You have three open slots for exercise this week. One saved program prioritizes heavy lifting, another promises muscle growth, and a third adds hard intervals. You could combine them, but that would leave you with three demanding sessions and no clear reason for the combination.
Andy Galpin's training protocols start from the adaptation you want: strength, muscle size, power, or endurance. The exercises, loading, volume, rest, and progression should serve that goal and fit your available recovery. There is no single Galpin workout that optimizes every outcome for every person.
This guide explains selected principles from his public teaching, places the popular 3–5 approach in context, and compares them with current resistance-training guidance. The planning examples are illustrations, not individualized programs from Galpin.
DailyLens is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Andy Galpin or Huberman Lab. This article is an independent discussion of publicly available materials.
Start with the adaptation, then choose the workout
Galpin's public 10-step program-design worksheet begins with a training goal and the practical constraints around it. That is a useful place to start before deciding on sets or equipment.
Four commonly confused outcomes deserve different questions:
- Strength: can you produce more force in a particular movement?
- Hypertrophy: are you developing muscle size over time?
- Power: can you produce force quickly?
- Endurance: can you sustain or repeat an effort for the demands that matter to you?
These qualities overlap. They are not identical, and feeling exhausted after a session does not tell you which one you trained effectively.
Write a goal you can recognize in practice. “Build a consistent strength routine” is a reasonable starting goal for an inactive person. “Improve my squat while maintaining comfortable cycling” gives a more experienced person a different priority.
If the word itself is confusing, the companion guide to health protocols explains how instructions, evidence, and review fit together.
What is Andy Galpin's 3 by 5 protocol?
In his public discussion of strength, muscle size, and endurance, Galpin describes a strength-oriented framework using ranges of three to five: exercises, sets, repetitions, minutes of rest, and training days. Online summaries often call it “3 by 5,” “3 to 5,” or the “3–5 protocol.”
The important point is the combination of relatively low repetitions, substantial rest, and high-quality work matched to a strength or power objective. The mnemonic is not a requirement to choose five for every variable.
It also is not an instruction for a beginner to perform five hard full-body sessions immediately. Total work, exercise selection, technical skill, and recovery still govern whether a schedule makes sense. Galpin's broader public teaching includes less frequent options; the exact number of available days should not become a barrier to starting.
Nor does “power” mean using the same load as maximal-strength work and simply trying harder. The force and speed demands differ. Safe exercise execution and an appropriate load matter more than fitting every choice into a memorable number.
For a new lifter, qualified coaching can help establish technique and an appropriate starting program. A social-media summary cannot assess that starting point.
Strength and hypertrophy require different emphasis
Strength: practice the task and manage the load
Strength training places particular importance on the movement you want to improve and your ability to perform it under an appropriate load. A stronger squat and a better cycling time are different outcomes, even when both involve the legs.
A 2023 network meta-analysis of resistance-training prescriptions found that the studied training approaches improved strength and muscle size compared with no exercise. Higher-load approaches ranked more favorably for strength, while multiple-set approaches were prominent for hypertrophy.
This supports matching the program to the outcome. It does not mean every session should be a maximal test, or that lighter resistance is worthless. A research ranking is not an individualized prescription.
Keep enough rest to perform the intended work well. If rushing through the session changes technique or the load you can manage, you have changed the training stimulus as well as the schedule.
Hypertrophy: consider weekly work, effort, and progression
Galpin's guest-series episode on strength and muscle growth discusses how repetitions, sets, rest, and training frequency interact. For muscle growth, a single rep range is an incomplete description of the program.
Think about the work a muscle receives across the week, whether the sets provide a meaningful challenge, and whether the amount is recoverable. Counting every movement as an identical “set” can conceal differences in exercise selection and effort.
Progress should remain observable: better control at a familiar load, more repetitions under comparable conditions, or an appropriate increase in resistance. These are examples of progression, not reasons to increase everything simultaneously.
A 2026 evidence update: failure is not mandatory
Some older discussions of hypertrophy use absolute language about the need to reach muscular failure. The ACSM's 2026 resistance-training update provides a more useful qualification for the average healthy adult: training to momentary failure and complex periodization did not consistently determine outcomes across the reviewed evidence.
The update emphasizes regular participation, individualization, and training the major muscle groups at least twice weekly. It also distinguishes how load and volume can serve different goals.
