Andrew Huberman’s Weekly Training Routine

So what does your split look like now? >> So the split I follow now is essentially the same one I've always followed and it is and I want to be clear why I'm saying Monday or Tuesday because there needs to be flexibility in one schedule too. This is important. So Monday or Tuesday I train my legs. >> Mhm. >> Calves, hamstrings, quads, maybe some direct like glute training but probably not. Couple warm-ups, two to three maybe, but usually just two hard sets to failure. If I have a training partner, there may be some assisted reps. So quads would be two working sets of leg extensions. I'll leave out the warm-ups. Two to three cuz I'm need a bit more there. Lying hamstring curls to failure. Then belt squat. My favorite movement. I actually bought a belt squat machine because you don't have to load the shoulders. >> Which one do you like? >> I use the pitch shark. And Rogue's got now one that's kind of more of a fan-based one. And there are a bunch of It's a lot of fun to go on Instagram and some of the the gym equipment assessment accounts as a whole world. Sorinx has one. There are all sorts of great ones out there. I bought the Pitch Shark. >> I'll reinforce the belt squat. >> Love the belt squat. It takes a little bit getting used to because some people feel as if, you know, it's like jamming into their hips or something. You can put a towel there if you need to. I mean, all the Westside barbell guys would talk about belt squat. They would load it up. You can actually march with it to build build all sorts of stabilizing muscles. I mean, that's an incredible cardio workout. You just put a couple plates on each side and you and you just march lifting your knees and like after like a minute you're like this is this is no way I can continue this a great workout. But I end up doing leg extensions, leg curls, then belt squat and then I may throw in a couple work sets of hack squat and that's it. And that's Monday or Tuesday. The day after legs is always a rest day. Like if you train legs properly, the next day should be a rest day. You should need it. Ideally, I would do sauna and cold that day. These days I haven't had time. A day later, I pick. Systemically, you have to ask yourself, am I systemically exhausted? My did my nervous system take enough of an ass beating on that Monday or Tuesday that I need two days off after legs? And if it was very, very intense, then I'll do some sort of 20 or 30 minute cardio. Typically, it's a run, not an allout run, not a jog, just somewhere in between. Probably in the zone, let's just call it zone 3ish, zone 3, four. Okay? So you're not sucking for air, but it's not a sprint workout. It's not zone two. And then I'll do a push pull. I'll do a chest and back workout. And neck. >> What do you use for neck? >> I have a 4-way neck machine. >> You do? I do. >> Which brand do you use? >> Hammer strength. >> Hammer strength. Yeah. And again, the reason I'm asking this guys is not to plug particular manufacturers because the physics and the geometry and so on really matters. It really matters. >> Especially in my experience with something that has injury potential. I have a four-way neck machine also. Oh, cool. >> I do it very very slowly myself. Like don't overdo it. If you've never trained neck, do not rush into like high velocity stuff, but that's why I was asking it. >> Neck is very important. I'll talk about specifically what I'll do if I don't have access to that. Some people be like chest and back same day and rear delts. And yeah, I think of it as like a torso workout. >> Mhm. >> Because I'm not a bodybuilder. I'm interested in posture. I'm interested in strength. And I'll I essentially do some sort of pushing movement like a low incline press and then some sort of fly type movement. Although sometimes I'll just do low incline bench press for so couple warm-ups, two or three warm-ups, two or three work sets >> in the failing somewhere between five and 12 repetitions. >> Mhm. >> And then dips, weighted dips. Big believer in these. Like I think it's like an upper body squat, whatever that means. Weighted dips typically with a weight vest. and it looks ridiculous, but the chains are great if you can throw those on cuz you can like toss one off and then keep going if you if you want to keep going. Whereas if you got a weight hanging between your legs, which always just feels weird to me anyway. You're like waddling around the gym, it's clanking into your ankles, I'll do some sort of dip and then I'll do some sort of row for the back. Typically like a low row or a dumbbell row, one arm dumbbell row, and then some sort of chinning movement. Although I put the chins first because we've all got this thing of how many can I do? And I recently bought a Nautilus pullover machine based on the training with Dorian and it's from 1976 and it's one of only two that still exist and it's kind of like some guys like