Dr. Andrew Huberman

Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.

reduce the amount of fat they're carrying, their hormone profiles improve.

People who are already really lean, if they go really sub maintenance calories, their hormones tend to suffer.

This is true for women.

They sometimes will stop having periods.

but also for men, their testosterone will drop if they're eating too few calories.

But men who are carrying too much body fat, who lose body fat, their testosterone increases.

So these rules about, you know, if you cut calories, your testosterone drops, depends on where you're starting from.

I have a feeling I know the answer to this question, and it probably can be answered in one word.

So squatting three times per week, deadlifting three times per week.

Lifting or Pilates for strength training?

Lifting.

Thank you.

How to grow glutes without growing legs and can, quote, hip dips...

be induced by lifting?

of the various muscle groups, including of course the glutes.

Like you can put like a golf ball or tennis ball like on your hip and it kind of fits.

And from the front, you'll see like the... No, I mean, are you talking about like if one lies on their side, it's like an area that you could... Oh, sure.

You could like...

Some really entertaining questions in here that are really specific to the topics that you cover and are expert in.

I understand that there's no such thing as spot reduction, but if somebody wants to lose fat from their abdominal region, is there anything they can do to accelerate loss of fat in that region?

Aesthetically speaking, should people train glutes differently depending on whether or not they have wide versus narrow hips?

And I believe this is a woman asking the question.

Dr. Brett Contreras is considered one of the most trusted voices in this entire space.

v-shaped glutes um then maybe you do more lower glutes and not as much upper maybe you don't do abduction but most of my clients train glutes the same way a lot of questions about grip strength you talked a little bit about training grip strength um if somebody wanted to add some grip strength maybe not do a full specialization phase of four weeks but maybe they just wanted to add some grip strength and they're already hanging from the bar doing pikes for their abs which i would argue is one of the best exercises for abs uh

and grip what specific grip exercise would you suggest so assuming they're already dead lifting they're doing stuff they're using their grip for pulling and this kind of thing hanging from the bar what uh if you had to give one grip strength exercise what would it be

Last question.

what is the most unusual but effective training tip that you've never heard or seen discussed in social media or out there?

Maybe something from the past that no one talks about anymore or something that you just feel like people should talk about more in terms of training.

This could be anything you like.

It's your choice.

So train the whole body, one set to failure after a sufficient warmup for each body part and do that

one, two, or three times a week.

If you're going to do it once a week, you got to pour everything you've got into it.

But if you do it two or three times a week, you can go.

Brett Contreras, Dr. Brett Contreras, excuse me.

Thank you so much.

You've given us so much knowledge.

It's really a masterclass, not just in glute strengthening and hypertrophy, but how to specialize in lagging body parts, how to prioritize training, periodized training, everything from calves, arms, glutes.

What does that mean?

That means that during all lower body workouts, you're doing squats and deadlifts?

We talked about rep ranges, you know,

It would take another hour to summarize everything you've told us in the preceding hours.

And it's just spectacular.

You're one of the few people out there that is degreed in this area, continues to read the research, is clearly a practitioner.

You practice what you preach.

And perhaps most importantly...

you train people who make phenomenal progress as a consequence of your training.

And I know that you're very, very proud of your students, your clients for the hard work they put in and their dedication and the feedback they give you.

And it's so wonderful that you take that and then you transmit it out to the world through your social media, through your, your course and here on this and on other podcasts.

So you're just a wealth of knowledge.

And I love the extent to which you share that knowledge and with such clarity and generosity,

It's just really spectacular to have this opportunity sit down with you.

And I know everyone's learned a ton.

And the best part is they're going to try this stuff.

They're going to implement it.

And I'm sure you're going to get lots of questions.

And at the same time.

you've opened this treasure trove for us.

So thank you for coming here today.

Thank you for all the work you've done and the work that you continue to do.

One thing that's very clear is that you are a lifelong learner and that you continue to bring in more knowledge and that you'll continue to share that knowledge.

I also want to thank you for the in-person training session yesterday.

We have, again, a link to that in the show note caption so people can see these movements.

You can see how they're supposed to be done correctly.

You can see where I was making mistakes.

You can see where those mistakes were corrected thanks to your instruction.

And listen, I hope you come back again and update us on the latest that you learn and incorporate because you're not just about the peer-reviewed studies.

You're about that, but you're really about the real-world knowledge that works.

So thank you ever so much.

Once again, thank you so much.

We'll have you back again.

Appreciate you.

Thank you for joining me for today's discussion with Dr. Brett Contreras.

To learn more about Brett's work and to find links to his various websites and courses, please see the show note captions.

If you're learning from and or enjoying this podcast, please subscribe to our YouTube channel.

That's a terrific zero cost way to support us.

In addition, please follow the podcast by clicking the follow button on both Spotify and Apple and on both Spotify and Apple.

And that's because he's highly credentialed, meaning he knows the science inside out.

You can leave us up to a five star review and you can now leave us comments at both Spotify and Apple.

Please also check out the sponsors mentioned at the beginning and throughout today's episode.

That's the best way to support this podcast.

If you have questions for me or comments about the podcast or guests or topics that you'd like me to consider for the Huberman Lab podcast, please put those in the comments section on YouTube.

I do read all the comments.

For those of you that haven't heard, I have a new book coming out.

It's my very first book.

It's entitled Protocols, an Operating Manual for the Human Body.

This is a book that I've been working on for more than five years, and that's based on more than 30 years of research and experience.

And it covers protocols for everything from sleep

to exercise, to stress control, protocols related to focus and motivation.

And of course, I provide the scientific substantiation for the protocols that are included.

The book is now available by presale at protocolsbook.com.

There you can find links to various vendors.

