At EverStrongSF, we’ve been enjoying the Huberman Lab podcast. The 6 part series with Dr. Andy Galpin has been fantastic to listen to. Of course we paid attention to all of them, but the cast on building strength and muscle was our favorite.
Humans can build strength and muscle in the later years of life which is great news on its own, but the best part is how much it improves one’s life or health span. Muscle and strength are the strongest predictors of a healthy and mobile life.
At EverStrongSF, we teach people to train to failure and we train less frequently than 3 to 5 times a week. We aren’t doing 3 to 5 times a week, 3 to 5 exercises, 3 to 5 sets and 3 to 5 reps. We do a time under tension protocol where we pack all the muscle fiber types into one set, moving slowly until you can’t move any more. We do this at a minimum of once a week. Twice a week is maximum we’ll do with our protocol because it is quite intense. Recovery is critical here.
In the podcast, Dr. Andy Galpin, talks about how important it is to get close to failure and how people are unable to really reach it. Often when training in the gym, people will stop an exercise too soon. In the podcast they talk about a tool called RPE, or Rate of Perceived Exertion.
This is a handy tool to help people understand how close they get to momentary muscular failure or MMF. It’s a pretty clear chart one can use to understand how hard training is affecting an individual. Basically, a 10 means you can’t do another repetition or weight. 9 means you could have one 1 more. Training to at least 8 is where you want to be develop strength and muscle.
At EverStrongSF, we also use velocity also which means when a person’s velocity in the exercise has slowed down. We watch people very closely here and coach them to continue to move with good form. Form can slip in this phase and people will want to give up. BUT! This is the what the whole exercise is for really…to get to this point. This is where the body is being forced to handle maximum load and where the body will respond with repair and ultimately strength.
So, if you are training on your own and your goal is strength and muscle for life, then definitely use RPE. If you’d like to work with experienced trainers to help you do this, check out EverStrongSF. We got your number.