Essentials: How to Build Strength, Muscle Size & Endurance | Dr. Andy Galpin
4/2/202639 mincomplete
0:00Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials, where we revisit past episodes for the most potent and
0:05actionable science -based tools for mental health, physical health, and performance.
0:11I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of
0:16Medicine. And now for my discussion with Dr.
0:19Andy Galpin. Welcome, Dr. Professor Andy Galpin.
0:24There are only a handful, meaning about three or four people who I trust enough
0:30in the exercise physiology space that when they speak, I not only listen, but I
0:36modify my protocols. And you are among those three or four people.
0:39I would love to have you share with us what you think most everybody, or
0:44even everybody should know about principles of strength training and principles of, let's call it
0:52hypertrophy power and the other sort of categories of training.
0:55There's about nine different adaptations you can get from exercise.
0:58First one to think about is what we'll just call skill.
1:01So this is improving anything from, say, a golf swing to a squatting technique to
1:05running. And this is just simply moving mechanically how you want your body to move.
1:10From there, we're gonna get into speed.
1:11So this is moving as fast as possible.
1:13The next one is power.
1:15And power is a function of speed, but it's also a function of the next
1:19one, which is strength. So if you actually multiply strength by speed, you get power.
1:23So there's carryover. So like a lot of things that you would do for the
1:26development of strength and power, they are somewhat similar, but then there's differences.
1:32Once you get past strength, and the next one kind of down the list is
1:34hypertrophy. This is muscle size, right?
1:37Growing muscle mass is one way to think about it.
1:40After hypertrophy, you get into these categories of, the next one is, these are all
1:44globally endurance -based issues. And the very first one is called muscular endurance.
1:49So this is your ability to do, how many push -ups can you do in
1:51one minute? You know, things like that.
1:54Past muscular endurance, you're now into more of an energetic or even cardiovascular fatigue.
2:00So you've left the local muscle and you're now into the entire physiological system and
2:04its ability to produce and sustain work.
2:07Think about this as, I call this anaerobic power, right?
2:11So this is your ability to produce a lot of work for say 30 seconds
2:16to maybe one minute, kind of two minutes like that.
2:18The next one down then is more closely aligned to what we'll call your VO2
2:21max. So this is your ability to kind of do the same thing, but more
2:25of a time domain of say three to 12 minutes.
2:28So this is going to be a maximum heart rate, but it's going to be
2:31well past just max heart rate.
2:33Then after that, we have what I call long duration endurance.
2:36So this is your ability to sustain work.
2:38The time domain doesn't matter in terms of how fast you're going.
2:42It's how long can you sustain work?
2:44This is 30 plus minutes of no break like that.
2:47So as just a high level overview, those are the different things you can target.
2:52And again, some of those cross over and some are actually a little bit contrarian
2:57to the other ones. So pushing towards one is maybe going to sacrifice something else.
3:01There is a handful of things you have got to do to make all of
3:04those things work. One of them is functionally called progressive overload.
3:08If you want to continue to improve, you have to have some method of overload.
3:12Adaptation physiologically happens as a by -product of stress.
3:16So you have to push a system.
3:18So if you continue to do, say the exact same workout over time, you better
3:21not expect much improvement. You can keep maintenance, but you're not going to be adding
3:25additional stress. In general, you have to have some sort of progressive overload.
3:29This could come from adding more weights.
3:31This could come from adding more repetitions.
3:33It could come from doing it more often in the week.
3:36It could come from adding complexity to the movement.
3:39So there's a lot of different ways to progress, but you have to have some
3:43sort of movement forward. So if you have this kind of routine where you've built
3:46Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday or something, and you just do that infinitely, you're not going
3:52to get very far. So what are the progressive overload principles that are most effective
3:57over time for strength and hypertrophy?
4:01You have what we call your modifiable variables.
4:03So this is a very short list of all the things you can modify, the
4:08different variables within your workout that can be modified that will change the outcome.
4:12A fancy way of saying, if you do this differently, then you're going to get
4:15a different result. So modifiable variables.
4:19The very first one of those is called choice.
4:21So this is the exercise choice that you select.
4:23So if you choose, I want to get stronger, I'm going to do a bench
4:25press. Well, if you do the wrong set range, the wrong repetition range, the wrong
4:28speed, you won't get strength.
4:29You maybe get muscular endurance and very little strength adaptation.
4:32So the exercise selection itself is important, but it does not determine the outcome adaptation,
4:38right? It is the application of the exercise.