You can pick the one that you like best.

Again, the book is called Protocols, an operating manual for the human body.

And if you're not already following me on social media, I am Huberman Lab on all social media platforms.

So that's Instagram, X, Threads, Facebook and LinkedIn.

And on all those platforms, I discuss science and science related tools, some of which overlaps with the content of the Huberman Lab podcast, but much of which is distinct from the information on the Huberman Lab podcast.

Again, it's Huberman Lab on all social media platforms.

And if you haven't already subscribed to our neural network newsletter, the neural network newsletter is a zero cost monthly newsletter that includes podcast summaries, as well as what we call protocols in the form of one to three page PDFs that cover everything from how to optimize your sleep, how to optimize dopamine, deliberate cold exposure.

We have a foundational fitness protocol that covers cardiovascular training and resistance training.

All of that is available completely zero cost.

You simply go to hubermanlab.com, go to the menu tab in the top right corner, scroll down to newsletter,

and enter your email.

And I should emphasize that we do not share your email with anybody.

Thank you once again for joining me for today's discussion with Dr. Brett Contreras.

And last, but certainly not least, thank you for your interest in science.

He also has trained thousands of people and he gets them spectacular results.

Okay, so for those that don't know, supinated means palms facing you.

Palms facing you.

In fact, the before and afters of his clients are nothing short of extraordinary.

Palms facing you, pull down or on a pull-down machine to, you know, chest level or something like that, to the front, obviously.

So if you currently resistance train or you want to start resistance training, and perhaps you're one of those people who's wary about getting too big, or you want to just grow one part of your legs and not another, or just your glutes but not have larger legs, or maybe if you just want to be bigger overall, today, Dr. Brett Contreras shares the knowledge that anyone, novice or experienced, can incorporate into their fitness routine to achieve better results faster.

My understanding and my experience is that

if you do a proper warmup and then you train close to failure or to failure for one or two sets, maybe a third set, that it takes at least three or four days for that muscle to recover.

Now, I realize some people recover much more quickly, but I feel like most people don't.

So for me, it's always been hard to wrap my head around three times a week training unless people are not going to failure or they're switching up the movement so that the muscles are being targeted differently each time.

Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford.

It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public.

My guest today is Dr. Brett Contreras.

In keeping with that theme, today's episode does include sponsors.

And now for my discussion with Dr. Brett Contreras.

Dr. Brett Contreras, welcome.

I've been following your content for a long time now, and I and many other people are super interested in how they can resistance train best for the purpose of getting stronger.

No direct arm work, for instance.

Because they don't want their arms to grow.

Could you clarify bilateral, unilateral?

Dr. Brett Contreras holds a doctorate degree in sports science and is a certified strength and conditioning specialist.

And let's admit it, most people who do some resistance training probably want some hypertrophy, some muscle growth,

Okay, this is an extremely important concept that most people, I believe, have not heard of.

Certainly in exercise science circles, I'm sure everybody knows, but maximal recoverable volume.

I think this is so critical because it frames basically everything we've been talking about up until now.

And I also think it can help clarify a lot of confusion for people, in particular, people that are starting to do resistance training and wanna better understand what works and what doesn't work over time.

perhaps not in their entire body, some people do, but in specific body parts.

both men and women, but also experienced lifters.

Because my sort of weaning and understanding around resistance training came from the high-intensity folks, okay, those years ago.

And this can be basically summarized as you warm up,

You do a super intense focused set, maybe two, maybe three.

And then you maybe do that for another muscle group.

And then you take a couple of days off and then come in and train other muscles.

And really you're hitting each muscle directly once per week, very intensely.

both with mental focus and with physical intensity, obviously.

And then you leave it alone and you try and get stronger every single workout.

That was kind of the idea.

Nowadays, I'm hearing a lot more about the kinds of things you're describing, like training each muscle group two or three times per week, dividing upper and lower body.

They want to grow bigger arms.

So not dividing the body up as finely into like chest and back one day, shoulders and arms another day, legs another day and so forth.

They want to grow bigger glutes.

And doing a lot more volume but maybe not going to failure and certainly changing exercises each workout.

So these two things, obviously they both can work.

I think we were talking about this yesterday.

They both can work but –

There was this additional kind of element to it that I want to frame up here, which was the idea from Mike Menser and Arthur Jones and all the Nautilus folks that really believed in these really brief, super high-intensity, infrequent workouts was one that I do think is true, at least in my experience, which is as you gain more experience with resistance training –

They want to grow bigger calves.

you are able to generate more directed intensity.

Not like coming into the gym with more energy, but being able to really focus your mind and energy on, let's just say like a pull-up.

That seems to be a theme nowadays.

Rather than just trying to get one's chin over the bar, which is what we do early on when we're trying to get pull-ups and then just count pull-ups, you drag yourself slowly out of the bottom position, paying attention to really using your lats and not using the biceps.

Glutes and calves seem to be the new biceps, as they say.

So like

focusing on elbowing someone behind you, you get to the top, you try and bring the bar to your chest or even lower to like the, you know, for lack of a better way to put it, to the nipples, and then really squeezing the lats and then lowering yourself slowly.

This is very different than trying to rep out chin-ups.

And the idea always was that doing things in a more focused way comes with experience, that the beginner can't generate that kind of intensity.

They don't know how to do the movements, which led me at least to believe that

at the beginning when somebody's in their, say, first four to six months of training, that a bit more volume is necessary in order to really learn how to do the movements properly, really develop the mind-muscle connection, really understand how to train without getting hurt, and really learn what that MRV, we didn't know that concept back then, but really learn, you know, okay, I can train my legs twice per week, it's fine.

So let's start off with the basics.

