PHUL vs PHAT: which one should you run?

PHUL or PHAT: which should you run?

PHUL vs PHAT comes down to your days and your recovery. Run PHUL if you can train 4 days a week and want strength and size in equal measure. Run PHAT if you can train 5 days, have time for sessions of 90 minutes, and care a little more about size than about your heaviest lifts.

PHUL, power hypertrophy upper lower, is Brandon Campbell's 4-day program. PHAT, power hypertrophy adaptive training, is Layne Norton's 5-day program. Hypertrophy means muscle growth, and power here means heavy sets of 3 to 5 reps, not jumps or throws.

Both start the week the same way: an upper power day, then a lower power day. The difference is what follows. PHUL adds 2 hypertrophy days. PHAT adds 3, and opens each one with light, fast speed sets.

How do PHUL and PHAT compare?

The set counts come from the PHUL plan on this site and from Norton's original PHAT template.

How many sets does each muscle get?

PHAT gives your back, shoulders and arms far more work. Chest and quads get about the same in both. The table counts hard sets a week, meaning working sets that end within a few reps of failure, with each exercise counted for the muscle it mainly trains.

The speed sets are left out, because sets of 3 at 65 to 70% of your best are not hard sets. Our guide to how many sets and reps build muscle puts the useful range at 10 to 20 hard sets per muscle a week. PHAT keeps every muscle inside it. PHUL sits below it for shoulders, arms, hamstrings and calves. For arms and shoulders that is enough for many lifters, because presses and rows train them too.

What do the 2 programs share?

The first 2 days are close to identical. Upper power opens with a heavy press and a heavy row for 3 to 5 reps, then adds accessories for 6 to 10. Lower power opens with a heavy squat. You rest 3 to 5 minutes or more between the heavy sets.

Both train each muscle about twice a week. Both rest on the same idea: the heavy days make you stronger, so the higher-rep days use heavier weights over time, and that builds muscle.

So moving from PHUL to PHAT is a small step. You keep your power days and change what comes after them.

What does PHAT add?

PHAT adds 3 things to the PHUL shape:

• A third hypertrophy day: Norton splits the upper body in 2, back and shoulders on one day, chest and arms on another. That is where the extra sets for back, shoulders and arms come from.
• Speed sets: each hypertrophy day opens with the power lift from earlier in the week, for 6 sets of 3 at 65 to 70% of your 3 to 5 rep max. You move the bar as fast as you can and rest no more than 90 seconds. The point is practicing the lift, not tiring the muscle.
• Higher reps: the last exercises of a PHAT day go up to 15 to 20 reps. PHUL tops out at 15.

The cost is time and recovery. A PHAT hypertrophy day has 8 to 10 exercises and 24 to 28 sets, speed sets included. With 1 to 2 minutes of rest, that often runs past 90 minutes.

How do you choose by the days you have?

Count the days you can train in a bad week, not a good one. Our guide to choosing a workout split explains why that number decides more than anything else.

A 5-day plan run 4 times a week loses a whole hypertrophy day. On PHAT that might be your only high-rep chest and arms day of the week.

How do you choose by experience?

PHUL suits lifters with 6 months or more of steady training. The power days ask for sets of 3 to 5 reps on the bench, squat and deadlift, and those need clean technique.

PHAT asks for more. Norton wrote it for lifters already used to training often and doing a lot of sets. For anyone not there yet, he suggested cutting one assistance exercise from each day until recovery catches up.

A sensible order: run PHUL first. Move to PHAT once PHUL's sessions feel comfortable, you have 5 days and the time, and your hypertrophy lifts have stopped moving.

How do you choose by goal?

• Strength and size equally: PHUL. Its power days carry the barbell bench press and the conventional deadlift, the lifts most people want to see go up.
• Size first: PHAT, if you have the time. It doubles the direct work for biceps, triceps and shoulders.
• Strength only: neither is the best tool. A strength plan built around a few barbell lifts and fewer accessories suits that goal better.

What about a plain upper/lower split?

A plain upper/lower split uses the same 4 days as PHUL, but the days sit closer together. The main lifts run 5 to 8 reps, not 3 to 5, and the accessories stay at 8 to 15. It is easier on the joints and easier to recover from.

That makes it the better first 4-day plan. PHUL is upper/lower with the heavy days made heavier, and it suits you once you want to push your top lifts.

What if neither fits?

• Your sessions top out at 45 to 60 minutes: run upper/lower, or keep PHUL's main lifts and cut one accessory from each day.
• You want PHAT's extra arm and shoulder work in 4 days: add 2 sets of curls, triceps work and lateral raises to each PHUL hypertrophy day.
• A lift hurts: swap it for one that trains the same muscle. A barbell bench that bothers your shoulder becomes a dumbbell press. Both programs survive a swap.
• The machines are always taken: PHAT's hypertrophy days lean on the hack squat and machine chest press. Use a front squat or a barbell bench press instead.

Whichever you pick, add weight. On the power lifts, once you hit 5 reps on every set, add 2.5 kg to upper-body lifts and 5 kg to lower-body lifts next week. On PHAT, the speed sets follow, at 65 to 70% of the new weight.

Running either one in Trackist

Trackist writes a plan from 14 questions about your goal, experience, equipment, joints, schedule, session length and age, rather than handing out a named template. Pick 4 or 5 days and a strength or muscle goal, and it writes the plan and chooses the layout itself, with every set, rep target and rest decided. In the plan editor you can reorder, swap, add or remove any exercise, so you can shape it towards PHUL or PHAT.

At the gym, each set logs weight, reps and RPE, how hard the set felt on a scale of 1 to 10, and Trackist suggests today's weight from your last session. The full 4-day week is in the PHUL workout plan.