4:39What are the sets? What are the reps?
4:41What are the rest ranges that you're using?
4:43That's going to be your primary determinant.
4:44The second one is the intensity.
4:46And that refers to, in this context, not perceived effort.
4:50Like, wow, that was a really intense workout.
4:52It is quite literally either a percentage of your one rep at max or a
4:56percentage of your maximum heart rate or VO2 max.
4:58So for the strength -based things, you want to think about what's the percentage of
5:01the maximum weight I could lift one time.
5:03And that's what we're going to call one rep max.
5:05Or it's a percentage of my heart rate, right?
5:07So if I tell you to get on a bike and I want you to
5:09do intervals and I want you to get 75%, I'm typically referring to 75 %
5:13of your max heart rate or VO2 max or, you know, something like that.
5:16If I tell you to do squats at 75%, that means 75 % of the
5:19maximum amount of weight you could lift one time or close.
5:23The third one is what we call...
5:24volume. And so this is just how many reps and how many sets are you
5:26doing, right? So if you're going to do three sets of 10, that volume would
5:29be 30, right? Five sets of five, that volume is 25.
5:32It's just a simple equation.
5:34How much work are you totally doing?
5:36The next one past that is called rest intervals.
5:39So this is the amount of time you're taking in between typically a set.
5:42Then from there, you have progression, which is what we started to talk about this
5:46progressive overload. Are you increasing by weight or reps or rest intervals or complexity?
5:51All of those things can be changed as a method of progression.
5:54And so maybe you want to go progressing from a single joint exercise, like a
5:59leg extension on a machine.
6:02And you want to progress by moving to a whole body movement like a squat.
6:06That in and of itself, you don't have to change the load or the reps
6:09or the rest. That is a representation of progressive overload.
6:12And it's probably a pretty good place to start because number one, especially for beginners,
6:17you want to make sure that the movement pattern is correct.
6:19Don't worry about intensity. Don't worry about rep ranges or any of these things.
6:23You need to learn to move correctly.
6:25And you need to give your body some time to develop some tissue tolerance so
6:29that you're not getting overtly sore.
6:31In general, soreness is a terrible proxy for exercise quality.
6:34It's a really bad way to estimate whether it was a good or a bad
6:37workout, especially for people in that beginner to middle to moderate.
6:41In fact, even the fact for our professional athletes, we do not use soreness as
6:45a metric of a good workout.
6:47On the same token, because stress is required for adaptation, you don't want to leave
6:50at the gym and feel like, I don't really do much.
6:53If you're sore of like, you're moving around a little bit and you're like, man,
6:56this is a little bit sore, you can train.
6:58If you're like, I can't sit on the couch without crying because my glutes are
7:01so sore. In that particular case, I'd say you've actually gone to a place of
7:05detriment because now you're going to have to skip a training session and now you're
7:09behind. So your actual total volume, say across the month, is actually going to be
7:12lower because you went way too hard in those workouts, had to take too many
7:16days off in between. You're going to see that you're going to cover less distance
7:19over the course of a month or six months or even a year.
7:22So you want to walk a pretty fine line.
7:24And for most people, I would say hedge a little bit on the side of
7:27less sore than more sore.
7:29Because frequency is very, very important for almost all these adaptations.
7:33It's training frequency. Which is the last modifiable variable, right?
7:37Frequency, which is how many times per week are you are you doing that thing?
7:42So those are kind of our global things that we can play with.
7:45So when I'm trying to manipulate and get strength versus hypertrophy, or you know what,
7:50I want like a little bit of both.
7:51All those variables are the things that are going through my mind.
7:54Which one do I need to move in which direction so that I can get
7:56this outcome and not this outcome over here?
8:00For example, some folks might want to get stronger, but not put muscle mass on.
8:03Some folks are just kind of want both.
8:05And that's a lot of the general public.
8:06I want to get a little stronger and a little bit more muscle.
8:07Great. But there are instances where people for performance reasons or for purely personal preference,
8:13like I don't want to get any more muscle.
8:15Great. But I want to get stronger.
8:16Awesome. If you manipulate those variables correctly, you can get exactly that.
8:20Very little development of muscle size and a lot of development in strength.
8:24And this is why we continue to break world records in sports like powerlifting and
8:27weightlifting that have weight classes.
8:29So there's a top number that we can hit in terms of body size, but
8:32yet we continue to get stronger and faster.
