Ep. #517: Dr. Andy Galpin on Muscle Fiber Types and Muscle Growth

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Now there’s a lot of confusion and debate about how much muscle fiber types relate to muscle growth. There’s no debate as to the existence of different muscle fiber types like fast twitch and slow twitch and hybrid muscle fibers, but. Some people say, for example, that only fast twitch muscle tissue can get big and strong and that some of us naturally have more, less of it, and that we can’t change that regardless of what we do in the gym.

And thus, some of us can get big and strong much easier than others and get much bigger and stronger than others simply because of the difference in the makeup of our muscle tissues. Now, Other people say that both fast and slow twitch muscle tissue can get bigger and stronger and that the makeup of our muscles is malleable.

But, practically speaking, it doesn’t really matter. They say we shouldn’t take any special measures in our training to try to emphasize one muscle fiber type over the other, and we should train in whatever way they think is best, but… doesn’t account for the differences in muscle fiber types throughout our body.

And then others still say that muscle specific hypertrophy training, so using different rep ranges with different muscle groups based on their dominant fiber type, is the optimal approach to training, and especially for intermediate and advanced weightlifters. Now, who’s right? Well, I actually wasn’t sure myself, because the research is very complex, it’s very technical, and it’s hard to separate the signal from the noise and determine practically what is.

is best. And so that’s why I invited Dr. Andy Galpin on the show. Now, in case you are not familiar with Andy, he has a PhD in human bioenergetics and he teaches various university level courses on sports nutrition and exercise physiology. And he also heads up a lab that runs studies on muscle fiber type and muscular adaptations to exercise on a cellular level.

So he really was the perfect guest for this. Now, Andy’s lab is also conducting an intermittent fasting study to learn more about the implications of fasting on muscle growth, and I am proud to say that that’s a study that I’m helping fund through my sports nutrition company, Legion Athletics. And so, let’s get to the interview.

I hope you like it. Hey Andy, welcome. Back to the podcast to talk again about muscle fiber types.

Andy: Yeah, I got to be back, man. For the second time.

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. It’ll be even better this time. It’ll be an even smoother delivery for people listening. What happened is we recorded this one time and the audio, it just turned out that the auto, uh, was messed up because the software I was using didn’t do its job.

So now, uh, we’re doing it again.

Andy: And just so you know, that was my single best podcast performance in the history of my life. And now of course, that’s how it goes, you know, now I’ll probably do like a D plus C minus today so

Mike: it’s going to be a Joe Biden performance. You’re just going to start rambling incoherently.

Andy: Yeah, exactly.

Mike: So that’s the segue for what we’re going to talk about, which is muscle fiber. Types talk about like the hair on your legs and kids liking to touch you and stuff, you know? So yeah, it’s a muscle fiber types and quick little bit of intro for people listening. The reason I wanted to get Andy on to talk about this is one, this is an area of expertise.

Specific expertise for him. And it’s something that I’ve read a lot of conflicting expert opinion on. So you have different muscle fiber types, which Andy’s going to explain, and that’s not controversial, but what is kind of controversial is how does that change from person to person? Can it change much depending on how we train, should we.

Tailor our training to our muscle fiber type breakdowns, and that can even then some people will say that if you really want to maximize your results, you should tailor your training to muscle group by muscle group because different muscle groups tend to be more dominant in one type of fiber or another.

And. Yeah, so those are the main questions that I get and that’s what Andy’s going to break down for us and with also an eye to practicality, which is always nice where, because there are some things where you can get so lost in the theory and then you pull back and you go. All right. Does any of this matter?

Like, do I even need to care or should I just keep doing what I’m doing? You know what I mean?

Andy: Yeah, man, let’s do it. I’m excited. I don’t know wherever you want to start.

Mike: So I think we should just start with a basic description of the primary muscle fiber types. And, and from there we can kind of dive into the specifics of how those fibers are then distributed throughout the body and how they work and the rest.

Andy: Sure. Most people are familiar at this point of fast twitch versus slow twitch fibers and The name is fairly descriptive, so the thing that differentiates these fiber types is their, you know, ability to twitch, and by twitch I mean contraction. And they call it fast and slow because it’s not a strength issue, it’s a speed issue.

And so, functionally, the difference between a fast twitch fiber is it contracts with more velocity. And, uh, we can actually maybe jump ahead of the court here for a quick second, but this is one of the other major misnomers is People assume that fast twitch fibers contract with more strength than a slow twitch fiber, and if you look across the literature, it doesn’t really seem to be that’s the case.

When equated for size, they seem to contract with about the equal strength. But certainly force is… Or, uh, speed, rather, is, is different between them, and so, therefore, the power profile is quite different. And we can get into this later, but different types of trained individuals, and even potentially different muscle groups, will actually have differences in size.

So, some people will have fast twitch fibers that are significantly larger than slow twitch fibers. But others will have the opposite, where their slow twitch fibers may be bigger than their fast twitch fibers. So, that’s something we can come back to if you’d like.

Mike: That’s interesting. Do fast twitch fibers generally have more potential for size, right?

That’s something I’ve always heard, at least, and…

Andy: Yeah, I don’t know if that’s necessarily inherently true. We have some association that that seems to be the case. It’s pretty robust that larger fibers tend to be… Fast trick fibers unless you’re very specifically endurance trained. If you’re heavily, especially like long duration endurance, then the reason why you’re saying that is because what we’ll typically do is look at like a strength training study and this would be an 8 to 10 or 12 week strength training study and we typically see fast trick fibers do hypertrophy more in that setting than slow trick fibers.

And so we tend to then assume they have a greater propensity for. hypertrophy than the slow twitch. We also have some molecular data to support that as well. So the fast twitch fibers tend to have a more active and pronounced what we call an anabolic cascade. So this would be all the molecular and genetic things you have to have go on inside a muscle cell to cause it to grow.

And so when they have more of that, it seems to be, be more in tuned with, with the stimuli to cause hypertrophy, but it’s not exactly clear if that happens or how that happens from there. And that some of the confusion is what you actually let into. We’ve been suffering from 30 to 40 years of what I’ll call confusion in this field.

