Essentials: How to Assess & Improve All Aspects of Your Fitness | Dr. Andy Galpin

Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials. I’m Andrew Huberman, revisiting my conversation with Dr. Andy Galpin. How do we know whether we’re fit enough for health and performance?

Most people want aesthetics and function: looking a certain way, getting stronger, moving better, or more energy. The question is where training goes now while supporting a long, capable life.

What body changes can exercise actually produce?

Nine buckets: movement skill, speed, power, strength, muscle size, local muscular endurance, all-out capacity, VO2 max, and sustained endurance. They overlap; they’re not interchangeable.

How can somebody assess those adaptations?

For movement, a coach is gold standard; otherwise film a push, pull, squat, and hinge, checking symmetry, control, correction, and range. You don’t need perfection here. Speed testing is mostly for athletes. For power, broad-jump roughly your height; women’s mark is about fifteen percent lower. For strength, grip floors are about forty kilograms for men and thirty-five for women, with hands within ten percent; a thirty-second bar hang is minimum. Test muscular endurance with planks or push-ups; all-out capacity means thirty to sixty brutal seconds and roughly thirty beats-per-minute recovery after one minute. Estimate VO2 max with a twelve-minute run or timed mile walk. For long duration, move continuously for twenty to thirty minutes above a walk.

Run the battery yearly, ideally over three days: fresh assessments and power first, fatiguing work last. Don’t dominate every category; remove severe weak links, then pursue training you love.

If useful information per sentence were a metric, you’d be at the top. Thank you for making this science-based, actionable, and remarkably clear.

I appreciate that. Next time, let’s get into speed, strength, hypertrophy training, and the evidence-based protocols behind them.