Exercise Scientist’s FASTEST Way To GAIN Muscle

You said there's two types of effective training. One of them is h can't say

training. One of them is h can't say this better. One of them is hypertrophy.

this better. One of them is hypertrophy.

Very good.

And the other one is periodization.

Uh so periodization is the scientifically based organization of any kind of training that you want.

Okay.

Hypertrophy training is a type of training. It's just muscle growth

training. It's just muscle growth training. It's like a fancy [ __ ]

training. It's like a fancy [ __ ] science word for just getting more jacked, putting on muscle. That's the

tactical definition of hypertrophy. And

when you train hypertrophy, you can do it kind of like by feel and more or less at random and you'll get pretty good results in most cases. But to get your best results, you want that training to be periodized. Periodization is the

be periodized. Periodization is the scientific approach to how to organize your training to get sort of roughly three things. Some of these are a bit

three things. Some of these are a bit more for athletes and not regular people. Get the best results that you

people. Get the best results that you can. peak at an appropriate time abs for

can. peak at an appropriate time abs for summer and minimize injury risk and taking all the science that we know that plan that you've made because you did it

in an evidence-based fashion that is now what is considered a periodized plan. So

that's how those two concepts relate to each other. What do I need to know about

each other. What do I need to know about hypertrophy in order to be able to achieve it? Is there anything really

achieve it? Is there anything really foundational? Because

foundational? Because I think everyone wants a bit of muscle growth and I spend I think I spend too long in the gym. I think I could be much more efficient um when I'm training.

What would you recommend that I start thinking about as foundational principles when it comes to hypertrophy muscle growth? One is specificity. It's

muscle growth? One is specificity. It's

the most important principle in all of sport training and exercise science is uh what am I here for? What do I want?

Because you can do a bunch of exercises in the gym and you're like that was great. And someone's like, are you

great. And someone's like, are you getting the results you like? You're

like, "Well, I what I want is a bigger bicep." Like, "How many bicep exercises

bicep." Like, "How many bicep exercises do you do?" Like, I think upright rows maybe.

So, I want a bigger bicep bicep.

If you just focus on me give getting Steven Butler a bigger left bicep.

So, specificity is telling yourself, okay, I want bigger biceps and whatever xyz other muscles. Then we move in to the principle of overload, which means

you have to challenge yourself.

If most of your sets, someone else watching them can't tell if you're warming up or doing what's called a working set, like a real set, you have a problem. So towards the end of all of

a problem. So towards the end of all of your sets, either the weights are slowing down or even if it's the same speed to you, they feel perceptively

harder. You know, you do this, this,

harder. You know, you do this, this, this, and in a couple reps, you're like, that's what you want. Every real working set should be challenging. You should be work approaching every real sense with

just a teeny teeny dose of trepidation like, "Oh boy, here we go. I'm going to have to try." Once you have that, and a set is a a group of repetitions, correct?

So if I do 10 repetitions, that's one set.

One set. Yeah. And so your sets have to be sufficiently heavy. uh anything

between roughly five reps per set and 30 reps per set where the last few reps are getting close to you not being able to use good technique and lift the weights.

Check plus.

So there's not a set a perfect amount of repetitions to do.

There is it's a trade secret and I'd have to say it off camera to you. ND8.

Okay, we're off camera.

All right, great. So it's 17.

Um there is So there's just tons of tons of contextual nuance kind of stuff. Some

people, some of their muscles will seem respond better to sets of five to 10.

Other folks, even the same person could have muscles in their body that really respond better to sets of 20 to 30 and everything in between. But generally,

you get in in the exercise science data, you'll have a group of people training for sets of roughly five reps and another group training for sets of roughly 30 reps. And their change in

muscle growth over 8, 12, 16 weeks is statistically undifferiable. Which means

statistically undifferiable. Which means if I delabel the groups and you don't know which one's which, you can't actually tell me who trained with higher reps or lower reps. For muscle growth, it's roughly the same.

That's so crazy. We're using the same weight. I'm guessing no different.

weight. I'm guessing no different.

A weight that is challenging for five reps is much heavier than a weight that is challenging for 30.

