Supermodel Workout Routine: How Top Models Train Now

The cleanest single sentence about how working models train in 2026 is that the trainer they are booking matters more than the modality, and that the trainers most consistently booked by the top tier of the industry are a small, identifiable group whose methodologies have shaped what the current roster does in the gym. Justin Gelband at ModelFIT in Manhattan trains, or has trained, Karlie Kloss, Candice Swanepoel, Behati Prinsloo, Erin Heatherton, Romee Strijd, and the broader Victoria's Secret roster of the 2010s. Megan Roup at The Sculpt Society works with both Hadid sisters, Hailey Bieber, Suki Waterhouse, and the post-2018 wave of Manhattan-based models. Michael Olajide Jr at Aerospace HPC at 121 West 27th Street in Chelsea built the boxing-and-jump-rope protocol that Adriana Lima famously used through her Victoria's Secret years and that Naomi Campbell has continued to use intermittently for two decades. Kirk Myers and Christopher Aaron at the Dogpound studios in New York and Los Angeles handle the strength side for Karlie Kloss, Bella Hadid, and a longer list. Mary Helen Bowers at Ballet Beautiful, Tracy Anderson at her West Village and Brentwood studios, Liana Levi at Forma Pilates in Los Angeles, and Joe Holder of Ocho System fill out the rest of the roster.

The fitness story most beauty-press content tells about supermodel training reduces all of this to a generic "model workout" that purports to apply across the working roster. The actual versions of what each of these trainers does are different from each other, matched to the specific physical and career demands of their clients, and structured around principles that the broader consumer fitness industry has only partly absorbed. The version that holds up across long careers also looks meaningfully different from the version that powers a single pre-show transformation, and the difference between the two is part of what this piece is for.

The shorter version, before the detail: the working-model training framework in 2026 is built around strength as the primary modality, Pilates as the secondary structural discipline, boxing or sprint-style conditioning as the cardiovascular pillar, and recovery work that occupies more of the calendar than the actual hard sessions. The exact proportions vary by training studio and by the model's body, although the framework is roughly consistent.

What the trainers actually do: ModelFIT and the post-Pilates strength conversation

Justin Gelband's ModelFIT studio, which opened in 2010 in Greenwich Village and now runs out of locations on Charles Street and on the Upper East Side, built the working template for what most beauty press calls "supermodel workout" content. The methodology is band-and-bodyweight strength performed in three- to five-minute circuits, with high repetition counts, careful tempo control, deliberate breathing, and the kind of small-muscle activation work that produces line rather than bulk. A typical ModelFIT session runs forty-five minutes, covers the full body in a single session, and progresses by tightening tempo and adding band tension rather than by adding weight.

The methodology was a response to the cardio-only training culture of the 2000s, which Gelband (a former track athlete) considered structurally damaging to the bodies it was supposed to optimise. The early ModelFIT clientele included Karlie Kloss, who has remained a long-term client; Candice Swanepoel, whose visible sculpting profile across her Victoria's Secret era was substantially Gelband's work; Behati Prinsloo, Erin Heatherton, Romee Strijd, and the broader Angel roster of 2012–2018. The training has shaped what the Hadid sisters' generation of trainers built around. Megan Roup, who founded The Sculpt Society in 2017 and now operates an app-based programme with over a million subscribers, trained at ModelFIT before launching her own methodology and built on the same foundational logic with a more dance-influenced flow structure.

The Sculpt Society's framework is a thirty-five- to fifty-minute session that runs a dance-cardio warm-up, a band-and-light-dumbbell sculpt section organised by body region (glutes, thighs, abs, arms), and a stretch-and-recovery close. The membership rolls have included Gigi Hadid, Bella Hadid, Hailey Bieber, Suki Waterhouse, Camila Mendes, and the broader celebrity wellness market, and the methodology has migrated into hotel rooms across the fashion-month calendar through the app. The thing the Sculpt Society does technically that older modeling-fitness programmes did not is keep the cardio component embedded in the session rather than separating it into a different day, which solves a calendar problem for working models who do not have time for two-discipline training days.

