Essentials: How to Build Strength, Muscle Size & Endurance | Dr. Andy Galpin

1. Post-Workout Downregulation

After a workout, dedicate 3-5 minutes to downregulate your nervous system using breath control, such as nasal breathing with exhales twice as long as inhales, or box breathing. This practice significantly speeds up recovery and prevents post-workout energy dips.

2. Implement Progressive Overload

To ensure continuous improvement in any exercise adaptation, consistently increase the stress on your body by adding more weight, repetitions, training frequency, or movement complexity. This is crucial for physiological adaptation and avoiding stagnation.

3. Maximize Intent in Lifts

When training for strength or power, consciously intend to move the weight as fast as possible, and for hypertrophy, actively focus on contracting the target muscle. This mental engagement enhances neural drive and improves adaptation.

4. Manage Workout Soreness

Do not use extreme soreness as a metric for workout quality, as it can lead to missed sessions and reduced total training volume over time. Aim for slight soreness, prioritizing consistent training frequency over intense, infrequent workouts.

5. Hypertrophy Volume & Frequency

Target 10 to 20 working sets per muscle group per week for hypertrophy, with advanced individuals potentially needing more. Distribute this volume across at least two, and ideally three, training sessions per week per muscle group to maximize growth.

6. Strength Training Protocol

To build strength, use high loads (above 85% of your one-rep max for moderately trained individuals, maybe 75% for beginners) for 5 repetitions or less per set, as this intensity recruits crucial fast-twitch muscle fibers. Ensure proper warm-up by gradually increasing intensity and decreasing reps before working sets.

7. Hypertrophy Reps and Failure

Achieve effective hypertrophy with 5 to 30 repetitions per set, ensuring you train close to muscular failure. Varying rep ranges can keep workouts engaging and stimulate muscle growth through different mechanisms like metabolic stress and mechanical tension.

8. Implement 3x5 Training Protocol

Utilize the ‘3 to 5 concept’ for strength and power: choose 3-5 exercises, perform 3-5 reps for 3-5 sets, with 3-5 minutes rest between sets, 3-5 times per week. This flexible protocol can be adjusted based on your energy levels and available time.

9. Prioritize Full Range of Motion

Strive to move every joint through its full range of motion during exercises, always maintaining good form and avoiding injury. This approach generally enhances both strength and hypertrophy development and reduces injury risk.

10. Optimize Strength Rest Intervals

Rest for 2 to 4 minutes between sets during strength training to allow for full recovery and maintain the high intensity required for strength adaptation. To optimize time, consider supersetting exercises that target different muscle groups.

11. Activate Underperforming Muscles

Improve activation of difficult-to-target muscle groups by using awareness techniques, such as tactile prompts or mental focus, and by incorporating eccentric overload (e.g., slowly lowering the weight). This helps build control and strength in the desired muscle.

12. Diversify Exercise Selection

For a balanced workout, select exercises that cover key movement patterns: upper body press (e.g., bench press, overhead press), upper body pull (e.g., bent row, pull-up), lower body hinge (e.g., deadlift), and lower body press (e.g., squat).

13. Power Training Intensity

For power development, use lighter loads (40-70% of your one-rep max) and focus on moving the weight with maximum speed and intent. While strength helps, prioritizing velocity is crucial for enhancing power.

14. Hypertrophy Recovery Window

For optimal muscle growth, allow 48 to 72 hours of recovery for a muscle group before training it again, as this window is essential for protein synthesis and tissue building. Training too frequently can blunt the growth response.

15. Strategic Breathing During Lifts

During resistance training, a general strategy is to brace and hold your breath during the eccentric (lowering) portion of the lift, then exhale during the concentric (lifting) portion, especially for sets with multiple repetitions.