Okay. So, I do wonder this all the time when I go to the gym. I wonder if I should be doing, I don't know, 30 reps of 10 kg on my bicep or I should be doing 10 reps of 20 kg.

They're both right answers. No wrong

answers there. And they both have the same chance of growing my muscles as long as the strain that I experience subjectively is difficult at the end of those sets.

Correct.

Okay. Interesting.

Which is really good news because that's like another thing you don't have to worry about.

Which means at home I can get any range of weights versus having to get really really big ones to go.

As long as they're not so tiny that you're on rep number 45 and you're like I could just do this for forever. Or

they're not so enormous that you're like I can't really even do two reps of this.

Anything between roughly five and roughly 30 reps challenging is really really good.

How many sets and how often do I have to visit the gym to get this bicep to grow?

That answer depends on how much you've been doing before.

Okay.

But if you're new to the gym, two sessions a week with two to three sets per session for your biceps is something that's going to cause months and months

and months of consistent progress. Can

you do more? Yes. Do you have to do as a beginner? No. Eventually, as a more

beginner? No. Eventually, as a more advanced person, do you need to do more sets and perhaps more sessions to get consistently better results? Yes. But

for beginners who haven't been in the gym very much or at all, the minimal effective dose is profoundly small.

Which is why I can say things like if you work out for 20 minutes twice a week, you're going to get great gains.

What if I go to the gym and I do six sets on my biceps and I just go to the gym once a week? Does the distance between the workouts in a muscle group have an impact?

Yes. Once a week training gives you good results, but twice a week training for the same muscle gives you notably better results. Training three times a week

results. Training three times a week versus twice, training four times a week versus three times, training five times a week versus four times is uh an an

exponentially deescalating amount of impressive differences. So, one time a

impressive differences. So, one time a week works. It'll get you results. Two

week works. It'll get you results. Two

times a week gets you like one and a half times the results. Like way better better. Three times a week is like

better. Three times a week is like another little bit more results. Still

notable. Four times a week is like you got to be training for a while to notice the difference between three and four.

Four and five is contextual and nuanced.

And I can't actually tell you that categorically 5 days a week is better than four. There are some things I would

than four. There are some things I would have to know about your plan and everything else to make that conclusion.

So really, I want to be aiming at twice a week per muscle group.

Twice is our minimum. Two to four times a week is what I say is kind of the best overall recommendation per muscle group.

And if you train all of your muscles together at the same time, a whole body workout, which most people in the realm of just I'm busy and I can't train a lot, it would be all of the mus major

muscles of your body in the same session twice or three times or four times a week. And that is an awesome beginner

week. And that is an awesome beginner fitness plan. What's going on in my

fitness plan. What's going on in my muscles that's encouraging them and making them grow? And when are they growing? Is it when I go to bed at

growing? Is it when I go to bed at night? Is it when I do they grow the

night? Is it when I do they grow the minute that I curl the the dumbbell?

What's actually going on? Because

sometimes understanding what's actually going on inside helps me to think through and change my behavior.

Yeah. So uh the primary stimulus for muscle growth is there are molecular machines in your muscles in your muscle

cells and they are designed to detect the presence of tension. And when your muscles generate tension the molecular detector machines go we got tension here

and they start uh saying to other parts of the cells like hey uh let's get this muscle growth thing started. Started not

happening started. It's a stimulus of muscle growth. There are a couple of

muscle growth. There are a couple of other mechanisms which might slash probably have an effect and that a couple of them are metabolite sequestration which is a very fancy way

of saying the burn you know at the end of us that you're like ah the metabolites the um byproducts of training if they accumulate to high levels it's been shown in tons of animal

studies and a few human studies that like mechanistically they might also tell the molecular machinery that grows muscle for you again later to uh hey get the muscle growth process. Another one

is the pump. So, you know, you do a couple sets of biceps, you're like, "Oh my god, what's going on here, baby?"

Flash it at some girl, she runs away as usual. And the actual cell swelling

usual. And the actual cell swelling itself might play a causal mechanistic role in generating more muscle growth.