Let's take the typical, if there were one, there isn't one, but let's imagine the typical woman or man in their...

But if I go to three times, I start getting weaker in my workouts, not stronger.

If you're like me, I can train my legs once per week really intensely, but you know what?

Not every muscle in my legs is growing the same way.

Maybe I need to do twice a week for hamstrings because one muscle group is lagging.

So the reason I'm sort of spooling out this essay here is that I think there's a lot of confusion for people about where to start and where to go.

And MRV seems like it should be the kind of governing factor, the compass in all of this.

So for instance, if a client walks into your gym

And let's just say she because you train a lot of female clients.

But this could be also a man talking about chest training.

But let's talk about a woman comes in and she just says, listen, I don't want to be big.

This is a comment you hear.

But I really want my glutes to be a bit bigger.

And I would like to see some abs.

And, you know, and I – and she's –

You know, she's done cardio, done maybe a sport, maybe played some soccer, but she wants to really focus on her glutes and her quads.

What do you do to assess MRV?

Are you looking for her to get stronger every single workout?

Or do you spend two or three weeks just like teaching her the movements?

Do you spend two or three weeks teaching a guy, hey, you know what?

You think you can do a biceps curl, but let's do a biceps curl where you really learn to activate the biceps at the beginning of the movement.

You're not swinging your elbow forward.

You're contracting the biceps.

30s or 40s who's never really done any resistance training, maybe done some yoga, some running, maybe did a sport in high school, maybe not.

Let's really learn how to bring like your pinky higher than your thumb at the top and really learn how to cramp that thing down

That to me is a skill.

It's something that requires time and it eats into recovery.

So the bigger question in here is how do you determine MRV?

And is skill and ability in being able to target muscles a factor in MRV?

Because to me, it seems like the most important factor.

Forgive the long question.

I'm just going to highlight it.

I'm interrupting you to highlight that.

If folks, if you can't contract a muscle without a weight in your hand or on your back or whatever it is, you're not going to be able to properly train that muscle.

And they are interested in building some muscle to shape their body the way they'd like to shape it.

Do you think people could do a self-test, for instance, where just on their own in their bathroom with no one around?

they could just kind of walk from calves up, just not walk physically, but just move from calves up.

Like, can you flex your calf on both sides?

Can you generate a hard contraction?

Can you do that for your quad?

Can you do that for your hamstring?

That to me seems like the most important thing to do before touching a weight or a machine, because then one can get a real sense of what kind of neuromuscular control do they have?

Because it's going to vary by sports, by injury history, by genetics, by...

All sorts of things, right?

What is the frequency of workouts that you could give us kind of across the board?

I mean, this is sort of like an assessment, a self-assessment.

What's too many?

He has over three decades of experience training everyday people, athletes, and coaches on how to get stronger and develop larger muscles.

What's too few?

I think these are incredibly informative things to do because then when you arrive in the gym, perhaps you put more priority on the muscles that you have a harder time contracting.

Isometric, folks, is where you're pausing the movement, typically in the fully contracted position, but where you're holding the movement and really trying to contract the muscle.

So there's obviously, you got to get the knee up to pee on the fire hydrant, but then you're holding it there and really trying to contract.

you can't get stronger continually over time anyway.

Eventually you get hurt.

We've known for a long time that there are things that we can do to improve our sleep.

And that includes things that we can take, things like magnesium threonate, theanine, chamomile extract, and glycine, along with lesser known things like saffron and valerian root.

These are all clinically supported ingredients that can help you fall asleep, stay asleep, and wake up feeling more refreshed.

I'm excited to share that our longtime sponsor, AG1, just created a new product called AGZ, a nightly drink designed to help you get better sleep and have you wake up feeling super refreshed.

Over the past few years, I've worked with the team at AG1 to help create this new AGZ formula.

It has the best sleep supporting compounds in exactly the right ratios in one easy to drink mix.

This removes all the complexity of trying to forge the vast landscape of supplements focused on sleep and figuring out the right dosages and which ones to take for you.

AGZ is to my knowledge, the most comprehensive sleep supplement on the market.

I take it 30 to 60 minutes before sleep.

It's delicious by the way.

And it dramatically increases both the quality and the depth of my sleep.

I know that both from my subjective experience of my sleep and because I track my sleep.

I'm excited for everyone to try this new AGZ formulation and to enjoy the benefits of better sleep.

AGZ is available in chocolate, chocolate mint, and mixed berry flavors.

And as I mentioned before, they're all extremely delicious.

My favorite of the three has to be, I think, chocolate mint, but I really like them all.

If you'd like to try AGZ, go to drinkagz.com slash Huberman to get a special offer.

Again, that's drinkagz.com slash Huberman.

Today's episode is also brought to us by Element.

Element is an electrolyte drink that has everything you need and nothing you don't.

That means the electrolytes, sodium, magnesium, and potassium in the correct amounts, but no sugar.

Proper hydration is critical for optimal brain and body function.

Even a slight degree of dehydration can diminish cognitive and physical performance.

It's also important that you get adequate electrolytes.

The electrolytes, sodium, magnesium, and potassium, are vital for functioning of all the cells in your body, especially your neurons or your nerve cells.

Drinking Element dissolved in water makes it very easy to ensure that you're getting adequate hydration and adequate electrolytes.

To make sure that I'm getting proper amounts of hydration and electrolytes, I dissolve one packet of Element in about 16 to 32 ounces of water when I first wake up in the morning, and I drink that basically first thing in the morning.

I'll also drink Element dissolved in water during any kind of physical exercise that I'm doing, especially on hot days when I'm sweating a lot and losing water and electrolytes.

Element has a bunch of great tasting flavors.

I love the raspberry, I love the citrus flavor.

