Welcome to the huberman Lab podcast where we discuss science and science based tools
for everyday life. I'm Andrew huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and Ophthalmology at Stanford school of medicine. Today is an ask me anything or am a episode. But before I get to answering your most frequently asked questions, I'd like to make an exciting announcement as you may know being a subscriber to the human lab premium channel allows you access to the full length amas. Otherwise, you can just listen
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So without further Ado, let's get to answering your questions. The first question is about scheduling Fitness that is how to ensure that you get sufficient number of resistance training and cardiovascular workouts per week. In order to best benefit your immediate
and long-term Health
now, I did an episode
Osode of human Lab podcast all about what I call a foundational Fitness protocol the foundational Fitness protocol is the one that I've followed more or less for the last 30 plus years and it certainly is not the only protocol that works out there, but it's a schedule that most people can adhere to overtime and that checks off the boxes for what the current research tells us. We need in order to maximize our cardiovascular health to maximize our neuromuscular health and to do so with a minimal time commitment. Now, I've already put together and I provide a link in the show notes captions.
For the foundational Fitness protocol in the form of a PDF which spells out which workouts are done on which days what the various workouts look like including sets and Reps what options you have in terms of cardiovascular exercise. I personally like to run but you could also use a row or you can use a stationary bike. There's a lot of optionality inside of the foundational Fitness protocol. And by the way, the foundational Fitness protocol is available to all of you completely zero cost. You don't even need to sign up
for our neural network newsletter. Although you can if you
like and again you can find that by following a
Link in the show notes captions or simply going to huberman lab.com going to the menu tab scrolling down to newsletter and then you can scroll down to the foundational Fitness protocol. You can view it
online print it out again
doesn't cost anything and there's no barrier to entry meaning you don't need to do anything to access it. You can just look at it or download it or print it whatever you like the basic structure of the foundational Fitness protocol is three resistance training sessions per week and three cardiovascular training sessions per week and then one complete rest day.
That might sound like a lot to some of you but in fact, none of the workouts is particularly long. I think the longest workout in that entire foundational Fitness protocol is about 60 minutes, maybe 75 minutes if you're moving slowly through the gym because somebody else is in the way or because you're you know, checking your phone a little too often
as we all sometimes do that sort of thing. But the basic
structure is as follows for me the foundational Fitness protocol starts as day one on Monday, but
you could start it as day 1 on any day of the week frankly.
So day one for me is
To train legs. So that's quadriceps hamstrings and calves and tibialis work the
front of the shin. For those of you that don't know. I'm a big fan of doing tibialis work. Then the next day is a complete day off during which you could do if you wanted something like deliberate heat or deliberate cold exposure or both but you don't have to it's just nice to have a complete day off after training legs because if you train legs properly often times, it can be a bit tiring and the next day you're recovering then the following day is either a card.
Muscular training session of about 20 to 30 minutes of say a jog at a slightly more rapid clip than one would consider Zone to cardio Zone to cardio
is where you can carry out a
conversation so a little bit faster than that or if you're not feeling like your legs are recovered enough to do that. You could do
the resistance training work on that day the resistance training
work that falls in the middle of the week is Believe It or Not tour. So I know that's a for some of you that are into more kind of body building type routines training your entire torso on one day might
Seem like a lot but really that day just involves some pushing. So some overhead shoulder, press type workouts or
dips, maybe some bench presses if that's your
thing as well as some pulling so some rows and some pull-ups or chin-ups things of that sort again all tailored to you so that you're not doing anything that aggravates any preexisting injuries and you're not going to do anything that's going to induce
injuries. Okay, so there's some pushing and pulling maybe a little bit of neck work. If you need some additional
next strength that sort of thing. So with legs on Monday rest on Tuesday that falls either on
Wednesday or Thursday depending on how recovered your legs
