would
be for
the majority of the outcome being
strength yep okay and of course we
should acknowledge again there are a ton
of variations that one could Implement
there but that that would be a good
starting place on the opposite side for
somebody who's mainly interested in
hypertrophy yeah what would be the rep
Cadence that
um if you had a gun to your head that
you would prescribe I would probably do
the exact same thing but I would like I
would make the last number two
so three one two
you could also just keep three one on it
is still very fine even exploding on the
contrast is still highly effective for
training hypertrophy so if you want to
keep it super simple and just make rep
Cadence not a variable that you play
with because you have other ones to move
that's great if you want to add a little
bit of time to the concentric phase fine
it's not going to do it's not going to
make enough of a difference for most
people for you to really worry about
I guess that's sort of the point I
really want to make this is we're
classically this is a classic example of
we're deep into a method
right if as long as you get the concepts
I talked about earlier whether you want
to do three one one three two three
three three three try phase this is just
a method choice that doesn't mean
they're irrelevant they are there are
subtle changes within them it's just 80
20 rule right so 80 of the benefit is
going to be from the concept 20 is this
small thing if you're super into this
field or you actually want to work with
a qualified uh certified coach or
something they there's lots of reasons
to play with this if you're just on your
own here and running this thing
311 is fine 312 totally fine anything
like that you really just want to make
sure that in the strength side of the
equation
you're under control and you can add
enough load to stimulate strength and
not get hurt with an acute trauma right
on the hypertrophy side you're just
wanting to load enough to where you can
hit volume
because you got to put a lot on there so
if you want to go lighter if you want to
go slower fine you if you go slower in
your repetition so maybe even like a
five SEC second eccentric a two second
pause a three second Rise that's great
you can actually then stimulate the same
amount of hypertrophy and either do it
with less weight
or do it with less repetitions so it's a
variable you can play with if you're
like hey
I don't have
enough weights at my house or I only
have a kettlebell or a dumbbell
how am I going to stimulate hypertrophy
your only option is really doing more
reps well eventually that that train
runs pretty shallow okay here's the
thing you can play with maybe just add
time under tension that's what we're
calling right just you know do slower
repetitions go longer ones and hold it
so it's a variable that we use to
individualize programs rather than
something that you should really be
focused on as like a core aspect that's
going to be driving whether or not your
program works it's just a tool we can
play with in the what-if scenarios
um I will use this stuff a lot when I'm
traveling you can do a tremendous
workout in your hotel room just doing
like a 10 second eccentric a 10 second
hold a 10 Centric concentric yeah I've
had some decent hotel room workouts
they're not my preference but
um by simply doing things like
um 10 second lowering uh handstand push
up against the door totally
um obviously assisted for me I don't I
can't do a free handstand push-up yeah
um I just don't have the skill or the
strength or both
um you can do some sort of configured
dips between the beds or chairs and this
kind of thing
um squats are great to do in hotels put
your back foot up on a on a bed and get
a an amazing split squat workout done
yeah a lot glute Bridges lots of stuff
you can do that yeah with a jump rope if
you've ever heard someone jumping in the
in the morning yeah
um it may or may not have been me it
could be any number of things but I am
known to skip rope in uh in hotel rooms
um not to get overly detailed but I
think there are going to be a number of
people wondering about
how to breathe during repetitions
and how to breathe in between sets so
I'd like to just briefly touch on this
and this is something that I know we're
going to return to again when we have
our discussion about recovery but is
there a general rule of thumb for how to
breathe during repetitions during work
yep for strength maybe even strength
versus hypertrophy in in a way that
maximizes oxygen input to the system you
know keeps you uh alert and conscious
but that also protects the body by
creating some rigidity in the system
right because certainly being def with
all your exhale the body is a very
different beast in terms of stability
than with the body full of air versus
you know breathing during the repetition
movement there's a maneuver that is long
been uh labeled the valsalva techniques
so what that really means is you're
trying to use air to create
intra-abdominal pressure and what you're
really trying to do is create a cylinder
around your spine the real issue you
have to to play here is regulation of
blood pressure and spinal stability now
you should be able to breathe and Brace
what I mean by that is you should be
able to create total intra-abdominal
pressure regulate uh spine control while
breathing it's just very hard for a lot
of people to do it's a skill you should
absolutely work on you can actually you
can do this and you can go around like I
do this trick in class and students can
come and they can push any part
um of my entire abdomen it's super tight
and I can talk now it's going to be a
little bit labored you can hear a little
bit of a difference but you should be
able to do that if you have to like
hunch down and you can't even muster
your breath and it takes that to create
pressure you're not actually you don't
really understand the abdominal control
necessary to create that stability so
step number one is that's the goal now
with the blood pressure thing we have to
be careful because a standard blood
pressure ideally if we sat around right
now
it was probably something like 120 over
80. systolic versus diastolic that's a
normal number right high blood pressure
is something over that well
with an acute bout of exercise you can
see that number reach as high as like
450 over 350. which effectively means
you have total blood occlusion right
your blood pressure is so high blood is
not moving anywhere and it's in the
middle of a very heavy set especially
complex movements especially when
they're loaded on your body this could
be an overhead press or squat variations
anything like that blood pressure is
going to be a problem and the reason why
that matters is that's what's going to
make you pass out it's not the fact that
you ran out of oxygen in three seconds
it's the fact that blood pressure got so
high you blocked out and so we want to
have we're gonna have to play this game
of releasing a little bit of the
pressure so we can actually get blood to
move a little bit making sure that
we don't lose spinal stability so we can
finish our workout that's really the
question you asked right how do I play
this game of oh I have several hundred
pounds on my back or my chest and I
don't want to Exhale
right so I don't lose spinal stability
but at the same time I don't want to
pass out right which is which is a
problem so a kind of a couple of rules
of thumb if you're going to be doing
something in which you can complete the
entire exercise without a breath
and it is of a maximal or close to load
that's probably your best strategy so in
that particular case you'll see a lot of
breathing techniques where you're going
to take a very large inhale
ideally this is done through the abdomen
not the shoulders so we shouldn't seeing
clavicles Rising during this thing
you'll see a common mistake of of the
bars on their back and you see people do
this like big inhale thing and all they
do is Elevate their collabos that's not
necessarily going to increase pressure
through the abdomens which is what
you're looking for so you want to be
thinking about belly moving out in all
four areas in front of you to your left
and right and to your back that's that
quadrant sort of idea of stabilizing
your spine you can do that independent
of your clavicles moving like your
shoulders don't need to rise for that
you don't really need the oxygen for
metabolic purposes you're just using the
air for a brace that's really all you're
after so you're trying to visualize your
torso is more or less a cylinder yep and
you're trying to fill it with air
the logic being that if I were to push
down onto a say a full unopened can of
soda yep water
for all your sugar phobes out there soda
water
uh and then
push as hard as I could it's going to be
hard for me to crush that can but if the
can were empty or if it were a little
bit kinked in the middle correct then I
could likely Crush that can yeah what
you're really doing is you have your
spinal Erectors in the back right and
then a whole series of abdominal
exercises and you actually have some
neural control systematic control of
Contracting those but the you don't have
muscles on the inside
that you can do so you're basically
bringing in air and saying I'll use air
to push from the inside out and I'll use
muscles to push from the outside in to
create this brace and I don't want over
compression with the muscles this is a
like if you if you see people that have
just enormous spinal Erectors
sometimes that's an indicator of
actually a poor breathing or bracing
strategy because they're using spinal
rectors to create all their compression
and not actually using the inside enough
that's not always the case but sort of
like a thing to think about so over
compression through the spinal rectus is
not necessarily ideal if you wanted the
best scenario is a little bit of a brace
of both so we use some air to push this
side we use some musculature depressed
that way and then that that spine is
just nicely
held in position again not in a position
where I've locked down my diaphragm and
I can't get any air out I should be able
to get that brace pattern and then be
able to speak in fact like I'm doing it
right now and you'll see like a little
bit of if you're really paying attention
to my voice you can hear a little bit of
a subtle difference but I should be able
to do this for quite a long time
right like I I could take a maximum rep
right here in this position whether I'm
overhead pressing doing some sort of row
like anything and feel very braced in in
the entire quadrant
this is very helpful I I'm going to work
on it but can we say that a an effective
way to start off in terms of breathing
during repetitions would be to take a
gulp of air during the lowering phase
The Eccentric phase and then to Exhale
during the yeah concentric exertion
phase I asked that because that's what
I've been doing for a while and it makes
me feel safe I don't know if I am and it
allows me to Exhale as I exert the the
hardest portion of the exercise yeah and
perhaps I also borrowed that from
martial arts where one tends most often
is trained to Exhale on the on the
strike yeah if you're going to be doing
again the number of repetitions can be
completed without a breath
a lot of times you're better off saving
that exhalation until you complete
wow but you don't have to but for a
reasonably heavy set of hack squats or
even leg extensions and given that I
already can't leg extension my body
weight maybe it's established oh maybe
this is why
um the idea of holding my breath for an
entire compound set so again I'm kind of
listening to mine
um you know like where is my insurance
card who's going to drive me to the
hospital this kind of thing
um in all seriousness what if I want to
breathe during the set yeah so
I I'll clarify I'm generally meaning if
you're doing like a one rep max
or something like that okay well they
certainly could hold my breath for a one
repetition maximum that you know maybe
like a double or something like that
depending on what you're doing like
maybe a triple a bench press you can
probably do three
and get away with it a squat it gets
harder deadlift so it kind of depends on
the exercise
um you want to take that breath though
prior to The Eccentric portion
not during so lower breathe in lock or
set and now start our movement pattern
wherever it's going to be exhaling on
the concentrate portion during it is
fine it's no problem
um especially if you're not extremely
heavy and what's your what are your
thoughts on grunting and screaming yeah
fine I don't care I don't tend to do
that I'm occasionally known to squeal or
whimper
I think of you and I think squeal
whimper absolutely thanks
um if you're going to be doing multiple
repetitions
uh what we actually do for the NFL
combine
is we teach them a very specific Excel
strategy so there's one test that they
do uh which is they bench press 225
pounds for as many reps as possible a
lot of these people will get 25 to 40
repetitions so we have a very specific
breathing pattern it would be something
like if we think that they're going to
do around 25 reps say that's like our
goal we might say okay do the first 10
without a breath and then exhale reset
and then do five breath and then you
might do five breath three breath two
breath and then one breath per rep until
we can't get any more um so we'll have
very specific strategies for them
um so what I would say is think about
how many you're going to complete and
and then breathe according to that and
it tends to increase in frequency as the
number gets closer to failure because
you're going to want that that error a
little bit but you just want to make
sure that
when you re when you're breathing back
in you're in a safe spot so you don't
want to be catching that like re-breath
when the weight's on you you want to be
in a locked out position or away from
you when you're standing so it tends to
be like at the end of the exercise not
in the middle of it which is is going to
be a recipe for problems if you take
your breath then
one of the reasons I'm so happy to have
you here
and having this discussion is we can
really get into the weeds but also hit a
number of questions that I hear a lot
how does one contend with the first
attempt at a lift not working out is it
too heavy something goes wrong hopefully
not injury promoting wrong but something
goes wrong do you count that do you
reset the workout
and then the counterpart to that
question is
what do you do if it's too easy it went
wrong because you didn't put enough
weight on the bar do you pick up a heavy
enough set of dumbbells do you abandon
the set and and replace it with another
and I guess this is really a question of
how much margin for error is there in
volume yep when doing this three by five
program sure uh two things
that I'd like to start with number one
is I talked about linear periodization
and unrelated periodization there's
actually a new model newish model called
Auto regulation which basically says
you're going to go in today and
depending on any number of biomarkers
performance markers or your performance
you will adjust your training based on
how you're feeling that day and so 70 is
not maybe for example not necessarily 70
of your one repetition Max highest ever
is 70 of what you can actually do that
day
and so it actually allows you to Auto
regulate your training based on actually
what's happening and so you don't have
to have as much long-term planning in
your program design
um because it'll sort of figure itself
out as you're going you can use velocity
to determine the sort of Regulation you
can use actually it's like taking it up
to close to a Max for the day and then
basing all your percentages on that
daily Max or a lot of different ways so
that is actually one of very effective
strategy and there's a lot of research
coming out on auto regulation there's a
lot of different ways to do it so that's
one thing to say another thing to say is
this
three to five okay it depends on if
we're going for speed power or strength
because while all those other variables
are the same for three to five
the core difference between whether that
is a power workout or a strength workout
is the load
right so if you are at a moderate load
say thirty percent of your one
repetition Max up to about 70 percent
that's going to be a power based
adaptation assuming you're going with
high intent
can you sorry I I have to interrupt
maybe just clarify what intent is yeah
you're attempting to move the implement
or go through the movement pattern as
fast as you can great thank you if
you're trying to go for strength and
you're below 70 percent
you're not really going to be improving
strength because the total mass
is not heavy enough and so really when
we say strength we're assuming you're at
at least generally 70 percent or higher
now if you're new to training totally
different thing right but if you're
moderately trained to highly trained
you're going to be whale north of 70 so
anything below that we don't really
count anyways um that's those are
warm-up sets basically
all right so one thing to actually give
you some very specific numbers here and
I don't have all of these memorized who
can perhaps
um provide a chart later or send out
something to them but there's a chart
that you can look up called a prilippin
chart how do you spell that uh p r i l i
p i n
and there's actually been a a few
studies on it it's it's a it's been old
it's been around for a very long time
it's sort of in the coaching realm and
then a handful of studies out of New
Zealand came out
verifying and validating a lot of it but
what it effectively does is if strength
is the goal and this comes from the
power lifting weightlifting sort of
communities or optimizing for strength
then how much time do I need to spend
at each intensity range so 70 80 90
Etc because specificity
is going to say this if you want to get
better neuromuscular guy at shooting a
basketball the most important thing you
could ever do is shoot a basketball
under the exact circumstances that
you're going to do it right specificity
always wins if you want to get better at
strength the most important thing you
need to do is that exact movement at
that load and in this case if you wanted
to get better at
your bench press
lifting at 100 of your max on a bench
press is the most specific thing you
could ever do the more you can do that
the faster you will increase your bench
press Max however that's very hard to do
without getting hurt it's also not
addressing what I call your Defender so
if the reason you can't bench press
higher than whatever you're benching now
it may not be your pure strength it may
be any number of things like you don't
have enough muscle or technique or these
things okay great so specificity over
here
um variation on the other side so we're
playing this game we've talked about of
how do I make sure that I can have
enough specificity in my training
without leading to uh overuse injury all
how do I maximize or how do I reduce my
chance of injury while getting enough
specificity and so we have a classic
Paradigm however here one actually
training protocol you can look up is
called a Bulgarian method and the
bulgarians were an amazing at the sport
of Olympic weightlifting probably in
fact the
um the the patriarch of this entire
thing recently passed away Ivan IBA
jayev uh niams glue pocket Hercules one
of the greatest weightlifters of all
time came out of the system and they do
a lot of things but one example in the
Bulgarian system is you're going to do a
one repetition maximum snatch
you're gonna take a little bit of a
break you'll do a one repetition maximum
cleaner jerk take a little bit of a
break do a one repetition maximum front
squat take a little bit of a break and
you're gonna repeat that two to three
times a day every day
that's specificity right those people
get extraordinarily strong now they
don't do that all year round they don't
do that with all their lifters but this
is when we're trying to Peak for a major
competition like the Olympics we are
going so far
into specificity and that was very
counter to the Russian system at the
time which is much more of our classic
periodization sort of approach okay
specificity is tremendous but in doing
that the bulgarians just brutalized a
lot of athletes right because it's very
difficult to handle something like that
and you can't really do that that long
without getting wrecked and they're the
goal is to win medals the goal is it's a
totally different thing than longevity
out of here right like we're trying to
push the boundaries of or aesthetic
changes unless someone has a naturally
balanced Physique in general if people
do one sort of movement I find that they
tend to resemble the equipment that they
did that movement with over time right
that was a joke against kettlebells of
course of course of course I got it
so
we know specificity is technically
optimal but it's not realistic not for
that kind of a you know extreme
situation so how do we balance these
things well it turns out this prilippin
chart gives you guidelines for how much
time and by time I mean how many
repetitions
to stand
um in each of these rep ranges so that
you get kind of the best of this world
you're going to find the same thing by
the way when we get into endurance
training there's only so much training
you can do at 95 of your heart rate
before it starts becoming like quite
detrimental you need to actually spend a
lot of time at those lower intensities
so the Philippine chart walks you
through
how many sets and it gives you a range
like like the I think that the bottom of
it is like
um how much time do you spend at like 60
to 70 every one or at Max and it says
like you know minimum of this set to
maximum of this set but the ideal number
of reps per set per week is like 18. and
then I'll walk you through and so
there's there's four criteria on it
um I think it's 55 to 65 again how many
reps there's it's like three to six reps
per set
um 18 to 30 reps total and I think the
ideal rep range is like 24. something
like that so it takes you 55 to 65 70 to
80 80 to 90 and the 90 plus percent what
you'll see is the 90 plus percent number
is more like one to two reps per set for
a total of about seven total repetitions
if you start cruising past that
um
other bad things start to creep up in
there so that's a really effective chart
what it really highlights though is even
somebody who's trying to maximize
strength
you're going to spend something like 30
five or so percent of your training time
between this like 55 to 65 range
so you're asking her like well do I even
count that one the answer is yeah you
know in that range if it's below 55 60
percent you probably don't count it now
again some coaches don't count unless
it's even above 70. fine it's not a
major distinction but you're going to
spend the bulk of your time you know
accumulating some some technique
basically and skill and tissue tolerance
very important The Next Step Up is like
28 I think is is sort of the cutoff of
how much time you spend between 70 and
80 percent of your 100 Max and then it
jumps down to like 23 and then all the
way to 70 so you can walk yourself
through that and that gives you an
extremely good guideline and you'll
notice all of these are still in three
to five range it's just really you're
manipulating it by total sets or total
exercises so that can give you some
instruction to play with
we will provide a link to the prilippin
Chart yeah in the show note captions
training to failure when the goal is
Strife yeah
should one do it should one avoid it
or does it depend well yeah it always
depends um the way that I'll generally
say it is because of what we just
outlined it in the brilliant chart you
don't have to go to failure to see
strength gains especially early or even
moderate and I'm talking maybe five plus
years in your lifting career would you
um call beginner zero to five years of
training intermediate five to twenty
years of training yeah something like
that and then Advance would be people
that really put the time and energy into
fine-tuning their program the vast
majority of people who think they're
Advanced are really what we would call
