Latest / Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40 / The Hypertrophy Hierarchy (Which Training Variables Actually Matter) | Ep 396

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The Hypertrophy Hierarchy (Which Training Variables Actually Matter) | Ep 396 · Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40

• 0:01
  Philip Pape: Every week, every day, there's new advice on social media about how to train.
• 0:06
  Philip Pape: Train to failure, don't train to failure.
• 0:08
  Philip Pape: Do more volume, no, you're overtraining.
• 0:11
  Philip Pape: Meanwhile, you're stuck making zero progress because it's hard to figure out what actually matters.
• 0:16
  Philip Pape: Today I'm ranking the five training variables that drive 80% of your muscle growth, aka hypertrophy, plus one hidden foundation that amplifies all of them.
• 0:28
  Philip Pape: You'll learn exactly where to focus your energy so you can stop spinning your wheels in the gym and start building the physique you want.
• 0:34
  Philip Pape: Welcome to Wits and Weights, the show that helps you build a strong, healthy physique using evidence, engineering, and efficiency.
• 0:51
  Philip Pape: I'm your host, Philip Pape, and today I'm gonna break down my hypertrophy hierarchy so you know exactly which training variables produce results and which ones are just noise.
• 1:02
  Philip Pape: If you've felt overwhelmed by the conflicting advice about building muscle, this is one of those episodes that just cuts right through it and gives you what to focus on.
• 1:13
  Philip Pape: As always, we are using this engineering framework to prioritize what matters.
• 1:18
  Philip Pape: So today I'm really just jumping right into it.
• 1:21
  Philip Pape: We're gonna start with the principles, as always, because not all training variables are equal.
• 1:27
  Philip Pape: And by the way, when I when I talk training, I am talking about strength training, resistance training.
• 1:31
  Philip Pape: If you're new to the podcast, you're like, what does it mean training?
• 1:33
  Philip Pape: We're talking about resistance training, the most important thing you can do if you're not doing right now to build strength and muscle.
• 1:39
  Philip Pape: And today we're specifically talking about hypertrophy, which is the act of building muscle size.
• 1:45
  Philip Pape: And if you've ever heard of the Pareto principle, which is that 20% drives 80% of the results, that's kind of the mindset we're taking today, where a lot of the things you and others are doing in the gym or talking about online drive five or 10% of the results.
• 2:00
  Philip Pape: I want to get you the 80.
• 2:01
  Philip Pape: And we often obsess over the things that give you the five because they're easy or because they're new, they're novel, they're fun, whatever, and they don't necessarily, they're not necessarily effective.
• 2:12
  Philip Pape: So for today's engineering concept, I'm gonna use something from systems thinking called leverage points.
• 2:19
  Philip Pape: Someone by the name of Donnella Meadows, a systems thinker, identified that in any complex system, certain intervention points create disproportionate effects.
• 2:31
  Philip Pape: So this is the idea of leverage.
• 2:33
  Philip Pape: A small change at a high leverage point can produce massive results.
• 2:38
  Philip Pape: A huge effort at a low leverage point barely moves the needle, right?
• 2:42
  Philip Pape: And so we this is this is the epitome of efficiency that we talk about on the show.
• 2:46
  Philip Pape: And your body is a complex system as well.
• 2:48
  Philip Pape: And muscle growth depends on dozens of variables interacting together.
• 2:52
  Philip Pape: And you don't necessarily have to understand all of those.
• 2:54
  Philip Pape: You don't even have to understand the mechanisms.
• 2:56
  Philip Pape: We really want to understand the cause and effect.
• 2:58
  Philip Pape: And not all variables have the same leverage.
• 3:01
  Philip Pape: So today, the hypertrophy hierarchy, hierarchy meaning a priority or pyramid of variables, right?
• 3:08
  Philip Pape: What's most important?
• 3:09
  Philip Pape: The hypertrophy hierarchy is going to identify five of those highest leverage points in your muscle building system where your effort produces the greatest return.
• 3:18
  Philip Pape: And so the first variable is going to be training volume.
• 3:22
  Philip Pape: Now, you may have heard me talk a lot about when I talk about first principles, I talk about mechanical tension, I talk about some of the mechanisms that produce muscle growth.
• 3:30
  Philip Pape: But I'm taking a different angle today because again, I just said the mechanisms aren't as important as understanding how your actions contribute to maximizing those mechanisms.
• 3:42
  Philip Pape: So training volume in many senses is the primary driver of muscle growth because that is the total number of hard sets per muscle group per week.
• 3:52
  Philip Pape: And if you don't have enough volume, you're just gonna flatline no matter what you're doing.
• 3:56
  Philip Pape: And it may be a low amount of volume compared to someone else based on your responsiveness.
• 4:02
  Philip Pape: It's all relative.
• 4:03
  Philip Pape: But the point is you need to hit a minimum amount of volume.
• 4:07
  Philip Pape: So when we talk about hard sets per muscle group per week, let's define things.
• 4:11
  Philip Pape: A hard set is going to be within about one to three reps shy of failure.
• 4:16
  Philip Pape: You almost never have to take something to complete failure.
• 4:18
  Philip Pape: So that's one myth we're busting right away.
• 4:20
  Philip Pape: You almost never have to, although in some cases with small isolation movements, it can give you a little extra to go to failure or even to do, let's say, partial reps after failure in some cases.
• 4:32
  Philip Pape: But the vast majority of movements, if in fact all, if you do them one to three reps shy of failure, you're hitting on that mechanism of mechanical tension and you're making it hard and you're getting to the point where you signal your body that it needs to adapt.
• 4:45
  Philip Pape: If you stop a movement, let's say you have a movement on your program that says do eight to 12 reps, okay?
• 4:52
  Philip Pape: And you get to 12 reps, and you know for a fact you could do like six more.
• 4:57
  Philip Pape: Like it just feels kind of easy, like you could do six more.
• 5:00
  Philip Pape: A lot of you out there, raise your hand virtually, if this is you, will stop at 12 because that's what's in the program.
• 5:06
  Philip Pape: Or you just didn't know any better.