But, but we know it's probably at least at least 80% of the muscle growth anyone will see is because of those receptors for tension. Muscle growth as soon as

for tension. Muscle growth as soon as you leave the gym is a negative because the gym is catabolic. It's a it breaks down your muscle. Actually, training

breaks down more muscle than it builds.

However, as you go home and you start eating food, protein, carbs, fats, and you have several meals per day and you're resting, when the food's coming in, several hours after training begins,

if you measure muscle growth consistently, which is real difficult to do, they don't do it super often. You

have to keep people in a laboratory. You

have to do radioactive tracers and measure all this weird stuff.

Every couple of hours they measure the amount of muscle growth that's going on in the biceps goes up and up and up and up and it usually peaks about half a day to a day and a half after you lift.

Depending on how hard you went. If it's

a pretty easy workout, it peaks a little sooner and dive and drops off about a day or two later. If you train really crazy hard, it'll peak like a day, day and a half later and then half a week

later it'll drop off back to baseline levels. But it's this really smooth

levels. But it's this really smooth curve and you're growing muscle at every single point under that curve. So when

you say, "Is it while I'm sleeping? Is

it while I'm eating? Is it while I'm resting?" The answer is all of those

resting?" The answer is all of those except it's not at the gym. You don't

grow muscle at the gym. You give

yourself a signal to grow muscle at the gym. And then what you do outside of the

gym. And then what you do outside of the gym matters. So some people train really

gym matters. So some people train really hard. They don't eat right. They don't

hard. They don't eat right. They don't

eat enough protein. Their sleep is total insert bad word here and their stress levels are just totally psychotic. They

train hard and then week after week after week they're like not seeing any results. Well, the results are actually

results. Well, the results are actually created when you're resting, when you're sleeping, when you're eating nutritious food. They're stimulated in the workout.

food. They're stimulated in the workout.

But that's just phase one. Phase two,

the actual growth occurs outside of the gym and it occurs not in any specific time point. Like magic window of 2 hours

time point. Like magic window of 2 hours after the gym, like that's when all the growth occurs. That's actually when it

growth occurs. That's actually when it just starts to go up. It's for days afterwards. So if you train twice a

afterwards. So if you train twice a week, you train on Monday, you're growing a lot of muscle Monday night, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Back uh at towards the end of Wednesday, you're just not really growing much more muscle. You go back to the gym Thursday,

muscle. You go back to the gym Thursday, you hit it hard again. You hit that curve up. By Sunday, you're totally

curve up. By Sunday, you're totally relaxed. During Sunday, you're not

relaxed. During Sunday, you're not growing any muscle. Your body's really recovering a lot of that fatigue. And

then by Monday, you're fresh as a pickle, and you're ready to go at it again. How long will it take me to lose

again. How long will it take me to lose the muscles that I've gained if I don't go back to the gym? So, again, focusing on this bicep. I train it. I do two times a week. I get it nice and big. How

long before it vanishes?

Great question. Two-part answer. Part

one is within about two weeks of not training it, the first reduction in muscle that is

detectable by modern machinery occurs.

So, if you don't lift for two weeks and we put you in an MRI scanner or a DEXA scanner, let's say a week and a half you don't lift. I can't tell. You're not

don't lift. I can't tell. You're not

really losing any muscle yet. You're

just going insane. And so, me personally, I'm like addicted to lifting. So, if I don't lift for a week,

lifting. So, if I don't lift for a week, I'm like, "Oh my god, oh my god, all my muscle's gone." That is some kind of

muscle's gone." That is some kind of intuitive truth to that because when you don't stress your muscles, they when you do stress your muscles, they get a little bit inflamed and they bulge up a

little bit. So, when you're not training

little bit. So, when you're not training for half a week to a week, your muscles look smaller, like they've lost weight, but it's really just all water that they lost. You do one gym session thinking

lost. You do one gym session thinking like, "Oh my god, my biceps are gone." A

week and a half later, you do one session, at the end of that, you flex and you're like, "Oh my god, I'm the biggest I've ever been. I was just delusional that whole time cuz that stuff comes back super quick." After

about two weeks of not lifting, you start to lose muscle, but it happens really, really slowly and takes weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks. After

several months of not lifting, you're going to look considerably smaller in your biceps, but probably not as small as when you started lifting because your muscles have a certain memory, if we can call it that.