That’s not really confusion. It’s mostly nomenclature issues. And there’s actually, there’s logic behind it. I could walk you through it if you really care. But the short answer is most of us, and by us the scientists, have confused each other because the methods we use in the laboratory to test and measure these things are so different that they have resulted in A lot of different names.

And so we actually think we’re measuring the same thing. We’ve been measuring different things. And so it seems like you’re like, well, one paper shows this. Another paper shows exact opposite. Like what the hell? That’s because we didn’t realize or folks didn’t realize or not appreciating the fact that you’re, you’re kind of measuring different things.

Mike: So kind of speaking past each other.

Andy: Yeah, if you look at from the outside and I know because this was me for many years, like looking at the outside, you’re just like, what the hell is going on? This field just seems like a mess. But there’s actually a common thread and the story is very simple once I was able to uncover that and like, Oh, I see exactly what’s happening here.

So it’s not nearly as confusing as we think. The problem is, though, people continue to use these less valid, less specific, less precise methodologies. And so we continue to get more studies coming out, coming out, using things that we know are just rife with error. And so it makes it really difficult unless you’re just.

You know, like this is your jam. It’s just, it would be basically impossible to, to kind of follow up or keep along with what’s going on. And so people on the outside doing your best to try to keep up with the science, it’s pretty tough.

Mike: Yeah, I mean. Just the nomenclature, the jargon alone, it produces a very large moat that keeps, and understandably so, because there’s so much to understand to be able to just go through some of this research and come away going, Oh, okay, yeah, I see how that conclusion came from what they did in the data makes sense to me.

It’s very technical. And that is one of the reasons why I wanted to get you. Cause it’s something that, for example, an area that, you know, so much more than, than I know. And I wouldn’t be able to do this discussion anywhere near the amount of justice that you can, because I don’t have the technical chops to get that deep into the physiology. Cause I just haven’t put the time into it.

Andy: Yeah, no, I do. Cause I mean, I did for five years, it’s just like all I did. So the part of the confusion is this. We tend to call them fast twitch and slow twitch, but that’s not really how they work. It’s more of like, there’s a giant continuum or spectrum, okay?

And on one end of the spectrum, they’re clearly slow twitch. And on the other end of the spectrum, they’re clearly fast twitch. But when you get in the middle, that’s where things get confusing. And so, depending on what you’re doing scientifically, you have to kind of draw an arbitrary line in the sand.

And you say, okay, everything on the right side is fast twitch, everything on the left side is slow twitch. But someone else could draw that line slightly differently. And so that changes everything. And when your margin of error is 10 or 15%, well, how are you ever going to pick up any sort of change if that changes less than 10 or 15%?

Cause it’s within your margin of error. The problem is, like, using a system that has that line of subjectivity. So, when you look at all the studies that have used those methodologies, of course, coin flip. Like, one comes up one way, one comes up another way. But all of the studies, and this is, I guess, the hope, or the positivity here is, Any of the studies that have used actual specificity here where it’s not an objective thing where it’s like we’re going to every individual fiber and measure it objectively rather than sort of calling it one of these things subjectively.

The answers are actually very clear with all the questions you started off the conversation with. I could probably answer a lot of those with pretty good certainty because… Looking the outside, looking in, you’d be like, well, there’s literature showing it both ways. And then I could show you actually it’s showing both ways because they did this, this, this, and this wrong in their, in their methodologies.

So, um, we can probably answer a lot of those questions and others like pretty close to there’s some more like, ah, we don’t know. But then actually the nice part is there’s some answers that I think we have a lot closer to that we didn’t have last time we talked.

Mike: So there’s a silver lining to our technical snafu.

Andy: Yeah. Like we’re getting there. I mean, this is science, man. Like science isn’t pretty. It’s not a straight line always.

Mike: It accumulates over time, right? Yep. Well, let’s get to that then. Let’s start with, I mean, we can start with a, it doesn’t really matter. I guess where we start. We start with something basic.

You have to, you have a suggestion.

Andy: Yeah. The basic one people want to know is. It’s sort of kind of change and we can go from there. I’d say that.

Mike: And then just where are they as far as a baseline? Is it true that some people are predominantly, let’s say a fast twitch type of physiology and that’s why they came into the weight room so strong or able to gain muscle so quickly?

That’s something I’ve heard and I’ve been asked about fairly often as well.

Andy: Okay. Yeah. So. Just really quickly on that last piece, whenever we think about functionality at the whole cell or at the whole organism level, we have to understand it’s not a single contributing factor. And so the reason why you gain so much muscle so quickly, it would never be explained by one thing.

The reason why you’re strong and you gain strength so fast, it’s never one thing. It’s, well, it could have been muscle fiber type. Could have been a neural issue. Could have been a connective tissue issue. Could have been a hormonal issue. Could have been a lot of different things so

Mike: It could be anatomy, right? You just have

Andy: totally biomechanics. Exactly. Could be a whole host of things, so number one, I’d say stop producing the complexity of human physiology to a single explanation. So that sort of tangent aside, we’ll come back to the bigger picture.

Mike: And just one thing to add to that, one of the reasons why people have reached out to me on that point specifically is often because they feel like they are deficient where, uh, that they have always been maybe, Average or even under muscled and would assume that then they’re like, Oh, are they are predominantly slow twitch type one.

If people listening, if you’ve heard that type one slow twitch type two fast twitch. Yeah.

Andy: Okay. So that’s actually good. If you can remember to, we can talk about some interesting things there. Yeah. So the quick thing is of course we’re all born with a different genome sort of thing. So some of us are going to have a different starting place on the line.

There’s no doubt about that. We don’t, we’re not all born with the exact same fiber type profile. So they’re different, of course, but the question from there then is what’s your ability to change it? And this is where if you look at the literature, it, you know, quote unquote looks confusing. You just have to kind of trust me on this one.

It’s not even remotely close to confusing. It’s so abundantly clear. There’s no wiggle room on this at all. Your ability to change your fiber type, so how many of each facet you have or slovers you have, is incredibly easy. It’s very, very plastic, and it goes in both directions, so you can go from fast to slow and slow to fast, and I’ll grant you, it’s a little bit harder to add more slow twitch fibers, in other words, like pure type ones than it is type twos, but your ability to move throughout the rest of the profile is very, very high, and so in order to understand that, you have to kind of understand, I talked about earlier how it was Fiber types are really on a continuum.

