Dr. Andy Galpin

In fact, recent research has shown that athletes are up to 25% more effective at disposing glucose into their muscle than non-athletes.

So regardless of how you're defining human performance, whether that be hit a golf ball 300 yards, fix your low back pain, have more focus at work, or alter how you physically appear, skeletal muscle is going to be at the center of that conversation.

So how much can it really change?

Let's talk about the adaptability or what we call plasticity of skeletal muscle.

In my opinion, I judge the overall quality of skeletal muscle in three main areas.

Effectively, you can think of these three as look good, feel good, and play good.

What that means for everyone, the first one is pretty obvious.

It should look how you want it to look, and that's going to be different for everyone.

People want different sizes and shapes.

Some folks want more size in certain muscles and muscle groups and less in others.

That's entirely up to you.

The second one, feel good.

This should be resilient and non-sensitive.

So you should be able to engage in multiple types of metabolic processes, should be able to handle multiple types of contractions and multiple ranges of motion, et cetera.

So again, we want resilient muscle that can do many things basically on demand.

The last one then is play good.

Can we execute on the things we're asking it to do?

So can it go fast when we want it to go fast?

Can it go under control when we want it to be under control?

Can it be high precision?