• 5:07
  Philip Pape: Like it says eight to 12, so I'm gonna do 12.
• 5:09
  Philip Pape: The point isn't to do 12, the point is to do enough to get within one to three reps shy of failure.
• 5:16
  Philip Pape: And so if the if eight to 12 is programmed, you need to lift the weights heavy enough so that 12 is the absolute maximum number of weight of reps you could possibly do, or again within one to three reps shy of failure, meaning maybe you could do 13 or 14, maybe.
• 5:31
  Philip Pape: And that's what a hard set is.
• 5:33
  Philip Pape: And the research shows a clear dose response relationship with volume of these hard sets, where the more volume up to a point leads to more growth, but up to a point.
• 5:45
  Philip Pape: So this is the this is what we're talking about here: high leverage.
• 5:48
  Philip Pape: Okay, not the absolute minimum, but also not the absolute maximum.
• 5:52
  Philip Pape: Where is that highest leverage point?
• 5:54
  Philip Pape: For most muscle groups, that is going to be a pretty big range of 10 to 20 hard sets per week.
• 6:00
  Philip Pape: And for many of you, 10 to 15 is the practical sweet spot.
• 6:05
  Philip Pape: Practical meaning when you add up all your muscle groups and the sets and giving a seven-day week and your schedule, being busy people that you are.
• 6:13
  Philip Pape: 10, maybe 15 is what you can fit in practically with hour to hour and a half long sessions max.
• 6:20
  Philip Pape: If you want to go to 20, you're gonna be spending more time in the gym.
• 6:23
  Philip Pape: That's all.
• 6:24
  Philip Pape: But can you go down as low as five?
• 6:26
  Philip Pape: Well, the evidence says five to 10 might be the minimum viable product when it comes to this.
• 6:31
  Philip Pape: Meaning, yeah, you probably could still get 70, 80% of your results with five to 10 sets, but 10 to 15 is probably gonna get you 90, 95%.
• 6:40
  Philip Pape: And then you go all to 20 and you get kind of that final optimization.
• 6:44
  Philip Pape: Now, more isn't always better because volume comes with a cost to your recovery.
• 6:49
  Philip Pape: Every set you do is gonna add fatigue.
• 6:52
  Philip Pape: And this is where the minimum effective dose comes in.
• 6:55
  Philip Pape: And you have to find that for you.
• 6:58
  Philip Pape: So if 10 sets per week is working really well, why would you do 15 unless you want to make the trade-off with time versus optimization or fatigue versus optimization?
• 7:09
  Philip Pape: And it's going to differ whether you're in fat loss or not, whether you're a resource-stared or not.
• 7:14
  Philip Pape: You might have to have lower volume during fat loss.
• 7:16
  Philip Pape: So the more stimulus is always better if your recovery can handle it.
• 7:21
  Philip Pape: You've probably heard of concepts like stimulus to fatigue.
• 7:24
  Philip Pape: That's what we're talking about.
• 7:25
  Philip Pape: So I would start with 10 to 15 hard sets per muscle group per week, and then adjust upward if recovery and schedule allows.
• 7:33
  Philip Pape: Or you can even adjust downward if that's too much, or for practical purposes, you don't have enough time in your week and you want to try that minimum, and you might surprise yourself.
• 7:41
  Philip Pape: You might find that you needed that extra recovery.
• 7:44
  Philip Pape: And now you can do some more walking, some more sleeping, things like that.
• 7:47
  Philip Pape: So, variable number one was training volume.
• 7:50
  Philip Pape: And by the way, I did an entire episode on volume, and that was episode 348, 12 rules of training volume to build more muscle.
• 7:59
  Philip Pape: I'm gonna include that in the show notes if you want to deep dive.
• 8:02
  Philip Pape: Variable number two is training effort.
• 8:06
  Philip Pape: Now we have to define this again.
• 8:08
  Philip Pape: Effort in this case is how close you take your sets to failure.
• 8:13
  Philip Pape: Now you could use a measurement called reps in reserve, which is how many reps you have left in the tank, or the inverse of that is RPE, rate of perceived exertion, which is a scale of zero to 10, where 10 is the most exertion, mean meaning zero reps left.
• 8:29
  Philip Pape: Some people find that confusing because it's like thinking backward.
• 8:32
  Philip Pape: And at the end of the day, I hardly ever use these anyway as a measurement.
• 8:36
  Philip Pape: I usually just go by what is the exercise, what are the sets and reps, what's the load, and get in my rep range with the right load.
• 8:43
  Philip Pape: Training close to failure, one to three.
• 8:45
  Philip Pape: Like actually prescribing RIR, it's it can be done.
• 8:50
  Philip Pape: There are cases where if you're progressing with a set-based program, let's say you're gonna do three sets this week, four sets next week, five sets the following week, you might actually pay attention to your RIR and start submaximally first and kind of add more effort and keep the load the same, but you're actually adding sets, and that's the way you're progressing, if that makes any sense.
• 9:14
  Philip Pape: But here's the point.
• 9:16
  Philip Pape: I don't want to get off on a tangent here.
• 9:17
  Philip Pape: You have to train hard enough to convince your body it needs to adapt.
• 9:21
  Philip Pape: And we we already talked about this in the volume piece, but now I'm digging in specifically on this as a training variable.
• 9:27
  Philip Pape: If you're stopping with like five or more reps left in the tank, you're probably not providing enough stimulus.
• 9:31
  Philip Pape: I mean, the research, the hairy edge is probably four, four to five reps, right?
• 9:36
  Philip Pape: Four maybe, but that's why I say one to three.
• 9:39
  Philip Pape: Staying within one to three RIR, reps in reserve, reps left in the tank, shows nearly identical growth, muscle growth as training to complete failure, but without the fatigue accumulation of going to failure, as well as avoiding potential injury and stress on your joints and stuff, depending on the movement, right?
• 9:59
  Philip Pape: I'm not saying never go to failure.
• 10:01
  Philip Pape: Again, I want to say that, I want to make that clear.
• 10:02
  Philip Pape: Small movements, they're easy on the joints, you can take complete failure, you know, like a bicep curl.