So it’s not just like one and two, right? There’s not fast twitch and slow twitch. It’s extremely fast, extremely slow, and a whole bunch of these things in between. And the ones in between are called hybrids. And in fact, a paper just came out the last week or so, called Mixing It Up, the Biological Significance of Hybrid Skeletal Muscle Fibers.

And that was in the Journal of Experimental Biology. But this is just echoing what we’ve been saying for a long time, is these hybrid fibers, these are Fibers that are not fast twitch or slow twitch. They are both. So this is one muscle cell that is slow twitch and fast twitch. Or going even further, it could be fast twitch and what we call super faster or mega fast twitch.

In fact, we see them pretty routinely in our lab, but that is actually all three parts. So it is slow, fast and mega fast in the same exact muscle cell. We also know that the quote unquote fiber type of a muscle cell is not uniform throughout the entire cell. So what I mean is in one huge muscle cell, it’s not just a type one the entire way.

So one end, it could be type one at the other end, it can be type two, could be something different in the middle.

Mike: And just so people are visualizing this properly, you can use muscle cell and muscle fiber interchangeably, right? So we’re talking about, sorry. Yeah, I just want people to understand so they can picture it in their mind.

So a long cylindrical, just one individual cell or fiber that can contract, right?

Andy: Yeah, think of a pony tail. Okay, so a ponytail, you know, the entire ponytail itself would be a muscle. But really, the muscle is just made up of a whole bunch of individual hairs. And they’re long, cylindrical, just like you described, pretty dense, pretty thick.

In fact, human skeletal muscle fibers are the largest cell in all of biology by volume. They’re huge cells. So yeah, cell fiber, think of that as just one. So in this particular case, say the part of the hair… That’s by your scalp could be fast twitch, but when it gets all the way out to the end of your hair, it could be a slow twitch or something like that.

So it’s, it’s not exactly, but it’s clean. Like, well, it’s faster to slow twitch. And would that be considered a hybrid? Well, no, it would depend on what part of the cell you looked at because we don’t take the entire cell out, right? You only go in there and take a chunk of it. So if you took the chunk that was at the base and it was, all you saw was fast twitch.

Mike: And then you’d be like, oh, it’s a fast twitch.

Andy: The reason is, I mean, if you picture, there’s some individual cells in humans that are several inches long. But I wouldn’t even know where the cell started or finished. So it would be just, one, impossible to find that out. And two, I’d have to go in and remove, you know, five or six inches of length of your leg.

And so, like, no one’s going to do that. So we just go in with a little needle, take a chunk out, and just hope that what we’re getting there is kind of representative of the entire muscle. But we also know that the fiber type is different between different layers. So as you go deeper in the muscle, as you go more towards the outside, the concentration of fast versus slow changes.

And so, that alone gives you some flexibility in terms of, well, you know, depending on the exact place you put the biopsy needle in, you’re going to get some slightly different results. Having said all that, though, again, we have this spectrum, and so what we know is, is it’s very responsive to exercise. It doesn’t matter what type of exercise, per se.

It can be endurance training, it can be strength training, circuit training, sprint work. All of these things change the fiber type profile. Some inactivity does the exact same thing in the opposite direction. Aging changes it very quickly. Uh, even, I think the shortest one I’m aware of is 11 days of extreme disuse.

Change fiber type profile, and we haven’t seen this in humans yet, because it hasn’t been tried. But there’s been many, many studies in murines, rats, and mice, as well as in primates, that even nutrition, cold water immersion, CO2 versus O2 concentrations, all of these things change fiber type as well.

Mike: So, of course, training is also.

Andy: Yes, like training is the easiest one to do it with.

It’s incredibly easy, and I can highlight it really quickly with our twin study. A couple of years ago, we looked at monozygous twins. So these would be identical twins. And what that means is it’s a genetic clone, right? So it’s not just like brother and sister. It is the exact same genes split in half.

And come on. So the nice part about this model is it gives us total controls. Like we have 100 percent accounted for genetics. Okay? And then one of the twins would have a long, say 30 plus years of physical activity, structured exercise, competition with the other twin having no really formal exercise training.

And we saw that the endurance train twins were 95 percent or higher slow twitch. And the non endurance or the sedentary twin was 50 50 fast switch, slow touch. I don’t know how much more difference you want me to show in your ability to change your profile.

Mike: And if you were to replace the endurance training with a lot of weightlifting, you would see it heavily skewed in the other direction, I’m assuming?

Andy: Well, we don’t know. We’ve never been able to do that. Problem 30 plus years of strength training history. Sure, yeah. I mean, that generation’s coming because of our generation. Yeah, right. It’s coming, but that’s actually what we’re trying to do right now is we’re trying to recruit specifically people who have lifelong exercise, but strength training exercise, not jogging.

Mike: I feel like I’ve seen some research, I think it was done with power lifters that showed that they had more or less a 50 50 or maybe it was a 60 40 type 2 type 1. It wasn’t nearly as weighted toward fast switch as, not you, but as someone might think, considering all the weight lifting experience that they’ve done.

Andy: Yeah, so I can count it out with a couple of things. Those studies have been done. My friend, actually, Pertesh, did many of those studies in the 1980s and 90s. Unfortunately, that was with the type of fiber type analysis method that’s that, like, objective sand, draw a line in the sand. So there’s just not a lot you can draw from those things.

Having said that, we have a paper that we are just about to put in review with trained powerlifters, men and women. And they weren’t extremely high fast switch concentrations either. It’s pretty split between 50 50, but I can counter that with the study we published a couple of years ago in Olympic weightlifters.

And these would be men and women, and these were at the national or international, like elite world championship and or Olympians. Those were actually with the proper fiber typing methodologies, and they were extraordinarily fast switch. In fact, they were the highest ever documented. Concentration of pure to a fast touch fibers we’ve ever seen.

Mike: And the methodology in the latter is different than the former?

