Essentials: Build Muscle Size, Increase Strength & Improve Recovery

Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials, where we revisit past episodes for the most potent and actionable science-based tools for mental health, physical health, and performance. I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. This podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science related tools to the general public. Today I want to talk about something that is vitally important for not just athletic performance, but for your entire life and indeed for your longevity, and that's muscle.

And one of the things that's exquisite and fantastic about the human brain is that it can direct all sorts of different kinds of movement, different speeds of movement, movement of different durations. All of that is governed by the relationship between the nervous system, neurons, and their connections to muscle. So today, as always, we're going to talk a little bit of mechanism. I'm going to explain how neurons control muscle.

We will touch on some nutritional themes and how that relates to muscle. In particular, a specific amino acid that if it's available in your bloodstream frequently enough and at sufficient levels can help you build and improve the quality of muscle. We are also going to talk about recovery. That's when muscle grows, that's when muscle gets more flexible.

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