Dogpound, which Kirk Myers founded in 2015 and now operates with Christopher Aaron in both New York's Hudson Yards and Los Angeles's West Hollywood, runs a stricter strength programme. Sessions there are heavier, closer to athletic strength-and-conditioning work, and built around progressive overload with real weights. Karlie Kloss has been a long-term Dogpound client; Bella Hadid trained there through the 2018–2020 period; Hailey Bieber has been a recurring client; the Hadid generation of working models has largely moved through the studio at some point. The methodology produces visible muscle line and structural strength rather than the elongated lean profile the band-based methodologies produce, and the choice between the two studios is partly a choice about which kind of body the model and her agency want to build toward.

For the broader career framework that any of these training decisions sits inside, our industry insider guide to becoming a model covers the surrounding professional discipline.

Boxing, Pilates, and the cardiovascular conversation

Aerospace HPC in Chelsea has been the boxing studio of choice for working models since Michael Olajide Jr, a former IBF middleweight title contender, opened it in 2002. The Aerospace methodology runs a forty-five-minute session built around jump-rope conditioning (Olajide's specialty, with rope-skipping sequences that integrate footwork patterns from his fight training), shadow-boxing combinations on the bag, and short core-and-conditioning intervals. The cardiovascular intensity is genuinely high. Heart-rate work sits in the 75–85 percent maximum range across the session, the calorie burn is substantial, and the visible body-composition effects of the programme are part of why it produced the Adriana Lima pre-show conditioning legend that ran through the 2008–2014 Victoria's Secret cycle.

Olajide has been candid in interviews about the limits of the protocol. The boxing-and-jump-rope intensity produces fast results, although it is not sustainable as a year-round training methodology, and the Lima version of it (which she did six days a week for the three to four weeks before the show) was an athletic-intensity training block rather than a normal lifestyle. The clients who have continued to use Aerospace as part of their long-term training (Naomi Campbell intermittently, Karolína Kurková, Joan Smalls) tend to do two or three Aerospace sessions per week rather than five or six, and they pair the boxing work with strength training at another studio.

Pilates fills a different functional category. The Mary Helen Bowers Ballet Beautiful methodology, which she launched in 2008 after a career with the New York City Ballet, runs a programme built around ballet barre, classical Pilates principles, and the structural alignment work that produces the long, elongated muscle line associated with dancers. Lily Aldridge has been a long-term client; Karlie Kloss has used Bowers's online programme through travel weeks; the Ballet Beautiful app has carried the work into the broader fashion-and-celebrity market.

The Pilates conversation in working-model culture has been complicated by the rise of Forma Pilates in Los Angeles, which Liana Levi founded in 2017 and which now operates in studios on La Brea and in Soho New York. The Forma methodology runs a contemporary Pilates Reformer programme with a stronger strength-conditioning component than classical Pilates uses, and the studio has become the cultural centre of West Coast model and celebrity fitness in a way that mirrors what ModelFIT and Dogpound did in New York a decade earlier. Hailey Bieber, Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid (during her Los Angeles periods), and a longer list of working models have made Forma part of their training rotations through the post-2020 years.

The other significant Pilates operator is Solid Core, the high-intensity Pilates franchise that runs locations across North America. The methodology is significantly more intense than classical Pilates, with reformer sequences that approach strength-training output and a calorie burn that competes with traditional cardio sessions. Solid Core is the option most working models pick up when they are travelling and need a consistent Pilates option in cities where Forma and Ballet Beautiful do not have studios.

How the actual training week structures

The realistic weekly training schedule for a working model in 2026 runs five active days, one low-intensity day, and one full recovery day. The exact mix varies by what she is preparing for. A model heading into fashion month does more conditioning work in the four weeks before; a model preparing for a swim or lingerie campaign does more strength-and-definition work in the six weeks before; a model in a maintenance phase between major bookings does a more balanced mix.