Andy: Yes Okay. Okay, the power lifting study that we just finished we weren’t able to do this What we call single fiber where you pull out one muscle fiber at a time We had to kind of homogenize it all together for lots of reasons, but I don’t think it would have changed the story Too much. How come well just because live technique stuff, you know, it’ll change it 10 to 15 percent, but it won’t change it 70.

Mike: And why do you think the Olympic lifters had so much more fast switch muscle?

Andy: Yeah, that’s a great question. I think two reasons. Number one, if you look at our weightlifters, these were again, people who are Olympians, they were on the world team. These are top five in the world, or at least top two, three in the country. The power lifters were not the power lifter we looked at were competitive, but they weren’t making elite totals.

They weren’t bringing this thing. And so For example, in the weightlifter study, we actually were able to split it what we called elites. These are world team members versus national caliber members. And Olympic weightlifting, to make it to national championships, it’s still pretty tough. But to make it on the world team, that’s, that’s quite a bit different.

And what we saw was the world team members had noticeably more faster fibers than the national level. And to follow that up, the world team members also had about twice the training time and experience than the national caliber ones. So I think what we’re seeing here is a clear, well, this wasn’t longitudinal, but, well, I don’t know if the World Team members made it to the World Team because they were born a little more fast Twitch, or it’s because they trained twice as long.

Either way, having more fast Twitch… Most likely meant you were going to be a better Olympic weightlifter. Yeah, for certain. And these powerlifters, like I said, they had been competing for a year or so, but they were not nearly Olympians. So I think that’s what.

Mike: Is it also possible that some people, they can transform more type one into type two, even though they may not start out with more type two, they just genetically have that capability?

Andy: I think your ability to change is probably pretty uniform.

Mike: So you just need to start with more, basically, if you’re going to have a genetic advantage.

Andy: Well, no, I think that helps. I think you’ll find success earlier. If that helps. I also just think that they’ve been training in the sport for seven years versus three.

So, you know, I don’t know. The interesting part would be to follow this up in five years and to see if, if any of the people that were on the national team then made eventually made a world or Olympic team. Right. Cause they just tended to be there while they were not younger age, they were definitely younger training wise. Experience wise, so.

Mike: That makes sense.

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So again, the URL is legionathletics. com and if you appreciate my work and want to see more of it, please do consider supporting me so I can keep doing what I love, like producing podcasts like this. So, all right, so we know that we can change most fiber types back and forth, and it’s a spectrum. It’s not just like a switch that you flip on and off.

Let’s get into more of a practical kind of view. How much does this matter in terms of, let’s say the everyday person who’s not wanting to be a competitive weightlifter, they just want to get jacked the male and female versions of that. How much does it really? Matter is, is let’s, let’s look at it from the, from the, I think, from the perspective of coming back to what you had mentioned earlier that I took a little note on is, is this a reason for concern for anybody that, Oh, maybe they’re just genetically deficient.

They just started with a lot more type one than type two, and therefore they’re going to have a lot harder time gaining muscle, or maybe they’re not going to be able to gain as much muscle as they want. And then should training be optimized. Or should it be altered at all? According to any of the information that we have on muscle fiber type distribution throughout the body.

Andy: Yeah. So, okay. Uh, let’s come back to the second question. So I don’t get too far off track, but yeah, I do think there is a major practical take home to this. So number one, one of the things that we know with aging is it doesn’t matter how you look at this. The short version though is. Maintaining quality muscle is probably about the most important thing that there is with aging.

If you don’t believe me, just, you can do some searching on your own, but that’s extensive and well documented. You lose muscle, you have problems. And it’s probably the single largest predictor of short aging or poor aging. Well, with that loss of muscle, we know that losing the fast twitch fibers is almost specifically the major problem.

You don’t tend to lose slow twitch fibers. So, from a practical perspective, I think this gives tremendous fodder for maintaining or making sure no matter what strength training is a part of the equation at all times. And so, I know that wasn’t your question, but the reason I say that is, if you’re a trainer or you like training people on the side, I think that’s good ammunition for the people who are reluctant to strength train.

Uh, cause they don’t see the benefit or they don’t want to add muscle, things like that. Like this is a major part of your health.

Mike: Or they think it’s dangerous. That’s also common, especially with people in the 40 plus crowd and 50 plus crowd where they think that any form of serious resistance training is just inherently dangerous because of their age.

Andy: Bingo. Yeah, exactly. And so in my mind, I kind of thought maybe there was some coaches or trainers working here. And so you would. You’d want that piece of information because that is a practical takeaway. It’s like, yeah, you want to talk about the health side? Boy, there is no faster way to lose your health than to lose fast reach fibers.

And what we know clearly, even in the aging folks, the easiest way to maintain or increase your fast reach fibers size or quality, is strength training.

Mike: And when you say strength training, just to get specific, as people might be wondering, as far as training goes, how do you emphasize or prioritize development of type two versus type one?

Andy: Yeah, cool. So this is exactly where I was going to go with that for those individuals, for like an aging person. That’s, that’s kind of a different conversation. Just who cares? Just get them moving. Any sort of resistance training is going to be fine. Yeah.

Mike: Work towards some basic strength standards, right?

Andy: Yeah. And we can maybe do a separate show or something if you want to talk about. General strength training guidelines for aging, whatever, but that’s, I don’t think that’s really what you’re asking.

Mike: So yeah, it could be a good separate episode. Ironically, it’s the next book project I’m going to be diving into soon is going to be a book specifically for the 40 plus crowd.

So it’d be timely actually.

Andy: Perfect. Yeah. Okay. So where the other practical piece of this is fiber type specific responses. And this is something my laboratory spent a lot of time on and we have published a lot of papers in this. We’ve got another one coming out right now. Uh, we’ll be actually independently look at fiber type and sex.

There’s unique roles there. So we have potential argument for sex specific Recommendations for strength training we have potential recommendations for sex specific tapering prior to competition or fiber type specific I mean and we have some information for fiber type specific hypertrophy rep ranges So these are three very specific areas where we can say, okay, this information could help us with understanding.

Do you need a different volume? Do you need a different taper? And do you need a different prescription of recovery? One thing we also just finished recently is it’s either fiber type or it’s sex. Specific post exercise recovery window. And so if you go back to the old post exercise anabolic window stuff, all that’s been done in men.

