Summary of Huberman Lab Podcast Episode: Building Strength & Growing Muscles: Optimal Protocols with Dr. Andy Galpin

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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 2 of a 6 part series on all things fitness. Learn optimal protocols for increasing strength and hypertrophy, how to increase speed and power, foundational training principles, selecting the appropriate programming, and so much more. Note, these notes cover the first half of the episode – the second half will be released soon!
• Host: Andrew Huberman (@hubermanlab)

The Importance Of Training For Strength & Hypertrophy

• Strength training is not just for athletes or building muscles, just like cardio is not just for weight loss
• “Resistance exercise and strength training is the number one way to combat neuromuscular aging.” – Dr. Andy Galpin
  • Mechanism: nerves turn on, muscles contract, muscles move bones
• Engaging in movement is key to independent living
• You lose about 1% of muscle every year after age 40 – but equally important to consider, you lose about 2-4% of strength and 8-10% of power
• “Training for strength and hypertrophy is a way to keep your nervous system healthy and young.” – Dr. Andrew Huberman
• You can start strength training at any age! All hope is not lost if you didn’t start when you were 20
• You don’t lose functionality purely because of aging, you lose it because of loss of training – you can maintain high-quality muscle
• A significant fraction of the brain is dedicated to movement
• Use exercise for three main reasons:
  • Look good – people want to look a certain way
  • Play good – freedom to execute any activity you want
  • Feel good – you want to have energy throughout the day
• Benefits of strength training: responses happen quickly, with noticeable changes in just 4-6 weeks (the feedback loop makes it more addicting)
  • Fast results are the number one predictor of program adherence

Differences Between Strength & Hypertrophy Training

• Strength training: creating more force across a muscle, muscle group, or total movement
  • Strength relates to mechanics, the force capability of muscle, and firing the right muscle group in the right sequence
• Hypertrophy training: increase in the size of muscle (without mention of function; a big muscle isn’t necessarily strong)
  • Hypertrophy is simply how big the muscle is
• You don’t have to get bigger to get stronger – but you can do both
  • Strength training will improve contractability (fibers can generate more force without changing size)
  • You can increase muscle size without getting stronger (and maybe even lose strength) because of muscle lattice widening which is optimizing for size, not strength
• Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy: increase in fluid in muscle fiber which allows diameter to get larger but since there are no additional contractile units, no additional force is generated
• Muscle is the largest organ system in the body (not skin like most people think)
• There are adaptations to connective tissue in strength training but it’s not as easily measurable as muscle
• Bones themselves get stronger when we resistance train – start young for maximum benefits and prevention but it’s never too late for improvement
  • Women: training can be impacted by the menstrual cycle if you are experiencing abnormalities – it’s important to seek help if you fall into this category
  • Hormone-based birth control can also impact strength training improvements
• Everything along the chain of human movement will improve with strength training
• mTOR pathway is synonymous with cell growth – this is activated with strength training, not cardiovascular exercise, which activates a different energy system (but this concept is a little more nuanced than this)
• Muscle memory: body’s ability to remember muscle size; after a period of not training, you will regain muscle faster once you start up again than it took the first time to build
  • Probably because of epigenetic change to nuclei which are programmed to remember muscle size

Putting Together A Training Program

• You can optimize strength, hypertrophy, or both
• Non-negotiables for any training program to work: (1) adherence (adherence is the number predictor of outcome), (2) progressive overload (number one mistake people make), (3) individualization (equipment availability, etc.), (4) choosing an appropriate target
• Too much variation in programming can leave you without enough stimuli to muscle group or movement pattern; too much specificity can increase the likelihood of overuse injury
• Exercises do not determine adaptation, execution does – a deadlift will not improve strength unless you do it properly
• The 9 main concepts of training: skill, speed, power (function of speed and strength), strength, hypertrophy (growing muscle mass), muscular endurance, anaerobic power (ability to produce and sustain work in short bursts), VO2 max (max heart rate), long-endurance (30+ minutes with no break)

