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.

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, etc., but

that have other goals, longevity goals,

and health goals unrelated to what most

people associate 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?

>> 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,

um cognitive tasks to a better immune

function, you'll get less colds, you'll

be you'll fight them off more

effectively, to mortality. All 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, um 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 be do physically and feel confident

in doing that as you age. That's going

to only be obtained through strength

training.

>> 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, 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 I 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 a

fantastic spot

>> very quickly. 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.

>> At its core, you've 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 our

total movement? And when we talk about

hypertrophy, we're 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 at

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 the really the the the

similarities and distinctions between

strength and hypertrophy.

>> So, what are the essential components of

an effective strength and hypertrophy

protocol?

>> Okay, so what I would like to actually

do is 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 going to referring to these in

the strength and hypertrophy

conversation, but these are true of

power development, speed development,

muscular endurance,

uh 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, will 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, um

your sets and reps and weight, etc., 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

um progressively overload. So, that's

concept number two.

Uh 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, you only

have bands, or you have none of that.

Um 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

um to get you very far. And so, this is

a classic problem of I'm doing a lot of

work, but I don't have a very clear

direction. I lack specificity, so I'm

working, but I'm not seeing a lot of

improvements. And this is like in the

business world, etc., this is like doing

a whole bunch of different things means

you get nothing really done. Those are

the concepts we absolutely have to hit.

The methods that we choose run across a

handful of variables, and we call these

things modifiable variables because as

you modify them or you make different

choices within these variables,

you get different outcomes or

adaptations. So, the way that I like to

say this is exercises do not determine

adaptation.

So, you can't simply go, "I want to get

stronger. Therefore, I'm going to choose

these exercises."

That's not how it works. What determines

adaptation is the execution

of the exercises. So, uh deadlift is my

favorite example. A deadlift is a common

um example that people think of when

they want to choose a lower body

strength exercise. But a deadlift will

not increase your strength unless you're

executing it in the proper fashion. I'm

not even talking about technique here.

I'm talking about these modifiable

variables.

The same thing for power exercises will

commonly see mistakes of doing

activities like a box jump. Which is

great. People think, "Oh, I'm going to

get improve my power." Which we know is

extremely highly correlated to

activities of daily living and

particularly living unassisted as you

age, right? Is reduction of power.

So, they'll do an activity like a box

jump. What they're failing to realize is

unless you do it powerfully, you won't

actually increase power. So, the way

that we manipulate these variables is

everything

determining the adaptation you get or

again don't get. So, that being said,

let let's jump right into to speed and

power. At the onset, there's this three

to five concept. I didn't develop the

three to five. It's just an easy way to

help you remember one concept that will

run true across all these things. So,

three to five refers to three to five

days per week. Pick three to five

exercises. And you're going to do three

to five repetitions per set.

You'll do three to five sets.

And you'll rest three to five minutes

between each set. If you do that and you

execute any of the exercises that you

choose

at a high intent.

And that part is critical.

So, if you land on that, that allows you

to run the gamut from as little as three

days a week.

You're doing a three exercises. You can

do three sets of three.

Which is a very very low volume. It's a

a very low amount of days. Easy to

handle.

All the way to five sets of five of five

exercises five days a week. So, it it

Again, it's it's just one sample. That's

something easy to remember and is quite

effective for a very long time. And this

has been

tested quite extensively in in both the

coaching realms as well as the

scientific realms to be quite productive

and and easy to follow and grasp. If you

do that, all you need to do is slightly

increase the load.

Or the volume, but mostly the load over

time. And the number we want to look for

there is something like a 3 to 5%

increase per week.

>> When you say 3 to 5,

that's 3 to 5 work sets, correct?

>> Yep.

>> Is there a way that you could lay out

for us

optimal repetition cadences for

strength specifically versus hypertrophy

specifically and then migrate toward the

middle in terms of rep cadences that

would satisfy the desire to have a bit

of both?

>> Yep. So,

when you're talking about strength

versus hypertrophy, remember strength is

a movement.

Hypertrophy is muscle size.

That's that's the the key to your answer

here. So, when you're trying to get

stronger, what you're effectively trying

to do is get better at producing a

certain amount of force through a

movement, okay? Now, force

is mass times acceleration.