8:35So this is very possible if you understand how to manipulate all those variables.
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10:11How should we modify the variables?
10:13Love it. All right, great.
10:14So one of my other laws of strength and conditioning is in general, the default
10:19is all joints through all range of motion.
10:22So this is important because it's going to answer your very first question on this
10:24strength category. In general, the ankle should go through the full range of motion in
10:28the ankle. The knee should go through the full range of motion in the knee,
10:31the hip, the elbow, et cetera, et cetera, right?
10:33So across, I would even say it doesn't even have to be the day, but
10:36maybe throughout the week. Try to get every joint through full range of motion.
10:40When I say full range of motion, that's the default.
10:42That doesn't mean every single person can do that for every single exercise.
10:45It means that's where we should be striving to, and that's our starting point.
10:49You're going to see a lot less injury and a lot more productivity.
10:52out of your training sessions.
10:53In fact, the science is fairly clear on this one.
10:55Strength development as well as hypertrophy is generally enhanced with a larger range of motion
11:00of training. So if you're doing, say, a deadlift, and in order to take your
11:04knee through a full range of motion or a deadlift, you have to compromise your
11:07back position, that's no bueno.
11:10So caveats there aside, don't kill me.
11:13Like, in good positions always.
11:14And don't kill yourselves, more importantly.
11:16So why that matters is if we walk through strength, the very first thing I'm
11:20going to go through is the exercise selection.
11:22So let's choose an exercise which ideally has a full range of motion or close
11:26to it that doesn't induce injury for you, that you can still maintain good neck
11:30and low back and position and everything else.
11:33You feel comfortable with, so you can feel strong, but you don't feel like, oh
11:37my gosh, if you've never snatched before, having you do a snatch for a maximum,
11:42even 75%, like, it's a terrible idea.
11:44You're not going to feel confident it's going to be a train wreck.
11:46I would rather put you on a machine bench press.
11:49So you can go, I feel stable, well, I feel safe here, and I can
11:51just express my strength. So exercise choice in general, full range of motion, and you
11:56want to kind of balance between the movement areas.
11:59So this is an upper body press.
12:00So this is pushing away from you, bench press, things like that.
12:04Upper body pull, pulling an implement towards you.
12:07Bent row, pull up. The pressing should be horizontal, so perpendicular to your body, as
12:13well as vertical. So this is lifting a weight over top of your head, lifting
12:17a weight away from you.
12:19The pull version is pulling horizontally to you and pulling vertically down, pull up, things
12:23like that. So if you were going to do a single workout, you could choose
12:26four exercises. And you could choose one of each.
12:29One press, upper body press, one upper body pull, one lower body hinge, one lower
12:34body press. And that would be like a decently well -rounded exercise.
12:38That's your exercise selection. And if you're taking those through a full range of motion,
12:42you're at a pretty good spot, as close as you can.
12:44The next one is intensity.
12:45So if you want to develop strength, there is a certain recruitment threshold needed for
12:49neurons to fire. And we have muscle fibers in what we call fast twitch muscle
12:53fibers and slow twitch muscle fibers.
12:55And in general, you're going to activate the slow twitch ones first because they tend
12:59to be associated with low threshold motor neurons.
13:01It's not exactly that way, but it's close enough, right?
13:04Well, the only way that you activate some of these higher threshold neurons is to
13:08demand the muscle to produce more force.
13:11So in general, the only way to use these big chunks of your muscle, which
13:15are incredibly important for aging, by the way, one of the major problems we have
13:18with aging developing or development of aging -related issues with muscle is the fact that
13:23we lose fast twitch fibers preferentially.
13:25And then we have major problems as we go down the line because we've lost
13:28a big chunk of our strength and size.
13:30So you want to make sure these fibers stay alive and intact.
13:33So with that being said, the only way to develop strength is then to challenge
13:37the muscle to produce more total force.
13:39So if you want to get stronger, you need to impose a demand of strength,
13:44not repetitions. So this has to be, the load has to be very high.
13:48In general, you're probably looking at above 85 % of your one rep max.
13:52If you're moderately trained, maybe 75%.
13:55So because the intensity demand is so high, that is going to force you to
14:01do a low repetition range.
14:02You can't do 12 reps at 95%.
14:05Then it wouldn't be 95 % of your one rep max.
14:07So by definition, true strength training is really going to be in like five repetitions
14:12per set or less range.
14:13So we've covered choice, intensity, and repetitions, right?
