If you’ve ever felt stuck between chasing strength and chasing size, you’re not alone. Most lifters eventually face the power vs. hypertrophy dilemma. Do you load up the bar and get stronger, or chase the pump and carve out more muscle? The PHAT workout program offers a third path: do both.
PHAT stands for Power Hypertrophy Adaptive Training, and it’s exactly what it sounds like: a program designed to blend heavy, compound strength work with high-volume bodybuilding-style training. It’s demanding. It’s long. And it’s not for everyone. But for lifters who can handle the workload, PHAT delivers a unique blend of size and strength that’s hard to match.
Table of Contents
What Is the PHAT Workout?
The PHAT program is a five-day training split that divides your week into two heavy power days and three hypertrophy-focused sessions. Here’s how it breaks down:
- Day 1: Power Upper
- Day 2: Power Lower
- Day 3: Rest
- Day 4: Hypertrophy Back & Shoulders
- Day 5: Hypertrophy Legs
- Day 6: Hypertrophy Chest & Arms
- Day 7: Rest (optional)
The first two days center on compound lifts, think bench, squat, deadlift, and RDLs, with heavy loading and low rep schemes. These are classic strength sessions designed to build raw capacity. And if you're a powerlifter, you should be pretty familiar with how to program these.
Then after a rest day, the next three sessions shift toward hypertrophy days. That's high-volume, muscle-specific work. That means more sets, more reps, lighter weights, and a focus on fatiguing the target muscle.
The result? A training style that builds both the base (strength) and the structure (size) of your physique, if you can handle the recovery demands for upper body power, lower body power, and targeted hypertrophy days.
PHAT vs. PHUL: What’s the Difference?
It’s easy to confuse PHAT with PHUL (Power Hypertrophy Upper Lower), but they’re not quite the same. PHUL runs on a four-day split, alternating upper and lower sessions twice per week. The movement variety is tighter, and the overall intensity is slightly more manageable, making PHUL a great option for casual lifters or beginners looking to blend strength and size.
PHAT, created by Layne Norton, ramps things up. The five-day split increases training frequency and volume, often hitting muscle groups two to three times per week. That higher frequency is ideal for hypertrophy, assuming your recovery, nutrition, and sleep are dialed in. It also adds more exercise variety, which helps train different fiber angles and maintain joint health.
Bottom line: PHUL is a solid choice for beginners and intermediates. PHAT is better suited for intermediate-to-advanced lifters who can handle longer sessions and a heavier weekly workload.
Is PHAT Training Right for You?
Let’s be honest. PHAT is not a plug-and-play routine for everyone. If you’re new to lifting, the sheer volume and structure might overwhelm you. If you’re someone who struggles with consistency, five long sessions a week may not be sustainable.
But if you’ve been lifting for a few years, know your way around a barbell, and are looking for a new challenge, PHAT can absolutely deliver. It’s especially valuable for lifters who want to keep progressing on their big lifts while also chasing size in the mirror. You’ll get the intensity of a powerlifting cycle with the volume needed to drive hypertrophy.
That said, PHAT does have its trade-offs. Training for both strength and size at the same time is a balancing act. Push too hard on one end, and the other may suffer. As the video points out, strength comes in seasons. You can’t maximize both simultaneously, but you can make solid progress on each—if you stay consistent and manage fatigue.
Workout Length and Progression
Here’s the other thing about PHAT: It’s time-consuming. Expect your power days to take 90 to 120 minutes. The hypertrophy sessions will be a bit shorter, usually 60 to 90 minutes, depending on how many isolation movements you include and how tight you are with rest periods.
The good news is that PHAT has no built-in expiration. It’s not a six-week crash program. It’s a framework for building muscle mass and developing greater stregnth. You can cycle rep schemes, rotate movements, and progressively overload across blocks. It adapts with you as long as you continue to recover and make progress.
Training Suggestions
Here are a few exercises you can work into the PHAT training program. I'll make recommendations based on what I've seen work and exercises that target the muscles you want to hit during this specific type of workout.
Pull-Ups
Pull ups build upper-body pulling strength while heavily targeting the lats, traps, and biceps. As a compound, bodyweight movement, they reinforce control, coordination, and muscular endurance. You can load them with a belt for lower-rep strength work on power days or use higher reps for hypertrophy sessions. Pull-ups also offer a vertical pulling angle, complementing the horizontal rows commonly used in PHAT. If you're aiming for a wide, well-developed back, pull-ups are one of the most effective tools you can include.
They can be used as part of the PHAT program, too. And yes, you can do fast pull-ups instead of slow pull-ups if you're working on explosiveness. Most programs will recommend slow pull ups though, or a mix of both fast and slow.
Leg Curls or Leg Extensions
Choose leg curls or leg extensions for lower body days. Extensions target your quads, and curls target hamstrings. That makes either an option for lower body hypertrophy training.