Right now, Element has a limited edition lemonade flavor that is absolutely delicious.

I hate to say that I love one more than all the others, but this lemonade flavor is right up there with my favorite other one, which is raspberry or watermelon.

Again, I can't pick just one flavor, I love them all.

If you'd like to try element, you can go to drink element.com slash Huberman spelled drink L M N T.com slash Huberman to claim a free element sample pack with a purchase of any element drink mix.

These days, Brett is best known as the glute guy for his pioneering of exercises for women and men to strengthen and build their glutes in order to be able to move better, prevent and heal pain and injuries, and of course, for aesthetic reasons.

So it sounds like if somebody is relatively new to resistance training, like they're in their first year of resistance training, the lower limit, given that most people don't have a coach...

Again, that's drink element.com slash Huberman to claim a free sample pack.

Real quick question.

And then, um, more about what we're just discussing.

You mentioned six lifts and you rattled them off very fast.

I caught them.

People can slow it down, but

Yeah, I heard squat or hip hinge in there.

Could you list off the six things that you consider?

And I realize there are many, many more exercises, but what are the six that you listed off?

Squat, bench press, deadlift, military press, which is overhead press.

Overhead press.

Could be standing, could be seated, front of, you know, et cetera.

Then chin and hip thrust.

And there could be variations on these.

and are probably not willing to put in the kind of intensity for a whole body workout to just train once per week.

It seems like twice per week hitting each body part twice per week, so whole body twice per week.

That's what I'm hearing.

Were they training these every single day of those six days per week?

How many sets do you recommend per exercise after a sufficient warm-up?

one of the things that i've done as the years have gone by in order to generate hypertrophy and strength increases but not necessarily by always trying to add more weight is to change my mindset around lifting where after a couple of warm-ups do the work sets typically for me that's two to four work sets per exercise

Generally, it's two, occasionally three, rarely four.

But the idea is to make the final reps of each set, each work set that is, as difficult as possible.

It's completely transformed my progress in the last, I would say, two or three years.

I'm making more progress in the last two or three years than I did in the previous eight, despite having been at the resistance training thing for a long time and not really changed much else.

So the idea is always trying to do repetitions in really good form, always trying to isolate the muscles that I'm trying to target for compound movements.

I'm not trying to isolate one muscle, obviously, but to execute the movements properly in the case of compound movements.

And then as the set gets harder and I can say, OK, you know, failure is approaching somewhere to stop counting repetitions and just focus extremely hard on the form and execution and the targeting of the muscles.

So that a lot of times I don't even really know how many repetitions I did.

Of course, I know how much weight I'm moving, but.

I just keep telling myself, make it harder, not easier.

Make it harder, not easier in the final two to three repetitions of the set.

Sometimes I'll go to failure where I can't move the weight anymore.

Sometimes I get close to it and just stop.

And I've noticed that for me, this is translated to better strength and hypertrophy increases, but also just better ability to execute the movements and far fewer little nagging aches and pains and things like that.

So it's been an inversion of the mindset of complete

complete X number of repetitions at a given weight, then increase it every couple of weeks or every workout ideally.

My mindset is, nope, I'm going into the gym to use the weights as a tool to generate adaptation, strengthen hypertrophy increases.

And I'm going to make each work set as hard as possible by making the final two or three reps harder and resist the temptation to move the weight just to complete more repetitions.

I just like your reflections on that because I'm actually interested in getting better at what I'm doing.

And I imagine that is useful, but you're probably going to tell me that there are times when I should just actually try and max out the number of repetitions I can do.

Yeah, I definitely pursue progressive overload still.

I should have been clear about this.

I'll tell you who I think will look better, men and women, I think the people that focus on quality.

And that raises a new question.

See, I would disagree.

I'd say the quantity group.

You mean just heavier for more reps?

I have a thought around the role of the gym and training and recovery as it relates to how one feels outside of the gym.

I don't think I'm alone in this, although I've never heard anyone bring this up

kind of like formally introducing the topic which is for many people including myself the reason i train three times a week different body parts each time i train is because i also like to run the other reason is i love to train but after three or four days a week of resistance training i'm not as excited to resistance train i want to arrive in the gym excited to resistance train

I also have other things in my life and it's not just a matter of time.

If I'm training with the kind of intensity and frequency to maximize hypertrophy,

A lot of times I'm tired.

I need a bit more sleep and I'm not going to get that sleep.

I have a very, very full life.

I often say my dance card is very full and I think I'm not alone in this.

So I feel like for a lot of people, the ideal training frequency for them has something to do with, yes, they want bigger glutes.

And yes, they want to be leaner.

And yes, they're willing to work hard in the gym, but that they also have to acknowledge like the real life constraints.

Like how often are they really able to train five days a week?

Maybe in certain phases of the year they are, but I found it to be very beneficial to kind of set a minimum of three workouts per week in the gym, resistance training, two or three

cardio workouts per week, and then stay with that and adjust the intensity and do these various things that we're talking about so that I wake up in the morning feeling pretty fresh, so that I can focus when I work, so that I'm not dragging, and that I can carry my luggage through the airport like I had to do the other day without feeling like my body's going to explode in pain or something like that.

Today's discussion is a very important one because anyone interested in their immediate and long-term health needs to resistance train.

Because at some point, the gym for many people is the endpoint,

But I think for far more people, the gym is a tool to create a body that can do things in the outside world, including feel refreshed.

And so that's why when we started off today and you said, well, in principle, one could get away with training once per week, whole body, but you'd have to put so much intensity, you'd probably feel like garbage for the next two or three days.

And then pretty good for the remainder of the week, maybe divide that into like two or three workouts, right?