Is that true? That

Oh, yeah. And so, a lot of times when you gain an initial amount of muscle, especially if you've been at it for years, it just never goes back to the same size as when you started, it's just always going to be bigger until you

reach your 80s or something like that.

That being said, yes, you will notice reductions in size. So, two weeks is the direct answer there. And it's going to take weeks and weeks and months and months to recede. However, here's part

two, and this is awesome news. Because

of that muscle memory situation, however long it took you to gain the muscles initially, it's going to take you an order of

magnitude, a factor of 10ish or so less time to get it back. If you've been more jacked before, if you've had bigger muscles, they come back to their old

size. If it took if you you you lifted

size. If it took if you you you lifted for eight months, you got a bigger bicep and you stop lifting for 3 months and it looks about the same as when you started. If you're really careful, like,

started. If you're really careful, like, okay, it's a little bit bigger, but really it's just back to square one.

Most people think, oh my god, another 8 months just to get back to where I started. Like, forget the gym. The truth

started. Like, forget the gym. The truth

is after roughly about a month, maybe as little as 3 weeks, you're going to have the same size biceps that you did in your peak because the degree to which your tissue grows, if it's been a

certain size before, especially if it was notably bigger than normal and you held that around for a few months and a few years, it comes back in a way that

is so fast. If you experience if you experience it yourself, it's it's like you don't believe that it's happening to you. you.

you. you.

Have they been able to like scientifically test this?

Oh, yeah. All the time. Yeah. Retraining

studies, draining, retraining. Oh, yeah.

They've they've done studies where they purposefully like lift for a while and they stop lifting for a long time and they see how long it takes to get back.

And um there's one study I'm familiar with offhand that there's a group of people that trained consistently for multiple weeks. And there's another

multiple weeks. And there's another group of people that trained consistently for a few weeks and then took two weeks completely off in the middle and then just started retraining again for a few weeks later. Both groups

had identically sized differences in muscle at the end of the study. And so

you're like, "Okay, so so that group that trained consistently never took two weeks off. Could we say that they

weeks off. Could we say that they purposefully like dunked two weeks of their time away for nothing?" Uh-huh.

Yeah. your body goes right back into regaining old lost muscle so rapidly that this is such great news because look, let's say you lifted consistently

most of the year. Holiday season comes up, winter holidays, you're not going to the gym as much, maybe not at all. 3 weeks later of no gym, you look at yourself, you look a little small or kind of deflated and

you're like, "Oh my god, I'm going to have to restart all this from scratch."

Nope. Two weeks later, you're in the best shape of your life again. If you

left the gym for 6 months, one or two months later, you're in the best shape of your life again. That's how rapidly it comes back. So, it's really good news for anyone who hasn't been in the gym and is feeling guilty about it. Go back,

get consistent again. You're just going to skyrocket.

That is very exciting because yeah, we always have sometimes it's the trough, the the couple of weeks off that makes us demotivated because that's crossed my mind before. Oh my god, that took me

mind before. Oh my god, that took me three months to get there and it's going to take me another 3 months to get back.

that what about so if I'm training that bicep how have I got to think about stretching and warming up before I start before I get going with my training

there are many ways to do it but uh there's some research on this recently actually you don't need much one of the simplest ways to warm up that we recommend at RP

and our app has it in the in the instructions you want let's say you have your final weight already picked out like last week you 20 lb dumbbells for sets of 15. This

week it's sets of 16 with the 20 lb dumbbells. What you want to do is you

dumbbells. What you want to do is you want to do very lightweight, maybe the 5 lb dumbbells for a set of 12 just to get everything moving and grooving. Good

technique, same technique you're going to use 30 seconds of rest, a minute of rest.

You pick up the 10 or 15 pound dumbbells and you do a set of eight reps. is a little bit more challenging. You're feeling your groove

challenging. You're feeling your groove a little bit, but your body's already more warm. Your nervous system is more

more warm. Your nervous system is more active. Your muscles are more pliable.

active. Your muscles are more pliable.

