This 6 Day Split Takes Only 1 Hour Per Session and Builds Strength at 50. The Secret? Two Hard Sets to Failure (Plus Smart Recovery)

Training splits ignite endless debate in fitness circles.

But one approach keeps surfacing among those who’ve sustained results for decades: a modified push-pull-legs system combined with high-intensity and recovery work.

Andrew Huberman, neuroscientist and host of the popular Huberman Lab podcast, recently shared his complete weekly training split—one he’s followed consistently while maintaining strength gains well into his 50s.

What makes his approach worth examining isn’t novelty, but rather how he’s structured training frequency, intensity, and recovery around both scientific principles and real-world sustainability.

The Foundation: Legs First, Rest Second

Huberman’s week begins with leg training on Monday or Tuesday—flexibility built into the schedule from the start.

Monday or Tuesday, I train my legs. 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.

His leg session includes leg extensions, lying hamstring curls, belt squats, and occasionally hack squats—all taken to or near failure for just two to three working sets per exercise.

The belt squat occupies pride of place in his routine. He invested in a Pit Shark machine specifically because it removes spinal loading while still delivering intense lower body stimulation.

I actually bought a belt squat machine cuz you don’t have to load the shoulders.

Other manufacturers like Rogue and Sorinex produce quality alternatives, each with slightly different mechanics that affect hip positioning and movement feel.

Why Belt Squats Work

Belt squats gained prominence through Westside Barbell, where lifters discovered they could load heavy weight without taxing the spine—critical for those managing back issues or training frequency.

Some users initially feel pressure against their hips. A simple towel placement solves this adjustment period.

Beyond squatting, the belt squat enables “marching”—lifting knees in place under load—which builds stabilizing muscles while creating brutal cardiovascular demand.

You just put a couple plates on each side and you just march lifting your knees and like after like a minute, you’re like, “This is no way I can continue.” It’s a great workout.

Recovery Isn’t Optional

After legs, Huberman always takes a rest day—non-negotiable.

If you train legs properly, the next day should be a rest day. You should need it.

Ideally, this day includes sauna and cold exposure, though time constraints sometimes force adjustments. The key principle holds: systemic recovery determines whether he needs one or two days before resuming training.

If nervous system fatigue runs deep, he’ll extend recovery and include 20-30 minutes of moderate cardio—not zone two, not sprinting, but somewhere in between (roughly zone three to four).

Push-Pull As Torso Training

Two days after legs, Huberman combines chest, back, and neck into a single session.

This departs from traditional bodybuilding splits that separate pushing and pulling across different days. His reasoning? He’s not training as a bodybuilder.

Yeah, I think of it as like a torso workout. Cuz I’m not a bodybuilder. I’m interested in posture, I’m interested in strength.

The workout structure flows like this:

• Low incline press: 2-3 warm-up sets, then 2-3 working sets to failure between 5-12 reps
• Weighted dips: Preferably with weight vest or chains (easier to drop weight mid-set versus plates between legs)
• Rowing variation: Low cable rows or one-arm dumbbell rows
• Chin-ups or pull-ups: Placed first in back work while fresh
• Nautilus pullover machine: A 1976 model, one of only two still existing, acquired after training with Dorian Yates

Heavy rowing and compound pulling movements provide adequate forearm stimulation without requiring dedicated isolation work.

Neck Training: Aesthetics Meet Injury Prevention

Neck work concludes the torso session. Huberman uses a Hammer Strength four-way neck machine, though he acknowledges alternatives exist.

Jeff Cavaliere’s plate-and-bench method works anywhere—lying on your side with a towel-wrapped plate, one leg and hand down for stability.

Critical technique points for neck training:

• Maintain nasal breathing throughout
• Keep tongue pressed against roof of mouth
• Never jut chin forward during lateral flexion (prevents jaw clicking and disc issues)
• Move slowly—never rush high-velocity movements, especially as a beginner

Beyond aesthetics (neck width arriving roughly at the outer jaw line creates visual proportion), neck strength provides shoulder stability.

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.

Research supports connections between neck strength and shoulder health, though Huberman’s claim about neck training preventing rotator cuff issues specifically may overstate current evidence. Studies do show neck strengthening improves posture and spinal stability, which could indirectly benefit shoulder mechanics through improved positioning.

Core Work Without Crunches

Rather than traditional ab exercises, Huberman hangs from a bar and performs L-sits—holding legs parallel to ground—or pikes, bringing ankles up to hands before slowly descending back into L-sits.

Five sets of five reps, which simultaneously strengthens grip and forearms.

He finishes with 45-degree hyperextensions for spinal erectors—not taken to failure, focusing instead on strengthening these postural muscles to reduce injury risk and improve positioning.

Total workout time? Under an hour.

High-Intensity Cardio: Maximum Heart Rate Work

Following the torso session, Huberman performs max heart rate cardio—currently on an Airdyne or Assault Bike.

These fan-based bikes engage both upper and lower body simultaneously through moving handles and pedals. The Assault Bike eventually succeeded where the earlier Airdyne failed to gain widespread adoption, partly through improved mechanics and partly through better naming.

Assault Bike sounds cool. Stationary Bike feels like shh, you’re just pedaling.

Nomenclature matters more than fitness enthusiasts realize. Clear, compelling names help communities form shared language, which accelerates adoption and knowledge exchange.

