Video·1 min read·June 2026

Exercise for Strength Gains and Hormone Optimization

Dr. Duncan French on training protocols that maximize strength gains and optimize hormone function—where cold exposure (this topic in depth) fits into the bigger picture.

▶ Watch on YouTube

View transcript

Exercise for Strength Gains and Hormone Optimization: Full Transcript

0:00

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 of opthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. And now my conversation with Dr. Duncan French, great to see you again.

2:00

females. But that's how you there's there's good data out there that shows you know females can increase their anabolic environment their internal anabolic millu using resistance training as a stressor and then they get the consequent muscle tissue growth u you know whether it's tendon ligament adaptations you know that the the beneficial consequences of resistance training which is driven by anabolic

4:00

androgen receptors on um neural tissue on neural axons. It's pretty much everywhere. Exactly. So you know it the binding capacity of testosterone and influencing different tissues within the body. I touched on you know muscle tissue but you know the ligaments the tendons um even bone to to some extent you know testosterone is is potential to influence that um in terms of removing

6:00

that's the type of protocol that is mo most advantageous for driving anabolic environment. And that was it for the workout. Yeah. We would do that in a back squat. So, you know, multi - joint um you know, challenging exercise, multi muscle, multi - joint, 80% load of of your one repetition max and then six by 10. We did play around with, you know, your classic German volume type 10 by 10 um

8:00

lot of volume? The rest is often the consideration that's overlooked um out there in general population in many sporting environments. You know that the rest is is as important a programming variable as the load and the intens the intensity the load the volume etc. If you extend the the duration of your rest periods, what you're ultimately doing is influencing that metabolic stimulus. Again, you're allowing the flushing of

10:00

but also being able to tolerate the the metabolic stress that you're exposed to. It's it's a you know a bit of a sicko feeling, right? Because of the lactate that you're driving up. So, you know, I wouldn't promote as an athlete doing that type of modality, you know, multiple multiple times unless you're from the realms of bodybuilding and then you're really that that's the sole purpose of of what you're trying to

12:00

exposure to a stressor and the pre-arousal of how your body essentially prepares for that stressor and then how it manages it throughout the exposure to the stress. We use a resistance training protocol that that these athletes knew were was going to be very very challenging. It's going to be there's going to have some anxiety to doing it. they knew there were going to be some physical distress from doing it. Um, and

14:00

be explained. Um, if you are using the stress specifically to manage the mindset, um, to use it as a specific stress stimulus, that's the same as me doing 6 by 10 80%. You know, you're just trying to find something to disrupt the system to do something that's very um, if you want a better term, painful, discomfort, whatever. Um, you're just finding a stressor and then being able to manage the mindset. But if you're

16:00

in terms of periodization of cold exposure as as a recovery modality. You know, when do you use cold? You know, should you be using cold for recovery in periods of high training load when you're actually pursuing, you know, it might be general prepar proprietary work where you're actually trying to pursue muscle growth. Well, that's usually where you get the most sore. It's usually where, you know, you you feel

18:00

that your body is optimized. Um, you know, when you're far away from a competition, you know, date or, you know, out of season or whatever it may be, and you're really trying to just tear up the body a little bit to allow it to its natural um, you know, healing and adaptation processes to take place. Well, you don't want to negate that. you know, you want the body to optimize its internal recovery and that's how muscle

20:00

Everybody in the UFC trains hard. Like, everyone is training super hard. But the best athletes, the the true elite levels are the ones that can do it again and again on a daily basis and sustain a technical output for skill development. Therefore, their skills can improve or physical development. Their physical attributes can improve. So that ability to reproduce on a day-to - day basis falls into a recovery

22:00

driven by quality over quantity. Yeah. Training and skill learning is incredibly mentally fatiguing. You hit a really hard workout or run early in the day. what leads to the mental fatigue after physical performance. If you have an amazing coach who is setting up training in a particular way, it's challenging. There's a strain related to it. And I'm not talking physical strain. I'm talking figuring

24:00

other things. So are there any um known benefits of ketones even if one is not in a state of ketosis? The use of ketones that I'm primarily aware of is is um in our sport is after the event you know in terms of the brain health with with athletes that take you know potentially taking trauma to the brain etc and looking to maintain the the fueling and the energy supply to the brain but yes it's probably a little bit

26:00

intensity for the training um and then return to a metabolically efficient diet, which is heavily reduced in carbohydrate because we've fueled the the sessions that need it. The way I understand metabolic efficiency is that you're you teach the body to use fats by maybe doing long long bouts of cardio, maybe lowering carbohydrates a bit. So teaching the body to tap into its fat stores for certain periods of training.