So, what's the mass in the bar

multiplied by how well I can accelerate

it.

Intentionally going slower

is only reducing acceleration.

Right? So, it's hard to argue that going

slower

is going to improve strength cuz you're

simply reducing acceleration. So, you

need to practice lifting heavier at a

faster rate. Hypertrophy is not that.

The goal here is not a functional

outcome. It is what is needed to cause

the most amount of hypertrophy.

And when you get to hypertrophy then,

your optimal cadence

is up to you.

You can do any combination. In fact, you

could do it the same exact cadence that

you did your strength training with and

get the same adaptations

as hypertrophy if you modify the other

variables appropriately, right? As long

as you hit the concepts I talked about

earlier, whether you want to do 311,

323, 333, triphasic, it things this is

just a method choice. It doesn't mean

they're irrelevant.

They are there are subtle changes within

them. It's just 80/20 rule, right? So,

80% of the benefit is going to be from

the concept. 20% is this small thing. If

you're super into this field or you

actually want to work with a qualified

uh certified coach or something, they

There's lots of reasons to play with

this. If you're just on your own here

and running this thing,

311 is fine. 312, totally fine. Anything

like that. Um you really just want to

make sure

that in the strength side of the

equation,

you're under control and you can add

enough load to stimulate strength

and not get hurt with an acute trauma,

right? On the hypertrophy side, you're

just wanting to load enough to where you

can hit volume.

Cuz you got to put a lot on there. So,

if you want to go lighter, if you want

to go slower, fine. You If you go slower

in your repetition, so maybe even like a

5-sec second eccentric, a 2-second

pause, a 3-second rise.

That's great. You can actually then

stimulate the same amount of hypertrophy

and either do it with less weight

or do it with less repetitions. So, it's

a variable you can play with if you're

like, "Hey,

I don't have

enough weights at my house or I only

have a kettlebell or a dumbbell.

How am I going to stimulate hypertrophy?

Your only option is really doing more

reps. Well, eventually that that train

runs pretty shallow.

Okay, here's the thing you can play

with. Maybe just add time under tension.

That's what we're calling it, right? Um

just, you know, do slower repetitions.

Go longer ones and hold it. So, it's a

variable that we use to individualize

programs rather than something that you

should really be focused on as like a

core aspect that's going to be driving

whether or not your program works. It's

just a tool we can play with in the what

if scenarios.

>> So, for the person starting out,

would you recommend they pick three to

five exercises and stick with those so

that they can get their skill and

movement and positioning and breathing,

all that really dialed in, and then

start to experiment by varying one or

two of those exercises over time?

>> That's great. If you look at the the

conjugate model, so these are the the

strongest powerlifters as a collective

group that ever existed. That what

they're very good at is they keep almost

the exact same weekly structure,

but they make a very small change in

exercise variation. So, for example, say

say Wednesday is bench day,

right? They're going to always bench on

Wednesdays, but maybe this week they're

going to do close grip bench. And then

maybe next week it's going to be maybe a

special type of barbell. And then maybe

the week after that it's they'll change

the range of motion a little bit. So,

it's actually the exact same exercise

where they're making a very small

variation. And that change alone allows

them to do enough specificity,

but also gives them enough variation

where it's not the exact same stimuli in

exact same spot over and over and over.

And that's what allows that group to

train very very very heavy,

very consistently, and not have to worry

about too much planning for

periodization and and all that stuff

like that. They get their back off by

making small variations in exercise. I

will say

a major mistake folks do make is they

change their exercises entirely way too

often. If I were to have to pick one or

the other, I would say don't change

anything on your exercises for 6 weeks.

Probably realistic maybe even 10 to 12

weeks. And then you can make some

changes. It's going to take you 3 weeks

generally to figure out the groove of

the exercise, to figure out how well you

can load it, what's too much to where

you woke up unbelievably sore, that was

a train wreck, how much do I load it at,

how what position, how long is this

going to take? It's going to take you 3

or so weeks. And then you can really

start pushing there. So, changing it

before that or in that time frame is is

you're not going to be able to

progressively overload cuz you're just

not going to know exactly where you're

at on all the exercises. So, it's very

important to create standardization

within them, and then see some progress

in a movement or a muscle group,

whatever you're going for,

and then make some changes.

