[0:00] - [Andrew Huberman] Welcome
to the Huberman Lab Podcast
[0:02] where we discuss science
and science-based tools
[0:04] for everyday life.
[0:09] - I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm
a Professor of Neurobiology
[0:12] and Ophthalmology at
Stanford School of Medicine.
[0:15] This podcast is separate
[0:16] from my teaching and
research roles at Stanford.
[0:18] It is however, part of
my desire and effort
[0:21] to bring zero cost to consumer
information about science
[0:23] and science-related tools
to the general public.
[0:26] In keeping with that theme,
[0:27] I'd like to thank the
sponsors of today's podcast.
[0:30] Our first sponsor is InsideTracker.
[0:33] InsideTracker is a
personalized nutrition platform
[0:36] that analyzes data from your blood and DNA
[0:38] to help you better understand your body
[0:40] and reach your health goals.
[0:42] I've long been a fan of
getting blood work done
[0:44] for the simple reason
that many of the things
[0:47] that impact our immediate
and long-term health
[0:49] can only be analyzed from
a quality blood test.
[0:52] And now with the advent
of modern DNA tests,
[0:55] we can also get insight into things
[0:58] like metabolic factors
that tell us whether
[1:00] or not we metabolize caffeine
well or certain proteins well,
[1:04] what our fat metabolism genes are like.
[1:07] Things of that sort can only be analyzed
[1:09] from quality blood and DNA tests.
[1:12] In addition, many of the factors
that impact our hormones,
[1:15] our metabolism our brain health,
[1:17] those come back in a blood and DNA test
[1:20] and there are many blood
and DNA tests out there,
[1:22] but with InsideTracker, they
give you a lot of clear insight
[1:26] into what those markers
mean and how to adjust them.
[1:29] They have this terrific
platform that doesn't just
[1:32] give you the numbers back and tell you
[1:33] if you're higher or low in some factor,
[1:35] but rather it tells you
what your levels are
[1:38] of all those factors and
gives you very simple
[1:41] and clear directives of changes
you might make in your diet,
[1:44] changes that you might make
in your exercise regimen,
[1:47] or sleep, et cetera in
order to get those markers
[1:50] where they ought to be
[1:51] and where you would like them to be
[1:52] in order to optimize yourself.
[1:55] So they make everything
very easy, start to finish.
[1:57] They can even come to your home
[1:58] to take the blood and
DNA tests if you like.
[2:00] If you'd like to try InsideTracker
[2:02] you can go to insidetracker.com/huberman.
[2:05] And if you do that, you'll get 25% off
[2:07] any of InsideTracker's plans.
[2:09] Use the code Huberman at checkout.
[2:12] Today's podcast is also brought to us
[2:13] by Belcampo Meat Company.
[2:15] Belcampo is a regenerative
farm in Northern California
[2:18] that raises organic grass fed
[2:20] and finished certified humane meats.
[2:23] While I don't eat a lot of meat, when I do
[2:25] I insist that that meat
be a very high quality.
[2:28] How the animals were cared for
is extremely important to me
[2:31] and the life that the animal
had and what it consumed
[2:34] is very important to me.
[2:36] So the way that I eat I've
discussed on this podcast before
[2:38] but very briefly, I basically
fast until about noon,
[2:41] then I eat a piece of
beef or chicken with lunch
[2:44] and a salad.
[2:45] So that's basically my lunch.
[2:46] That's what optimizes
my levels of alertness
[2:48] for work throughout the day.
[2:50] Then in the evening I shift over
[2:52] to eating primarily carbohydrates.
[2:54] That's what allows me to sleep very well.
[2:56] So I'm not eating huge volumes of meat
[2:58] but am eating meat every day.
[3:01] Conventionally raised animals
are confined to feed lots
[3:03] and need to diet of inflammatory grains
[3:05] which is bad for them and it's bad for us
[3:07] when we eat their meat.
[3:09] Belcampo animals graze on open pastures
[3:11] and seasonal grasses resulting in meat
[3:13] that is higher in
nutrients and healthy fats.
[3:15] And I've talked before
about the importance
[3:17] of omega-3 fatty acids for
both brain and body health
[3:20] and Belcampo meats are high
in omega-3 fatty acids.
[3:23] The way Belcampo raises its
animals isn't just better
[3:26] for your health, it also
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[3:29] It's what's called climate
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[3:35] My favorite meats from Belcampo
[3:37] are the rib eye and the flank steaks.
[3:39] That's typically what I eat.
[3:40] I think I probably eat about three or four
[3:42] of those across the week
and then I'll eat chicken
[3:44] on some other days.
[3:46] They're really delicious,
[3:47] and as I mentioned,
they're very good for us.
[3:49] You can order Belcampo
sustainably raised meats
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[3:53] Huberman at belcampo.com/huberman.
[3:58] If you do that, you'll get
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[4:01] That's belcampo.com/huberman
for 20% off your first order.
[4:06] Today's episode is also
brought to us by Headspace.
[4:09] Headspace is a meditation app backed
[4:11] by 25 published studies
[4:13] and has over 600,000 five star reviews.
[4:16] So I've been meditating on and off
[4:18] since I was about 15, 16 years
old, mostly off at first.
[4:23] What I found is that I'll sometimes
[4:25] start a meditation practice but
it's very hard to stay with.
[4:28] And then a few years ago
I discovered Headspace
[4:31] and I started meditating more regularly.
[4:33] In fact, very recently because
I've had an exorbitant amount
[4:37] of work on my plate and
I've been getting less sleep
[4:39] than I would like in order
to complete that work,
[4:41] I've brought back a regular
meditation practice twice a day
[4:45] not just my usual once a day.
[4:47] Headspace makes it really easy.
[4:49] They have so many meditations on there
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[4:59] Right now if you want to try Headspace
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[5:17] You just go to
headspace.com/special offer.
[5:20] You get a free one month trial
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[5:23] I've found that staying with meditation
[5:25] has been immensely beneficial
for all aspects of my life.
[5:29] Today's episode of the Huberman
Lab Podcast is our fourth
[5:31] and final episode in this month
[5:33] which is all about skills
and athletic performance.
[5:37] Now, in a previous episode,
we talked about science-based
[5:41] in particular neuroscience-based tools
[5:43] for accelerating fat loss.
[5:46] Previous to that, we talked about ways
[5:48] to improve skill learning, motor movements
[5:50] which also included things like music
[5:53] and piano playing not
just athletic performance.
[5:56] And we've also been
exploring other aspects
[5:59] of physical performance
throughout the entire month.
[6:02] Today I want to talk about something
[6:03] that is vitally important for
not just athletic performance,
[6:07] but for your entire life and
indeed for your longevity,
[6:11] and that's muscle.
[6:13] Now, many of you, when
you hear the word muscle
[6:15] think muscle growth and
building big muscles.
[6:18] And while we will touch
on muscle hypertrophy
[6:20] muscle growth today, and
science-based protocols
[6:23] to enhance hypertrophy,
we will mainly be talking
[6:27] about muscle as it relates
to the nervous system.
[6:30] And I can't emphasize this enough
[6:33] the whole reason why you have a brain is
[6:36] so that you can move.
[6:38] And one of the things that's
exquisite and fantastic
[6:41] about the human brain,
is that it can direct
[6:44] all sorts of different kinds of movement,
[6:46] different speeds of movement,
[6:48] movement of different durations.
[6:50] We can train our
musculature to lift heavier
[6:54] and heavier objects or we
can train our musculature
[6:56] to take us further and
further so-called endurance.
[6:59] We can also build smoothness
of movement, excuse me,
[7:03] smoothness of movement as
well as speed of movement,
[7:07] suppleness of movement.
[7:09] All of that is governed
by the relationship
[7:13] between the nervous system, neurons
[7:16] and their connections to muscle.
[7:19] So when you hear the science of muscle
[7:21] and muscle hypertrophy,
you might think, oh, well
[7:23] I'm not interested in building muscle
[7:25] but muscle does many critical things.
[7:28] It's important for movement.
[7:30] It's important for metabolism.
[7:32] The more muscle you have
and not just muscle size
[7:36] but the quality of muscle,
that's a real thing,
[7:39] the higher your metabolism is,
[7:41] and indeed the healthier you are.
[7:44] It turns out that jumping ability
[7:47] and ability to stand up quickly
[7:49] and to get up off the floor quickly
[7:51] is one of the most
predictive markers of aging
[7:54] and biological aging and no
surprise that is governed
[7:57] by the brain to muscle connection.
[8:00] In addition, muscle and
musculature is vital for posture
[8:05] and we don't talk about posture enough.
[8:08] We all have been told we
need to sit up straight
[8:10] or stand up straight, but
posture is vitally important
[8:14] for how the rest of our body works.
[8:17] It's vital to how we breathe.
[8:19] It's actually even vital to
how alert or sleepy we are.
[8:23] So we're going to talk about
the musculature for posture.
[8:26] We also are going to talk about muscle
[8:28] as it relates to aesthetic things.
[8:30] Now, these are all linked.
[8:32] Muscle for metabolism,
movement, posture and aesthetics
[8:35] of course are linked, right?
[8:36] As our posture changes,
our aesthetic changes.
[8:38] As our posture and aesthetic
changes, how we move changes.
[8:42] And as we improve muscle quality
[8:45] whether or not that's
increasing muscle size or not,
[8:48] that changes the way
that our entire system
[8:51] not just our nervous system
and our muscular system
[8:54] but our immune system and the
other organs of the body work.
[8:57] So today, as always we're going to talk
[8:59] a little bit of mechanism.
[9:01] I'm going to explain how
neurons control muscle
[9:04] and then we're going to
look at muscle metabolism,
[9:08] how muscle uses energy.
[9:09] I promise to make all of this very simple.
[9:11] I'm actually going to keep it very brief
[9:14] probably about 10 minutes total.
[9:16] And by the end of that 10
minutes, you will understand a lot
[9:19] about the neuromuscular connection,
[9:21] how your brain and nervous
system control your muscle
[9:23] and how those muscles work.
[9:25] Then we are going to talk
about how muscles use energy
[9:29] and can change how they use energy
[9:32] for sake of getting stronger, if you like
[9:35] for also increasing the size
so-called hypertrophy of muscle
[9:38] and for improving endurance as
well as for improving posture
[9:43] and how you move generally.
[9:45] We will touch on some nutritional themes
[9:48] and how that relates
to muscle in particular
[9:50] a specific amino acid that
[9:52] if it's available in your
bloodstream frequently enough,
[9:55] and at sufficient levels,
can help you build
[9:58] and improve the quality of muscle.
[10:01] And we'll talk about
specific exercise regimes
[10:04] as well as of course, supplementation
[10:07] and things that can enhance
[10:09] neuromuscular performance overall.
[10:12] We are also going to talk about recovery.
[10:14] Recovery as everybody knows,
is when things improve.
[10:18] That's when neurons get
better at controlling muscle,
[10:23] that's when muscle grows,
[10:24] that's when muscle gets more flexible.
[10:27] None of that actually
happens during training.
[10:29] It happens after training and
there is a lot of confusion
[10:32] about how to optimize
recovery and how to measure
[10:35] whether or not you are recovered
and ready to come back in
[10:38] for another neuromuscular
training session.
[10:41] So we'll talk about that as well.
[10:43] Today is going to have a lot of protocols
[10:46] and you're going to come away
with a lot of understanding
[10:48] about how you move, how you work
[10:49] in these incredible organs
that we call the nervous system
[10:54] and the musculature, the
so-called neuromuscular system.
[10:58] Before we dive into today's topic,
[11:00] I want to just take about three minutes
[11:03] and cover some essential
summary of the previous episode.
[11:07] In the previous episode,
we talked about fat loss.
[11:10] Talked about shiver induced fat loss.
[11:12] We talked about neat non-exercise
activity thermogenesis
[11:16] for increasing caloric
burn and fat oxidation.
[11:19] And we talked about how
to use cold specifically
[11:23] to enhance fat loss.
[11:25] I described a protocol
involving getting into cold
[11:28] of some sort, whether or not
it's ice bath, cold shower,
[11:31] some form of cold could
even be a river or an ocean
[11:34] if you have access to
that and inducing shiver
[11:37] and then getting out, not
crossing your arms or huddling
[11:41] but allowing that cold to evaporate
[11:43] off you and continuing to shiver
[11:44] and then getting back into
the colder environment
[11:46] of water or stream or shower, et cetera.
[11:50] All of that is described
[11:51] in a beautifully illustrated protocol
[11:54] that I didn't illustrate.
[11:55] That's why it's beautifully illustrated
[11:57] at the coldplunge.com.
[11:59] They've made that protocol for you
[12:02] and they've made it available
free of charge for you.
[12:05] So there's no obligation
there of any kind financially.
[12:07] You can go to the coldplunge.com.
[12:10] There's a little tab that says protocols
[12:11] and you can download that
protocol, someone there
[12:13] I don't know who exactly illustrated it,
[12:16] and you can come away with a PDF
[12:17] of what I described in
the previous episode.
[12:18] So I just want to make sure
[12:20] that you are aware of that resource.
[12:22] The other announcement
I'd like to make is that
[12:24] many of you have asked how you
can help support the podcast.
[12:27] And there's a very straightforward
zero cost way to do that.
[12:31] And that's to subscribe
to our YouTube channel.
[12:33] So if you go to YouTube,
[12:35] if you're not already
there watching this now
[12:37] hits the Subscribe button
that helps us tremendously
[12:40] to get the word out more
broadly about the podcast.
[12:43] And we thank you for your support.
[12:45] Most people, when they
hear the word muscle
[12:47] they just think about strength.
[12:49] But of course muscles are
involved in everything that we do.
[12:53] They are involved in speaking,
[12:54] they're involved in
sitting and standing up,
[12:56] they're involved in lifting
objects, including ourselves.
[13:00] They are absolutely essential
[13:03] for maintaining how we breathe.
[13:05] They're absolutely essential
for ambulation, for moving,
[13:09] and for skills of any kind.
[13:11] So when we think about muscle,
[13:14] we don't just want to think about muscle
[13:16] the meat that is muscle, but
what controls that muscle.
[13:20] And no surprise what controls
muscle is the nervous system.
[13:25] The nervous system does that
[13:26] through three main nodes of
control areas of control.
[13:29] And I've talked about these
before on a previous podcast.
[13:32] So I will keep this very brief.
[13:34] Basically, we have upper motor
neurons in our motor cortex.
[13:38] So those are in our skull
[13:40] and those are involved
in deliberate movement.
[13:42] So if I decide that I'm
going to pick my pen
[13:44] up and put it down, which
is what I'm doing right now,
[13:46] my upper motor neurons were involved
[13:48] in generating that movement.
[13:49] Those upper motor
neurons send signals down
[13:52] to my spinal cord where there
are two categories of neurons.
[13:56] One are the lower motor neurons
[13:58] and those lower motor
neurons send little wires
[14:01] that we call axons out to our muscles
[14:04] and cause those muscles to contract.
[14:06] They do that by dumping
chemicals onto the muscle.
[14:08] In fact, the chemical is acetylcholine.
[14:12] I've talked before about
acetylcholine in the brain
[14:15] which is vitally important for focus
[14:17] and actually can gait neuroplasticity,
[14:19] the brain's ability to change
in response to experience.
[14:23] But in the neuromuscular system,
[14:25] acetylcholine released from
motor neurons is the way
[14:28] the only way that muscles can contract.
[14:33] Now, there's another category of neurons
[14:35] in the spinal cord called
central pattern generators
[14:37] or CPGs.
[14:39] And those are involved
in rhythmic movements.
[14:41] Anytime we're walking or doing something
[14:44] where we don't have to think about it
[14:45] to do it deliberately, it's
just happening reflexively
[14:48] that central pattern
generators and motor neurons.
[14:51] Anytime we're doing
something deliberately,
[14:53] the top-down control as we call it,
[14:56] from the upper motor neurons comes in
[14:57] and takes control of that system.
[15:00] So it's really simple.
[15:00] You've only got three ingredients.
[15:02] You've got the upper motor
neurons, the lower motor neurons
[15:04] and for rhythmic movements
that are reflexive,
[15:06] you've also got the
central pattern generators.
[15:08] So it's a terrifically
simple system at that level,
[15:11] but what we're going to focus on today is
[15:15] how that system can control muscle
[15:18] in ways that make that system better.
[15:21] Now, when I say better, I
want to be very specific.
[15:24] If your goal is to build larger muscles,
[15:27] there's a way to use your nervous system
[15:30] to trigger hypertrophy
to increase the size
[15:34] of those muscles.
[15:35] And it is indeed controlled
by the nervous system.
[15:38] So you can forget the idea
that the muscles have memory
[15:41] or that muscles grow in
response to something
[15:43] that's just happening within the muscle,
[15:45] it's the nerve to muscle connection
[15:47] that actually creates hypertrophy.
[15:50] I'll talk exactly about how
to optimize that process.