intermediate in all domains of life Fair
even as a scientist
um it's quite rare to reach that number
of advance so
um I actually don't have any problem
going to failure quite often I'm also
fine with people who don't want to go
all the way there you can get most of
what you need getting what we call
technical failure so this is like okay
that was really challenging uh boy you
started to have some breakdowns of
technique we're gonna call that good The
Only Exception here I want to point out
is people who are either novice or
beginners they really have no concept of
what 100 means and so I think it's
actually very fruitful to take them to
100 just to give them a guideline of
where it's at now of course do this on
exercises that they are comfortable with
or close and then you maybe maybe this
is on a machine maybe this is single
joint movements or whatever it takes for
them to have confidence but I actually I
don't think you should be scared of
these they're not really um that much
more dangerous than anything else
there's I mean think about it if you're
going to do a front squat or any
exercise and your one rep max is 200
pounds is it really that much more
dangerous to do one try at 205 pounds
than it is to do five tries at 190
pounds
is it really that much more no like it's
not so you can do like we talked about
in the the first episode you can do a
repetition Max estimate where you get to
like 85 to 95 of where you think you are
and then instead of adding load you just
do as many reps as you can
Google that number and it'll tell you
the conversion estimate of what your own
right Max is that's fine but also I have
absolutely no issue in fact I generally
encourage it to take people up to that
level
um certainly not day one or anywhere
close to that but at some point let's
see what you actually got
I'm just I'm just going to cut it off
early what I'm going to consider to be
100 Max anything more than a minor
technical breakdown is is for that crew
we're going to stop and call that good
and ideally with a spotter especially
um you know bench pressing don't bench
press alone in your basement kind of
thing a few people die each year from
bench pressing alone in their basement
yep or use dumbbells if you're going to
do that yeah it's hard harder to die
using dumbbells I suppose you could
um drop them on your head or something
but not get stuck under them
um
exercise selection and frequency of
exercise implementation across the week
so I can imagine with this three by five
routine done three to five times per
week you can imagine changing up the
exercises every workout
although considering that most of these
three by five routines are going to be
done with compound movements generally
the sooner or later one runs out of
movements if the goal is to hit major
all the major muscle groups yeah however
let me give an example
and ask if it's okay
to for instance do the three by five
routine where one of the exercises for
back is say a bent over row
uh you do that Monday Wednesday and
Friday okay you know I can imagine one
could do that and still recover and
improve over time but five days a week
bend over rows five days a week is that
okay I mean can one still progress
um and there I could imagine it's a
strong answer of Depends because some
people recover more slowly
and others I'm very comfortable doing
hitting muscle groups once directly per
week and once indirectly that's worked
for me far better than two or three
times per week you know I get you know
looks of sympathy when when I say this
but it's actually it's just how my
physiology Works
um kind of yeah well and maybe I'm not
optimizing a number of different
features but the point being that some
people really do seem to be able to
train a muscle every day and still make
progress other people seem to have
trouble when they train a muscle every
day so how does one establish exercise
selection when the goal is to make
progress
um and this brings up something very
important and we're going to have a
whole episode about this but local
versus systemic recovery yep that you
know is the whole nervous system
becoming fatigued
and is the muscle group and the related
musculoskeletal systems becoming
fatigued we're going to go back to
thinking about
when you make these comments about it
takes you three to five days and you've
got better results in there the
assumption that you're probably running
under is your training Style
is more reflecting that recovery time
than it is your physiology
it's not you it's how you're training so
if you look at again all the Olympic
weight lifters
that are competing they're going to be
squatting or some variation of squatting
every day
that that's going to happen like a lot
of the times they're training multiple
times a day and they will be doing some
basically barbell full squat multiple
times a day every day six days a week
you know something like that
they're the best in the world at getting
powerful
they're tremendously good at getting
strong
you can do it right it comes down to
what does your volume look like what
type of movements are you doing what rep
range what overall volume are you
hitting
and how are you doing it if you look at
athletes
they train their legs every day
when they're running around they're
doing Speed and Agility training every
single day they don't need you know
three days to recover can you imagine a
basketball player trying to ask for like
three days to recover between practice
right well to be fair as you as you
chuckle at me I'm doing other things on
the intervening days yeah so I'll train
a muscle group like legs and then I'll
give it four days before I do an
indirect yeah um uh what I call an
indirect exercise for legs which for me
would be sprinting yep then I get two
days and then I'm training them again
but nonetheless an athlete has to do
that every day right right so the
absolute the answer is you absolutely
can train any of these muscles every
single day it really comes down to
volume
right and it comes down to movement type
um and how are you getting it so with in
the case of of weightlifters and
athletes what we tend to see happen is
there's not a there's two things there
is a long period of conditioning and I
don't mean endurance what I mean is is
tissue tolerance and conditioning so
they're not going to start off their
career
at that pace right their career might
start off at five days a week but maybe
every other of those days is a PVC pipe
only and you're just training the
movement patterns you're working on
technique Etc and then eventually maybe
after six months or a year those PVC
pipe days turn into barbell only days so
now you went from you know a pound to 45
pounds and eventually as your years go
on that that wrapses up so it depends on
the style in general speed and power
stuff is so light it almost requires
because it's non-fatiguing it requires
almost no amount of no recovery so if
you were truly doing say like
um you know when you say it's funny
because when you say I do legs on
Mondays
you don't even realize it but an athlete
does legs every day right but you're
saying legs and what you're really
saying is I do hypertrophy legs Mondays
pretty much that I don't want to get
into what I do specifically because it's
less important than what other people
choose to implement but the repetition
ranges anywhere from 4 to 12. correct so
you're covering up pretty yeah you're
smack dead in the peak soreness
longest recovery rate volume is
relatively low intensity is very very
high workouts are very very true so if
you were to switch that and you were to
stay under four repetitions higher
quality uh higher rest in between them I
would be willing to bet a large amount
of money that you'd be fine the next day
certainly 48 hours and if you were to
actually go way lower and keep you know
three to five and keep it very very
light and train for Speed you would have
absolutely no issue
the next day so it really comes down to
a function of training you're right in
that hypertrophy Zone which is something
that you probably need 48 hours at
minimum to recover from because what you
won't see
are bodybuilders
training the same muscle group on
multiple days like very often at most it
will be indirect but generally they're
not going to do that every single day
for the same reason so you're training
in that style that's what it's going to
take to recover if you trained in a
different style then it wouldn't take
that long to recover so for the person
starting out
would you recommend they pick three to
five exercises and stick with those so
that they can get their skill and
movement and positioning and breathing
all that really dialed in and then start
to experiment by varying one or two of
those exercises over time that's great
if you look at the the conjugate model
so these are the the strongest power
lifters as a collective group that ever
existed what they're very good at is
they keep almost the exact same weekly
structure but they make a very small
change in exercise variation so for
example say Wednesday is bench day right
they're going to always binge on
Wednesdays but maybe this week they're
going to do close grip bench and then
maybe next week it's going to be maybe a
a special type of barbell and then maybe
the week after that it's
um you know maybe they'll change the
range of motion a little bit so it's
actually the exact same exercise where
they're making a very small variation
and that change alone allows them to do
enough specificity
but also gives them enough variation
where it's not the exact same stimuli in
the exact same spot over and over and
over and that's what allows that group
plus lots of other assistance but it's
what allows that group to train very
very very heavy
very consistently and not have to worry
about too much planning for
periodization and other stuff like that
they get their back off by making small
variations in exercise I will say
a major mistake folks do make is they
change their exercises entirely way too
often if I were to have to pick one or
the other I would say don't change
anything on your exercises for six weeks
probably realistic maybe even 10 to 12
weeks and then you can make some changes
you should not be changing every single
week the general pump you're just you're
not going to see progress it's going to
be very difficult to do that so it's
going to take you three weeks generally
to figure out the groove of the exercise
to figure out how well you can load it
what's too much to where you woke up
unbelievably sore that was a train wreck
how much do I load it at what position
how long is this going to take it's
going to take you three or so weeks and
then you can really start pushing there
so changing it before that or in that
time frame is is you're not going to be
able to progressively overload because
you're just not going to know exactly
where you're at on all the exercises so
it's very important to create
standardization within them and then see
some progress in a movement or a muscle
Group whatever you're going for
and then make some changes
so before we dive into our discussion
about hypertrophy
can we just get a brief recap of the
general parameters for an excellent
power and strength training program okay
let me hit you with these rapid fire and
you can maybe come ask questions along
that remember those modifiable variables
okay so let's go through them in order
and then what they mean specifically for
power versus strength so modifiable
variable number one is called choice so
which exercises do I select for strength
in general for power or speed or
strength we want to select compound
movements you don't often see people
doing maximum strength work for like a
tricep Kickback right it's typically
multiple joint movements and typically
complex
um movements
in selecting these compound movements we
generally want to actually think about
exercise selection of movements rather
than muscle groups so this is an
important distinction because we'll see
this is a different answer when we get
hypertrophy what I mean by that is when
we think about again strength training
we tend to think about bodybuilding
Concepts we go to the gym and we do
things like I got to make sure I get my
chest today and I got to make sure I get
my hamstrings and now you're selecting
exercises based on a muscle you want to
work for strength development and power
we want to think about movements rather
than individual muscle groups so there
should be like things like I need to
train explosive hip extension which is
like a a vertical jump or something like
that I I want to train pushing or
pulling movements or I want to attain
road trip I want to train rotation which
is a whole area we haven't gotten into
which is very important for overall
health and wellness and Longevity so we
want to select big movements by the
muscle the movement patterns that we
want to introduce and we just want to
select a reasonable balance between
these I don't care what the exact ratio
is you just don't want to go an entire
six months without doing anything in
this rotational area or an entire you
know eight to ten weeks without doing
something
without the lower body hinge right so
any number of examples there so just
think about the rough movement patterns
upper and lower push and pull and then
some sort of rotation that puts you in a
pretty good spot if you're using three
by five method and you're going to pick
as little as three exercises just pick
one from each one of those group pick a
rotation
pick a push and pick a pull I can easily
think of a pushing a pull so for example
bench press or shoulder press sure row
or chin for pull and then squat or
deadlift for hinge yep what would be a
good example of a quality rotational
movement yep so anytime um you can use a
cable machine like at the gym and you
can do it's kind of hard to describe
this exercise but basically you're going
to stand facing the cable and you're
going to pull it towards yourself and
then rotate like you're pivoting like
your either swing angle golf club or
hitting a baseball bat so you're facing
One Direction I'm facing you right now
I'm pulling the cable towards myself and
then I'm going to spin do a 180 degree
pivot and face exactly away from you
when I finish and then return it back to
that same spot so that's a rotation
great we will provide a link to an
example of that that you consider a
quality example a medicine ball throw
any number of things like this are a
great rotational exercise all right so
we select our exercises based on that we
generally then okay because that is the
case we don't worry about things like
eccentric versus concentric because
you're deadly doing a whole body
athletic movement right which The
Eccentric concentric portion is going to
be folded into that you really can't
separate them out all right so that's
exercise Choice our first variable the
next one is exercise order so because
that everything driving power and
strength is quality based
you want to do these at the beginning of
your workout you would not want to do
anything fatiguing before this so no
cardiovascular training no other
repetition to failure stuff if you do
those before and now you're slower all
you've done is practice getting slower
and and so these need to be done when
you're fresh you also need to do them
when you're very fresh because they are
the most neurologically demanding
they're complicated they tend to have
multiple steps and they're often in
multiple planes and coordination is a
difficult thing and if you're trying to
do all that at maximum speed your
nervous system needs to be tremendously
fresh and so any amount of fatigue here
is only going to compromise the results
um to kind of recap that one of the
major mistakes when training for
strength and especially power is people
worry way too much about fatigue those
things should not be part of the
equation in fact if they are that's a
very good sign you're not doing this
correctly right these are non-fatiguing
movements especially speed and Power
so Choice order is next
the next one after that is volume and we
sort of hit volume and intensity which
is the other one we talked about that
the volume is basically identical
between power and strength the the
general number we're going to look at
here is something like 3 to 20 sets
total per workout per workout
um but that would be like 20 would be
a little bit of a special case now three
to five is what I told you earlier right
I'm just saying like sometimes you can
actually go quite higher in this cases
but that's the general range and once
somebody finishes the three by five
workout for power or strength if they
decide they want to throw in some calf
raises and curls and totally a forearm
work or a little bit of jogging on the
treadmill or something that's okay
absolutely there is you have very little
risk of interference
for things like speed and Power
strength you have a little bit of a risk
only because now you're introducing
fatigue which if you're really pushing
strength that might compromise your
recovery I could imagine doing the three
to five routine for strength or for
power and then somebody finishing up
with
um 10 or 15 minutes of hypertrophy arm
work and then being very seriously
compromised if they try and come in the
next day or even the next day correct
and do those big compound movements for
Speed and power that's right not just
because they're sore but the muscles may
actually still be damaged and I know
later we're going to talk about the
um somewhat tenuous relationship between
soreness and Recovery yeah yep so that
that's a that's a really nice uh
heuristic to pay attention to is you can
but just be careful
Energy starts to matter at that point if
you're really truly trying to maximize
strength you would do nothing at all
outside of that training if you're just
like I kind of want to get stronger and
some other things and you're willing to
lose strength you know five percent of
your strength gains then you're totally
fine um the same can be said by the way
for super setting so supersetting is an
idea that says like wait a minute you're
telling me dude I gotta take five
minutes in between each set well that's
not so much a problem nowadays with
phone with um smartphones because people
are filling their intercept intervals
with social media and texting correct
you you don't really have to go that
long in fact there was actually a study
that came out in the last month that
showed you know like really two minutes
is probably sufficient for most people
having said that if you really are
trying to push maximal strength
adaptations like three to five is very
very reasonable
um your those training sessions are long
because you have to take you're spending
more time not doing anything
then you are doing something but you're
trying to maximize quality so that's
just sort of like part and parcel if
you're not super worried about it you
can actually do super setting which is
let's imagine again you're going to do
some some lunges and while your legs are
resting doing their three to five
minutes you can go over and do an upper
body row or pull
and when your upper body is resting
you're going back the legs so that
really Cuts your time in half is it
ideal no we actually ran a study uh
maybe 10 years ago in our lab and we
looked at that specifically and we did
see a reduction in strength performance
in the supersetting group relative to
the group who did not superset
the question then it becomes like is it
enough for you to care so if you were to
if I were to say hey I can cut an hour
off of your workout time but you will
lose five percent of your strength gain
almost everyone would take that exchange
with the exception of people who are
getting close to competition or really
trying to set a new lifetime PR or
something then you might say no I don't
want any interference there that last
little margin is what I care about give
me the extra rest great so it's not a
does it work does it not work it's
always a what are you willing to give up
uh versus get the practicalities of
supersetting are staggering push-pull
push pull in my mind are real because
you have to take over large segments of
the gym which oftentimes leads to a
situation where your rest times are too
long or highly variable because people
are working in or you can't finish your
set because now someone jumped into the
machine right it totally screws right
you lose three to five of your friends
because it's obnoxious when you're
taking over all the equipment but in all
seriousness I think
um it's wonderful if you have the space
and the format to do it but at least in
my experience end observation these
people know who they are it's not
practical to do on a regular basis if
you train in an open commercial gym yeah
tough to pull up so
um
we've covered choice
order volume and intensity to a
sufficient level the last one is
frequency and we've already sort of
indirectly talked about that where
frequency can be as high as you'd like
in this area it really depends on your
recovery if you're really truly pushing
maximum strength you probably do need a
few days to recover although that's
dependent upon you but speed and power
can be done multiple times a day almost
every day basically the one exception
would be maximum sprinting speed you
need to be careful there for things like
hamstring and injury especially if
you're pretty fast so you want to be a
little bit cautious of that but if
you're doing easier movements like
medicine ball throws or kettlebell
swings or something you could do those
quite often as long as the volume is is
staying pretty low
last little piece here is progression
how do I progress over time
so I mentioned this earlier but just
want to fill this Gap right back in
before we head over to hypertree which
is three to five percent increase per
week of intensity in general and you can
do upwards of about five percent
increase in volume per week over time
and I generally recommend running that
for at longest eight weeks
but probably most realistically you want
to go about five weeks or so and then
have some sort of a deload or back off
week if you do that you're generally
going to be a pretty good spot so those
are like the Core Concepts now
there's a whole bunch of fun methods you
can play with within all these
categories and I I would like to
actually cover just a couple of them
um if we've got a little more space for
that sure I'd love to hear about those
I'd like to also just cue up one which
is well I joked about people texting and
doing social media between sets and I
that's not a joke well I confess I
stopped bringing my phone into the gym
because of the urge to you know take my
mind off of the workout and I just
started enjoying my workouts a lot more
yeah and the workouts go far better that
way and they're just much more efficient
it for me I realize that some people
their careers take place in the gym and
so for the I don't
um look down upon anyone using their
phone at the gym but that really tends
to help me but I do wonder whether or
not there's an optimal Behavior or
mindset in between sets I've heard
before that pacing around can actually
help diffuse some of the lactate and
other metabolic byproducts of of work
and exertion yeah that can lead to
better performance I've also heard that
um you know shaking the muscles out I
mean there's all sorts of gym lore
um about this but maybe there's also
some decent science I'm just curious uh
if you have any specific recommendations
that people could play with or try yep
so for for Speed and Power
you want to walk this balance of stiff
but fresh
and so if you were to literally finish a
repetition sit on a bench for five
minutes you would stand up after that
fairly stiff and you wouldn't feel sort
of smooth this is all
so this is an all-known science this is
all
practical application right data
anecdata there you go strength is a
little bit different but it's the same
concept you're walking that line in
general a lot of the times if you see
Power lifters and weightlifters in
between sets they're going to sit down
and not move for hypertrophy can be a
little bit different because you're
getting towards fatigue and so the
factors you mentioned like clearing
lactate well first of all lactate is not
