PHAT

Advanced 5 days/week 4-week wave Powerbuilding

PHAT is Dr. Layne Norton's five-day powerbuilding split. Two power days train the compounds heavy, three hypertrophy days train the same muscles again for volume, and each hypertrophy day opens with explosive speed sets of the movement it is about to bury. It is built into Ægir Iron and free to load.

What this program is

Five training days and two rest days. The power days run their compounds at 3 to 5 reps: the lower day's squat against a percentage of your real one-rep max, the upper day's row and flat dumbbell press at a weight you choose. The three hypertrophy days each start with speed work, six sets of three moved fast at a sub-maximal load, and then accumulate volume from 8 to 12 reps down to 15 to 20 on the isolation work.

Day 1 Upper Body Power Row 3x3-5, weighted pull ups, rack chins, flat dumbbell press 3x3-5, dips, seated dumbbell press, arms Day 2 Lower Body Power Squat 3x3-5, hack squat, SLDL, curls, calves Day 3 Rest Day 4 Back & Shoulders Hypertrophy Speed rows, four rowing movements, three shoulder Day 5 Lower Body Hypertrophy Speed squats, then quads, hamstrings, calves Day 6 Chest & Arms Hypertrophy Speed dumbbell press, chest, then biceps and triceps Day 7 Rest

The four-week wave

The squat's power sets climb across four weeks: 70, 72.5, 77.5 and 80 percent, with the speed squats following their own lighter table. Norton's own write-up has no percentages; the four-week wave comes from the widely used LiftVault workbook. After week 4 you retest or re-estimate your maxes and run the four weeks again. That retest is the progression between cycles, and it is why the grid itself never changes.

It is a lot of volume. If you are run down, take the lighter opening weeks of the wave easy rather than forcing the heavy work.

At a glance

Discipline	Powerbuilding
Experience level	Advanced
Length	4 weeks per cycle, repeated
Training days	5 per week
Equipment	Full gym with machines and cables
Loading	Percentage of a real one-rep max on the squat power and speed sets, climbing 70 to 80 percent across the wave. Rep ranges elsewhere.
Price	Free for individual lifters and rostered athletes

Free for individual lifters and for athletes on a coach's roster. Coaches pay only for roster tools.

How it works in Ægir Iron

The squat prices off a real one-rep max rather than a training max, which is what the LiftVault workbook asks for, so if the number you saved is already a reduced working max the app scales the percentages back up so the program still lands where the workbook puts it. It needs a squat max only. The upper power day presses with flat dumbbells, so there is no bench max to price against, and the deadlift is trained through Romanian and stiff-legged work rather than prescribed against a max.

Two rows are left for you to load. The original prices its back-day speed sets off the weight you rowed earlier in the week, and its chest-day speed sets off a lift with no max at all. Rather than invent a percentage for either, both carry the intent in the row note and you pick something you can move fast.

Everything stays editable after you load it: swap a movement, change a set count, or reorder the day, and the change applies across the whole program.

Original source

Ægir Iron's template is built from this source. Under it is what the template takes from it.

Norton L (n.d.). PHAT: Power Hypertrophy Adaptive Training. biolayne.com.PHAT: two power days and three hypertrophy days, speed sets at 65 to 70 percent of a 3 to 5 rep max, everything trained twice a week

Start PHAT

Open Ægir Iron, go to Program and choose New Program, then the Program Wizard. On the first screen pick Powerbuilding, then choose PHAT from the cards under WHAT DO YOU WANT TO RUN? It is free on iOS, Android, and the web, with your data synced across all three.

Load PHAT free →