You rest a minute after that, and then you'll pick up the weight you're actually using, the 20 pounders, and you'll do a set of two to four reps with them just to get the feel of that heavy weight that you're going to be doing to

acclimatize not just your muscles and your nervous system, but your psychology to like, okay, this is this is the business weight that I'm going to be using. So, 12 84 rest another 30

using. So, 12 84 rest another 30 seconds. first working set of whatever

seconds. first working set of whatever 16 reps, you're up. When you have multiple exercises for the same muscle group, you just need to do one set of

like four to eight reps in that middle weight range between zero and whatever you're going to do just to get the feel of the exercise cuz you're already generally warm in that area. One little

warm-up set, rest, you know, 30 seconds to a minute and then hit your first set.

If you're switching which muscles you're using, like you were training chest, but then in the same session, you started training back. That first back exercise,

training back. That first back exercise, 1284, the weight goes up up, the reps go down, down, down, just a little bit of time between, and then you hit your first work set and you're good to go.

You don't have to do cardio before. You

don't have to get on the treadmill. You

can if you like it. You don't have to do some kind of cardio warm-up. You don't

have to do any kind of stretching or anything like that. You don't have to do any kind of weird Bosu ball band around your neck crazy potentiation exercises.

Just that little ramp up is basically in 98% of all cases exactly and only what you need to do.

What is a warm-up? What is going on physiologically inside my muscle?

Because we we all just warm up and I don't think anybody actually knows what what's going on.

Yeah. So, your muscle tissues um they have uh they have physical qualities that can be measured almost in like a fluid dynamics terms like

viscosity and hysteresis and all that stuff. And so when you're very cold, a

stuff. And so when you're very cold, a lot of times the uh there's kind of a frailty implied there. As you're warming

up, you're sending blood to around the muscle. the muscle itself is literally

muscle. the muscle itself is literally becoming warmer and a lot of those kind of tight structures that are uh the proteins that are made of kind of stretchy material, they loosen up a

little bit and that allows you to go through that full range of motion and training and not actually get hurt and that's from the muscle perspective. You

also get some kind of chemical stuff that happens and certain structures fill up with chemicals. Certain structures

chemicals go down and that gets you ready to perform super hard work. But

that's part of the story. The other part is the nervous system because your nervous system is also getting warmed up. And in technical terms, it's called

up. And in technical terms, it's called potentiation.

When you just show up to the gym and you let's say we said, look, okay, we re-engineered your tendons when you were asleep. You're not going to get hurt.

asleep. You're not going to get hurt.

It's impossible for you to get hurt.

like a car would have to hit you for you to rip your bicep off. You can just go and just hit the curls right away. You

wouldn't get hurt, but it would feel really strange and you wouldn't get four or five reps close to where you're supposed to be from last week cuz your nervous system was like, "What the hell is going on? I'm supposed to be doing

something." So, you knew warm up the

something." So, you knew warm up the nervous system. A part of that is

nervous system. A part of that is literally like the actual nervous system itself down to the cellular level is flushing all kinds of metabolites through. The connections are getting

through. The connections are getting stronger. you're uh sort of doing a

stronger. you're uh sort of doing a little bit of kind of mini rewiring of primary motor cortex to say go oh we're doing curls this is how you execute this pattern. Another part is technical like

pattern. Another part is technical like oh this is the technique I'm going to do because if you just get in the muscle and just do stuff like imagine if I told you like hey here's a ball just like go shoot some hoops just hit that you know

three-pointer shot you're like I need a couple shots to remind my body of what it's like to shoot the basketball.

Same idea for lifting. to remind your body of what a curl motion is. And if

you remind it a couple sets in a row, by the time you hit that real working set, that fourth set, your body's like, "I know exactly what I'm going to do, which parts of the muscle I'm going to activate to contract, which other parts

of other muscles I'm going to activate to relax and co-contract to make this whole thing happen." If you love the DEO brand and you watch this channel, please do me a huge favor. Become part of the

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