And so all those numbers we have, this, this, this, when we look at it in women, the numbers change. And so there’s a possibility, and I think a very strong possibility at this point, that there may be different windows, quote unquote, of optimal recovery post exercise for women based on men. And if it’s not women based on men, it’s based on fiber type composition.

Mike: Specifically, what does that look like?

Andy: So this is what we got to figure out. It could be something like, and this is not the answer, we have to do another study to get the answer, but it could look like something like this, like maybe fast twitch people need to get their nutrients in a lot sooner post exercise, but slow twitch people, the time domain doesn’t matter.

The problem is, almost all of these post exercise recovery studies, Don’t take fiber type into account, and so they just smash everything together. And so the way statistics work is, that’s always going to come out with no result. Because one person is a 10, one person is a negative 10, the average is 0. Oh, didn’t matter.

No, like you didn’t have enough precision in your study. That’s exactly what happened. When we have precision, when we tease that out, we see, well, this group got way bigger response. This group, it didn’t matter at all. Oh, it turns to be these ones are all fast twitch people and these ones are all slow twitch people.

So that’s something that I think we’re going to have very practical recommendations on. I’ve applied for a couple of grants in the last year to do that, but um, that whole process takes time, so it’ll be a few years before we get that out. We actually have, we’re almost finished with the clinical trial on intermittent fasting and fiber type specific responses right now, so we’ll have more information coming.

Mike: Yeah, we being legion. So my sports nutrition company, anybody listening knows about legion is, is funding some research. And so this is one of the studies where also we gave protein for it. And we’re also funding a lean bulking study that’s being headed up by Eric Helms and James Krieger. And the next year we’re going to be starting a study on or putting up the money for a study on creatine and hair loss and DHT, which would be great just to give more clarity to that because.

the problematic rugby study that, you know, has a lot of people worried and it’ll be nice to have a better answer to that question of does creatine cause hair loss. But yeah, we should definitely do an episode on the intermittent fast study. We should probably think about it in terms of marketing of when it’s probably.

Well, you let me know when, when you think it’s best to, when you have the information, when you can make for a good discussion and somewhere along the way to publication, I guess.

Andy: Yeah. Okay. Um, so to come, we’ll come back to your, your question. The things that we kind of know are, and there’s been evidence in the last, even this is what I was referring to earlier in the last couple of weeks.

The idea that there’s a five type specific hypertrophy range, I think makes a lot of sense.

Mike: Before you jump into that. Let me just ask you quickly and what we were talking about previously. So you have how they’re very well could be a difference in terms of post workout nutrition when you look at it by predominance by fiber type.

What about gender? Now, I’m assuming those things go together, but I just wanted to make it clear for anybody listening because there might be women listening, going, which am I?

Andy: So, okay. If you look at females who are. Untrained. So, you know, sedentary, you know, middle aged folks, whatever. Typically, women will have 10 to 15 percent more fast or slow twitch fibers than men.

So women tend to be slightly more slow twitch. However, when you account for training status, those differences go away completely. I’m yet to see a single study with trained women with precise and accurate fiber typing where they actually have more slow twitch fibers. So I think it’s maybe a default there, but it goes away quickly with training and like I said earlier, or I didn’t actually, but in our weightlifting study and in our powerlifting study, we actually see the women have more faster fibers, at least the same amount.

So that’s kind of what I was saying earlier, you either have to account for sex or you have to account for fiber type. If you want to be totally precise one or the other.

Mike: And so then I guess for most of the people listening, men and women, they’re going to be people who are into resistance training. So they’re going to have a lot of fast, which muscle fiber in their body likely.

And so I’m just curious. So the standard post workout advice is even, even what I say is Have a serving of protein, 20 to 40 grams of something high quality within an hour or so of finishing a workout. You don’t have to race home to get your shake ready, but within an hour or so, and there might be a benefit to having some carbs as well.

Especially if you have something else physically demanding that you’re going to be doing later in the day, whether it’s a second workout or whatever, otherwise the carbs. Probably don’t really matter. I understand the argument some people make about insulin levels and how you can keep insulin levels elevated longer if you combine carbs in the meal.

And I understand that maybe that makes a small difference over time, maybe not. And then as far as fats go is kind of whatever, basically have some, if you want, don’t have any, if you don’t based on what you were talking about, do you foresee any changes to that? Any significant changes?

Andy: So you do have to be a bit careful with fat post exercise.

immediately post exercise. So in that anabolic sensitivity phase, you do have to be a bit careful of fat, because that can have a blunting effect of the anabolic cascade but there hasn’t been a ton of follow up studies to that. It depends on context, but I guess with our current study, we’re going to see.

Because we’ve got one group who’s getting fed, you know, protein controlled, calorie controlled. But one group’s getting fed over about 13 hours of the day. And this would include a meal prior to… Training and then mid or immediately post protein ingestion and then several meals throughout the day. The other group is training fasted entirely and will wait at least one hour after workout to start consuming any of their calories and they’ll consume all their calories within an eight hour window.

Nice. So we’re going to put that to bed one way or the other.

Mike: Yeah. That’s practical too, because that’s for a lot of people that train first thing in the morning. For example, I hear from them. They don’t really want to eat anything before they don’t like, you know, the feeling, having food in their stomach when they go to the gym and they don’t have time to wake up an hour early or something just to eat some food.

So then that’s what they do. And then by the time they shower, get to work, finally get to eating some food, it might be two hours or so.

Andy: Yeah. And there, a lot of the times they’re like, you know, you hear people say this, if you train as hard as I am, like you can’t eat. I’m really after like, oh, okay. Like, yeah, I get it.

Like sometimes when you train really hard, the idea of putting food in your stomach isn’t exactly appetizing.

Mike: I’ve trained pretty hard, but I can’t say I’ve actually gotten there. Like, what does that mean? You’re, you’re just puking and then that’s when you know you’re done with your workout once you’ve puked?

Andy: I guess. We’ve had a lot of people that are just like, oh man, I prefer to wait a little bit. I’m like, all right. So some people don’t like eating immediately after the workout either. Like you said, they’d like to shower and get changed or whatever and then kind of get about their day maybe. But because there’s been a lot of, because we kind of went through this spectrum, right?