actually causing fatigue that's that's a
giant myth that will which is why I teed
it up no I'm just kidding
um but in the case of again speed power
you're not going to fatigue so fatigue
Management's not really an issue you
want to make sure that you're getting
complete neurological recovery which is
a little bit slower than muscle
energetically you're not out of any gas
whatsoever right um You are not a lack
of fuel
you know doing three repetitions of a
vertical jump yep no plenty of glycogen
totally what about stretching between
sets yeah you probably don't want to do
that either there are very clear
examples of pre-exercise stretching
static stretching being quite
detrimental for maximum power production
the same thing for speed and strength
and that's been shown actually a number
of times in a number of Laboratories
which is like a a classic Hallmark any
scientist looks for of like really
jumping on board with an idea if it's
shown not only multiple times but in
multiple Laboratories for multiple
scientists and they're all seeing the
same thing you start to get a lot of
confidence that that's a real finding
and that's been shown we've done that in
our Center for sport performance not
myself but one of my colleagues has done
a lot of stretching research and he's
seen that a lot on everything from
vertical jump to ISO kinetic
dynamometers and enforce velocity curves
and there's we've seen this as printing
we've seen this in speed we've seen this
in loaded stuff so you don't want to
spend a ton of time stretching
statically stretching a muscle
priority if you do that and you have to
do that say say for example you finish
that you're just like feeling really
tight yeah go ahead like you need to get
in the right position especially for
most people where are you willing to
sacrifice 10 of power to make sure you
don't get hurt yes that answer is almost
always yes outside of some very specific
athlete scenarios so if you're not in
the right position I actually remember
having this conversation with Kelly uh
Kelly started a long time ago it was
just like yeah fine I'll lose five
percent if that means I'm not going to
get in a bad position and
hurt my back and I totally totally agree
so if you got to open up a hip or an
ankle or something to get there get in
the right position number one we'll live
with the five percent reduction in power
and if you do just reactivate
so before you go do your working set go
do something fast again a vertical jump
a short Sprint acceleration and sort of
get that system cleared back up
um if you didn't stretch it for long
enough and you didn't hold it for long
enough you should be able to be just
fine so when it comes to hypertrophy now
you can really stretch all you want
because we're not it's not driven by
intensity or outcome it's being driven
by an insult into the tissue and so if
you're pre-fatigue for hypertrophy it
doesn't matter if you're pre-stretched
that doesn't matter we're not going for
quality of outcome we're going for
quality of internal signal which is not
going to be changed by your Force output
so it doesn't really matter
you mentioned a few other things that
one might consider in light of uh the
list that you provided of choice order
volume frequency and progression right
so starting off with power I just wanted
to hand
the The Listener issue with a whole
bunch of different methods to go play
with right so as long as you get those
Concepts the repetition range for power
30 to 70 percent of your one repetition
Max depending on the exercise and your
training status
um you're going to get the power as long
as you're attempting to go fast it's
gonna be great a lot of things you can
try applyometrics are a great example of
things that are effective for
um for power development we've mentioned
medicine ball throws
short Sprints you can even do Sprints uh
unlike an air bike which is a great
super safe activity you can do them from
Like a Rolling start where you kind of
like get going a little bit and then you
explode for five seconds and see how
fast you can get or a dead start like
both of those are very very acceptable
weight lifting movements so snatches and
cleaning jerks are tremendously
effective in fact they are pound for
pound by far the most effective exercise
choice for power development like
without question so those are good ones
clapping push-ups speed squats these are
all a whole host of different things
that you can do for Speed and power
development I'm depending on your
kettlebell swings another great one all
these can be done depending on your
preference exercise availability what's
at your gym or not gym any of those
things
if somebody is more focused on strength
as opposed to power
what are the additional variables they
should consider again within the context
of this overarching theme of choice
order volume frequency and progression
absolutely it's almost identical with a
couple of small exceptions number one
you probably can't do as many working
sets
per week for strength because now you're
introducing a heavier load and that's
going to represent some sort of fatigue
load on the tissue all those things so
you could probably get away with doing
20 sets of two
of a vertical jump
four or five times a week you probably
couldn't do that at a 90 on squat right
so the total amount of sets and the
total amount of weekly load you can get
to just needs to be lower and then the
intensity right so we talked about that
needs to be generally higher than 70
yeah with you know some portion of that
being working sets at some point so that
really truly being at 90 plus everything
else is pretty identical you still want
to emphasize maximum speed despite the
fact you may actually not be moving
faster because you've introduced load
you still need to be attempting that but
you're going to be picking complex
exercises you're generally going to be
hedging more towards
barbells and machines so this is a case
where bodyweight training can be
effective again particularly for the
upper body but at some point you're
really going to have to move past that
because there's just a certain amount of
load you can't put on the lower body
with just your body weight you get
limited by how much you weigh or I mean
there's a couple of things you can do
but you're going to run out past that
pretty quickly and so in when it comes
to strength they tend to be less
athletic movements because you know we
have to have a barbell on us we have to
have a we have to be on a machine or
something like that and so that's a
subtle difference in exercise choice we
need to also be careful about The
Eccentric portion and things like that
we don't have as much risk in like a
speeder power one so um some of the
different things you can play with there
we've talked about doing things like
pushes and pulls I also love carries so
a farmer's carry pushing a sled dragging
a sled all kinds of things a yoke walk
all kinds of carry modalities that are
very very effective for strength um
there's eccentric overload
training which we really haven't gone
into but it's a really Advanced
technique where you can actually load at
greater than 100 percent
of your one repetition Max but you're
only going to do The Eccentric portion
of it so physiologically you are much
stronger eccentrically than you are
concentrically for a variety of of
muscle tissue reasons actually and so
imagine if you can do a bench press at
200 pounds and what you might actually
do is load it to 220 and you would have
a spotter and maybe even use it in a
rack and you would lower it Down Under
Control all the way to the bottom and
then stop
your friends would lift it back up the
top and you just practice that eccentric
portion you would actually be able to
lower say 220 pounds effectively despite
the fact that you wouldn't have been
able to lift it back up you don't need
to start there but that is a very
effective method for increase in fact
arguing one of my um one of my doctoral
students right now is doing a project on
this at USC
and he uh like he's focusing directly on
this and it's it's quite clear this
oftentimes more effective at strength
development than anything else because
you can actually just like in the speed
example where you want to actually
practice moving faster so instead of
practicing 100 of you on our Max for
strength you actually practice that
higher than that to get better at it so
that's that's another much more advanced
tool
please don't let me get sued by saying
all that like folks be careful make sure
you're doing the proper exercise in your
positioning and like caveat caveat
caveat okay
um but outside of that it can be it's
totally fine and safe yeah with it when
people get injured they can't train you
can't train you don't progress you lose
progress so uh certainly that's worth
highlighting so two more
um a little more advanced techniques
that I want to throw out there and one
of them is called cluster sets so
cluster sets are there's a bunch of ways
to do it but imagine taking a mini break
in between every single repetition
so say you're going to do five
repetitions yeah in a row what you're
actually going to do is do one
repetition
set it down pause for five to ten
seconds
and then do the next one
pause do the next one pause pause pause
pause pause so you can imagine doing
like a squat and you're gonna go down
explode up and you're standing you're
going to Rack it out
you're gonna kind of like shake back out
catch your breath
walk back in do another one
rock it out and you can repeat that
until you've executed your three or four
or five repetitions and then you take
your three to five minute break before
your next step
that is an incredibly effective way for
both strength power and actually even
hypertrophy because you can keep the
quality the force output the power
output very very very high because
you're getting these little mini breaks
and you're not getting fatigue setting
in by the time you're say third or
fourth or fifth repetition in that set
after repetition one
you start to see very small subtle
reductions power up but because you
start to see a little bit of fatigue you
you take those five to ten seconds off
even up to 20 seconds you can actually
do it you don't see any drop and enforce
output over the course of the five and
so what you really have done is you've
gotten five in this example
first repetitions which is the way we
will kind of say it right so all five of
those have the same quality as rep
number one which is again as we're
talking that's the driver and strength
and so that's the one we want to
preserve so it takes a little bit longer
for some exercises it's not very good
it's great for like a deadlift because
you set it back down check it back out
re-grip hard to do with the bench you
got to re-rack it back in then re-rack
it back out that's like kind of a pain
in the ass so there's some exercises
that doesn't work well with and some
that it does but cluster sets and a lot
of research on those
um very effective would you recommend if
somebody's doing cluster sets that they
do them for every session within that
week or just this is an occasional thing
you could do it this could be your
training strategy yeah absolutely so you
can really take it that seriously um in
fact like if you look at again the
weight lifters
they will do cluster sets by default not
even trying still say they'll do like a
clean and then they'll drop the weight
back out they're supposed to be doing
say a set of three but almost always
they're gonna like shake it out re-grip
and then pull it again and sometimes
they're set of three takes like a minute
and then like you hear it's funny
because it's like like a I set a triple
PR you're like no you did three singles
like what's the difference between doing
three singles and a set of three when
you took a minute between each rep
um I love that community so
yeah I mean it could be your strategy
like it could be like hey for this
five-week block this is all my training
especially for your compound movements
if you're gonna go to start doing some
of the smaller movements Maybe
you give up on that um it could also
just be something you do for your one
primary exercise for the day
so do that thing that is the most
important first and just do it for that
one and then the rest of them you can
kind of ditch it if you need to save a
little bit of that time it can also be
something you do by feel
so you know you're two reps in and you
go God like I'm not feeling like poppy
here like re-rack it catch my breath for
a quick second and do it so it doesn't
have to be ultra planned I guess what
I'm doing is is I'm giving you an excuse
to make sure you're super fresh for
every rep it matters the last one I want
to talk about here
is what's called Dynamic variable
resistance so Dynamic variable
resistance is uh fixing the problem we
have with What's called the human
strength curve so theory of constraints
again you're only as strong as you are
in your weakest point of the movement so
depending on the the movement you do
this happens at a different range of
motion well the deadlift has used this
example it's also because we've done
like research in my lab using this stuff
on the deadlift so I can speak to it
very directly when you go to pull it off
the ground some people are going to fail
right at the bottom meaning they won't
get the weight off the ground at all
some people will feel just below the
knees that's likely kind of like the
hardest transition period and then some
people will feel right at the top just
before they can lock out okay great so
what that means is at some point of that
lift
you're going to only be limited by your
strength in the weakest area
all right
so if you have a constant load on the
bar in those other two parts of the
range of motion where you are not the
weakest
they are never truly being tested for
their maximum strength because they're
always being limited by the previous one
and this is the same argument that we
would get into if people ask about
should I what do you think about using
straps
right strapping your hand to a bar for
deadlift things like that there's pros
and cons here there are times when you
want to use a strap and there are times
when it's a bad idea so what dynamic
variable resistance is is either using
things like a heavy band or or chains on
the bar if you've ever seen people do
that so in my lab we actually have a
force plate on the ground and then we
have built-in basically hooks in the
front and back so we can actually set a
barbell on top of the force plate where
you stand on it and then run bands from
the back to the front running over top
of the weights and so when you stand up
as you're going up vertically the bands
are getting Tighter and Tighter and
pulling the weight towards the ground so
the weight is getting heavier and
heavier as you stand up
so as you start to gain mechanical
advantage in your positioning you start
to increase load because the bands are
getting Tighter and Tighter and Tighter
so this allows you to train that full
part of the strength curve and to
challenge your stronger areas with
heavier weight and your weaker areas
with lower weight you can do the same
thing with a bench press you can do it
with a squat and any other exercise
variation and dynamic variable
resistance is incredibly effective
for a number of things you're going to
give up a little bit
because the total load you can put on
the barbell is lower because you're
going to be adding you know in large
cases several hundred pounds of band
tension and so it pros and cons
so it's always a game it changes the
curve but it's it's a very good
technique
um that that people is fairly easy to
implement it's fun in fact if you try
this on on a bench or a squat you're
gonna be the first time you give it a go
you're like oh my God because the bands
are pulling you all over the place
um so you have to get very stable very
quick
um been shown a number of times a
handful of studies out of many
Laboratories to be a very effective
training technique a little bit more
advanced but I want to throw that in
there for the folks that are maybe just
tired of sort of doing the same barbells
and doubles and machines and you want to
try something different a very effective
technique sounds like fun yeah it's
great with your permission I'm going to
read back my summary list of training
for power and training for strength
according to your description and you
can tell me where I'm right and where
I'm wrong
I'm going to pick three to five
exercises and these should be compound
exercises so multi-joint movements
I'm going to perform those exercises for
three to five repetitions each
I'm going to do three to five movements
total per workout
and I'm going to rest three to five
minutes between sets
okay if I'm training for power
the weight loads on the work set so not
the warm-up sets but the work sets are
going to fall somewhere in the range of
30 to 70 percent of my one repetition
maximum yep and the larger the movement
the higher that number goes so on a
squat you're okay getting 50 or 60 on a
bench you would not want to go that high
you would want to stay close enough 30
to 40 range so the way you scale that up
and down is dependent upon the
difficulty of the movement great
if training for strength I'm going to
have my work sets be
70 or more of my one repetition maximum
yep and the only thing to add there is
in the case of actually all of them
um it's okay to go less than three reps
per set so a single or a double one or
two represent is also fantastic so uh we
use three to five as the concept but
less is okay going more than that is
generally not a good idea so less is
okay more is generally not okay and then
you listed off a number of really
valuable I don't even want to call them
fine points but important points to keep
in mind within each and both of these
programs one that really stands out in
my mind
is this idea of
if I perform this three by five program
but I'm also including some hypertrophy
work for arms or calves or muscle groups
that might not be hit as directly
as one might like during the three by
five component that's okay but do that
after the three by five Training and
keep in mind that that additional work
can potentially compromise recovery for
the three by five power promoting or
strength promoting program the example
being for instance if one does arm work
on the first workout of the week or even
the you know the third workout of the
week or the fifth workout of the week
and that arm work is higher repetition
hypertrophy directed work it's
reasonable to assume that it might
impede some of the three by five power
promoting or strength promoting training
in the subsequent workout so just to be
mindful of that and perhaps throttle
back on the intensity or the volume or
if my goal is strictly power or strictly
strength probably best to leave out
other forms of training yep love it one
last little thing I don't think we did
Justice is intention
and the reason I want to go back to this
now is because
we've talked a lot about specific loads
you have to hit
and that's generally the case but if
intention is there you can fudge those
numbers in terms of how much load goes
on the bar in fact you can get as low as
no load on the bar a great example here
is like a plank exercise so you can do a
plank in which you get in a position and
you simply contract the least amount
necessary to hold the position
also you could contract as hard as
possible pulling your scapula down and
back squeezing your core squeezing your
quads squeezing your glutes that is
actually going to still help strength
production because you're attempting to
contract very very hard even though
quote unquote the load is the same
that thing extends to weight on the bar
so you could theoretically see large
improvements in strength at 50 of your
100 max if you're Contracting as hard as
possible and so there's a lot lots and
lots of different ways you can train for
strength that are outside of this weight
lifting weight training spectrum and you
know if people if you hear things like
this and you're like wow I know I read
this book or I saw this other coach who
you know like I got so much stronger
that way well if intention is there
those are absolutely possible
this could be anything from bodyweight
style of training it could be very low
load Implement stuff so a kettlebell a
light kettlebell or a ball it could be
single leg training it's like all kinds
of different methods they will only work
for strength though
when you're past your first you know
handful of months of training if
intention is there and if it is then
these specific numbers and protocols
don't matter as much so don't get too
caught up in them if you're not worrying
about exercise quality and this is very
very important because you mentioned
earlier about how you stop taking your
phone into the gym with you one of our
former students Ramsay ninja is uh the
head strength Edition coach at the
University of Kansas and he made he made
a great post a couple of days ago where
he gave sort of a tip of how do I
improve training quality and one of his
tips is set your playlist before you go
to the gym and the reason is people send
spend so much time in between sets just
finding the next song that they like it
makes their workout so long and so
unproductive so that is one strategy or
do what you do which is Ditch the music
entirely when you don't have music or a
phone to look at
you only have one job you only have one
thing to pay attention to and what
you'll find is the quality of the
training will go up exponentially you
will feel kind of quote unquote bored
but that's just means you'll go back to
training and you'll get a lot more done
because you have one thing to focus on
so you can get a lot more done when you
avoid those distractions and when you're
doing strength and especially power work
since it's not fatiguing strength will
be a little bit but Power won't be p get
very bored they're used to either
feeling a pump or a burn or a sweat or
and that's their like perception of my
quality of workout
these exercises will not hit that for
you so there has to be another metric
you're looking at which is I'm going to
try to move as well as I can as hard as
I can that's going to produce your
results if you can't do that then you
might as well just not do these workouts
go do something else you're just going
to be wasting time you're going to be
burning a very low amount of calories
you'll have wasted an hour and you're
going to go right back to the place you
were so be very intentional
there are actually some some studies
showing that music can enhance
performance we've done some of these in
our lab so what's that mean it's not
about the music per se it's about the
focus and intent and do whatever it
takes to be very focused and intent and
you can actually get in and out very
quickly and get a lot of work done and
see a lot of results
love it okay let's talk about
hypertrophy
a topic that occupies the minds of so
many youth young men but also a lot of
women I think one of the really
interesting progressions that's taken
place in the last decade or so is that
far more men and women are using
resistance training in order to evoke
hypertrophy growth of muscles for
aesthetic reasons and for all sorts of
reasons
what are the ways that people can induce
hypertrophy so not to correct you or
insult you but probably a better way to
think about that question is really what
stimuli do I need to give the muscle to
induce hypertrophy now there are
hormonal factors that are important
there are nutritional factors but just
to stick with the context of training
this is really going to frame a lot of
our answers and as you'll see it's one
of the reasons why I call hypertrude
training kind of idiot proof in terms of
programming now the work is hard
difficult and all that but the Precision
needed is a lot less than what we saw in
power and strength and so if you note
there like it's very important that you
do it in this style with this intent and
with with these Within These parameters
and if you're outside the parameters
it's not going to be it hypertrophy has
a very broad range in terms of your
actual applications and this is why you