• 10:07
  Philip Pape: But for most things, it's gonna be one to three.
• 10:10
  Philip Pape: And if you're going to, if you're going to go to complete failure, it one technique is to do it, say, on the last set of of the of the movement.
• 10:18
  Philip Pape: And many of you are underestimating how hard you need to train.
• 10:21
  Philip Pape: If your sets feel too easy, you're definitely leaving gains on the table.
• 10:24
  Philip Pape: And so if you've never done this before, I want to give you a tip.
• 10:28
  Philip Pape: I want you to try something.
• 10:29
  Philip Pape: It's called a final set AMRAP.
• 10:31
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 10:32
  Philip Pape: I learned this from Alex Bromley.
• 10:33
  Philip Pape: I know a lot of guys do it.
• 10:34
  Philip Pape: And what you're gonna do there is let's say you have three sets programmed for an exercise and it's your first week in the program.
• 10:41
  Philip Pape: On that last set, even if it's prescribed, let's say eight to twelve, just keep going until almost complete failure and do as many as you can.
• 10:50
  Philip Pape: And so this is more of a mental stretch goal because many of us think we're training hard.
• 10:55
  Philip Pape: We get to that 12, we're like, oh my God, that's so hard.
• 10:58
  Philip Pape: But if you're instead thinking, no, the goal isn't 12, the goal is as many as I can.
• 11:02
  Philip Pape: Like it might be 20, I don't know.
• 11:04
  Philip Pape: Let me just do it.
• 11:05
  Philip Pape: And you might only find you get an extra one or two.
• 11:07
  Philip Pape: And that kind of calibrates where hard is for you.
• 11:10
  Philip Pape: Now, if you're doing a program that has sets across, like let's say starting strength, where it's three sets of five.
• 11:16
  Philip Pape: Well, by definition, to maintain five reps across three sets, first of all, you're gonna need enough rest to almost fully recover.
• 11:25
  Philip Pape: You're not gonna fully fully recover because you would need a lot more rest to do that.
• 11:28
  Philip Pape: But you're gonna pretty close to fully recover if you're taking your, say, three to five minutes of rest.
• 11:32
  Philip Pape: But also by definition, the first set and probably second set are slightly sub-maximal compared to the third set.
• 11:39
  Philip Pape: Because if they were truly all-out grinder maximum sets, you're probably not gonna be able to get five on the third set, even if you take like five or ten minutes to recover.
• 11:47
  Philip Pape: Does that make sense?
• 11:48
  Philip Pape: In which case, a sets across program, it is the weight that you're selecting is probably such that only the final set is really close to failure, and the first two are slightly submax compared to that.
• 12:02
  Philip Pape: Does that make sense?
• 12:03
  Philip Pape: Now, you're not necessarily overthinking this.
• 12:05
  Philip Pape: You're starting at some load on the bar, let's say Monday for your squat, that's fairly easy to get, and then you're going up the next week.
• 12:14
  Philip Pape: The key here is those jumps in weight are the very thing that's gonna determine whether you're gonna hit all the sets or not.
• 12:21
  Philip Pape: And so it's important to jump the right amount.
• 12:24
  Philip Pape: And that's kind of a little bit of a feel thing and an experience thing, and working with a coach can help.
• 12:29
  Philip Pape: But I wanted to make sure to clarify the difference between that and rep range type work.
• 12:34
  Philip Pape: Now, since we're talking mostly hypertrophy today, we're primarily talking about something where you have a rep range as opposed to sets across.
• 12:42
  Philip Pape: But to put a cap on it, training effort, training close to failure is what's gonna produce the result.
• 12:48
  Philip Pape: So if you're doing a bunch of sets that are far short of that, they're kind of wasted sets.
• 12:52
  Philip Pape: That's my point.
• 12:53
  Philip Pape: All right, training variable number three in the hypertrophy hierarchy is progressive overload itself.
• 13:00
  Philip Pape: Now you might say, okay, progressive overload, is that is that a variable that I can control, or is that just a thing that happens?
• 13:05
  Philip Pape: Well, it's a little of both.
• 13:07
  Philip Pape: We're gonna explain.
• 13:08
  Philip Pape: Progressive overload is the adaptation mechanism.
• 13:11
  Philip Pape: Your muscles only grow, okay, the sarcomeres in the muscle cells only get bigger if you give them a reason too, if you send the signal, if you tell your body this is important.
• 13:22
  Philip Pape: And that reason is consistently increasing the absolute mechanical tension on those muscles over time.
• 13:31
  Philip Pape: And why did I say it that way?
• 13:33
  Philip Pape: Absolute meaning the the mechanical tension should go up over time.
• 13:37
  Philip Pape: The relative mechanical tension is always going to be consistent with variable number two, one to three reps shy of failure.
• 13:45
  Philip Pape: So let me let me tight, let me mention that again, okay?
• 13:48
  Philip Pape: The relative mechanical tension should always be close to failure.
• 13:51
  Philip Pape: The absolute mechanical tension, therefore, will have to go up because as you're getting relative close mechanical tension close to failure, and then you go to sleep and you eat, your muscles will grow, you'll be a little bit stronger, and that same that same level of mechanical tension you had last time won't be enough to get you to one to three repshire failure, and you're gonna have to do something about it.
• 14:12
  Philip Pape: You're gonna have to lift more weights or and or do more reps so that you get into that regime of one to three repshire failure or do more sets.
• 14:23
  Philip Pape: Because imagine if you did three sets last time and now you do a fourth set, that should push you into that regime as well.
• 14:29
  Philip Pape: And it could be any combination of these things.
• 14:31
  Philip Pape: This is why programming can get confusing for people.
• 14:33
  Philip Pape: I'm like, what the heck do I do?
• 14:35
  Philip Pape: This is also why I like to simplify it for beginners.
• 14:37
  Philip Pape: Don't overthink it, just lift more weight.
• 14:39
  Philip Pape: Just lift more weight, even if it's rep ranges.
• 14:43
  Philip Pape: You know, I hear questions on this all the time.