[15:53] In addition, if you want
to improve endurance
[15:55] or improve flexibility or
suppleness or explosiveness,
[15:59] that is all accomplished by the way
[16:02] that the nervous system
engages muscles specifically.
[16:05] And so what that means is
we have to ask ourselves
[16:08] are we going to take control
of the upper motor neurons,
[16:10] the central pattern generators,
or the lower motor neurons
[16:13] or all three in order
to get to some end point
[16:17] of how the nervous system controls muscle.
[16:20] So neurophysiology 101.
[16:23] I'll give you one piece of history
[16:24] because it's important to know.
[16:26] Sherrington, who won the Nobel prize
[16:30] called movement, the final common path.
[16:33] Why did he say that?
[16:34] Well, the whole reason for
having a nervous system
[16:38] the whole reason for having a brain is
[16:39] so that we can control our
movements in very dedicated ways.
[16:43] That is one of the reasons,
perhaps the predominant reason
[16:47] why the human brain is so large.
[16:50] You might think, oh it's
so large for thinking
[16:52] and for creativity.
[16:53] Ah, no when you look at
the amount of real estate
[16:56] in the brain that's devoted
to different aspects of life,
[16:59] it's mainly vision, our ability to see
[17:03] and movement, our ability to engage
[17:05] in lots of different kinds of movements.
[17:07] Slow movements, fast movements,
explosive, et cetera.
[17:10] Other animals don't have that ability
[17:14] because they don't have
the mental real estate.
[17:17] They don't have the neural
real estate in their brain.
[17:20] They have neuromuscular junctions.
[17:22] They have central pattern generators
[17:23] what they don't have
[17:24] are these incredible upper motor neurons
[17:26] that can direct activity the
muscles in very specific ways.
[17:30] So we can all feel blessed
that we have this system.
[17:32] And today I'm going to teach
you how to use that system
[17:35] toward particular end points.
[17:37] So if we decide that we are
going to direct our muscles
[17:40] in some particular movement of any kind.
[17:42] Whether or not it's a
weightlifting exercise,
[17:44] or whether it's a yoga movement
[17:46] or simply picking up
and putting down a pen,
[17:49] we are engaging flexors and extensors
[17:52] and our body is covered with
flexors and extensors all over.
[17:55] So for instance, our bicep is a flexor
[17:57] and our tricep is an extensor.
[17:59] Those are what are called
antagonistic muscles.
[18:01] They move the limbs in
opposite directions.
[18:04] So if you bring your wrist
closer to your shoulder,
[18:06] that's flection using your bicep.
[18:08] If you move your wrist further
away from your shoulder,
[18:11] that's extension, using your tricep.
[18:13] And without getting into a lot of detail
[18:15] the way that the nerves and
brain are wired up to muscle
[18:19] make it such that when
a flexor is activated,
[18:22] when the nerve dumps
chemical acetylcholine
[18:26] onto the muscle to activate the biceps,
[18:28] the triceps is inhibited.
[18:31] It's prevented from engaging.
[18:34] There are ways to bypass this
[18:36] but that's the typical mode of action.
[18:39] The converse is also true when
our tricep is in activated,
[18:44] when we move our wrist
away from our shoulder
[18:46] our bicep is inhibited.
[18:48] And we have flexors like
our abdominal muscles.
[18:51] And we have extensors in our lower back.
[18:54] Many of you probably know this
[18:55] but some of you probably
don't that your spine
[18:57] has flexors to move basically
your chin toward your waist.
[19:01] And it has, those are your
abdominal muscles among others.
[19:04] And you have extensors that
move your chin, basically back
[19:08] like looking up toward the ceiling.
[19:09] And those are your extensors.
[19:11] You have other muscles that
are stabilizing muscles
[19:13] and things of that sort
[19:14] but those movements of
flection and extension,
[19:17] and the fact that they are
[19:18] what we call reciprocally
innovated or mutual inhibition,
[19:22] you hear different language around this
[19:23] is characteristic of most
of our limb movements.
[19:29] So hamstring and quadriceps,
the hamstring brings the ankle
[19:32] closer back towards the glutes.
[19:35] Basically it's lifting your heel up
[19:38] which is almost always
done toward the back.
[19:40] Whereas your quadriceps is the extensor
[19:43] opposite to the hamstrings.
[19:44] So you get the idea.
[19:45] So there's flexors and extensors
[19:47] and it's the neurons that
control those flexors
[19:50] and extensors that allow us
to move in particular ways.
[19:53] So, now you have heard a
neuromuscular physiology
[19:57] in its simplest form, but I
do want this to be accessible.
[19:59] I want to get just briefly, just briefly
[20:03] into some of the underlying metabolism
[20:05] of how muscles use and create energy.
[20:08] Because in doing that, we
will be in a great position
[20:10] to understand all the
tools that follow about
[20:13] how to optimize the neuromuscular system
[20:15] for your particular goals.
[20:16] So in the previous episode about fat loss,
[20:18] we talked about lipolysis.
[20:20] The breakdown of fat into fatty acids
[20:22] so it can be used as fuel.
[20:24] And it ended in a step where we got ATP,
[20:27] which is the bottleneck
and final common path
[20:30] for all energy producing
functions in the body.
[20:35] There are other ways but basically ATP
[20:37] is the key element there.
[20:39] Now with muscles, they don't
function on fats normally
[20:43] what they are going to function
on their ability to move
[20:46] and their ability to do
things and allow us to move
[20:49] in any way that we want to,
[20:51] is based on a process of glycolysis,
[20:53] the breakdown of things like glycogen
[20:57] and glucose into energy.
[20:59] And it's a very simple process.
[21:01] You don't have to know any chemistry.
[21:03] So if I say the words carbon or hydrogen
[21:05] or something like that, don't freak out.
[21:06] You don't have to
understand any chemistry.
[21:09] But basically what
happens is you've got this
[21:12] available sugar resource
that stored in muscle.
[21:17] And that's glucose.
[21:18] And that glucose has six carbons
and six waters, basically.
[21:25] That can be broken down into
two sets of three carbons.
[21:31] All right.
[21:32] So basically you take
glucose and you break it
[21:34] into these two little batches of carbons
[21:37] that we call pyruvate.
[21:38] So six divided by two is three.
[21:39] So you get three and three pyruvate.
[21:41] And that generates a
little bit of ATP of energy
[21:44] but just a little bit.
[21:46] Now, if there's oxygen available,
[21:49] if there's sufficient oxygen there,
[21:52] what can happen is that
pyruvate can be brought
[21:56] to the mitochondria and
through a whole set of things
[21:59] that you probably don't
want to hear about right now
[22:01] like the electron transport
chain and citric acid cycle.
[22:05] What happens is it's broken
down and you get 28 to 30 ATP,
[22:10] which has a lot of ATP.
[22:12] So the only things you need to know,
[22:13] the only things you need
to know about this process
[22:15] is that glucose and glycogen
are broken down into pyruvate.
[22:19] You a little bit of energy from that.
[22:20] And when I say energy, I
mean the ability to move.
[22:23] It's fuel, literally just gets burned up.
[22:26] But if there's oxygen
available and that's key
[22:29] then within the mitochondria,
you can create 28 to 30 ATP
[22:34] which is a lot of ATP.
[22:36] Now, what does this mean?
[22:37] This means that movement of muscle
[22:40] is metabolically expensive
and indeed compared
[22:42] to other tissues compared
to fat, compared to bone,
[22:46] compared to almost all other
tissues, except brain tissue
[22:49] muscle is the most metabolically demanding
[22:52] which is why people who
have more muscle relative
[22:55] to adipose tissue to
fat, they can eat more
[22:58] and they're more of a furnace.
[23:00] They just kind of burn that up.
[23:02] So even if you didn't understand
anything that I just said,
[23:05] what you probably did hear,
and that I hope you heard
[23:08] is that if you have oxygen
around, you can create energy
[23:12] from this fuel source that
we call glycogen and glucose.
[23:16] But what if there isn't oxygen around?
[23:18] And what is that like?
[23:20] Well, you've experienced that.
[23:22] I'm not talking about
oxygen in the environment.
[23:24] I'm talking about oxygen in the muscle.
[23:26] So if you've ever carried
a box while moving,
[23:29] or you're carrying heavy
groceries to the car,
[23:32] or you're exercising particularly hard
[23:34] and you felt the burn, well, that burning
[23:37] which most people think is
lactic acid is actually a process
[23:43] by which pyruvate, which as I said before
[23:45] normally could be converted
into ATP if there's oxygen,
[23:48] well, if there's not enough oxygen
[23:50] 'cause that muscle is
working too hard or too long,
[23:53] what ends up happening is that
[23:54] a hydrogen molecule comes in there
[23:57] and you get something called lactate.
[23:59] So believe it or not, humans
don't make lactic acid.
[24:01] That's another species, we make lactate.
[24:05] And we hear that lactate is bad.
[24:07] We need to buffer the
burn or avoid the burn.
[24:11] That lactic acid and
lactate are what prevent us
[24:14] for performing as well
as we ought to be able to
[24:17] or going as far as we possibly could
[24:20] in an endurance event.
[24:22] Guess what, that's not true at all.
[24:24] Lactate has three functions,
[24:25] all of which are really
interesting and really important.
[24:28] First of all, it's a
buffer against acidity.
[24:32] You don't want muscle to get too acidic
[24:34] because it can't function.
[24:35] You don't want any body
tissue to get too acidic.
[24:37] So that burn that you feel is
acidity in that environment
[24:42] and lactate what most
people call lactic acid,
[24:45] but again, we don't make lactic acid.
[24:46] Lactate is there to buffer that
[24:49] to reduce the amount of burn.
[24:51] So, most people have
this exactly backwards.
[24:54] So when you feel that burn
that is not lactic acid,
[24:57] that is lactate that's
present to suppress the burn,
[25:02] to suppress acidity.
[25:04] It's also a fuel.
[25:06] When you feel that burn,
[25:08] lactate is shuttled to
those areas of the muscle,
[25:11] and there's an actual fuel burning process
[25:14] where in the absence of oxygen
[25:16] you can continue to generate
muscular contractions.
[25:19] Now, this is informative
'cause it also tells us that
[25:21] that burning that acidity that we feel
[25:24] can inhibit the way that our muscles work
[25:27] but that lactate comes
in and allows our muscles
[25:29] to continue to function.
[25:31] So we'll talk a little bit more about
[25:33] what this whole lactate
thing and the burn means
[25:36] but it's a really important process.
[25:38] And it's amazing to me that
most people understand it
[25:40] in exactly the incorrect way.
[25:42] They think a lactic acid
is bad and the burn is bad.
[25:45] No, it reveals a number
of really important things
[25:47] are going on with this
vital molecule lactate,
[25:50] which can reduce acidity, reduce the burn
[25:53] as well as act as a fuel.
[25:55] Now, here's where it
gets really, really cool.
[25:58] And if you don't have enough
of an incentive to exercise
[26:01] based on all the information out there
[26:03] about how it'll make you live longer
[26:05] and make your heart better, et cetera,
[26:07] here's a reason that regardless
[26:10] of what kind of exercise you do,
[26:12] if it's weight training, or
running, or cycling, or swimming
[26:15] that every once in a while,
about 10% of the time
[26:19] you should exercise to
the point of intensity
[26:22] where you start to feel
that so-called burn.
[26:26] The reason for that is
that lactate shows up
[26:31] to the site of the burn, so to speak,
[26:34] and it acts as a hormonal
signal for other organs
[26:37] of the body in a very positive way.
[26:41] As you may recall, from
a very early episode
[26:43] of the Huberman Lab
Podcast, I talked about
[26:45] what a hormone is and how it works.
[26:47] We have lots of different
kinds of hormones
[26:49] but hormones are chemicals that
are released in one location
[26:52] in the body and travel,
have effects on lots
[26:55] of other organs of the body.
[26:57] So when I say that lactate
acts as a hormonal signal,
[27:03] what I mean is that it's in a
position to influence tissues
[27:06] that are outside of the muscle.
[27:09] And basically it can send signals
[27:13] to the heart, to the
liver and to the brain,
[27:16] and it can have effects
on the heart, the liver
[27:18] and the brain that are very positive.
[27:21] So just to zoom out for a second
[27:23] I promise we won't get any
more technical than this.
[27:25] We will get into tools and protocols
[27:27] that are really straightforward
[27:28] but what I'm telling you is that
[27:31] if you feel a burn from a
particular exercise or movement,
[27:37] that burn is going to be buffered
[27:40] by this molecule we call lactate.
[27:42] Lactate will then provide additional fuel
[27:44] for additional work.
[27:46] So this is a good incentive
provided you can do it safely
[27:48] to "Work through the burn."
[27:51] That burn acts as a beacon to the lactate
[27:56] which comes in and allows
you to do more work.
[27:58] It's not a signal to stop necessarily.
[28:00] I mean, stop if you're
doing something unsafe
[28:02] but it's a signal that
lactate should come in
[28:05] and allow you to continue to do work.
[28:07] And it can act as a hormonal signal.
[28:10] Lactate can then travel to the heart
[28:14] and to the liver and to the brain
[28:16] and can enhance their
function in positive ways,
[28:18] not just in those moments,
[28:19] but in the period of time that follows.
[28:22] So many people are curious
about how they can exercise
[28:25] to make their brain better.
[28:27] That's one of the most
common questions I get.
[28:29] What I'm telling you is that
provided you can do it safely
[28:34] by engaging the so-called burn
[28:36] which is at a different
threshold for everybody,
[28:39] your hill run will be
different than my hill run
[28:41] to generate the burn,
[28:43] but provided you can do that for about 10%
[28:45] of your workouts or of
an individual workout,
[28:49] or activity of any kind, you
are generating the activity
[28:54] of this lactate based hormonal signal
[28:56] that can improve the function of neurons.
[29:00] And it does that if you want
to know for the aficionados
[29:02] by improving the function
of another cell type
[29:04] called the astrocytes which
are a glial cell type.
[29:07] Which are very involved in clearance
[29:09] of debris from the brain,
[29:10] they're involved in the
formation of synopsis
[29:12] connections between neurons in the brain.
[29:14] So put simply, if you are an exerciser
[29:18] if you're doing movement of
any kind, and you're interested
[29:20] in allocating some of that
movement toward enhancing
[29:24] brain, heart and liver
health, there is a nice set
[29:29] of scientific data that points to the fact
[29:31] that getting a lactate
shuttled to the muscles
[29:34] by engaging this burning
sensation is advantageous
[29:39] for the health of those other tissues.
[29:40] So, as I mentioned that burn is present
[29:43] from lack of oxygen being present.
[29:46] And then the hydrogen comes
in and you get this lactate.
[29:49] But this process of
lactate acting as a buffer
[29:52] of fuel and a positive hormonal
signal for other tissues,
[29:56] occurs only if there's oxygen.
[29:59] So if you feel the burn,
you definitely want to focus
[30:03] on your breathing at that point.
[30:05] That would be the time
to take deep inhales
[30:07] and try and bring more
oxygen into your system.
[30:10] It's definitely not a
time to hold your breath.
[30:12] And if ever you've run to
the point of feeling the burn
[30:15] and then you were exercised
in any way on the treadmill
[30:17] or on the bike or whatever,
and felt that burn,
[30:19] and then you held your breath,
[30:20] it feels much more intense.
[30:22] By breathing you bring lactate to the site
[30:26] and you are able to
allow lactate to act more
[30:30] as a buffer, a fuel,
and a hormonal signal.
[30:33] And the reason I brought this up today is
[30:35] because as I mentioned so
many people are interested
[30:38] in using exercise not just for sake
[30:40] of improving physical health
and wellbeing and performance,
[30:43] but also for enhancing their brain.
[30:46] And there are a lot of
data out there speaking
[30:49] to the findings that
exercise of various kinds
[30:53] can increase neurogenesis,
the creation of new neurons.
[30:57] Well, the unfortunate news is that
[31:00] while that's true in mice,
[31:01] there is very little evidence
for enhanced neurogenesis
[31:05] from exercise or otherwise in humans.
[31:08] There's a little bit,
and there are a few sites
[31:09] within the brain, such
as the dentate gyrus
[31:11] of the hippocampus, which may be involved
[31:13] in the formation of new
memories, to be clear
[31:16] the dentate gyrus is definitely involved
[31:17] in the formation of new memories,
[31:19] whether or not the new
neurons that are added there
[31:21] in humans are involved in new memories.
[31:24] The evidence for that
is weak at best, frankly
[31:27] whereas an animals the
data are quite strong,
[31:30] but most of the data points to the fact
[31:32] that hormonal signals,
things that are transported
[31:36] in the blood during exercise
are beneficial for the brain
[31:42] and that those signals are
not causing the increase
[31:45] in the number of neurons in
the dentate gyrus or otherwise.
[31:49] That it's more about the
health of the connections
[31:51] between the neurons growth
factors of various kinds
[31:54] things like IGF-1, there's
a long list of these things.
