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

Overview of Essentials: How to Assess & Improve All Aspects of Your Fitness

In this Huberman Lab Essentials episode, Andrew Huberman and Dr. Andy Galpin outline a practical framework for evaluating fitness across nine distinct adaptations—from movement skill and strength to VO2 max and long-duration endurance. The core message is that “fitness” is not one thing: different goals require different capacities, and the best training plan starts by identifying your weakest links without sacrificing what you already do well.

The 9 Major Fitness Adaptations

Dr. Galpin breaks physical fitness into nine buckets, each of which can be trained and assessed separately:

How to Assess Each Fitness Quality

1) Movement Skill / Technique

Best assessed by a qualified movement specialist or physical therapist. If self-assessing, record:

• Push-up
• Pull-up or bent row
• Squat
• Deadlift

Record from:

• Front view
• Side view

Look for four things:

• Symmetry: left/right and front/back balance
• Stability: no shaking, twisting, or collapse
• Awareness: obvious technique errors you may simply not notice
• Range of motion: full, controlled movement through the joints

He suggests a simple scoring system:

• 0 = do not load it; high risk
• 1 = minor issue; proceed cautiously
• 2 = good enough to train normally

2) Power

A simple field test is the standing broad jump.

• Goal: jump at least your body height
• For women, reduce the rough benchmark slightly
• This is mainly a red-flag test, not an elite optimization metric

3) Strength

Dr. Galpin recommends multiple measures, including:

Grip Strength

Use a hand dynamometer or dead hang.

• Men: ~40 kg minimum, 60+ kg ideal
• Women: ~35 kg minimum
• Left-right difference should be under 10%
• Dead hang: 30 seconds minimum; 60+ seconds is strong

Lower-Body Strength

• Leg extension is a more standardized alternative to a back squat
• A useful benchmark is body weight
• After age 40, the target can drop about 10% per decade

Front Squat / Goblet Squat Hold

• Hold about half your body weight
• Stay in the bottom position for ~45 seconds
• This tests strength, position, and trunk stability
• Intro target: one-third body weight for 30 seconds

Important caveats:

• Don’t max out if your technique is poor
• Standardize your warm-up, or your results won’t be comparable

4) Hypertrophy

Hypertrophy is assessed with body composition testing such as:

• DEXA
• Bioelectrical impedance
• Other body comp scans

A key metric is FFMI (Fat-Free Mass Index):

• Men: around 20+ is a good floor
• Women: around 18+ is a good floor
• Men below 17 or women below 15 suggest severe insufficient muscle mass

These values assume reasonably lean body fat levels:

• Roughly under 30% for men
• Roughly under 35% for women

5) Muscular Endurance

Useful tests include:

• Front plank: 60 seconds
• Side plank: 45 seconds
• Push-ups:
  • Men: 25+
  • Women: 15+

Another option:

• Take a strength test, then perform the same movement at 75% of that load
• Good target: more than 8 reps

6) Anaerobic Capacity

This is harder to test outside a lab, but can be assessed with:

• Wingate test
• Sprint intervals
• Bosco protocol (repeated maximal vertical jumps)

Key practical metric:

• Push near maximum heart rate
• Then assess heart rate recovery

Recovery benchmarks:

• About 30 bpm recovered in the first minute
• About 60 bpm recovered by two minutes
• Faster recovery is generally better

He notes that the formula 220 - age is only a rough estimate of max heart rate.

7) VO2 Max / Max Aerobic Capacity

Gold standard:

• Laboratory VO2 max test

Field alternatives:

• 12-minute Cooper test: run as far as possible in 12 minutes
• Rockport one-mile walk test: useful if running is not appropriate

Rough minimums:

• Men: about 35 ml/kg/min
• Women: about 30 ml/kg/min

Higher-performance goals:

• Men: 50+, ideally 55+
• Women: 50+ is excellent

8) Long-Duration Endurance

This is steady-state work done for 20+ minutes without stopping.

• Can be walking, running, cycling, rowing, etc.
• Best if it fits your lifestyle and training goals
• Optional refinement: maintain nasal breathing only

The main question is simple:

• Can you sustain work without breaks or major drops in output?

Best Practices for Testing

Testing Frequency

• Do the full battery once per year
• Think of it as an annual fitness checkup, similar to annual bloodwork

Testing Order

To minimize fatigue effects:

1. Body composition / FFMI
2. Movement skill
3. Power
4. Strength
5. Muscular endurance
6. Anaerobic capacity
7. VO2 max
8. Long-duration endurance

Timing Tips

• Do body composition after 48 hours without hard exercise
• Do movement and skill tests when fresh
• Put max strength and power early in the day
• Save fatiguing endurance tests for later or a separate day

Main Takeaways

• Fitness is multidimensional; no single test captures it all.
• Identify your weakest adaptation so it doesn’t become a “performance anchor.”
• Train for your goals, but make sure you’re not neglecting the health-related basics.
• Use a simple annual testing framework to guide training priorities for the next quarter or half-year.
• The goal is not to be perfect in every category, but to be sufficiently strong across all of them so you can keep training, progressing, and staying healthy over time.