Training principles for longevity | Andy Galpin, Ph.D. (PART II)

**Peter Attia** (0:11)
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Now, without further delay, here's today's episode.
My returning guest this week is Dr. Andy Galpin. Andy was a previous guest back on episode 239, not that long ago, in January of 2023, where we discussed the structure of muscle fibers, the difference between the different types of muscle fibers, hypertrophy, and how to start strength training.
I wanted to have Andy back because we never really got to finish what we started in our first discussion. And the reason for that, frankly, is because we went a little deeper than either of us expected into the basic physiology of muscle. And I want to be clear, I have no regrets about doing that. I think that's an obligation that I feel is imperative through our podcast. Our podcast is known for going deeper into subject matter than you'll typically find in other podcasts. And so we did that, but the price you have to pay for that is sometimes you have to spend a little bit more time talking about things. So that's what we needed to do in this discussion. So we start here by providing a very quick but important recap of the first conversation around muscle cells, functions, types of fibers, hypertrophy, things like that. But then we use that to go into the rest of the discussion, which gets into the construction of a matrix. Now you may remember if you heard the first discussion, we talk about the different phenotypes, the power lifters, the weight lifters, the strong men, the CrossFit athletes, sprinters. And what we do here is we build out the principles of training in terms of frequency, intensity, volume, rest, recovery, everything that has to do with it. We then organize all of that information and ask the question, how would you tie that in for someone who's training for the centenarian decathlon? Because as you'll recall, at least for me personally and for my patients, we're really less interested in becoming power lifters, weight lifters, strong men, CrossFit athletes, et cetera. What we're really interested in doing is becoming centenarian decathletes. We're interested in being the most strong, physically fit, able people who in the final decades of their life are functioning like people who are two decades younger.
As a reminder, Andy earned his Master's in Health Movement Sciences from the University of Memphis, followed by a PhD in Human Energetics from Ball State University. Andy's a professor of kinesiology at California State University Fullerton, where his research spans adaptations from whole muscle to cellular level changes, which he has applied to his work with professional athletes for more than 15 years. So without further delay, please enjoy my follow-up conversation with Andy Galpin, which will surely not be our last. Andy, awesome to have you back for what is very unlikely to be part two of two. This will just be part two of N, where N is an integer greater than two, and it'll be TBD on what that looks like. In our first discussion, which I think truthfully was pretty technical, but I still think formed a very important basis for what we're gonna talk about today. So I predict that today's discussion will be a little less technical, but we'll assume that the viewer slash listener has some familiarity with what we've talked about.
But for those maybe who A, listen to it, a couple of months ago and have forgotten, or B, are not listening to it, I think it's probably worth investing a little bit of our time in going over some of the major concepts. So feel free to diverge from the line of questioning, but everything I want to talk about right now is just to give people enough background so that we can get into the meat of a discussion that you and I have already spent some time planning. So let's start by explaining what the cells of muscles look like and how they function.

**Andy Galpin** (4:20)
When we say the term muscle, what we're typically referring to is a collective group. So when you think about like your quadricep or your thigh, it's actually four muscles there. That's why we call it a quad. We say bicep, how do you do bicep? So it's actually multiple bicep muscles and orientation insertion. So in general, the way that humans move is muscles will contract and muscles actually at the end of them will come together to form a tendon. Those tendons actually connect to bone. So when you contract muscle, it pulls that connective tissue, the tendon that pulls the bone and you move. And so you've got muscles throughout your body, up and down.