Essentials: Optimal Protocols to Build Strength & Grow Muscles | Dr. Andy Galpin

Huberman Lab

Dr. Andy Galpin joins Andrew Huberman to detail the physiological distinctions between training for strength and hypertrophy. The discussion

Key takeaways

• Strength is defined by force production and movement, whereas hypertrophy refers specifically to an increase in muscle size.
• Neuromuscular aging results in a loss of muscle power (8-10% per year) that significantly outpaces the loss of muscle mass (1% per year).

Main topics

• Strength vs. Hypertrophy
• Neuromuscular Aging

Notable quotes

Consistency beats intensity.

Conclusion

The episode serves as a practical guide for using resistance training

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials, where we revisit past episodes for the most potent and actionable science-based tools for mental health, physical health, and performance. Speaker 2 (0:11) I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. And now for my discussion with Dr. Andy Galpin. Today, we're talking about strength and hypertrophy. And so right out the gate, I just want to ask you, why should people think about and train for strength and hypertrophy? Not just for people that want to get bigger biceps, et cetera, but that have other goals, longevity goals and health goals unrelated to what most people... associated with hypertrophy. So what are the benefits of training for strength and hypertrophy for the everyday person, for the athlete, for the recreational exerciser, and so on? Speaker 1 (0:50) One of the major disservices we've done in this field is convince people that things like strength training are for athletes or for growing bigger muscles. And cardiovascular training are for things like fat loss and heart health. And that is a tremendous disservice because it puts a lot of unnecessary barriers and leads to a lot of false assumptions and then therefore poor actions. We could do a hundred episodes on the benefits of exercise and we could run all the way from mood and focus, cognitive tasks to a better immune function. You'll get less colds. You'll be, you'll fight them off more effectively to mortality, right? So some of the strongest predictors of how long and how well you will live are exercise. However, There are independent benefits that come from just endurance training and there are independent benefits that come from strength training And so to just give you one categorically The way that you want to think about this is resistance exercise and strength training is the number one tool to combat neuromuscular aging You cannot get that through any other form of exercise besides heavy overload strength training. If you want to be alive and you want to live by yourself, you have to be able to engage in human movement. If you have any dysfunction in the neuromuscular system there, then you're not going to be able to do that. And again, as I mentioned, the only way to preserve that or fight that loss of aging is to strength train. So people will tend to hear numbers like you lose about 1 % of muscle size. per year after age about 40. And that's true. However, what they don't realize is you lose about 2 to 4 % of your strength per year. So the loss of strength is almost double that, the loss of muscle mass with aging. Muscle power is more like 8 to 10 % per year. And so we can very clearly see the problem you're going to have with aging is not going to be preservation of muscle. Although that is incredibly important. it's going to be very specifically preservation of muscle power and strength. And why that really matters is your ability to, again, stand up and move, your ability to catch yourself from a fall, your ability to feel confident doing a movement. That is a function of muscle power more than it is muscle size. And so functionality is really what we want to be, right? You want to be able to do whatever you want to do physically and feel confident in doing that as you age. That's going to only be obtained through strength training. Speaker 2 (3:16) So is it appropriate to say that training for strength and hypertrophy is also a way to keep your nervous system healthy and young? Yeah, Speaker 1 (3:24) absolutely. It is the only exercise route we have for that. The wonderful thing about strength training is you don't actually have to start at a young age. In fact, I was reading a paper this morning because of our previous conversation. It was in over age 90. So these are folks 90 plus, and they saw improvements like 30 to 170%. in things like muscle size and hypertrophy over a very short period of time. I think it was 12 weeks. The reason I like to mention that is because if you are listening and you are 50 and you're like, oh shit, I haven't been strength training. You're not toast. Like you should absolutely start now. You're going to be able to get to a fantastic spot very quickly. Speaker 2 (4:04) If you would, please remind us what strength and hypertrophy are in terms of the specific adaptation. they represent. What I mean by that is when somebody is training for strength, what are they really training for? Obviously, it means the ability to move more weight, but I know that it includes a number of other things as well. And when one is training for hypertrophy, for the growth of muscle fibers, what does that represent? Because I think if people understand that, they will far better understand the methods and protocols that are going to be best for strength and hypertrophy. Speaker 1 (4:39) At its core, you've basically described it. When we talk about strength, we're