were then the next day which for me typically falls on a Friday is a high-intensity interval training session. Although really it's just about vo2max. It's about getting
maximum heart rate where you're breathing really really
hard and that's a very short work out. The total duration of that workout is anywhere from 8 to 15 minutes total. So for me, it involves getting on an aerodyne
bike. Those are those bikes with some resistance because there's a fan although you could do this on a row or
basically anything where you can exert yourself to get your heart rate way way up and breathe very very hard when
you're not
Going to injure your musculoskeletal system. You're not going to do any soft tissue damage. So you need to figure out what that is for you again, the PDF explains how to select that
for me. It typically means getting on the airdyne bike and pedaling very hard for about 20 seconds. Then resting 10 seconds 20 seconds hard 10 seconds. Rest 20 seconds hard for total of about eight Cycles by the end of which I'm breathing extremely hard. My heart rate is way way up and then I'll just shower and head about my day and then the following day which typically for me falls on a Saturday. Oh
Again, we're going to talk about flexibility and how to build flexibility into the schedule. The Saturday workout is typically things like biceps triceps some calves maybe a bit more neck work and some of abdominal work scuse me. So basically small body parts that can recover pretty quickly and that workout typically takes only about 45 to 50 minutes, maybe 60 minutes maximum and then the following day which is of course Sunday is a day in which I try and get outside and move as much as possible. So I'll typically do the longer Sunday cardio workout as
As either a rock so a backpack with a weight in it,
by the way, if you don't own a rucksack, you can just put a you know, a gallon water jug in their full and then you know, drink it as you go it'll lighten this you go or you could get a weight vest. If you have the resources to
do that. There's some great weight vests out there
a varying weight. You can
throw a kid on your shoulders. If you got a kid that once we carried on your shoulders, you can do it alone listening to an audiobook listening to music or in total silence. I've done all these various versions by the way you can do
With family members or with friends. I'll sometimes do this with my
significant other one of the great
things about this long Sunday workout is that it's extremely flexible in terms of how social
you are or whether or not you do it in isolation whether or not you do it on concrete or on dirt. It's very
versatile. For instance if I have friends over and I want to spend time with them, but I also want to get outdoors and do this
workout and if they're interested in getting some outdoor movement as well. Well, I'll
just head out for a hike and if they are less fit than I am or intend to move more.
Or slowly will then I'll throw on them, you know a 10 or 15 maybe even 30 pound
backpack so that I get a good workout out of it
and if they're faster than I am and they're the sort of person who you know is a triathlete. I've got some friends who are triathletes and they want to move
it a really fast clip. Well, then I'm not bringing any weight pack and I'm just going to ask them to you know, wait up for me because I'm going to have a hard time keeping up but I'll have to really push myself as I go along. So
a lot of Versatility, I don't measure my heart rate during any of these workouts, by the way, that's not my preferred way to do things. I know other people like to measure heart rate.
They go I find it's just really nice to get out once a week if possible
out of doors and just move my body as much as possible so that I head
into the week knowing that I got some really terrific outdoor time in nature while benefiting my
cardiovascular system and often while socializing with important people in my life as well.
Okay, so that's the summary of the foundational Fitness protocol and one thing that I really like about it is that the total time commitment
is actually not that great. If you step back from it you realize there's a, you know, a brief 12 minute workout. There's an hour-long weight training.
Out there's a long hike sure
but then there's a 20 minute jog. It's really not that much time. When you
consider the overall benefits to one's Health.
Now one very important feature of the foundational Fitness protocol is to build some
flexibility into it. You know, the way I described it up until now was okay Monday legs Tuesday rest Wednesday
cardio Thursday, torso Friday high intensity interval training vo2max Saturday small body parts biceps triceps calves Etc Sunday long slow distance.
Cardio,
but in reality, sometimes I have to
travel on a Monday, so I don't have the option to train legs that day
in which case what I will do is either slide that work out to Sunday. Meaning I'm doing both long slow distance cardio and the leg workout or I'll slide it to Tuesday, which is typically a rest day. However, sometimes I'm traveling on a Monday, I don't have access to a gym to train my legs properly. So what do I do do I skip leg day? No, I don't see.