have and will continue to see countless
styles of training that all work I mean
I know you were mentored earlier in life
by one of my favorite people in this
entire field Mike menser like just an
absolute character his style was
completely different than what you would
see in a classic textbook
or any number of different influencers
or coaches or individuals and if you've
ever thought thought to yourself like
why is it all these programs work and
people love to jump to things like well
that's the steroids like just get that
out of the equation for now
independent of that right that's not
even part of the equation you're still
going to see results and the question is
like why well that's because what's
driving changes in strength and Power
are the adaptations of specificity
what's driving changes in hypertrophy is
much more well-rounded and so you have
options to get there remember you're
training a movement and now you're
training a response and a muscle that
caused the growth that's very very
different
so if we look at like the classic Dogma
we have to basically challenge the
muscle to need to come back in this case
specifically bigger and the nutrients
need to be there to support that growth
okay the nutrients aside perhaps we can
come and a few more minutes and talk
about that
so all we really have to do is going
back to our our dogma of activation of
something on the cell wall we've talked
about this earlier that's got to induce
that signaling Cascade that's got to be
strong enough to cause the nucleus to
react to it to go to the ribosomes to
initiate this entire Cascade of protein
synthesis okay so that signal has to be
one of a couple of things either has to
be strong enough
one time it has to be frequent enough
or it has to be a combination of these
things
all right so I can get there with a lot
of frequency and a moderate signal I can
get there with very low frequency and a
large signal like more akin to what you
did with Mike back in the day I'm sure
and still trained that way still
training each muscle group mainly once a
week directly and once a week indirectly
so all you can all you have to do there
to not fail is to make sure the training
is hard enough
and it's going to work if you choose the
frequency path then you actually have to
make sure you're not training too hard
to where you can actually maintain the
frequency the only wrong combination
here is infrequent and low intensity and
low volume that's it as long as one of
those three variables is high you're
going to get there because the
mechanisms that are needed to activate
that signaling Cascade are wide ranging
and this is why when we even see things
like Blood Flow Restriction Training
right this is when you put like a cuff
on your arm or your leg and you block
blood flow and you use no load or as low
as say 30 of your maximum and you take
it to fatigue failure that actually is
an equally effective way of inducing
hypertrophy despite the fact that you
know you're using three five ten maybe
most 20 to 30 percent of your owner at
Max why because you went through the
route of metabolic disturbance okay
other ways say a higher load maybe as
heavy as you can for say eight
repetitions is going to get through
what's called mechanical tension and so
there's there's these different paths
that we can get to the same spot now
eventually these things have a
saturation point so you don't need all
three of these mechanisms the third one
of course being muscle damage or
breakdown
and I and I know we want to chat a
little bit about that but none of these
three are absolutely required you can
have multiple of them in a session
um you don't have to have breakdown at
all that is a complete uh well really
it's a flat out lie that you have to
break a muscle down
to cause it to grow that's just not
needed at all you have to have one of
these three things though and so again
this allows you a lot of flexibility
which is why crafting your program which
is best for you
is actually fairly simple when it comes
to hypertrophy you just have to make
sure you do the work and you want to
make sure you have a few standards in
place with the exercise choice and some
other things that will
um we'll hit in just a second but that's
really the fundamental way of getting to
it making sure either that signal is
loud enough
or frequent enough to give
the nuclei a convincing enough reason to
spend the resources because you have to
remember two things in order to grow new
skeletal muscle you need amino acids
which are your supply and then you need
primarily carbohydrates as the energy
source to power that synthesis process
so you remember basic chemistry that
says if you're going to take two atoms
and you're going to pull them apart or
put them together right that's going to
take energy typically and in most of
actually metabolism
uh when you split a bond you're going to
get it's called exergonic you're going
to get energy from that but when you put
them together
that's going to take energy this is why
we call that protein synthesis right so
you have to convince your nucleus that
one invest those resources in energy
primarily carbohydrate but number two
and more importantly invest that Supply
there's a ton of possible ways to get
energy but there's a very low amount of
amino acids available and you need them
for many more things than just taking
your biceps from 17 inches to 18 inches
right it's not going to do that if
you're in a position where again you
can't sustain an immune function if red
blood cell turnover needs to be higher
or any of the other main like tons of
things that you need proteins for so you
have to be able to say like are you sure
you really want to spend these resources
and build it in a muscle because once we
do that it's very difficult to go
backwards break them back down and bring
the amino acids back into the to that
availability pool so we can use them for
either another function entirely or even
another muscle group that's called
protein redistribution by the way when
you say maybe you don't do
um a lot of upper body work in your
training and you're not eating enough
protein or a minimal amount and you're
doing a lot of lifting in your legs
you'll you'll notice your legs will get
larger but that's actually a lot of
times you're pulling the protein from
say your upper body in this case and
redistributing it back down
um to the quads so that's the way you
that's what you have to get to and in
terms of application what numbers to hit
we can go through each one of our
modifiable variables just like we did
with speed and strength and power and
walk through some of our best practices
in each category yes so I'd love to talk
about those modifiable variables as they
relate to
choice
of movements order of movements
volume so sets and repetitions and
frequency of training and I'm
particularly interested in frequency of
training because that relates to the
so-called split where
typically one is not training their
whole body every workout although there
are I'm sure hypertrophy workouts that
um our whole body workouts but where
people are dividing on their body parts
on onto different days
so uh
would love to go through this list one
by one starting with exercise Choice
cool great so in the previous section we
pretty much said exclusively choose your
exercises by the movement patterns and
you want to balance between pushing and
pulling and rotation and things like
that in this particular case you have
the option to do either here's my
recommendation most people default
almost exclusively to Choosing by body
parts here right I'm going to do calves
and shoulders today and chest and back
whatever combinations of things they
want that is clearly effective strategy
however many Studies have actually been
done where you choose by movement
patterns and that is actually equally
effective
now one little caveat I actually should
have said a few minutes ago when we talk
about the research on muscle hypertrophy
it is important to distinguish the fact
that the vast majority of This research
is coming from a novice to moderately
trained individuals there's actually
more and more research coming out on
trained individuals but that's still
moderately trained right even those ones
so what happens in those people that are
actually way past that point we don't
know scientifically it's very difficult
to do research there so that's an
important caveat I will acknowledge when
I say hey you don't need to do this or
you have to do this you're assuming a
training status of moderate to low may
or may not be true past that we don't
know scientifically I have certain
thoughts personally but the science will
only take us that far so
that being said you can actually choose
by muscle or by movement pattern here
whichever is is your personal preference
and this is actually where you can act
just become a good coach whether you're
coaching somebody else through this
fitness journey or it's yourself and
give them a little bit of autonomy so
maybe you select the first three
exercises and then let them select one
every day and so if they especially want
to make sure that one muscle group grows
let them Target that muscle and maybe
the rest of the day you've actually
split it up as Push Pull or something
else like that all those strategies are
effective personal preference as long as
the total amount of volume on the
working muscle is equated throughout the
week which we'll get to those numbers in
a second then you're going to be in the
exact same spot no problem I would
actually generally encourage
people to choose exercises in a variety
of Fashions I actually think that it's
important that you do some number of
combination of what we call bilateral
and unilateral exercises so bilateral
being think about it like a squat where
bi meaning two lateral you have two feet
on the ground moving in sequence here
unilateral is one so this could be
something as simple as a rear foot a
limited split squat it could be a single
leg leg press or single leg curl it
could be a pistol squat something where
the the individual limb is moving one at
a time you need to have a combination of
bilateral and unilateral trading that's
good to do for strength as well probably
not super important for power but I'm
also very important for making sure
for hypertrophy's sake you're not
getting any imbalances
as you progress especially through
months and years of training so make
sure you're doing a little bit of a
combination whether you want to pick
specific implements that's really a
methods question and a preference
question then it is Concepts so dumbbell
great kettlebell fine barbell awesome
band doesn't matter body weight none of
these things are as important because
all you're trying to do is create a
certain insult in the tissue and the
Implement is just whichever one you feel
best doing it and this is where actually
machines come into play a lot machines
are greatly underappreciated they are a
fantastic resource especially somebody
who's either early in their fitness
journey
or somebody who really is having a hard
time targeting a muscle group with a
bigger compound movement
so when you're choosing exercises for
hypertrophy you're going to want to
start with those bigger compound
movements that's going to be drive a lot
of the adaptation you can get to these
single joint movements like a little bit
later but having said that
because of of the way that people move
differently their bomb or their
anthropometrics and their biomechanics
and even their technique the same exact
exercise
will not necessarily work the same exact
muscle groups for multiple people so if
you and I both went and did a back squat
um if you did a little bit more of what
we call a high bar squat so this is the
bar is literally sitting up higher up on
your neck you're keeping your back more
vertical and because in order to do that
you shift your knees much further past
your toes keeping of course your whole
foot on the ground in good position okay
that's going to generally put more of an
emphasis on the knee joint right and so
that's not a bad thing you tend to see a
little bit more work in the quads there
a little bit less work in the spinal
rectus and back because you're actually
not supporting the weight horizontally
which is a diff it's a much more
difficult position it's vertically
stacked okay
if I were doing the classic low bar
squat which is again lowering the bar
down my further down my back towards uh
one more like my shoulder blades I
probably take a little bit of a wider
stance and when I squat I drive my
glutes back further away from the
midline in as in fact as a general rule
if you take the midline of your body the
thing that moves is the farthest away
from that midline is likely to be the
thing that's activating the most
so in the case of the of the front squat
you're not generally going to be using
your glutes as much if you're in that
are not even front side just that high
bar squat where you're very very
vertical your knees are going to be
moving very far over your toes which is
fantastic therefore it's a little bit
more knee dominant as can we say it the
other version here you can keep your
shins really close to Vertical you move
your butt backwards
you're going to have to then lean
forward with your torso which means
it'll be more low back more glutes and a
little bit less knee now that's a
general statement it's not necessarily
always true but as a guideline there
that is one exact exercise where you may
be going man I'm trying to improve this
clear weakness I have in my quads I
can't even leg extension my body weight
I have a significant problem there so
maybe in your particular case if I'm
hammering you or you're hammering
yourself in a squad exercise and you're
wondering why your quads aren't getting
any stronger or growing in any size it
may be because of the style of the
movement so I may need to go Andrew all
right look squats in general if you look
at the research are an excellent
exercise for Quad development but for
you they're not because of the way you
stand or just because of you know neural
activation it doesn't matter so I need
to take you to a machine and isolate
that muscle group so we can make sure we
see development in that so if you're
trying to grow a specific body part area
individual muscle it's very important
that you're actually seeing progress
there and don't worry about well in the
textbook the bench press is supposed to
be good for your PEC because if you're
not actually moving the right position
or depends on the angle in which your
sternum actually sits in your body a
bench press may actually be doing very
little for your PEC and you may need to
adjust to say an incline bench or a
decline bench or a PEC fly so machines
can be fantastic at letting you isolate
without having to worry about things
like stability your low back position
getting hurt where's your neck at you
can really concentrate on just the
movement concentrate on the muscle and
let everything else kind of go away and
ensure you're getting training in that
specific area those are excellent
recommendations one thing I want to ask
about is prioritizing specific body
parts and therefore specific exercises
and here I'm not necessarily referring
to trying to bring up a so-called weak
body part you know an area that tends to
be either genetically deficient because
in some cases I learned for instance
having seen a lot of competitive track
and field championships I love watching
track and field as a spectator up to
Hayward Field in Oregon whenever there's
a meat oh sure I really love that the
sprinters are amazing
um they have some of the highest calves
in the world that I've ever seen I mean
like little like little micro Cavs but
they're fast as hell they're right
behind the knee and they have a very
long distance between that calf and
their foot which makes it propulsion
excellent right they wouldn't stand a
chance as a competitive bodybuilder but
because something different is being
selected for in bodybuilding but
obviously they're they're magnificent
for sprinting most people of course
reside somewhere between the extreme of
you know very long muscle bellies from
you know origin to insertion or very
very short muscles usually people have
one or two body parts parts that they
want to emphasize for whatever reason
you know these days it seems to be
people are really what are they saying
now like glutes to the new biceps or
biceps are the new glutes or I don't
know anyway you see this stuff I love
them by the way I am so Pro curls in the
squat rack there you go love it right
there you go so nobody kill me so
everyone has their thing but the that
they would like to emphasize but I have
a question because we're specifically
talking about hypertrophy which is
should people give themselves permission
to not train a body part if their goal
is balanced hypertrophy I'll give a
couple of examples one of the reasons
why I for instance not done a lot of
free weight squatting is because despite
my quadriceps being rather weak
according to you
um they tend to grow rather easily
relative to other muscle groups and the
goal for me has always been balanced
development yeah and so I emphasize
hamstring work and I emphasize a you
know calf work and hamstring work
um it's not that I don't train my quads
at all but I do far less for them and I
avoid the big compound movements for
them I I occasionally do them and what
again this is not about what I do or
don't do but I think that in the context
of a conversation about hypertrophy is
it appropriate to give people permission
to say listen if you're just genetically
you know strong large lats
doing a lot of chin-ups and rows might
actually be the worst thing for you if
your goal is balanced development and I
um I ask because I don't often hear
anyone any you know credentialed people
give people permission to completely
avoid training a given body part if
their goal is balanced development and
yet I think most people who are
resistance training are seeking balance
development I don't know anybody that
actively wants to have big upper body
small legs I think that comes from
neglect and laziness in most cases
sometimes injury related or other things
but
um I think this is an important point to
raise that any good program for
hypertrophy I would think would have to
take into account people's genetic and
natural variation
um sport based variation in which muscle
groups just tend to grow easily for them
and which ones require a lot more focus
and work yeah absolutely you first of
all you have permission to do or not do
anything you'd like to do in terms of of
hybrid tree I generally wouldn't not
recommend disregarding a muscle group
entirely I know that's not what you
actually suggested but just to make sure
that people didn't hear it that way
um what I would do is in this example is
I would continue to do those big
movements I would just keep the volume
low so I might do two sets or something
uh twice a week there's a whole bunch of
reasons you want to make sure that those
motor patterns are there you want to
make sure that the the especially the
benefit of these compound movements is
you get to work so many complementary
muscle movements at the same time so in
the case of like loaded squat you're not
only working stability in the hip as
well as the knee but you're also working
upper body uh your your rhomboids are
keeping you in position your neck has to
stay in position your toes everything is
working and so it's really difficult to
get those things when you take that
movement out and you replace it with say
a a machine hamstring curl that whole
element of balance and neurological
control is very very important to
maintain over time and that just gets
removed with if you go to machines only
so I would keep some of those things in
maybe even not all year round but maybe
one quarter of the year two quarters
every other rotate it something like
that as long as it's getting you're not
if the reason you weren't doing say
those squats was uh because you're like
ah it hurts my backers okay great then
leave it out but if it's just simple you
don't want your quads to go too much I
would just keep that volume low and do
something just to kind of touch it keep
it activated and to maintain all those
other things like flexibility range of
motion I would bet anything your
adductors are probably underdeveloped
right now you can get those by doing
your squats because you're not really
doing I'm sure in much adduction
training and so this things like that
that just get lost when you're only
thinking all big muscle groups that that
come inherent in doing the larger
movements and so you don't have to worry
about them or train them separately I
appreciate that and in reality I do two
to three really hard work sets of hack
hack machine squats per week which is
plenty for me to maintain and even get a
Little Bit Stronger but per our earlier
discussion about a year ago I shifted to
doing very low repetition ranges to main
strength in that movement there you go
but I am actively avoiding hypertrophy
in that muscle group yeah or another
solution would actually be do something
like one set to failure a week
not even extremely long just you know do
something in the 8 to 15 repetition
range
um at the end of all that strength set
and just get a little bit of pump there
and then and then just so just so that
those muscles can touch that level of
fatigue touch that level of strain and
mechanical tension walk away
great thank you for that
what about exercise order amazing so
implicit in this exercise Choice thing
it's what you're going to notice is
these modifiable variables interact with
each other right and you can clearly see
how when we talked about volume and to
clarify volume is the repetitions
multiplied by the sets that's typically
how we express the volume well that's
going to be directly influenced by
intensity the heavier load you put on
the barbell the less repetitions you can
do and the inverse right rest intervals
the shorter you keep your rest intervals
then either the lower the weight has to
go the intensity or the lower the rep
range has to go order is the same thing
choice is the same thing so all of these
things modify each other they play a
little bit of a hand and what everything
else does so with the exercise Choice
thing rolling into exercise order you
get to play a couple of games here when
we talked about strength and power I
basically said stick to the big
movements most complicated and compound
movements first you don't have to do
that with hypertrophy you can do this in
a couple of ways you can do the thing
you're just simply most interested in
first you can do this thing called
pre-fatigue so say you're you're going
to do a back day you could go in and do
nothing but isolated biceps as your very
first exercise and then roll into your
your pulling movements because what
you'll see is during most pulling
activities the biceps are a secondary or
tertiary muscle group but you've
pre-fatigued them you've guaranteed that
muscle of most interest God it's it's
most training in and everything else is
secondary so you can start if you want
with single joint movements you can
start with isolation stuff or you can
start with compound stuff either way it
just really comes down to preference and
what you're specifically trying to
develop now this also goes back to the
exercise Choice question right because
it's sort of the same thing right like
what which one am I choosing
and where I wanted it the campus was the
exercise splits and and so we just sort
of talked about am I doing body part
splits and I know a question I get a lot
here is well which ones should I package
together
I'm not really concerned with it what
you all you should worry about is how
many times per week and in fact total
volume you achieve on a muscle group
per week and I don't doesn't really
matter how those things are folded in
it's really a personal preference issue
one mistake that we see here commonly
is grossly under appreciating that the
legs are not a muscle group
right so the legs have a whole bunch of
muscle groups in them so we see a
classic split like I'll Do shoulders and
chest Monday and then I'll do you know
