Fitness Toolkit: Protocol & Tools to Optimize Physical Health | Huberman Lab Podcast #94

Here are my notes on the protocol: Sunday: Long endurance workout Hiking, running, Zone 2 cardio for 60-75 minutes, maybe hiking for three hours or so Monday: Leg Resistance Training for Strength and Hypertrophy 10 minutes of warming up 50 minutes of actual work, really hard work Not any longer, since past this point you get increases in cortisol that impede development. Choose a specific muscle group like calves or quadriceps. For each muscle group, try to get that muscle group into a weighted stretch position. For example, a standing calf raise, down at the bottom it’s weighted, plus another exercise where you’re getting the contraction in the shortened position of the muscle. For example, for hamstrings this could be the leg curl, for quadriceps it’s the leg extension machine. Look up specific exercises. Examples: Quadriceps → Leg extensions + hack squats. Hamstrings → Leg curls + glute ham-raises Calves → Standing and seated calf raises Tuesday: Rest Day (heat and cold exposure) Sauna to ice bath. 15-20 minutes in the sauna, then 5 minutes of cold. 3 to 5 rounds of this. Causes 16x growth hormone Wednesday: Torso Day Strengthens muscles of torso, shoulders, and back. Train your neck too. Bench press, incline press, shoulder press, lateral raise Bent over rows, chin-ups, pull-ups, cable crossovers. Push-pull method, go from bench press to chin-ups or similar Don’t do neck bridges because you can slip a disc Thursday: Mild Cardio Run for 30-35 minutes (you could also row for 30-35 minutes) If stuck in a room, dod jumping jacks or something similar Try to breathe only through your nose Friday: High Intensity Cardio Bike really intensely, max out your heart rate 20-30 seconds of full sprint on the AirDyne bike, then 10 seconds of rest Sprint for 20-30 seconds, jog for 10 Saturday: Arms, Calves, Neck Resistance Training Dips, chin-ups, 45-50 minutes Hope it helps! This is what I'll be using as my workout protocol.