• 14:45
  Philip Pape: Should I go up and wait or reps?
• 14:46
  Philip Pape: I'm like, wait, just do weight for a long time.
• 14:48
  Philip Pape: And I still to this day, as an intermediate slash advanced, I don't know what you'd call me lifter, but I've been doing it four or five years pretty consistently and doing it the right way.
• 14:56
  Philip Pape: If I am running a, let's say, eight or twelve week block and I have, let's say, a Romanian deadlift for eight to 12 reps.
• 15:06
  Philip Pape: Let's just say that's as simple as that.
• 15:08
  Philip Pape: There's no other changing across the 12 weeks.
• 15:10
  Philip Pape: It's just 12 straight weeks, Romanian deadlift, eight to 12 reps.
• 15:13
  Philip Pape: If my first week I am at 10 reps, well, I'm in the rep range, I'm gonna go up and wait next week.
• 15:18
  Philip Pape: Well, maybe it drops to nine because I just want it heavier.
• 15:21
  Philip Pape: Fine, I'm still in the rep range.
• 15:22
  Philip Pape: Gonna go up the next week.
• 15:23
  Philip Pape: Maybe it drops to eight.
• 15:24
  Philip Pape: All right, I'm still gonna go up.
• 15:25
  Philip Pape: Okay, and again, I can't be going up too much where it's past my capacity, but I'm going up, let's say maybe five pounds.
• 15:31
  Philip Pape: Maybe it's two pounds for you.
• 15:33
  Philip Pape: Maybe it's 10 pounds if you're really light.
• 15:34
  Philip Pape: Doesn't matter.
• 15:35
  Philip Pape: You're going up, the rep range might, you know, and then the next week I might get nine again, even though I went up in weight.
• 15:41
  Philip Pape: See, you never know, right?
• 15:42
  Philip Pape: You never know what your body's gonna be capable of until you try it.
• 15:44
  Philip Pape: Then I go up and weight again.
• 15:45
  Philip Pape: Okay, now I'm down to eight.
• 15:46
  Philip Pape: Fine, I'm still in the rep range.
• 15:47
  Philip Pape: I go up again.
• 15:48
  Philip Pape: You see what's happening, right?
• 15:49
  Philip Pape: Let's say I hit eight again.
• 15:50
  Philip Pape: Okay, I go up again.
• 15:52
  Philip Pape: Oh, and now I can get seven and I can't quite get eight.
• 15:55
  Philip Pape: That's where I do, uh I have a decision point.
• 15:58
  Philip Pape: Do I drop the weight and do a reset or do I try to get more reps?
• 16:02
  Philip Pape: And there's not really a right answer to that, in my opinion.
• 16:05
  Philip Pape: It, you know, you should have progressed for multiple weeks before having to make that decision.
• 16:11
  Philip Pape: Let's just put it that way.
• 16:12
  Philip Pape: If you didn't, then you probably jumped up in weight too much, or maybe started too heavy to begin with.
• 16:17
  Philip Pape: That makes sense.
• 16:18
  Philip Pape: But at some point you get to that decision.
• 16:20
  Philip Pape: And I might decide, okay, I'm gonna reset, I'm gonna drop by 10%, and I'm gonna try to get a lot more reps than I got last time at that same 10% lighter weight, let's say, which might have been four weeks ago.
• 16:31
  Philip Pape: Or I can say, you know what, I got seven last week.
• 16:33
  Philip Pape: I'm gonna keep the weight this week and try to get eight and then nine, and then I'm gonna increase the weight again and keep going up and weight.
• 16:39
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 16:39
  Philip Pape: My point with all of that discussion, that example, was almost all the time, especially if you're newer or even intermediate, focus on increasing the weight first.
• 16:48
  Philip Pape: It just makes it so much easier to make progress.
• 16:50
  Philip Pape: The caveat I've noticed is when you're in fat loss and it's a lot harder to progress.
• 16:57
  Philip Pape: That's where maybe going up in reps can be more helpful.
• 17:00
  Philip Pape: Other people have different philosophy.
• 17:02
  Philip Pape: Other people are like, no, just go up in both.
• 17:03
  Philip Pape: Go up.
• 17:04
  Philip Pape: There's there's something called double progression where you do weight, then reps, then weight, then reps.
• 17:08
  Philip Pape: Okay, I'm not saying there's necessarily a right or wrong.
• 17:11
  Philip Pape: I just prefer the intensity variable, the weight variable, to the volume or the reps variable.
• 17:16
  Philip Pape: Even though I said volume is important, I don't mean it from a reps perspective.
• 17:19
  Philip Pape: I mean from an overall weekly sets perspective.
• 17:21
  Philip Pape: Okay, I hope I haven't lost a bunch of you guys.
• 17:24
  Philip Pape: The point of this principle of progressive overload is let's look at the opposite.
• 17:28
  Philip Pape: If you do the same workout with the same weights for the same reps week after week, well, now your body has zero reason to build new muscle.
• 17:35
  Philip Pape: So if you're using the pink or the purple or yellow dumbbells, okay, the same dumbbells you have, or if you're limited on dumbbells at home because they only go up to 20s, or you know who I'm talking to.
• 17:43
  Philip Pape: I'm talking to a lot of you, trust me, I know it, and there's no way to increase them.
• 17:47
  Philip Pape: How are you gonna challenge yourself?
• 17:49
  Philip Pape: I'm sorry, that you've got to get either bigger dumbbells, adjustable dumbbells, move to a barbell, get a machine with a stack that has much more weight that you can load some way to increase.
• 18:00
  Philip Pape: Now, progressive overload does not mean just adding weight every session.
• 18:05
  Philip Pape: Okay, and I say it that way because there are different things you can add every session.
• 18:09
  Philip Pape: And also, if you're more advanced, you're not probably not gonna be able to add weight if you're already really, really heavy on some lifts.
• 18:16
  Philip Pape: It might you might add weight every two weeks, every four weeks, every three months, depending on how advanced you are, in which case you're you're progressing, you're progressing in other ways.
• 18:24
  Philip Pape: You're progressing with the RPE or the RIR, you're progressing with sets, you're progressing with reps.