Applied a typically unless I'm sick or I'm extremely sleep deprived or there's some other major stress in my life. What I typically do is I will plan for it by training my legs on Sunday or if I don't have access to a place where I can train my legs properly on Sunday. I'll just shift it to Tuesday. Okay. Now the question always becomes if I were to move that leg workout to Sunday just by way of necessity because I'm traveling on a Monday. Do I also do the long slow distance work that I typically do on Sunday and the
Answer is yes if I'm well rested. So if I'm well rested and well-fed, I'm not feeling like I'm fighting off any kind of illness and I have the time what I'll do is I'll train my legs in the gym on Sunday and then I'll head out for I don't know an hour long
walk in the neighborhood or something like that. So I'm probably not training my legs hard and then going hiking hard all day. Although I've done that before
but then I'm sure to
rest completely the next day which is Monday.
Now, what if I move the leg workout to Tuesday do then I take Wednesday off completely.
Well for me the way I train legs is typically with a lot of intensity. So if I'm going to train legs, typically the next day
will be a complete day off no matter what but that's not always the case. I
think as long as you're not moving your workouts around constantly, it's perfectly fine to train your legs really hard
on a Tuesday because you have to because you can train them on Monday
and then on Wednesday rather than go out for a jog. I might train torso and I might back off on the intensity a little bit and then I'll take a day off. I will say that any time. I do resistance training workouts two days in a row.
So I make sure that I take a complete day off the
following third day just for sake of recovery. I'm not somebody that recovers particularly well from any form of exercise. I find that if I train longer than 90
minutes, especially with resistance training if I crank up the intensity too much I tend to get sick or I tend to
stop making progress with my resistance training sessions.
So the basic takeaway here is it's perfectly fine to slide a resistance training session such as legs forward a day or bad.
Back a day. Okay. So I guess back a day would be from Monday to Sunday
or forward from Monday to Tuesday, but then you're going to want to make some adjustments accordingly so that you don't get sick or you don't
overtrain and that sort of thing.
Now, let's say that I train my legs on Tuesday, then I do torso work on Wednesday. And then I take the next day completely off. So I take Thursday completely off. Well, then Friday rolls around and I haven't done any cardiovascular training that week except for the walk that I
On Sunday. What am I going to do? Do I do my vo2max and a 30 minute jog? Sure. That's what I would do. I would combine the two cardiovascular
workouts that I normally do in the middle of the
week by for instance going out for a 20 or 30 minute Jog and then at the end doing some vo2max work such that by the end of Friday, I'm caught up with that cardiovascular training and then on Saturday, I would just go right
ahead and do a small body parts training and then on Sunday, I would take a hike and that sort of
thing. So basically what I'm saying is the foundational Fitness Pro.
Uh call provides a
scaffold of Ideal what you would do if you had a completely
non negotiable mindset where you said, okay, Monday's always lags. Wednesday is always this Thursday's always that so basically what I'm describing is trying to
achieve optimal right training certain things on certain days doing certain things and certain ways. That wasn't meant to run by the way,
but the reality
is we all have travel we all get run down. We all have lack of sleep at times. We have
stressful episodes in life. So for me the best
Solution to that is to basically allow anyone work
out either resistance training or cardiovascular workout to slide
back or forward by one day, which means sometimes doubling up on
workouts for a given day to make sure that I check off those boxes of getting 3 resistance training sessions per week and three cardiovascular training sessions per week again
for the cardiovascular training sessions. It's a long slow distance. It's a moderate 20 or 30 minute cardiovascular training session. And then it's that shorter vo2max cardiovascular training session and sometimes
I'm doubling those up on the same day so that I make sure that by the end of the week
I've achieved what I want to achieve which is I've trained my legs up during my tour. So I've trained my arms and a small body parts that need additional work for balance or stabilization or aesthetic reasons yet that in but also that you get the
base of the long slow distance endurance you get the
slightly more
intense or rather faster cardiovascular training session and then you get your heart rate up
up at least once per week doing that high intensity interval training
now as I describe all this I realized that
Might be taking what a few minutes ago was fairly simple in design and making it more complex. Why well, some people feel that as soon as you introduce flexibility into a schedule
you remove
of course the non-negotiable aspect of it and then people get really confused. Are they over training? Are they under training? Is it? Okay for instance? If you can't train Monday Tuesday Wednesday to then just train Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday, I think everybody is an individual everybody needs
to modify their schedule according to the
Bands on their life and their particular Fitness
needs but I will say this I found having tried many many different Fitness schedules many many different combinations of resistance training and cardiovascular training that the best solution is to find what you can do
on a consistent basis and to try and do that as many days and weeks of the year as possible with the understanding that sometimes you're simply not going to be able to meet that schedule which is why you allow for this sliding back and forward of individual workouts doubling up occasionally.