>> So, before we dive into our discussion

about hypertrophy,

can we just get a brief recap of the

general parameters for an excellent

power and strength training program?

>> Okay, let me hit you with these rapid

fire, and then you can maybe come ask

questions along that. Remember those

modifiable variables, okay? So, let's go

through them in order and then what they

mean specifically for power versus

strength. So modifiable variable number

one is called choice. So which exercises

do I select for strength? In general for

power or speed or strength, we want to

select compound movements. What I mean

by that is when we think about again

strength training, we tend to think

about bodybuilding concepts. We go to

the gym and we do things like I got to

make sure I get my chest today and I got

to make sure I get my hamstrings and Now

you're selecting exercises based on a

muscle you want to work. For strength

development and power, we want to think

about movements rather than individual

muscle groups. So there should be like

things like I need to train explosive

hip extension,

which is like a uh a vertical jump or

something like that. I I want to train

pushing or pulling movements or I want

to train I want to train rotation, which

is a whole area we haven't gotten into,

which is very important for overall

health and wellness longevity. So we

want to select big movements by the

muscle the movement patterns that we

want to introduce. And we just want to

select a reasonable balance between

these. I don't care what the exact ratio

is. You just don't want to go an entire

6 months without doing anything in this

rotational area or an entire, you know,

8 to 10 weeks without doing something

that's a lower body hinge, right? So any

number of examples there. So just think

about the rough movement patterns, upper

and lower, push and pull, uh and then

some sort of rotation. That puts you in

a pretty good spot. If you're using 3 by

5

method and you're going to pick as

little as three exercises, just pick one

from each one of those group. So that's

exercise choice, our first variable. The

next one is exercise order.

So because that everything driving power

and strength is quality based,

you want to do these at the beginning of

your workout. You would not want to do

anything fatiguing before this. So no

cardiovascular training, no other uh

repetition to failure stuff. If you do

those before and now you're slower,

all you've done is practice getting

slower. You also need to do them when

you're very fresh, because they're the

most neurologically demanding. They're

complicated. They tend to have multiple

steps, and they're often in multiple

planes, and coordination is a difficult

thing. And if you're trying to do all

that at maximum speed, your nervous

system needs to be tremendously fresh.

And so, any amount of fatigue here is

only going to compromise the results.

The next one after that is volume. The

general number we're going to look at

here is something like 3 to 20 sets

total per workout. Per workout. Um but

that would be like 20 would be a little

bit of a special case. The last one is

frequency. And we've already sort of

indirectly talked about that. Where

frequency can be as high as you'd like

in this area. It really depends on your

recovery. If you're really truly pushing

maximum strength, you probably do need a

few days to recover. Last little piece

here is progression.

How do I progress over time?

So, I mentioned this earlier, but just

wanted to fill this gap right back in

before we head over to hypertrophy,

which is 3 to 5% increase per week of

intensity in general. Um and you can do

upwards of about 5% increase in volume

per week over time. And I generally

recommend running that for

uh at longest 8 weeks.

But probably most realistically, you

want to go about 5 weeks or so, and then

have some sort of a deload or back off

week. If you do that, you're generally

going to be in a pretty good spot. One

last little thing I don't think we did

justice

is intention.

And the reason I want to go back to this

now is because

we've talked a lot about specific loads

you have to hit.

And that's generally the case. But if

intention is there, you can fudge those

numbers in terms of how much load goes

on the bar. In fact, you can get as low

as no load on the bar. A great example

here is like a plank exercise. So, you

can do a plank in which you get in a

position and you simply contract the

least amount necessary

to hold the position.

Also, you could contract as hard as

possible, pulling your scapula down and

back, squeezing your core, squeezing

your quads, squeezing your glutes.

That is actually going to still help

strength production because you're

attempting to contract very, very hard,

even though {quote} {unquote} the load

is the same.

That thing extends to weight on the bar.

So, you could theoretically see large

improvements in strength at

50% of your one rep max if you're

contracting as hard as possible. Okay,

let's talk about

>> hypertrophy. What are the ways that

people can induce hypertrophy?

