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Andrew Huberman
Feb 22, 2023
89 protocols
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Dr. Andy Galpin: Optimal Nutrition & Supplementation for Fitness | Huberman Lab Guest Series
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Behaviors
Hydration
“Having said that, you really do wanna focus on the basics, sleep, nutrition, hydration,”
2:47 ·
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In this episode
89 protocols
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2:47
Hydration
Behaviors
“Having said that, you really do wanna focus on the basics, sleep, nutrition, hydration,”
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3:47
Use Supplements Only When There Is a Specific Reason
Behaviors
“We only give individuals exactly what they need... we don't use them unless we have a reason.”
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5:42
Creatine Monohydrate
Supplements
“This is taken in the typically three to five grams per day of dose of creatine monohydrate, which has the most research behind it. Seems to be extremely low side effects in almost anywhere.”
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16:32
Beetroot Juice
Supplements
“And then from the stimulant use, of course, we have anything like a beetroot juice to a caffeine or, uh, something of the equivalent.”
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44:06
Train Heat Acclimation by Practicing Sweating
Behaviors
“Heat acclimation training is as simple as it sounds. So, just practice it more. So, if you're going into a process where you either need to be in a hot environment or you need to improve your sweat rate, you just need to practice sweating and your body will get better.”
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44:16
Sauna
Tools
“Practice a sauna, practice a jacuzzi just get in those things and you will improve your ability to do that.”
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44:16
Jacuzzi
Tools
“Practice a sauna, practice a jacuzzi just get in those things and you will improve your ability to do that.”
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45:17
Check Clothing for White Salt Residue to Estimate Salt Sweating
Behaviors
“Number one is you can use the old free, cost free test of just looking at your clothing and if you're seeing that white residue all over it... that's a sign of a higher salt sweater.”
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46:03
Use Sweat Patches to Estimate Sweat Sodium Loss
Tools
“ks all the way up to a couple hundred dollars where you can buy these patches, put them on you and get a reasonably close estimate”
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46:42
Match Electrolyte Intake to Sweat Losses
Behaviors
“Then what you want to do is probably match your electrolyte intake to something close to what you sweat. That's the ideal scenario.”
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46:53
Use Blood Chemistry Testing to Assess Hydration
Behaviors
“You can get a lot of information about hydration from blood... Albumin is another fantastic way to measure longer term hydration status.”
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50:18
Use the Galpin Equation During Exercise
Behaviors
“You want to take your body weight in pounds, and divide that by 30. And you want to consume that number, which would be in ounces, about every 15 to 20 minutes.”
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56:07
Morning Hydration
Behaviors
“Sorry, step number one, drink a lot of water first thing in the morning. This gets everything kickstarted, gets you going.”
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57:48
Limit Fluids to Sipping as Needed in the 3 Hours Before Sleep
Behaviors
“Generally, the number we say is three hours. In the three hours preceding sleep, you want to basically limit fluid intake to sipping as needed.”
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58:41
Use Mouth Tape if Dry Mouth or Mouth Breathing Is Disrupting Sleep
Tools
“A lot of ways to fix people waking up and urinating too much at night is to tape your mouth and or use a dilator over your nose.”
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58:41
Use a Nasal Dilator
Tools
“A lot of ways to fix people waking up and urinating too much at night is to tape your mouth and or use a dilator over your nose.”
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1:00:51
Eat Mostly Real Whole Foods
Diet
“What you may or not have thought about is a huge determinant of your hydration status is your food choices.”
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1:01:01
Use Hydrating Foods Such as Watermelon
Diet
“Watermelon is like 95 plus percent water, right? Fantastic source.”
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1:03:27
Increase Sodium Intake as Needed by Salting Food or Drinks
Diet
“If you just salt your food that you're making, you know, to taste, that's going to get most people in a, in a pretty good spot.”
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1:03:38
Pre-Hydrate Before Hard/Hot/Long Training
Behaviors
“Step number three, you want to pre-hydrate. If you know you're going to do a workout session and it's going to be hot and long or one of those things, you want to look for that half a pound per body weight of ounces.”
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1:04:03
Use the WUT System to Assess Hydration
Behaviors
“You can use what is called the WUT system. W-U-T... It is simply weight, urine, and thirst.”
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1:05:56
Electrolytes During Workouts
Supplements
“What you want to consume in that is what I call sweat. What I mean by that is you don't actually want to necessarily consume water only during a workout.”
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1:07:00
Use Coconut Water With Added Salt for Hydration
Diet
“We'll use coconut water a lot of hydration, just add a little pinch of salt because that'll bring the sodium way back up.”
