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Summary of Huberman Lab Podcast Episode: Boost Endurance & Shed Fat: Dr. Andy Galpins Guest Series | Huberman Lab

Podcast: Huberman Lab
17 min. read

— Description —

Discover the most effective methods for fat loss, including lifting weights, intervals, and steady state exercise Learn why consistency is key and why calorie deficit is crucial Explore the truth about training fasted and the importance of combining hypertrophy and muscular endurance

Gain insights from Dr Andy Galpin on fuel sources, caffeine usage, and managing energy throughout the day Plus, uncover the secrets to improving muscular endurance, anaerobic capacity, and aerobic capacity

Start your fat loss journey with science-backed strategies.

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Boost Endurance & Shed Fat: Dr. Andy Galpins Guest Series | Huberman Lab

Table of contents

Key Takeaways

Introduction

Defining Endurance

Understanding The Physiology Of Fat Loss

Balancing Energetics Of Carbohydrates & Fat

Training For Fat Loss

Use Of Fuel Sources During Different Bouts Of Exercise

Muscular Endurance

Anaerobic Capacity

Maximum Aerobic Output (Aerobic Capacity)

Steady State Exercise

Bringing It All Together

Articles & Other Resources

Key Takeaways

  • Lifting weights, intervals, steady state exercise – everything works for fat loss because it’s increasing the demand for energy and increasing respiration rate
    • The exact method doesn’t matter as much as consistency  
  • The bottom line to lose weight, you can play with the diet you prefer (whether it’s low fat, low carb, etc.) but what matters most is fewer calories – you have to be hypocaloric
    • Not to say that fat loss is a purely ‘calories in, calories out’ thing – remember, not all calories are created equal
  • Training fasted does not increase fat loss
  • “Maximizing fat burning and maximizing fat for exercise and maximizing fat loss over time are not the same thing at all.” – Dr. Andy Galpin
    • You will never be in a situation where fat is your only fuel source – with lower-intensity exercise, a greater percentage of fuel is coming from fat but total fuel expenditure is low (~60%)
    • But the opposite is true: with high-intensity exercise you will be almost 100% carbohydrate and 0% fat
  • Fat loss training protocol: combine hypertrophy and muscular endurance; 6-30 repetitions, deplete muscle glycogen; incorporate max heart rate intervals 30-60 seconds rest with a lot of recovery & repeat
  • You cannot turn muscle into fat or fat into muscle – they’re very different structures
  • “That idea of metabolic flexibility is using optimal fuel sources at optimal times, not maximizing fat loss.” – Dr. Andy Galpin
  • Do you need caffeine for workout fuel? It could be a sign you’re not good at utilizing carbohydrate stores for fuel (not to be confused with using caffeine for a better workout)
  • To get better at managing energy throughout the day: (1) make sure protein is stabilized; (2) ingest food in the right combinations with fiber and/or protein; (3) train at high intensity to get better at utilizing carbohydrates; (4) consume carbohydrates as fuel prior to workout
  • Lactate (to a threshold) is not the cause of fatigue – it’s actually fuel for the body: as fatigue increases, lactate will increase to try to buffer the negative consequences of energy generation
  • The best way to train for muscular endurance is to practice frequently to the point of failure
  • To improve anaerobic capacity, shoot for 5-6 minutes all out with max heart rate broken up into intervals (can vary length from 20-90 seconds with sufficient rest to allow a return to nasal breathing)
  • To train aerobic capacity: 5-15 minute bout of max effort, one round
  • If you want to hit anaerobic capacity and max aerobic capacity training: do 1 of each per week – one day can be shorter interval repeat and the other can be a 5-15 minute max effort push

Introduction

  • Dr. Andy Galpin (@DrAndyGalpin), Professor of Kinesiology at California State University, Fullerton, and one of the foremost experts in the world on the science and application of methods to increase strength, hypertrophy, and endurance performance.
  • In this episode of Huberman Lab, Andrew Huberman and Andy Galpin continue with Part 3 of a 6 part series on all things fitness. Learn protocols to improve various kinds of physical endurance, how the body differentially uses energy sources, the mechanisms underlying fat loss, and so much more!
  • Host: Andrew Huberman (@hubermanlab)