Upper Body Fatigue Problem

Tim Ferriss raised an important limitation: upper body typically fatigues before legs during Assault Bike intervals, especially protocols like Norwegian 4×4 (four minutes on, three or four minutes off).

Huberman experiences this too, which is why he structures his interval work differently: 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off—shorter bursts that maximize cardiovascular stress without upper body becoming the limiting factor.

Alternative approaches include outdoor sprinting, rowing, or track work—400 meters hard, walk a lap, repeat. The critical factor: whatever modality chosen must allow max effort application without injury risk.

Interestingly, training chest and back the previous day creates a secondary stimulus—not hypertrophy work, but enough to generate a mild pump sensation in lats and upper back during bike intervals.

Shoulders and Arms: The “Detail” Day

Day five targets shoulders, biceps, and triceps with moderate volume:

• Overhead pressing variation (but notably, no lateral raises)
• Bicep curls: Standard and incline variations
• Hammer curls: For brachialis and forearm development
• Overhead tricep extension: Targets long head specifically
• Bench dips: Additional tricep and chest stimulus

Bench dips provide yet another instance where chest receives stimulus despite not being the primary focus—a theme throughout Huberman’s split where compound movements create frequency without formal programming.

Long Slow Sunday: Movement for the Mind

The week concludes with extended, low-intensity outdoor movement—typically on Sunday.

Options include hiking, walking, slow jogging (including sand running, which Huberman describes as moving “like a mule”), or long bike rides. Podcasts or music often accompany solo sessions.

There’s something so nice about going into the work week having spent as much time as possible moving outdoors the day before.

This session serves dual purposes: active recovery and mental preparation. The challenge isn’t pushing hard enough—it’s resisting the urge to increase pace.

Alternating between jogging and walking works perfectly for this intent.

Six Workouts Weekly: Sustainable Intensity

Huberman’s complete week totals six training sessions, but varies dramatically in duration and intensity:

1. Legs (under 60 minutes)
2. Rest or light cardio
3. Chest, back, neck, core (under 60 minutes)
4. High-intensity cardio (20-30 minutes)
5. Shoulders and arms (45-60 minutes)
6. Long slow outdoor movement (duration flexible)

At 50 years old, he continues making strength gains—not dramatically, but consistently.

And it just works. It just works and it’s worked for everyone that I know.

The Compound Movement Requirement

One common mistake when interpreting low-volume, high-intensity protocols: attempting to build muscle exclusively through isolation exercises.

Leg extensions and curls to failure once weekly won’t produce results without belt squats, hack squats, or front squats also taken to failure.

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.

Dorian Yates pioneered high-intensity training in professional bodybuilding, but his approach always centered on heavy compound lifts—squats, deadlifts, rows, presses—supplemented strategically with isolation work.

Research consistently demonstrates compound movements recruit more total muscle mass, create greater hormonal responses, and build functional strength more effectively than isolation exercises alone. A 2016 review in Sports Medicine found multi-joint exercises produced superior strength and hypertrophy outcomes compared to single-joint movements when total training volume was equated.

Isolation exercises serve important roles—targeting weak points, adding volume without excessive systemic fatigue, and addressing specific aesthetic goals—but they enhance rather than replace compound movement foundations.

Schedule Flexibility as Strategic Principle

Notice Huberman’s emphasis on flexibility from the opening statement: Monday or Tuesday for legs, with subsequent days flowing based on recovery status.

This isn’t laziness—it’s wisdom accumulated through decades of training. Rigid schedules create stress when life interferes, turning missed workouts into sources of anxiety rather than adaptive signals.

After intense leg training, he assesses: Does the nervous system need one rest day or two? The answer guides whether day three becomes cardio or another full recovery day.

This self-regulation prevents overtraining while maintaining consistency over weeks, months, and years—the actual timeframe where meaningful results accumulate.

Why This Split Works Long-Term

Several factors make Huberman’s approach sustainable:

Frequency without redundancy: Each muscle group receives adequate stimulus without excessive weekly volume that accumulates fatigue.

Intensity variation: Maximum effort resistance training alternates with cardiovascular work and recovery movement, preventing any single stressor from dominating.

Time efficiency: No single workout demands excessive time, making consistency achievable even with professional obligations.

Built-in assessment: Regular check-ins about systemic fatigue and recovery status prevent rigid adherence from overriding physiological signals.

Outdoor integration: Sunday’s long movement session addresses psychological recovery alongside physical adaptation.

These principles align with periodization research showing varied stimulus and adequate recovery produce superior long-term outcomes compared to constant high-volume approaches.

Practical Implementation Considerations

Equipment access varies dramatically. Not everyone owns belt squat machines, Nautilus pullovers, or four-way neck devices.

The underlying principles matter more than specific implements:

• Train legs intensely, then recover fully
• Combine pushing and pulling movements in single sessions if time-constrained
• Include neck training using whatever method available (plate and bench, manual resistance, specialized machines)
• Alternate high-intensity cardio with longer, easier movement
• Build training around compound movements, using isolation work strategically
• Allow schedule flexibility based on recovery assessment

Belt squats can substitute with goblet squats, front squats, or Bulgarian split squats—any loading pattern that challenges lower body without excessive spinal compression.

Nautilus pullovers translate to dumbbell pullovers or straight-arm pulldowns. Four-way neck machines become plate work or partner-resisted training.

The structure adapts while maintaining core principles.

Sources

• Sports Medicine, 2016 – “Single vs. Multi-Joint Resistance Exercises: Effects on Muscle Strength and Hypertrophy”