That does not mean effort is irrelevant or that advanced athletes never benefit from specialized methods. It means a general reader should not interpret every set short of failure as wasted. The most useful program may be less elaborate than an online summary makes it sound.
This is also why a protocol guide should remain open to newer evidence. An expert's memorable explanation is a starting point for understanding, not a rule that must remain unchanged forever.
Endurance: define what you want to sustain
“Improve cardio” could mean making a daily hill easier, preparing for a long ride, or improving performance in a timed event. Those goals require different decisions about duration, intensity, and progression.
Start by identifying your current capacity and a repeatable activity. A program full of demanding intervals may be a poor fit when regular easy activity is not yet established. The ability to recover and return matters as much as the intensity of a single day.
Strength and endurance can coexist. A systematic review of concurrent training found that combined training could develop strength and cardiorespiratory fitness in the included studies. This does not guarantee that every combination is equally effective, especially for highly trained people or competing performance goals.
Avoid a blanket rule that cardio “kills gains.” Ask a more useful question: does the amount and timing of endurance work leave you able to perform the strength work you intend, and vice versa?
Build a week around the time you actually have
Galpin's program-design materials make room for work, relationships, travel, and foreseeable disruption. Applying that idea means placing your important sessions where they are most likely to happen, then checking the recovery demands of the whole week.
Consider a generally healthy adult who already exercises and has three realistic training slots. An illustrative planning structure could be:
- First slot: a full-body resistance session appropriate to their experience, with the priority movement early.
- Second slot: an aerobic session at an intensity and duration they can currently manage and recover from.
- Third slot: another resistance session, with exercises and workload coordinated with the first.
Ordinary walking or cycling may fit around these slots. This outline is not a complete program, a Galpin-authored prescription, or a claim that three sessions satisfy every health or performance target. It shows how to give each appointment a job before adding detail.
If you have fewer slots, work with the time available. If you have more, additional hard work is not automatically the best use of it. A coach can help adapt a program to a specific sport, injury history, or substantial performance goal.
Recovery belongs in the training record
A session log usually captures load and repetitions. Add just enough context to interpret them: sleep opportunity, unusual work demands, illness, and any symptoms that changed the session.
“Same weight, fewer repetitions after a disrupted night” is an observation. “My nervous system is damaged” is an unsupported diagnosis. A difficult session should prompt context before a sweeping conclusion.
You do not need an exhaustive recovery dashboard. Our guide to contextual journaling explains how a few factual notes can preserve what numbers leave out.
New pain, dizziness, chest discomfort, or unusual breathlessness are reasons to stop and seek appropriate assessment rather than push through to complete the plan. Persistent deterioration also deserves attention; a copied deload formula is not a substitute for understanding the problem.
Review progress without changing the plan every week
Choose a primary outcome and a review interval appropriate to it. Early reviews can check adherence and technique. Changes in muscle size or performance require enough suitable training time and comparable measurement conditions.
Useful questions include:
- Did the planned sessions happen?
- Was the work appropriate to the goal?
- Could I recover well enough to return?
- Is performance changing under reasonably comparable conditions?
- What is the smallest justified adjustment?
An incomplete week may reveal a scheduling problem rather than an ineffective training method. Conversely, perfect attendance does not make a program suitable if pain or excessive fatigue keeps increasing.
The protocol-tracker guide offers a lightweight structure for recording those observations. DailyLens can keep training practices alongside short notes about energy, sleep context, and the rest of the week. Use the record to support your decisions, not to infer a diagnosis from a pattern.
Common questions about Andy Galpin protocols
Is the 3–5 approach a complete workout plan?
No. It is a useful strength-oriented framework, but exercise selection, load, progression, total weekly work, and individual starting point still need decisions.
Do I need to train five days a week?
No. Available time and recoverable workload should shape frequency. Current ACSM guidance emphasizes regular resistance training rather than requiring an elaborate schedule.
Do I need to reach failure for muscle growth?
Not on every set. Current evidence does not establish momentary failure as a universal requirement for the average healthy adult. Appropriate effort and a suitable overall program still matter.
How do Galpin and Huberman protocols differ?
Galpin's exercise teaching focuses closely on training adaptations and program design. Huberman's public protocols span a wider set of topics, including sleep and light timing. Their work overlaps, including guest episodes; the choice is about the question you need answered, not choosing a team.