14:19The total amount of sets that you do is really kind of up to your
14:22personal fitness level, right? If you did as little as like three sets per exercise,
14:28that's probably enough. Work sets.
14:30Totally. Yeah, totally work sets, right.
14:32So get fully warmed up and build up to that 85%.
14:34Don't just walk into the gym and throw 85 % on and go, thank you.
14:38That's an important distinction. A very classic warmup thing would be like a set of
14:4310 at 50%, a set of eight at 60%, a set of maybe eight again
14:48at 70%, and then maybe like a set of five at 75%.
14:52So two or three or four sets, kind of building intensity and lowering the rep
14:56range. And then you would go after your two or three working sets.
14:59Also, in terms of rest intervals, the primary driver of strength is intensity.
15:05It's not the volume, right?
15:06It's the intensity. So in order to maintain that, we have to do a low
15:09repetition range. But in addition, we also have to have a high rest interval because
15:13if we have any amount of fatigue incurred and we have to then either reduce
15:16the reps or reduce the intensity, we've lost the primary driver.
15:20We've lost that main signal.
15:21So the number we're going to throw out typically is like two to four minutes.
15:25So imagine you did your set of bench press and you did five repetitions at
15:3085%. You probably want to rest two to four minutes before coming back to the
15:35bench. That doesn't mean you have to sit there on your phone.
15:37Like, in fact, please don't.
15:40Everyone will thank you for not doing that, I promise.
15:42You can engage other muscle groups.
15:43This is what we call supersetting.
15:45So you're doing your bench press and while that two minute clock is running for
15:48your chest to rest, you can go over and do your deadlifts.
15:52You can kind of move back and forth and this is how you can make
15:54strength training a not seven -hour workout.
15:57If you're a professional athlete, you're going to take that time because you want to
16:01maximize the outcome. We've done this actually in our lab too.
16:04Supersets will reduce the strength gains, but by a tiny amount.
16:09And most of us don't care enough relative to it's going to triple the length
16:13of your training session. It's not worth it.
16:15So for the average person, I will tell them, yeah, superset.
16:18For someone who's trying to...
16:19Break a world record in weightlifting or powerlifting, I don't, superset.
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17:48How often can and should one train a muscle, and how do you know if
17:53a muscle is recovered locally, and how do you know if your nervous system is
17:57recovered systemically? One of the questions is, what are you training for?
18:00If you're training for hypertrophy, right, muscle size, muscle growth, we need to hedge towards
18:06recovery, because what you're trying to do is cause a massive insult there, allow then
18:11protein synthesis to occur, building of new tissue, which takes time, 48 to 72 hours,
18:17like kind of at a minimum, that process needs to occur.
18:20If you're doing actually more strength, strength is not gonna cause a lot of soreness.
18:24Therefore, intensity is the driver.
18:26Therefore, frequency can be as high as you want.
18:28So you can train every single day, the same exact muscle, if speed or power
18:33or strength are the primary training tools.
18:35But if you want to allow for that process of contractile proteins to add and
18:40grow, then you're gonna have to allow some recovery, because if you go back into
18:44that muscle too soon, you're gonna blunt the response, you're gonna stop it, you're gonna
18:48cut it off. You have all kinds of problems going on in the cell that
18:51are gonna just attenuate that growth response.
18:55So the answer for hypertrophy is probably less than three out of 10 on level
19:01of soreness, so you can go again.
19:02In general, you're probably looking at 72 hours is the optimal window.
19:06So if you trained your shoulders on Monday, you probably would don't wanna train them
19:11again on Tuesday. If hypertrophy's the goal, maybe Wednesday, maybe Thursday's best.
19:16So something like an every two to three day window is probably, and we know
19:21a little bit more now about why that is.
19:23The gene cascade, the signaling response happens, well, the signaling happens instantaneously, right?
19:29Within seconds. The gene cascade is probably in the, peaked in the four hour window,
19:33like depending on which gene you wanna look at, but it's just kind of a
19:38snapshot. But the protein synthesis process is 24 to 48 hour thing.
19:43And so it tends to kind of look like, let that thing finish and let
19:45that signal go back to baseline and then hit it again.
19:49And then hit it again.
19:50And now as long as you're providing the nutrients, the recovery should happen and you
19:54should be able to sustain the same work output in the training session.
19:57So the stimulus stays high and the recovery's there and you can now continue to
20:01grow muscle. What if the training split, lifestyle factors, et cetera, somebody say, let's use
20:08your example, trains shoulders on Monday.