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1:09:20
Use Salt Appetite as a Guide
Behaviors
“Whereas if you're craving salt and you're thinking, gosh, I really want to put salt on this already salty thing.”
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1:12:04
Use Carbohydrates During Long or Very Intense Training
Diet
“If you're in a situation where you're trying to, again, maximize actual exercise performance, especially if it is either a long duration, so more than two hours or extremely high intensity... augmenting with the carbohydrates during the training, that is going to enhance performance.”
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1:15:17
Train Your Gut for Competition Nutrition
Behaviors
“Try these food items, try these amounts, the carbohydrate numbers, try the sodium numbers, try the total amount of water.”
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1:17:18
Delay Caffeine 90–120 Minutes After Waking on Non-Training Days
Behaviors
“On days when I don't train, I do, as I often recommend people do, delay my caffeine intake 90 to 120 minutes after waking.”
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1:20:29
Train Fasted if Preferred and Performance Is Not Fuel-Limited
Behaviors
“If it is a type of training that is not, then it's not going to matter... I have plenty of athletes that prefer to do many of their training sessions faster in the morning for personal reasons, not because it enhances performance, but if it doesn't enhance or harm it, then... fine.”
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1:21:26
Top Off Glycogen Stores the Day Before Fasted Training
Diet
“You can do things like have a bunch of carbohydrate at night, not eat the next morning, and lift and be just fine. It doesn't matter that you didn't have them in a few hours before. Your muscle glycogen is topped off.”
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1:22:41
Prioritize Total Daily Protein Over Precise Protein Timing
Diet
“The total amount of protein you ingest throughout the day is probably a bigger determinant for things like muscle growth than the timing. So the post-exercise anabolic window, it doesn't necessarily matter.”
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1:22:51
Prioritize Carbohydrate Timing Around Training When Recovery Time Is Short
Diet
“Carbohydrate is different. The timing of that does matter... if you're training every day or twice in a day, then the timing of carbohydrate really starts to matter.”
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1:24:18
Consume About 0.25 g Protein per Pound of Body Weight Around Hard Training
Diet
“It's about a quarter of your body weight, right? So those numbers would be if you're 200 pounds, make sure you have a hundred grams of carbs and 50 grams of protein. And again, it doesn't”
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1:25:40
Caffeine
Supplements
“The evidence is strong. It has a negogenic effect. You can take it at whatever dosage is reasonable for you. And of course there is a bit of a learning curve there such that, Obviously, the more you take it, the more you need to take, even though there's actually some recent evidence showing even folks who are acclimated to it will still see an ergogenic benefit, even though if they don't feel a big boost of it.”
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1:31:37
Citrulline
Supplements
“This is when you can turn to the whole like citrulline, arginine, nitric oxide sort of route... If you're somebody who has a predisposition to cold sores... you want to be very cautious with citrulline, especially high dose citrulline.”
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1:31:37
Arginine
Supplements
“This is when you can turn to the whole like citrulline, arginine, nitric oxide sort of route.”
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1:33:18
Alpha-GPC
Supplements
“I routinely use 300 to 600 milligrams of alpha GPC prior to hard physical training... less often these days, cause I kind of reserve it for physical training.”
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1:34:27
Use Nootropics Selectively for Skill-Demanding Training Sessions
Behaviors
“We'll use them prior to more challenging bouts of training... on the sparring day only, or the most important training session or a session when you're trying to work on pitch command... but we do not use them every day.”
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1:35:47
Rhodiola Rosea
Supplements
“Let's just start right there then. There's actually a lot of research on this... if you look across the literature, you're going to find finally, somewhere between a small benefit to little benefit, but not often is it detrimental.”
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1:38:17
Use Third-Party Certified Supplements
Behaviors
“you should not take any supplement at all. That does not have some sort of third party certification.”
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1:40:16
Use Single-Ingredient Supplement Formulations
Behaviors
“Single ingredient formulations are pretty much the only way to do that.”
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1:49:12
Prioritize Sleep, Sunlight Exposure, Stress Management, Physical Activity, Hydration, and Whole-Food Nutrition Before Supplements
Behaviors
“We should really be in a position to where our lifestyle, our sunlight exposure, our stress management, our physical activity, our sleep and our hydration, and our whole food nutrition provide us almost everything we need.”
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1:50:31
Use Supplements Short-Term for Symptom Management While Fixing the Cause
Behaviors
“I will use those short-term tactics to symptom manage if I have to... That allows us to then come back and work on the causal problem.”
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1:52:07
Multivitamin
Supplements
“That being said, am I that concerned about people taking a multivitamin just all throughout? No, not really.”