>> Probably a a better way to think about

that question is really

what stimuli do I need to give the

muscle to induce hypertrophy? Now, there

are um hormonal factors that are

important, there are nutritional

factors, but just to stick with the

context of training.

Um this is really going to frame a lot

of our answers, and as you'll see, it's

one of the reasons why I call

hypertrophy training kind of idiot

proof.

In terms of programming. Now, the work

is hard,

difficult, and all that, but the

precision needed is a lot less than what

we saw in power and strength. And so, if

you note there, like it's very important

that you do it in this style, with this

intent, and with with these within these

parameters, and if you're outside the

parameters, it's not going to be it.

Hypertrophy has a very broad range in

terms of your actual applications, and

this is why you have and will continue

to see countless styles of training that

all work. So, if we look at like the

classic dogma, we have to basically

challenge the muscle

to need to come back in this case

specifically bigger, and the nutrients

need to be there to support that growth.

So, all you have to do there to not fail

is to make sure the training is hard

enough.

And it's going to work. The only wrong

combination here is infrequent and low

intensity and low volume. That's it. As

long as one of those three variables is

high, you're going to get there, which

is why crafting your program, which is

best for you,

is actually fairly simple when it comes

to hypertrophy. You just have to make

sure you do the work. I actually think

that it's important that you do some um

number of combination of what we call

bilateral and unilateral exercises. So,

bilateral being think about it like a

squat, where bi meaning two, lateral,

you have two feet on the ground moving

in sequence here. Unilateral is one. So,

this could be something as simple as a

um rear foot elevated split squat. It

could be a single leg leg press or

single leg curl. It could be a pistol

squat. Something where the individual

limb is moving one at a time. Also very

important for making sure

for hypertrophy's sake you're not

getting any imbalances as you progress

especially through months and years of

training. So, make sure you're doing a

little bit of a combination. Whether you

want to pick specific implements, that's

really a methods question and a

preference question than it is concepts.

So,

dumbbell, great. Kettlebell, fine.

Barbell, awesome. Band, doesn't matter.

Body weight, none of these things are as

important um because all you're trying

to do is create a certain insult in the

tissue and the implement is just

whichever one you feel best doing it.

Because of the way that people move

differently, their

their anthropometrics and and their

biomechanics and even their technique.

The same exact exercise

will not necessarily

work the same exact muscle groups for

multiple people. So, if you and I both

went and did a back squat, if you did a

little bit more of what we call a high

bar squat, so this is the bar is

literally sitting up higher up on your

neck. You're keeping your back more

vertical and because you know, in order

to do that, you shift your knees much

further past your toes, keeping of

course your whole foot on the ground in

good position. Okay. That's going to

generally put more of an emphasis on the

knee joint, right? And so, that's not a

bad thing. Um you tend to see a little

bit more work in the quads there, a

little bit less work in the spinal

erectors in back because you're actually

not supporting

the weight horizontally, which is a

diff- it's a much more difficult

position. It's It's vertically stacked.

If I were to do it in the classic low

bar squat, which is again lowering the

bar down my further down my back towards

more more like my shoulder blades, I

probably take a little bit of a wider

stance. And when I squat, I drive my

glutes back further away from the

midline. In as a fact, as a general

rule, if you take the midline of your

body, the thing that moves is the

farthest away from that midline is

likely to be the thing that's activating

the most.

So, in the case of the of the front

squat, um you're not generally going to

be using your glutes as much if you're

in that or not even front squat, just

that high bar squat where you're very

very vertical. Your knees are going to

be moving very far over your toes, which

is fantastic. Therefore, it's a little

bit more knee dominant, as kind of we

say it. The other version here, you can

keep your shins really close to

vertical. You move your butt backwards.

You're going to have to then lean

forward with your torso, which means

it'll be more low back, more glutes, and

a little bit less knee. Now, that's a

general statement. It's not necessarily

always true, but as a guideline there,

that is one exact exercise where you may

be going, "Man, I'm trying to improve

this clear weakness I have in my quads.