Which is like, all right, you got to eat within 30 minutes, post exercise, anabolic window, blah, blah, blah. And then it was like, well, no, actually it’s not true. It’s only about 24 hour period. But I think that pendulum is going way too far as well because it does matter. Protein. Okay, fine. But carbohydrate timing, post exercise, it matters a ton.

What kind of training are you doing? If you’re an athlete, like an athlete I work with, they are definitely almost. Surely training again that day, if not multiple times that day, it isn’t three. So you better believe your protein timing matters because we don’t have that many feeding windows and you better believe your carbohydrate timing matters.

And you’re definitely training the next day. So I guess if you’re like the type who just does like biceps today and you won’t do biceps again until Wednesday. Well, okay, fine. But most athletes I work with don’t do that. So they’re going to be training their legs quote unquote every day and their arms quote unquote every day.

So you. You don’t have time to mess around in terms of carbohydrate recovery in terms of performance, because that’s the question I have to ask too. Are we talking a performance athlete? Are we talking about somebody just trying to gain muscle? Are we talking about somebody just trying to lose fat? These all have slightly different.

Recommendations. So we can only answer one of them. And in this particular study that we’re talking about, we’ll at least have the hypertrophic question answered. And we have men and women enrolled in the study. And so maybe timing does matter for one, but not the other. So we are going to account for both fiber type within the individual person and the sex.

So we have kind of a really four groups, if you will. Men fasted, women fasted, men fed, women fed. And then within all that we have fiber type specific analysis. So we’re going to have a lot of questions answered, you know, maybe the window of matter is one for, say, for example, maybe there’s an effect for fiber type composition, but there’s not an effect for sex or maybe the opposite.

So I don’t know what could happen.

Mike: Well, wouldn’t it be ironic if it comes full circle and now it’s a thing again, and it’s always been a thing. It’s just people didn’t understand the nuance of it.

Andy: Well, yeah, like it was, I think there was so much pushback to get rid of the idea that, okay, you like you, you don’t have to eat within like seconds of your workout.

The people lost the nuance and it was like, well, hold on here. Are you working out fasted? Well, then you probably should eat pretty quickly. Yep. Are you working out fed at like three o’clock in the afternoon after 1800 calories today?

Mike: Yeah. And a serving of protein just an hour before.

Andy: Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Like you had 50 grams of protein three times ready today. Like, okay. Yeah. Fine. Like it probably doesn’t matter, but that’s what I think we push back on that probably too hard, but I don’t know. I mean, again, like maybe the fasting group gains more muscle. And then maybe I go, fuck, it doesn’t matter at all.

Um, so I don’t know, like we have a ton of controls and it’s all blinded.

Mike: Interesting. Well, definitely keep me posted on that. I’ll be looking forward to seeing it when it’s ready.

Andy: Yeah. We’re, we’re getting very close. We’ve had a lot of people finish already. So next big wave starts here soon. So it should be interesting.

Sometime in the spring we should be wrapping up.

Mike: Let’s get back to something you had mentioned, because this is definitely one of the practical takeaways that people will be wanting to have an answer on is let’s just say muscle group is really what it comes down to, right? The idea that you should train and how it’s normally represented is you should be training from what I’ve seen.

It’s not so much about exercise selection. I mean, some exercises don’t lend themselves. well to certain rep ranges, but it’s mostly around the rep ranges. So you should be training with very heavy weights, maybe in a rep range of anywhere from one to max six for this muscle group, maybe your legs. And then in a smaller muscle group, like your shoulders, you really shouldn’t be ever doing sixes.

You should only be doing 10 plus.

Andy: Yeah. So this is, um, we’ll call this idea, what we’ll call a fiber type specific hypertrophy range. Okay. And so, and this is actually something that has come out. In the last several weeks, I do think there is good evidence, at least initially, to suggest, so what I mean when I say suggest is, is we haven’t shown this yet, but I think it is evidence to say this is probably happening, that fast touch fibers probably respond better to a lower repetition range per set than the slow touch fibers.

And we have lots of practical examples of this happening.

Mike: And when you say lower, just so people know, what are you talking about?

Andy: Three to eight, maybe? Okay. And slow twitch fibers, maybe more to that 8 to 30. There’s probably a large overlap there, but something like that. So if you were to do like 5 sets of 5, you probably will see reasonable hypertrophy in your fast twitch fibers.

And I doubt you would get much in the slow twitch. You do sets of 20, you’re probably seeing the exact opposite. Tough to stimulate the fast twitch fibers there, but almost certainly gonna move the needle on the slow twitch fibers. We’ve actually been trying, I’ve been working with Brad Schoenfeld, you know, I’m sure you know Brad.

Sure. We’re trying to drum up some money because I’ve been wanting to do this for like four years. It’s not that hard of a study to do if we could just find some funding, but this is not that difficult of a thing to pull off. And I would suspect that’s probably happening. So to come back to your muscle question, we do also know that the different muscle groups have a general difference in their fiber type composition.

And so we have what are called anti gravity or postural muscles. These are things like your soleus, your spinal erectors, those tend to be much more slow twitch. So if the fiber type specific hypertrophy rep range does exist, then it would say, yeah, actually train your soleus more in like sets of 20 or 30 or something.

But your gastroc, which is in your calf as well, the bigger, more pronounced muscle, is almost the exact opposite. It’s almost entirely fast twitch. So train that thing more in the 5 to 8 to 10s. Or something like that.

Mike: Which would be kind of counterintuitive based on what we’ve been hearing about calf training for a long time now, which is, Oh, you’re just supposed to blast your calves with unlimited reps, basically.

And if you have the genetics, you’ll have calves. And if you don’t, you won’t. So that’s pretty much it.

Andy: Well, this is the thing. Why is it some people do it and it works, and some people do it and it doesn’t? Biology is not random.

Mike: I’m in the latter group, by the way. My calves have received way more volume than you’d think looking at them.

Andy: Right. I’m always of the perspective where it’s like, well, I guess it’s just like, yeah, well, we always just like genetics. But that’s, I think, a short way out. No, I think it’s probably the program. When have you changed the program? Have you done it differently? Have you done the exact opposite? I bet that, in my opinion, most people, if you do have one, or because there is this, this hypertrophy range.