talking about an actual function. So can you create more force across a muscle or muscle groups or total movement? And when we talk about hypertrophy, now we're specifically referring to just an increase in size. There's no actual mention of function. So a muscle can grow larger without actually technically being stronger. However, there is a strong relationship between strength and hypertrophy. So a lot of the times in the general public, in the lay, conversations, we sort of lump those two things in as the same thing. And so we have to recognize people who are new to training or people even are intermediately trained. There is a huge overlap between strength and hypertrophy. Once you get past that though, they become disentangled. There's a lot of confusion, right? Because people think, man, either these are the same thing or if I want to get stronger, I have to get bigger, which is not the case at all. If you want to get stronger. and you don't want to add muscle for any reason, personal preference on aesthetics, it is quite easy to get stronger and not add much muscle mass either. And so differentiating these two things is one of them is simply a measure of size, and the other one is a measure of force. So those are really the similarities and distinctions between strength and hypertrophy. Speaker 2 (5:57) I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge our sponsor, AG1. AG1 just launched their newest formulation called AG1 Pro. And right now you can get an extra 20 % off your first subscription. AG1 takes the clinically backed AG1 formula, which is a blend of vitamins, minerals, probiotics, and adaptogens, and adds three important new ingredients, creatine monohydrate, calcium HMB, and zinc carnosine. It has five grams of creatine monohydrate to support muscle strength and performance along with brain health. calcium HMB to support muscle recovery and reduce muscle breakdown, and zinc carnosine to support and improve the lining of your gut. Some of these ingredients I personally was already taking separate from the AG1 formula, so it's great to see all three of them now in the new AG1 Pro. As you may know, I've been taking AG1 every single day for about 14 years now. That means I discovered it and started taking it daily long before I even knew what a podcast was. I continue to take it and back it here on the podcast because it is an excellent formula. And it's now even better with the AG1 Pro formula. For a limited time, you can get an extra 20 % off your first subscription to AG1 Pro by going to drinkag1.com slash Huberman and using the code BACK2ROUTINE. So that's with the numeral two, BACK, numeral two, ROUTINE. Just go to drinkag1.com slash Huberman. So what are the essential components of an effective strength and hypertrophy protocol? Speaker 1 (7:19) Okay, so what I would like to actually do is walk you through both of those because as we mentioned before, they overlap. And so I want to hit those concepts right now. These are, as you say, these are the non-negotiables that have to happen in any training program. And I'm referring to these. in the strength and hypertrophy conversation, but these are true of power development, speed development, muscular endurance, endurance, any other thing. These are things that just have to happen for any training program to work. My frequent collaborator, Dan Garner, will constantly say, consistency beats intensity. The literature will show you very clearly adherence is the number one predictor of physical fitness outcomes. So we want to do something that you will engage in, you'll put effort into, and you'll be able to repeat consistently over time. So that's number one. The second one is, and this is a major reason that people don't hit their fitness goals. In fact, I would argue outside of not doing it, the number one mistake they make is progressive overload. So I'm going to walk you through exactly how much you should be increasing your sets and reps and weight, et cetera, per week, per month later. But that's the biggest thing. You have got to have some sort of... overload. That's what's going to cause adaptation to continue to cause stress. If you want to see these gains in strength and hypertrophy, you really need to progressively overload. So that's concept number two. The third one here is going to be individualization. And this is where we can get into things like personal preference, equipment availability. You have kettlebells or dumbbells, or you only have bands, or you have none of that. These are all smaller details, but that's an important component. The last one I really want to get into is picking the appropriate target. and you run some testing and figure out where your biggest limitations are, that's going to help you identify where you need to go. So if you can do all those things, you're going to be in a good spot to balance specificity and variation. All right. So if you want to make sure you grow your biceps, you better make sure your biceps are working. Having said that, if you over rely on specificity, you're going to increase the likelihood of overuse injuries, which is going to come back and actually hamper consistency over time so this is when hedging towards specificity is important but too much can cause a problem if you go the other direction and you go too much variation so imagine you're just sort of doing all kinds of different exercises every time you you work out that's actually not enough stimuli directly on the muscle or muscle groups or movement pattern if you're wanting to learn a new movement to get you very far