28:00

I think most people are looking for that one pattern of eating that one pattern of exercising that's going to be best for them or sustain them and they often look back to the time when they felt so much better switching from one thing to the next. But the adaptation process itself is also key, right? Teaching the body. And I um so if we were to um just riff on this just a little bit further, if somebody is eating in a particular

30:00

someone's really lacking acclamation to heat, you know, you can do that in three, five minute efforts. Do you know what I mean? And actually take hot sauna. Yeah. Hot sauna. Take time to step out. 200 degrees or something, correct? Fahrenheit. Yeah. 200 Fahrenheit. Yes. Um, and we try to work up to 30 to 40 minutes to 45 minutes in the sauna continuous. Now,

32:00

that's that's how we go about our work here we talk about adaptationled programming now adaptationled programming fits into every single category not just lifting weights or running track. It fits into nutrition. It fits into sitting in the sauna. It fits into being in a cold bath or not. It fits into so many different things because we're driven by scientific insights. And and that's how we really

34:00

metabolic makeup that's going to promote it, some people are met metabolically challenged by it. You know, there's there's just so many different things that we have to consider and that's what we try to do here. It's the cross we bear is that we try to understand on an individual level how to optimize athletic performance. Duncan, when you speak, I learn so much. I I'm going to take the protocols that I've I've heard

Transcript auto-generated by YouTube. Verbatim — duplicates intentionally preserved.

Key Insights

Cold exposure timing matters: avoid immediately post-strength training

Testosterone optimization through compound movements + recovery protocols

the benefits of cold plunge effective for morning activation, not post-workout recovery

Hormones respond to total stress load—balance training, cold, sleep, nutrition

"The body adapts to what you consistently demand of it—controlled stress builds resilience when applied deliberately."

Wim's Wise Words

A second take, from someone who's lived it.

🧊 Wim's Wise Words

Essentials: How to Exercise for Strength Gains & Hormone Optimization | Dr. Duncan French

The Timing Problem Nobody Talks About

Duncan French has worked with elite athletes long enough to know that the variables most people obsess over—load, volume, exercise selection—aren't where the real gains get lost. Rest periods. Recovery windows. The spaces between the stress. That's where adaptation actually happens, or doesn't.

This episode's core claim is deceptively simple: cold exposure is a powerful tool, but its timing relative to strength training determines whether it helps you or quietly works against you. Immediate post-workout cold—the plunge right after the barbell session—blunts the anabolic hormonal cascade that your training just triggered. You work hard to spike testosterone and create metabolic stress, then you submerge yourself in cold water and dial down the very signal your body was about to act on.

What the Research Ecosystem Says

French's data doesn't exist in isolation. Over in the knowledge base, there's a session from the stacking protocols work—cold water, sauna, breathing combined for metabolic acceleration—that touches on exactly this. Testosterone levels working properly require the full ecosystem: resistance training, adequate protein, intermittent fasting, sleep. Cold is one lever among many. What French adds is the sequencing dimension. It's not just whether you use cold; it's when.

David Sinclair's work on exercise and stress hormetics makes the same foundational point from a longevity angle. Controlled stressors—exercise, heat, cold, fasting—each trigger adaptive responses. But stressors compete. Stack them too close together and they interfere with each other's signaling. Your body can only process so many simultaneous adaptation demands.

Cold in the morning builds you up. Cold immediately after lifting strips away what you just earned. The difference is timing, not the tool.

Where Experts Still Disagree

This is genuinely contested territory. Some recovery researchers argue that post-workout cold reduces inflammation enough to allow higher training frequency—you recover faster, so you can train again sooner. French pushes back: if hypertrophy is the goal, that inflammatory signal isn't noise to suppress. It's the adaptation signal itself. You want some inflammation. You want the hormonal cascade to run its course. Cold right after training short-circuits a process your body needs to complete.

The honest answer is that it depends what you're optimizing for. Performance athletes needing to train twice a day might accept a blunted hypertrophy signal in exchange for faster recovery. But if you're training for strength and muscle, French's protocol is clear: let the anabolic window close naturally.

The Practical Protocol

Cold exposure in the morning—before training, or well before it—works beautifully as an activation tool. It sharpens focus, raises baseline norepinephrine, and primes the nervous system. Cold in the evening, many hours after your strength session, similarly avoids the interference window. What you want to avoid is that immediate post-workout submersion when your body is mid-cascade.

The Connection That Surprised Me

French's point about rest periods as a programming variable hit differently in this context. He argues that rest between sets is as important as load and volume—most people treat it as dead time when it's actually where metabolic stress accumulates into adaptation. Cold exposure works the same way. The recovery window isn't passive. It's the mechanism. When you flood that window with cold, you're not accelerating recovery—you're redirecting it. Sometimes that's useful. After a strength session aimed at hypertrophy, it's just interference dressed up as discipline.