I can't even leg extension my body

weight. I have a significant problem

there." So, maybe in your particular

case, if I'm hammering you or you're

hammering yourself in a squat exercise

and you're wondering why your quads

aren't getting any stronger or or

growing any size, it may be because of

the style of the movement. So, I may

need to go, "Andrew, all right, look,

squats,

in general, if you look at the research,

are an excellent exercise for quad

development. But for you, they're not

because of the way you stand or just

because of, you know, neural activation,

it doesn't matter. So, I need to take

you to a machine and isolate that muscle

group so we can make sure we see

development in that. So, if you're

trying to grow a specific body part, uh

area, individual muscle, it's very

important that you're actually seeing

progress there. And don't worry about,

"Well, in the textbook, the bench press

is supposed to be good for your pec."

Cuz if you're not actually moving in the

right position, it depends on the angle

in which your sternum actually sits in

your body, a bench press may actually be

doing very little for your pec, and you

may need to adjust to say an incline

bench or a decline bench or a pec fly.

So, machines can be fantastic at letting

you isolate without having to worry

about things like stability,

um your lower back position getting

hurt, where's your neck at. You can

really concentrate on just the movement,

concentrate on the muscle, and let

everything else kind of go away and

ensure you're getting training in that

specific area.

>> What about exercise order?

>> You get to play a couple of games here.

When we talked about strength and power,

I basically said stick to the big

movements, most complicated and compound

movements first. You don't have to do

that with hypertrophy. You can do this

in a couple of ways. You can do the

thing you're just simply most interested

in first. You can do this thing called

pre-fatigue. So, say you're you're going

to do a back day. You could go in and do

nothing but isolated biceps as your very

first exercise, and then roll into uh

your your pulling movements, because

what you'll see is during most pulling

activities the biceps are a secondary or

tertiary muscle group. But, you've

pre-fatigued them. You've guaranteed

that muscle of most interest got its its

most training in, and everything else is

secondary. So, you can start if you want

with single joint movements, you can

start with isolation stuff, or you can

start with compound stuff. Either way,

it just really comes down to preference

and what you're specifically trying to

develop. Now, this also goes back to the

exercise choice question, right? Cuz

it's it's sort of the same thing, right?

Like, which one am I choosing?

And where I wanted it to cap this was

the exercise splits. And and so, we we

you sort of talked about am I doing body

part splits, and I know a question I get

a lot here is, "Well, which ones should

I package together?"

I'm not really concerned with it. What

you All you should worry about is how

many times per week, and in fact, total

volume you achieve on a muscle group

per week. And I I doesn't really matter

how those things are folded in. It's

really a personal preference issue.

Um one mistake that we see here commonly

is grossly underappreciating

that the legs are not a muscle group.

Right? So, the legs have a whole bunch

of muscle groups in them. So, we see a

classic split like I'll do shoulders and

chest Monday.

And then I'll do, you know,

biceps and forearms Tuesday and then

legs Wednesday

or whatever. And then back to upper body

and then I was like you're like, wait a

minute. You have four days dedicated to

the upper body and one for a

quote-unquote legs. I hope you can see

the imbalance what's that's going to

happen there over time is you're going

to do a do far more upper body than you

are lower body and that's not

appropriate. So, you just want to think

about your lower body like you would do

if you're going to do body part splits,

then include those things as well and

don't just chunk everything in as legs

once a week. If you want to do that,

that's actually okay, but that day has

to be very very challenging and you

probably should do a quite a bit of

volume um there cuz you're you're almost

surely not going to hit the total weekly

volume needed to optimize muscle growth

if you're literally only doing once a

week of your quote-unquote legs.

>> Along those lines, let's talk volume.

>> Yep.

>> How much volume does each muscle group

need per week

in order to generate and for that matter

maintain hypertrophy?

>> Right. So, the the kind of minimum

number we're going to look for here is

10 working sets

>> per week.

>> Correct.

>> Per muscle group.

>> Correct. So, 10 would be sort of the

minimum number you want to get to. The

more realistic number that most people,

especially if you're advanced or even

intermediate, is more like 15 to 20

working sets per week. Okay. Now, if

you're very well trained, you probably

want to even push more towards like 25

and in fact past that, there's just not

a lot of research. If you went in and

you did three sets of 10,

the very standard

>> of 10 repetitions.

>> Correct.

>> Yeah.

>> You're already at three. You do that

three days a week,

you're at your nine. That's almost 10.

If you also just went to the gym one day

a week, you did three sets of 10,

and you did three exercises.

