Fitness 101: how to increase strength and muscle mass – Andrew Huberman ft. Andy Galpin podcast notes

Table of Contents

In this episode, you will learn about the difference between strength and muscle building and the major adaptations involved in these adaptations. At the end, you’ll discover some tools that will help you achieve them.

Importance of muscle mass and strength

 

    • We exercise mainly for 3 reason:

       

        • To look good: people want to look a certain way

        • To play good:  to have freedom to execute any activity you want

        • To feel good: to have energy throughout the day

    • Many people resist strength training because they don’t want to put on too much muscle. Muscle growth is not the only benefit you can achieve when you resistance train and you can choose to improve strength without building muscle.

 

    • Aside from the aesthetic part, muscle and strength are very important for longevity. It helps keep you moving well as you age so you can for example not require assistance to get up and be able to play with your grandkids.

    • We lost about 1% of muscle every year after age 40 and 2-4% of strength and 8-10% of power.

    • The problem we’ll have with aging is not only the preservation of muscle but of power and strength. You want to be able to stand up without help and catch yourself from a fall. Which is more a function of power than muscle size.


       

        • Resistance and strength training is the number one way to combat neuromuscular aging (neurons of the muscles not functioning well). You cannot get that through any other form of exercise besides heavy overload strength training. Why ? Any sort of movement involves

1- The nerve of the muscle that has to turn on 

2- The muscle has to contract 

3- The muscle has to move a bone

 

    • You can start strength training at any age

    • You don’t lose these functionalities because of aging but because of a loss of training.

    • A significant portion of our brain is dedicated to movement and the best way to keep our brains young is to do resistance training.

    • One of the things that make strength training special is fast feedback. You can get noticeable results within 4 to 6 weeks.

Difference between strength training and hypertrophy training

 

    • Strength is about creating more force across a muscle, muscle group or total movement.

    • Hypertrophy is about an increase in muscle size without a mention of function

    • These two adaptations can happen separately to a certain extent. You can get stronger without gaining much muscle. 

    • Connective tissue (ligaments and joints) do get stronger with strength training but at a much slower rate and the improvement is difficult to measure.

    • Muscles are the largest organ in the body (not skin unlike most people think)

Impact of resistance training on bone health and the brain.

 

    • Resistance training strengthens the bones and improves bone mineral density

    • You should start resistance training ideally in your 20s. It is when you can make major improvements in your bone mineral density.

    • You can still improve at a later stage but you’ll have to work on your nutrition and physiology as well, especially for females. It is better to seek professional help.

    • Load bearing exercise (resistance training) causes the bones to secrete a substance called osteocalcin which acts like a hormone that travels to the brain and enhances the memory system

Strength training: major adaptations:

Muscle fibers

 

    • Muscles are like a ponytail with multiple individual hairs. Each hair represents muscle fiber.

    • Each fiber has a motor unit which can either be for a slow twitch fiber or a fast twitch fiber.

    • Fibers are spread out horizontally, vertically, closer to the bone and further to the surface. This is what allows for a smoother contraction

    • How does someone go from lifting 10kg to lifting 100kg? What happens inside the body ?

       

        • Acetylcholine release gets improved.

        • Muscle contractility improves. Muscle contractility is the ability to produce more force or velocity independent of muscle size.

        • Changing the muscle fibers from slow twitch to fast twitch

        • Improvements across all the musculo-skeletal structure

Hypertrophy and protein synthesis

 

    • You’ve mostly heard the buzzword protein synthesis. What we refer to mostly here is an increase in contractile units which are Actins and Myosins. Together they make the muscle move.

    • We build muscle through the mTOR pathway which is the protein synthesis pathway. It is not only important for muscle growth but all the organs and systems in the body.

    • If you go for a jog will you induce the same adaptations as resistance training?
      The answer is NO. Endurance training without load activates more of the AMPK pathway which is responsible for increasing mitochondria function (mitochondria is where energy is made). The stimuli that induce endurance activates different gene cascades ( than that of hypertrophy/strength. The two adaptations should go through 2 separate ways.

    • Ingestion of protein alone can be anabolic (helps build muscle) without external stimuli. But only to a certain extent. 

    • Protein is hard to store. So if it’s available the body wants to use it quickly.

How to train for strength/hypertrophy

 

    • You can optimize for strength, hypertrophy or both

    • Non-negotiables of any training program: 

       

        • Adherence and consistency over time

        • Progressive overload: Increasing the load

        • Individuality: equipment availability, preference ….

        • Pick an appropriate target

    • You need a balance of variation and specificity in your programming. If you focus on specificity alone (ex: training only the bicep to target its growth), it may lead to overuse injury and hamper the consistency over time. If you have too much variation, the muscle stimuli maybe not be enough.

