Supercharge Exercise Performance & Recovery with Cooling

About this video

Huberman explains how cooling can supercharge exercise performance and recovery, building on Dr. Craig Heller’s work. Huberman explains that as muscles heat up, the enzyme pyruvate kinase, which he describes as a rate-limiting step muscles cannot bypass in order to contract, becomes disrupted because it is very temperature sensitive, so keeping temperature lower lets a person do more work per unit time. He explains that portals in the palms, glabrous regions, are a route to dump heat from the body, using a device in which people held a cold tube; Huberman stresses the tube cannot be so cold that it causes vasoconstriction, which would block heat transfer. Huberman recounts the laboratory results he describes: a subject’s pull-ups in a fixed time rose from about 100 without cooling to 180 with cooling the next day, and with repeated cooled sessions over several weeks, he reports, the cooling group reached around 600 pull-ups in the equivalent time.

Key takeaways

• Huberman explains that heat disrupts pyruvate kinase, a rate-limiting enzyme for muscle contraction.
• Huberman describes the palms as portals for dumping core heat during exercise.
• Huberman warns that a cooling device that is too cold causes vasoconstriction and fails.
• Huberman recounts pull-up volume roughly doubling in a day with palmar cooling in the work he describes.
• Huberman frames temperature as a concrete, actionable lever on performance.

Episode details: published May 10, 2021 · 363.2K views · 1:23:51 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. The science and protocols described are Andrew Huberman’s, presented for education — not medical advice. Consult a qualified professional before changing your own health practices.

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