20:11Ideally, they would train them again on Thursday in their particular instance, somewhere Wednesday or
20:16Thursday, but they don't. They wait until Saturday or Sunday for whatever reason.
20:23Maybe it's more compatible with their work and other exercise schedule.
20:27Are they actually losing hypertrophy that they gained or they've missed a window to induce
20:31further hypertrophy? It's probably better to think about it than the latter.
20:34It's not that you've lost, it's just you've just kind of lost an opportunity to
20:38make more progress. If you wanna take five days or six days in between each
20:42muscle group, you can do that.
20:43In fact, if you look at the research, it's gonna show that frequency, it can
20:46handle changes as long as you get to the same total volume.
20:51So you can do that.
20:52You just have to do a lot more work in that one workout.
20:55The challenge with splitting up your training sessions for hypertrophy into smaller numbers, like once
21:01or twice a week, it's just difficult to get that number.
21:05It's typical to get that volume done.
21:07Volume -wise, the more recent meta -analyses are gonna say that you're probably looking at
21:11around 10 working sets per muscle group per week.
21:15Seems to be kind of the minimum threshold that you're gonna wanna hit.
21:18So if you did three sets of 10 at your shoulders on Monday, three sets
21:22of 10 shoulders Wednesday and three on Friday, that's nine working sets.
21:27The problem is 10 is kind of the minimum.
21:30You probably wanna look for more like 15 to 20, and in fact, well -trained
21:34folks, 20, 25. That becomes very challenging in one workout.
21:38In fact, defuncto, you're not gonna be able to do it, right?
21:41And so that is where, it's not the frequency that looks like it kills you,
21:44it's just the fact you have got to get, because the total driver of strength
21:47is... intensity, but the total driver of hypertrophy is volume.
21:50Assume you're taking it to fatigue, right?
21:52Or muscular failure. So it's just tough to get enough done.
21:55For hypertrophy, what are the repetition ranges that are effective?
21:59And what are the ones that are most effective if one is trying to maximize
22:04some of the other variables?
22:05Like people don't want to spend more than an hour to 75 minutes in the
22:09gym. The quick answer there is anywhere between like five to 30 reps per set.
22:13That's going to show across the literature, pretty much equal hypertrophy gains.
22:18But I'm just remembering one thing from a second ago.
22:21I want to give a better answer for the frequency.
22:23You can do every single day for strength.
22:25If you want though, like what's probably minimally viable, two, twice per week per muscle.
22:29So hamstrings, strength twice per week.
22:31That's a good number to get most people really strong.
22:34You can do every single day.
22:36You don't need to though.
22:37So I want to make sure that like I wasn't saying you have to train
22:39a muscle 85 % every single day to get it strong.
22:43Two is a good number.
22:44Three is great, but probably even two is really effective.
22:46When it comes to hypertrophy training, the way I like to explain it is it's
22:49kind of idiot proof. The programming is idiot proof.
22:52The work is hard though.
22:54So here's your range. Anywhere between, you know, five reps and 30.
22:59Can you hit somewhere in there?
23:00Perfect. It's all equally effective.
23:02You can't screw that up.
23:03The only caveat for hypertrophy is you have to take it to muscular failure.
23:07And you need enough rest for the adaptation and protein synthesis to occur.
23:11Yep. And if you recover faster, you can maybe do it more frequently.
23:14And if you don't, maybe less frequently.
23:17Should people perhaps experiment and figure out what repetition range allows them to recover in
23:23concert with the training frequency that they can do consistently?
23:27My recommendation is I think you should actually use the repetition range as a way
23:31to have some variation. Because most people don't want to go in the gym and
23:35do three sets to ten.
23:36They're going to get very bored very quickly.
23:37And so I think you should actually intentionally change the rep schemes for simple sake
23:41of having more fun. It is a very different challenge.
23:43The mechanisms that are inducing hypertrophy are different, but there's only a maximum amount of
23:48growth that one can get, right?
23:49But the three most likely drivers are one, metabolic stress, two, mechanical tension, and then
23:55three, muscular damage. You don't have to have all three.
23:59One is sufficient. You can have a little bit of one or two and you
24:02can kind of, so you get it to play here.
24:04We've already talked about the muscular damage.
24:06Again, it's very clear. More damage is not better, but it is somewhat a decent
24:12proxy, right? Like again, a little bit of soreness is good.
