Understanding Andrew Huberman's Workout Routine

Andrew Huberman, the Stanford neuroscientist behind the wildly popular Huberman Lab podcast, has spent over 20 years refining what he calls his ‘foundational fitness protocol.’

It’s based on having a functioning body that allows you to walk far while carrying weight, lift heavy things, sprint when needed, and run longer distances without losing breath.

As fitness influencers and experts are eager to share their personal routines, people are looking for practical frameworks they can follow. Huberman's protocol stands out because it targets strength, muscle growth, and endurance while remaining flexible enough to be adapted to most people’s routines.

The system is designed to support health, longevity, and what Huberman calls ‘esthetic balance’ — looking good while feeling strong. He also claims it’s built on decades of research and personal experimentation.

In this article, we’ll explore Huberman's weekly training structure, his go-to exercises, and whether this protocol can be applied to your personal routine.

Weekly structure overview

TOC: Weekly structure

Huberman splits his week into seven days with a clear purpose for each one.

Three days focus on resistance training. These sessions target different muscle groups and movement patterns to build strength and size:

• Lifting weights
• Bodyweight exercises
• Resistance band work

Three days focus on cardiovascular training. This includes both high-intensity work and longer, steady-state cardio:

• Sprinting
• Running
• Biking
• Rowing

One day covers heat and cold exposure, including saunas, cold plunges, or ice baths. Huberman doesn’t do it just for recovery. He treats temperature exposure as active training for stress resilience and metabolic health.

The structure stays consistent week after week. You know what type of training you're doing daily, which removes the guesswork and keeps you moving forward.

Resistance training focus

Huberman works out with weights three days per week, and if you want to try following his routine, here’s what to do.

Each session runs 50–60 minutes after warming up, with 75 minutes being the absolute maximum.

The training gets intense, and typically, those final reps should make you struggle and sometimes push all the way to failure. Instead of casually lifting, you're working hard enough to make sure the last few reps feel difficult.

Huberman emphasizes removing distractions during these sessions. "I put my phone on airplane mode," he says, treating his workout time as sacred focus time. No scrolling, no texts, no interruptions.

This approach forces you to be present with the work. You're not half-heartedly going through the motions while checking social media. You show up, do the work intensely, and get out.

The time limit keeps sessions productive without burning you out for the rest of the week.

Alternating between strength and hypertrophy

The protocol switches between two different training schedules each month, helping the body adapt and prevent stagnation.

Schedule A (strength focus)

• Heavy loads that challenge you
• 4–8 repetitions per set
• 3–4 sets total
• 2–4 minutes rest between sets

Schedule B (hypertrophy focus)

• Moderate loads you can handle for more reps
• 8–15 repetitions per set
• 2–3 sets total
• 90 seconds rest between sets

The strength phase builds raw power and force production. You're lifting heavier weights with longer rest periods to recover fully between sets. The hypertrophy phase targets muscle growth with moderate weights and shorter rest, creating more metabolic stress.

Huberman notes that this alternating approach prevents your body from getting too comfortable with one style of training. You're constantly challenging different energy systems and forcing new adaptations.

Both schedules work the same muscle groups, but the rep ranges and rest periods create different training stimuli.

Training in lengthened and shortened positions

The key here is to train each muscle group through its full range of motion. This means working out muscles when they're stretched out and when they're contracted.

Training in both positions builds better stability, improves how you move, and cuts down injury risk. Your muscles learn to work effectively at every point in their range.

Here’s the correct setup:

• Two exercises per muscle group per workout
• One exercise targets the shortened position (muscle contracted)
• One exercise targets the lengthened position (muscle stretched)

Doing so ensures balanced muscle development. You build strength throughout the entire movement. Your joints stay healthier, and your muscles work better together as a complete system.

Weekly resistance split

The resistance training is spread across three days with a clear focus for each session.

Day	Focus	Muscle groups
Day 2 (Monday)	Legs	Quadriceps, hamstrings, calves
Day 4 (Wednesday)	Torso and neck	Neck, shoulders, chest, back,
Day 7 (Saturday)	Arms, neck, and calves	Neck, biceps, triceps, calves

Monday is the heavy leg day. You're hitting all the major lower-body muscle groups in one session. Expect to feel it for the next few days.

Wednesday focuses on upper body push and pull movements. The neck work might seem unusual, but Huberman considers it crucial for injury prevention and posture.

Saturday targets smaller muscle groups to finish the week. Calves get hit twice per week, and neck training is repeated again for reinforcement.

This split ensures every major muscle group gets targeted while allowing adequate recovery time between sessions.

Specialized focus areas

Huberman’s routine also includes two training areas that most people completely ignore.