[31:56] So if you've heard the
exercise increases the number
[31:59] of neurons in your brain,
well, that's not true.
[32:01] And that probably is a good thing, frankly
[32:03] because we always hear
more neurons, more neurons
[32:06] as if it's a good thing, but
the brain doesn't do so well
[32:09] with bringing in entirely new elements.
[32:12] It has a hard time negotiating that
[32:14] and making use of those new elements.
[32:16] We know about this from things
like the cochlear implant
[32:19] where deaf people are given a device
[32:20] where they suddenly can hear.
[32:22] Some people really like that,
[32:24] deaf people really like that
and can benefit from it.
[32:26] Other deaf people find
that it's very intrusive.
[32:29] That is hard to take an existing
neural circuit in the brain
[32:34] and incorporate a lot of
new information into it.
[32:37] So new neurons, as great as that sounds
[32:39] more neurons, more neurons,
[32:40] it actually might not be the best way
[32:42] for the nervous system to
change and modify itself
[32:44] and to promote its own longevity.
[32:46] So when I tell you not such great evidence
[32:50] from new neurons past puberty,
[32:52] that's what the data
really show in humans.
[32:55] And I sort of knocked back the data
[32:57] on exercise and neurogenesis,
[32:59] don't let that depress you.
[33:00] If you have dementia in your family,
[33:03] don't translate that into necessarily
[33:06] that you will develop dementia.
[33:08] Understand the exercise
is still beneficial
[33:10] for the brain and other
aspects of the nervous system
[33:13] but that it's going to be doing it
[33:14] through these hormonal signals.
[33:16] Things like IGF-1, things
like this lactate pathway
[33:20] when you experience
the burn from exercise.
[33:22] And again, you don't want to try
[33:23] and get this feeling of a burn
[33:25] throughout the entire episode of exercise,
[33:28] there'll be far too intense and
would inhibit your recovery.
[33:31] I don't think it'd be good
for performance either.
[33:33] It's only about 10% of your total effort
[33:36] in any one exercise about
[33:38] that's going to give you
this positive effect.
[33:40] So now you know how to
devote a small portion
[33:42] of your exercise, 10% in
order for muscle and lactate
[33:46] to benefit other tissues
[33:48] namely your heart, your
liver, and your brain.
[33:51] I'd now like to shift our attention
[33:53] to how to use specific aspects
of muscular contraction
[33:57] to improve muscle
hypertrophy, muscle growth,
[34:00] as well as improving muscle strength.
[34:03] There are a lot of reasons
to want to get stronger.
[34:05] And I should just mention
that it's not always the case
[34:09] that getting stronger involves
muscles getting bigger.
[34:12] There are ways for muscles to get stronger
[34:14] without getting bigger.
[34:16] However, increasing the size of a muscle
[34:19] almost inevitably increases
the strength of that muscle
[34:22] at least to some degree.
[34:24] Reasons why most everyone should want
[34:26] to get their muscles stronger is that
[34:29] muscles are generally
getting progressively weaker
[34:32] across the lifespan.
[34:33] So when I say getting
stronger, it's not necessarily
[34:35] about being able to move increasing mounts
[34:39] of weight in the gym.
[34:40] Although if that's your goal
[34:41] what I'm about to discuss
will be relevant to that,
[34:44] but rather to offset some of
the normal decline in strength
[34:49] and posture and the ability
to generate a large range
[34:53] of movement safely, that occurs as we age.
[34:56] As I mentioned at the
beginning of the episode
[34:57] we just tend to lose function
in this neuromuscular system
[35:01] as we get older.
[35:02] And doing things to offset that
[35:04] has been shown again and
again, to be beneficial
[35:07] for the neuromuscular system
for protection of injury,
[35:11] for enhancing the strength
of bones and bone density.
[35:14] So there are a lot of reasons
to use resistance exercise
[35:18] that extend far beyond just the desire
[35:20] to increase muscle size
because I know many
[35:23] of you are interested in
increasing muscle size,
[35:25] but many of you are not.
[35:27] So there's an important
principle of muscle physiology
[35:30] called the Henneman size principle.
[35:32] And the Henneman size
principle essentially says
[35:35] that we recruit what
are called motor units.
[35:40] Motor units are just the connections
[35:41] between nerve and muscle from in a pattern
[35:46] that staircases from low
threshold to high threshold.
[35:50] What this means is when you
pick up something that is light,
[35:54] you're going to use the
minimum amount of nerve
[35:57] to muscle energy in
order to move that thing.
[36:00] Likewise, when you pick
up an object that's heavy,
[36:03] you're going to use the
minimum amount of nerve
[36:06] to muscle connectivity and energy
[36:08] in order to move that object.
[36:10] So it's basically a conservation
of energy principle.
[36:14] Now, if you continue to
exert effort of movement,
[36:19] what will happen is you will tend
[36:21] to recruit more and more
motor units with time.
[36:24] And that process of
recruiting more neurons,
[36:27] more lower motor neurons
[36:29] if you recall from the
beginning of the episode,
[36:31] these lower motor neurons
are in our spinal cord
[36:33] and they actually dump a
chemical acetylcholine on muscle,
[36:36] caused the muscles to contract.
[36:38] As you recruit more and
more of these motor units,
[36:41] these connections between these
[36:43] lower motor neurons and muscle,
[36:44] that's when you start to
get changes in the muscle.
[36:48] That's when you open the
gate for the potential
[36:52] for the muscles to get
stronger and to get larger,
[36:54] if that's what your goal is.
[36:56] And so the way this process works
[37:00] has been badly misunderstood
[37:02] in the kind of online
literature of weight training
[37:05] and bodybuilding, and
even in sports physiology.
[37:08] The Henneman size principle is kind of
[37:10] a foundational principle
within muscle physiology
[37:14] but many people have come
to interpret it by saying
[37:18] that the way to recruit
high threshold motor units,
[37:21] the ones that are hard to get to
[37:23] is to just use heavy weights.
[37:25] And that's actually not the case
[37:27] as we'll talk about the research supports
[37:30] that weights in a very large
range of sort of a percentage
[37:36] of your maximum, anywhere from 30% to 80%.
[37:40] So weights that are not very
light but are moderately light,
[37:44] too heavy can cause
changes in the connections
[37:47] between nerve and muscle that lead
[37:49] to muscle strength and muscle hypertrophy.
[37:52] Put differently, heavyweights
can help build muscle
[37:57] and strength but they are not required.
[37:59] What one has to do is adhere
[38:01] to a certain number of parameters,
[38:03] just a couple of key variables
that I'll spell out for you.
[38:06] And if you do that, you can greatly
[38:09] increase muscle hypertrophy, muscle size
[38:12] and or muscle strength if
that's what you want to do.
[38:15] And you don't necessarily
have to use heavy weights
[38:18] in order to do that.
[38:19] Now, I'm sure the power lifters
[38:21] and the people that like to
move heavy weights around
[38:24] will say, no, if you want to get strong
[38:26] you absolutely have to lift heavy weights.
[38:28] And that might be true if
you want to get very strong
[38:31] but for most people who are interested
[38:33] in supporting their muscular
such that they offset
[38:37] any age related decline in strength,
[38:39] or in increasing hypertrophy
and strength to some degree,
[38:44] there really isn't a need
[38:45] to lie about the Henneman size principle
[38:48] which many people out there are doing
[38:50] and claiming that you absolutely need
[38:52] to use the heaviest weights possible
[38:53] in order to build strength and muscle.
[38:55] So I'm going to explain all
of this works in simple terms.
[38:58] So first of all, let's just
talk about what hypertrophy is
[39:02] and what strength changes
in the muscle are.
[39:05] We can make this very simple as well.
[39:07] If this were a muscle physiology class
[39:09] we would talk all about myofibrils
[39:12] and sarcomeres and all that stuff.
[39:13] We're not going to do that.
[39:14] That's not the purpose
of today's conversation.
[39:17] If you're interested in that
[39:18] as well as a lot of the other information
[39:20] that I'm going to discuss in more detail,
[39:23] I highly encourage you to
check out the YouTube channel
[39:27] and the writings of Dr. Andy Galpin.
[39:30] He's a PhD and a full professor
in exercise physiology.
[39:33] He's extremely knowledgeable
in this entire area
[39:36] of science-based tools for hypertrophy,
[39:39] how strength and hypertrophy really work.
[39:41] His lab does everything
from biopsy on muscles,
[39:44] working with athletes and
typical folks as well.
[39:46] A lot of the information
that you're going to hear
[39:48] from me in the next 15 minutes or so
[39:50] comes from an extensive
exploration of the work
[39:53] that he and his colleagues
have done as well
[39:56] as folks like Brad Schoenfeld,
another academic who's superb
[39:59] in this whole space of muscle physiology
[40:01] and from a lengthy conversation
that I had with Andy,
[40:05] Dr. Galpin prior to this episode.
[40:08] So if we want to think
about muscle hypertrophy,
[40:11] we have to ask what is changing
[40:13] when muscles get larger or stronger.
[40:15] And there are really just three ways
[40:17] that muscles can be stimulated to change.
[40:20] So let's review those three ways
[40:21] and talk about what
happens inside the muscle.
[40:24] So there are three major stimulate
[40:26] for changing the way that muscle works
[40:29] and making muscles stronger,
larger, or better in some way.
[40:33] And those are stress, tension, and damage.
[40:38] Those three things don't
necessarily all have to be present
[40:42] but stress of some kind has to exist.
[40:44] Something has to be different
[40:46] in the way that the nerve communicates
[40:48] with the muscle and the way
that the muscle contracts
[40:50] or performs that makes
the muscle need to change.
[40:55] So this is very reminiscent of
neuroplasticity in the brain.
[40:58] Something needs to happen.
[41:00] Certain chemicals need to be present.
[41:01] Certain processes need to happen
[41:03] or else a tissue simply
won't change itself.
[41:06] But if those processes
and events do happen,
[41:09] then the tissue has
essentially no option except,
[41:13] but to change.
[41:14] So muscles move, as I mentioned
[41:17] because nerves dump
chemical onto the muscles
[41:20] but they move because they
have these things called myosin
[41:24] and actin filaments.
[41:25] And if you want to read up on this,
[41:27] you can look on the internet
[41:29] you can put the sliding filament theory
[41:31] of muscle contraction if you
really want to go deep down
[41:33] that rabbit hole.
[41:34] It's interesting.
[41:35] You can learn about this in
a muscle physiology class.
[41:38] But basically, along
the length of the muscle
[41:41] you have, what's called myosin.
[41:43] And just think of myosin
as kind of like a wire.
[41:46] It's like a bunch of beads and wires
[41:49] that extend across the muscle.
[41:51] I think that's the simplest
way to describe it.
[41:53] And the myosin is surrounded
[41:55] by these little beads called actin.
[41:58] The way muscles get bigger is
[42:00] that basically the myosin gets thicker.
[42:04] It's a protein and it gets thicker.
[42:07] So put this in your mind
if you're listening to this
[42:10] or even if you're watching it on YouTube,
[42:12] the way to think about this
whole actin myosin thing
[42:13] and thing and muscles
getting bigger is imagine
[42:16] that you're holding a bouquet of balloons,
[42:18] a bunch of balloons by their strings
[42:21] except you're not holding the
strings all at their bottom.
[42:23] So the bouquet isn't nicely arranged.
[42:25] It's not like some balloons
that are all up at the top
[42:28] and you're holding the
strings down at the bottom.
[42:30] Imagine that one of the
balloons that is very close
[42:33] to your hand and other one
is a little bit higher up.
[42:35] And so this bouquet is very disorganized.
[42:37] In other words, the string
extending out of your hand
[42:39] the strings rather
extending out of your hand
[42:41] are all different lengths.
[42:43] And so the balloons
are all over the place.
[42:45] That's essentially what myosin
looks like in the muscle.
[42:49] And those strings are what
we call the filaments,
[42:51] and then the myosin head is the balloon.
[42:56] When you stress a muscle properly,
[42:58] or you give it sufficient tension,
[43:00] or you damage the muscle just enough,
[43:04] there's an adaptive
response that takes place
[43:06] where protein is synthesized.
[43:08] And it's a very specific
protein, it's myosin.
[43:11] The myosin gets thicker.
[43:12] In other words, the balloons get bigger.
[43:16] So the way to think about muscle growth
[43:18] and the way to think about
muscles getting stronger is
[43:22] that those balloons get bigger
and the muscle gets thicker.
[43:26] Now, the question then should be as always
[43:30] how does that happen?
[43:31] I mean, the muscle doesn't
really know anything
[43:33] about what's happening
in the outside world.
[43:36] The way it happens is
the nerve, the neuron has
[43:39] to tell the muscle to get stronger.
[43:42] And it does that through what
we call a signaling cascade.
[43:45] It talks to the muscle
in terms of chemicals.
[43:47] It doesn't whisper to it or
shout or Hey, get bigger.
[43:49] What it does it release
a certain chemicals
[43:51] that within the muscle,
[43:53] there are certain
chemicals released rather
[43:55] that make those balloons
as I'm referring to them,
[43:57] the myosin get thicker.
[43:59] So let's talk about the
stimulus for doing that.
[44:02] And if already in your
mind, you're imagining
[44:04] oh my goodness, these balloons of muscle
[44:06] are going to get thick,
thick, thick, thick, thick,
[44:07] and it's just going to
spiral out of control,
[44:10] don't worry about that.
[44:11] People invest a ton of time and energy
[44:13] into trying to make their muscles larger.
[44:15] It's actually much harder for people to do
[44:17] than you might think.
[44:19] But I do want to give one
exception because it illustrates
[44:22] an important principle of
where we're headed next.
[44:24] Everybody has imbalances
in how muscles can grow.
[44:32] How well muscles can grow, or how poorly,
[44:35] or how challenging it is
for their muscles to grow.
[44:37] Now, many people who are afraid
of like getting too bulky
[44:41] for instance, are afraid
of lifting weights.
[44:43] But I think the research
shows now that every one
[44:46] of pretty much every age should be doing
[44:48] some sort of resistance exercise
[44:50] even if that's body weight exercises
[44:52] in order to offset this
age-related decline
[44:55] in muscle contractile ability,
[44:57] muscle strength, et cetera,
improve bone density.
[45:00] There's nothing good about
getting frail and weak over time.
[45:05] And people who invest the effort
[45:07] into doing resistance
exercises of some kind
[45:10] whether or not it's with
bands or with weights
[45:12] or with body weight,
really benefit tremendously
[45:15] at a whole body level at a systemic level
[45:18] as well as in terms of muscle strength.
[45:21] There is a good predictor of how well
[45:25] or how efficient you will
be in building the strength
[45:28] and or if you like the
size of a given muscle.
[45:32] And it has everything to do
with those upper motor neurons
[45:34] that are involved in
deliberate control of muscle.
[45:37] You can actually do this test right now.
[45:39] You can just kind of March
across your body mentally
[45:42] and see whether or not you
can independently contract any
[45:46] or all of your muscles.
[45:48] So for instance, if you
are sitting in a chair
[45:50] or a you're standing,
[45:52] see whether or not you can
contract your calf muscle
[45:55] just using those upper motor
neuron, sending a signal down
[45:58] and deliberately
isolating the calf muscle.
[46:01] If you can contract the calf muscle hard
[46:05] to the point where that
muscle almost feels
[46:07] like it's starting to cramp
[46:08] like it hurts just a little bit,
[46:10] that can be extremely painful
[46:12] nor is it going to have
no sensation whatsoever,
[46:15] chances are you have very good
[46:17] upper motor neuron to calf control.
[46:20] And chances are, if you can isolate that
[46:23] what they call the brain
or mind muscle connection,
[46:26] and you can contract the muscles
[46:27] to the point where it cramps a little bit,
[46:29] that you hold a decent to high potential
[46:33] to change the strength and
the size of that muscle
[46:36] if you train it properly.
[46:37] Now, if you have a hard time doing that,
[46:40] chances are you won't be able to do that.
[46:43] If for instance, you
focus on your back muscle.
[46:47] Like we all have these
muscles called the lat.
[46:50] The latissimus dorsi muscles,
which basically are involved
[46:53] in chin ups and things like that,
[46:53] but their function from a more
of a kinesiology standpoint
[46:58] is to move the elbow back behind the body.
[47:01] So it's not about flexing your bicep.
[47:03] It's about moving your
elbow back behind your body.
[47:05] If you can do that, mentally
[47:08] or you can do that physical movement
[47:10] of moving your elbow back behind your body
[47:12] and you can contract that muscle hard,
[47:14] chances are that you have the capacity
[47:16] to enhance the strength and or size
[47:19] of that particular muscle
[47:21] because you have the neural
control of that muscle.
[47:24] This is a key feature of
the neuromuscular system
[47:27] to appreciate as we begin to talk more
[47:30] about specific protocols.
