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

is however part of our desire and effort

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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

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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