24:15Just don't get so sore, it's compromising your total volume, right?
24:19Mechanical tension is kind of like strength.
24:20And this is why if you do even sets of five or eight and you're
24:23kind of close to that strength range, you will gain a little bit of muscle.
24:26It's not optimal muscle gain, but you're going to gain some because everything in these,
24:30like physiology didn't cut off at four reps and then five reps is a different
24:33thing, right? It's always a blend.
24:34So think of it as like a fading curve.
24:37As you get closer to the end, it fades less effective.
24:40As you get closer to the middle, it's more effective.
24:43Anywhere between eight reps per set to 30, it's equally effective.
24:47Past 30, it's going to blend out.
24:49Past eight to five to four to three, it's going to blend, you know, lesser
24:54there. So mechanical tension is the one that's heavy.
24:57Muscle damage is the other one.
24:58The third one is metabolic stress.
25:00And this is, I get a bit of an area of scientific contention, but something's
25:06there. I know something's there.
25:08We just, we're just kind of fumbling to figure out what exactly it is.
25:11And this is metabolic stress is the burn, right?
25:13It's there. So you want to train to failure, but you don't need to go
25:17to extreme failure. So you don't need to necessarily go to that, like a partner
25:24has to lift the barbell off my chest, but you have to get close.
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26:46to throw out a few sort of sets and rep parameters that could act as
26:51broad guidelines for people who want to explore further.
26:55A really fast answer is what I just call the three to five concept.
26:59All right, so pick three to five exercises.
27:01If you're feeling better that day, choose on the higher end.
27:04If you're feeling less that day or you have a shorter time frame to train,
27:07go less. So three to five exercises, do three to five reps, three to five
27:13sets, take three to five minutes rest in between and do it three to five
27:17times a week. So that can be as little as three sets of three for
27:22three exercises, three times a week.
27:25That's a 20 minute workout three times a week.
27:27It can be as high as five sets of five for five exercises, five days
27:31a week. So it's very broad and allows people to still stay within the domains
27:35of strength and power while still being able to move and contour tour their lifestyle
27:40and soreness and time and all those things.
27:42The only differentiator to pay attention to between power and strength is intensity.
27:48So if you want strength, this is now 85 % plus of your max, right?
27:53If you want power, it needs to be a lot lighter because you need to
27:56move more towards the velocity and the spectrum because power is strength multiplied by speed.
28:01So while getting stronger by definition can help power, you probably want to spend more
28:06of your time in the 40 % to 70 % range, like plus or minus.
28:12So that's it. Both of them conceptually, they'll work everything else.
28:15The exercise, the reps, the frequency, all that can be still in the three to
28:19five range. Just change the intensity depending on which outcome you want.
28:22The nervous system obviously plays an important role at the level of nerves controlling the
28:27contraction of muscle fibers. But of course, we have these upper motor neurons, which are
28:31the ones that reside in our brain that control the lower motor neurons that control
28:35muscle. This takes us into the realm of where the mind is at during a
28:39particular movement. I can imagine doing workouts that are mainly focused on strength or mainly
28:45focused on hypertrophy. And in the case of strength, am I trying to move weights?
28:51And when I'm trying to generate hypertrophy, am I trying to quote unquote challenge muscles?
28:56That subtle mental shift changes the patterns of nerve fiber recruitment.
29:02So can we say to get stronger, focus on moving weights still with proper form
29:08and safely. And to get hypertrophy, focus on challenging muscles still with proper form and
29:13safely. Intentionality matters for both.
29:16In other words, if you look at some interesting science that's been done on power
29:21development and speed development, the intent to move is actually more important than the actual
29:27movement velocity. So if you're doing say something for power or strength, and you're doing
29:32just enough to get the bar up, that will result in less improvements in strength
29:37than even if you're moving at the exact same speed, but you're intending to move
29:41faster. And this is one of the reasons why good coaching matters.
29:44So if you're coaching an athlete through a power workout, especially, and they're doing enough
29:49to just lift 50 % of their one rep max, it's not going to generate
29:52as much speed development as them trying to move that bar as fast as they
29:56can, even if the net result is the same bar by velocity.
29:59Turns out nerves matter. Even if the bar is moving at the same speed, same
30:03weight, if my internal representation, my thoughts are, I'm trying to move this as fast
30:09as possible versus I'm just trying to get the bar away from me, and get
30:14the weight up, I'm going to get different outcomes.