[47:32] Because everything about
muscle hypertrophy,
[47:36] about stimulating muscle growth is
[47:39] about generating isolated contractions
[47:42] about challenging specific
muscles in a very unnatural way.
[47:48] Whereas with strength, it's
about using musculature
[47:51] as a system moving
weights, moving resistance,
[47:54] moving the body.
[47:56] The specific goal of hypertrophy is
[47:59] to isolate specific
nerve to muscle pathways
[48:02] so that you stimulate the chemical
[48:04] and signaling transduction
events in muscle
[48:06] so that those muscles
respond by getting larger.
[48:09] So there's a critical distinction
[48:11] in terms of getting stronger versus trying
[48:13] to get muscles to be
larger hypertrophy per se.
[48:17] And it has to do with how much
you isolate those muscles.
[48:21] Muscle isolation is not
a natural phenomenon.
[48:24] It's not something that we normally do.
[48:25] When we walk we don't think,
okay, right calf contract,
[48:28] left calf contract.
[48:29] No, you just generate
those rhythmic movements.
[48:32] And of course, there's no
reason for them to get stronger
[48:34] or larger in response to those movements.
[48:36] Let's say you were to do a
kind of strange experiment
[48:39] of attaching 30 pound
weights to your ankles.
[48:41] And you were to do those movements.
[48:43] Well, if you weren't specifically
contracting your calves
[48:46] in each step, there's
no reason for the calves
[48:49] to take on the bulk of the work.
[48:51] And you would distribute that
work across your hip flexors
[48:54] and other aspects of your musculature.
[48:55] Your whole nervous system
seeks to gain efficiency.
[48:58] It seeks to spread out the effort.
[49:01] So you can nest this as
a principle for yourself
[49:04] which is if you want to get stronger
[49:06] it's really about moving
progressively greater loads
[49:10] or increasing the amount
of weight that you move.
[49:13] Whereas if you're specifically interested
[49:15] in generating hypertrophy,
it's all about trying
[49:18] to generate those really hard,
[49:20] almost painful localized
contractions of muscle.
[49:24] Now, of course, how much weight you use
[49:25] in order to generate those contractions
[49:27] will also impact hypertrophy.
[49:29] But I think most people
don't really understand
[49:31] the mind muscle connection.
[49:33] It sounds like a great thing,
[49:34] but it's actually one of
the things you want to avoid
[49:37] if your goal is simply
to become more supple
[49:40] or to become stronger.
[49:42] You want to do the movements
properly and safely, of course
[49:45] but it's the opposite of hypertrophy
[49:48] where with hypertrophy
you're really trying to make
[49:50] that particular muscle
sometimes two muscles
[49:53] do the majority, if not all the work
[49:56] whereas in moving force loads
[49:58] in trying to generate activity of any kind
[50:02] like lifting a bar, doing
a chin up or something
[50:04] those so-called compound
movements involve a lot
[50:06] of muscle groups.
[50:08] If your goal is to be better at those,
[50:10] you want to avoid isolating
any one particular muscle.
[50:14] Now, I know this probably comes across
[50:16] as a kind of obvious duh,
especially to the folks
[50:19] who have spent a lot of time in the gym
[50:22] aimed at getting hypertrophy.
[50:24] But I think most people don't appreciate
[50:25] that it's the nerve to muscle connections
[50:27] and the distinction
between isolating nerve
[50:30] to muscle connections
versus distributing the work
[50:33] of nerve to muscle connections,
[50:34] that's vital in determining whether or not
[50:36] you generate hypertrophy isolated nerve
[50:39] to muscle contractions versus strength
[50:41] and offsetting strength loss
[50:44] which would be distributed
nerve to muscle connections.
[50:47] If ever there was an
area of practical science
[50:49] that was very confused,
very controversial,
[50:53] and almost combative at times,
[50:55] it would be this issue
of how best to train.
[50:58] I suppose the only thing
that's even more barbed wire
[51:01] of a conversation than that
is how best to eat for health.
[51:04] Those seem to be the two most common areas
[51:07] of online battle and the
scientific literature
[51:11] has a lot to say about
both of those things.
[51:13] Again, my sources for
what I'm about to tell you
[51:16] are Professor Andy Galpin and colleagues.
[51:19] I know there are other
excellent people out there
[51:21] in the field, but I really trust his work.
[51:23] He does very controlled studies.
[51:26] He spent a lot of time in this space
[51:27] and what's really exciting is that
[51:29] in just the last three years or so,
[51:31] there's been a tremendous
amount of information
[51:34] to come out about the practical
steps that one can take
[51:37] in order to maximize the benefits
[51:40] of resistance exercise of any kind.
[51:43] So I'm going to talk about those
[51:44] and I'm going to talk about the research.
[51:46] I will provide some links,
a couple of the more
[51:49] in-depth tutorials from
Dr. Galpin, as well as some
[51:53] of the papers that the
information I'm about
[51:55] to tell you stems from.
[51:58] There's a lot of information saying
[52:00] that you need to move
weights that are 80 to 90%
[52:05] of your one rep maximum
or 70%, or cycle that
[52:07] for three weeks on and then
go to more moderate weights.
[52:09] There are a lot of
paths as some people say
[52:12] there are a lot of ways to
add up numbers to get a 100.
[52:16] There's a near infinite number of ways
[52:17] to add up different
numbers to get to a 100.
[52:20] And what's very clear now
[52:22] from all the literature that's transpired
[52:24] and especially from the literature
in this last three years,
[52:27] is that once you know roughly
your one repetition maximum,
[52:32] the maximum amount of
weight that you can perform
[52:36] an exercise with for one repetition
[52:38] in good form, full range of motion,
[52:41] that it's very clear that moving weights
[52:46] or using bands or using
body weight, for instance
[52:51] in the 30% to 80% of one-rep maximum.
[52:54] That is going to be the
most beneficial range
[52:57] in terms of muscle
hypertrophy and strength.
[52:59] So muscle growth and strength.
[53:01] And there will be a bias
if you're moving weights
[53:04] that are in the 75%, 80% range
[53:07] or maybe even going above that 85 and 90%,
[53:09] you're going to bias your improvements
[53:12] towards strength gains.
[53:13] This is true.
[53:15] And if you use weights that are in the 30%
[53:17] of your one-repetition
maximum or 40% or 50%
[53:20] and doing many more
repetitions, of course,
[53:23] then you are biasing towards hypertrophy
[53:25] and what some people like
to call muscle endurance.
[53:27] But that's a little bit
of a complicated term
[53:29] because endurance, we almost
always think of as relating
[53:33] to running or swimming or
some long bouts of activity.
[53:36] So 30% to 80% of one-repetition maximums,
[53:39] it doesn't really seem to matter
[53:41] for sake of hypertrophy,
except at the far ends
[53:44] when you're really trying
to bias for strength.
[53:47] Now, it is clear, however
[53:50] that one needs to perform those sets
[53:54] to failure where you can't
perform another repetition
[53:57] in good form again or near to failure.
[54:01] And there's all sorts of
interesting nomenclature
[54:03] that's popping up all over the internet.
[54:05] Some of which is scientific,
some of which is not scientific
[54:07] about how you are supposed to perceive
[54:10] how close you were to failure, et cetera.
[54:13] But there are some very
interesting principles
[54:15] that relate to how the
nerves connect to the muscles
[54:18] that strongly predict
whether or not this exercise
[54:20] that you're performing will
be beneficial for you or not.
[54:23] So here's how it goes.
[54:24] For individuals that are untrained
[54:27] meaning they have been
doing resistance exercise
[54:31] for anywhere from zero,
probably out to about two years,
[54:35] although for some people, it
might be zero to one year,
[54:37] but those are the so-called beginners.
[54:39] They're sort of untrained.
[54:41] For those people, the
key parameter seems to be
[54:44] to perform enough sets of a given exercise
[54:47] per muscle per week.
[54:50] The same is also true for
people that have been training
[54:52] for one or two years or more.
[54:54] What differs is how many sets to perform
[54:58] depending on whether or not
you're trained or untrained.
[55:00] So let's say you're somebody
[55:00] who's been doing some
resistance exercise kind of
[55:03] on and off over the years
and you decide you want
[55:07] to get serious about
that for sake of sport
[55:09] or offsetting age related
declines in strength,
[55:12] the range of sets to do in
order to improve strength
[55:16] to activate these cascades
in the muscle ranges anywhere
[55:20] from two, believe it
or not to 20 per week.
[55:23] Again, these are sets per week
[55:25] and they don't necessarily
all have to be performed
[55:27] in the same weight training session.
[55:28] I will talk about numbers of sessions.
[55:31] So it appears that five sets
per week in this 30% to 80%
[55:37] of the one repetition maximum range,
[55:40] getting close to failure,
or occasionally actually
[55:44] going to full muscular
failure, which isn't really
[55:47] full muscular failure, but the inability
[55:49] to generate a contraction of the muscle
[55:51] or move the weight in good form.
[55:53] I'll go deeper into that in a moment.
[55:54] But about five sets per
week is what's required
[55:57] just to maintain your muscle.
[55:58] So think about that.
[55:59] If you're somebody who's kind of averse
[56:01] to resistance training,
you are going to lose
[56:03] muscle size and strength.
[56:05] Your metabolism will drop.
[56:06] Your posture will get worse.
[56:08] Everything in the context of nerve
[56:10] to muscle conductivity
will get worse over time,
[56:13] unless you are generating
five sets or more
[56:19] of this 30% to 80% of your one
repetition maximum per week.
[56:24] So what this means is
for the typical person
[56:26] who hasn't done a lot of weight training,
[56:27] you need to do at least
five sets per muscle group.
[56:31] Now, that's just to maintain.
[56:33] And then there's this huge range
[56:35] that goes all the way up to 15
[56:36] and in some case, 20 sets per week.
[56:38] Now, how many sets you
perform is going to depend
[56:41] on the intensity of the
work that you perform.
[56:45] This is where it gets a
little bit controversial
[56:47] but I think nowadays most people agree
[56:50] and Dr. Galpin confirmed
that 10% not to be confused
[56:54] with the 10% we discussed
earlier, but 10% of the sets
[56:59] of a given workout or
10% of workouts overall
[57:05] should be of the high-intensity sort
[57:07] where one is actually
working to muscular failure.
[57:09] Now I say not true muscular failure
[57:11] because in theory you
have a concentric movement
[57:14] which is the kind of
lifting of the weight,
[57:15] and then you have the ecentric portion
[57:17] of muscle contraction,
which is the lowering.
[57:19] And ecentric movements because of the way
[57:21] that muscle fibers lengthen
and that sliding act myosin
[57:25] that we talked about before,
[57:26] you're always stronger
in lowering something
[57:28] than you are in lifting it.
[57:31] But the point being that
most of your training
[57:34] most of your sets should
be not to failure.
[57:38] And the reason for that is it
allows you to do more volume
[57:42] of work without fatiguing
the nervous system
[57:46] and depleting the nerve
to muscle connection
[57:48] in ways that are detrimental.
[57:50] So we can make this simple.
[57:52] Perform anywhere from 5 to 15 sets
[57:56] of resistance exercise per week,
[57:59] and that's per muscle, and
that's in this 30% to 80%
[58:03] of what your one-repetition maximum.
[58:05] That seems to be the most
scientifically supported way
[58:08] of offsetting any decline
in muscle strength
[58:12] if you're working in the
kind of five set range
[58:14] and in increasing muscle strength
[58:18] when you start to get up
into the 10 and 15 set range.
[58:21] Now, the caveat to that is everyone varies
[58:24] and muscles vary in terms
of their recover ability.
[58:28] Depending on how well you
can control the contraction
[58:31] of muscles deliberately.
[58:33] And you can actually figure
that out by sort of marching,
[58:36] you might take five minutes
[58:36] and just kind of March across your body
[58:38] and mentally try and
control the contractions
[58:40] of muscles in a very deliberate way
[58:43] to the point where you can
generate a hard contraction.
[58:45] And you may have to move a limb
[58:46] in order to do this, by the way.
[58:47] I'm not talking about just
mentally contracting your bicep
[58:50] without moving your wrist.
[58:51] I'm talking about doing
that without any weight
[58:54] in hand or any band or any resistance.
[58:56] If you can generate a
high intensity contraction
[58:59] using these upper motor neuron
[59:00] to lower motor neuron pathways to muscle,
[59:04] you might think, well I
should perform many more sets.
[59:09] But actually, the opposite is true.
[59:12] If you can generate high-intensity
muscular contractions
[59:15] using your brain, using your neurons,
[59:17] it will take fewer sets in
order to stimulate the muscle
[59:22] to maintain itself and
to stimulate the muscle
[59:25] in order to grow or get stronger.
[59:28] So the more efficient you are
in recruiting motor units,
[59:32] remember, Henneman's size principle
[59:34] the recruit men have more motor units
[59:36] which isn't just muscles,
[59:37] it's nerve to muscle connections.
[59:39] The better you are at doing that, the more
[59:41] you will recruit these so-called
high threshold motor units
[59:43] the ones that are hard to get to,
[59:45] the more you will kick
off the cascades of things
[59:47] within muscle that stimulate
muscle growth and strength.
[59:52] So if you have muscles that
are challenging to contract,
[59:56] it's going to take more sets
[59:58] in order to stimulate the desired effect
[60:01] in those muscles not fewer.
[60:04] If you have muscles that you are very good
[60:06] at generating force within,
it's going to take fewer sets.
[60:09] Now, how many sets you are
going to have to determine that
[60:12] it's going to depend for
those of you that are using
[60:14] like 50% of your one-repetition maximum,
[60:17] because you're doing a lot of repetitions,
[60:19] you might find that
three or four, five sets
[60:22] will maintain the muscle.
[60:24] You might decide to do that once
[60:25] at one point in the week
and then do it again.
[60:28] So if you're going for 10 sets a week
[60:29] you can divide that among two sessions.
[60:31] You could do that all in one session.
[60:33] The data really show it doesn't matter.
[60:36] There are some differences in terms of
[60:39] whether or not you're trying
to generate maximum intensity
[60:42] within a workout or whether or not
[60:43] you want to spread that out.
[60:44] But in general, resistance workouts
[60:46] of any kind tend to be best favored
[60:48] by workouts that are somewhere
[60:50] between 45 minutes and 60 minutes.
[60:53] And generally not longer than 60 minutes
[60:55] because that's when all
the things like cortisol
[60:58] and some of the inflammatory
pathways really start
[61:00] to create a situation in
the muscle and in the body
[61:04] that's not so great for you.
[61:05] So it's not a hard and fast rule.
[61:07] The ax doesn't drop at 60 minutes
[61:10] but it's pretty clear
that performing this five
[61:12] to 15 sets per week, whether
or not it's in one workout
[61:15] or whether that's divided
up across multiple workouts
[61:18] is really what's going
to be most beneficial.
[61:19] And please do keep in mind
Henneman's size principle
[61:22] and the recruitment of motor units.
[61:24] And remember the better you are
[61:25] at contracting particular muscles
[61:27] in an isolating those muscles,
[61:28] the fewer sets likely you need to do
[61:30] in order to get the desired effect.
[61:33] Now, what about people who
have been training for a while?
[61:35] If you're somebody who's been doing
[61:36] weight training for a while,
the data points to the fact
[61:40] that more volume can be
beneficial, even for muscles
[61:43] that you are very
efficient at contracting.
[61:47] Now, the curve on this, the graph on this
[61:50] begins again at about five sets per week
[61:52] for maintaining a given muscle group,
[61:54] and extends all the way out
to 25 or 30 sets per week.
[61:59] However, there are individuals
who for whatever reason
[62:03] can generate so much force.
[62:05] They're so good at training muscles
[62:07] that they can generate so
much force in just four
[62:10] or six or eight sets that
doing this large volume
[62:14] of work is actually going
to be counterproductive.
[62:16] So everyone needs to
figure out for themselves.
[62:19] First of all, how often you're willing
[62:20] to do resistance exercise of any kind.
[62:23] And again, it doesn't
matter if you're using bands
[62:25] or weights or body weight.
[62:26] For instance, if you're
doing chin-ups chances are
[62:29] unless you are very strong
that you're not using weights.
[62:32] You're just using something
that you can hold onto.
[62:34] Or if you're doing pushups,
some of you will be working
[62:38] in that 30% to 80% of your
one-repetition maximum range.
[62:41] It doesn't necessarily mean
[62:42] that you have to be moving
weights in a gym for instance.
[62:46] So the purpose here is to figure out
[62:49] what muscles you're trying to train.
[62:50] That's an issue that we'll
talk about in a moment.
[62:53] And then it does appear that somewhere
[62:54] between five and 15 sets
per week is going to be
[63:00] the thing that's going
to work for most people.
[63:01] Now, this is based on a
tremendous amount of work
[63:03] that was done by Andy
Galpin and colleagues,
[63:05] Brad Schoenfeld and colleagues
and others, Mike Roberts.