That’s specific to the fiber types. I bet then if you trained in the opposite one, you may see a greater stimulus. And to understand that, we have to go back a quick second. So, here’s the thing. If, say, you have more slow twitch than fast twitch, are you going to respond better to higher rep ranges? Well, I don’t know.

Because the problem is, what if you sort of maximize the genetic potential and size of those slow twitch fibers already? Then you might actually respond better to doing the opposite and so I don’t know what to tell people Oh, you think you’re such a person.

Mike: And vice versa to write in the case of some muscle groups?

Andy: Yes, exactly. And so I think it does give us like I can kind of hedge it to two things I can come down say okay great Knowing your fiber type profile or knowing the fiber type profile of the quads versus hamstrings The hamstrings 600 years Right. You do hamstring curls or whatever, you’re just like three reps in and you feel like your hamstring is going to explode.

Mike: Yeah. And then when you’re getting in bed the night before you’re going to be squatting heavy and your hamstrings are still kind of sore and you’re just hoping like, come on, please just recover.

Andy: He’s like, no RDLs tomorrow. Please. God. Oh, like, right. Well, I don’t know if that means then you should train them because more fast switch rep range because they’re more fast switch or you should do the opposite.

It depends on what you’re going out.

Mike: I mean, I guess this really could be a good argument for, and there are many good arguments for periodization, especially for an intermediate plus weightlifter, right? I mean, in the beginning, it’s pretty straightforward. You don’t have to get fancy with the periodization, in my opinion, double progression in the right exercises takes care of most people’s first year, but beyond that, where now it is beneficial to work in multiple rep ranges for all of the major muscle groups that you train directly, right?

Yeah, a hundred percent then regardless of exactly how it all teases out, even if it is a bit of a black box, you still can get the outcome.

Andy: Yeah. And why I think maybe this is, yeah, cause you’re totally right. But I think where this has more weight is somebody who’s like hit a plateau or somebody who’s like, this is, it’s not working.

Okay, great. Have you done the exact opposite in terms of rep range? That person who’s kind of that mid level training or that person is really far down the line where you’re like, trust me, like. I’ve done, you know, this is as large as my calves are going to get. Okay, great. Well, maybe the fast switch fibers are peaked out and you’ve got to go the opposite direction, which is hit them with more repetitions per set, do a more endurance based thing and try to build up the size of the slow twitch fibers to round you out more.

Mike: And this might be a silly question, but I’m going to ask it anyway. So let’s say that that’s the case, right? With any muscle group, you’ve done a lot of heavier lifting and you got what you’ve got. And it occurs to you, Hey, I haven’t done higher rep stuff in a long time. I’m going to do a bunch of higher rep stuff.

And let’s say you commit to a month of just higher rep training. Would your, would there be any chance that you could lose fast twitch because you were focusing on the slow twitch for let’s say four weeks?

Andy: 100 percent you will.

Mike: Oh, okay.

Andy: Four weeks, no. Okay, probably not a ton.

Mike: But if you go for a long enough period, then you will.

Andy: Yeah. If somebody who’s reasonably trained, I think you probably need six to eight weeks to start seeing noticeable changes in fiber type that I think that would probably be happened if you’re super, super, super trained, maybe that’s a little bit, if you go in the exact opposite direction. So for example, if you are really highly trained power lifter and all of a sudden you switch and you start running 50 miles a week, well, the fiber type will change within probably a month.

But if you’re talking like, oh, I lift weights, you know, I strength train and then I did like a different type of strength training, it’s still really not that different at the level of muscles. So it would probably take somebody eight or so weeks to see sort of noticeable changes in fiber type from there.

Um, if you’re really, really untrained, you don’t do anything. Well, then we could pick up changes in fiber type within, you know, three weeks, probably.

Mike: So, so you could put yourself in a, a kind of ironic position where if you were to make too drastic of a change, then yeah, you might actually gain some size and some strength in your slow Twitch.

But if you’re completely neglecting your fast Twitch, those gains could be offset by losses in fast Twitch. That’s right. So my response to that is, and it’s actually just topical because currently I’m wrapping up a new second edition of it’s a sequel to my more beginner book for men. So the beginner book is called bigger, leaner, stronger, and the sequel is called beyond bigger, leaner, stronger.

And so the first edition has been out for a bit and now I’m updating it and really just rewriting it from scratch is what it has come. To be in the, this new second edition, the training program is you are training in a given rep range for a week. And so it’s, it’s weekly undulating as opposed to daily.

I prefer that personally for a couple of reasons, but, and so something like that then could make a bit more sense. I mean, that’s a shameless plug, but it doesn’t have to be exactly like that. My point is where I’m being exposed. To how the training block, the macro cycle starts at 10, eight, six deload.

That’s your first month. Those are weeks, weeks of tens, mostly compound exercises, some accessory work, and a little like 10 to 12, but your primary exercises, 10, eight, six, DLOAD, eight, six, four, DLOAD four to one DLOAD, and then a bit of AMRAP to test your strength and kind of restart. So over the course of months, I’m being exposed to a number of different rep ranges without abandoning.

Whether it’s the strength training or the more higher rep hypertrophy quote unquote training for too long.

Andy: Yeah, no, I think my practical advice to people on this is is to do something like that and there’s lots of versions of it But if you’re just like unsure what you are faster twice or slow twitch or you’re like, I want to dress them both Do something like that where you address both ends of the spectrum, so to me, you’ll optimize hypertrophy most likely by having a broader exposure to rep ranges.

And I would say that this is one area that we haven’t spent a ton of time on. There’s some on eccentric, and I believe it’s convincing enough, but the repetition type, I think, has a different influence on fiber type. Eccentrics are going to address the fast food fibers more so, and so you could do a different, you know, change your eccentric or concentric isos or tempos or however you want to play with that, but I think that would do it as well, and so, in general, where I’ve landed on this hypertrophy stuff is, if you just want to build long, sustainable muscle growth over time, I think the broader the exposure of the insult, the better, but now I’ve got to say one piece on that is, it’s not so broad that it’s not intentional.