Or this lower, upper, lower, upper, lower sounds great,

But five days a week of training, even if it's, you know, varying the lifts, et cetera, just even like commuting the same way to the gym.

I don't want to sound overly lazy here, but again, people have stuff to do.

It would be awesome if people would look at their schedule, I think, and say, you know, how many days a week can I go to the gym and really put real work into it?

Progressive overload, focus training, all these things.

How much time can I really dedicate to that?

And then back engineer the ideal split and way to work out from there.

Is that something that is, it seems, I just want to check myself on this.

I'm not proposing this as much as I just want your thoughts on this as a trainer who's trained so many people and including people who are not physique athletes and just like people who want to like have a great shaped body, be lean, be strong, live a long time, feel awesome.

This is on the sixth floor of an apartment.

No wonder they didn't want you to have weights in there.

You'd drop through the floor.

Yeah, that's hard to do.

I mean, I love training.

And part of the reason I set that frequency at three times per week, I trained four times per week from, you know, from time to time.

But is it I love training and I love making progress.

And I don't like.

being in pain.

I can handle soreness.

I can handle pain during the set, during the workout.

I'm talking about, I'm talking about like headed towards injury type pain that just, you know, feeling like you can't get up out of bed in the morning because you got a strain or something.

But I've always loved exercise.

I never understood this concept of, you know, I hate working out, but I always feel better afterwards.

People say that

And I'm always like, I wish I could train six days per week.

I don't have the time and I just can't generate the intensity.

So you're telling me that there are genetic differences in exercise enjoyment?

I remember one day I was bored.

The science is extremely clear on that.

If you're injured.

Well, this matches the data that was published in science, I think about a year or so ago, which was shocking to the world that like,

Our metabolism doesn't really change much over our lifespan.

What happens is people move around a lot less, less neat, non-exercise induced thermogenesis.

And I totally agree.

And I'd not heard this idea before until yesterday when you said that

when we have a nagging pain or injury, we just move a lot less.

And when we move a lot less, we burn less calories.

And then there's a feedback where we tend to feel more lethargic when we move less as opposed to more.

One of the perhaps most valuable things that I've ever learned in my work life, my workout life, and just life, I try and apply this everywhere, and I haven't always been successful in doing it, is when I was a graduate student,

At Berkeley, there was a professor there.

His name is Bob Knight.

He's a neurologist.

So he's a clinician and a very good one and also a researcher.

And I remember asking him at the beginning of graduate school, I don't know why I had the nerve to do this, but I caught him outside of the building and I said, what's a piece of advice?

What's to being really good at this whole research science thing?

In addition to reading papers and learning the field and collecting data and I was driven, obviously, but I wanted to know how he was able to do as many things as he did, be a clinician, run a lab.

And he seemed like a

like a pretty chill guy which it turns out he was and I'll never forget what he said he said figure out what you can do consistently each week and don't do any more except under conditions of emergency like a deadline or you know just figure it out he said for him it was something like

eight to nine hours a day of real work.

This was before smartphones, when you would actually go in and do your work.

You didn't have to compete with phone for attention.

And he said for him it was also on the weekends he said that he liked – I'll never forget.

However, there are a lot of questions about how best to resistance train.

He said he liked mindless recreation that was not destructive.

So like not drinking a lot, not partying a lot, not staying out too late.

But for him it was fishing, hanging out with his family, and I think he was into exercising as well.

So I was like, oh, that's pretty clever.

So I figured out how much I could work per day.

across each week and still continue to do that output.

But he said something else that was really key that maybe we can kind of transport onto the exercise piece, because you can probably sense where this is going, is he said, and every five years update that number.

And I was like, really?

He's like, yeah, every five years.

He said, you know, you're in your 20s now.

Back then I was in my 20s.

He said, you could probably work 15 hours a day, which I probably did.

I probably at that time I was a little maniacal.

I probably worked 15 hours a day, five or six days a week.

In graduate school, that number actually went up.

But then I noticed I started getting sick a bit in when I was a postdoc.

So I had to throttle back.

And so I wonder if we could kind of transport that onto the exercise thing, which is – because we've got people listening now that are probably in their teens, 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, men and women, different goals, sort of like what can I do every week –

for the next five years, assuming you don't get injured, no major life crisis.

I feel like that's kind of the way I approach this.

And it turns out for me, it's just been three days a week of resistance training, two or three days a week of cardio, one full day off.

And likewise with my work, I adjust every five years or so.

And I'm wondering what your thoughts on, I take no credit for this.

This is all Bob Knight, MD, PhD, but I thought, wow, like this simple thing is such a gem for me because back then I thought,

I just need to work as much as possible.

But he understood eventually you'll hit a wall.

You need to update these schedules.

I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge one of our sponsors, Function.

Last year, I became a Function member after searching for the most comprehensive approach to lab testing.

Function provides over 100 advanced lab tests that give you a key snapshot of your entire bodily health,

This snapshot offers you with insights on your heart health, hormone health, immune functioning, nutrient levels and much more.

They've also recently added tests for toxins such as BPA exposure from harmful plastics and tests for PFAS or forever chemicals.

Function not only provides testing of over 100 biomarkers key to your physical and mental health, but it also analyzes these results and provides insights from top doctors who are expert in the relevant areas.

For example, in one of my first tests with function, I learned that I had elevated levels of mercury in my blood.

Function not only helped me detect that, but offered insights into how best to reduce my mercury levels, which included limiting my tuna consumption, I'd been eating a lot of tuna, while also making an effort to eat more leafy greens and supplementing with NAC and acetylcysteine, both of which can support glutathione production and detoxification.

And I should say, by taking a second function test,

That approach worked.

Comprehensive blood testing is vitally important.

