Essentials: How to Assess & Improve All Aspects of Your Fitness | Dr. Andy Galpin
Dr. Andy Galpin, PhD, an exercise physiologist, joins Dr. Huberman to discuss the nine major components of physical fitness and how to assess them. They cover practical tests for movement quality, power, strength, muscle mass, and endurance, and how to organize fitness testing for long-term health and performance.
Deep Dive Analysis
12 Topic Outline
Fitness Goals: Appearance vs. Functionality
Nine Major Components of Physical Fitness
Assessing Movement Skill and Quality
Speed Testing (Generally Not Necessary)
Power Assessment: Standing Broad Jump
Strength Assessment: Grip Strength and Lower Body
Muscle Mass Assessment: Fat-Free Mass Index (FFMI)
Muscular Endurance Assessment: Planks and Push-Ups
Anaerobic Capacity Assessment: Maximal Effort Tests & Heart Rate Recovery
Maximal Aerobic Capacity Assessment: VO2 Max Tests
Long-Duration Endurance: Steady-State Exercise
Frequency, Order, and Prioritization of Fitness Testing
9 Key Concepts
Skill/Technique
This component of fitness refers to the ability to perform movements effectively and efficiently, such as running, shooting a ball, or swinging a golf club. It's crucial for injury prevention and sustained training.
Power
Defined as speed multiplied by force, power is the ability to move a load quickly. It's distinct from pure strength, which is maximum force, and pure speed, which is maximum velocity.
Strength (Force)
Strength is the maximum amount of force you can produce or the maximum weight you can move one time. It's a measure of absolute capacity, often confused with muscular endurance.
Muscle Hypertrophy
This refers to the increase in muscle size, an aesthetic outcome rather than a direct functional one. However, sufficient muscle mass is critical for overall health regardless of appearance goals.
Muscular Endurance
This is the ability of a specific muscle group to perform repeated contractions or sustain a contraction over a period, typically in the 5 to 50 repetition range. It is local to specific muscles, not global cardiovascular endurance.
Anaerobic Capacity
This is the maximum amount of work an individual can do in a short, all-out effort, typically 30 to 120 seconds, leading to tremendous global fatigue. It's related to maximum heart rate and the body's ability to produce energy without oxygen.
Maximal Aerobic Capacity (VO2 Max)
This represents the maximum rate at which the body can consume and utilize oxygen during intense exercise, typically reached in 8 to 15 minutes of sustained effort. It's a key indicator of cardiovascular fitness.
Long Duration Endurance
This is the ability to sustain submaximal work for an extended period, typically 20 to 60 minutes or more, without breaks or significant reductions in output. It's often referred to as steady-state cardio.
Fat-Free Mass Index (FFMI)
FFMI is a metric derived from total body weight, body fat percentage, and height, used to assess whether an individual has sufficient muscle mass for health. It provides a standardized measure of muscle relative to body size.
8 Questions Answered
People generally pursue exercise for two major goals: achieving a certain appearance (aesthetics like being lean or muscular) and improving functionality (performance in strength, mobility, or energy levels).
The nine components are skill/technique, speed, power, strength, muscle hypertrophy (size), muscular endurance, anaerobic capacity, maximal aerobic capacity (VO2 max), and long-duration endurance.
You can self-assess by recording an upper body press, pull, and lower body press, pull (e.g., push-up, pull-up, squat, deadlift) from frontal and side views. Look for symmetry, stability, awareness of movement, and full range of motion at your major joints.
A good basic benchmark for a standing broad jump is to be able to jump a distance equal to your height. For females, this benchmark can be adjusted down by about 15%.
A simple and functional way is to perform a goblet squat hold: hold about half your body weight in front of your chest, squat to the bottom position, and try to hold it for 45 seconds while maintaining good form.
FFMI stands for Fat-Free Mass Index, which is a calculation based on your body weight, body fat percentage, and height. It's important because it indicates if you have sufficient muscle mass, with low FFMI scores (e.g., sub-17 for men, sub-15 for women) indicating severe physiological detriment.
It is recommended to conduct a full battery of fitness tests once a year, similar to getting annual blood work. This provides a comprehensive overview of your fitness and helps prioritize your training for the upcoming year.
Start with non-fatiguing tests like body composition and movement skill when you are most rested. Then, perform skill, maximum strength, or power tests early in the day, followed by fatiguing tests like muscular endurance, anaerobic capacity, and VO2 max later in the day or on separate days.
13 Actionable Insights
1. Assess Movement Quality
Record yourself performing an upper body press, upper body pull, lower body press, and lower body pull (e.g., push-up, pull-up, squat, deadlift) from frontal and side views for 3-10 repetitions. Look for symmetry, stability, awareness, and full range of motion at major joints (shoulder, elbow, low back, hip, knee, ankle) to identify potential injury risks or technical flaws.
2. Test Standing Broad Jump Power
Perform a standing broad jump, swinging your arms as desired, and measure the distance from your starting toe to the back of your heel where you land. Aim to jump at least your height (adjust down 15% for females) to assess lower body power; hitting this target indicates good foundational power.
3. Measure Grip Strength
Use a hand-grip dynamometer to test each hand, aiming for a minimum of 40 kilograms for men and 35 kilograms for women, with no more than 10% variation between hands. Alternatively, perform a dead hang from a pull-up bar for at least 30 seconds to gauge upper body and forearm strength.