Two workouts per day in order to stay on schedule. But and this is very
important. Also allowing yourself to sometimes just skip a training day. Yes. I said it to sometimes just skip a training day. You're feeling a little rundown. It's late in the day. You don't want to drink caffeine to train because then it's going to throw off your sleep. Well, I'm the first person to say, you know Skip torso training day and then maybe on small body parts day which for me falls on Saturday instead of just doing biceps triceps with some isolation exercises to make sure you do.
A few Chin's pull-ups dips and things like that to make sure that
you hit those torso muscles as well
skipping a workout. Every once in awhile is not going
to Crater your entire fitness program. It's simply
not that said for sake of physical health and for sake of just feeling good about your commitment and
follow through to your fitness regimen you should
try on average to make somewhere between
85 and 95 percent of your workouts. And if you schedule things well and in particular if you leave your phone out of the gym if you're able to do that, I know
As
we need the phone to communicate with people or the potential to communicate with people if people need to get ahold of us, but if you can
leave your phone outside of the gym, you'll be amazed at how
quickly you move through these workouts likewise with your cardiovascular training sessions.
Now one important feature of flexibility that I haven't talked about yet is flexibility
within a day.
So for me just personally again, this is my personal preference. This
is by no means Dogma. I prefer to get my workouts done first
thing in the morning. So I like to get up hydrate get some electrolytes in my system.
Mmm, get some caffeine in my system if I'm going to work out. That's right. I said it I do believe if you experience a crash in energy in the afternoon delaying your caffeine by about 90 minutes or so after waking could be very beneficial. I know there's some controversy around that but almost everybody that tries. It finds that
that's the case again. No obligation to do that is just a suggestion to you know, perhaps experiment with if you have an afternoon
crash, but for me and I think for most people if you're going to work out first thing in the morning and you like caffeine before workout drink caffeine first thing in the
morning,
That's certainly what I do. If I'm going to work out that day. I like to have my workouts done before 9 a.m. And ideally before 8:30 a.m. So that I can move into my work day.
However, there are days where that
simply doesn't happen.
And then the question is is it okay to move a
workout from its typical time like for me 7:30 a.m. Or
so to the afternoon and the answer is yes. There's simply no reason why
that's not okay.
It's not going to cause a significant diminishment in performance. If anything the data point to the fact
that for sake of physical performance and output workouts in the afternoon are probably more beneficial. I don't know about that result. I mean that's certainly what the data say. I
know for me. I'm most alert and have the most amount of energy first thing in the morning. And so that's when my workouts tend to be best.
But if I can't make it work out in the morning, I'll sometimes do it in the afternoon around 2:00 or 3:00 p.m. Making sure however that I don't consume so much
caffeine before that work out that it's going to disrupt my sleep. Now, there's
another feature of training which is like sunlight like meals like
Socialization physical exercise provides an entrainment mechanism that is a predictive mechanism for your so-called autonomic nervous system that makes it such that a given hour of the day that you normally
train. So for me around 7:30 a.m.
Or so, you'll notice that there's
going to be a peak in physical and mental energy. That's right. If you work out at a given time pretty consistently
your autonomic nervous system will start to
anticipate that timing and you'll start to feel an increase in energy around that time that is not an imagined
thing. It's a real thing. It's a short.