A typical week for a Manhattan-based model in maintenance phase looks roughly like this: two strength sessions at Dogpound or a Gelband-style band-and-bodyweight session on Monday and Thursday; one Aerospace boxing session on Tuesday or Wednesday; two Pilates Reformer sessions at Forma or The Sculpt Society on the alternate days; one long walk or light yoga session on the weekend; one full rest day. The training volume sits at roughly five to six hours of structured exercise per week, plus the unstructured walking that fashion-month commuting produces. The intensity distribution skews toward the moderate end most weeks; the genuinely hard sessions are reserved for two of the seven days.

Pre-fashion-month conditioning is more demanding. The four weeks before the September shows typically include five training days (two strength, two boxing or sprint-style conditioning, one Pilates), one mobility day, and one rest day. The total volume runs seven to nine hours per week, and the cardiovascular work component increases. The protocol is closer to athletic preparation than to maintenance, and it stops the day before the first show begins.

The training during fashion month itself is significantly lighter, partly because the schedule does not permit anything else and partly because the demands of the runway calendar (long days standing in heels, repeated quick changes, cumulative sleep debt, dry indoor air) are already an athletic load. Most working models drop to one or two short sessions per week during the four-city tour, with the focus on mobility and lymphatic flow rather than on conditioning gains. The Sculpt Society's hotel-room workouts, fifteen-to-twenty-minute sessions designed for travel, are the modality most commonly used during this period.

For the parallel nutrition framework that supports any of this training load, our model diet and nutrition guide covers the fueling side of the operating system.

What the working roster does differently from the consumer market

The single largest difference between how working models train and how consumers train, holding aside genetics and trainer access, is the relationship between intensity and recovery. The consumer fitness market, particularly the social-media segment, defaults toward maximum-intensity sessions repeated five to six days per week, with under-recovery treated as proof of commitment. The working-model framework treats recovery as part of the training rather than as the absence of it.

The recovery infrastructure that most top-tier working models build into the week includes seven to nine hours of sleep most nights; deliberate mobility sessions of ten to fifteen minutes on training days; weekly or fortnightly massage or lymphatic drainage; periodic cryotherapy or infrared sauna sessions (Bella Hadid is open about her Therabody and Restore Cryotherapy use; Karlie Kloss has discussed her sauna habit in multiple interviews); foam-rolling and percussion-massage tools as part of the at-home kit; and the kind of regular sleep schedule that fashion-month travel makes difficult but that the rest of the calendar protects carefully. The visible cosmetic effects of recovery work (clearer skin, lower body inflammation, steadier energy, less under-eye puffiness) are larger than most consumer fitness content acknowledges.

The second major difference is the volume of low-intensity movement that runs underneath the structured training. Working models accumulate seven to twelve thousand steps per day across normal life in New York or Paris simply through commuting between castings, walking between subway stops, and the unscheduled movement that the working day involves. The cardiovascular baseline this produces is significantly higher than the consumer baseline, which means the structured training does not need to carry the full cardiovascular load. This is part of why the band-and-Pilates-and-occasional-boxing protocols that the working roster favours work as well as they do; the underlying step count is doing more of the work than the trainer interviews tend to mention.

The third difference is that the training is matched to the work rather than designed in isolation. A model preparing for a Saint Laurent runway in October is training differently from a model preparing for a Sports Illustrated Swim shoot in February or a Calvin Klein underwear campaign in May. The trainers most often booked at the top tier (Gelband, Roup, Olajide, Myers, Bowers, Levi, Anderson) all customise their programmes around the specific bookings their clients have on the calendar, which is the operating principle most consumer fitness programmes are too generic to replicate.

Mistakes that quietly damage long careers

A handful of training mistakes recur across the working model roster, and they are worth identifying because they are easier to avoid than to correct.

