Science of Muscle Growth, Increasing Strength Muscular Recovery - 2021

Title : Science of Muscle Growth, Increasing Strength Muscular Recovery Author(s): Andrew Huberman Link(s) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLr2RKoD-oY

• The neuromuscular connection: The nervous system controls via 3 main nodes of control:
  • Upper motor neurons in the motor cortex: Involved in deliberate movement e.g. picking up something in front of you.
  • Lower motor neurons: Involved in contracting muscles via acetycholine.
  • Central Pattern Generators (CPGs): Involved in rhythmix movements like walking or doing something where we don't have to think about it i.e. things done reflexively.
• The nerve to muscle connection creates hypertrophy.
• The major stimuli for making muscles stronger/better:
  • Stress
  • Tension
  • Damage
• Muscle growth is when myosin gets thicker due to one/more of the above.
• (Cavaliere Cramp Contraction Test) A good predictor of how efficient the strength and size of muscle (has to do with upper motor neurons) is to march across your body mentally and see if you can independently contract any or all the muscles. If you can do this to the point where you feel like it would cramp, it means you have very good upper motor neuron to calf control, and there is a good chance to change the strength/size of that muscle.
  • If you can generate a high contraction, it will take fewer sets to stimulate the muscle to maintain itself and grow stronger and vice versa. (Henneman's size principle)
• (Everything about) Muscle hypertrophy is about generating isolated contractions in a very unnatural way, which is in contrast to strength where distributing the load is what is needed.
• For beginners (0-2 years), perform enough sets of a given exercise /muscle /week.
• For intermediate, 2-20 sets /muscle /week. 5 sets /week in the 30-80% of 1 rep max going close to failure is required to maintain your muscle.
• 10% of workouts should be close to muscular failure i.e. high intensity. That is, most training should not be to failure, so you can do more volume without fatiguing the nervous system and depleting the nerve-muscle connection.
• For explosiveness and speed (e.g. jumping, throwing sports), learning to move weights as fast as you can is beneficial.
• For hypertrophy and/or getting stronger, avoid using momentum and slow down the weight when it becomes harder. Hypertrophy/strength depends on how the load is distributed over the body.
• Testostorone: (From Duncan French) Ideal protocol for testostorone release: 6 sets of 10 reps (even if it requires lightening weight progressively) with 2 minutes rest in between. Big compound movements like squats, deadlifts, chin-ups etc as single sessions i.e. not in concert with other exercises. Maximum twice/week.
• Recovery:
  • Flexing between sets promotes hypertrophy at the expense of performance/strength.
  • Resting for anywhere between 2-5 minutes can be beneficial in general (not in the protocol above for e.g.)
  • To assess recovery, one can measure Heart Rate Variability, test grip strength, or check carbion dioxide tolerance by inhaling through nose and exhale from mouth 4 times, and then take a fifth inhale inhaling as much as you can and them exhale as slowly possible and measure the time for this exhale. Less than 25 seconds means you have not recovered well enough. 30-60 seconds means you are in a position to do more physical work, and between 65-120 seconds means you have recovered your nervous system.
• Pre-exhausting muscles: To generate force in a given muscle and really isolate it, doing the isolation work before (HRV) is good.
• Rest of 2-5 minutes in between sets in general (not in for e.g. testostorone protocol above).
• Salt and magnesium is very important (even for studying).
• Time of workout does not really matter.