Term
entrainment as we call it. This is something that I'll probably visit in a future full length episode of The huberman Lab podcast,
but what you'll notice is that around the time that you normally train or run or whatever. You want to call it you start to feel an increase in energy and you can leverage that by going ahead and training, but if you don't have the opportunity to train then I do think it's a good idea to still get that training session in at a later time during the day if you have the opportunity. Otherwise, you may have to slide it to the day before or the day after as we talked about a few minutes ago, or you may have to skip it entirely.
The point here is that
it's always going to be best to complete the workout. If you can complete the work out safely and without disrupting your nighttime sleep. I think that's really the biggest takeaway. I
personally am not going to compromise sleep and my
overall health in order to get workouts in every once in a while. I'll force
myself to wake up, especially early meaning I'll cash out a couple hours of
sleep that I would normally get so I'll normally get up around. I don't know 6 a.m. Or 6:30 kind of depends on when I went to
sleep. But sometimes I'll give up two hours of sleep to get a workout.
In the morning, if I'm going to fly that day, I will sometimes
do that. However, if I'm very fatigued if I've been exposed to
colds and flus, I'm feeling kind of run down then I won't do that. I'll prioritize sleep most of the time I prioritize sleep but there are those occasions in which
I'll prioritize the work out each
and all of us have those options and my suggestion is to really look at things on a case-by-case
meaning you as an individual and on a daily basis taking into account what happened the day before how stress you are how much sleep you're getting how much exposure to colds
and flu
And to pay attention to how hard you've been training recently, you know, if you're on a family vacation and you want more time with family. Are you really going to compromise time with family in order to get your workouts in? I think that would be probably a bad idea. You know, if I'm honest I think you want to prioritize social life that's super important. But then of course, you don't want to prioritize social life to the detriment of your physical health, so it's all a bit of give and take and what I've tried to describe here is again a recap of the foundational Fitness protocol the places where there's some
Disability you can move workouts back a day or forward a day. If you like. You could double up if
you like, especially if you're getting great rest and
you're well-fed Etc and you can also move the workout up or down in the day depending on how much energy you have how much sleep you've gotten and of course how you know rigid you are with yourself. Some people are just really rigid. They are completely in the non-negotiable stance. They get
their workout in no matter what because they feel as if they don't then they're going to be grumpy or they're going to fall off schedule other people like me
try to get
Workouts done. I would say anywhere from 85 to 95
percent of the time I get those workouts done occasionally. I skip them typically because life stress travel or some sort of low grade illness, you know a cold or a flu or something of that sort. I get those pretty rarely but they do happen. So that's really how I answer this question of how to build
flexibility into one's fitness schedule. I should also mention that I'm a big believer in periodization. So I will do for month blocks of training heavier with the weights.
So that's in the 325.
Repetition range then
another three to four-month block
will follow where I'm training
slightly less heavy. So I'll typically be using
anywhere from five to eight repetition range. And then for the next four months block, I'll be using somewhere between 8 and 15 repetition
range every once in a while. I'll mix it up so that you know, if I've
been training heavy a lot. I might do a lighter work out if I've been training lighter. I might do a heavy workout again not super rigid. I personally find that by
being strict and rigid about the scheduling about the Reps in the sets
etc for most of the time mean
85 to 95% of workouts and across the year
that things just work out great. You'll make constant
progress without having to drive yourself and everybody else crazy with extreme rigidity and compulsivity around training and then of course, you can
enjoy those days off you can enjoy the flexibility in your schedule because yes physical fitness is wonderful. But unless you're an athlete
especially a professional athlete
really physical fitness is about being able to lean into other aspects of life
with more Vigor. At least that's what it's about for me and I think that's
What it's about for most people thank you for joining for the beginning of this ask me anything episode to hear the full episode and to hear future episodes of these ask me anything sessions plus to receive transcripts of them and transcripts of the huberman Lab podcast standard Channel and premium tools not released anywhere else, please go to huberman labs.com premium just to remind you why we launched the huberman Lab podcast premium channel, its really twofold. First of all, it's to raise support for the standard huberman Lab podcast.
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