Defining Endurance

  • Endurance is energy throughout the day without lulls in fatigue, the ability to maintain repeated effort in a muscle group, perform work at a high rate for a longer time, sustaining positional effort (good posture over time), and going for a longer period of time without fatigue
    • To optimize endurance, you need to analyze which element of endurance is lacking or needs to be improved
  • Two main factors of endurance: (1) fatigue management, (2) managing fuel
  • Amplifying endurance adaptation: repeating the same quality of performance while maintaining proper mechanics
    • Start with proper breathing – efficiency trumps force
    • Improve mechanics: breathing pattern, movement technique, posture
    • Practicing nasal breathing will often fix breathing issues
  • You need to train across the full spectrum of endurance – don’t just do 45 minutes of steady state or only 30 minutes of high-intensity exercise

Understanding The Physiology Of Fat Loss

  • Increasing lung capacity will not increase fat loss (the theory being that you could offload more carbon per exhale)
    • Cardiac output will adjust to remain neutral to energy demands
  • Oxygen is not a fuel source – it’s a necessary product for metabolism
  • All energy production is how we handle carbon: carbohydrates and fats are chains of carbons – energy production is the process of breaking carbon bonds for energy – the only way to get carbon in our system is by ingesting it
  • Breathe more to lose weight? You can expel more carbon by increasing exhales (this is the fundamental principle of less in, more out whether it’s calories or carbon) – but if you intentionally hyperventilate you will increase levels of adrenaline and feel pretty bad
  • Cardiac benefits as you improve endurance:
    • Resting heart rate goes down – shoot for sub 60 beats per minute
    • Stroke volume (blood per pump) increases
    • Efficiency improves, meaning you can do more work at a certain heart rate
  • High-performance VO2 is above 1, meaning you offload more carbon dioxide than is necessary – you breathe heavily after to try to repay the oxygen debt
  • Exercising fasted is irrelevant for fat loss – you have plenty of fuel already in your system (unless you are talking about an extended fast)
  • Crossover concept: As you dial up exercise intensity, you burn a higher percentage of fuel from carbs and a lower percentage of fuel from fat
    • Sleep actually burns a good amount of fat
    • With lower-intensity exercise, a greater percentage of fuel is coming from fat but total fuel expenditure is low – the highest you’ll ever get is 60% of fuel from fat
    • “You will never be in a position, ever, no matter what sort of thing you’ve heard on the internet – you’ll never be in a situation where fat is your only fuel source.” – Dr. Andy Galpin

Balancing Energetics Of Carbohydrates & Fat

  • True high-intensity exercise, you will be almost 100% carbohydrate and 0% fat
  • What happens during fat loss: body biases energetics toward different fuel sources – any carbs go to storage, and any fat is used as a fuel source because it’s excess and doesn’t need it
    • Burning fat does not equal losing fat from the body
  • You will not enhance fat loss by doing cardio after weight training, assuming energy expenditure is balanced
  • Your body prioritizes regulation of blood pH, blood glucose, blood pressure, electrolytes as it t wants to keep the brain as stable as possible (glucose is fuel for the brain)
    • If you need glucose, you’ll start pulling from blood, not the liver – the liver will start to see a problem if training is extremely long (hours) or the intensity is through the roof for a long period
    • You’ll quit almost immediately if your liver is done because there’s no backup reserve – liver depletion sends a signal to the brain to stop; it’s not about willpower
  • Carbohydrate and fat systems are complementary, not and/or
    • You need carbohydrates and fat to tap into different energy systems in the body – if you need to run up a hill you have carbohydrates; if you need to run for hours you have fat
    • This idea is called being “metabolically flexible” and is ideal for most of the population but ideal for high-performing athletes depending on the sport
  • Improving metabolic flexibility for the general population:
    • To improve carbohydrate utilization: Test and monitor blood glucose, AST, and ALT to assess the ability to use carbohydrates as fuel. The general rule of thumb, be at 85 or lower (though the normal range is broader) to avoid a higher risk of type 2 diabetes
      • It’s a problem if you crash with a reasonable dosage of carbs or if you cannot perform a standard workout (e.g., a 15-minute loop you do regularly) fasted
      • Identify the source of glucose dysregulation and work backward: it might be that you’re eating carbs without fiber or protein, it may be endogenous, heart issue, etc.
    • To improve fat utilization: eat fat prior to exercise; manage caloric intake and quality
      • Whatever you eat before a workout is what your system will be biased to burning – but it may hinder your performance at high levels
  • If you don’t have enough muscle, fat loss is a challenge
  • If you have muscle but want to get bulky, adding more muscle won’t necessarily help because muscle is more metabolically active at rest than fat (though not as much as you’d think) so basal metabolic rate increase
    • “One bad food choice per day will outkick almost any amount of coverage you’ve done to add muscle.” – Dr. Andy Galpin
  • Lactate (to a point) is actually fuel for the body – as fatigue increases, lactate will increase to try to buffer the negative consequences of energy generation