muscle cars. I like old school strength training equipment. >> Dorian loves his pullovers just like Arthur Jones. >> And by the way, if you're rowing heavy and you're doing these things, you're getting some forearm training. >> But then I'll do the neck training and I'll either use the four-way neck machine. Jeff Cavalier from Athletex has a great video on how to train with a plate. You wrap it in a a train neck with a plate and a bench. So you could do that anywhere. You wrap it in a towel. You lie on your side and you're just you have to be careful about closing the chain. So you you know you got one leg down and you got a hand down on the ground. The video describes it. Maybe we could put a link to it. One thing that's very important I learned about training neck is you need to nasal breathe the whole time. Have your tongue on the roof of your mouth and make sure that you're not sticking your chin out at any point while you're bending it to the side because then you start getting clicking in your jaw. And my spinal surgeon friends tell me that it's a great way to slip a disc in your in your neck. The neck aesthetically like people don't It's always weird when like dudes are talking about aesthetics like but these days because of the looks maxing thing and all that like it's it [snorts] seems to be like more of but there's something actually very important to >> you're not hammering your cheekbones. >> No, I'm definitely hammering [laughter] my cheekbones. >> Come on, Andrew. >> Nope. Not hammering my cheekbones. I mean, you know, that is such a wild thing. Yeah. No, no, no, no. But there is something interesting. So from a strength and stability standpoint, training one's neck is really important because it's the upper spine. And it I do think it's one of the reasons I've never had any shoulder issues. And I've got long arms and everything points to the fact that I should have rotator cuff issues. I don't do any direct rotator cuff work. I think it's because I started training my neck a long time ago. And aesthetically, like you have this, this is a great opportunity to point out just how uh perfectly constructed you are, Tim Ferrris. you train your neck really if you look a head-on at a male face. If the neck sort of arrives right at the sort of like outer right more or less right, you know, plus or minus a few whatever millimeters and more or less at the outer jaw, the outermost point of the jaw below the ears like touching there, you'll notice like it looks kind of right. >> When somebody is really wide and their neck is not at that point, it looks like the wrong head was placed on a body. Then you see Lar Hamilton and you realize like this dude just has a a really big neck but it's appropriate for his for his body structure and then after the neck. So I'll do I don't know three sets or two work sets per side. Although you don't train neck the same way like to like four streps and all that. And then I'll do some core work. And the core work that I'm a big fan of because you also get some forearm work in is I'll hang from a bar and I'll do some lsits. >> And if I've been doing them a lot lately I'll do some pikes. Five sets of five piking your ankles up to your hands and then slow on the descent and then into an LSIT if I can and I'll do maybe three or five sets depending and then lower back work and I have a 45°ree angle hyperextension and I'm not taking that to failure. The low back thing is really important. I found that and there are a lot of data out there that if you can strengthen the spinal erectors your posture is better, you're more injury resistant but that whole workout takes an hour tops. >> Mhm. The next day is the high-intensity cardio day, just max heart rate. These days I get get on an aerodyine bike and I would say for this for people it's whatever you can do without getting hurt. >> So question for you on the aerodyine or I guess probably assault bike. >> This is a digression so I won't indulge this too far but to figure out why the assault bike worked and caught on where the aerodyine did not. Right? You can look at footage from Dan Gable, legendary wrestler, working out on an Aerodyine, but it never really spread until the assault bike, reformatted it, improved it in some ways. My question for you on that real quick for people who don't know, >> you're using your arms on these sort of isolateral movable handles that power this fan. So, you can pedal and use your arms, >> one or the other or both. And I find that my upper body fatigues a lot faster than my lower body if I'm trying to do, let's say, like a Norwegian 4x4 or something like that, like 4 minutes on, 3 minutes off, or 4 minutes on, 4 minutes off. >> Do you find that not to be the case for yourself, or how do you approach it? Cuz I've wanted to use the assault bike. It's now easier to find an assault bike in say a hotel gym for me than a stationary bike that fits well otherwise. How do you