You're at nine set working sets. You're

basically done. So, achieving 10 sets

per week per muscle group, and now we're

not even talking about indirect

activation of a secondary. So, you're

you're going to hit 10 fairly easy.

Extension of that, hitting 20 is

actually still not that hard.

However, if you're not seeing

adaptations, then I'd say maybe the

repetitions aren't enough.

So, if you're going to do a set of 25

and you finish it and you're like, "Ooh,

yeah, like that was kind of starting to

get hard at the end."

That's not going to be enough.

If you're going to do a set of five or

six, and the same sort of expression

comes out of your mouth, it's not going

to be enough. So, in that case, it

doesn't matter

what your rep range if you're not

getting somewhat close to failure.

Again, it doesn't need to be complete

failure. Um a good number to think about

is like minus two,

which is what we call reps in reserve,

uh which is sort of like, I got within

two or so reps of failure and then I

stopped. You have a lot of room to play

here. You also have a lot of room to

adapt based on your circumstances. God,

I'm short on time today.

Typically, my workout takes me 60

minutes for this plan I have. I've only

got 35 today. What do I do? If you're

training for hypertrophy, you need to

make sure you hit that total volume. So,

in this particular case, lower the load,

lower the rest intervals, and just get

to the burn and get going as much as you

can. If you're training for strength, I

would rather you cut your volume in

half.

Get those few repetitions done at that

high load, and just don't do very many

sets today. That's the better result.

So,

the goal that you're going after is

going to determine what we call chaos

management, which is that thing like

that, um

running out of time today, my time is

short, or I didn't even think my time

was short, something got cut off, I'm

not feeling it today, I'm in a hotel,

etc. etc. etc., which is life, right?

That's going to be 10 to 50% of your

workouts is going to be chaos

management.

>> I'd like to ask about

frequency, but I'd like to frame it a

little bit differently um than that.

I'd like to ask about total workout

duration,

which dovetails with frequency because

if one is hitting the appropriate number

of sets per week,

and one is combining different muscle

groups on the same days,

well, then workouts are going to be a

very different duration than if one is

doing a different body part each day,

for instance. And so, I feel like any

discussion about frequency has to be

within the context of workout duration

and vice versa.

>> Yeah. If you are a

a lifting junkie, and you're very

consistent in your schedule, I'm

actually okay with body part splits.

Most people have

are not that. And so, the concern there

is if you say are isolating and waiting

to do your glutes on one day of the

week, and something happens on that day,

you might go another 13 days now before

training it, you know, between workouts.

And that's really difficult to maintain.

The frequency won't be high enough.

Unless the load and volume on that one

day is astronomically high. It's just

not going to happen. So, while if you

look at the research, um frequency in

terms of how many days per week doesn't

matter that much as long as the total

load and failure are equivalent.

Practically, it's a challenge. So, it

it's hard because life gets in the way

for most people,

especially if you have kids and a job

and and all these things with there. So,

I actually prefer doing something more

like 3 days a week of total body. And if

something happens, you've just missed

that body part for 48 hours, 72 hours. I

like that a little better for most

people, not because it's more effective,

but just because

it it's a little bit more resilient to

life, and you can get there. Um if you

wanted to actually do a little bit of a

combination, so if you wanted to do like

2 days a week of whole body, and then 2

days a week of a little bit of a body

part split, then you're actually sort of

hedging against all risks there, as long

as you get to that total number, there.

Now, there is actually some evidence in

a couple of ways that maybe a little bit

more frequently is a little bit better.

But, the difficulty is now we're going

back to the practicality question of

like how many people really can train

just their strength training 6 days a

week.

Well, that doesn't count any of their

long duration stuff. It doesn't have

their high heart rate, their

flexibility, their

Okay, it's just really, really, really

hard to get all that stuff in. So, it is

it tends to be easier on folks in terms

of execution and long-term adherence, in

my opinion, um to get that volume

accomplished in in

um a little bit more frequent patterns,

but not once a week. So, I I like to

kind of have it right there for most

people. Again, not because it is

technically {quote} more effective, but

because you're less likely

to fail to progress because of skipping

a workout, something popping up.

>> Great. Well, thank you for that very

informative answer. This was incredibly

informative. Thank you so very much.