30:17Yep. This is quality of work, right?
30:18This is, did you do enough to just check off the box or did you
30:21actually strive for adaptation, right?
30:25Similar concept actually works for hypertrophy in terms of there is a handful of very
30:31recent studies that have looked at what we'll call the mind muscle connection.
30:33And this is doing things like imagine a bicep curl.
30:36And you're simply looking at and watching your biceps and you're thinking about contracting it
30:41harder, even though you execute the same repetitions at the same exact intensity.
30:44Initial indications are the mind body connection are going to result in more growth than
30:50not. I think it's very much worth your time to do a higher quality training
30:54session, be more intentional, be present, than just executing the same exact workout.
31:01I think that's globally very clear to be to your advantage.
31:04So if you're thinking, like, I'm going to, like, I don't want to work out
31:07today. I got all this going on or I'm tired or whatever.
31:10I'm just going to do the workout anyways and get through it.
31:12Okay. If you can go, you know what though?
31:15Like I'm going to cut 15 minutes out of this thing.
31:18I'm going to get my head right.
31:19I'm going to go get two, 20 minutes of quality work done.
31:22That's, that's your best option by far.
31:24Are there ways that people can learn to engage particular muscle groups more effectively over
31:30time for sake of hypertrophy or strength or for cases of trying to overcome injury
31:36potential or injury because imbalances are bad across the board?
31:40Yeah. This is actually very common.
31:41And I think everyone has probably gone through this.
31:44There's some part that you just can't get going from, which goes back to earlier
31:47part of our conversation, which is why exercises themselves do not determine the adaptation.
31:51It's the execution that matters, right?
31:54It's the technique. It's the rep range.
31:56All of those are going to determine your actual result.
31:58So if anytime you were, you're, you're, you're banging your head against the wall and
32:02thinking like, why am I not getting movement here?
32:05Growth or strength or whatever.
32:06It's guaranteed to be one of those areas, right?
32:08You're probably not getting the muscle groups to activate.
32:12Whenever I'm diagnosing movement quality, I look for a handful of things, but very first
32:17one is awareness. You'd be surprised how many folks, when you just simply tell them
32:21that muscle group right there, and maybe you give them a tactical prompt.
32:24So you touch it and you just tell them things like, Hey, squeeze my finger,
32:28squeeze my finger. As you're doing your bent row or your pull down, you can
32:31touch the lat. All this stuff can help get people to activate.
32:36Outside of simple awareness, eccentric overload is a very effective way for activation of a
32:42difficult to target muscle, things like a pull -up.
32:44Okay. So if, if, if I'm going to do a pull -up and I have
32:47poor lat activation to make the movement simpler, I'm going to go all the way
32:50to the top. So imagine stepping on a box or something, going all the way
32:53to that top of that pull -up position and starting from there.
32:55And I want you to simply lower it under control.
32:58And so you're just simply breaking the movement down into smaller pieces that allow you
33:02to, to focus on the execution more.
33:05Eccentrics are great for strength development, very good for hypertrophy and allow you to focus
33:09on control. I, I, I'm willing to bet a huge percentage of you out there
33:12who've like, I've never had a sore lat, you know, I've done a lot of
33:15pull -ups and things like that.
33:17If you do that eccentric only, you'll probably wake up the next day going, Oh
33:20gosh, I feel it there.
33:21And that's a sign, even if you didn't feel it in the workout, but it
33:24got a little sore the next day, keep down that path and eventually work that
33:27into a progression where you can do the concentric, eccentric and isometric portions and get
33:31activation. So that, that may take you six weeks, may take you six months, but
33:37that's generally a pretty good strategy for learning how to activate a muscle group.
33:40Just a quick break from this essentials episode with Dr.
33:42Andy Galpin to share that season three of Andy's podcast, which is called perform with
33:47Dr. Andy Galpin is now available on all podcast platforms, including Spotify, Apple podcasts, YouTube,
33:53and more. Andy is a world -class educator on all things fitness and performance.
33:57So make sure to check out season three of his podcast.
34:00Again, it's called perform with Dr.
34:02Andy Galpin. Is there a prescriptive for how to breathe during resistance training that applies
34:1075 % of the time to 75 % of the people in general, a decent
34:16strategy is to maintain a breath hold during the lowering or eccentric or most dangerous
34:21part of the movement. And then you can exhale on the concentric portion.
