Build Your Ideal Physique | Dr. Bret Contreras

**Andrew Huberman** (0:00)
Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.
I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Dr. Brett Contreras. Dr. Brett Contreras holds a doctorate degree in sports science and is a certified strength and conditioning specialist. He has over three decades of experience training everyday people, athletes, and coaches on how to get stronger and develop larger muscles. These days, Brett is best known as the glute guy for his pioneering of exercises for women and men to strengthen and build their glutes in order to be able to move better, prevent and heal pain and injuries, and of course, for aesthetic reasons. Today's discussion is a very important one because anyone interested in their immediate and long-term health needs to resistance train. The science is extremely clear on that. However, there are a lot of questions about how best to resistance train. Today, Brett clarifies how often to resistance train, what movements to do, and how to make continual progress, and in particular, how to build a resistance training program that is tailored to your unique aesthetic and performance goals. For example, we discuss how to prioritize the growth and strengthening of your glutes or arms or shoulders or calves or back. Basically, whichever body part or parts you need to emphasize while not losing progress in other areas, and in many cases, while still making progress in other areas. We also explain how to gain muscle while getting leaner, why the speed of your weight movements probably matters less than selecting the proper variety of movements to target all parts of a muscle. And Brett explains exactly which movements you should do in each workout to ensure well-rounded development of the various muscle groups, including, of course, the glutes. Dr. Brett Contreras has considered one of the most trusted voices in this entire space, and that's because he's highly credentialed, meaning he knows the science inside out. He also has trained thousands of people and he gets them spectacular results. In fact, the before and afters of his clients are nothing short of extraordinary. So if you currently resistance train or you want to start resistance training, and perhaps you're one of those people who's wary about getting too big, or you want to just grow one part of your legs and not another, or just your glutes but not have larger legs, or maybe if you just want to be bigger overall, today Dr. Brett Contreras shares the knowledge that anyone, novice or experienced, can incorporate into their fitness routine to achieve better results faster. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, today's episode does include sponsors. And now for my discussion with Dr. Brett Contreras. Dr. Brett Contreras, welcome.

**Bret Contreras** (2:45)
Dr. Andrew Huberman, it's a pleasure. Thank you so much for inviting me on.

**Andrew Huberman** (2:49)
The pleasure is mine. And I've been following your content for a long time now. And I and many other people are super interested in how they can resistance train best for the purpose of getting stronger. And let's admit it, most people who do some resistance training probably want some hypertrophy, some muscle growth, perhaps not in their entire body, some people do, but in specific body parts. They want to grow bigger arms. They want to grow bigger glutes. They want to grow bigger calves. That seems to be a theme nowadays. Glutes and calves seem to be the new biceps, as they say. So let's start off with the basics. Let's take the typical, if there were one, there isn't one, but let's imagine the typical woman or man in their 30s or 40s who's never really done any resistance training, maybe done some yoga, some running, maybe did a sport in high school, maybe not.
And they are interested in building some muscle to shape their body the way they like to shape it. What is the frequency of workouts that you could give as kind of across the board? What's too many? What's too few? Per week.

**Bret Contreras** (4:03)
Yep. So I would say two times a week full body would be like the minimum. Now you could see results training just one day a week. Imagine if you, you know, and if you tracked your weights and like if you had a coach that was, that knew what they were doing, you could get good results just lifting weights one day a week. It would be a brutal day, but it would be full body. You'd hit mostly, you know, the big basic multi-joint movements. But if you stuck to that, you would see a lot of gains. And you could keep seeing gains for, you know, theoretically an entire year or two. If you want to maximize your gains, you need to hit a muscle probably twice a week. There's some evidence that you, that, you know, maybe three times a week is best, but that's hard to recover from. But I would say for the majority of listeners who are eager to get started, you get so much of your results from the first set. The first set you do.