Training For Fat Loss

  • “Speed, power, and skill development have almost no benefit for fat loss because remember those are low weight, a lot of rest, and low volume.” – Dr. Andy Galpin
  • Strength is also low for fat loss because it’s not enough total energy expenditure because reps are low
  • To develop a fat loss protocol: combine hypertrophy and muscular endurance; 6-30 repetitions, deplete muscle glycogen; about one hour; incorporate max heart rate intervals 30-60 seconds rest with a lot of recovery & repeat
  • Exercise snacks: exercises you can do in under a minute
    • For example, a strenuous 20-second bout such as running up a flight of stairs, burpees, or jumping jacks, every 4 hours or so at work
    • Benefits for glycemic, energy, cognitive focus, etc.
    • Great if you are in an office all day or have a desk job
    • The main strategy to focus on is getting your heart rate up really high, a few times per day – smash out anything intense for 20 seconds
  • At the end of the day, pick the exercises you’ll stick to

Use Of Fuel Sources During Different Bouts Of Exercise

  • Phosphocreatine is the first source of energy as soon as you want to generate muscle and power, powering you from 0-15 seconds of max exertion
    • Stored in muscle cytoplasm so efficiently accessed
  • For energy 15 seconds through a couple of minutes, you use anaerobic glycolysis – using carbohydrates as a fuel source
    • The upside is it is a fast energy source but the downside is you have to do something with carbon waste which can increase acidity in muscle by breaking up ATP, but remember, lactate is not the cause of fatigue
  • For anything below 90-120 minutes, our main concern is carbon waste management
  • Once we’re out of gas, we enter aerobic glycolysis – this is why most endurance leans towards fueling with carbohydrates when an event or sport lasts hours
    • Be careful of ingesting fast carbs prior to exercise to avoid glucose spikes and crash
    • Practice and train fueling how you will during the race
  • All living organisms use carbon and ATP in different balances for energy – the final endpoint of carbohydrate metabolism is water, ATP, and carbon dioxide
  • Protein as a fuel source is generally about 10% of energy output which grows over time as you run low on muscle and liver glycogen but it’s not a tremendous fuel source
    • Protein is only aerobic and has to be oxidized and will not enhance performance
    • Protein is transient and not good at being stored so not an effective fuel source
  • Carbohydrate starts anaerobically and finishes aerobically in the mitochondria; you mostly use carbohydrate in muscle tissue
  • There’s a tiny amount of fat stored in muscle but the majority of fuel from fat comes systemically– this is why you lose fat from the entire body, not just the area you exercise
    • Like carbohydrates, the final endpoint of fat metabolism is water, ATP, and carbon dioxide
    • The average person probably has enough fat stored to survive for 30 days (you wouldn’t feel good but the point is, fat will never be your limiting factor – it’s just too slow to use)
    • If you don’t care about maximizing
  • For high-fat, low-carb dieters: this is an effective diet for those who don’t do physical activity; for anyone looking to improve physical performance, you do want carbs for fuel

Muscular Endurance

  • Muscular endurance is generally in local muscle, not cardiovascular or systemic; it’s a measure of how long you can do something without breaking posture – this can be anywhere from 5-50 reps in a row
    • The limiting factor is either acid buildup or a problem clearing the waste from muscle
    • You’ll have more pain in small muscle groups – you’ll never throw up after arm day but you might after leg day
  • To increase acid buffering: practice often (specificity) until you reach failure which provides a stimulus for more capillaries into the system to exchange oxygen, blood, and waste
  • Muscle endurance is about high precision: pick the muscle group and exercise according to your goal
    • An order doesn’t matter unless you experience fatigue from previous exercises 
  • Training for muscular endurance:
    • You don’t need heavy load – it only needs to be around what your target is (e.g., want to improve at 50% 1RM just train in that range)
    • Practice rep range you want to be in
    • You won’t be as sore so you can easily do 3-4x per week per muscle group – or – do more reps in fewer days
    • Progression: try to add 1-2 reps per week (or more time if the goal is wall sit or plank)