Neck training

It reduces injury risk and fixes your posture. Huberman uses plate exercises with a towel-wrapped weight:

• Lateral raises, head raises, flexion, extension, side bending, chin tucks
• One light warm-up set followed by three work sets of 10–15 reps

Tibialis training

Following Ben Patrick's ‘Knees over toes’ methods, Huberman strengthens the front of his shins. He starts every leg day with three heavy sets of tibialis raises to failure. This supposedly improves calf development and posture.

Huberman also does backward hill walks wearing a weighted vest. The goal here is to target the tibialis muscles while building functional strength.

Most people skip this exercise because it looks weird, but Huberman treats these movements as seriously as any other exercise in his routine.

Breathing for recovery

Huberman uses a specific breathing technique between sets to speed up recovery and manage his nervous system.

Between every set, he performs what is called a physiological sigh. According to him, "two deep inhales through the nose (no exhale in between), followed by a full exhale to lungs empty (through the mouth) is the fastest way to reduce autonomic arousal — aka ‘calm down.’”

The technique is simple, you just need to take two sharp inhales through your nose and one long exhale through your mouth. Huberman stresses the importance of the second inhale because it not only increases your intake of oxygen but also offloads carbon dioxide.

Huberman practices this between sets for 3–5 minutes to fully reset the nervous system. This helps to recover faster and stay focused throughout the workout.

Cardiovascular training strategy

Huberman's protocol dedicates three days per week to cardiovascular training across different intensity zones.

The primary goal is to accumulate 180–200 minutes of zone 2 cardio weekly. This is steady-state work where you can still hold a conversation but feel slightly breathless. Your heart rate sits around 70–80% of the maximum.

Three cardio days incorporate:

• Zone 2 (steady-state endurance)
• Moderate-intensity work (harder than zone 2, minimal talking possible)
• High-intensity interval training (HIIT)

Exercise choice depends entirely on your mood and preferences. Running, cycling, rowing, swimming, hiking — whatever gets you moving consistently. Hitting your target minutes and intensity zones matters more than the specific activity.

This approach builds both aerobic capacity and cardiovascular endurance while keeping things interesting enough to stick with long-term.

Weekly cardio structure

Each cardio day targets a different energy system and intensity level.

Day 1 (Sunday): long endurance workout

Zone 2 cardio for 30–75 minutes keeps you breathing faster than normal while still able to hold a conversation.

Activities include jogging, rowing, cycling, swimming, hiking, walking, or elliptical work. Adding a weighted vest increases difficulty without changing the movement pattern. Nasal breathing is emphasized whenever possible to improve oxygen efficiency.

Day 5 (Thursday): moderate-intensity cardio

Thirty-five minutes at 75–80% maximum effort should make talking more difficult.

Running, rowing, cycling, jumping jacks, stair climbing, and jump rope all work well. Outdoor activities are preferred to boost cardiovascular system function and increase lung capacity through varied environmental conditions.

Day 6 (Friday): high-intensity interval training (HIIT)

Twenty to sixty seconds of all-out effort followed by 10 seconds rest for 8–12 rounds.

Your goal is to reach your maximum heart rate (220 minus your age). Assault bikes, rowing machines, sprinting, skiing machines, and sand sprints deliver the intensity needed. Perfect form during each sprint matters more than just grinding through the work.

Training outdoors

Last but not least, this workout routine requires getting outside for at least one cardio session per week.

Running, hiking, and rucking (walking with a weighted pack) are the main outdoor activities. Fresh air and changing terrain provide benefits you can't get from indoor equipment. Your body adapts to uneven surfaces, wind resistance, and temperature changes.

Research shows outdoor exercise reduces stress levels more than indoor workouts. You also get better cognitive function improvements when training outside versus being stuck in a gym. Something about natural environments seems to reset your mental state in ways that artificial lighting and air conditioning can't match.

Zone 2 and moderate-intensity cardio work particularly well outdoors. The varying terrain naturally creates intensity fluctuations that are good for your cardiovascular system. Plus, outdoor workouts tend to feel less monotonous than staring at a wall for 45 minutes on a treadmill.

Expert insights and final thoughts

Huberman's protocol isn't perfect, but it's solid for most people.

Brian Murray, a Functional Range Conditioning Mobility Specialist, calls Huberman’s protocol "one of the more effective general fitness blueprints" but notes it lacks individual assessment. He argues most people need joint-specific work before loading movements like squats or deadlifts because we're not all starting from the same place.

Dr. Ramit Singh Sambyal, a practicing physician with 13 years of clinical experience, offers a similar perspective: "Huberman's protocol is a great benchmark, but like any therapeutic framework, it works best when individualized based on cardiovascular risk, VO2 max, joint health, and recovery capacity."

While the protocol has limitations and some choices remain debatable, it succeeds where many fitness plans fail: providing clear structure without overwhelming complexity. For someone looking to build a sustainable routine that covers all the basics, this represents a solid starting point.