There's so many things related to your mental and physical health that can only be detected in a blood test.

The problem is blood testing has always been very expensive and complicated.

In contrast, I've been super impressed by function simplicity and at the level of cost.

It is very affordable.

As a consequence, I decided to join their scientific advisory board and I'm thrilled that they're sponsoring the podcast.

If you'd like to try Function, you can go to functionhealth.com slash Huberman.

Function currently has a wait list of over 250,000 people, but they're offering early access to Huberman podcast listeners.

Again, that's functionhealth.com slash Huberman to get early access to Function.

Along those lines, let's talk about glutes.

When I was growing up, glutes weren't like a thing.

I mean, people still had them, but it wasn't a thing that was emphasized in the media.

Today, Brett clarifies how often to resistance train, what movements to do, and how to make continual progress, and in particular, how to build a resistance training program that is tailored to your unique aesthetic and performance goals.

There weren't songs about them.

It wasn't something that people selectively trained for.

Nowadays, you hear glutes are the new biceps, et cetera.

Setting aside different preferences about glutes, moderate glutes or no glutes, everybody has glutes.

Could you describe for us what are the major functions of the glute and why it's useful to build strength and in some cases hypertrophy for the glutes, for men and for women?

I think most people are probably not familiar with abduction and adduction.

Could you explain abduction and adduction?

I'm thinking about the exercise in the gym where people are seated.

It looks like kind of like a recliner chair or a standard chair.

And then there are these pads that either on the outside of the knees or on the insides of the knees, and you're either squeezing in against resistance or you're pushing out against resistance.

Or at least twice a week.

Yeah, the before and afters on your social media are super impressive.

I mean, clearly people get incredible results.

I want to make sure I ask a few questions that I'm guessing are on people's minds now that everyone's thinking about glutes.

Let's say a woman or man comes to you and says, hey, I want more lower glute max, the area where the glutes meet the hamstring.

What is the movement that you prescribe?

Let's make it extreme.

Let's say they were only going to do one movement.

or two movements for their glutes, and that's where they wanted more growth, what movements would you give them?

So holding dumbbells and stepping up onto a box.

Perhaps one of the most underestimated but powerful tools to improve your mental health, your physical performance, and your cognitive performance is ensuring you get enough hydration every day.

The unfortunate reality, however, is that tap water often contains contaminants that negatively impact our health.

OK, a couple of practical questions.

what is the most common mistake that you see people making when they do hip thrusts on the hip thrust machine or using a barbell over their pelvis in the gym?

I'm not talking about your clients.

I'm talking about when you go into a gym, because I go into a gym, you'll see typically it's women doing hip thrusts, sometimes men, but most often it's women, on a hip thrust machine or a barbell.

loaded up with the pad or the towel wrapped around the barbell and they're doing hip thrusts.

What's the most common mistake that you see and what is the solution to that mistake?

So while we're trying to get great hydration, that can cause serious problems.

So you're not getting into that sort of reverse table pose.

I think of it as like in gymnastics, I think they called a crab pose where you put your hands behind you, your feet are flat on the ground.

and you make right angles with your knees and you make your shoulder extension.

Like a tabletop.

Like a tabletop, like reverse tabletop.

That's essentially what the hip thrust is, except you're not going to have your arms back that way.

In fact, a 2020 study by the Environmental Working Group estimated that more than 200 million Americans are exposed to PFAS chemicals, also known as forever chemicals, through drinking tap water.

So really hump the ceiling.

Really squeezing at the top.

I want to make sure that we return to one specific thing before I move on to questions about stubborn body parts in general and how to overcome stubborn body parts.

These forever chemicals are linked to serious health issues such as hormone disruption, gut microbiome disruption, fertility issues and many other health problems, some of which are just now coming to light.

But the two relate.

So let's say somebody wants to improve their glute development.

They just want...

maybe bigger glutes or more rounded glutes or more shaped glutes.

It's funny whenever we say bigger when it comes to muscles, oftentimes like the, the men typically are like, yeah, bigger.

And the women are like, well, I more want shape.

But of course, tone is something related to leanness combined with a bit of muscle density, et cetera.

There's a bunch of stuff there, but.

For all these reasons, I was thrilled when I came across Rora water filters, and now they're a sponsor of this podcast.

Yeah, excellent point.

And I think that we can't speak for all women or all men, certainly, but what seems to be the theme is that people want hypertrophy of specific muscles.

they would like to replace what is currently adipose tissue fat with muscle and have more quote unquote shape to a given body region, right?

But in the end, as you point out, this means more hypertrophy, more growth of those given muscles.

And then the amount of adipose tissue is handled by the calories in calories out formula, plus a couple of other little details there that do matter, but are far less important than calories in calories out.

If somebody wants to grow their glutes, you've recommended the three types of movements that will do that well.

Rora makes what I believe are the best water filters on the market.

A vertical movement, some squat, hip hinge, RDLs, lunges, reverse lunges, step ups, these kinds of things.

For example, we discuss how to prioritize the growth and strengthening of your glutes,

Hip thrust, which you invented.

I didn't know that until recently, but that's awesome, that hip thrusts and then something for the inner thigh and the outer thigh, right?

I don't know if you're treating inner thigh and outer thigh both as relevant to the glutes, but something where you're pushing your knees outward against resistance on the outside of the knees.

I've been using the Rora countertop system for almost a year now.

Abduction.

Abduction.

Rora's filtration technology removes harmful substances, including endocrine disruptors and disinfection byproducts, while preserving beneficial minerals like magnesium and calcium.

Okay.

Let's definitely talk about that.

In the meantime...