• 18:31
  Philip Pape: It gets a little more complicated, but if you mapped it out on a graph and you just kind of multiplied all those variables together, it would be slowly going up anyway, in some way.
• 18:43
  Philip Pape: Okay, so again, reps, weight, set, a combination of these, intensity in some cases when you're more advanced.
• 18:49
  Philip Pape: That's what we mean by progression.
• 18:51
  Philip Pape: And the only way you know you're doing that is to track.
• 18:54
  Philip Pape: You have to have a training log so you know what you did last session, you know what you your PRs are, and you can aim to do slightly more.
• 19:02
  Philip Pape: That's it.
• 19:03
  Philip Pape: Otherwise, you're guessing, and guessing is not gonna build muscle, at least not efficiently.
• 19:07
  Philip Pape: I know people who do it over a long period of time, just kind of intuitively, but just like with eating, it can work, but it's gonna take a lot longer and be more frustrating, have more plateaus, so it helps to track.
• 19:18
  Philip Pape: All right, before we get to the last two variables in the hypertrophy hierarchy, I want to make, I want to just mention something real quick.
• 19:28
  Philip Pape: That if you're over 40, a lot of these variables are working together with your recovery and your hormones, right?
• 19:36
  Philip Pape: These are two big pieces that are all working together with your training because as you age, optimizing these variables, the progressive overload, volume, and then recovery, become even more important.
• 19:46
  Philip Pape: They only become more important because they're more stressed out and they they're more limited, right?
• 19:51
  Philip Pape: And that's not a bad thing.
• 19:52
  Philip Pape: It just is what it is.
• 19:53
  Philip Pape: We have to be cognizant of it.
• 19:54
  Philip Pape: So we want to maintain and we want to build.
• 19:56
  Philip Pape: We really want to build muscle.
• 19:57
  Philip Pape: I hate to say maintain because you can build muscle through your 90s, we've seen in the evidence.
• 20:03
  Philip Pape: So I have a free guide I think you're gonna like.
• 20:05
  Philip Pape: It's called strength training for hormone health.
• 20:07
  Philip Pape: It's not really just about hormones, it's more the idea that, you know, for those of us who are strength training over 40, it's important that we are supporting our hormones and triggering our testosterone, our growth hormone, reproductive hormones, all of that.
• 20:20
  Philip Pape: And so it kind of ties the two concepts together naturally, strength training and hormone health.
• 20:26
  Philip Pape: So go to wits and weights.com slash free or click the link in the show notes to grab that.
• 20:30
  Philip Pape: Again, it's my strength training for hormone health guide.
• 20:33
  Philip Pape: For those of us over 40, go to wits and weights.com slash free or click the link in the show notes.
• 20:37
  Philip Pape: All right, continuing to variable number four, we have exercise selection.
• 20:43
  Philip Pape: Now, I think this is a very important variable because it affects a lot of other things.
• 20:48
  Philip Pape: It affects your time in the gym, your effectiveness, it affects the volume we talked about, it affects progressive overload.
• 20:55
  Philip Pape: I mean, I just mentioned if you don't have the right dumbbells or equipment, it's gonna limit you.
• 20:59
  Philip Pape: It's gotta be things that you could do consistently, and what I mean consistently is not just do them, but be able to do them in an objectively consistent way.
• 21:08
  Philip Pape: You know, we know that if you do a barbell squat down to just below parallel with the same form each time, that is objectively consistent.
• 21:16
  Philip Pape: But if you're doing like a half squat, which you shouldn't be doing, but let's say you were doing that on purpose, how would you get it exactly to that point each time?
• 21:24
  Philip Pape: You would need like spotter arms or something like that.
• 21:26
  Philip Pape: You I don't know if that's a great example, but the point is the standard traditional exercises we're familiar with have evolved like that for a reason because they're very objective and should form the foundation of your lifting, right?
• 21:38
  Philip Pape: The novel fancy stuff, um, isometric holds and bandwork and everything.
• 21:43
  Philip Pape: Have fun with that if you'd like.
• 21:44
  Philip Pape: You know, kettlebells, TRX, all that stuff, in my opinion, is more complementary and shouldn't necessarily be the foundation.
• 21:52
  Philip Pape: And I know there's some people gonna argue with me on that.
• 21:54
  Philip Pape: There's actually some people who are really big into kettlebells and using them.
• 21:56
  Philip Pape: And I don't I don't have hard feelings one way or the other.
• 21:59
  Philip Pape: Let's just be honest.
• 21:59
  Philip Pape: But the compound lifts, squats, deadlifts, bench press, rows, overhead press, those should be part of your foundation.
• 22:05
  Philip Pape: The variations on those, and then the targeted isolation work for the smaller muscle groups to fill it in and also address weak spots.
• 22:13
  Philip Pape: And individual variation does matter, right?
• 22:16
  Philip Pape: We're not all special snowflakes, but everyone is different in objective ways, like our anatomy and our limb lengths, and our physical limitations and injury history and surgeries and things like that.
• 22:29
  Philip Pape: So if an exercise hurts or doesn't feel like it's working the target muscle, something has to change.
• 22:34
  Philip Pape: Now, maybe you don't have the right form.
• 22:35
  Philip Pape: That's that's often the first thing to look at, but maybe you do, and it's just not the ideal exercise for you.
• 22:41
  Philip Pape: I definitely have exercises like that where I just don't feel it as much.
• 22:45
  Philip Pape: Like every time I do one arm rows, whether it's on a bench or up at an angle, it feels okay, but I feel like I'm doing, I'm feeling like I'm trying to pull a much heavier weight than what it's giving me.
• 22:55
  Philip Pape: And I would rather do like a T-bar row or even uh one of my new favorite exercises now is just a standing cable row with an attachment.
• 23:05
  Philip Pape: What I mean is I take a V or a neutral grip attachment at the low position, I stand back a little bit and I pull to my chest.
• 23:12
  Philip Pape: Nice squeeze in the back.
• 23:14
  Philip Pape: And I really feel that in the lats.
