What Is Powerbuilding?
Powerbuilding is a heavy compound at the front of the session and bodybuilding accessory work behind it. Strength on the main lift, size on everything after. It is where a lot of lifters end up once they stop competing, and it is the answer to a question the usual goal labels cannot answer: how do you get stronger while getting bigger, in the same workout.
The definition that matters is structural
Most descriptions of powerbuilding stop at "strength plus hypertrophy", which is true of nearly every program and therefore says nothing. The useful definition is about the shape of a session: you open with a compound in a low rep range at a high percentage, and once that work is done the intensity comes down and the volume goes up on accessories that are chosen for the muscle rather than the lift.
What makes that different from an ordinary strength program with accessories tacked on is that the two halves are supposed to progress in opposite directions. The compound gets heavier over a block: fewer reps, more weight, and usually fewer sets as the weight climbs. The accessories go the other way: the load stays moderate and the sets and reps hold or accumulate, because for that half the volume is the progression. A program that does not do both is not really powerbuilding, whatever it is called.
Three architectures, all called powerbuilding
The word covers at least three different ways of arranging the same idea, and it is worth knowing which one you are being sold.
Within the session. Every day opens heavy and finishes with volume. This is the plainest reading and what most people picture. It suits three or four days a week and it is the easiest to run indefinitely.
Across the week. Power days and hypertrophy days are separate sessions. PHUL and PHAT both work this way: you train a muscle heavy on one day and for reps on another. This needs at least four days and it gives each quality a fresh nervous system, which is its main argument.
Across the day, twice. Some programs train the same lift twice in a week, once heavy and once for higher reps at a lower effort. That is undulating periodization, and it is the better-supported model for strength in head-to-head research. It is a smaller change than a full split and it combines happily with either of the above.
The programs worth knowing
PHUL (Power Hypertrophy Upper Lower), by Brandon Campbell, is the one most people mean. Four days: Upper Power and Lower Power at 3 to 5 reps on the compounds, then Upper Hypertrophy and Lower Hypertrophy at 8 to 12. Nothing is priced off a max; you add weight when you clear the top of a rep range. It is the most approachable entry point on this list.
PHAT (Power Hypertrophy Adaptive Training), by Dr. Layne Norton, is five days: two power days and three hypertrophy days, each of which opens with explosive speed sets of the movement before the volume. The power work runs a four-week percentage wave against a real one-rep max. It is a lot of training, and it is written for people who can recover from a lot of training.
5/3/1 with Boring But Big, by Jim Wendler, is powerbuilding that does not advertise itself as such: a heavy top set, then five sets of ten at half the weight. GZCLP, by Cody LeFever, states the same architecture as tiers, one lift heavy and low-rep, a second at moderate reps, then high-rep accessories. Both are usually filed under powerlifting, and both are honest answers here.
What to actually expect
Sessions are longer. Holding accessory volume while the compound gets heavier is the whole method, and it costs time: budget roughly ten percent more working sets than the same day run as pure strength work. If your sessions have to fit a fixed window, cut accessory movements rather than accessory sets, because trimming the sets is trimming the half that makes it powerbuilding.
Progress is lopsided and that is fine. The accessory work will feel like it moves faster than the main lifts, because higher-rep work responds quickly and a squat max does not. Judge the block on the compounds and judge the accessories on whether you are doing more work than you were, not on the weight.
And be honest about which one you actually want. If you are training for a total, run a powerlifting program. If you are training for a look, run a bodybuilding one. Powerbuilding is for people who genuinely want both and accept that neither will move as fast as it would alone. That trade is the point of it, not a flaw in it.
Doing it in Ægir Iron
The Program Wizard has a Powerbuilding tile, in Training goals next to Strength & Muscle. It builds the within-the-session shape: the compounds ride the strength wave, uncapped, with reps and sets coming down as the weight goes up, while the accessories ride a capped size wave with their set count held across the block. That is the opposite-directions rule above, expressed as two loading models in one day, which none of the general goals do because they apply one shape to a whole session.
Two and three days a week are full body, four is upper and lower twice over, and five and six carry more of the same. Every one of those repeats a day, so the heavy day and volume day option is available at any frequency if you also want each lift trained twice in the week.
PHUL, PHAT, PHUL Advanced, 5/3/1 and GZCLP are all in the library on that same tile if you would rather run one somebody else wrote. Every session is editable before anything is written, and the per-muscle chart on the last screen shows what the week actually trains.