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1:59:29
Beta-Alanine
Supplements
“beta alanine is another fantastic example of something you need to take consistently if you want some sort of benefit, um, it needs to be built up in muscle.”
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1:59:29
Sodium Bicarbonate
Supplements
“another fantastic example of something you need to take consistently if you want some sort of benefit, um, it needs to be built up in muscle.”
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2:05:54
Wash Your Sheets at Least Once a Week
Behaviors
“A quick tip here is wash your sheets at least once a week. One of the common, most common places that people get allergens in the air is actually from accumulation on your sheets.”
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2:06:21
Keep Pets Out of the Bedroom
Behaviors
“Keep your pets out of your bedroom and certainly keep them off your bed.”
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2:06:35
Assess Bedroom Light, Temperature, Humidity, and CO2 for Sleep Quality
Behaviors
“We measure light and temperature and humidity and everything else that's going on in the room... The last metric on that is actually CO2.”
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2:06:50
Avoid Air Conditioners or Fans Cycling On and Off at Night
Behaviors
“People will have things like trying to be cool... and so they'll turn an air conditioner on or a fan, but the air conditioner kicking on and off at night, actually can shoot you out of various sleep stages.”
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2:10:08
Use Negative Ionization in the Sleep Environment
Behaviors
“There are negative ionization machines, but there are also some things that one can do in order to increase the negative ion concentration in their sleeping environment that are nearly zero cost.”
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2:11:10
Use TimeShifter for Travel and Jet Lag
Tools
“One quick little actually app called time shifter is really cool for anyone that's dealing with consistent travel and jet lag. So you can go and enter your location, your time, where you're going... and then it'll actually back calculate, you know, give you full light, stimulant food, hydration and stuff protocol.”
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2:11:44
Elevate the Head of the Bed if You Have Acid Reflux
Behaviors
“If you're dealing with acid reflex... you can just elevate the head of your bed by like six inches.”
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2:11:50
Use an Inclined Pillow for Acid Reflux
Tools
“You can also buy very inexpensive pillows. Um, that can elevate that now that's not solving the problem, but at least it can help you sleep.”
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2:12:17
Do Myofunctional Therapy
Behaviors
“If that doesn't work, you can go through what's called myofunctional therapy... you're going to strengthen your tongue so that it stops falling in the back of your neck and waking you up at night.”
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2:13:11
Reserve the Bed Only for Sleep and Sex
Behaviors
“Only two things happen in your bed. And if you can make sure those are the only two things you do in your bed, the problems of falling sleep or insomnia tend to go down. Those two things are, you have sex and you sleep and nothing else goes down in your bed.”
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2:13:44
Sleep Alone if Sleep Quality Is a Priority
Behaviors
“It's just quite clear at this point, sleeping with a partner in your bed, it's just not very good for sleep.”
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2:13:52
Use Separate Beds Pushed Together if Sharing a Room
Tools
“You can get two smaller beds and put them right next to each other.”
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2:13:59
Use Separate Sheets if Sleeping With a Partner
Tools
“If you can actually have separate sheets, that alone can be helpful.”
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2:15:16
Avoid Checking Sleep Scores for the First 60 Minutes After Waking
Behaviors
“If you're going to use a sleep tracker... don't check your sleep score for at least the first 60 minutes after waking up.”
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2:15:48
Reduce Nighttime Phone Disruption
Behaviors
“You absolutely should use either your night mode or do not disturb or airplane mode or something overnight.”
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2:16:32
Myo-Inositol
Supplements
“One of the supplements that I've found is extremely useful for being able to fall back asleep... is inositol 900 milligrams of myo-inositol.”
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2:17:22
Magnesium Threonate
Supplements
“It works better, of course, with the mag three and eight apigen and theanine sleep stack.”
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2:17:22
Apigenin
Supplements
“It works better, of course, with the mag three and eight apigen and theanine sleep stack.”
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2:17:22
L-Theanine
Supplements
“It works better, of course, with the mag three and eight apigen and theanine sleep stack.”
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2:17:35
Reveri App
Tools
“The app Reverie that was developed by my colleague, Dr. David Spiegel, who is a medical doctor at Stanford Psychiatry, Stanford School of Medicine Psychiatry. There is a free trial, there's a nominal cost if you use it month to month, but the data are really strong”
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2:18:41
Use Breathwork Protocols for Sleep
Behaviors
“Any of these breathwork protocols, hypnosis protocols, they're just a tool for you to touch back in with your own physiology rather than a substance that's coming in.”