approach that? Well, the naming piece is interesting and maybe we get into this at some point deeper in the discussion, but naming is very important and it's not just important in health and fitness and this kind of thing. It's it's actually very important in science and I'm a you know a student of science as a field, not just the field of neuroscience in terms of the facts, but also you look at the culture of a scientific field oftent times the naming is what carries a field forward very quickly and you go how can that be? Aren't these scientists? Shouldn't they just be focused on the data? Nomenclature is important because if more people are doing something because they can talk about it to more people using the same language, it tends to accelerate a field. Sure. >> Um, also assault bike sounds cool. Stationary bike feels like you're just pedaling. The assault bike is interesting because I also I get like a lot of lat work from it. Keep in mind the day before I trained my chest and back. >> No, exactly. That's why I'm asking. So, it ends up being a second kind of stimulus, not a hypertrophy workout, but you you sort of end up feeling like almost like a a pump type thing >> if you do it right. >> I can't do more than 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off without experiencing what you experience it, which is that my legs just have all this gas and my arms, they can just keep going. It all transfers to the upper body. So, Norwegian 4x4 >> on on the assault bike just sounds like torture to me. This workout, if I can, I'll get outside and sprint. >> Mhm. And you could do it on a rower, you could sprint. You know, I think it's just important because it's a near allout or allout workout. 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off. Or maybe you jog a couple laps and then you do a couple, you know, you do a 400 on the track and then walk a lap and then do a 400. Whatever you do for this workout, you know, you can come up with any number of different variations. It's got to be something where you can apply max effort and not get hurt. >> Yeah. >> And then the next day is a shoulders, arms. You do some sort of pressing. I'm not big on lateral raises. >> Some sort of press for the shoulders, you know, couple work sets of bicep curls, couple incline curls, some hammer curls, overhead tricep extension for the long head, couple work sets, some bench dips, and there you go. Like bench dips again. So now you're getting a little bit of >> other stuff working even though it's not a allout chest and back workout. And then the next day, which is typically on a Sunday, I'll do some long slow movement, ideally outside. Maybe it's a walk in a hike with my girlfriend. Maybe it's I'm rucking and listening to a podcast if I'm alone. Maybe I'm jogging in the sand. Like it could be a long bike ride. Just something like there's something so nice just starting the week. >> Jogging in the sand sounds miserable for long. >> Slow. It's a slow plot. You're a mule. I like to think of like you're kind of a mule or I'm a mule. >> That's going to be my clip for the teaser >> with [laughter] a mule. >> I'm a mule. No, I'm kidding. Cool. No, that works. That works. That works for me. And you know the real hard part about that workout is not going faster. >> Yeah. It's pretty easy to jog and then walk. Jog and then walk. It's probably beneficial. Yeah. >> But that workout is as much for the mental stimulation, but it's also there's something so nice about going into the work week. >> Maybe it lands on a Monday. I don't know. But typically for me, it lands on a Sunday because there's something so nice about going to the work week, having spent as much time as possible moving outdoors the day before. But I do this and it ends up being six workouts a week, but some are very, very short. None of the resistance training stuff is terribly long. when you're done in an hour or so unless you're waiting for equipment and you know at 50 I'm continuing to you know get stronger. I'm not you know outrageously so and it just works. It just works and it's worked for everyone that I know. Now one key thing and a lot of people will what I call they'll kind of geek this and they won't do compound movements. You can't do lateral raises and and I do some rear delt flies on the whatever one or the either chest and back day or the shoulders and arms day. You need that for shoulder posturally, aesthetically, etc. But people will think, "Oh, I can do leg extensions, leg curls to failure once a week." No, you're also hack squatting and belt squatting or hat squatting and front squatting to failure for a couple sets. >> That's intense. You need to do the compound movements. There's no world where you can just, you know, do isolation movements this way. And that's the thing that sometimes gets forgotten in the Yates style training. He was doing a lot of compound movements and he's still a proponent of that.