[63:11] There's a huge group of people
[63:13] out there doing exercise
physiology and a small subset
[63:16] of them that are linking them
back to real-world protocols
[63:20] that don't just pertain to athletes.
[63:22] So that's mainly what
I'm focusing on today.
[63:24] And surely there will be exceptions.
[63:26] Now, if you are going to
divide the sets across the week
[63:30] you're not going to do
all 10 sets for instance
[63:32] for a given muscle group in one session,
[63:34] then of course, it's imperative
[63:36] that the muscles recover
in between sessions.
[63:38] And we are going to talk about recovery
[63:40] both at the systemic level,
the whole nervous system
[63:43] and at the local level the nerve to muscle
[63:46] and local even muscle level.
[63:47] We'll talk about that in about 10 minutes
[63:49] when we talk about recovery.
[63:51] I do want to mention
something very important
[63:53] which is that everything
I'm referring to here
[63:55] it has to do with full range of motion.
[63:58] And you might ask, well, what
about the speeds of movements?
[64:02] This is actually turns out
[64:03] to be a really interesting dataset
[64:05] for generating explosiveness and speed.
[64:08] So for sprinters or throwing sports,
[64:10] or for people that want to
generate a lot of jumping power,
[64:13] it does appear that
learning to move weights
[64:16] as fast as you safely can,
especially under moderate
[64:20] to heavy loads, can increase
explosiveness and speed.
[64:24] And most of that effect is
from changes in the neurons.
[64:30] It's not from changes in the muscle.
[64:31] It's from changes in the way
that the upper motor neurons
[64:34] communicate with the lower motor neurons
[64:37] and generating a pathway, a
neural circuit, as we call it,
[64:41] that is very efficient at
generating action potentials,
[64:44] which are the electricity within neurons
[64:46] to trigger the muscle.
[64:47] Now, of course there
are events that happen
[64:48] from nerve to muscle
[64:49] but the takeaway from that
enormous literature, frankly
[64:53] is that if you want to get faster,
[64:56] yes, it can be beneficial to get stronger.
[64:59] But if you want to dedicate
resistance training specifically
[65:03] to jumping higher, to running
faster, to throwing further
[65:09] and these sorts of things that
learning to generate force
[65:13] with increasing speed is
going to be beneficial.
[65:16] On the flip side of that
[65:17] for people that want to get stronger,
[65:19] it appears that the
slowing down of the weight
[65:22] as things get harder is a key parameter
[65:24] in recruiting those high
threshold motor units.
[65:27] So let me phrase that a
little bit differently.
[65:29] Think about a set in the gym
[65:31] or think about a set of
pushups or a set of pull-ups.
[65:33] Initially you can move
very fast if you like.
[65:36] If you want to generate hypertrophy,
[65:38] the goal really is not
necessarily to move super slow
[65:40] but to isolate the muscle
[65:41] and therefore not to use momentum rather
[65:43] than lift weights, as they
say, challenge muscles.
[65:46] If you want to get stronger,
[65:48] you're going to be
distributing that effort
[65:49] over more muscles and more
of your nervous system.
[65:52] For generating explosiveness and speed,
[65:55] it's very clear that learning
to generate forces quickly
[65:59] and to move heavy or
moderately heavy loads quickly
[66:03] is going to be beneficial
because of the way
[66:04] that you train the motor neurons.
[66:07] And of course changes in the muscle.
[66:09] But this could look different
for different sports.
[66:12] And obviously you want
to make safety paramount.
[66:14] If you're injured, you're
not going to be able
[66:15] to train at all for sport
or for any purpose that is.
[66:19] And so what this would involve
is something like 60% to 75%
[66:23] of a one-repetition maximum,
and then in a controlled way
[66:26] moving that as quickly as one
can throughout the entire set.
[66:30] And certainly not going to failure
[66:32] because as you approach failure,
[66:33] the inability to move the
weight with good form,
[66:36] the weight inevitably slows down.
[66:38] In fact, there are a lot
of new technologies now
[66:41] that are focused on informing people
[66:43] of how quickly the bar
or weight is moving.
[66:46] I saw an advertisement
for this the other day.
[66:48] There are things that
people can attach to bars
[66:51] that will literally speak to you
[66:52] as you're doing a set and inform you
[66:54] whether or not you're moving
four times more slowly per rep
[66:58] than you were at the beginning.
[66:59] And trying to hone in on
the exact speed of movement.
[67:02] In talking to these experts
prior to this episode
[67:05] it does appear that for
sake of hypertrophy,
[67:08] as long as you're not
moving the muscle so quickly
[67:11] that you start to distribute the effort
[67:12] to lots of other muscles,
[67:15] it doesn't really matter
because as the set gets harder,
[67:20] the motor units that you
recruit will increase the number
[67:23] of neurons that you recruit
[67:24] and the number of muscle
fibers and particularly
[67:26] these high threshold muscle
fibers will increase.
[67:28] And so it's really only
for purposes of hypertrophy
[67:31] that you really need to be concerned about
[67:34] how quickly the weight is slowing down.
[67:37] However, if you're trying to
get faster, more explosive
[67:39] and generate more speed and
jumping power, throwing power
[67:44] things of that sort, you never
really want to use a weight
[67:47] or get to a portion of the set
[67:49] where you're moving the
bar very, very slowly.
[67:51] And I'm sure as I say that some
[67:52] of the exercise physiologists
[67:53] and advanced trainers out there will come
[67:55] after me with pitchforks, which is fine.
[67:57] I'd love to see the literature that shows
[67:58] that low gear slow movements
with very heavy weights
[68:01] can indeed improve explosiveness.
[68:04] And that may in fact be the case,
[68:06] but the data that I was able
to access was essentially
[68:09] as I described just a moment ago.
[68:11] So as you're probably
starting to realize you need
[68:12] to customize a resistance practice
[68:16] for your particular needs and goals.
[68:18] And I certainly am not
the first to suggest
[68:21] that people periodize their training.
[68:23] That they do things from anywhere
[68:24] from one month to six months,
and to see how it goes
[68:26] and to make modifications as they go.
[68:29] Because the nervous system in particular
[68:31] the neuromuscular system
changes very quickly
[68:34] at the beginning of training.
[68:35] In fact, some of the
changes that one can see
[68:37] when they first embrace or
start resistance training
[68:43] can be very remarkable, but
they tend to slow over time.
[68:46] So we've talked about a few principles.
[68:47] The fact that you need
to get sufficient volume,
[68:49] you need at least five sets to maintain
[68:51] and you probably need about
10 sets per muscle group
[68:53] in order to improve muscle.
[68:55] That moving weights of moderate
[68:56] to moderately heavy weight quickly
[68:59] is going to be best for explosiveness.
[69:00] The isolating muscles and
really contracting muscles hard
[69:04] something that you can test by just
[69:06] when you're outside the training session,
[69:08] seeing whether or not you
can cramp the muscle hard
[69:11] will tell you your capacity
to improve hypertrophy
[69:15] or to engage strength
changes in that muscle.
[69:18] That your ability to
contract a muscle hard is
[69:21] inversely related to the number
of sets that you should do
[69:24] in order to isolate and
stimulate that muscle.
[69:27] And there are some other
things that can enhance
[69:30] the whole process of building
nerve to muscle connections,
[69:34] making them more efficient
and generating if you like
[69:36] more strength and hypertrophy.
[69:39] One of them I loath to say I was told
[69:43] is in between set contractions.
[69:46] The other name for this is the people
[69:48] in the gym does typically
seem to be guys in the gym
[69:52] flexing their muscles in between sets.
[69:54] And indeed the research supports the fact
[69:57] that contractions have about 30 seconds
[70:00] in between the actual work sets,
[70:02] they're not going to
favor better performance
[70:05] on the work sets, if anything
[70:06] they're going to compromise them.
[70:07] But those hard contractions
in between sets
[70:10] for a variety of reasons related
to local muscle metabolism
[70:14] as well as what we talked about before
[70:16] which are stress, tension, and damage,
[70:18] they seem to improve
stress, tension, and damage
[70:20] and the nerve to muscle contraction
[70:22] in ways that facilitate hypertrophy.
[70:24] In other words, if you
see that person flexing
[70:27] in between sets in the gym,
[70:28] provided that they're
really isolating that muscle
[70:31] and provided it's one that
they ought to be improving,
[70:35] not one of these people
[70:36] that always skips leg day type of people.
[70:38] These people are highly asymmetric
[70:40] although that's up to them,
[70:42] that process of flexing
in between sets does seem
[70:46] to improve the nerve to muscle connection
[70:48] and enhance hypertrophy.
[70:51] And I say I was low to say it
because nowadays with phones
[70:54] it seems like the end of
every set includes a selfie
[70:58] sort of like the 11th rep of every set.
[71:00] I like to joke.
[71:01] It seems like very few people
are capable of actually going
[71:03] into the gym and doing a workout
[71:05] without taking a picture of themselves,
[71:07] which I think is fine
if that's your thing.
[71:10] Although I must say that
the athletes that I know
[71:13] and even the recreational
athletes that I know
[71:15] who seem to get the most
out of their training
[71:17] and who also seem to get the most out
[71:19] of other aspects of their life,
[71:20] seem to be able to control
their phone behavior
[71:22] both in the gym and outside of the gym.
[71:24] But that's more of an
editorial point there.
[71:26] In an earlier episode,
[71:28] I talked about estrogen and testosterone.
[71:30] And during that discussion, I talked about
[71:32] the use of resistance
exercise specifically
[71:35] for increasing testosterone,
both in men and in women.
[71:39] And indeed that is a powerful
effect of resistance exercise.
[71:44] And indeed it's mediated by the
nerve to muscle connections.
[71:48] We talked about that in
that earlier episode.
[71:51] I just want to briefly
mention that protocol
[71:53] since it's distinctly different
[71:54] from the other protocols
I've talked about today.
[71:57] The protocols I've talked
about today thus far
[71:59] of explosive movements or of
hypertrophy-based training
[72:04] provided the training
is 60 minutes or less
[72:07] will cause increases in serum testosterone
[72:10] that's been shown over and over again.
[72:12] And if the session extends
too long, past 75 minutes
[72:16] and is of sufficiently
high intensity chances are
[72:19] testosterone levels will start to drop
[72:22] and cortisol levels will go up
[72:24] in ways that can be
detrimental to recovery
[72:26] and the goals of the training.
[72:28] But that's different than training
[72:31] that's specifically geared
toward increasing testosterone.
[72:34] Duncan French, who's one of the directors
[72:36] of the UFC Performance Center,
[72:38] when he was a graduate student
[72:40] at University of Connecticut
Stores did some beautiful work.
[72:43] He and his colleagues found
the ideal training protocols
[72:46] for stimulating testosterone release
[72:48] which is something that
many people want to do
[72:50] for a variety of reasons.
[72:52] And that involved doing
six sets of 10 repetitions
[72:58] even if it requires lightening the weight
[73:02] on one set to the next,
with about two minutes
[73:06] 120 seconds rest in between sets.
[73:08] Which if you think of about
it is pretty short rest
[73:12] and is pretty darn hard work.
[73:15] Now, what's interesting is that
[73:16] there's a very limited threshold
[73:18] for increasing testosterone.
[73:20] That protocol of six sets
of 10 repetitions led
[73:25] to these big increases
in serum testosterone.
[73:28] But if people did 10 sets of 10
[73:29] so just four more repetitions per set,
[73:32] then testosterone did not increase.
[73:34] In fact, you got more of this
[73:35] catabolic cortisol like pathway.
[73:37] You get other benefits from this
[73:39] so-called 10 sets of 10 protocol,
[73:41] but not the testosterone increase
[73:43] and maybe even reductions in testosterone.
[73:45] Now, it's important to point out that
[73:47] that six sets of 10 was done
with big compound movements.
[73:50] So things like squats,
or deadlifts, or chin-ups
[73:53] or things of that sort.
[73:54] And those were done as single sessions
[73:56] not in concert with a bunch
of other exercise, although
[74:00] if athletes are doing
that, there's no reason
[74:03] why they couldn't also do other types
[74:04] of training elsewhere in the week.
[74:06] I asked Duncan about this
and he mentioned that
[74:08] that done twice a week
is probably the maximum
[74:11] that anyone could do that
[74:14] and still maintain this
increase in testosterone.
[74:16] It's a very interesting protocol
[74:18] because as a neuroscientist, it's amazing
[74:22] to me that six sets of 10
repetitions with something,
[74:28] causes a distinctly different result
[74:30] in terms of hormone output
[74:32] than 10 sets of 10 of
the exact same movement.
[74:34] And it speaks to the
exquisite way in which nerve
[74:38] to muscle connections
dictate the whole physiology
[74:42] of your entire system.
[74:44] If there's a theme that I really
want to bring forward today
[74:46] is that weight training or
resistance training of any kind
[74:50] is really used for
either systemic effects.
[74:53] 10% of training done where
you're feeling that burn
[74:56] which means lactate will be present
[74:57] and sending signals to your brain,
[74:59] and your heart and your
liver that are beneficial
[75:01] or isolating muscles
which may also generate
[75:05] a kind of a lactate which is
associated with the burn result
[75:10] but that isolation of
muscles distinctly different.
[75:13] So systemic versus isolated.
[75:15] Those are the two general ways
[75:17] in which resistance
training can be applied.
[75:19] So I just wanted to mention
that earlier protocol
[75:21] because it's well supported
by the literature.
[75:24] If you were to incorporate that protocol,
[75:26] you might ask, well, then can you do any
[75:28] other weight training during the week?
[75:29] And sure, of course you can
provided you're recovering.
[75:32] So let's talk about how you
know if you're recovering.
[75:35] How you know if a muscle is recovered
[75:37] and how you know if your
whole system is recovered.
[75:39] Because recovery is what
dictates whether or not
[75:42] you can come back and do more
work of a different kind.
[75:44] Meaning, I don't know, you
do a leg training one day,
[75:48] can you and should you come back
[75:49] and do the upper body training day?
[75:52] And it dictates whether or
not you'll see any improvement
[75:55] from session to session at all.
[75:57] Before I talk about recovery
[75:58] I just want to make sure
I nailed down the details
[76:00] that I was able to extract
from the literature
[76:03] and from my conversation with Dr. Galpin.
[76:05] If you're wondering how
quickly to perform repetitions
[76:08] for sake of hypertrophy or strength gains,
[76:11] anywhere from a half a
second per repetition
[76:14] all the way up to eight
seconds per repetition,
[76:16] it doesn't seem to matter.
[76:18] Again, if you're thinking
about explosiveness
[76:20] or building speed, or you're specifically
[76:22] using resistance training
to build endurance,
[76:24] that's a separate matter.
[76:25] We talked about explosiveness and speed.
[76:27] I'll talk about endurance
in a few moments.
[76:29] We also talked about in
between set contractions
[76:32] the so called selfie effect
[76:34] of people flexing a particular muscle,
[76:36] isolating a particular
muscle between sets,
[76:39] just want to mention that
would be a terrible thing to do
[76:42] if your goal is performance on sets.
[76:44] So moving a particular amount of weight.
[76:46] That's actually going to
diminish the amount of weight
[76:49] that you can move.
[76:50] It's going to enhance muscle growth
[76:51] and it's going to enhance the nerve
[76:53] to muscle isolation of
that particular pathway.
[76:57] So again, that flexing
between sets is going
[77:00] to favor hypertrophy, not performance.
[77:03] If you're trying to get stronger,
[77:06] you're trying to move more weights,
[77:07] you're trying to distribute work,
[77:09] and you're trying to
do maybe skill training
[77:11] with resistance then flexing between sets
[77:13] is absolutely the wrong thing
to do for obvious reasons
[77:16] you're fatiguing the muscle further.
[77:18] Just remaining still or
walking around a little bit
[77:21] has been shown to be beneficial in terms
[77:23] of moving some of the
lactate out of the muscle
[77:25] as well as just recovering between sets.
[77:28] Now, how long to recover
between sets, is a question.
[77:30] For the testosterone protocol,
Duncan French and colleagues
[77:33] found that it was about
two minutes keeping
[77:35] that really on the clock,
two minutes not longer.
[77:38] For hypertrophy and for strength gains,
[77:41] it does seem that resting
anywhere from two minutes
[77:43] or even three or four,
even five or six minutes
[77:47] can be beneficial.
[77:48] And if you're interested
in expanding the volume
[77:50] of work that you can do in a given session
[77:53] at high capacity at high
intensity, with a given weight,
[77:57] please see the episode that I did
[77:58] on cold and performance about
supercharging performance
[78:02] which is based on the work of my colleague
[78:03] Craig Heller in the Biology
Department at Stanford,
[78:06] which talks about Palmer Cooling,
[78:07] about how you can cool
the core of the body best
[78:10] through the palms using these
particular venous portals
[78:14] that are only present in your hands.
[78:16] People are now doing this with
ice packs or with gel packs.