What I'm hearing is the person that wants to grow their glutes should be doing those three types of exercises, typically those three types of exercises at least twice a week and perhaps three times a week with the understanding that the third session in that week may have to be at slightly less intensity that Friday session before the weekend if you really beat up the glutes on your previous two glute days.

But training your glutes twice a week might be sufficient.

It requires no installation or plumbing, so it's extremely convenient.

It's built from medical-grade stainless steel, and it fits beautifully on your countertop.

It's something that you would want to have in your kitchen.

What's additionally impressive to me is Rora's transparency.

You can find all of their independent third-party test results right on their website, and they report reduction data over the full life of the filter.

There's this sort of understanding that compound and isolation movements are important.

If you'd like to try Rora, you can go to rora.com slash Huberman and get an exclusive discount.

Again, that's Rora, R-O-R-R-A dot com slash Huberman.

Wait, where is the bar for, let's assume someone doesn't have access to a hip thruster machine and they're using the barbell placed over the

Today's episode is also brought to us by Carbon.

Carbon is a diet coaching app built by nutrition expert Dr. Lane Norton.

Oh, onto their upper thighs.

Yeah.

Ooh.

or arms or shoulders or calves or back, basically whichever body part or parts you need to emphasize while not losing progress in other areas, and in many cases, while still making progress in other areas.

I've used carbon for more than three years now, and I have to say it's among the most powerful tools for nutrition coaching and effective weight management that I've ever encountered, especially if your goal is like mine, which is to maintain or build muscle while also losing fat.

Now, I'm turning 50 years old this September, and even though I consider myself in pretty good shape and I've been training for a long time and trying to eat right, one of my goals is to hit 50 in the absolute best shape of my life.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Those are very helpful tips.

And I'll just add that

The glute medius exercise.

We'll put a link to that specific timestamp where you showed me the movement.

It requires no equipment.

I will say that adding those in,

even though I now realize I wasn't doing them exactly right.

But adding those in a few years ago,

on the suggestion of Jeff Cavaliere from AthleanX, resolved what I thought was a back pain issue completely.

To do that, I'm dialing in my nutrition using Carbon with the goals of increasing my muscle mass, increasing my strength, while also decreasing my body fat.

An ongoing nagging back issue that would leave me feeling completely debilitated, folded over, often from sitting too much or even from certain mistakes made in training and getting glute medius stronger, resolved that.

And what you just described yesterday and took me through was incredible because I could really feel the activation.

And I can really sense how it stabilizes the pelvis and does all the great things that people can look up that Glute Medius does.

So thank you for that.

Although we're mainly talking about the glutes, you've also been giving us a beautiful description of how to prioritize a lagging muscle group.

It just so happens that the glutes are lagging for most people.

Let's transfer that to essentially any muscle group with the understanding that different muscle groups have different needs, right?

Different size muscle groups recover more or less.

It can handle different volumes.

We certainly don't have time to get into all the details of that.

And it's highly individual as well.

But what I'm taking away from what you've said so far is that if one does a really honest assessment of their development, their aesthetic development, their strength development,

There almost always is one or two body parts that are lagging that need help.

that aesthetically or functionally or strength-wise or all of the above are behind the rest of the body.

I think men more than women, in my observation, tend to focus a lot on their stronger lifts in the gym.

I've been raving about the Carbon app to friends and to family and to members of my Huberman Lab team over the last few years.

Like, oh, if they can bench a lot and they've got really, you know, a lot of chest development, they'll like bench a lot.

I always want to pull them aside.

Like, listen, like lay off the benches.

You see these guys with like heavy lower pec development, no upper pec development, or just...

like huge chest and then like pipe arms and no forearms.

And you just kind of want to be like, listen, man, like, is it really that necessary to like lean into your strengths that much?

Could, you know, I think many people, men and women could afford to do an assessment of like where they could prioritize.

So can we just transmit what you've already said so far and just say, listen, if I want to bring up my shoulders, for instance, maybe I train them two or three times a week.

Currently, I'm training them once a week, but really twice because I train my shoulders on shoulder.

I have a shoulder and back day.

It's actually a push-pull upper body day minus arms.

And then on arms day, I'm doing some reverse bench dips.

I tend to do rear delt flies again.

And everyone who's joined me in using it has found it to be tremendously useful.

I do some things that I do dips.

So I'm basically hitting shoulders twice a week.

But let's say I wanted to bring up my shoulder development or another muscle group.

Would you suggest...

adding another day, like a third day, and then throttling back on some other aspect of my training, just as you would for glutes, because that seems to be what I'm taking from what you've said so far.

In fact, some of those people are going to join me in my approaching 50 fitness goals and body composition goals.

My birthday is September 26th, and so I'd like to invite you to join if you would like to improve your body composition and fitness to also use the Carbon app.

Now, there are a lot of apps out there that are focused on fitness and nutrition, but what makes Carbon different is that it doesn't just hand you a one-size-fits-all plan.

Unfortunately, it's not most guys' neck.

I see that a lot of guys need neck training and they don't do it.

It actually learns your metabolism over time, and it adapts your program based on your results.

And it's amazing how neck training can positively affect the male aesthetic.

Like you look at – a strong neck makes somebody look strong.

It also incidentally makes other lifts like for upper body go way up.

I've done it for, I can't remember how many years, many years.

Like 10 years?

At least 10 years.

It also allows you total flexibility in how you eat.

It's so critical.

The neck is the upper spine.

And also nowadays, everyone's hunched over in the C-shaped position because we're texting all the time and we're sitting too much.

But Jeff Cavalier has a great video on how to properly train the neck using a plate in the gym wrapped in a towel.

How do you do this with the mouth closed, nasal breathing, tongue on the roof of the mouth?

There are a lot of things you can do wrong.