4. Evaluate Leg Strength
Perform a leg extension test, aiming to lift your body weight (adjusting down 10% per decade after age 40). If a machine isn’t available, hold a goblet squat at the bottom position with half your body weight for 45 seconds, which also assesses core strength and low back stability.
5. Gauge Muscular Endurance
Perform consecutive push-ups, aiming for 25+ for men and 15+ for women, ensuring full lockout at the top and chest touch at the bottom. Alternatively, take a strength test (like leg extension) at 75% of your one-rep max and aim for more than 8 repetitions to assess local muscle stamina.
6. Check Heart Rate Recovery
After a maximal effort test (e.g., 30-45 seconds of all-out work), measure your heart rate. Aim for a recovery of approximately 30 beats per minute within 60 seconds and 60 beats within two minutes to assess your anaerobic and cardiovascular capacity.
7. Estimate VO2 Max
Perform a 12-minute Cooper’s test (running the maximum distance you can in 12 minutes) or a 1-mile walk test (recording time and heart rate at the end). Use an online calculator to estimate your VO2 max, as these tests provide a good indicator of maximal aerobic capacity.
8. Maintain Long-Duration Endurance
Sustain a non-walking pace exercise for a minimum of 20 minutes without breaks, ideally breathing through your nose only. This demonstrates your ability to maintain consistent submaximal work output over an extended period.
9. Standardize Warm-Ups for Testing
Always use a consistent warm-up protocol before performing any fitness tests, especially when tracking progress over time. The quality and consistency of your warm-up significantly impact your test results.
10. Prioritize Training Weaknesses
Use your annual fitness assessment results to identify ‘performance anchors’ or areas of severe limitation. Focus your training on improving these weaker areas to remove constraints and enhance overall health and performance.
11. Schedule Annual Fitness Battery
Conduct a full battery of fitness tests once a year, ideally over two to three days, to gain a comprehensive understanding of your fitness levels. This provides a clear barometer to guide your training priorities for the subsequent quarter or half-year.
12. Rest Before Body Composition Tests
Avoid any hard exercise for 48 hours before undergoing body composition measurements (like a DEXA scan). Acute exercise can influence results due to inflammation and water storage, potentially skewing the accuracy.
13. Order Tests Logically
Perform non-fatiguing tests (body composition, movement skill) when most fresh, ideally as the very first activity. Schedule skill, maximum strength, or power tests at the beginning of a training day, and fatiguing tests (muscular endurance, anaerobic, VO2 max) later in the day or on separate days to ensure optimal performance and accurate results.
5 Key Quotes
If you look at a kind of a minimal number there, it's generally 20 minutes of what we're looking for. But a more typical would be 20 to 60 minutes. But anything past that would still be limited by your long duration endurance.
Dr. Andy Galpin
If you're 5'5", you should hit 5'5", 6'5", etc. That's going to ratchet down a little bit, about 15% for females. They just simply don't have the power in general that men have, and so you're going to want to bring that down a little bit.
Dr. Andy Galpin
Your non-dominant hand actually shouldn't be that much weaker in this test. So what you'll actually see a lot of times is the non-dominant can be oftentimes stronger because the dominant hand is more for movement precision, writing, things like that.
Dr. Andy Galpin
If your FFMI is like 24, 25 but your body fat is like 40%, you're actually just a very, very large individual. You're not in a gray spot.
Dr. Andy Galpin
You don't need to be optimal in all these areas to be quote unquote optimal health from this perspective. You just want to make sure again there's no severe performance anchors.
Dr. Andy Galpin
2 Protocols
Movement Quality Self-Assessment
Dr. Andy Galpin- Select representative movements: an upper body press (e.g., push-up), an upper body pull (e.g., pull-up or bent row), a lower body press (e.g., squat), and a lower body pull (e.g., deadlift).
- Record yourself performing 3-10 repetitions of each movement from both a frontal view and a side view, moving slowly and in a controlled manner.
- Review the recordings, looking for four key things: 1) Symmetry (left vs. right limb, front vs. back movement), 2) Stability (control of movement, absence of shaking or unwanted shifts), 3) Awareness (identifying if technical flaws are simply due to lack of knowledge), and 4) Full Range of Motion (ensuring joints move through their full, uncompromised range).
Annual Fitness Testing Schedule
Dr. Andy Galpin- Begin with non-fatiguing tests: Perform body composition measurements (like a DEXA scan) after at least 48 hours of rest from hard exercise to avoid skewed results. Also, complete movement quality assessments when fresh.
- Day 1 (Strength & Power): Conduct power tests (e.g., standing broad jump) and maximum strength tests (e.g., grip strength, leg extension 1RM or estimated 1RM). Follow these with muscular endurance tests (e.g., 75% 1RM reps) for the same muscle groups while still warmed up.
- Day 2 (Anaerobic & Aerobic): Perform anaerobic capacity tests (e.g., 30-45 second maximal effort test followed by heart rate recovery).
- Day 3 (Aerobic Endurance): Conduct maximal aerobic capacity (VO2 max) tests (e.g., 12-minute Cooper's test or 1-mile walk test) and long-duration endurance tests (e.g., 20+ minutes steady-state exercise).