biceps and forearms Tuesday and then
legs Wednesday
or whatever and then back to upper body
and then I was like you're like wait a
minute
you have four days dedicated to the
upper body and one for quote-unquote
legs
well like you hopefully you can see the
imbalance what's that's going to happen
there over time is you're going to do it
do far more upper body than you are
lower body and that's not appropriate so
you just want to think about your lower
body like you would do if you're going
to do body part splits then include
those things as well and they'll just
chunk everything in as legs once a week
if you want to do that that's actually
okay but that day has to be very very
challenging and you probably should do
quite a bit of volume
um there because you're almost surely
not going to hit the total weekly volume
needed to optimize muscle growth if
you're literally only doing once a week
of your quote-unquote legs so along
those lines Let's Talk Volume yep how
much volume does each muscle group need
per week in order to generate and for
that matter maintain hypertrophy right
so the kind of a minimum number we're
going to look for here is 10 working
sets per week correct per muscle group
correct and just to make sure that
everyone's on the same page if I do a
chin up or a pull-up
I'm going to mainly be training my back
muscles my lats if I'm doing it
correctly lats and rhomboids and biceps
right and a few so but they'll be
indirect targeting of the biceps so
would you include indirect
targeting so for instance if I you said
10 sets per week let's just use biceps
because it seems that that's the go-to
uh generic muscle for what why is that
by the way that when people ask somebody
to you know Flex their muscle they
always Flex their bicep they don't flex
their calf or their quad or their glutes
or something I guess there's some um you
know public decency issues I can tell
you uh with my children that's the very
first muscle I taught them to flex their
glutes no they're biceps
and and good
um good uh healthy parenting advice from
Dr Andy Galpin so if it's 10 sets per
week
for biceps in order to maintain or
further grow the biceps
but does that mean if somebody does 10
sets of chin-ups or 10 sets of chin ups
and rows that they are checking off any
of the boxes for biceps assuming that
they're doing the movement properly yeah
and targeting the major muscle group
that a given movement is supposed to
Target which in my mind when you're
doing a chin up you're supposed to
mainly be using your back muscles and
then there are secondary muscles or
secondary activation of other muscles
but of course some people their arms
grow like crazy when they do chin ups
and their back doesn't grow at all so
this is where we're back to the kind of
um genetic preloading of the system yep
um if you will so how does one meet this
10 sets per week minimum when dividing
different body parts and thinking about
this
direct and indirect Activation so two
things there's no specific exact rule
here and this is why these set ranges
are ranges right and this is why we
don't say like 10 is so 10 would be sort
of the minimum number you want to get to
the more realistic number that most
people especially if you're Advanced or
even intermediate is more like 15 to 20
working sets per week okay now if you're
very well trained you probably want to
even push more towards like 25 and in
fact past that
there's just not a lot of research so
the optimal number may be 30. we don't
we don't really know it's just hard to
get that much work in um it may actually
be detrimental and here we're referring
to Natural athletes that is people who
for whatever reason either because
they're not taking any prescription
drugs or maybe if they are whose levels
of
steroid hormones
mainly the androgens like testosterone
Etc
do not exceed the normal reference range
values either because that's what they
are naturally or that's what they're
replacing through pharmacology whereas
when we think of
technically someone could be taking
exogenous hormones to replace a
deficiency and then there's still a
normal range okay but I just want to
clarify because you work with athletes a
number of different sports where drugs
are and are not tolerated Etc and the
general population that what we are
talking about here is for the general
population not for steroid using
athletes correct okay yeah great so
um so Ken was just sort of that like
absolute minimum number to maintain
which is actually pretty cool if you
think about it this way uh if you went
in and you did three sets of ten
it's a very three sets of ten
repetitions correct
you're already at three you do that
three days a week
you're at your nine that's almost ten if
you also just went to the gym one day a
week you did three sets of ten and you
did three exercises
you're at nine is that working sets
you're basically done so achieving 10
sets per week per muscle group and now
we're not even talking about indirect
activation of a secondary so you're
going to hit 10 fairly easy
um extension to that hitting 20 is
actually still not that hard because of
what's actually going to happen there so
in your example if you're doing your
chin UPS well
would the biceps count there's no exact
rule there because uh there could be
technique issues it could be hand
positions so you mentioned chin up very
specifically a chin up is actually going
to put your hands in in this position
where your palms are facing up right
this is supination and pronation so
you're gonna be there well that's
actually quite different than a pull-up
or your hands are in the opposite
direction so a chin up actually is going
to be pretty good activator in your
biceps
for most people
um so you would expect actually to
probably count that because it's going
to be very difficult to not see some
fatigue in your biceps depending on your
mechanics depending on and by that I
mean just the the segment lengths of
your bones right that's where your
muscles or originate and insert there's
been something you can do about it's not
even a technique or a focus issue it's
just simple fact the matter that's how
you pull best in that area the position
in which your hands are on the wider
grip more narrow grip it's going to
change muscle use so we talked about
earlier I think in the previous episode
that exercises do not determine
adaptations applications do but
exercises do determine things like the
movement plane The Joint you use and
typically The Eccentric concentric sort
of ratio as well as oftentimes the
muscle groups involved so there's just
not a lot of things you can do depending
on how you are built of you know some
exercises activating a secondary group
and you don't want it so it's not always
a technique you it may just be that's
how you're built right and the same
could be true for a squat the high bar
versus low bar sort of example we talked
about earlier it's you know you you
could see plenty of evidence on muscle
activation studies where people even
doing the vertical back squat style have
tremendous glute activation and folks
doing the the low bar have tremendous
quad Activation so a lot of it depends
on personal mechanics so what I counted
is the question really you just have to
ask yourself number one
do you really care that much you know
you have a range to get to if you're
anywhere between 10 to 25 working sets
you know you're fine so if you count it
or don't count it it's just going to
change the difference between whether
you did 17 working sets or 23 and either
way you're fine so I don't really care
number two are you actually feeling
anything there so if you're doing your
chin ups and your biceps are blowing up
I'm counting that right if you're doing
it you're like no I don't feel any
fatigue there it's all my then I'd
probably say okay we're not going to
count that as towards it so um you can
just let that guide you a little bit
towards your account yeah I've always
noticed that there are certain muscle
groups that are very easy to isolate
yeah when under load and those are
almost always the same muscle groups
that are easy to
contract very hard without any load
whatsoever Bingo you know that's
actually really insightful so
um you can kind of use this heuristic of
like if you can contract your lats just
standing here you're probably going to
contract them very well when you lift if
you can't you can probably assume about
the same thing's going to happen so uh
yeah you'll know
um this is actually the lats are
actually really interesting because they
tend to be one of the more difficult
muscle groups to learn how to activate
so if you're in your journey you're just
like I have no idea and um you can look
up like a lat pose so how do you like
how do you puff your last how do you
show it and if you do that and you're
like wow there's no movement here
just recognize that's extremely common
and that is probably going to take you
many many many months of trying before
you start to see some movements and
probably even a few years before you
really start to see Activation so you're
not some sort of like specific like
special genetic anomaly it's very very
common it's uncommon to not be able to
activate your biceps
right that everyone can do that but if
you're just like man
I can't get this here I'm just going to
stop doing it do not do that just keep
at it and just keep concentrating and
thinking about that muscle group it will
take some time it's very common to have
challenges activating Lots yeah I've
noticed that many of the muscle groups
that were responsible for a large
fraction of the work in the various
sports that I played as a young child
are muscles that are very easy for me to
selectively isolate and induce
hypertrophy in um I suppose I'm one of
those mutants where my lats happen to be
one such of those muscle groups but I
think that's because I swam a lot when I
was a kid literally going to ask me a
swimmer yeah that's like a Telltale yeah
every every kid in my town swam and
played soccer there you go and then
later I you know I skateboarded and did
something you generally hear that
answers you either were a swimmer or
you're a wrestler
so it's like that pulling and pull
toward you is
thousands of repetitions allowed you to
get very good at Contracting but because
um I also played soccer and
skateboarding but I didn't do any
baseball basketball or football muscle
groups like deltoids are very
challenging to activate nicely yeah so I
do think that early development is
superimposed on a genetic template that
sort of predicts which muscle groups are
going to be easier or harder to isolate
and train it's also a very good case for
why it's important to do as many
different athletic activities as you can
in your youth yeah and if you do
skateboard
definitely learn to ride switch because
every every skateboarder I know has one
leg that's larger than the other one
calf that's larger than the other and
actually for that matter um people that
do martial arts that don't learn to um
if they're not Southpaw if they don't
learn to switch up and do their uh their
work Southpaw you see the same thing I
mean you're building an asymmetry into
the system and it's not just muscular
it's neural oh strongly neural yeah um
so yeah kids
um parents get your kids doing a bunch
of different things I suppose gymnastics
would probably be the best sport all
around in terms of movement in multiple
planes and activating all the different
muscle groups uh yes and no there's a
lot of benefit no question about it
there's a lot of other things though
that it that has limited abilities so
um almost everything in not like gyms is
great but almost everything in that is
pre-planned which is a major downfall
right so the joy of skating is there's
so much proprioceptive input that you
have to make decisions very quickly
um in in small Windows now you have a
little bit of that when you're flipping
in the air you have to land but you
gymnastics gymnasts tend to have a very
specific routine that they're working on
and they work on that routine for years
so
um for me was Transportation it was
freedom and it didn't require any
coaches or parental oversight yeah yeah
Ball Sports have the beauty of reaction
and things like that so all of them are
wonderful
um yeah good to do a lot of them you've
established that 10 really to 20 sets
per week yeah is the kind of bounds for
um maintaining and initiating hypertri
yep if I were to like flag one of them I
would say 15 to 20. is this that's right
that you want to get um working now
it gets complicated when you ask well
how many reps per set
do I have to get to okay well
we also can complicate that by
repetition type and tempo just sort of
let all that go for now and just think
if you're getting close to that range
you're in the spot and all you have to
do now is balance two things
recovery and continued training okay so
if you're somewhere in this 10 to 20
working sets range and you're in a
position where you can continue to do
that you're not so sore and so damaged
and beat up that you can't maintain that
volume for you know eight weeks at a
time or at least six weeks at a time
then I'd probably say either the style
of repetitions the amount of repetitions
per set you're doing are too much the
volume is getting to you however if
you're not seeing adaptations then I'd
say maybe the repetitions aren't enough
and so that's like that's the kind of
game you're running now there could be
plenty of other factors intensity of
course yeah intensity
um intent and then of course the other
things sleep nutrition
Etc all these other things that go into
our visible stressor category that we
always analyze this sort of brings up
this idea of responders and
non-responders so we get this one a ton
so why is it some people my gym buddy my
roommate we go to sleep the same time
we're on the same nutrition plan we work
out together she triples in muscle size
and I don't have like no again
whatsoever well there's a lot of work
that we're trying to do to identify the
molecular mechanisms behind responders
and non-responders because they clearly
exist in fact this is one of the reasons
why every paper I basically will ever
publish again if I you know if I do
always reports individual person data so
rather than group averages you get to
see you know if there's 10 subjects in
it you get to see how each of the ten
responded because the group average can
get confusing what you really want to
see is how many actually people got
better how many got worse how many maybe
change you know so so we'll always
report those individual data because
when you go to train you're you you're
not the group average that's very
important to know
all right so if you do that you can see
a beautiful line of these hyper
responders the bell curve in the middle
of the normal responders and those folks
who like through any training study just
won't get any better if you can tease
out what you can't but let's say in
science you could tease out all the
extra factors total stress load
hydration sleep
Etc what you often see is non-responders
a lot of the time it's not that they
have a physiological inability it's just
that they need a different protocol and
a lot of times it's they just need more
volume
so if they can handle that and they're
not successfully beat up just give them
more volume and they tend to see a lot
of breakthroughs you see the same thing
with plateaus
so typically it's sort of just like okay
the routine you're on you've been on it
for too long we need to either go to the
other end of the hypertrophy Spectrum
for intensity which means like if you've
been in the like 60 to 70 percent of
your one repetition max range maybe we
actually need to go heavier
take our repetitions down maybe even our
total volume down and go heavier try
that a great way to break through
plateaus of grand if all the other boxes
are checked
um the other one is is due to the
opposite which is like okay we're gonna
go higher we're gonna go sets of 20. set
to 25 High very high repetition range
and really get after it not to do as
much damage because you don't tend to
get as sore from those really high
repetition ranges you'll get more sore
from the lower repetition higher
intensity range than you will typically
the other ones and and see if we can
bust through some plateaus there so it
just generally means you need to do
something a little bit different than
your your training partner
so we've talked about exercise choice
and we've talked about the number of
sets that one needs in order to induce
hypertrophy per week
what about repetition ranges you've
mentioned some pretty broad repetition
ranges
how many repetitions per set is required
in order to induce hypertrophy yep so
there are two caveats here before I give
well the number is somewhere between
like four
to 30 reps 30 repetitions absolutely in
fact I think you can go much higher the
first 20 have to be feel exceedingly
light correct and during those first 20
or so repetitions is the goal still to
contract the muscle as hard as possible
on each repetition so this is the
caveats here so
caveat number one
is
there is an assumption that by the end
of this set you're getting somewhat
close to failure
and so you don't have to go to Absolute
failure
to to induce most like perjury but you
you also have to get kind of close so if
you're going to do a set of 25 and you
finish it and you're like oh yeah like
that was kind of starting to get hard at
the end that's not going to be enough
if you're going to do a set of five or
six and the same sort of expression
comes out of your mouth it's not going
to be up so in that case it doesn't
matter your rep range if you're not
getting somewhat close to failure again
it doesn't need to be complete failure
um a good number to think about is like
minus two which is what we call reps and
Reserve which is sort of like I got
within two or so reps of failure and
then I stopped and can we Define failure
at least for sake of this portion of the
conversation as the point at which you
can no longer move the resistance
could be your body could be yeah a
weight machine Etc that you can no
longer move the resistance
anymore
in the concentric phase
of the exercise movement in good form
correct that's a really nice momentary
muscular failure is how we typically
Define it there's a wonderful review I
think it's open access that just came
out in the last handful of months Eric
helms's team out of New Zealand Eric's
is a great scientist and a very
experienced physique coach and a
competitor himself so he knows a lot
about this area and that paper rent
through all the exact definitions in
detail all the caveats that we're not
gonna have time to get into today so I
would recommend folks like check that
out if they want more information but
I'll try to get the highlights of it
right here so what they basically showed
is
going all the way to failure in the
defining failure like you just did right
so momentary muscular failure you can't
complete another repetition through
complete range of motion through
whatever range of motion you determine
prior to
as well as with good technique so other
body parts aren't being compromised sort
of Etc and doesn't need to be total
failure that minus two
failure is still needed
in caveat two which is again very very
highly trained individuals you won't see
people who are like Eric or other folks
who are six to eight to ten years in a
very serious training
um who don't have to go to failure
probably a little bit more than what I
just said so the the layout that they
brought in their paper was very nice and
they basically said okay here's a couple
of scenarios in which going to failure
is maybe the best way to do it number
one you probably should do it
on a little bit of the safer exercises
so maybe taking your back squat on a
barbell to complete failure
and doing that as like a standard
protocol multiple times a week it's
maybe not the best choice so maybe if
you're going to do barbell back squats
you take that to your you know your your
one or two reps in reserve stop there
it's a lot of work it actually going
back to our discussion on the prolapin
chart it's a similar idea right where
you're going to spend most of your time
in these working sets 70 to 90 sort of
percent and then you're going to take
that failure to maybe the hack squat
machine or maybe even the leg extension
machine so a little bit of a safer
exercise they also can tend to be single
joint exercises don't have to be but
they're just ones that are not as
complicated and you're not likely to
injure other body parts when you're
doing it all right
um so that's one one way to go about it
another way to go about it is simply
doing it on like the last movement of
the day right and so again you're not
going to do it on your first three or
four exercises but whatever your last
finisher is you'll hit total failure on
that one and that kind of keeps you in a
range of yeah you hit some failure you
got a lot of overall work done so that's
a lot of stimulus that's a lot of noise
going to that nucleus that says grow
grow grow but you didn't totally
obliterate yourself
especially if you don't have the
assistance of anabolic steroids right
that's very very important if you have
those you can push this a lot harder
because your recovery would be
significantly enhanced if not you kind
of want to walk away from that I have to
assume that you know 99 of people are
saying this do not and um and and yet
among those who are not taking anything
in terms of anabolics they're I think is
a large range of recovery quotients out
there some people just tend to recover
better some people I think also are far
more diligent about what I would call
the um necessary but not sufficient
variables of yeah adequate sleep yep uh
proper nutrition
limiting stress and and so on yeah I
can't wait to break all that stuff down
I got a whole got a very long discussion
for all those things we will get into it
in all its practical realities and
actionables before long what about rest
between sets great this is the interplay
now so one actually thing we said for a
long time is you want to stick between
30 to 90 seconds of rest between sets
for hypertrophy and that's because
you're trying to
um activate this metabolic disturbance
or disruption you'd need a little bit of
a burn a little bit of a pump to go
there more recent research a lot of this
out of Brad show on Phil's lab and
others have shown that that's just
doesn't seem to be the case again for
moderate uh to newly trained individuals
whether that's the case for the highly
trained folks I don't necessarily know I
don't think there's any difference here
so you can take up to three to five
minutes of rest in between sets and be
fine the caveat here though is this
if you're gonna rest longer that means
the metabolic challenge is lower so you
need to then increase the challenge in
either mechanical tension which think
about as weight load or muscle breakdown
so you can't lower one of the variables
keep everything else the same and expect
the same result so if you're going to
have more rest then you need to either
preserve the load on your bar or the
volume one of the two has to happen so
this gives people a lot of opportunity I
generally tell people
if you're going to train for hypertrophy
it's probably best to stay in a two
minute range at most you can go longer
but a lot of people have a hard time
actually coming back and then executing
that next set with enough intent
to get there and or it's going to make
your workouts tremendously long so you
can stick to the shorter one you don't
have as much mechanical tension but
that's okay you can still get there but
in reality of it is you can do whatever
you would like
tell me if this is a reasonable
structure given what you've told us
three exercises per muscle group
first exercise
slightly heavier loads so repetition
range is somewhere between let's say
five and eight with perhaps hitting
failure close to it on the last set
rest periods of somewhere between two or
let's let's get wild and say five
minutes okay so it's a little bit more
of a strength type workout at that point
but then moving to a second exercise of
three or four sets where the repetition
ranges and now 8 to 15.