So neck training, I think, has to be approached correctly.

And bridges, according to Jeff, are probably not the best thing because you can slip a disc and it happens in a moment.

So if you're looking to take a smarter, more personalized approach to your nutrition, I can't recommend the Carbon app enough.

I think neck training is vital.

I think women shy away from neck training because they don't want a larger neck.

And so I haven't quite figured out the solution yet.

to hand off to them.

And I'm not, again, I'm not a trainer.

Yeah, you have a properly sized and shaped neck.

To try Carbon, you can go to joincarbon.com slash Huberman.

While Carbon does not typically offer trials or promotions, they've agreed to give a free seven-day trial to all Huberman podcast listeners.

Again, that's joincarbon.com slash Huberman to get a seven-day free trial.

It's just no one would ever do it.

To me, what you describe for glutes and what you're describing now for essentially any body part,

There's a common theme here, which is that short periods of let's say four to six weeks of prioritization, training with muscle three times a week, different movements, perhaps even different rep ranges.

And this is the key thing that I'm taking away from what you said.

And then throttling back on the volume for other muscle groups, not panicking that you're going to lose all your development in these other muscle groups is really what allows you to bring everything up to the more or less same level.

Let's just, if you don't mind, I'll just want to take a slight step back and highlight a couple of things that you said and maybe clarify a few of them for myself and for the listeners.

And yet I also agree with the last sentence you said.

Most people lack the discipline or just the ability to throttle back on the –

volume of work for body parts that they're strong in because it feels so damn good to train the things that you're strong in.

And yet it's the exact opposite of what we need to do.

The goal of going into the gym to train is foremost to create a stimulus that you need to adapt to so that the muscle grows and gets stronger.

I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge one of our sponsors, David.

David makes a protein bar unlike any other.

It has 28 grams of protein, only 150 calories and zero grams of sugar.

That's right, 28 grams of protein and 75% of its calories come from protein.

This is 50% higher than the next closest protein bar.

David protein bars also taste amazing.

Even the texture is amazing.

My favorite bar is the chocolate chip cookie dough.

But then again, I also like the new chocolate peanut butter flavor and the chocolate brownie flavored.

Basically, I like all the flavors a lot.

They're all incredibly delicious.

In fact, the toughest challenge is knowing which ones to eat on which days and how many times per day.

I limit myself to two per day, but I absolutely love them.

With David, I'm able to get 28 grams of protein in the calories of a snack, which makes it easy to hit my protein goals of one gram of protein per pound of body weight per day, and it allows me to do so without ingesting too many calories.

I'll eat a David protein bar most afternoons as a snack, and I always keep one with me when I'm out of the house or traveling.

They're incredibly delicious, and given that they have 28 grams of protein, they're really satisfying for having just 150 calories.

If you'd like to try David, you can go to davidprotein.com slash Huberman.

Again, that's davidprotein.com slash Huberman.

I take one week off every, say, 14 to 16 weeks.

I just don't lift on purpose.

We also explain how to gain muscle while getting leaner, why the speed of your weight movements probably matters less than selecting the proper variety of movements to target all parts of a muscle, and Brett explains exactly which movements you should do in each workout to ensure well-rounded development

Sometimes life events dictate that,

most often it's deliberate, it's scheduled.

And I do it,

because it keeps things fresh and I noticed it hasn't hurt me, but what are your thoughts on layoffs of a week or longer in terms of them being beneficial?

In theory, one could do that by training the entire body once per week.

I mean, I will say if I go much longer than a week, like I've gone 10 days before and then I'm just going crazy, I want to get back in the gym and train and I'm doing other things.

I'm running, I'm doing exercise, I'm moving.

Or if I'm on vacation, typically I'm walking a ton, like,

40,000 steps a day.

Like I'm backpacking or I'm doing some other movement of some kind.

But if I take more than 10 days off, I then start to notice that my urge to train actually starts to diminish again.

But that would be a very taxing workout, probably requires a coach to do properly.

And then I start training again and it kind of comes back.

So there's clearly something there and everybody's different.

But what are your thoughts on layoffs of a week or longer?

Are you okay with your client saying, you know, I'm going to take a week off and go to Hawaii and I'm just not going to lift.

I'm just going to lay around on the beach and have a good time.

Or, you know, what are your thoughts on extended layoffs?

And in general, most people are probably going to benefit from training two or three times per week minimum.

Okay.

It does seem to be the case lately that most of the papers, as I understand, point to every muscle should be trained twice per week.

perhaps not as intensely in the two workouts, but at least twice per week.

And you said three times per week is probably even more beneficial.

I like this lower, upper, lower, upper, lower, low, low, low, low, five days per week format that you listed out.

I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine.

When I see that, I think, okay, lower body three times per week, wow.

Right now I train my legs once per week intensely.

So that's calves, tibs, hamstrings, quads, I know because of your tutorial, train adductors, the inner thighs and glutes, all in that one workout.

I would say learn to enjoy training hard, which means different things for different people.

People have different schedules, different pain thresholds, different goals, but there are many, as you were saying yesterday, there are many paths to roam.

I really appreciate you taking so much time to be so thorough about what most people need at the beginning, what everyone needs at some point in terms of specialization and how to specialize because it's something that's not discussed often enough

with respect to balancing out aesthetics, strength, and just staying uninjured.

And also it adds the novelty component.

It makes it fun.

We have some questions from the audience, literally.

I solicited on social media for...

questions.

I'm going to do something I rarely do during the podcast, which is to bring out my phone because I need to bring out my phone to get the questions that people listed off.

And there are a ton of questions.

So one of the most common questions here is what rep ranges should somebody use in order to bring up a lagging body part?