Yeah. So, there’s a difference between randomization and variation. Randomization is not going to work. Variation is going to work very well. So there has to be a plan, a purpose. Don’t just be like, well, I’m going to go to the gym every day and do something totally different. That’s not how you get gains.

Mike: And especially not as an intermediate or beyond weightlifter. In the beginning, of course, as a newbie, you can kind of be a random for the first couple of months and be like, Hey, this is easy.

Andy: Yeah. Well, you can get away with it, but that doesn’t mean it’s good.

Mike: I think that’s my little checklist. We checked every box.

Is there anything bouncing around in your head that you feel like we should address for you?

Andy: The one thing I will get is, um, there have been a couple of studies where people have looked at sort of putting people on a genetically matched, if you will, strength training program versus mismatched. Okay. And so I think those are worthy of addressing here.

What this means is people will do like a very basic DNA test and they’ll tell them, you know, any more. Fast Twitch or more slow Twitch or whatever, and then more fast Twitch people either get put on a fast Twitch program or more fast Twitch people get put on a slow Twitch program or the opposite. So we sort of have this four group things and those studies will show that the people on the matched program tend to do better.

So if you are fast Twitch person and you do more that like 5 to 10 rep range or so, you will probably see more growth. Then if you were to do the twenties or thirties.

Mike: And I guess that makes sense, right? You’re kind of just playing to your strength?

Andy: Totally, but that also you said it really well there I don’t want people to be too short sighted with that because it’s playing to your immediate strengths And if you’re untrained and you just get started probably but that doesn’t mean like once you’re decently or well trained But that’s, that’s where you should stand, or I would argue that’s probably not even the base you should set.

Mike: Well, it doesn’t make sense anymore. Everything that you were describing earlier and how much this can change, like you are physiologically different now after your first year of hard weightlifting.

Andy: Yeah, I think without questioning are so those studies are interesting. We’re going to do sort of more of these, but without these, like, um, I do not see any futility at all in genetic based.

Testing for exercise programming, so don’t run out and be like, okay, I went on my fiber type. I’m gonna get a DNA test. A DNA test can’t tell you your fiber type.

Mike: Even though some of them say that they can’t.

Andy: Absolutely not.

Mike: That’s part of the marketing.

Andy: 100 percent cannot. There’s no chance. It would, it would be the same as saying like, oh, I tested your genome and I figured out where you live.

What? That has nothing to do with there. So, I can’t test because genes only, they’re just like, it’s a deck of cards, right? And it’s like, yeah, you’re gonna have, you’ve got three cards there. But until you flip a card over, it doesn’t matter. And so, if you have five cards on the deck, and they’re all face down, well, the one you decide to flip over is the only one that counts.

So, that’s how fiber type works, is they have to be expressed. So genes have to be expressed for them to matter. So just because you have a gene, and it’s never played, it doesn’t ever matter. So, that part is, there’s no futility, I think, in running out and getting a hundred dollar spit in a can, and them telling you how to do your exercise.

That is preposterous at this point.

Mike: No utility, right? No. Okay. Good. Yeah. Yeah. Cause you had said futility. So I thought you were arguing the other way. I was like, I was like, really as if it’s not futile. Yeah. Okay. Good. No, that makes perfect sense. And so I think that it comes back to just practically speaking.

Puritization works. I would say my. Caveat. And I talk about this in this book that I’m wrapping up is I actually don’t think for people getting newly into proper weightlifting, they don’t need to get too fancy with it. They can stick with something simple. Uh, like I said, doing the right exercises, lifting heavy, mostly heavy weights, double progression, a little bit of lighter weights, maybe on some accessory exercises.

Just if you’re a guy. Go do that and you’re going to gain your first 20 pounds of muscle or so. And it’s going to be fun, straightforward, very simple. And how do you go though, from that first 20 to maybe the last 20 that you have genetically available to you. And that’s, I think where it now makes sense to get a bit more into what I was talking about previously about, you know, how I’m training, where it’s, you put a bit more thought into, like you said, the variation and planning your periodization and really paying attention to frequency and volume.

I mean, it’s not that it’s. Complex, but it just takes a bit more work and you need a spreadsheet. And I’ve heard from a number of people over the years who were either new to weightlifting altogether or new to proper weightlifting. They try to jump into the deep end and use an overly complex program.

It’s really meant for advanced weightlifters and get bogged down. In the details, like they’re not even sure how to do it theoretically looking at a spreadsheet, let alone actually get into the gym and do it correctly. So I’m big on simplicity, especially for people who are new and then adding just as much complexity as needed to keep the needle moving and to ultimately get to the top ish.

Range of our genetic potential, if that’s what we want to do. Some people don’t want to do this. Some people don’t care. Some people just a guy, he gains 30 pounds of muscle and he says, dude, I love this. And I’m done. And I just want to maintain this now. And I want to do some different types of things that I find that are fun.

And for women, maybe that number is even half of that. And that’s totally fine too. Yeah. Hey, this was great, Andy. This is a great discussion. Very informative. I know it’s going to do well because this is something that I have not written or spoken about much. So I really. I appreciate you taking the time to, to break this down.

And why don’t we wrap up with where people can find you and find your work. And if there’s anything in particular that you want people to know about in the way of products or services, anything I’m coming, let’s let them know.

Andy: Yeah, sure. So probably the most active on Twitter and Instagram at Dr. Andy Galpin, those are the places.

If you want more education, I put as many of my. Class lectures and materials and stuff up on my YouTube page. Those are also on my website just andygalpin. com So if you want to learn more about fiber types or muscle fizz or nutrition or whatnot Those are all up there and those are they’re all just 100 percent free So I don’t really have anything to sell so those are up there as well and we’ll probably maybe circle back once we wrap up this intermittent fasting study and We can kind of break that down.

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. I look forward to it. Well, thanks again, Andy. This was great. And until the next time. Hey, and no technical issues. This is a good sign. We’ll see. No, this time we had none. So, hey.

Andy: All right, my man.

Mike: Hey, Mike here. And if you like what I’m doing on the podcast and elsewhere, and if you want to help me help more people get into the best shape of their lives, please do consider picking up one of my bestselling health and fitness books, including.

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