shortening the rest periods to 90
seconds or so and then on the third
exercise
repetition ranges of 12 to 30. this
number 30 kind of it makes me wide-eyed
I know that can't remember the last time
I did a set of 30 thinking it was for
hypertrophy but what you're saying makes
absolutely senses or is research back so
very short rest intervals maybe 30
seconds between between sets would that
allow somebody to Target all three forms
of major adaptation I mean my in my mind
it works you know you're talking about
mechanical loads you're talking about
stress and damage and you're talking
about metabolic stress
is that better than to for instance do
all the high repetition work in one
workout per week
um and then higher loads in the other
workout it doesn't matter if you divide
them up or combine them it would not
matter I would say it matters in the
sense of your personal practical
situation well long rest for me I love
training heavier with longer rest right
but
I'm hearing that there's real value to
doing these higher repetition ranges
yeah so the formula you set up there in
a second is great if you want to do it
the other way that's fine you really
it's kind of idiot proof you can set
this up however you'd like you could
actually do the inverse theoretically
you could do the sets of 30 first and
then move to your sets of eight it
doesn't really matter because we're
trying to just get to a certain total
stimuli and you're going to hit it
eventually so you have a lot of room to
play here you also have a lot of room to
adapt based on your circumstances God
I'm short on time today
typically my workout takes me 60 Minutes
for this plan I have I've only got 35
today what do I do
well if you're training for strength
that's a different answer than if you're
training for hypertrophy if you're
training for a purge fee you need to
make sure you hit that total volume so
in this particular case lower the load
lower the rest intervals and just get to
the burn and get going as much as you
can if you're training for strength I
would rather you cut your volume in half
get those few repetitions done at that
high load and just don't do very many
sets today that's a better result so the
goal that you're going after is going to
determine what we call chaos management
which is that thing like that um running
out of time today my time is short or I
didn't even think my time was short
something got cut off I'm not feeling it
today I'm in a hotel
etc etc etc which is life right that's
going to be 10 to 50 of your workouts is
going to be chaos management well how
you make those decisions is going to go
back to understanding number one what
goal you're going after the number two
what are the physiological consequences
we call these physiological limiters
for each one and that's going to tell
you what to select and prioritize the
volume the intensity or whatever else
I'd like to ask about
frequency but I'd like to frame it a
little bit differently
than that I'd like to ask about total
workout duration which dovetails with
frequency because
if one is hitting the appropriate number
of sets per week
and one is combining different muscle
groups on the same days well then
workouts are going to be a very
different duration than if one is doing
a different body part each day for
instance and so I feel like any
discussion about frequency has to be
within the context of workout duration
and vice versa yeah if you are a
a lifting junkie and you're very
consistent in your schedule I'm actually
okay with body parts but most people are
not that and so the concern there is if
you say are isolating and waiting to do
your glutes on one day of the week and
something happens on that day
you might go another 13 days now before
training it you know between workouts
and that's really difficult to maintain
the frequency won't be high enough
unless the load and volume on that one
day is astronomically high it's just not
going to happen so while if you look at
the research frequency in terms of how
many days per week doesn't matter that
much as long as the total load and
failure are equivalent
practically it's a challenge so it's
hard because life gets in the way for
most people
especially if you have kids and a job
and all these things over there so I
actually prefer doing something more
like three days a week of total body and
if something happens you've just missed
that body part for 48 hours 72 hours I
like that a little better for most
people not because it's more effective
but just because
it's a little bit more resilient to life
and you can get there if you wanted to
actually do a little bit of a
combination so if you wanted to do like
two days a week of whole body and then
two days a week of a little bit of a
body part split then you're actually
sort of hedging against all risks there
as long as you get to that total number
there now there is actually some
evidence in a couple of ways that maybe
a little bit more frequently is a little
bit better but the difficulties now
we're going back to the practicality
question of like how many people really
can train just their strength training
six days a week that doesn't count any
of their long duration stuff it isn't
other high heart rate their flexibility
their okay it's just really really
really hard to get all that stuff in so
it is it tends to be easier on folks in
terms of execution and long-term
adherence in my opinion to get that
volume accomplished in in a little bit
more frequent patterns but not once a
week so I like to kind of have it right
there for most people not again not
because it is technically more effective
because you're less likely
to fail to progress because of skipping
a workout something popping up your
power going out and your you know garage
door being locked on your whatever
imagine that that happened to me this
morning folks couldn't get out of my
driveway because the gate with the
electronic gate was uh down because the
power was down anyway solve that problem
yeah the way you describe it my sense is
that workouts will last somewhere
between one and two hours of real work
is that about right it doesn't have to
be nearly that long I mean you could
certainly get enough the work done in 30
minutes if you're doing a whole body
workout yeah yeah absolutely so if
you're doing that three days a week
so remember the numbers we're trying to
hit here let's say we're trying to hit
15 working sets per muscle group per
week that's five working sets per day
for muscle groups so if you did one
exercise for that day let's say you did
squats you did five sets you did that
three days a week you're done there's
your 15.
but there are other muscle groups to hit
on the same day you're doing squats if
you're doing a whole whole body yeah so
you've gotten them all ready and so like
all the leg muscles in that example
are taken care of uh so you would not do
separate hamstring work you wouldn't
need to now hamstrings is actually a
little bit of a caveat like that's a
good example of an exercise or a muscle
group that's probably really good to
make sure you isolate it's challenging
to get with your standard uh dead lift
and and the squat it's one of the
probably ones that's most important to
go Target outside of that but in theory
theoretically though outside of that you
would get most of your leg muscles done
with even a single exercise and even if
you wanted to change it up so you said
all right Monday I'm going to do a squat
variation uh Wednesday the next day I
left I'm gonna do some sort of deadlift
hinging variation and then maybe Friday
my third day I'm going to do some sort
of unilateral maybe rear foot elevated
split squat or something like that all
right maybe even a lateral lunge maybe a
different plane okay you're in a pretty
good spot you're going to hit most of
those muscles
um to your 15 working sets especially if
you take sort of that last set each day
so pretty close to failure that's going
to get some more serious work done but
you're not going to be so fatigued you
can't come back and train it a couple of
days later
and you'll be fine so you could even
split that up into two days a week and
now all you really have to do is hit
something like seven working sets so
maybe that's two exercises per day maybe
some sort of a leg press and a leg hinge
you know three to four sets each you can
hit six to eight sets that day you did
that three days a week now all of a
sudden you're at that 20 24 sets but
same thing with the upper body I just
gave lower body examples because you
know I like the lower body more so it's
not that challenging to get to those
numbers and split and those workouts can
be extremely short so if you're if
you're doing that three days a week
um you know you're getting you're doing
that one exercise everybody one exercise
lower body that certainly shouldn't take
more than 40 minutes I'm happy to hear
that not because I don't like training
yeah please please excuse the double
negative but I found that resistance
training workouts that extend longer
than one hour of work and certainly
longer than 75 minutes of work leave me
very fatigued oh sure and fatigue to the
point where concentrating on cognitive
work throughout the day can be
challenging need a longer nap in the
afternoon I'm a big proponent of naps in
the afternoon in any case but requiring
longer naps in the afternoon
Etc so
at least for me restricting the
resistance training workouts to about 50
50 to 60 Minutes of real work yeah for
me three or four times per week has
helped tremendously so it's a case where
doing higher intensity work in a shorter
period of time and actually hitting
muscle groups less frequently for me
that's again once directly once
indirectly yep has worked really well
and as you mentioned earlier this could
very well be explained by not my
recovery quotient as some sort of
genetic or physiological variable but
the way that I'm training and indeed I
like to do a few four straps and go to
failure on too many sets and you know
I've weaned in the in that genre of
training it's also fun like to just
train hard it is it's really fun it is I
think that um I've learned a lot by
training to quote unquote to failure of
course I think there's a lot of learning
in there provided it's done safely but
what you're describing actually inspires
me to at least give a try to these other
sorts of splits and and ways of training
for hypertrophy and strengths because
this notion of not necessarily having
you go to failure and still being able
to evoke strength and hypertrophy
adaptations is a really intriguing one
uh dare I even say a seductive one and
that leads me to a question that is
based on findings that I've heard
discussed on social media which means
very little if anything unless it's in
the context of people who really
um know exercise science and you're one
such person and that's this idea that
because resistance training can evoke a
protein synthesis adaptation response
but that adaptation response is lasts
about 48 hours before it starts to taper
off that the ideal in quotes frequency
for training a given muscle group for
hypertrophy is about every 48 hours is
that true
yes and no so a couple of things there
remember in order to grow a muscle
there's multiple steps here so you have
the signaling response which actually
happens within seconds of exercise and
can last depending on the marker you
know up to an hour or two hours step
number two then is gene expression and
we see that that's typically peaked
around two to six hours post exercise
and then you have following that protein
synthesis and that's that longer time
frame somewhere between 12 hours there
it's certainly not peaked for 48 hours
it may be still there 48 hours from now
but it is is absolutely coming down at
that point depending on sort of a number
of factors so that part of is sort of
true so this is a combination of like
some half truths and some like maybe
just pedantic things that aren't really
that important to differentiate the real
question I think is is like okay is it
okay to train sooner slash is it better
to train sooner or actually is it better
to wait longer
there's no real reason to think that you
need to train if the goal is hypertrophy
any sooner than 48 hours afterwards I
can't think of an advantage that that
would confer
I I also can't think of any practical
applications
athletes physique bodybuilders coaches
that ever found tremendous success doing
that so I would be very skeptical that
that is anyway better now could you do
it in some instances of say you know
you've got travel coming up like that so
that you just yeah you want to preload
the system by destroying the muscle no
problem and then waiting seven days or
14 days I've known people have done that
before I do Vacations or layoffs every
time like every single annihilate
themselves and then take a two-week
layoff yeah and it's like there's no
benefit there other than psychological
like I just love it like it feels great
to be super sore I feel less crappy not
training for those couple days because
I'm like I'm super sore anyway you need
the extended rest yeah of course and
it's just like
it's just a crappy justification in my
brain that like
excuse to do something really wild and
that I totally don't need and get way
sore that I should get Dr Andy galvin's
suggestions of what not to do but that
he does yeah 100 so do as I say not as I
do the famous words of every research
Professor yeah I think 48 hours is a
reasonable time uh to wait can't think
of any advantage of going sooner than
that there's really not a tremendous
amount of advantage of waiting much
longer than that certainly 72 hours is
fine as long as you're hitting these
Concepts we've talked about you can let
really life
determine that I mean there's situations
too with like particularly our athletes
where we have to kind of break that
because of schedule obligations they're
playing every fifth day every third day
or something like that you're just gonna
have to lift some back-to-back days
you're just gonna have to get it done
um but yeah I can't think of why I'd go
out of my way to do that the
second part of that question is let's
say somebody trains a muscle
they train it properly they hit it in
the appropriate rep ranges and
appropriate rest Etc that the stimulus
is there the adaptation is set in motion
they're getting someone where somewhere
at 48 hours or so a protein synthesis
Peak that's going to taper off yeah but
they don't train it 48 hours later or 72
hours later they train it five or six
days later not because they're lazy not
because they um they don't care but
because they have other priorities that
are woven in with getting hypertrophy in
this muscle right there are people who
exist only to get hypertrophy in a given
muscle group but let's be fair most
people would like to grow that muscle
group
but then does it necessarily mean that
the muscle starts to revert to its
pre-hypertrophic state that is does it
atrophy and get smaller again because if
it doesn't I could see a lot of reasons
for hitting a muscle group once every
five days or seven days provided you
hold on to the hypertrophy that you
initiated five or seven days ago yeah
there's no reason to think you will lose
anything in that sort of a Time domain
five to seven days the only challenge
with training that infrequently is can
you actually get enough total volume
done so if you're going to train them
also once a week you either have to go
to real failure real damage and soreness
or you have to figure out a way to hit
20 cents that day in that muscle not at
all impossible especially if you're
thinking well actually all I have to do
is 15. I'm gonna do five sets of three
exercises that's not outrageous not at
all so so like absolutely possible if
you're wanting to go more towards 20
we're getting closer to that 25 like now
it starts to get pretty challenging so
scientifically the research will suggest
it's going to be equally effective
practically it's challenging for people
to hit sufficient volume without just
being so demoralized afterwards because
they're in so much pain they can't get
out of their car because their legs are
so trash they can't sit on the toilet
and get back up without crying from pain
so that's not good no that's not good I
say that because those are actual
examples that have happened in my life
yeah I I I'm realizing as we're having
this conversation about ways to
stimulate hypertrophy that I've sort of
defaulted to more intensity as opposed
to volume because of the time factor I
have a lot of other things going on in
my life and So within that hour
I Can't Get Enough sets in across all
the muscle groups I need to hit and I'm
only going to do it about once a week
and so it's at least for me more
advantageous to just train extremely
hard I actually use the pre-exhaustion
technique that you mentioned before yep
or pre-fatigue as you refer to it of
hitting something really strong with an
isolation exercise then doing compound
exercises I'm starting to think based on
what you've told me that pre-fatigue
and then a compound exercise in some
ways it's not really two sets because if
you're going to fail your four straps
you're kind of pushing past failure then
you're doing a compound exercise and
you're doing that two or three times
well that sounds like four to six sets
but the force repetitions are almost
like an additional set right yep and so
it's not 20 sets but it's four to six
really really hard sets that go beyond
what we normally think of as a set
totally okay it's sort of the difference
between running on concrete and running
on Sand when I go for a sand run it's a
very different experience totally yeah
and this is why I should have mentioned
this at the very very beginning of our
our chat today but all of these numbers
that I'll give you for any exercise
adaptation you you cannot think of them
as hard lines they are gradients and so
when we think about the number for
hypertrophy in terms of repetitions I
said 4 to 30. what do you think happens
at three do you think hypertrophages
stops in fact the number you'll see in
literature is more like six to Thirty I
actually slide it down to four though
like personal preference because of that
but it just Fades away what do you think
happens at rep 31 35 there's no it just
Fades gradually over time so you
actually sort of brought this up one of
your other questions and I'm not sure if
you were even thinking about this or
maybe you were I just babbled on about
something else but if strength happens
between this like one to five repetition
range and hypertrophy typically happens
in this like 8 to 30 range what happens
if I were to do the sets of six or God
forbid seven like seven and nine are
these numbers you just absolutely don't
do in strength training right it's just
like so that's a one two three four five
six got eight ten twelve like do not
program a set of 30. now when I'm
trained sets of seven to nine yeah it's
great
uh we'll use sets of seven a lot with
weightlifters because you can actually
count numbers more effectively but what
happens in seven to nine right so this
is actually a wonderful area of these
like
five to eight repetitions where you're
going to get a nice combination of a lot
of strength gains and a lot of
hypertrophy so someone who's coming in
going man I want to get stronger and I
want to add muscle what do I do here
well that's actually a really nice
answer train pretty hard in that like
four to eight repetition range and
you're going to get a lot stronger and
you'll still induce a lot of hypertrophy
if you want to really maximize
hypertrophy I would probably spend most
of your time in the 8 to 15 repetition
per set range you can go up to 30.