34:24So if the bench press is our example, if you held in, braced, lowered it
34:29under control, and now started the concentric pushing away for it, and then you wanted
34:33to take an expiration during the last half of the concentric portion, that's, that's an
34:38okay strategy. If you're going to do a single rep, you don't need to worry
34:42about it. You can just avoid or omit breathing entirely.
34:45You're going to be just fine.
34:46If you're doing more than that, especially three to four to five to seven, eight,
34:50you're going to have to have some breathing strategy.
34:51A very common one is probably every third breath.
34:56I'm going to do like exhale on the third, reset, rebreathe, something like that.
35:04If you feel like you need to breathe after every one, that's okay, but it's
35:06going to get wasteful because you have to take time in between reps of sitting
35:09there. If it's a squat, that's different versus a deadlift.
35:13If you're resting at the bottom.
35:14So there is a little bit of game here.
35:15So in general though, is that 75, 75 kind of really thrown out, you threw
35:20out. Breathe in, do the lowering and exhale on the out.
35:25If you have to, less reps, don't worry about it.
35:28More reps, then you need to come up with some sort of breathing strategy.
35:30How about breathing in between sets and maybe even after the workout?
35:35Yeah. We're not going to just finish a workout, high five, drink water and walk
35:39out of the gym. There will be a down regulation strategy that is heavily involved
35:43with some sort of light control as well as breath control.
35:46The individual prescription on that, there's a ton of variation with what you can do.
35:51The easiest thing is do something that calms you down.
35:54Most likely that's going to be moved towards as much nasal breathing as you can
35:58possibly do. And a really easy rule of thumb is a double exhale length relative
36:04to inhale. So if you need to take a like four second inhale, double that
36:08time and breathe out for eight seconds.
36:11A box breathing is fine.
36:12So equal inhale, equal hold, equal exhale, equal hold.
36:17So four second inhale, four second exhale, hold, et cetera, et cetera.
36:20And just breathe for five minutes.
36:22And I started doing this and it completely changed the rate of recovery for me.
36:26I realized that I was leaving workouts, both endurance workouts and strength hypertrophy workouts, feeling
36:32great, but looking at my phone, getting right into email and meetings, not concentrating on
36:37my breathing. And all I did was to introduce a, on your recommendation, a five
36:41minute down regulation. So exhale emphasized breathing, a bunch of different varieties, physiological size, box
36:47breathing, exhale emphasized twice as long as the inhale component for five minutes.
36:52And I noticed two things.
36:54One, I recovered more quickly, workout to workout, no question about it.
36:58And the other is that I used to have this dip in energy that would
37:03occur three or four hours after a hard workout.
37:06And I always thought that had to do with the fact that I generally eaten
37:09a meal at some point post -workout.
37:11Turns out it wasn't the meal at all.
37:12It's that, that, that adrenaline ramp up during the workouts.
37:17I wasn't clamping that at the end.
37:19And so I think eventually it just crashed.
37:21Turns out the down regulations allowed me to work through the afternoon.
37:26It's really been quite powerful.
37:28And so I'm grateful to you for that.
37:29And I think this is something that I think 98 % of people are not
37:33doing. And it's only five minutes.
37:35You didn't even have to do five.
37:36Give me three. If you really have to push it, give me three.
37:40You can do this in the shower if you have to.
37:41You need some sort of internal signal that we're safe.
37:45Throttle down here. We're going to move on.
37:47That has to happen. Yeah.
37:48And you're saving energy. I mean, the energy here is neural energy.
37:52I think fighters do this.
37:53Good fighters learn to do this between rounds.
37:55Sprinters learn to do this between events.
37:58I think humans should learn how to do this between any social engagement.
38:02I mean, this is such a powerful tool.
38:04Do this for one minute after every important, whether it's an individual.
38:10high volatile interaction, or if it's a, you just did a nice 45 minute sprint
38:14to work and you're deep into it or whatever, fine.
38:17Just give me one minute.
38:17And that also will pay dividends.
38:19I think the listeners and I can well appreciate on the basis of today's discussion,
38:24what a enormous wealth of information you are, how clear and potently you communicate that
38:33information. And also you can take a huge cloud of information and still distill it
38:39into protocols that ought to work for 75 % of people, 75 % of the
38:45time, which is an immensely valuable thing to do.
38:48So for me and from the listeners, I just want to say thank you so
38:52much. My pleasure, man. I'm glad we finally got to connect.
38:55Professor Andy Galpin, thank you ever so much.
38:58My pleasure. Thank you.