• 23:16
  Philip Pape: You know, pull-ups, I really feel those in the lats as well.
• 23:18
  Philip Pape: So you've got to find the things that give you what you want.
• 23:22
  Philip Pape: Now, the big lifts like squats, deadlifts, rows, I think that's that's gonna benefit everyone no matter what.
• 23:27
  Philip Pape: Or I said rows, but uh not barbell rows, but I meant bench and overhead press.
• 23:32
  Philip Pape: But you've got to be able to stick to it, perform it well, and progressively overload through exercise selection.
• 23:40
  Philip Pape: Now, a few things I want to mention.
• 23:42
  Philip Pape: You know, the lengthened part of the movement is a really important part, which is why we should have full range of motion for most exercises.
• 23:50
  Philip Pape: Now you're like, well, wait, why don't I just do the length and portion?
• 23:53
  Philip Pape: I'm I'm cool with you doing the length and portion for like finishers, but for the most part, you want the full range of motion, making sure you're also getting into the long length.
• 24:02
  Philip Pape: And and that a simple way to think about that is like, let's say you're doing a barbell curl on the down position, the eccentric, you don't want to go halfway down, you want to go all the way down and really stretch out.
• 24:11
  Philip Pape: That's the length and portion, right?
• 24:13
  Philip Pape: Exercises with a deep stretch.
• 24:15
  Philip Pape: This is why I like squats below peril.
• 24:17
  Philip Pape: This is one of many reasons.
• 24:18
  Philip Pape: It's not just for that.
• 24:19
  Philip Pape: When you do a Romanian deadlift, you know, you're gonna put push your butt back and really feel that stretch in your hamstrings in the length and portion.
• 24:26
  Philip Pape: If you're not feeling that, something's off.
• 24:28
  Philip Pape: The form's off or the range of motion's off, for example.
• 24:31
  Philip Pape: And what's interesting is these are the most mechanically efficient ways to do the exercise that give you the biggest bang for your buck, which is also why the big compound lifts themselves are super important because they use the most muscle mass, the most muscle fibers, the deepest.
• 24:46
  Philip Pape: They allow you to push the most load.
• 24:48
  Philip Pape: So you're just getting so much efficiency out of it.
• 24:51
  Philip Pape: All right, so exercise selection is really important.
• 24:53
  Philip Pape: That's really all I wanted to talk about on it.
• 24:54
  Philip Pape: It could be its own podcast, to be honest.
• 24:56
  Philip Pape: But very, very important that you're not just doing a bunch of light bodyweight stuff, that you're doing important, efficient exercises, full range of motion, as much muscle mass as possible, hitting the target muscle groups to have enough volume and progressive overload for those other variables.
• 25:13
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 25:13
  Philip Pape: And then variable number five is frequency.
• 25:17
  Philip Pape: Now, frequency is how often you train each muscle group per week.
• 25:21
  Philip Pape: Now, training variable number one was volume.
• 25:24
  Philip Pape: If you want to hit the volume needed, let's say it's 10 sets a week per muscle group, you're probably gonna naturally have enough frequency to do it, as opposed to doing it all in one three-hour marathon session on Wednesday, right?
• 25:38
  Philip Pape: Now, there are some theories out there about very, very low volume programs.
• 25:43
  Philip Pape: I think a lot of them are not backed up as sufficient, and it's kind of an outlier.
• 25:49
  Philip Pape: Up to you to experiment, obviously.
• 25:51
  Philip Pape: But for most people, you're gonna need enough frequency, which means being in the gym probably three days a week or four days a week for a lot of people.
• 25:59
  Philip Pape: And even if you're intermediate advanced, a three-day a week program could still be highly effective.
• 26:02
  Philip Pape: That's kind of where I'm going with that, as long as you are getting enough frequency.
• 26:06
  Philip Pape: For a lot of you, four days a week just naturally gives you enough frequency with not too much time in the gym and enough recovery.
• 26:14
  Philip Pape: And that's why a lot of programs have four day splits.
• 26:16
  Philip Pape: Five days is also another way to do it, to get even more volume or to spread out that volume a little more.
• 26:21
  Philip Pape: And then that logic can be carried to even six days with much shorter sessions.
• 26:26
  Philip Pape: So, what do I mean by frequency?
• 26:28
  Philip Pape: Frequency, again, is if you are squatting, how often are you squatting during the week?
• 26:33
  Philip Pape: Not how much volume.
• 26:34
  Philip Pape: You know, in one session, you might do two, three, four sets, but are you then squatting two times a week or three times a week?
• 26:41
  Philip Pape: And it doesn't have to be necessarily the exact same squat pattern or squat.
• 26:45
  Philip Pape: It's a similar movement pattern.
• 26:47
  Philip Pape: It might be on one day a barbell back squat, another day a front squat.
• 26:52
  Philip Pape: Or it might be the same movement at different rep ranges, different intensities.
• 26:55
  Philip Pape: Heavy, light, medium, for example.
• 26:57
  Philip Pape: If you're doing Monday, Wednesday, Friday, you want to squat three days a week.
• 27:00
  Philip Pape: For most people, training each muscle group two to three times a week is what's going to get you into that 10 to 15 rep uh 10 to 15 sets regime.
• 27:10
  Philip Pape: And we have to think of both direct and indirect work.
• 27:14
  Philip Pape: So the compound lifts, going back to the last variable, give you a lot of both direct and indirect work.
• 27:22
  Philip Pape: The bench press gives you chest and triceps, for example, and some other muscle groups as well, including your shoulders.
• 27:29
  Philip Pape: So that's where the efficiency comes in.
• 27:32
  Philip Pape: Now, do you have to track all of this to that level?
• 27:34
  Philip Pape: You don't have to.
• 27:35
  Philip Pape: There are some apps like Boostcamp that I use.
• 27:38
  Philip Pape: I'm use my code Wits and Weights, all one word, to I don't know what I forget what the promotion is now, sorry guys, but it would it would help me out if you use my code.
• 27:45
  Philip Pape: Anyway, Boostcamp actually tracks a ranking of how many of what percentage of your volume went toward each muscle group, kind of ranks it and does it like a heat map.