admittedly though I don't think it's
optimal to spend most of your time at
more than 15 reps per set it's very
challenging to maintain the focus
required at rep 27 to actually get
sufficient failure by rep there you just
you just give up way too early it's hard
to do the same thing at the bottom end
of that Spectrum in terms of of really
heavy to get there so I really honestly
think 8 to 15 is still it's cliche it's
that textbook number but it's a reason
that's a like it is tried and true and
very very very effective if for instance
you want to get stronger though
and not invoke a lot of hypertrophy you
have a couple of tricks you can pull
number one stay south of that five
repetition range you do sets of one sets
of two go as heavy as you can with all
appropriate considerations
and stick within maybe even up to three
reps per set you start getting to four
to five to six now you're gonna start
itching towards that that hypertriot
range so stay down there do a lot more
total sets so do a classic example would
be something like eight sets of three
right you're going to get a lot of
practice you're going to get 24 very
high quality reps with a lot of rest in
between okay you go from there you go to
managing caloric intake making sure your
protein is still on point you want to
recover but if your total calories
aren't um you know greater than 10 to 15
above your maintenance needs then you're
not going to be able to put on a whole
bunch of muscle mass because you just
don't have the fuel for it you can also
then space your workouts out so that
stimulus isn't coming extremely often so
if you do that thing a couple of times a
week it's not enough frequency in that
signal so remember that signal has to be
frequent or loud you didn't make it
super loud and now you're not making a
super frequent you can get very very
very strong like that and and put on
very low amounts of vibratory if that's
sort of the choice
so you told us a lot about volume and
frequency and how that relates to
protein synthesis and Recovery to evoke
the hypertrophy adaptation response how
should people think about systemic
damage and Recovery because obviously
the nervous system and the way it
interacts with the neuromuscular system
is the site of all the action here or at
least a lot of the action
and the nervous system can in fact
become fatigued you know that has a
great capacity but the whole system that
we're talking about can be worked to the
extent that even if a muscle group like
the biceps or the back is being allowed
to rest while you're training legs and
other muscle groups that your whole
neuromuscular system needs rest how does
one determine whether or not your entire
body needs complete rest or or low level
active rest or exercise of a different
kind yeah yeah sure so I want to
actually tackle this because we're on
the topic of hypertrophy I'm assuming
that that's the goal in mind here yes
here I'm asking specifically within the
contracts of hypertrophy I realize that
for other training goals the answer of
this question could be quite different
yeah okay so we actually do this in a
couple of different ways let's start
local and work back to systemic right
because number one what you're really
concerned about is at the local muscle
level is am I going to create excessive
damage
and I don't necessarily mean muscle
damage I mean injury right so um the
kind of rule of thumb we use is like
three out of ten in terms of soreness if
you're more than three out of ten in
terms of soreness we're going to start
asking questions if you're higher than
six out of ten we're probably not
training this is subjective total
subjective measure right and you'll
you'll know very quickly right I feel
like if you can barely graze your PEC
with your fingertip and then you're like
ah I don't care what you score that
we're not training there's just no
damage if you're three out of ten if
you're just like oh I'm kind of like a
little bit stiff here but once you get
warmed up you start feeling okay you're
probably okay to proceed there so that
is is
a very easy way to just think about
soreness you're going to be a little bit
tight depending on your training
frequency
now zooming out to systemic we use a
whole host of things so we actually have
a a whole host of biomarkers we use you
can get a lot of these from blood so you
can look at things like creatine kinase
that's the very common one marker of
muscle damage um we'll actually look at
LDH we'll look at myoglobulin that's
just like if you think about hemoglobin
is the
um is the molecule that carries oxygen
throughout your blood the myoglobin is
the the part of that that's actually in
muscle so when muscle gets broken down
that gets leaked out and put in your
blood that's one of the markers actually
it's gonna be associated with things
like rhabdo which is uh like you're
going to see your urine is purple and
it's extremely dark because you've got
so much muscle breakdown that that
happens and kidneys can have a problem
and you put a bunch of stuff in there so
we use those biomarkers we'll actually
also look at probably a couple things
you're familiar with alt and ASD these
are excellent biomarkers of muscle
breakdown so if we are actually
suspecting that this is a chronic
problem we're going to actually go and
pull some blood if it's just like I'm
super sore today we're going to use that
subjective marker but if we're seeing
this as constant like man are we really
pushed pushing you way too much is there
some sort of systemic problem we're
going to blood and we're going to look
at all those different things now AST to
alt is really specific and I don't want
to take us too far off track here but
the ratio to those things is actually
very important as well so if you look at
the AST to alt ratio typically the
number we'll look at is like 1.67 as
that ratio is like higher than that you
have a pretty high risk of muscle damage
but really
between you know me and you and a few of
these listeners anytime we start seeing
AST out kick alt we're immediately
thinking it has a ratio being higher
than one we're immediately thinking like
there's something happening muscle
damage wise so um that's actually a
sneaky good indicator of just total
muscle mass because the vast majority of
that's going to be in muscle so those
are actually some markers that we like a
lot if muscle damage is the thing we're
concerned with if we are more concerned
with things like total training volume
systemic overload then we may turn to
something more like sleep there's a lot
of information we can actually get gland
from changes in sleep behavior and
function you could also look at things
like HRV heart rate variability which is
a very classic marker and much more
sensitive to changes with training than
something like a resting heart rate
which is which is one thing you can
actually do that's totally cost free
just look at your changes and any
elevation resting heart rate over time
especially more than three to five
consecutive days it is an indicator but
HIV is much more sensitive to things
like training induced overload so that's
a quick version of stuff that we're
going to pay attention to the last one I
would add there is simply motivation
so if you're really training hard and
you like training hard and you just like
cannot force yourself to go anymore that
in of itself can be a good indication of
it's maybe not the day maybe not the
week with all of these things you want
to be careful about overreacting to a
single day measure again we look we need
to look at at least a trend of more than
three days honestly I'm looking at more
than five days I'm gonna pull back from
that and think about what phase of
training we're in what part of the Year
we're in typically with our athletes
we're in season preseason post-season
off season Etc to make our decisions
about what we're going to do about it
are we canning the entire workout are we
doing a modified lower version lower
intensity my default generally if
hypertrophy is the goal remember
volume is the driver there so if I can
like can we get in can we go real light
let's go to 6 out of 10 rpe so relative
perceived exertion maybe we'll reduce
the range of motion maybe we'll make it
a little bit easier maybe go to machines
or instead of going a squat we'll just
do you know uh leg extension something
like that but I want to still get enough
volume in there that will keep you on
target any again even going at 50 not
not to high repetition you know 50 for a
set of ten three sets just get a nice
blood flow in there get it in get it out
aid in recovery and then move on and
come back the next day that's probably
what I would do rather than canning the
entire session
how do other forms of exercise
combine with hypertrophy training
for instance can I do cardiovascular
training for two or three days per week
provided that cardiovascular training is
of low enough intensity and not disrupt
hypertrophy progression
and
can I do that cardiovascular exercise
before or after the hypertrophy training
or does it need to be separated out the
answer to this is really what we call
the crossover air interference effect
okay it's really an energy management
issue so the only time
endurance exercise starts to interfere
or block or hinder attenuate hypertrophy
is in one of two broad categories number
one total energy intake or your balance
is off so you can ameliorate this by
just eating more if you do that then the
interference effect generally goes away
the second one is you want to make sure
you avoid exercise forms for your
endurance training that are the same
working group and specifically The
Eccentric portion so for example we see
much more interference with running
unlike hypertrophy then we move cycling
right less eccentric pounding and
loading less damage less things to
recover from the tissue seems to be
totally fine the only other thing you
need to worry about here is total volume
of your endurance work so if you're
doing a moderate intensity for a
moderate duration say 70 of your maximum
heart rate for 25 minutes it's unlikely
to do much damage in terms of blocking
hypertrophy you're totally fine can you
do it before or after your workout it's
probably not going to matter that much
all right so pre-fatigue is okay for
hypertrophy so if your pre-fatigue is
coming from endurance then you're
totally fine not a big deal afterwards
cool you want to break it up into
multiple sessions that's probably better
right so if you do your endurance work
on a separate day that's probably best
case scenario if you can't do that but
you can break it up into two workouts
say you lift in the morning and then you
do your quote-unquote cardio at night
maybe that's second best third best is
doing it at the end of your lift and
finishing it that's fine just make sure
that you're maximizing your recovery on
all the other tricks we'll talk about
later make sure the calories are there
make sure you're not doing a lot of
eccentric Landing in that endurance
stuff and you'll be just fine and where
does higher intensity cardio fit into a
hypertrophy program so higher intensity
cardio for instance in my mind is
getting on the assault bike and doing
um you know eight intervals of 20 second
Sprints and 10 second rest in between or
perhaps go into a field and doing some
bounds and Sprints and things of that
sort not going all out not you know
running for one's life but getting up to
about you know 85 90 percent of of
running for one's life so we have a lot
less information on the potential
interference or not of high intensities
of it um the stuff we do have suggested
it may actually Aid
and hypertrophy and that's because if
you think about it one the potential
paths to activation and muscle growth is
this metabolic disturbance you're going
to get that a lot with the the high
intensity interval thing so it's not a
terrible thing to do I wouldn't do it to
the level that it compromises your
ability to come back and do your primary
training so if you're so fatigued your
legs are super heavy and they're
depleted you now have to ingest extra
carbohydrates to replenish muscle
glycogen to be able to handle both
recovery and continued training Etc that
could then lead to a problem but in
general we really don't see any reason
why that is going to completely block or
or make it such that your training was
quote unquote wasted or it didn't work
in fact actually
um a very recent study came out where
they had individuals perform six weeks
of purely aerobic endurance steady state
long duration endurance for six weeks I
think prior to starting a hypertrophy
phase compared that to individuals who
did not do that and those folks that did
these six weeks of just I think it was
cycling actually
just endurance work
had more muscle growth at the end of
their hypertrophy training than those
folks that did not
so this shows you very clearly there are
a lot of advantages that come with being
physically fit to Growing muscle so
folks that also have actually hit
plateaus a lot one of the things you may
actually see some benefit from is
actually doing a little bit more
endurance work whether it's a steady
state stuff maybe a side the higher
intensity stuff certainly if you're
starting a training phase it's a pretty
good idea to do that and there's a
number of physiological reasons of why
that's potentially occurring but the the
lowest hanging fruit here is weak sort
of joke you know like if you're so unfit
that you're tying your shoes in your
warm-up and you're already breaking a
sweat you probably don't have enough
Fitness to do enough training to get
enough hypertree so that is in fact your
limiting factor you're not recovering
you're super fatigued and damaged and
sore
because you're so unfit so get fit first
and then you can actually get more gains
a week later so you have to kind of Kick
the Can down the road for a few weeks
but 10 weeks later you'll be in a better
spot than you were by investing a little
bit in your conditioning so as you
pointed out before and I can only assume
you're referring to me hypertrophy
training is idiot proof meaning there's
a lot of leeway in the variables but not
so much leeway that people can do
anything it it's bounded by these
general principles
so with your permission I'm going to do
a brief overview of my notes based on
your description of the modifiable
variables that will direct somebody
towards hypertrophy keeping in mind this
backdrop of exercise Choice exercise
order
selecting appropriate volume that sets
and Reps training frequency and needing
some Metric or way to have progression
either by adding more weight or by more
tension or more metabolic stress and so
on
in terms of exercise Choice it sounds
like the choice of exercises is not
super critical in terms of specificity
yeah but that the ideal circumstances
that people are targeting all the major
and frankly
secondary and minor muscle groups if you
can even call them that yeah across
their exercise choices that they're
picking exercises that they can perform
safely and that they can generate enough
intensity so they're getting close to
failure without placing themselves into
danger right so um for some people that
might mean including large compound free
weight exercises like squats and
deadlifts and bent over barbell rows as
well as isolation exercises and for some
people there might be a biased toward
more isolation exercises and machines
but of course machines don't necessarily
mean that you can't use heavy loads in
fact plate loaded machines like Hammer
strange machines it will allow for quite
substantial loads so picking two or
three or more movements per muscle group
can be valuable
but that overall
consistency is going to outshine
variation in the sense that you don't
need to hit muscles with a different
exercise every workout coming back to
the same things
has a benefit and we heard about this in
our discussion around strength and power
as well
okay
in terms of order of exercises there too
it sounds like there's a lot of
flexibility one could
do the large compound exercise
for let's say quadriceps and hamstrings
and glutes first like a squat or a front
squat
or could deadlift for that matter but
then if one deadlifted and primarily hit
the glutes and hamstrings then you might
want to Target the quadriceps more
directly with leg extensions or if one
squatted and was loading that squat bar
carrying the squat bar in a way that was
predominantly quadricep yeah and less so
glute and hamstring than leg curls would
be a good choice Etc okay and train your
calves folks
very important unless you're a genetic
freak of course it's actually a good
opportunity to say unless you're a
genetic freak or you just have a genetic
predisposition yeah or you've done
Sports and and you have a genetic
predisposition that gives you you know
very large caps that don't require any
training at all I I know people like
this they're they're somewhat rare but
they're out there yeah and those folks
sometimes want to stay away from or
minimize their training you told me that
even if you have a muscle group that's a
hyper responder
in terms of hypertrophy getting at least
one or two
good hard sets per week is good because
you want to keep functionality in that
neuromuscular system love it okay in
terms of volume again we have a large
amount of variation is what I'm hearing
that the total number of sets per week
is a strong driving force of program
design and selection
that ideally you're performing 10 to 20
and probably more like 15 to 20 sets per
week and that could be divided up across
multiple workouts or done in one workout
but that's 10 to 20 sets per week per
muscle group
not really taking into account indirect
Activation so that would be 10 to 20
sets for biceps
your back work is going to hit your
biceps a little bit maybe a bit more
depending on the exercise selection but
it's really 10 to 20 and given that
hypertrophy can still occur and maybe
even occurs better with more volume yeah
then don't include the indirect work
unless
something about the architecture of your
body and the inability to engage certain
muscle groups like makes the a pull-up
really an arm exercise for you do I have
that right the way that I would maybe
Define it is typically with movements we
consider to be there to be primary
movers secondary movers and then
tertiary right if it is a primary or
secondary I'm probably counting it if
it's tertiary or less I'm probably not
counting it got it so going back to our
example of a pull-up so an example of a
pull-up I probably wouldn't count the
biceps in a pull-up but I would probably
count the biceps during a chin up would
you count the rear deltoid in a pull-up
probably not maybe like uh it just
depends um probably not though okay
train the rear delts also that's only
honestly the reason I answered that is
because most people don't do anything
for the real adults anyways but they
should right absolutely that's why I
didn't want to count it I wanted you to
go out of your way to make sure you did
something specifically for the real rear
delts for Aesthetics and for
functionality for health and and balance
across the shoulders totally neck uh
shoulder all of it I'm so happy to hear
you say this I'm a huge fan of people
doing rear deltoid work for all the
reasons you described n network for that
matter I think people forget that the
neck is the upper part of your spine
yeah yeah and for postural reasons and
for stabilization safety reasons it's
really critical but
I think most people aren't familiar with
how best to train the rear deltoids and
neck and I know a number of people are
afraid of getting a big neck which for
reasons that are still unclear to me is
referred to as no neck but let's leave
out that no neck comment for the moment
what are some good exercises for
targeting the rear deltoids and neck
safely
that people can perform for
stabilization and for hypertrophy yeah I
would recommend people check out Eric
Cressy he is a wonderful strength
conditioning coach he actually is I
think the director of pitching for the
New York Yankees now is that spelled
c-r-e-s-s-i-e
c-r-e-s-s-e-y I believe and he's got a
facility in uh I believe Boston as well
as in Florida so he's very very involved
in pitching as well as hockey and things
like that so
um he has so many free videos and
resources on a on so much of the
shoulder girdle mostly because he he's
dealt with overhead and throwing
athletes and so the Precision required
there is tremendous so you want to be
very careful when you start playing in
this area because the wrong positioning
of your scapula can cause a whole bunch
of problems in your neck and low back
and so he would be a great resource to
go take a look at that um depending on
how your your scapulas are gliding and
sliding and the way that you want your
rotator cuffs firing your rhomboids
there's it's like very complicated very
quickly so you want to learn more go
there
as a very very quick couple of answers
um one of my favorite exercises is is
lying on a bench or putting some bench
and then just doing a reverse fly
basically the reason I like stabilizing
the rest of the body so you can make
sure you can focus on just using those
rear dual ties and putting your your
scapulas in the right position now
there's a there's a specific set of
cueing that you want the scapula to move
down and back for again check out Eric
or any number of folks in that area to
do it but that's a very simple way uh
the reverse fly to get there great and
then in terms of neck exercises I was
told to avoid Bridges because they can
cause damage to the discs I will
probably never do a bridge ever uh the
rest of my life so isometrics are a
great exercise for that because if you
think about what uh what you're asking
muscle groups to do in the neck you
mostly want it to be able to do a
certain type of rotation a little bit of
flexion extension and some some other
movements but in general it should be
being stable so you want to walk through
these joints by asking kind of what they
do are they a moving joint are they a
stability joint in this case you want to
be there so isometrics are going to put
you in a much better position there are
some actually pretty cool devices that
you can wear and you can put them on
your head and you can do all kinds of
movement and get some great training
there those are great starts but if you
don't have any of that just basic
isometrics are a great way to go about
it um neck Bridges would not be on that
list for me no neck Bridges folks
in terms of sets and repetitions we
briefly touched on this but anyway from
I believe six repetitions all the way up
to 30 repetitions but probably more in
the
8 to 15 repetition range for hypertrophy
most of the time yeah and I'll just
throw in there because I love this idea
that if you want to get a
relatively balanced adaptation related
to strength and hypertrophy that seven
to nine range the the No Man's uh or Dan
no woman's uh land of
of training repetitions I always joke in
class I'm like okay we go through the
whole thing right you're like one to
five strength eight to twelve you know I
perch reading like right and then I'm
like okay so six to nine means nothing
will happen at all the kids are just
like writing it down like
right a good way to for everybody to
remember that there are adaptations
triggered in the six to nine rep range
and it's a balance of strength and
height you'll just get thrown out of any
gym that I'm a part of fantastic if you
do that uh so
but the important point is to get close
to failure and occasionally hit failure
maybe occasionally throw in a forced
repetition or a rest pause where you
rest and then do a few more something