[78:20] There are a number of
different ways one can do this.
[78:21] I talk all about that in that episode.
[78:23] It allows you to do more repetitions
[78:26] and more work at a given weight over time.
[78:29] So rather than getting 10 repetitions
[78:31] and then eight and then seven and then six
[78:33] through proper use of palmer cooling,
[78:35] one can do 10, 10, 10,
10, and even add sets.
[78:39] And that's one way that one can accomplish
[78:41] higher volume work without having
[78:44] to drop the weight considerably.
[78:45] So that's where you can
hit that really sweet spot
[78:48] if that's your goal of getting strong
[78:50] and generating some hypertrophy.
[78:52] Because as soon as you have
to drop to lighter weights,
[78:56] then you're shifting
more towards hypertrophy
[78:58] and endurance and less toward
strength of any given muscle.
[79:01] So check out that episode.
[79:03] The last thing besides
between set contractions
[79:06] and whether or not
you're distributing work
[79:08] or whether or not you're really
trying to isolate muscles
[79:11] is this notion of pre-exhausting muscles.
[79:14] It's been shown over and over again
[79:16] that for instance, if you
want to generate force
[79:20] in a given muscle and really isolate that,
[79:22] doing the isolation work
before a compound movement.
[79:25] So this would be leg extensions
[79:28] the thing where you sit
[79:28] and you extend your toes
up toward the ceiling.
[79:31] Leg extensions before
squats will allow the squats
[79:35] to target that muscle
group more effectively.
[79:37] And that makes perfectly
good sense based on
[79:40] the Henneman's size principle
and fatiguing motor units.
[79:43] It should be obvious why that's the case.
[79:44] But of course that's going
to be anti performance
[79:48] in terms of how much weight you can lift,
[79:50] and maybe even the form
that you can maintain
[79:51] when you move to the
bigger compound movement.
[79:53] So you really have to ask
yourself a number of questions.
[79:56] How good are you at
isolating a given muscle?
[79:59] Therefore, how many
sets do you want to do?
[80:01] How often are you willing to train
[80:03] therefore, how many
sets are you going to do
[80:05] in a given session versus
how many are you going
[80:07] to distribute across the week?
[80:09] Are you aiming for performance?
[80:10] Are you going to distribute that work
[80:12] across the nervous system and musculature?
[80:14] Are you trying to move weights?
[80:15] Are you trying to challenge muscles?
[80:17] If you're trying to challenge muscles,
[80:18] then you really want to focus on things
[80:20] like this pre exhausting the isolation
[80:22] of a muscle before the compound movement.
[80:24] Your performance on compound movements
[80:26] will absolutely suffer but your ability
[80:29] to isolate that muscle
and generate hypertrophy
[80:31] through the accumulation of larger myosin,
[80:34] those bigger balloons, will benefit.
[80:36] And once again, if you're
trying to get faster
[80:39] than the speed of the
movement really matters.
[80:42] So how do we know if we've recovered?
[80:43] How can we test recovery?
[80:45] And this is not just recovery
from resistance training,
[80:47] this is recovery from running,
recovery from swimming.
[80:51] Up until now I've been talking
about resistance training
[80:53] more or less in a vacuum.
[80:54] I haven't even touched on the fact
[80:56] that many people are running
[80:57] and they're doing resistance training
[80:59] or they're swimming and they're
doing resistance training.
[81:02] It's not simply the case that
if a given muscle is fatigued
[81:06] you can just work other muscles.
[81:07] Because even if you've
beautifully isolated a muscle,
[81:11] let's say you have incredible abilities
[81:13] to isolate just your
quadriceps for instance
[81:17] and you do a workout where
you isolate your quadriceps
[81:19] you do your six sets of intense work
[81:21] or maybe use palmer cooling,
[81:22] and you're able to do
12 sets of intense work
[81:24] and you're done, and that muscle group
[81:28] the next day is certainly
not going to be recovered
[81:30] unless you're somebody who's
extraordinary at recovery
[81:33] or you're enhancing your
recovery through chemical means
[81:36] which we'll talk about at the end.
[81:38] Well, you can assess systemic recovery
[81:41] meaning your nervous system.
[81:43] And your nervous system's
ability to generate force
[81:46] both distributed and isolated
through three main tests.
[81:51] And fortunately, these
tests are very simple
[81:54] and two of them are essentially zero cost,
[81:57] require no equipment.
[81:59] HRV, heart rate variability
has made its way finally
[82:04] into the forefront of exercise physiology
[82:07] and even into the popular discussion.
[82:09] I've talked about HRV before.
[82:11] How when we exhale, our
heart rate slows down
[82:13] because of the way that our diaphragm
[82:14] is connected to our heart and to our brain
[82:16] and the way our brain is
connected to our heart.
[82:18] When we inhale our heart rate speeds up
[82:21] and that is the basis of
heart rate variability.
[82:24] Heart rate variability is good.
[82:26] It means that you're breathing properly,
[82:28] and when I say it's good it means
[82:30] you want a lot of heart rate variability.
[82:32] You don't want a heart rate that is high
[82:34] or low consistently over time.
[82:37] That might come as a bit
of a surprise for you
[82:39] endurance athletes,
who probably are trying
[82:41] to accomplish your endurance
work at a steady cadence
[82:44] to really hit that nice sweet spot
[82:45] where you're breathing rhythmically,
[82:47] your heart rate's going rhythmically.
[82:48] You're in that steady heart rate,
[82:49] and then away from exercise,
[82:51] you have a nice low
heart rate as they say.
[82:53] Well, nice low heart rate isn't
necessarily always so nice.
[82:56] Turns out the introducing bouts
[82:58] of increasing your heart
rate during exercise
[83:00] and even through your waking day,
[83:02] through stressful events
even is provided their brief
[83:04] is beneficial.
[83:06] A good nerve to heart system benefits
[83:10] from being able to increase heart rate
[83:12] and decrease heart rate.
[83:13] Heart rate variability is good.
[83:15] So you don't want high heart rate,
[83:17] you don't want low
heart rate all the time.
[83:20] But heart rate variability is difficult
[83:21] for a lot of people to measure.
[83:23] There are some devices that
will allow you to do that.
[83:25] Various watches and devices.
[83:27] There are more devices becoming
available all the time.
[83:31] Hopefully soon, some that are integrated
[83:32] with your phone that involve no contact
[83:34] or anything on your body.
[83:36] But those do carry some costs
and they are not perfect yet.
[83:41] The measures of heart rate
variability that one can use
[83:44] while in movement are still in that phase
[83:47] I would say of technology development
[83:49] where everyone isn't using
them, let's leave it at that.
[83:52] There are two measures however,
[83:53] whether or not you
recovered that you can use
[83:55] first thing in the
morning when you wake up,
[83:57] maybe after five, 10 minutes, if you like,
[83:59] but ideally right when you wake up
[84:02] in order to assess how
well recovered you are
[84:04] and therefore whether
or not you should train
[84:06] your whole system at all that day.
[84:09] The first one his grip strength.
[84:11] Grip strength, the
ability to generate force
[84:15] at the level of squeezing the fist
[84:17] or squeezing down on something,
[84:19] might seem like kind of a trivial way
[84:21] to assess recovery but
it's not because it relates
[84:23] to your ability to use
your upper motor neurons
[84:26] to control your lower motor neurons
[84:28] and to generate isolated force.
[84:30] So that's really what you're
assessing when you do that.
[84:33] Some people will use
one of these grip tools
[84:37] or Costello has this toy
that's shaped like a donut
[84:41] and it's this hard rubber.
[84:43] And I've tried this before.
[84:45] If I've been working really
hard, not sleeping very well,
[84:47] or I've been training a lot
[84:48] any one or combination of
those things, my grip suffers.
[84:51] I can't actually squeeze that thing down
[84:53] as much as I can Costello
because he was born
[84:55] with like a 24 inch neck
[84:57] even though he's never touched a weight
[84:59] somehow he can just
clamp down on that thing,
[85:01] and he can turn it into
a pancake with ease
[85:03] and he likes to chuckle while
I struggle with this thing.
[85:06] But on a good day, I
can squeeze this thing
[85:07] so that I eliminate the hole
in the donut so to speak.
[85:10] You can also take a floor
scale and squeeze the scale
[85:16] and see how much force you can generate.
[85:18] I would do that as a baseline to establish
[85:20] what you can do when you're well rested.
[85:23] And then if you do that in the morning,
[85:24] you can see whether or not you're able
[85:25] to generate the same amount of force
[85:27] or you could use over the
rubber donut or something.
[85:29] A lot of this is very subjective
[85:30] with a scale you're
really trying to assess
[85:32] whether or not you can generate
the same amount of force.
[85:35] If you start seeing a 10% or
20% certainly reduction in that
[85:39] that's concerning, it
means that your system,
[85:41] your nervous system as a whole
[85:43] it's not necessarily
fatigued, is that the pathways
[85:46] from nerve to muscle
are still in the process
[85:49] of rewiring themselves in
order to generate force.
[85:52] And you might think, well, I
train one muscle group one day.
[85:55] Why am I having a hard time doing this
[85:56] for a completely different muscle group?
[85:58] It doesn't make any sense.
[85:59] But there's something about
the upper motor neuron
[86:01] to lower motor neuron pathway generally
[86:04] that allows you to use
something like grip strength
[86:06] as a kind of a thermometer, if you will
[86:09] of your ability to recover.
[86:11] So look for your ability
to generate force in grip
[86:13] when you first wake up.
[86:14] It's not going to be as
good as it is at 3:00 PM
[86:17] after a cup of coffee and a couple meals
[86:19] but the point isn't performance overall,
[86:22] the point is to assess whether or not
[86:24] you're getting better, worse
or the same from day to day.
[86:27] The other one that's really terrific
[86:28] and the Andy Galpin's group is using.
[86:30] And I'm delighted about
this because it relates
[86:32] to something that my lab is
very excited about as well
[86:34] is carbon dioxide tolerance.
[86:36] So this is a really interesting tool
[86:38] that endurance athletes, strength athletes
[86:41] I think can all benefit from.
[86:43] In fact athletes and people of all kinds.
[86:45] Even if you're not an athlete,
[86:46] even if you're not exercising at all,
[86:48] there's a good question of
whether or not your system
[86:50] as a whole is doing okay or not.
[86:53] We rely on the thermometer.
[86:54] Do we have a fever or not?
[86:56] We rely on subjective things.
[86:58] Do I feel good or not?
[86:59] Am I digesting well or not?
[87:00] Those are all subjective.
[87:02] The carbon dioxide tolerance test is,
[87:06] its objective in that it
measures your capacity
[87:09] to engage the so-called
parasympathetic arm
[87:12] of your nervous system
which is the calming aspect
[87:14] of your nervous system.
[87:15] And it measures your ability
to consciously control
[87:18] a particular skeletal muscle,
which is your diaphragm.
[87:21] So here's how you do the
carbon dioxide tolerance test.
[87:24] You wake up in the morning.
[87:25] If you have to use the
restroom first, do that,
[87:27] but try and stay away from your phone.
[87:30] If you have your phone,
put it on airplane mode,
[87:32] go to the timer or use a
hand watch or some other way
[87:35] of measuring time, stay off social media
[87:39] for just a few seconds.
[87:40] It'll be okay.
[87:41] And what you're going to do
is you're going to inhale
[87:43] through your nose as deeply as you can,
[87:45] you can do this lying
down, sitting, whatever
[87:49] inhale through your nose
and then exhale all the way.
[87:54] So that's one.
[87:54] You're going to repeat that four times.
[87:57] So inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale
[88:02] inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale four times.
[88:05] And ideally you're
inhaling through the nose
[88:07] and you're exhaling through the mouth.
[88:09] That's just the beginning
[88:10] of this carbon dioxide tolerance test.
[88:13] Then you take a fifth inhale
[88:15] as deep as you can through your nose.
[88:17] Fill your lungs as much as you can,
[88:19] and if you can try and expand
[88:22] make your stomach go
out while you do that,
[88:23] that means that your
diaphragm has really engaged.
[88:26] So you're inhaling as
much as you possibly can.
[88:29] Then hit the timer and
your goal is to release
[88:32] that air as slowly as
possible through your mouth.
[88:36] So it looks like you have
a tiny, tiny little straw
[88:39] in your mouth and you're letting it go.
[88:44] As slowly as you possibly can.
[88:47] Measure what we call the
carbon dioxide blow off time
[88:50] or discard rate.
[88:53] I know you can all sit with lungs empty
[88:55] after you eliminate all that
air, but don't lie to yourself.
[88:59] Don't stop the timer
when you've been sitting
[89:02] with your lungs empty for a while,
[89:04] stop the timer when you
are finally no longer
[89:07] able to exhale any more air.
[89:11] So you do inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale,
[89:13] inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale slowly.
[89:16] I just said it quickly for sake of time
[89:18] then you can do this fifth
big inhale through your mouth,
[89:21] and then [deep exhale]
[89:24] And I'm not going to do
it for the full duration.
[89:28] And then you're measuring that time.
[89:30] Your carbon dioxide discard
rate will be somewhere
[89:34] between one second and
presumably two minutes.
[89:39] Two minutes would be a heroic
carbon oxide discard time.
[89:43] 30 seconds would be more typical.
[89:45] 20 seconds would be fast.
[89:47] If your carbon dioxide discard time
[89:51] is 20 or 25 seconds or less,
[89:55] you are not necessarily recovered
[89:58] from your previous days activities.
[90:01] There's ways to push through this
[90:02] but hold onto that thought for a moment.
[90:05] If your carbon oxide
discard time is somewhere
[90:07] between about 30 seconds and 60 seconds,
[90:12] you are in what we would
call kind of the green zone
[90:16] where you are in a position
to do more physical work.
[90:22] And if your carbon dioxide
discard time is somewhere
[90:24] between 65 and 120 seconds,
[90:28] well then you have almost certainly
[90:31] recovered your nervous system.
[90:33] I'm not talking about
the individual muscles
[90:34] but your nervous system is
prepared to do more work.
[90:37] And Andy's Lab has great data on this
[90:40] as it relates to exercise physiology.
[90:41] I think that story should be out
[90:43] in the not too distant future.
[90:44] My lab has been using
carbon oxide discard time
[90:47] to look at anxiety and
recovery from bouts of anxiety.
[90:50] So two totally independent projects
[90:52] but using the same measure.
[90:54] So you've got HRV, which
requires some technology usually.
[90:58] You've got grip strength,
[90:59] which you can assess subjectively
[91:02] or you can use a floor scale
[91:04] and now you have carbon dioxide tolerance.
[91:06] You want to do this in the
morning when you wake up
[91:09] and keep track just write
down in a little book,
[91:12] or maybe just keep tracking your mind
[91:13] of your carbon oxide discard time.
[91:15] If you find that your
discard times are dropping
[91:19] even if they're in the
42nd range or 52nd range,
[91:22] but normally you can do
75 seconds or 120 seconds.
[91:26] If they're starting to drop
by anywhere from 15% to 20%,
[91:30] you're veering in the
direction of not recovering.
[91:33] And I'm really keen on this tool
[91:35] because everybody has
different recovery abilities.
[91:38] Some people are eating really
well and sleeping really well.
[91:41] Some people have minimal stress
[91:42] or can buffer stress really well.
[91:44] Other people they dissolve
into a puddle of tears
[91:48] if they read one text message
that's troubling or whatever.
[91:53] And I realize, and I
say that with sympathy,
[91:55] I realize people have
varying levels of stress
[91:57] and demand in their life.
[91:58] It's just to to prescribe
an entire protocol
[92:02] that says, okay, yes
you should train today
[92:03] and this is exactly what you should do.
[92:05] No, you shouldn't.
[92:06] Use carbon dioxide discard rate because a,
[92:08] it's valuable, it's informative.
[92:10] b, it's zero cost and c,
[92:15] it's something you can
track objectively over time.
[92:17] And that's really the key.
[92:18] And I'd be remiss if I didn't say
[92:21] that what carbon dioxide
discard rate is tapping into
[92:25] is your ability to mechanically
control your diaphragm
[92:28] certainly that's one aspect of it,
[92:30] but that relates in a very
direct way to your ability
[92:33] to put the brake on your stress system.
[92:36] To engage the so-called parasympathetic
[92:39] or calming arm of your
autonomic nervous system.
[92:41] And another thing that Andy
Galpin's group is testing
[92:45] is at the offset of
training after your run,
[92:49] after your weight training session,
[92:50] maybe even after your plyometrics session,
[92:53] we didn't really talk
about jumping and throwing
[92:55] and that sort of thing.
[92:57] Maybe we'll talk about
it in a future episode.
[92:59] But they and other groups,
including some elite athletes
[93:04] and other groups that are very interested
[93:06] in physical performance are using a tool
[93:10] where they deliberately disengaged
[93:12] for five minutes at the end of training.