• 27:56
  Philip Pape: It's kind of cool.
• 27:57
  Philip Pape: All right, but you don't have to do it to that level.
• 27:59
  Philip Pape: You just have to know if you have well-rounded program with enough frequency and volume, you're gonna hit enough things.
• 28:05
  Philip Pape: Now, in my case, I'm working on strengthening my back, my upper body more than my lower body or the front of my upper body.
• 28:12
  Philip Pape: So I actually have more pulling volume on purpose.
• 28:15
  Philip Pape: I've got more like 15 to 20 sets of pulling volume, and it might only have, let's say, between five and 15 sets of other stuff, like leg volume.
• 28:24
  Philip Pape: And if, again, since you don't want to fit this all into one day, this is why we need at least three or four.
• 28:29
  Philip Pape: If you're, let's say, in your 70s, you've never lifted weights before, you may respond really well to two days a week to start, right?
• 28:37
  Philip Pape: It depends on where you are, where you've been, your history, your responsiveness.
• 28:42
  Philip Pape: That's really all it is.
• 28:43
  Philip Pape: And it takes a lot less to maintain than to build.
• 28:45
  Philip Pape: So if you're in a little more, if you're more in a maintenance phase and trying to prioritize other things over fitness, that could be another reason to have like only two or three days instead of three or four.
• 28:56
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 28:56
  Philip Pape: So it all has to do with the total work done for the week per training variable number one and how it's spread out with your training split to get that volume via frequency.
• 29:07
  Philip Pape: Now, there is a separate benefit to having more sessions in terms of well, there's several benefits, right?
• 29:15
  Philip Pape: One is the fatigue gets spread out.
• 29:17
  Philip Pape: Another is practical benefits of time, the way you don't have really long marathon sessions in the gym.
• 29:22
  Philip Pape: Another is there potentially is a slight advantage to hitting more frequency, even if the volume's the same, in terms of the stimulus to your muscles for growth.
• 29:32
  Philip Pape: And it kind of makes count, it kind of makes intuitive sense when you think of, okay, well, if I'm I'm hitting it more frequently, I'm getting a little boost in that muscle protein synthesis and that signal each time, and I'm still letting it recover.
• 29:44
  Philip Pape: There's some logic to that versus hitting it once really heavy in one training session and waiting a whole week and potentially getting a little bit of D training going on, right?
• 29:54
  Philip Pape: That kind of makes sense.
• 29:55
  Philip Pape: So frequency is really important.
• 29:57
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 29:57
  Philip Pape: So now I want to give you one bonus variable.
• 29:59
  Philip Pape: And I wanted this to make this a bonus because it I feel like it's not its own separate independent thing.
• 30:06
  Philip Pape: And that is your recovery capacity.
• 30:08
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 30:08
  Philip Pape: Recovery is like the power supply under all of this.
• 30:11
  Philip Pape: So it's kind of the foundation of all these variables.
• 30:14
  Philip Pape: If you have a perfect training program and you're doing all the other five variables, but you're underfed, you're underslept, you're overstressed, it's not going to matter.
• 30:24
  Philip Pape: It's going to be kind of a waste of time.
• 30:25
  Philip Pape: If anything, it might even stress you out more and actually set you back.
• 30:29
  Philip Pape: Right.
• 30:29
  Philip Pape: So this is why recovery is kind of an underlying foundation.
• 30:32
  Philip Pape: If the hypertrophy hierarchy is a pyramid, the recovery is the ground that it sits on.
• 30:38
  Philip Pape: And if it's soft, the pyramid just starts to sink.
• 30:41
  Philip Pape: Hey, that's a pretty good analogy.
• 30:42
  Philip Pape: Just came up with that.
• 30:43
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 30:44
  Philip Pape: So, so what is recovery?
• 30:46
  Philip Pape: Well, we know what that is, guys.
• 30:47
  Philip Pape: You listen to the show at all.
• 30:48
  Philip Pape: If you're new to the show, you know, go check out uh some of the more recent podcasts.
• 30:52
  Philip Pape: I know we've covered recovery in almost every podcast.
• 30:55
  Philip Pape: And that is sleep, that is nutrition, that is managing your stress.
• 30:58
  Philip Pape: And those determine whether everything you're doing in the gym translates to meaningful adaptations because your body is ready for them and capable of them.
• 31:06
  Philip Pape: Sleeping enough, you know, seven to nine hours.
• 31:09
  Philip Pape: So you build your muscle, which happens during your sleep, you know, your brain rebuilds itself during sleep, your muscle protein synthesis is affected by sleep, your training quality, how you utilize your food, et cetera.
• 31:20
  Philip Pape: Speaking of food, eating enough calories, especially protein.
• 31:23
  Philip Pape: But some of you are eating a decent amount of protein, but maybe not enough calories because you're afraid of gaining fat.
• 31:28
  Philip Pape: You're afraid of getting fat.
• 31:30
  Philip Pape: And that's a whole separate topic.
• 31:31
  Philip Pape: But when it comes to building muscle, at least be around maintenance with your food and ideally in a slight surplus or even in a meaningful surplus, depending on if you're going after that, you know, muscle building phase.
• 31:42
  Philip Pape: If you're in a deficit and trying to build muscle, it's going to be very hard.
• 31:45
  Philip Pape: You're fighting an uphill battle.
• 31:47
  Philip Pape: And if you're doing it on purpose because you're in a fat loss phase, that's cool.
• 31:50
  Philip Pape: That like we make that trade-off and understand that all these variables are going to be hampered a bit.
• 31:55
  Philip Pape: And maybe that's okay because we're just trying to hold on to muscle.
• 31:58
  Philip Pape: Going back to what I mentioned about volume needing to be a lot less to hold on to muscle, and it's more of the intensity or the weight on the bar that that maybe counts a little bit more.
• 32:07
  Philip Pape: You take all that into a mind, into mind.
• 32:10
  Philip Pape: Did I say that right?
• 32:11
  Philip Pape: Yeah.