like that but those intensity increasing
Maneuvers will require a little bit more
attention to recovery either time or or
attention in some other way and here's a
little bit of care and I'll throw at
people
because people generally don't like to
be told to not go to failure that often
right so there's a handful of like half
the folks are like sweet I don't have to
train that hard to get there and those
folks it's like well yes but I also said
you just can't like do a half workout
you have to get pretty darn close to
failure and most people don't really
know what failure means so for that
group it's actually it's still probably
harder than you think you want to train
the other group though that like wants
to completely blow themselves out every
single time
dragging them back is more the key now
for those folks here's what I can say
if you make sure that your hidden
stressors invisible stressors are
completely taken care of you can go to
failure a lot more often and so you need
to dial those things in and then now you
can go hammer yourself because you'll
recover so much quicker and we see this
very commonly in all of our programs
with our athletes and our non-athletes
that when we get the rest of the Hidden
invisible stressors taken care of their
training volume goes up so much because
they'll just start coming back and
they're like oh my God I'm not sore
anymore oh my God I'm not nearly a sore
I did this exact workout you know
countless times before and now I'm doing
it and I'm not sore at all anymore what
the hell like we didn't do anything
different with the programming or really
the nutrition but we got the rest of
that allostatic load under control and
boom things take off it's a lot like
drivers so many people seem to be riding
the brake and so many people seem to be
heavy on the accelerator yeah that's
actually one of the ways we describe it
is like you want to go faster people's
inclination step one is to hit the gas
our our step number one is making sure
your left foot's not on the brake you'll
go faster with less resistance which
means you'll actually wear down the
system a lot slower by just taking your
foot off the brake first if you're then
not going fast enough now we can push
the accelerator but I'm not pushing that
accelerator while your foot's still on
the brake you're going to go a little
bit faster but not as fast as you should
be going with that much work and you're
going to start wearing down brake pedals
and things like that so I like the
analogy
so hitting that 10 to 20
sets per week repetition range is pretty
broad provided you get close to failure
hit failure every once in a while could
be the final set of each exercise or
maybe do one workout where you hit
failure on everything but then you don't
do it for a few more again there it
sounds like there's a lot of play in the
system here
rest ranges anywhere from 30 seconds all
the way up to three or four minutes
depending on how heavy you're training
and how close to failure or to failure
maybe even quote unquote Beyond failure
if there is such a thing you're training
um throwing in negatives and things like
that we didn't get into really high
intensity techniques but people again
vary in the extent to which they're
pushing the system but
there does seem to be some value to
mixing up the
rest between set ranges across exercises
and across workouts but you could
combine them all in the same workout as
what I heard yep
and then in terms of progression it
sounds to me like the goal when
hypertrophy training is not necessarily
to add more weight to the bar although
that's one way one could do it but that
the progression actually can arrive
through this really extensive kit of
changing the speed of movement changing
um the number of sets adding some volume
maybe changing the split so that you go
from a three day a week full body
workout to more of a body parts one or
two body parts per day every other day
or two on one off at any number of
different variations that are out there
sounds like all of these can and will
work provided that people
are obeying the general principles of
this uh hypertrophy adaptation inducing
protocol that you described and that
they are meeting the necessary but not
sufficient variables as well
such as sleep nutrition and managing the
stress in the rest of their life
do I have that correctly yeah that's
really really good uh one more thing I'd
like to add is this is a situation for
hypertrophy in which there are some
exercises
that I actually don't think are good
ideas so I want to make sure we included
those in the conversation that's not
necessarily the case for strength you
can really do kind of whatever one you
want and that is
specifically Plyometrics although in
fact if you look at there's a recent
review paper came out showing that like
Plyometrics are effective as well right
just like one can do almost anything as
long as it falls within this parameter
set the concepts are few and the methods
are many and the methods for hypertrophy
are many many
in general though Plyometrics are not my
first second or even like 100th choice
for hypertrophy they if they're a part
of a total training program and you get
some of our purchase as a result cool
you're lucky not the first place I'm
going the other major category are
weightlifting variations so that when
I'm saying weightlifting I mean
specifically Olympic weightlifting as in
Snatch clean and jerk and their
variations those are just not a good
exercise Choice it's not that they don't
work
it's just the risk to benefit ratio
starts to fall pretty fast and in the
negative favor and so it's just not
worth doing sets of 10 of a snatch
unless you're in a sport where that's
like the competition or whatever but if
the goal is simply hypertrophy choose
different exercises than that great
now I realize that we are going to do
entire episodes related to nutrition
supplementation recovery Etc but I'd
like to just touch on two or three
specific topics and questions that come
up a lot around the
question of hypertrophy specifically and
that probably also relate to strength
training and training for Speed
so I'm going to ask these in
um not rapid fire but I'll give you
shorter answers we'll put it that way so
I will ask these questions now but with
the caveat that we will get into these
topics in much more depth yeah very soon
the first question is about the use of
cold showers and Ice baths and cold
water exposure which I know many people
use for resilience training to increase
their dopamine which it does
and for recovery but
there's also this issue of when one
should use cold that is deliberate cold
exposure relative to hypertrophy
training specifically
and
that's because I've heard that if
deliberate cold exposure is done too
soon after a hypertrophy adaptation
inducing workout yeah right all the
sorts of things we've been talking about
that the hypertrophy response can be
blunted reduced or eliminated is that
true and if so when could people do
deliberate cold exposure while still
also including hypertrophy training in
their program and still get hypertrophy
great so you know I'm a lover of the
cold I still have a deep freezer in my
house that is filled with water at all
times that is plugged in and is a frozen
chamber I still do the old school style
of it please unplug it before you get in
it oh yes absolutely and then don't do
it by yourself so that the lid can close
on top of you and then we don't see you
sort of ever again the Han Solo effect
it's time for me to upgrade and get one
of these new fancy ones but I've been
using this for so many years so I love
it obviously I've been involved with xpt
and and Gabby and Laird and Brian
McKenzie and these folks so I've been
doing this stuff for a long time I've
but I don't even know how many hundreds
of folks in the ice and a lot of reasons
so there are a lot of benefits and we
could talk about those later however
that that being said it is very very
true you do not want to get in the ice
post hypertrophy training you wouldn't
want to do that immediately after the
workout you probably don't want to do it
before the workout and you probably
don't even want to do it that same day
it's just not worth it it will blunt I
apprecially in specifically we've talked
earlier about what's driving muscle
growth is that signaling Cascade through
that gene expression through that muscle
protein synthesis cold exposure blocks
that signal
remember adaptation comes from stress
you've put in a stressor in now you've
blocked that stress you've literally
blocked this signal that tells your body
come back and grow larger size so not a
good idea to do it if you're training
for some other purposes
maybe strength maybe there's an argument
there although maybe not for Speed and
power maybe get away with the endurance
maybe a separate conversation if you're
in season
I have no problem using it immediately
after a game the goal is entirely
different even if we did a hypertrophy
type of training program we're not doing
it try to try to maximize growth in that
particular case our priority for
Recovery is higher than our priority for
muscle growth so we choose optimization
in that category you can only make those
choices though when you truly understand
what is the goal for the day the week
the month the phase of training and
really what part of the year you're in
we have that all plotted out for for all
the people we work with so I know when
we want to choose one over the other
it's not a this is the choice you always
make such a nation that's just not how
we operate we need more Precision than
that so that being said we're generally
not going to do it if we want to do a
lot of icing during a phase in which
we're
using a lot of hypertrophy we're going
to do a couple of things number one we
may just not use it so there are phases
in our training where I don't want to
maximize recovery
I'm not going to give you any tricks
here I'm not going to do ice or any of
the other methods we're going to talk
about why because the whole point is to
cause overload that's what's going to be
the stimuli to cause adaptation if all
I'm doing is blocking that stuff
attenuating it smashing it back down I'm
undercutting myself I'm choosing to feel
a little bit better to have a little bit
better performance right now knowing
that's going to compromise the results
I'm going to get 6 8 10 12 weeks from
now all right so I'm not going to choose
it at all in reality of it is if I
really am trying to maximize hypertrophy
I'm probably not doing any ice work
through that whole phase maybe like my
off day I know that's similar to a setup
you have like one day a week when I'm
not training we'll jump in some ice
maybe even do some hot cold contrast I
love the xbc protocol it's you know
you've probably talked about it before
that's a great setup or just not do it
at all right it's just not something we
need when we move into another phase of
training where we're trying to maximize
adaptation or maximize the result and
and get the benefit of that training now
we're going to hedge more towards
recovery and we're going to bring in
some of these strategies and techniques
and not worry about causing the most
stimuli there because we're trying to
add attenuator because we're trying to
actualize the work we did 6 8 10 12
weeks before what about cold showers do
those have the same hypertrophy blunting
effect in general no in general you can
do cold showers that's not going to be a
problem you're not going to be in there
very long and you're not going to get
nearly as cold as you will submerge in
30 degree ice water for like that the
way that we do it nonetheless so I have
no problem standing in the shower for a
couple of minutes using it for other
reasons if you want to that's no issue
I'd like to talk a little bit about
nutrition and supplementation as it
relates to hypertrophy
Dr Lane Norton who's been a guest on the
Hebrew and Lab podcast and we both know
throughout a number range
related to protein intake
on the backdrop of how much protein
synthesis can occur by meal across the
day Etc
a lot of a lot of research done there
and some important work by him in
particular and then the value that he
threw out was
1.6 grams
per kilogram of body weight being the
lower end of the range up to I believe
is it was as high as 2.4 maybe even as
high as 2.7 grams of protein per
kilogram of body weight per day
that's a pretty broad range but it's on
the higher end of what I think most
people think of in terms of protein
intake and then again some people might
already be right there or maybe even
above that value now of course this all
depends on whether or not people are
omnivore vegan uh
meat based Etc we won't even go there
but assuming people are getting enough
protein per day so somewhere in that
range and they are spreading out that
protein intake
to accommodate the fact that the body
can only assimilate a certain amount of
protein in any given sitting
what do you like to see people ingest at
some point post hypertrophy inducing
workout in order to
get
the protein synthesis
Advantage if you will yeah that is
stimulated by that workout
earlier you mentioned the you know the
post-training feeding window that you
know in the 90s and probably earlier
people were talking about oh you know
within the first 90 minutes you have to
get 30 amounts for a while yeah was it
30 minutes of excuse me a certain number
of grams of carbohydrate and protein Etc
I think now the understanding is that
that window is much broader
um and how broad and Etc is still a
matter of debate but
when somebody is training specifically
for hypertrophy assuming they are
getting enough protein from quality
sources in their other meals
and assuming that their overall
macronutrient intake and caloric intake
is high enough that is they have enough
of a caloric Surplus that they have the
the raw materials for
for hypertrophy
what do you like to see people ingest at
some point post-workout in order to
facilitate muscle protein synthesis and
recovery and this could include
nutrition and supplementation or if you
want to divide those answers out feel
free to do so of course yeah okay great
so a ton of work came out of Don
Layman's lab it was actually a Lane's
Mentor as well as Stu Phillips at
McMaster so a ton of work there and we
can answer a number of things here so
Lane's numbers that he recommended uh
also known as about a gram of protein
per pound of body weight it's a great
start now once you slide below per pound
right one gram per pound right in
earlier which is also making sure
because we're changing units here uh it
was 1.6 grams per kilogram of body
weight all the way up to I think it was
2.4 but maybe a size 2.7 yeah grams of
protein per kilogram of body weight so
2.2 in that unit would be the same thing
so 200 grams per kilogram is the same as
one gram per pound right so depending on
which where you're listening at to this
at one of those may be easier than the
other for you if you start getting below
that number
now you do start running into questions
of protein quality protein type and
protein timing this is one of the
reasons why I actually fully agree with
Lane is just get that number higher than
you think and then all those other
variables don't matter if that number is
low then you need to start paying
attention to a bunch of other stuff
you've added now complexity to your
program things you got to pay attention
to just stay high and it doesn't matter
and so you can just leave a lot of those
things off the table
that seems to be fairly clear in the
work of some of this gentlemen I just
mentioned that as long as you get to
that total number the question about
timing and types and quality it seems to
matter a lot less in fact uh Stu's
recent work in non-animal-based proteins
it really showed that to be fairly clear
that those are quite effective assuming
total protein intake is high enough the
amount of leucine and other amino acids
in those actual proteins matter less if
the total threshold is just super high
so just do that and you're fine now the
other caveat we have to say here is
timing of macronutrients is seems to be
somewhat Irrelevant for protein but that
is not the case for carbohydrates so
that timing does matter replenishment of
muscle glycogen is very specific and you
want to make sure that that is around a
lot if you're doing either maintaining
training quality or you're sliding into
endurance type of work and so nutrient
timing does matter with carbohydrates
maybe less so with protein and certainly
less so with protein if the total
protein ingestion is high enough so um
it depends on what we're going after in
terms of a training goal and where we
want to get with all these things in
general the way that we like to think
about this is
if you're doing a strength type of work
where you're truly targeting that then a
one-to-one post exercise protein to
carbohydrate ratio is generally what
we're going to go after so this would be
something like 35 grams of protein and
35 grams of carbohydrate it doesn't have
to be post it can be pre or my favorite
is actually mid or post but somewhere in
that range especially if you're training
in the morning and you have not consumed
anything prior to your workout and
that's not necessarily eating in the
middle of the workout that's drinking
calories yeah yeah it's going to be able
to see someone eating a sandwich on uh
in the gym although I'm sure it's
happened yeah so one to one is that like
sort of standard number here
um if you're going to do sort of more of
a really hard conditioning workout that
number slides up to something like three
or even four to one which would be
carbohydrate to protein ratio so if we
want to stay at 35 grams of protein
we're going to go maybe as high as like
100 or 140 grams of carbohydrate again
depending on what type of of training
we're sort of doing if you're going to
do a little bit of a combination then
you like a little bit of strength a
little bit of conditioning and kind of a
standard workout which is probably
something that a lot of people will do
then you maybe want to go to something
like two to one so you know 35 grams of
protein 60 70 grams of carbohydrate and
those are kind of just like rough
numbers that you can go by
and for Pure hypertrophy training would
you like to see people ingest some
carbohydrate post-training for Pure
hypertrophy training
I want to see that as many of those
nutrients around the training is
generally possible now again I might
change my mind when our fasting study
comes out but as it stands now
there is no advantage to not fueling
around the training and there are some
known and some other potential
advantages to fueling so I just see no
reason to not do it
um in fact
most people are generally going to do
better now this is not science this is
just my coaching experience and this is
with our athletes and all of our
non-athletes that we've worked with and
do work with they're just going to be
better spreading those meals out
generally throughout the day and they're
going to be better if they have those
nutrients either pre-mid or post and so
they're going to get even for my Purge
fee they're going to get something like
that one three to one ratio of carbs to
protein
personal preference some people don't
like to eat before they train some
people have to eat before they train
some people can't you know put in food
in their belly immediately after work
around that you can you can play based
on personal preference but we want that
fueling in there because we want to
maximize the potential growth and we
want to just get a jump start on
recovery because we're going to be
training again pretty soon
supplementation is a huge topic and one
that we will go into in great depth in a
soon to occur episode but if you had to
pick one supplement that can benefit
most everybody if not everybody yeah
for their training directed toward
strength power and hypertrophy what
would that supplement be and how would
you like to see people use it meaning
how much should they take and when
should they take it sure if you don't
count protein and carbohydrates as
supplements they technically are but
we'll just walk out of it right sorry I
I should be more specific I'm not
referring to a non-food form
um protein and carbohydrates so powdered
protein and part of powdered
carbohydrate Etc
um technically are supplements they're
highly processed but they're um but I'm
not including that I'm I'm referring to
um non-macronutrient type supplements
yeah does testosterone count
um well in the context of this
discussion it's uh testosterone that
people are manufacturing themselves ah
okay the cheating kind the endogenous
kind no
um I mean creatine is the answer here
without question it is the most well
studied it is the most effective and its
uh benefits are robust meaning they're
going to confer positive adaptations
across multiple physiological domains
and we can certainly have a very long
chat about some of the interesting
things that people in fact we just had
um during candel
um on our Barbershop podcast and he went
into extensive detail about all the
benefits of creatine that people have no
idea about including things like bone
mineral density you asked about that
earlier creatine is actually fairly
effective for that let alone the thing
the benefit in things like cognitive
function decision making memory
um the work that that's being done there
for
neurological disorders
um depression a whole host of things
that that creatine is being studied for
some of those studies show a lot of
benefits some of it show maybe a little
bit some none but there's just a lot of
things creatine can do so when we could
talk about Muscle Recovery or muscle
hypertrophy
um that's where the bulk of the research
is and it and it's very effective in
terms of
type creatine monohydrate is still the
best one and that's just because it has
the largest evidence base you can maybe
make some arguments for some other types
but you're really going to reach
saturation pretty quickly within a
matter of weeks and there add a dosage
of anywhere between like three to six
grams per day now five grams is the very
standard number we give reality is I
change that number based on size that's
just the honest truth
um if you're 225 pounds you're not going
to get the same dosage of creatine as
125 pound girl that's just like this is
not what we're going to do so we may
slide that number down a little bit
closer to three for the the smaller girl
boy it doesn't matter it's just female
physical size if you're one of our 275
or 330 pound offensive right tackles in
the NFL you're not going to get the same
dosage as everybody else so that number
is going to go up to seven eight nine
maybe even 10 grams a day I'm there so
that's just kind of the scale in general
if you wanted an easy answer five grams
is the standard taken after training the
timing doesn't matter totally irrelevant
take it in the morning of breakfast take
it at night take it anytime you want
take it pre we tend to put it in a lot
of people's workout
um shakes just to make sure they get it
in throughout the day but the timing is
irrelevant great well thank you for that
very informative answer and I look
forward to much more discussion about
nutrition and supplementation and
recovery and all the rest in the
episodes to come this was incredibly
informative thank you so very much I
appreciate the opportunity I had a great
time doing that I love talking about
these things I also really like talking
about what we're going to get into in
our next conversation which is the
physiology of endurance metabolism and
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