[93:14] They deliberately engage this
calming or parasympathetic arm
[93:18] of the nervous system.
[93:19] And you can do that through
any number of different tools.
[93:22] I'm a big fan of respiration tools
[93:24] 'cause they're always available to you.
[93:25] Your breathing is always there.
[93:27] I talk about some of these
tools in previous episodes
[93:29] but you could use things like
non sleep deep rest and SDR
[93:32] at the end of a training session.
[93:34] You could do 10 physiological size,
[93:37] double inhales through the
nose followed by long exhales,
[93:40] that will definitely engage the
[93:41] parasympathetic nervous
system at the end of training.
[93:44] So rather than finish
your training session
[93:46] and then just hop onto your phone,
[93:49] serious athletes and people
who are serious about recovery
[93:52] initiate that recovery at the
very end of their training
[93:56] and they start to kickstart
that recovery process rather
[94:00] and they measure CO2
tolerance in the morning.
[94:02] So there are several
groups that are doing that.
[94:04] In fact, I know several
groups because I'm working
[94:07] with them that are using
physiological size between sets
[94:11] in order to recover their nervous system
[94:12] and maintain nerve to
muscle contractibility.
[94:16] Maintain focus throughout
their training session
[94:18] enhance their focus by doing
a few physiological size.
[94:22] So double inhale, exhale in between sets.
[94:25] So they're getting very
focused and very intense
[94:27] about their strength work
or explosiveness worker,
[94:29] muscle isolation work during their sets.
[94:31] And then in between sets,
they're deliberately
[94:33] disengaging the nervous system,
[94:35] and then they're re-engaging it again.
[94:37] So I just wanted to emphasize that.
[94:39] So recovery is a complex process.
[94:41] It's got a lot of things
[94:43] but the CO2 tolerance set
should be a valuable tool.
[94:46] Now, another tool for recovery
[94:47] that people are very excited about
[94:49] is the use of cold and the ice bath.
[94:51] And this is important.
[94:53] If you are somebody who uses
cold through cold shower,
[94:56] or ice bath, or jumping
in a lake, or a river
[94:59] whatever it is that used to generate cold
[95:01] as a recovery tool, you should be aware
[95:03] that there are data
starting to emerge that
[95:05] if your goal is recovery
or strength improvements,
[95:09] using cold within the four
hours following a workout.
[95:13] I'm not talking about
palmer cooling, I'm talking
[95:14] about whole body cooling or
cooling from the neck down.
[95:17] Yes, it will reduce inflammation.
[95:19] Yes, it will reduce the amount
[95:21] of delayed on muscle soreness one readout
[95:24] of how intense or damaging
a given workout was
[95:27] not the only readout,
[95:28] but it does seem to interfere with some
[95:30] of the things like mTOR pathways,
[95:32] the mammalian target of rapamycin pathway
[95:34] and other pathways
related to an inflammation
[95:38] that promote muscle
repair and muscle growth.
[95:41] Remember, stress, tension, and damage
[95:43] or the stimulus for nerve to
muscle connections to change
[95:46] and for muscles to get
bigger, stronger, and better.
[95:49] And so if you're getting into
the ice bath after training
[95:52] or taking a really cold shower
[95:53] after doing resistance training,
[95:55] you are likely short-circuiting
the improvements
[95:58] that you're trying to create.
[95:59] Now, athletes who are
trying to recover quickly
[96:03] so that they can get back
into more training sessions,
[96:06] or let's say you're
somebody who doesn't really
[96:07] want to gain much strength or hypertrophy
[96:12] and you're mainly focused on endurance
[96:13] and you want to do more endurance work
[96:15] and you've been weight training,
[96:16] well then exposing yourself
to cold can be beneficial,
[96:19] but you're not going to
get as great of benefits
[96:21] from the resistance training.
[96:23] In other words, cold
after resistance training
[96:25] seems to short circuit
some of the benefits
[96:27] of that resistance training.
[96:29] There are some other things
[96:30] that can short circuit the benefits
[96:31] of resistance training as well.
[96:34] One of those is anti-histamines.
[96:37] Some interesting data
were published recently.
[96:38] I believe it was in
scientific reports, yes
[96:41] that showed that
anti-histamines can prevent some
[96:46] of the benefits of cardiovascular exercise
[96:48] of endurance type work
as running, swimming
[96:51] of fairly long duration
or even sprint type work,
[96:53] as well as inhibit some of
the processes associated
[96:56] with resistance training.
[96:59] Remember, it resistance
training or endurance training,
[97:01] that's a stimulus for stress
[97:04] and the adaptation to that
stress is how you get better.
[97:07] That you can run further, faster,
[97:08] lift more weight, hypertrophy
the muscle, et cetera.
[97:12] So anti-histamines can be a problem.
[97:14] Obviously don't compromise your ability
[97:16] to breathe completely, but
anti-histamines generally work
[97:19] by blocking what are called
mast cells and M-A-S-T.
[97:22] Mast cells are really interesting cells
[97:24] that we'll talk about in our
month on neuro immune function.
[97:27] They travel in the bloodstream
[97:29] and these little packets that burst open
[97:31] it sites of inflammation.
[97:33] Muscle damage and inflammation is a signal
[97:36] that something needs to change.
[97:37] And so taking it to histamines
it appears can disrupt
[97:41] some of that inflammatory process.
[97:42] So you actually want inflammation
[97:44] during and immediately after a workout,
[97:46] then you want to bring
inflammation down later
[97:48] and I'll mention how to do that.
[97:50] The other thing are non-steroid
anti-inflammatory drugs
[97:52] you know their trade names.
[97:54] These are painkillers
that many people take.
[97:56] Those as I've mentioned
in a previous episode
[97:58] can interfere with the
benefits of endurance training
[98:01] and the benefits of resistance training.
[98:04] In addition to that,
they block pain signals
[98:06] and pain is a very good signal
[98:09] that you might be doing something wrong.
[98:11] And so while nobody likes to be in pain,
[98:13] I suppose there are probably
a few people out there
[98:14] like to be in pain, but
that's a different story
[98:16] but nobody likes to be in pain.
[98:18] The non-steroid
anti-inflammatory the NSAIDs
[98:20] as they're called, and
the anti-histamines seem
[98:23] to prevent a lot of the gains
[98:25] the improvements in
endurance, strength and size
[98:28] that people are specifically
using exercise for.
[98:31] So be cautious about your use
[98:33] of non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs
[98:35] especially within the four hours preceding
[98:38] or the four hours following exercise.
[98:41] So I hope you're starting
to get the picture.
[98:43] In order to change the
nerve to muscle connectivity
[98:46] in ways that will better serve you,
[98:47] you need a stressor
during the actual training
[98:51] which particular stressor
depends on your training goals.
[98:54] But that stressor is almost always going
[98:57] to be associated with inflammation,
[98:59] and then after the
training, you want to try
[99:01] and get into a state of
reduced inflammation.
[99:03] And that's why you would
do some sort of protocol
[99:07] non sleep depressed which we
will link to in our caption
[99:09] or perhaps you would use the hypnosis app
[99:12] that we've talked about before
Reveri, R-E-V-E-R-I.com.
[99:16] There's a great app for
accessing deep rest states
[99:20] or the physiological side
to try and get your system
[99:24] to calm down after training.
[99:27] There are also tools that one
can use to reduce inflammation
[99:30] at a kind of foundational
level away from training.
[99:33] And these are tools that I've talked
[99:35] about many times before, but
I'll just restate them again.
[99:39] The kind of Golden Three
according to Andy Galpin
[99:42] and the ones that he recommends are
[99:43] sufficient omega-3s again,
that can be accomplished
[99:46] through diet, through whole food intake
[99:48] or through supplementation or both.
[99:50] So in general, getting
above a 1,000 milligrams
[99:52] of EPA per day to keep
inflammation low or relatively low.
[99:57] Vitamin D and in some
cases, magnesium malate.
[100:01] Magnesium malate seems to
be particularly effective
[100:04] in offsetting delayed
onset muscle soreness.
[100:07] Soreness itself is not required
[100:10] for improvements in strength,
improvements in explosiveness,
[100:13] improvements in hypertrophy.
[100:15] That's a myth.
[100:16] Now, if you do experience
delayed onset muscle soreness,
[100:19] chances are you stressed that
particular muscle pretty well
[100:23] or even maybe to well, maybe
you stressed it too much
[100:26] and you need longer recovery.
[100:28] There's a total debate
out there about whether
[100:30] or not you should train again
when a muscle is still sore.
[100:33] I think the general takeaway is, no
[100:34] that means it's not recovered.
[100:36] And there are things
of course like massage,
[100:38] like fascial release
and things of that sort
[100:41] sauna, cold that can perhaps
accelerate the movement
[100:47] from soreness to not sore.
[100:49] But in general, the omega-3, vitamin D,
[100:51] and magnesium malate trio
seemed to be an effective way
[100:55] to reduce inflammation at
kind of a systemic level.
[100:58] But remember you want
inflammation provided
[101:00] you're not damaging the muscles so much
[101:01] that you're injured during
the training session
[101:04] because that's the stimulus
for change in those muscles.
[101:08] I want to talk about a few other things
[101:10] that support the process of
nerve to muscle communication
[101:13] and touch on some of the things that a lot
[101:15] of people are doing to try
to "enhance their workouts"
[101:19] and evaluate whether or not those are
[101:20] in fact enhancing workouts or not.
[101:23] Because weight training,
unlike a lot of other forms
[101:26] of exercise has a unique aspect to it,
[101:30] which is this feature
that I guess some people
[101:33] call it the pump which is
the fact that blood goes
[101:35] into the muscle when you
train, it's the only gun
[101:38] of training where you
actually get a window
[101:40] into what the result
might actually look like
[101:42] before you actually
accomplish that result.
[101:44] So if you think about when
you go out for a hard run
[101:46] and let's say you go
out for a two mile run,
[101:49] let's say your goal is to break
[101:50] you want to do a sub ten two mile.
[101:52] Actually, when I went to university
[101:54] I was running cross country,
my senior year of high school
[101:57] and I wanted to walk on
for the cross country team.
[102:01] And so I went out there and turned out
[102:03] you had to do a sub 10, two mile.
[102:06] And I think the best mile
I ever ran in high school
[102:09] was a 457, which isn't terrible.
[102:11] I can't do that now.
[102:12] It's not even close to what
[102:14] the best high school athletes can do now.
[102:17] But that would have meant
doing it back-to-back.
[102:19] So it was sub 10 minute two
mile didn't even come close.
[102:22] I told Costello this story the other day
[102:24] and he just kind of laughed at me.
[102:26] He was like, why would you
even want to run two miles?
[102:28] Because Costello is
built almost exclusively
[102:31] of these type two fast twitch muscles
[102:33] they're designed for moving objects.
[102:35] He's incredibly strong.
[102:36] He has been since he was a puppy.
[102:38] I mean that dog could
probably drag a tractor
[102:41] if he wanted to, but
he can't really go far.
[102:45] Whereas a Greyhound or a Whippet
[102:46] or some of these other
sight hounds or scent hounds
[102:48] can go, go, go.
[102:49] They have a higher percentage of the
[102:50] so-called slow-twitch muscle fibers.
[102:52] They are much better at endurance.
[102:55] So a sub-10 two mile would have
been very, very challenging,
[102:58] no chance I could have done that.
[103:01] I don't think even with a lot of training.
[103:03] But let's say that you want
to improve your performance
[103:08] in a given type of exercise.
[103:09] Let's talk about some of
the things that seem to work
[103:12] across the board to improve
strength, improve hypertrophy,
[103:17] and improve nerve to muscle
communication and performance.
[103:20] The first thing that's absolutely key
[103:22] for nerve to muscle communication
and physical performance
[103:25] of any kind might not
sound that exciting to you
[103:28] but it is very exciting.
[103:30] And that's salt.
[103:33] Nerves cells, neurons
communicate with each other
[103:36] and communicate with
muscle by electricity.
[103:39] But that electricity is generated
by particular ions moving
[103:43] into and out of the neuron.
[103:45] And the rushing in of a
particular ion, sodium, salt
[103:50] is what allows nerve cells to fire.
[103:52] If you don't have enough
salt in your system
[103:55] your neurons and your brain and your nerve
[103:57] to muscle communication will be terrible.
[104:00] If you have sufficient
salt, it will be excellent.
[104:03] How much salt will depend on
how much water you're drinking,
[104:06] how much caffeine you're drinking,
[104:07] and how much food you're ingesting.
[104:09] And whether or not you're
taking any diuretics
[104:11] how hot it is, et cetera,
how much you're sweating.
[104:14] So you want to make sure
that you have enough salt,
[104:16] potassium and magnesium in your system
[104:18] if you want to perform well.
[104:19] I realized that salt isn't
very glamorous performance tool
[104:23] but it is a vital.
[104:24] Its absolutely vital.
[104:26] And the endurance athletes
and the people that train
[104:28] in high heat can speak to the fact that
[104:30] when your electrolytes are low,
your brain doesn't function,
[104:34] your body doesn't function nearly as well.
[104:36] In fact, even for mental
work, for studying
[104:39] and for writing and for
doing math and coding,
[104:42] doing analytic work of any kind,
[104:43] even a hard conversation
that's important to you,
[104:46] having sufficient electrolytes
is really going to help
[104:48] and being low on electrolytes won't help
[104:51] and just drinking water won't help
[104:52] because you need electrolytes.
[104:54] The other thing that's been
shown over and over again,
[104:57] a numerous well-controlled studies
[104:59] to improve muscle performance is creatine.
[105:03] Early on there was a lot of
controversy about creatine
[105:06] but there are many studies
if you want, you can go
[105:08] to this website that
everyone now knows I love
[105:10] which is this free website examined.com
[105:13] that there are no fewer
than 18 studies there.
[105:17] 66 studies...
[105:19] So 18 studies supporting
that muscle creating content
[105:22] can be increased by ingesting creatine.
[105:24] How much creatine?
[105:25] Well, I asked the experts and they tell me
[105:28] that for somebody who is about 180 pounds,
[105:31] five grams a day should
be sufficient or so.
[105:35] Heavier than 180, so if you got like
[105:36] if you're a 220 pound or 230 pound person,
[105:39] 10 to 15 grams of creatine.
[105:41] People lighter than 180 pounds
[105:43] maybe three to five grams of creatine
[105:45] or even one to three grams.
[105:47] Creatine is a fuel source for
early in bouts of activity
[105:53] for high intensity activity.
[105:54] It is also a fuel source
for neurons in the brain
[105:57] and it can have some
cognitive enhancing effects.
[106:01] So creatine is a very
interesting molecule.
[106:03] Early on when it was
released as a supplement,
[106:07] it was thought that you had to load it
[106:09] in higher dosages for a few days
[106:11] and then maintain it at lower dosages.
[106:14] So you'd take 20 or 30 grams a day
[106:16] then back off to five or 10.
[106:17] It doesn't seem to be the case
[106:19] that you can get all the benefits
[106:20] from taking the dosages at the low level.
[106:22] I just mentioned a few moments ago
[106:24] as they relate to body weight throughout.
[106:27] So salt and electrolytes absolutely key.
[106:30] You need those present.
[106:31] You need to be well hydrated.
[106:33] Creatine seems to have a
performance enhancing effect.
[106:36] There are 66 studies, 66
showing that power output
[106:41] is greatly increased
anywhere from 1%2 to 20%.
[106:46] And this is sprinting and running
[106:47] and jumping as well as
weightlifting by creatine.
[106:50] The ability to hydrate
your body is improved
[106:54] by creating because of the
way that it brings more water
[106:58] into cells of various kinds.
[107:00] As an indirect effect, it
can help in increasingly mass
[107:03] because of the way that it
brings more water into muscle
[107:05] and probably also because of the way that
[107:07] if you get stronger, you
can generate more force
[107:09] and generate more hypertrophy.
[107:11] It reduces fatigue.
[107:13] Seven studies have shown
that it reduces fatigue.
[107:16] There are even some interesting effects
[107:18] on improving cognition after
traumatic brain injury.
[107:20] Although that's a serious
medical condition in situations
[107:23] you absolutely should talk to
a board certified physician
[107:25] before adding anything
or taking anything out
[107:28] of your current regimen.
[107:31] There are a few other
effects that are interesting
[107:32] and notable, but the big ones
are the ones that I referred
[107:36] to before about increased
power output, et cetera.
[107:39] And I just want to emphasize
[107:40] that creatine can increase this hormone
[107:43] that we talked about in
the testosterone episode,
[107:45] dihydrotestosterone which
is testosterone converted
[107:49] by five alpha reductase
into dihydrotestosterone.
[107:52] It's the more dominant androgen in humans.
[107:56] Leads to increases in strength
and libido and so forth.
[107:59] It also can increase
male pattern baldness.
[108:01] Some people, not everybody
experience some hair loss
[108:04] with creatine other people don't.