Leg extensions emphasize the quads through knee extension with minimal joint strain, making them perfect for high-rep sets to fully fatigue the muscle. Leg curls isolate the hamstrings and can be performed seated, lying, or standing to hit different angles. Both movements help balance the lower body, reduce injury risk, and support strength gains in squats and deadlifts by reinforcing the supporting musculature.
Leg Press
Leg press is is a valuable addition to the hypertrophy leg day in your PHAT workout because it allows you to train the quads, glutes, and hamstrings with heavy loads in a controlled, stable position. Unlike squats or lunges, the leg press removes the balance and coordination component, letting you focus purely on muscular effort. That's perfect for high-volume, hypertrophy-focused sets.
It’s also easier on the lower back, making it a great follow-up to more taxing compound lifts from earlier in the week. You can adjust foot placement to emphasize different parts of the leg, making it a versatile and joint-friendly way to drive leg growth. It's also a fine choice for lower body power training. That's just a question of reps, speed, and weight.
Dumbbell Presses
Dumbbell presses work well on hypertrophy days because they allow for a greater range of motion and improved muscle activation compared to barbell pressing. They also help address strength imbalances between sides, forcing each arm to work independently.
On chest-focused hypertrophy days, dumbbell flat or incline presses are ideal for high-rep sets that fully fatigue the pecs while minimizing joint stress. Unlike barbell work, dumbbells let you adjust your wrist and elbow positioning for better comfort, making them a joint-friendly option for lifters dealing with shoulder or elbow sensitivity.
We've talked about how dumbbell presses help bench press. That alone should be reason to consider it for a PHAT program. The main reason to consider it, at least as a powerlifter, is that it's smart to work variations of the bench press into your programming.
Bench Press
You might include bench press in your PHAT workout, especially on your upper-body power day, because it’s a foundational compound lift that builds overall upper-body strength by targeting the chest, shoulders, and triceps.
It fits perfectly with the low-rep, high-intensity focus of power days, allowing you to progressively overload and track strength gains over time. Bench press also sets a solid baseline of pressing capacity, which can enhance hypertrophy-focused movements later in the week by pre-fatiguing the muscle and improving recruitment in higher-rep isolation work.
Dips
Dips are scalable. You can use bodyweight for higher reps or add weight for strength. And they offer a more natural joint path than barbell pressing, reducing strain while still pushing intensity. That's key for upper-body hypertrophy days.
There's a whole guide on how to do chest dips. But the main takeaway here is that you can work different muscles by making a few changes in the way you do them. If you lean slightly forward, dips focus on the chest while engaging the triceps and shoulders. If you stay more upright, you'll focus less on chest activation and increase the demand of your triceps.
Cable Rows
Including cable rows in your PHAT workout, particularly on hypertrophy days, is a smart move because they offer consistent tension throughout the movement, making them excellent for fully activating your lats and upper back. Unlike free-weight rows, cable rows place less stress on your lower back, which is ideal after heavy compound lifts on power days.
They also allow for greater control, better mind-muscle connection, and safer execution during high-rep sets, which aligns perfectly with the hypertrophy focus of days 3 to 5 in PHAT. Plus, they’re easy to modify with different grips and attachments, letting you target specific areas of the back while reducing overuse from repetitive movements.
Dumbbell Rows
Dumbbell rows are another smart inclusion into the PHAT workout program. They allow you to train each side of your back independently, helping to correct imbalances and improve overall symmetry. They target the lats, rhomboids, and traps while also engaging the core for stability.
Compared to barbell rows, dumbbell rows offer a greater range of motion and more control over the movement, making them ideal for higher-rep hypertrophy sets. They’re also joint-friendly and easy to modify by adjusting torso angle, grip, or support, making them one of the most versatile and effective back-building tools in the PHAT program.
Skull Crushers
Skull crushers are a good addition to the PHAT workout for hypertrophy chest and arms day. They're ideal for high-rep sets, controlled eccentrics, and rest-pause techniques.
Plus you can do them with EZ-bar, dumbbells, straight bar, or cables. So there's every reason to include them regardless of what kind of gym you're working out in.
Of course, there are many other exercises to consider if you're doing the PHAT workout program. Romanian deadlifts, Pendlay rows, dumbbell shoulder presses, and stiff-leg deadlifts included. Try a few to find what works, of work with a powerlifting coach to determine the best individual program for yourself.
The PHAT workout is not easy. It requires discipline, recovery, and a serious commitment to your training. But if you’re the kind of lifter who thrives on high effort and enjoys both pushing big weights and chasing a pump, this program might be the perfect challenge.
If you’re a beginner, consider starting with PHUL or a more basic upper/lower split. But if you’ve been training for a while and want to break through a plateau, PHAT might be exactly what your training needs.
Have you tried PHAT or PHUL? What worked for you—and what didn’t? Drop a comment, share your experience, and let’s keep the conversation going.