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My notes: If having to sit at a desk for long period of time do soleus pushups. This is done by having your feet flat on the floor, lifting the heel to top of range of motion and lowering. This uses your soleus muscle which is designed to handle walking all day. Shown to cause over 50% improvements in glucose management after eating. Fitness types: - skill, - speed, - power(speedxstrength), - strength, - hypertrophy, - endurance - musclular endurance eg stay in plank position - Anaerobic endurance eg sprint for less than 1 minute - 3-12 minute duration range - 30+ minutes endurance Overview Each of these fitness types requires different concepts and exercise types. This will always be based on progressively overloading this system though. To get a balance of all of these (surely minus skill) follow the below protocol. This protocol begins on Sunday as an example. This is flexible to fit in with your life. As long as the days are in the same order it works well. Any day can be shifted one day forward or one day back. You can do two workouts on one day to catch up. After every training session do 3-5 minutes deliberate slow breathing to maximise recovery and hit next session harder. All resistance training: About 10 minutes warming up. Then 50-60 minutes workout including rest between sets time. More than 60 minutes increases cortisone, decreasing recovery time. You want at least one exercise that gets your muscle in a weighted stretch position, and one that you’re getting contraction in the shortened position. Most muscle groups just 2 exercises each is good, 3 per muscle groups maximum. For reps and sets, for alternate months do 4-8 reps, 3-4 sets, 2–4 minute rests between per exercise. For the next month do 8-15 reps, 2-3 sets, 1.5-2 minute rests per exercise. This helps prevent boredom and reduce plateauing. In order to achieve hypertrophy (muscle growth) it’s been found anything between 5- 30 reps is effective. You can choose to focus on lifting the weight while lifting which will benefit overall strength more, or focus on specific muscle you want to grow while lifting will achieve more hypertrophy in that specific muscle. Focus on deep relaxation between sets with the goal being to bring HR down. Do a ‘physiological sigh’ to facilitate this: 1 deep breath in through the nose as much air as you can intake, then another intake through the nose to fully inflate the lungs, then a long slow breath out through the mouth. This is the fastest known way to calm nervous system. Gripping the bar tightly help you lift more. Sunday: Zone 2 cardio, at least 30 minutes, but ideally 60-75 minutes. Being able to nose breath or hold a conversation is a good barometer if you’re in zone 2. Don’t stress too much about staying in it the whole time. The goal of this is to build and maintain your base cardiovascular fitness. You could replace this with a long hike. If doing this with somebody less fit than you you can add weight to increase your effort. As per Peter Attia, you want to get 180-200 minutes per week in zone 2 for longevity. This is the only zone 2 this protocol does though, so I’m unsure where you could fit the rest in (maybe on the ‘rest’ day?). Monday: Leg day. Goal is to build and maintain strength in your legs. As previous day is long and slow your legs shouldn’t be sore for this. This is the only resistance training for legs for the week, but leg strength will be maintained by HIIT workout. Probably the most important resistance workout to do due to the positive hormonal (makes other workouts more effective) and metabolic effects and forms the base for your body. Despite this, legs is often the most often missed as it is hard and people want a big chest etc for aesthetics. During the lighter, higher rep month you’ll notice endurance training being facilitated. Focus on safety. Complex movements like squats, dead lifts etc are riskier if you are not experienced/ trained. You want two exercises per muscle group (quads, hamstrings, quads). - Quads: Hack squats (reduces risk of injury from squats) and quads leg extensions. - Hamstrings: Hamstring curls and Glut ham raises. - Calves: Standing calf raises and seated calf raises Tuesday: Rest/ Recover. As you have just done cardio 2 days ago and legs yesterday, both cardio and resistance work will be difficult and not facilitate recovery. So instead, ideally do Hot/ Cold exposure instead of a workout. Doing all of your hot/ cold exposure on one day is more accessible and has cardiovascular, brain and hormone benefits (16x growth hormone release!). Do not do cold exposure post workouts as negates adaptive processes (cold showers OK). Hot exposure e.g., Sauna for 20 minutes, hot as you can without being dangerous. Then Cold exposure e.g., cold/ice bath 5 minutes, cold as you can without being dangerous. Repeat 3-5 rounds. Going for a walk today will be good too. If you miss doing hot/colds this day you can do it another day, just not 4 hours post workout. Wednesday: Torso (chest, shoulder, back and neck). This protocol brings the pushing and pulling motions onto the same day. This benefits strength, balance, aesthetics, and systemic hormonal and metabolic effects. Huberman did not specify exercises to do (or I missed them in my note taking) but recommended Jeff Cavalier as having good protocols on example exercises to use. Neck is important to train as reduces shoulder issues, correct posture form modern life and protects spinal cord damage in accidents. Need to be careful, do not do ‘neck bridges.’ Thursday: Cardiovascular 35 minute. Running, rowing etc. Jumping jacks or skipping good replacement if not much space. Aim is to elevate HR significantly higher than zone 2 earlier, but not trying to sprint. Start with 10 minute warm up. Then set timer for 35 minutes and go 75-80% of sprint. Don’t stress too much re HR, just push hard for 35 minutes. This taps into multiple fuel systems/ endurance types. Friday: Cardio: HIIT. Fair warning if you haven’t done HIIT before, you will feel like you want to die in this one. Benefits speed, power strength. (I find it a bit contradictory to do this after what he said about not doing cardio on Tuesday. I find a good warm up for both 35 min and HIIT vital to not have fatigued legs for days after this). Acts as a second strength exercise for legs for the week. Focus on safety, the goal is to get the HR way up. If doing complex movements (not on a machine), like sprinting, go at 95% max to maintain good form. Assault bike good option for this, using arms and legs, can go 100%. Build up to this if not already in good cardiovascular health. 20-30 second sprint, 10 second rest or jog, 8-12 rounds. By 5-6 rounds you will feel absolutely terrible. Aim is to feel like you can’t go any faster. Saturday: Arms, calves, neck. This also includes indirect 2nd workout for torso via the arms. Eg dips hit multiple muscles, biceps curls hit lats. This is why there are 3 workouts per arm muscle group, starting with the more complex movements. - Biceps: palms facing you chin ups, incline curl, dumbbell curl. - Triceps: Dips, overhead extension, triceps kickback - Calves: standing calf raises, seated calf raises. - Neck: look up Jeff Cavalier video. Variables: - Sick: If feel you may be getting sick, it’s good to train due to the positive effect on immune system, but reduce effort about 20%. If you are quite sick, skip training, focus on recovery then taper back into full training over a couple of weeks. - Poor sleep: Training may lead to you getting unwell and not training for a few days, so push the training out to the next day. Make it up with a double day at some point to get back on schedule. You may be able to ‘catch up’ some of your sleep with nsdr (youtube for a script). If feeling fresh post nsdr you can train. - Fasted or not: Training fasted is OK. Protein post workout is a good idea. Carbohydrates night before workouts, esp leg workout and HIIT good idea. Flexibility: - Ideally short repeated stretching sessions daily. - Static stretch, focusing on mentally and physically relaxing. Do this by exhaling and relaxing the torso and hands. - Statics stretch, not extending as far as possible, more like 60%, holding 30-60 seconds then repeating.