[108:06] Some people experience
accelerated beard growth
[108:08] because basically [mumbles]
[108:10] has the opposite effect on
hair follicles on the face
[108:12] as it does on the scalp,
some people don't.
[108:15] Women who ingest creatine
[108:18] there are essentially no data showing
[108:20] that it increases hair
loss or facial hair growth,
[108:23] but of course, everyone is different.
[108:25] So you can go to examine.com.
[108:26] You can explore those studies.
[108:28] So creatine definitely a powerful
[108:30] performance enhancing molecule.
[108:32] The other one, one that
personally I've never tried
[108:35] but that seems to have a very strong
[108:37] and well-supported
effects is beta-alanine.
[108:41] Now, beta-alanine is interesting
[108:43] because when you hear
about weight training
[108:45] you think about heavy
deadlifts and bench presses
[108:47] all that kind of stuff
that people are doing.
[108:49] But beta-alanine seems to support exercise
[108:53] that is of slightly longer duration.
[108:55] So a mix of anaerobic and
aerobic type movement.
[109:00] These are physical performance
in the 60 to 242nd range.
[109:04] So you can use your mind
and kind of figure out.
[109:07] Things that weights that limit you
[109:09] to 8 to 15 repetitions.
[109:11] Cardiovascular exercise of the sort
[109:13] like rowing or sprinting.
[109:16] So interval work, it seems to
help with that kind of work.
[109:18] So we're not talking about long runs,
[109:20] we're not talking about heavy deadlifts.
[109:21] The standard dose is somewhere
between two and five grams,
[109:24] again, as always check with a doctor,
[109:26] make sure these things are safe for you.
[109:28] I'm not responsible for your health.
[109:29] You are.
[109:30] I don't say that just to protect me.
[109:31] I'd say that also to protect you
[109:34] but it really seems to
improve muscular endurance,
[109:38] improve anaerobic running
capacity, reduce fatigue.
[109:41] There are even some interesting effects
[109:43] on reduction of body fat and
improvements in lean mass.
[109:46] So creatine, beta-alanine, electrolytes,
[109:49] these are kind of the core three things
[109:51] that seem to improve performance
[109:53] and are well supported by
the scientific literature.
[109:56] And in the earlier episode
on supercharging performance
[109:59] we talked about palmer cooling.
[110:01] That's certainly a
performance enhancing tool.
[110:03] It's nothing you ingest
your cooling your palms
[110:05] in a very specific way.
[110:07] That's very powerful.
[110:07] Now, what about for longer
duration bouts of exercise?
[110:10] We've mainly been focusing
on resistance training,
[110:12] but what about for long runs, long swims,
[110:14] these kinds of things?
[110:16] Well, it does seem that
juice and ingesting things
[110:19] like arginine and citrulline
can improve performance
[110:22] for those long bouts of exercise
[110:25] that's mainly going to be due to effects
[110:27] of those compounds on vasodilation.
[110:29] It's going to open up the vasculature
[110:31] and allow more blood flow.
[110:33] Do note that things like
citrulline and arginine
[110:36] can have some side effects if you will.
[110:39] They can increase the likelihood
[110:42] of having herpes cold sore
outbreaks on the mouth.
[110:45] The arginine is in the
pathway by which I don't know
[110:48] if people know this, but
the herpes virus lives
[110:50] on neurons of the trigeminal
nerve that innervates the lips
[110:54] and the eyes and the mucus
membranes of the face.
[110:57] So this is the herpes
type 1 simplex virus.
[111:00] The virus lives on those neurons
[111:03] and then periodically
inflames those neurons,
[111:05] and that's what leads to the
cold sores seems like arginine
[111:08] and citrulline can lead
to increases in cold sores
[111:12] and canker sores, and
outbreaks of those kinds.
[111:15] So you want to be aware of that.
[111:18] That's not everybody, and not
everybody is caring HSV-1,
[111:23] just be aware that I think
it's now 80% or 90% of people
[111:28] by time they're 12 years old,
they've contracted HSV-1.
[111:31] It's very contagious and
typically one outbreak,
[111:35] and then only under conditions of stress
[111:37] or heightened arginine
or citrulline ingestion
[111:39] we'll have them later.
[111:41] Again, this is not necessarily an STI,
[111:48] a sexually transmitted infection.
[111:49] This is an infection that
is passed very easily
[111:52] from mucous membranes, just
in terms of touching objects
[111:55] and things of that sort.
[111:56] Very common in the general population.
[111:59] Any discussion about muscle
and muscle performance
[112:03] would not be adequate if
we didn't mention something
[112:05] about nutrition,
[112:06] but rather than have a whole
discussion about nutrition,
[112:08] 'cause there's lots of
information about that online,
[112:11] for instance, if you want to gain muscle
[112:12] that you need to have a calorie
surplus of about 10 to 15%.
[112:17] You could have a calorie surplus of more.
[112:19] If you want to avoid gaining weight
[112:22] then you would not create a
calorie surplus, et cetera.
[112:24] You can find all that information online.
[112:26] That's not what this
podcast is really about.
[112:28] We had a month where we talked a lot
[112:31] about hormones and food and moods.
[112:33] We talked about foods, but more
[112:35] as they relate to the nervous system.
[112:36] When it comes to supporting muscle.
[112:40] So supporting the synthesis of larger
[112:43] what I called myosin
balloons, it does seem
[112:46] that ingesting 700 to 3000 milligrams
[112:50] of the essential amino acid leucine
[112:52] with each meal is important.
[112:53] Now, that does not necessarily
mean from supplements.
[112:56] In fact, most people recommend
that you get your protein,
[113:01] you get your amino acids,
[113:03] including your essential amino acids
[113:04] and your leucine from whole foods.
[113:06] High quality proteins aren't
high density proteins.
[113:10] What do you mean by that?
[113:11] Well, it is true that a lot of
sources of protein are found
[113:15] in things like beans and
nuts and things like that
[113:17] that all the essential amino
acids can be found there
[113:20] but per unit calorie, if
it's in your practice,
[113:25] if it's in your ethics to
ingest animal proteins,
[113:28] it's true that for instance, 200 calories
[113:31] of steak or chicken or fish or eggs
[113:34] will have a higher density
of essential amino acids
[113:37] than the equivalent amount of
calories from nuts or plants.
[113:40] That's just simply the way it works.
[113:42] So for the vegans and vegetarians
[113:44] I'm certainly, I'm not
saying there's no way
[113:46] that you can support muscle growth.
[113:48] You absolutely can.
[113:49] Some of them might want
to supplement leucine
[113:51] but this 700 to 3000
milligrams of leucine per meal
[113:55] is one of the best ways that's been shown
[113:57] to support the synthesis of more myosin
[114:01] if your goal is hypertrophy
[114:02] and it's also the way that you
would support muscle repair
[114:05] if your goal is strength.
[114:07] So that's specifically geared
[114:08] towards muscle hypertrophy and strength.
[114:11] And I encourage you to think
[114:12] about this protein density issue.
[114:15] And whether or not you ingest
animal proteins or you don't,
[114:20] to think about whether or
not you're getting sufficient
[114:23] essential amino acids, especially leucine.
[114:27] Now, many people have
addressed the question
[114:30] of whether or not you need to
eat six or seven times a day.
[114:33] It turns out that you don't
[114:34] that's kind of the old school thinking
[114:35] that you need to eat very frequently.
[114:37] I think for certain
athletes were very active
[114:40] for drug assisted meaning people
[114:42] that are enhancing their
testosterone levels
[114:44] to super physiological levels,
[114:45] where they are experiencing
very heightened levels
[114:48] of protein synthesis and
they can utilize all that.
[114:50] That might make sense.
[114:51] Again, I'm not supporting the use
[114:52] of those performance enhancing drugs
[114:54] but there are people doing that.
[114:55] And that's one of the reasons
why they eat so frequently.
[114:59] And so much protein for typical people
[115:01] who are not doing that, I
imagine most of you are not.
[115:04] Then it does appear that you need to eat
[115:07] but you don't need to eat
six or seven times a day.
[115:10] It does seem like not eating
once a day is also important.
[115:13] So somewhere between one meal
a day and six meals a day,
[115:16] lies the more reasonable two or three
[115:18] or maybe four times a day.
[115:20] I think that a whole discussion
about this is warranted
[115:23] and we'll have this
discussion with Dr. Galpin
[115:26] at a future time of whether or not
[115:28] eating protein more frequently
[115:30] can enhance this myosin synthesis.
[115:33] But I think the simple takeaway
[115:34] from the literature that
I was able to extract
[115:36] and from my discussion with him is,
[115:38] eating two to four times a day,
[115:40] making sure you're getting
sufficient amino acids
[115:42] in a way that's compatible
with your ethics
[115:45] and with your nutritional regimen
[115:46] is going to support muscle
repair, muscle growth
[115:50] strength improvements,
et cetera, just fine.
[115:53] There's one more thing
that I'd like to cover
[115:55] which is the relationship
[115:56] between particular kinds of exercise
[115:58] and our ability to think and
perform cognitive functions.
[116:03] We all hear that exercise
is so vital for our brain
[116:06] that it supports our brain
health and our body health.
[116:08] And indeed that's true
provided it's done correctly.
[116:12] However, many of us are
familiar with the experience
[116:16] of going for a run or going for a swim
[116:18] or working out hard in
the gym, and then not
[116:20] being able to use our brain
to be essentially useless
[116:23] for cognitive functions
for the rest of the day.
[116:26] I discussed this with
Dr. Galpin this morning,
[116:29] and I learned something very interesting,
[116:30] which is that hard bouts of exercise
[116:33] of the sort where you're
training near failure
[116:35] or you're generating focused
muscular contractions,
[116:39] for obsession that lasts anywhere
[116:42] from, I don't know, 30, 45
minutes, maybe 60 minutes
[116:45] or a long run where you're engaging
[116:46] in some interval training during that run,
[116:49] after exercise, there's a
reduction in oxygenation
[116:53] of the brain.
[116:54] So there's actually a quite
significant dip in the amount
[116:56] of oxygen that your neurons are getting
[116:58] and therefore your ability to think.
[117:00] So it's important that
you control the intensity
[117:02] and the duration of your
training sessions so
[117:04] that you're still able to do well in life
[117:07] and lean to life the way you need to,
[117:09] because I'm guessing most of you are not
[117:12] in a position to just prioritize
your physical training
[117:14] you also need to use your minds.
[117:16] I'm certainly familiar with
wanting to get exercise
[117:19] but also the requirement of needing
[117:20] to perform cognitive
work throughout the day.
[117:24] It also turns out that you can leverage
[117:26] something interesting
about exercise and nerve
[117:29] to muscle work in ways that can benefit
[117:31] cognitive function and focus.
[117:33] And it has to do with
the way that your body
[117:36] and your nervous system predict bouts
[117:38] of intense focused effort.
[117:40] So let's say you're doing
resistance training two
[117:42] or three times a week,
maybe even four times a week
[117:44] and you're doing it
consistently at a given time.
[117:48] There are clocks,
literally biological clocks
[117:51] within the liver and within the brain
[117:54] that learn to predict that
focus and that intense work.
[117:59] If you are trying to get
intense cognitive work done,
[118:03] you might try scheduling
that cognitive work
[118:06] on the days when you
don't do physical training
[118:09] at the same time when
you normally would do
[118:11] that intense, focused physical training.
[118:14] Because the systems of the body
[118:16] that generate acetylcholine release
[118:18] and other neuromodulators, the systems,
[118:20] of the body and brain that
generate focused effort,
[118:23] those are on this sort of clock mechanism
[118:26] in a way that you likely will find
[118:28] that after just a week of
training at regular times
[118:31] you will be able to focus
readily on other things
[118:34] when you're not training
provided you do it
[118:36] during the period of time of day
[118:38] when you normally would train.
[118:40] So is kind of an indirect positive effect.
[118:43] You're harnessing the focus
and the expectation of focus
[118:46] in your nervous system for
that particular time of day.
[118:48] And of course, we'd be remiss
[118:50] if we didn't talk about
time of day for training.
[118:53] It turns out that whether or
not you train in the morning
[118:56] or in the afternoon, it
doesn't really seem to matter
[118:59] for sake of things like hypertrophy
and strength, et cetera.
[119:02] Everyone seems to have a time of day
[119:04] that they prefer to train.
[119:06] I've said before and their reasons
[119:07] based on body temperature rhythms
[119:10] and cortisol release
that training 30 minutes,
[119:14] three hours or 11 hours
after your normal waking time
[119:17] can be very beneficial and can provide
[119:20] a sort of predictability or regularity
[119:21] to when your body will be ready to train
[119:25] and best apt to train well.
[119:27] There is some evidence that training
[119:29] in the afternoon is
better for performance,
[119:31] whereas training for
body composition changes
[119:33] and strain changes, et cetera
[119:35] doesn't really matter when you train.
[119:37] So you also want to make
it compatible with sleep,
[119:38] compatible with work that really gets
[119:40] down into the wits of optimization.
[119:42] But I think it's interesting to note
[119:44] that if you're going to
train at a regular time,
[119:47] you can take the days when you don't train
[119:50] and use that to enhance
your cognitive focus
[119:52] for things that have
nothing to do with exercise.
[119:55] So this might be writing, or reading,
[119:56] or music, or math, et cetera.
[119:58] Typically, I restrict
these podcast episodes
[120:00] to about 90 minutes.
[120:02] So called ultradian cycle for learning.
[120:04] Today was a bit longer.
[120:05] And I admit that I tried
to pack a lot into this.
[120:09] It is the last episode in this month
[120:11] on physical performance.
[120:12] I figured in this case more is better
[120:15] especially since everything
is time-stamped for you.
[120:18] You certainly don't have
to watch it all at once
[120:20] and you can come back to
it over and over again
[120:22] into the precise locations
in the episode that you like
[120:25] in order to take notes or
extract the information
[120:27] that you need.
[120:29] I'd like to point you
to Dr. Andy Galpin page.
[120:32] I highly recommend looking into the work
[120:35] that he's doing if you want more details.
[120:37] He's very, very skilled,
excellent communicator.
[120:40] He superb at what he does.
[120:41] He's a professor.
[120:42] He works with athletes.
[120:43] He works with typical
folks in the exercise
[120:45] and muscle physiology world.
[120:47] Brad Schoenfelds work.
[120:48] I also have a lot of respect for.
[120:49] I've never met him.
[120:50] I don't know him.
[120:51] There's no paid endorsement here.
[120:52] They're not sponsors are related
to the podcast in any way.
[120:55] I just think the work
is of very high quality
[120:57] and they're both on the academic side
[120:59] and the practical side.
[121:00] And of course there are
other people out there
[121:02] doing fabulous work in this area as well.
[121:06] If you like this podcast
and you're benefiting
[121:08] from the information that you're learning
[121:09] and you want to support us, the simplest
[121:11] and most straightforward way
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[121:18] Click the Subscribe button
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[121:30] We release episodes every
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[121:37] So you'll be sure to hear those episodes.
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[122:04] around a given theme or topic
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[122:07] So the episodes on sleep, for instance
[122:09] that were way back in January,
[122:11] and what seems like way back
[122:13] are still every bit as relevant today
[122:15] as they were back in January for somebody
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[122:19] and wants to understand
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[122:42] the podcast episodes and
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[122:45] In the comment section.
[122:46] I really do read through
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[122:49] It takes me some time, but
I do read through those.
[122:51] I reply to as many of them
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[122:54] And they're great way
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[122:56] On Apple you can give
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these things you're welcome to,
[123:02] if you want to do just one
of them, we understand.
[123:05] And if you do none of
them, we still appreciate
[123:07] that you come here to
digest the information
[123:09] about science and science-related tools.
[123:11] In today's episode, I
mentioned various supplements,
[123:15] various compounds that
if you deem it right
[123:17] and safe for you can
benefit athletic performance
[123:21] and muscle physiology, et cetera.
[123:24] We've partnered with Thorne T-H-O-R-N-E
[123:27] because Thorne supplements we believe are
[123:29] of the highest possible
stringency in quality.
[123:32] What you see on the bottle
is what's in the bottle
[123:35] and the quality of
ingredients that they include
[123:36] are excellent.
[123:38] So much so that they
partner with the Mayo Clinic
[123:40] and all the major sports teams.
[123:42] If you go to Thorne
T-H-O-R-N-E.com/u/huberman,
[123:48] you can see all the
supplements that I take
[123:50] and you can get 20% off
any of those supplements
[123:53] as well as 20% off any
of the other supplements
[123:56] that Thorne sells.
[123:57] So if you go to thorne.com/u/huberman
[124:02] any of those supplements listed there
[124:04] and then if you navigate
through their site
[124:05] and you find something else that you like
[124:07] will be 20% off at checkout.
[124:09] Last but not least, I want to thank you
[124:11] for your time and attention today.
[124:12] And as always, thank you for
your interest in science.
[124:14] [bright upbeat music]