how to build muscle: 6 tactics, from your rep range to your last meal

the fight about the perfect rep range is mostly noise. on the transcript, Galpin's answer for size is "anywhere between five to 30 reps per set. That's going to show across the literature pretty much equal hypertrophy gains." heavy sets of 5, light sets of 30, it all works.

the tactic: pick any range, then finish the set honestly. there is one condition. "The only caveat for hypertrophy is you have to take it to muscular failure." he softens that right away: "You want to train to failure, but you don't need to go to extreme failure." you just have to get close. since the range is so wide, he says you can use it for variety: "Mondays are my sets of 10 days, Wednesdays are my set of 20 days, and Fridays are my set of 30 days." one warning from him: sets of 30 burn, and your mind will want to quit around rep 20.

try this week: for every exercise, pick one rep target between 8 and 30. choose a weight that makes the last two reps a real fight. write down the weight and reps of every working set.

if Galpin had to pick one number for growth, it is hard sets per muscle per week. on the transcript of the full episode this Essentials cut comes from: "the kind of minimum number we're going to look for here is 10 working sets." per week, per muscle. in his longer episode he adds: "10 is kind of the minimum. You probably want to look for more like 15 to 20". and he does not want you to obsess over it: "If you're anywhere between 10 to 25 working sets, you know you're fine."

the tactic: count hard sets, stop about two reps short. a working set only counts if it ends close to failure. his number: "A good number to think about is minus two, which is what we call reps in reserve". so stop when you could do about two more good reps. Huberman's solo episode sets the bottom line: "about five sets per week is what's required just to maintain your muscle."

try this week: list the muscles you care about. next to each one, tally the hard sets you did this week. move any muscle under 10 up by two or three sets next week.

more weekly sets help, but not all in one day. on the transcript, Israetel says "The total amount of working sets is by far the biggest determinant of how much muscle you're going to grow per session." up to a point. past it you hit what he calls junk volume: your nervous system is so tired that fewer muscle fibers do the work, and you go through the motions.

the tactic: spread the sets across the week. citing a review of the research, he puts the best average at "something like five to eight working sets per muscle per session." 15 sets for biceps in one go is mostly wasted: "It's like frying an egg after it's already fried." so if you need 15 sets a week, do them in two or three sessions. and keep most sets a little shy of failure: "You can recover from more if you stay a little shy of failure." Huberman's solo episode adds a time limit: workouts work best between 45 and 60 minutes.

try this week: find your biggest single-session set count for any muscle. if it is above 8, cut it to 6 and move the extra sets to a second day that week.

you can do all the sets and still train the wrong muscle. Galpin's check (he credits Israetel for it) asks three questions about the target muscle. during the set: "are you feeling the glute contract?" after: "Did you feel a big pump afterwards?" the next day: "Did you feel a little bit of soreness there at all?" three no's: "Don't expect much growth." he scores each from 1 to 10: "If you can get three, three and three, you're probably in a pretty good spot."

the tactic: test the connection before you add load. Huberman's version, on the transcript: "march across your body mentally and see whether or not you can independently contract any or all of your muscles." muscles you can squeeze hard on command tend to grow with fewer sets. for muscles you struggle to feel, "it's going to take more sets in order to stimulate the desired effect in those muscles, not fewer."

try this week: after each session, rate the target muscle 1 to 10 for contraction, pump and next-day soreness. any muscle stuck under 3 on all three gets two extra sets next week.

the program-hopper's problem: you never do the same lift long enough to beat it. on the full episode transcript, Galpin: "a major mistake folks do make is they change their exercises entirely way too often." his rule if he had to pick: "don't change anything on your exercises for six weeks." he says 10 to 12 weeks is realistic too.

the tactic: same lifts, small jumps, planned rest. Israetel's version: start a few reps away from failure, then "next week add a little bit of load, add a rep or two, and go up, up, up." that cannot go on forever. if you train hard four to six times a week, "Most people can't last longer than about four to eight weeks." when your joints ache, sleep slips and you do not want to train, he takes "a week of half of everything". that is a deload. then start the climb again.

try this week: write down your exercises and freeze them for six weeks. each week, add one rep or the smallest weight jump to every lift. put a lighter week in your calendar for week six.

training is the signal. food and recovery turn it into muscle. Norton, a nutrition scientist and powerlifter, on the transcript: "Of the macronutrients, protein is definitely the biggest lever that you can pull". his number: "I would shoot for 1.6 grams per kilogram. If you can do more, great." that is about 0.7 g per pound, so roughly 128 g a day if you weigh 80 kg. Huberman adds that "you need to have a caloric surplus of about 10 to 15%" to gain muscle, and that most people do fine eating two to four times a day.

the tactic: do not cancel the session afterwards. Huberman: "cold after resistance training seems to short-circuit some of the benefits of that resistance training." athletes who need fast recovery or mostly train endurance may still choose cold, he says. if size is the goal, keep the ice bath off lifting days.

try this week: multiply your body weight in kg by 1.6. that is your daily protein target. hit it on five days this week. on lifting days, skip cold showers and ice baths after training.