Anaerobic Capacity

  • Anaerobic capacity is the total amount of work you can do over a period of seconds to a couple of minutes at the highest fatigue
    • Remember, fat isn’t your limiter here but carbohydrates will be creating acid problem and oxygen transportation problems
  • Muscular endurance is localized but anaerobic capacity is systemic
  • Like muscle endurance, specificity wins for training – train the thing you want to get better at even at a lower intensity
  • To understand training intensity, consider the gear system instead of zones:
    • Consider the gear system instead of thinking about zones
    • Gear 1: can you breathe in and out through your nose at a set cadence? 2-3 second inhale and 2-3 second exhale
      • Most people over-breathe which kicks them into hyperventilation faster
    • Gear 2: inhaling and exhaling through nasal breathing at whatever rate needed, but still in equal time distribution
    • Gear 3 & 4: using mouth breathing once nasal breathing is no longer sustainable
    • The more in tune you can get with carbon dioxide sensitivity, the more you can improve (check out SHIFT Breathing Assessment)
  • Protocol for anaerobic capacity training:
    • Train for what you want to improve if you have a specific goal (if you want to get better at sprinting, run; if you want to get better at assault bike sprints, practice those, etc.)
    • Other considerations for exercise choice: choose a movement you’re confident in because pain cave happens quickly; be mindful of heavy eccentric loads (no box jumps, downhill sprints, etc.); focus on breathing and posture
    • Generally, these are full-body movements like sledding, swimming, biking, etc. – where the risk of injury is minimal
    • Pros & cons of fewer sets: you can train to 100% effort but the downside is the ability to get high volume
    • Training dose: as many as needed to get to maximum heart rate, typically around 1-3; at least twice per week
      • Time domain matters – if it’s a one-mile sprint, you’ll only do it once; in a 20-second burst you can repeat
  • Shoot for about 5-6 minutes per week of all-out, max heart rate work
    • Sample 1: 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off protocol minimum 4 rounds per bout, at least 1-2 days per week – you’ll cause problems if you try to hit too many days per week
    • Sample 2: 20 seconds on, 30 seconds off for improved recovery between effort x 6-8 rounds, 1-2 days per week
    • Play with bursts of varying length, lasting around 20 seconds but no longer than 90 seconds
    • Rest needs to be sufficient enough to return back to the point of nasal breathing  
  • Try this test! Example, sprints:
    • Round 1: take two minutes to cover as much distance as you can (example 400m)
    • Then rest two minutes
    • Round 2: Cover the distance you made it in round 1 but it doesn’t matter how long it takes you (example 2 minutes 5 seconds)
    • Round 3: use the time domain of Round 2 (example 2 minutes 5 seconds) and cover as much distance as possible
  • Progression: try to do more work (~5%) in the same period of time every week or add another round every week

Maximum Aerobic Output (Aerobic Capacity)

  • Time frame 5-15 minutes at maximum intensity
  • Clearing of waste will be a major issue but oxygen demand will take a more prominent role
  • Classic test: 1-mile time trial
  • You want to be doing something where there is no “off” switch or transition time
  • Protocol: don’t need repeats, 1-2x per week is sufficient, intensity is max but support with work that’s less than 85% max HR (but not as easy as zone 2)
  • Sample: run 10 minutes as fast and as far as you can once per week and measure
    • You want this on it’s own day or combine with speed and power – be careful of fatigue with other types of exercises; these are full-body movements
  • If you want to hit anaerobic capacity and max aerobic capacity training: do 1 of each per week – one day can be a shorter interval repeat and the other can be a 5-15 minute max effort push

Steady State Exercise

  • Perform steady state exercise 20-30 minutes 1x per week to supplement almost any training goal
  • Diaphragmatic fatigue is real during max heart rate – you will start running into failure until you are more sufficiently trained; the time domain is long so clearing and pH won’t be a problem
    • Train diaphragm and intercostals: pay attention to technical breakdown and inability to maintain posture
  • Sample protocol: 60-100 minutes long duration work per week (e.g., brisk hike) divided across 1-2 sessions depending on time
  • You could do steady state on a rest day or after strength training (depending on which is the main goal)
  • Try nasal only during this session and finish with a slow 3-minute walk of slow breathing

Bringing It All Together

  • Example: you want to run your first half marathon
  • Accumulate 60-70% of mileage in a moderate intensity zone
  • Spend 10% of training in 20-second burst arena to drive up fatigue and maximize your ability to recover from waste production; spend the remaining time in max speed
  • Spend the remaining time in a 5-15 minute zone, for example, 800m run rest & repeat
  • You don’t want just to spend time in a long duration steady state, accumulating miles regularly – divide into different stimuli to support

Articles & Other Resources

  • Exercise Snacks: A Novel Strategy to Improve Cardiometabolic Health (Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews)
  • The Effects of Acute Exercise on Mood, Cognition, Neurophysiology, and Neurochemical Pathways: A Review (Brain Plasticity)
  • Exercise Snacks
  • SHIFT Breathing Gears
  • SHIFT Breathing Assessment

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