Steady-state cardio as the only modality, particularly running, produces under-muscled bodies with poor posture and high injury rates. The 2000s-era cardio default at twelve hours of treadmill per week, which ran through the Victoria's Secret training culture of the 2003–2010 period, was retired by most of the working roster a decade ago for this reason. The current working baseline replaces most of that volume with strength work and uses sprint-style intervals when cardiovascular conditioning is needed.

Copying one celebrity body across different frames does not work and produces visible damage on bodies that were not built for the protocol. Karlie Kloss, Gigi Hadid, Adriana Lima, Candice Swanepoel, and Ashley Graham do not train the same way because they are not built the same way, and the protocols that produced each of those bodies were customised by trainers working with the actual physical material in front of them. The consumer market sells body-template copying as aspirational; the working-model market understands it as the source of most plateaus and most injuries.

Under-eating while training intensely is the third major mistake, and the one most directly responsible for the binge-restrict cycles that have ended a long list of careers. The body cannot recover from training without adequate protein, carbohydrate, and total calories, and the bodies that try to do so produce poorer skin, hair, and energy within a few months. The contemporary trainers booked at the top tier are explicit with their clients about this; Justin Gelband has been on the record across multiple interviews stating that he refuses to train clients who are not eating enough, and the Sculpt Society and Dogpound brands have both incorporated nutrition messaging into their public-facing content for the same reason.

Ignoring recovery because it feels unproductive is the fourth. The five-day-week training calendar that most working models converge on is not a compromise; it is the operating optimum for bodies in the kind of working environment fashion produces. A six- or seven-day intensive week produces overtraining symptoms within four to six weeks that show up on camera as puffy skin, flat hair, low mood, and the kind of cumulative fatigue that affects how the body reads in clothes.

The last mistake is chasing "tiny" instead of "strong". The contemporary luxury fashion image in 2026 favours vitality over extreme thinness, and even when the silhouettes are lean (Saint Laurent, Prada, The Row), they still need the tension and line that strength training produces. The working models who hold up across multiple decades have, almost without exception, trained for strength rather than for shrinking.

A few quick answers

A handful of reader questions about the supermodel workout routine recur. The typical working-model workout combines strength training (two to three sessions per week at studios like Dogpound or in the Gelband band-based methodology), Pilates Reformer work (two sessions per week at Forma, The Sculpt Society, or Ballet Beautiful), boxing or sprint-style conditioning (one to two sessions per week at Aerospace or equivalent), and recovery work that occupies meaningful calendar time rather than being treated as the absence of training. Models stay in shape between bookings primarily through consistency rather than intensity spikes: a steady five-day weekly training schedule, eight thousand or more daily steps from normal commuting, regular sleep, hydration, and adequate nutrition that supports the training load. A model diet plan that supports the training is built around three balanced meals plus strategic snacks, protein at every meal, complex carbohydrates around training, sufficient fat for hormonal function, and the kind of operating consistency that protects the body across the four-city fashion-month calendar. Karlie Kloss's training is better understood as athletic conditioning than as cardio alone; her programme has been built around Dogpound strength work, Aerospace boxing intermittently, and the original ModelFIT-derived band-and-bodyweight framework that she has used since her early-career years. Beginners can adopt the framework safely by starting with three strength sessions per week, one Pilates or barre session, and regular walking, with intensity scaled to current conditioning and the volume increased gradually across the first six to eight weeks.

The shorter version of any of this is that the working-model fitness framework is disciplined rather than dramatic. The trainers booked at the top tier are running protocols closer to athletic-performance work than to consumer fitness content, and the bodies that hold up across long careers are the ones that have been trained, fueled, and rested with the same kind of operating consistency that the rest of a professional modeling career requires. For the parallel discipline that runs alongside any of this on the business side, our modeling industry business guide covers the commercial framework that the operating discipline ultimately serves.