Insight | Pick a training split you will actually keep: weekly templates compared

The best weekly training split is the one you will keep doing. Jeff Cavaliere says it most plainly: "A split not done is not effective." Andy Galpin, Andrew Huberman and Pavel Tsatsouline reach the same place from different directions, and their templates let you choose a week that fits your calendar and recovery.

Cavaliere's basic program for a typical person is roughly 60% strength and 40% conditioning, for example strength on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and conditioning on Tuesday and Thursday. He calls that about the minimum effective dose. His first rule for a split is whether you will stick to it. He does not love full-body splits, because they run long and can leave people dreading the session. He offers push/pull/legs once or twice a week instead, and he defends the bro split, one muscle group a day, because people enjoy it and can focus. He keeps sessions to an hour or less and puts conditioning after weights when they share a day.

Galpin's method starts with your real life. Lay out your actual calendar, name what will get in your way and decide conservatively how many days you can train. It is better to plan three days and add a fourth than to plan four and keep missing one. His three-day week rotates speed and power, strength and endurance; his four-day week is a different sequence of whole-body strength, a longer endurance day, a muscular endurance day and a medium-intensity interval day; and six days simply runs the three-day cycle twice. Workouts follow an order, not weekdays, so a missed day shifts everything back.

Huberman's own seven-day template gives legs, torso and arms one hard day each and spreads three kinds of cardio around them: a long, slow session, a moderate one and an all-out interval day. He trains each muscle directly once a week, because he recovers slowly, and keeps hard work to 50 or 60 minutes after a 10-minute warm-up. Any session can slide a day, but he never puts intervals the day after legs. In his tools episode, he sets the base at two to four resistance sessions a week alongside zone 2 work, and calls his program a template, not a mandate.

Tsatsouline adds history. Body systems recover at different rates, so very different programs can work through different mechanisms. The Soviet system trained often with loads that allowed overnight recovery, while American powerlifters trained each lift hard once a week. A bro split works if you train heavy with medium reps. His advice to beginners is to pick one proven program and stay with it.

The sources differ most on frequency. Huberman trains each muscle hard once a week for his slow recovery, while Tsatsouline describes high-frequency practice that runs two or three days in a row. They also differ on full-body training: Cavaliere is wary of it, while Galpin's short weeks are built on whole-body sessions organized by adaptation rather than body part. All of them, though, put adherence first, and Tsatsouline's message is "consistency over intensity."

What to do with it: count the days you can really train, then pick the template that matches that number. Choose a split you look forward to, keep sessions to about an hour and tie workouts to an order rather than dates. Keep intervals away from leg day, put your most important session on your most reliable day and check recovery before you train. If you have an injury, a heart condition or other health concerns, talk to a doctor or a qualified trainer before taking on a new program.