• 32:11
  Philip Pape: And then, of course, your life stress, your chronic stress, which elevates cortisol, interferes with your recovery muscle building as well.
• 32:17
  Philip Pape: So all of those are important.
• 32:18
  Philip Pape: And without good recovery, then optimal volume effort, progressive overload, all of that is not going to produce nearly the results that you'd want.
• 32:26
  Philip Pape: And that's why it's one of the very first things I assess with clients.
• 32:30
  Philip Pape: And in physique university, we actually have a tracker just for that, for biofeedback, for recovery.
• 32:34
  Philip Pape: We talk about it all the time, almost more importantly than the training in food.
• 32:38
  Philip Pape: Like training in food almost becomes kind of easy to understand.
• 32:41
  Philip Pape: And then the recovery piece is where people get hung up, especially for those of us over 40 who are strength training over 40.
• 32:47
  Philip Pape: We're like, man, we've got so much going on in our life.
• 32:50
  Philip Pape: We have to figure out how to make this work.
• 32:52
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 32:52
  Philip Pape: Because recovery mediates that training adaptation curve.
• 32:56
  Philip Pape: Under recovery is going to nullify a lot of what you're doing, but being recovered well is going to be an accelerator.
• 33:04
  Philip Pape: So taking all this together, the hypertrophy hierarchy, it I wanted this not just to be a list of very, it's not just a listicle of variables.
• 33:13
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 33:13
  Philip Pape: It's a framework of training maturity.
• 33:16
  Philip Pape: Training maturity.
• 33:18
  Philip Pape: That's your ability to just step back, assess where you're at, focus your energy on that highest leverage variable for your situation, like an intelligent human being.
• 33:26
  Philip Pape: It's why you listen to this show.
• 33:28
  Philip Pape: Whether you're doing it on your own, you're working with a coach, you're working with us, in physique university, doesn't matter, right?
• 33:34
  Philip Pape: The thing about leverage points is they're not always the same for everyone, and they're not the same at every stage, every age, every phase.
• 33:41
  Philip Pape: If you're a beginner, your highest leverage point might be just adding weight to the bar and tracking your lifts.
• 33:47
  Philip Pape: If you're intermediate, you might need to look at your volume.
• 33:50
  Philip Pape: If you're advanced, you might need to see are you really putting enough into recovery as you need?
• 33:56
  Philip Pape: Those are just some examples.
• 33:58
  Philip Pape: And early in my training, or even before I got into so-called training, I was doing CrossFit and everything else.
• 34:03
  Philip Pape: I was always chasing the fun, silly details, whether that was tempo or, you know, fun exercises or variety, you know, or even conditioning.
• 34:13
  Philip Pape: And I wasn't tracking my lifts.
• 34:14
  Philip Pape: I wasn't progressing overload, progressively overloading.
• 34:16
  Philip Pape: I didn't even understand that concept.
• 34:18
  Philip Pape: Once I did, it actually took out a lot of the stress.
• 34:21
  Philip Pape: It made it made going to the gym a confident experience, a fun experience in some ways, even though it's hard in its own way.
• 34:27
  Philip Pape: But I was actually getting meaningful growth rather than just this mediocre flat line for years where I'm like, hey, maybe it's my diet, maybe it's this, maybe it's that.
• 34:35
  Philip Pape: Maybe I need to run more, right?
• 34:37
  Philip Pape: No.
• 34:37
  Philip Pape: Simplify it and focus on volume, effort, progressive overload.
• 34:40
  Philip Pape: The things we talked about today, find that leverage point for you, and you're gonna start to take off and make those gains.
• 34:47
  Philip Pape: Identify your highest leverage point right now.
• 34:50
  Philip Pape: Take a pause on the podcast and say it out loud.
• 34:53
  Philip Pape: Right now, say it out loud.
• 34:54
  Philip Pape: I don't care if you're in around other people and they're gonna look at you funny.
• 34:58
  Philip Pape: Is it volume?
• 34:59
  Philip Pape: Is it effort?
• 35:00
  Philip Pape: Which of the variables is it today?
• 35:01
  Philip Pape: Go back, look at the show notes, and rank them for yourself.
• 35:06
  Philip Pape: Then and only then worry about the other ones until you've addressed the first ones.
• 35:10
  Philip Pape: And that's how you'll get more mature as a train trainee and make consistent progress and be intelligent about this whole thing.
• 35:16
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 35:16
  Philip Pape: So if you want structured programs that already have these principles in place and where we can teach you through curriculum how to apply everything and how to do other things, like to breathe and brace, for example, your gym equipment, what you should be wearing on your feet, like those kinds of details as well.
• 35:33
  Philip Pape: Check out Physique University.
• 35:34
  Philip Pape: Use the link in the show notes or go to witsandweights.com slash physique.
• 35:38
  Philip Pape: Inside there, we give you training templates.
• 35:40
  Philip Pape: Right now we're up to nine or 10, I believe.
• 35:42
  Philip Pape: We have another one coming along the way for our strong finish challenge.
• 35:45
  Philip Pape: And these are training templates designed around the hypertrophy hierarchy and the lifting lessons that teach you how to program for yourself.
• 35:52
  Philip Pape: Now, I'm not saying you have to program yourself.
• 35:54
  Philip Pape: You get all the templates and you can literally run them as is.
• 35:56
  Philip Pape: But then we teach you, hey, how can you adjust this for you to make it even more effective and personalized?
• 36:03
  Philip Pape: Right?
• 36:03
  Philip Pape: The goal isn't just to give you a cookie cutter program, it's to teach you the skill around that as well so that you have it for life, and then you're like super confident about how to do this.
• 36:10
  Philip Pape: So go to witsandweights.com slash physique to learn more.
• 36:14
  Philip Pape: There's a special code in the show notes as well.
• 36:16
  Philip Pape: The details are there, so go check out the show notes, wits and weights.com slash physique.
• 36:20
  Philip Pape: All right, until next time, keep using your wits, lifting those weights, and remember to master the fundamentals before you chase the details.
• 36:28
  Philip Pape: I'm Philip Higgs, and this is the Wits and Weights Podcast, and I will talk to you next time.