Dialing In Specificity & When To Go To Failure For Strength Training

• Specificity training (like training for sports or the Olympics) says the most important thing is spending time training in exactly the same circumstance you’re going to perform
  • If you want to get better at strength, perform that movement at that specific load
• Check out Prilepin’s Chart for guidelines of rep ranges, sets
• For strength, you’re going to spend the bulk of your time in 55-65% 1RM each set
• You don’t have to go to failure to see strength gains
• It’s helpful for beginners (not day one) to go to failure to see where the line is and provide a guideline – given you can do so with good form, choose an exercise you’re comfortable with

Training For Speed, Power, And Strength

• Separate speed and power if you’re a high-performance athlete but for most other people, there is not much pure speed training the general public needs
• 3-5 concept:
  • 3-5 days per week
  • Choose 3-5 exercises
  • Do 3-5 repetitions per set
  • 3-5 working sets
  • Rest 3-5 minutes between each set
  • This can be done in combination with other training such as steady state, hypertrophy, high intensity, etc.
• Intention is important here – weights will be lighter since moving for speed and power so start moderately and shoot for 3-5% increase per week (choose smaller increment if needed)
• Periodization: following a style of training for a block of time (e.g., 6-12 weeks)
  • Linear periodization: train one adaptation at a time
  • Undulating periodization: multiple training styles on the same day or on different days
  • Results are generally the same for either style of periodization
  • Caveat: if your goal is a certain outcome, shift toward specificity and linear periodization
• True speed work by definition is non-fatiguing – it’s high rest, low fatigue, trying to reach a new velocity

How To Approach Warmups

• Warmup: there is a lot of variation – some people do better with longer warmups, and some people perform better after shorter warmups
  • In general, warm up should be long enough to get you to peak power when training for strength and power to induce adaptation
  • When training for hypertrophy, you want to warm up long enough to feel ready to work and move through correct positions
•  Prior to exercise, dynamic warmups involving different planes and ranges of motion are ideal – 5-10 minutes should be sufficient
• Your first exercise of the day should be the one you prioritize – a full system movement, moving perfectly
• You don’t need to re-warmup for every exercise unless it’s one you’re particularly bad at
• Optimal Repetition Cadence
• For strength exercises, you are trying to get better through a certain part of the movement with more force – intentionally moving slower will only reduce acceleration (remember, Force=mass x acceleration)
  • Train heavier at faster acceleration
• Hypertrophy training is about building muscle – cadence doesn’t matter but you can induce hypertrophy by manipulating variables
• Read rep cadence from start to finish; for example, a squat at 311 means lowering  for 3 seconds, pausing at the bottom for 1 second, and accelerating up 1 second
  • You can follow the same cadence for hypertrophy or change to 312
• The goal for strength is to make sure reps are under control
• The goal for hypertrophy is loading enough for volume – a great option if you are limited in the weight range available

How To Breathe During Exercise

• If you can maintain intramuscular abdominal pressure while breathing, it doesn’t really matter when you breathe – but really a small percentage of people can do this
• In the middle of a heavy set, blood pressure will get high, and is the problem (and can make you pass out)
• Take a large inhale through the abdomen, not the shoulders (not elevating clavicles) – bring in air to create a brace of spinal erectors
• Breathing strategy for one rep max or near: take a big inhale prior to the eccentric portion and hold until the rep is complete if working at or near one rep max
• Breathing strategy for multiple reps: you don’t have to reset breathing and focus on it every rep as that can be energy consuming – if hitting 3-8 reps, every third breathe reset and go

Articles & Other Resources

• Sarcoplasmic Hypertrophy in Skeletal Muscle: A Scientific “Unicorn” or Resistance Training Adaptation? (Exercise Physiology)
• Towards an improved understanding of proximity-to-failure in resistance training and its influence on skeletal muscle hypertrophy, neuromuscular fatigue, muscle damage, and perceived discomfort: A scoping review (Journal of Sports Sciences)
• Andy Galpin: Science of Muscle Hypertrophy
• Prilepin’s Chart
• Cable Core Rotation
• Eric Cressey