Thank you for your service! I am a 52 yo man that got sober after a lifetime of alcohol and drug abuse and I was a smoker. Came totally clean December 2020. Completely turned my life around. 2 months ago I started a simple workout routine after reading “Can’t hurt Me” by David Goggins. Your routine is one to aim for. The beautiful thing about the podcast is your choice of topics that are so beneficial to a guy like me. I had already read Dr Anna Lembke’s book, “Dopamine Nation” and consumed dozens of hours listening to Dr Jordan Peterson…and there you all are…top of the elite list of massively influential players driving me to be a better person spiritually, mentally, physically and emotionally. Thank you for putting this information together in a way I can chew and benefit from to hopefully share with others. Thank you again!

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Hi Dr. Huberman, can you do a podcast on the scientific approach to skin care? I.e. does/how stress, food, or other changes in the body affect our skin and to what extent? Thanks for being greatly informative!

I'm a truck driver so these soleus push ups are absolutely fantastic news for me because I can do them for 11 hours a day while I'm driving! This is exactly the information I really needed. Thank you so much for this information!!

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Your podcasts make mondays more tolerable! Are you going to do a one on social anxiety soon? l believie it would be beneficial for many people. Thanks for your work and effort you put into this channel.

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It's incredible that this up-to-date science-backed information on health & fitness is available to us content consumers at no upfront cost. An excellent, easy to understand analysis and summarization of complex research, I will not take this podcast for granted. Thank you Dr. Huberman, your work is an honest service to those trying to better themselves.

Just as I was looking to change up my fitness protocols, this podcast hits my sub-box. You're the best Dr. Huberman!

Hi dr Huberman I’m a double major in Electrical and computer engineering in undergrad right now and have always had a passion for biology/neuroanatomy and love personal fitness. Thank you for being a professor in the latter subject areas and providing these wonderful lectures each week!

Sprint Coach here, DISCLAIMER if you do not sprint or haven't sprinted in more than several months DO NOT SPRINT! You will pull a hamstring, or glute or tear something. Please take the time to ease into jogging, then running then build up to a full sprint over many weeks. It is also important to have strong hamstrings and good mobility in your hips/hamstrings prior to attempting sprinting. It is the most violent/explosive exercise one can do so save yourself some grief by easing into it over months if you are going to adopt the sprinting part of this protocol.

This advice is so valuable! This guy is an absolute legend for doing this for free and I hope people don't take this advice for granted and really implement everything they can and optimise themselves for the better 👌

This is really cool. I was born with CP and I don't walk independently, or for long distances even with mobility aids, but I can do these soleus push ups. Muscle injury, strain/sprain and early fatigue is a real problem for me, and other disabled folks. This soleus pushup idea is encouraging. Certainly going to try these for a bit.

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One should sit calmly with a notebook and pen everytime huberman releases an episode.

Really loved this concept of bringing together multiple learnings from multiple guests/sources in these videos. It's like a compilation and I'm living it!