    • Exercises themselves do not improve strength or hypertrophy. It’s their execution that does. A deadlift itself isn’t a strength/hypertrophy exercise but the way it’s executed (load/reps/rests …) that makes it so. 

Muscle memory

 

    • Every cell in our body has one nucleus that houses the DNA. Muscle has many of them (multinucleated) which gives it plasticity.

    • If you’ve experienced hypertrophy before and you stopped training, you lose some muscle mass. But if you got back to training you get it faster than the first time it took to build it. Simply because the Nuclei has already learned how to build the muscle. This is what we call muscle memory

How to train for speed and power

 

    • Speed: moving something at a high velocity 

    • Power = Speed x Force. How much force you can exert faster.

    • If you are a high performance athlete you should train for them separately. If not there’s no need.

    • Intention is important: when you train for speed and power, you need to work with a maximal weight that you can work with as fast as you can.

 

    • The 3 to 5 concept

       

        • Train 3 to 5 days

        • Pick 3 to 5 exercises

        • Do 3 to 5 reps each

        • Rest 3 to 5 mins each set

        • Training for power is non fatiguing and you can pair it with other forms of training.

Periodization

 

    • Linear periodization: training one adaptation at a time. (6-8 weeks training for strength or hypertrophy)

    • Undulating periodization: mixing different styles of training. (Monday is power. Wednesday is strength, Friday’s hypertrophy)

    • Results are generally the same for either style of periodization

    • If you want to maximize an adaptation for a period of time, then chose specificity and linear periodization. If your focus increasing muscle max for the next 8 weeks. You should focus primarily on that to optimize for it. But the downside is that you’ll fall behind on the other adaptations.

Warmups

 

    • A good warmup is very individual. Some people do better with longer warmpus and some do worse because they fatigue easily.

    • When training for hypertrophy, you want to warm up long enough to feel ready to work and move through correct positions

    • When training for strength and power, your warmups need to be long enough until they allow you to reach peak power.

    • A good warmup would take 5 to 10 min. Focus on dynamic multi-planar movements that will move the joint in different ranges of motions. (ex: lunging forward/backwards/sideways …)

Repetition and cadence

 

    • Strength is force and force = mass x acceleration. Slowing the movement will only decrease your strength. 

    • In hypertrophy cadence doesn’t actually matter much. You can play with the variables.

    • A rep cadence example for strength: 3-1-1: at the eccentric part of the movement count to 3 (lowering bar to your chest – rowing down away from you chest) pause for 1 and then finish fast for 1 in the concentric part (pushing the bar in the the bench press – rowing up to the chest … )

    • For hypertrophy you can use the same rep cadence or use a 3-1-2. The important thing is to have enough volume to stimulate it.

How to breathe during exercises

 

    • If you take a full can and try to crush it’ll be harder than if the can is empty. The same happens when you take a large inhale and brace your core. You make a cylinder that protects your spine. Intra-abdominal is important and is a skill that very few master.

    • You should take the inhale from the abdomen not the shoulders

    • For 1 rep max: take a big inhale prior to the eccentric portion and hold until complete the rep.

  • For multiple reps: you don’t have to reset the breathing and focus on it every rep as it can be energy consuming. If you’re aiming for  3-8 reps, reset every third breath.
 

Tips & Tools 

 

    • When it comes to building strength, specificity always wins. If you want to get better at strength, the most important thing you need to do is that exact movement at that load. If you want to squat 100kg, you need to practice that exact specific movement.

    • To get an estimate of how many reps/set and volume you should be applying to optimize for a strength or hypertrophy adaptations , you can use the prilepin chart.

 

    • Carry exercises: farmer’s carries, yoke lock, sled drag/push are great complementary exercise for strength

    • Eccentric overload is one the advanced techniques you can implement in your strength training. You basically lift the eccentric portion of the exercise (lowering the bar in a bench press) and have someone pick up the weights instead of finishing the rep. This can allow you to push your one rep max.

    • Dynamic variable resistance is very good at training both your week and strong points. These are bands, cables,

    • Some studies have shown that music enhances performance. But make sure to have your playlist ready before hitting the gym to avoid waiting time looking for your next song.

    • How much should you train to see hypertrophy? Ideally, each muscle group, mainly, once a week directly and once a week indirectly. (ex: to grow your biceps, you’ll perform your bicep curl and it’ll hit it directly but training your back or doing a chin up will hit them indirectly)

    • Pre-exercise has been shown to decrease performance when it comes to power output. For hypertrophy you can stretch as much as you want. 

If you made it until now and you are eager to learn more, check out the other episodes from the series:

  • Episode 1: How to assess levels of fitness. Check it out
  • Episode 2: You have just read it. It’s this page 🙂
  • Episode 3: Improve endurance and fat loss. Check it out
  • Episode 4: Optimize your training program for fitness & longevity. Check it out
  • Episode 5: Maximise recovery to achieve fitness & performance goals. Check it out

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