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2:18:41
Use Hypnosis Protocols for Sleep
Behaviors
“Any of these breathwork protocols, hypnosis protocols, they're just a tool for you to touch back in with your own physiology rather than a substance that's coming in.”
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2:19:05
Get Up and Complete the Task if a Specific Task Is Keeping You Awake
Behaviors
“Sometimes we recommend just getting up and getting it done... especially if the task only literally would take like 10 or 15 minutes.”
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2:23:04
Use a Taper / Deload Before Reaching for Recovery Supplements
Behaviors
“The first step I think of, if someone is training very, very hard and you're not seeing any results, and we want to think about supplementation. Before I get there, I want to think about taper and deload.”
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2:27:33
Avoid Ice Baths Immediately After Training
Behaviors
“That's why you would not want to take an anti-inflammatory in that state. And so why you also would not want to do things like an ice bath.”
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2:27:37
Avoid Anti-Inflammatories Immediately After Training
Behaviors
“In that immediate inflammatory response time window, this is, you know, seconds to hours after training, you would want to stay away from things like that.”
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2:27:51
Omega-3 Fatty Acids
Supplements
“A good option here are things like omega-3s, good evidence somewhere in the neighborhood of like two to five grams total, typically like a one-to-one EPA to DHA ratio is fine.”
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2:28:24
Curcumin
Supplements
“And you can also do something like 500 milligrams of curcumin three times a day. That's going to be enough to keep you in a decent spot.”
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2:28:37
Ginger
Supplements
“There are some other things that you could look up, maybe some potential benefit for ginger and boswellia and some things like that for inflammation.”
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2:28:37
Boswellia
Supplements
“There are some other things that you could look up, maybe some potential benefit for ginger and boswellia and some things like that for inflammation.”
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2:30:49
Glutamine
Supplements
“At this stage, a fantastic evidence-based supplement is glutamine. Glutamine, 20 grams a day. We typically honestly split it up into two dosage, 10 grams morning, 10 grams night.”
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2:35:05
Increase Calories by About 10% During Injury Recovery
Diet
“Injury can increase basal metabolic rate by up to 10%. So what you want to do in general is just take your calories up about 10%. At least that's what I recommend.”
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2:35:31
Keep Carbohydrate and Fat Intake Similar During Recovery Rather Than Making Major Changes
Diet
“In terms of your carbohydrate or fat split. I'm not super worried about it. My general recommendation is just don't make any major changes relative to what you were doing.”
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2:35:50
Consume at Least 1 g Protein per Pound of Body Weight During Recovery
Diet
“This is the big one. You want to make sure you were absolutely at one gram per pound of body weight... And if you go a little bit high or even a lot high, it's totally fine. Just don't go low.”
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2:37:50
Vitamin A
Supplements
“What you're really trying to look at here are vitamin A and zinc. They actually have independent mechanisms that are helpful here.”
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2:37:50
Zinc
Supplements
“What you're really trying to look at here are vitamin A and zinc. They actually have independent mechanisms that are helpful here.”
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2:38:01
Magnesium Citrate
Supplements
“Magnesium is actually has some, some benefits here. Something like six milligrams per kilogram of body weight is the dosage you're looking for there. Magnesium citrate is probably has the most evidence in terms of this respect.”
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2:38:33
Calcium
Supplements
“The only other things you would probably consider here, uh, three things, um, calcium might be on your list, particularly if you're trying to, if you're concerned with some sort of bone injury and we've sort of gone past like recovery and we're actually like into injury.”
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2:38:52
Vitamin D
Supplements
“And then the last two ones of course our vitamin D and that's pretty well researched.”
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2:39:06
Tart Cherry Juice
Diet
“tart cherry juice, and that's actually effective for both Dom's muscle injury, muscle soreness, and actually has another benefit of potentially aiding with sleep.”
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2:44:01
Carbohydrate Loading
Diet
“Carbohydrate loading does help... really optimal carbohydrate loading prior to a long duration endurance performance is probably best over the course of three or four days. So you want to gradually increase carbohydrate intake for multiple days rather than just have one big bowl of pasta.”
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2:44:30
Branched-Chain Amino Acids
Supplements
“Branch chain, amino acids and essential amino acid supplementation. Yay, nay, or as I would say, meh. Uh, meh.”
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2:44:35
Essential Amino Acids
Supplements
“Usually if your total protein intake is fine, then you don't really have a need for them. Um, if you're for whatever, any number of valid reasons, total protein is not then going to an essential amino acid.”
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2:47:41
Garlic Extract
Supplements
“You're not going to find strong human data on garlic extract. However, there is a little bit, uh, suggesting it can actually enhance recovery from injury or potentially tissue damage.”