POWER Hypertrophy Upper Lower (PHUL) Workout Routine

Every lifter worth their salt has tried a PHUL workout routine at least once.

Progress come quickly with intelligently designed PHUL routines. If you’ve hit a plateau with your training program, or want a challenging workout to build a strong, athletic physique then PHUL might do the trick.

If your goal is to gain muscular size and strength, or if it’s time to try something new to shake up your stale routine, you’ve come to the right place.

Stick around and get the blueprint for building an aesthetic and athletic body. Which is exactly what a structurally sound PHUL workout program can provide.

Let’s start at the top.

What is the PHUL Workout?

PHUL stands for power hypertrophy upper lower. Each workout in a PHUL routine targets either the:

upper body muscles, or
the lower body muscles

And, each workout focuses on either

building power, or
building muscle (hypertrophy)

As you can see the name PHUL alludes to the workout split and the training program objectives.

Because PHUL workouts combine muscle hypertrophy training (bodybuilding) and powerlifting concepts it makes it the ideal hybrid workout to build muscle and size.

You will be lifting weights 4 days per week with a typical phul workout routine. The routine contains a mix of compound lifts as well as isolation movements to keep your muscles balanced.

Phul is one of the best workout programs for training your entire body as a unit. Which is critically important if you want a balanced, symmetrical, and truly strong physique.

Is PHUL a Good Routine?

Yes. If strength gains and muscle size are your goal then PHUL is a good workout routine.

I wouldn’t recommend it for a marathon runner. But I would tell anyone who wants to get bigger and stronger to look into it.

Who is the PHUL workout good for?

Power hypertrophy upper lower training programs are good for people who have built a solid foundation and want to take it to the next level in terms of size and strength.

Intermediate level lifters and advanced lifters usually get a lot of benefit from PHUL workouts. Beginners can benefit too if they have a knack for training and are willing to learn, think, experiment and train hard.

Regardless of your experience level, you need to show up to each training session with the right attitude to make progress with PHUL (and with any workout for that matter.)

The Power Hypertrophy Upper Lower program design

The Power hypertrophy upper lower training programs are designed to make consistent progress.

Progress comes relatively quick for most. Especially if it’s your first time doing PHUL. The workouts are intense, but any workout that gets results is. But I say that because adequate rest and recovery between training sessions is recommended. That said, the rest is built in. You get three days of per week.

Training frequency

PHUL routines are 4 days per week in the gym in most cases. So it’s not a huge time commitment but it is an energy commitment. Young guys take heed and put in the work now if you’re reading this. In only gets harder to find the time.

It is optimal to train a muscle group more than a usual bro split which targets each major muscle group only once per week.

The PHUL program targets each muscle group twice a week. Once for strength and power, and another for size.

PHUL Targets all your muscle groups evenly

Each week consists of Two upper body workouts and two lower body workouts. PHUL workout routine is balanced. It hits all major muscle groups.

Two powerlifting and strength gains workouts and two hypertrophy workouts for building muscle mass.

Compound lifts

The PHUL program concentrates on primary muscle movements to engage the maximum amount of muscle fibers.

Although this program includes isolation exercises, its main objective is to add muscle while improving performance on the compound exercises like bench press, squat, deadlift and overhead press.

Powerlifting

This program uses two workout days to concentrate on strength training.

Hypertrophy (muscle building)

Your other two days on the PHUL regimen will be spent on hypertrophy-style training after your two power days. Strength and muscular size will also increase, as you can see.

Progressive overload and time under tension are essential for increasing size and strength. You can lift more weight on your hypertrophy (muscle growth) days during these two days.

The core principles of strength and size center the PHUL workout. This four-day program will help you build the maximum amount of power and muscle while still being flexible and is based on four fundamental principles:

PHUL training program benefits

The benefits of a PHUL training program are numerous. You can expect solid muscle mass gains and significant jumps in strength.

Example PHUL Workout Routine

Training days on the PHUL workout routine are typically Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Wednesday and weekends are rest days. Relish the recovery days you will need it. These are an outline of a typical training week.

Start each workout with a 5-10 minute warmup. Break a light sweat. Then start your working sets. Perform 2-3 warm up sets gradually ramping up the weight as prepare for your 3 working sets. Use warm up sets to prepare your body and mind for the heavy weight to come.

Day 1: Upper Body Power

Barbell Bench Press – 3 sets of 3-5 reps
Weighted Pull-Ups – 3 sets of 3-5 reps
Incline Dumbbell Bench Press – 3 sets of 8-10 reps
Seated Cable Row – 3 sets of 8-10 reps
Overhead Press – 2 sets of 8-10 reps
Barbell Curl – 2 sets of 8-10+ reps AMRAP
Triceps Cable Pushdown – 2 sets of 8-12+ reps AMRAP
Abdominal and calves training as needed

Day 2: Lower Body Power

Barbell Squat – 3 sets of 3-5 reps
Deadlift – 3 sets of 3-5 reps
Leg Press – 3 sets of 8-10 reps
Leg Curl – 3 sets of 8-10 reps
Calf Raise – 2 sets of 8-10 reps
Abdominal and calves training as needed

Day 3: Rest

Eat lots of good food to replensih nutrients and help build muscle.
LIght exercise such as a long walk outside, swim, or jog on the beach is appropriate here.
Stretch to aid recovery and stimulate muscle growth.

Day 4: Upper Hypertrophy – Upper body hypertrophy day

Incline Barbell Bench Press – 4 sets of 8-12 reps
Dumbbell Rows – 4 sets of 8-12 reps
Dumbbell Flyes – 3 sets of 10-12 reps
Lat Pulldown – 3 sets of 10-12 reps
Dumbbell Lateral Raise – 3 sets of 12-15 reps
Preacher Curl or Dumbbell Curls – 2 sets of 12-15 reps
Cable Triceps Extension or Overhead DB Extensions – 2 sets of 12-15 reps
Abdominal and calf training as needed

Day 5: Lower Hypertrophy

Barbell Deadlift – 4 sets of 8-12 reps conventional style deadlift
Barbell Squat – 4 sets of 10-12 reps
Leg Press – 3-4 sets of 8-20 reps
Leg Extension – 3 sets of 10-15 reps
Seated Calf Raise – 3 sets of 12-25 reps AMRAP
Standing Calf Raise – 3 sets of 12-25+ reps AMRAP
Abdominal and calf training as needed

Day 6-7: Rest

Rest is an important part of any routine. without rest you won’t grow. Enjoy your rest days. do what you want. don’t stress out over being too active etc.

That’s against the point. You want to enjoy life and live healthy and happy. Weight training should help you achieve that.

PHUL Workout Overview

As you can see, the upper body power workout kicks off the training week. There is an exercise that targets each muscle group of your torso and arms either directly or indirectly on upper body days.

Upper body power exercises include rows, presses, and raises. You can include olympic lifts like floor cleans, hang cleans, and push press into upper body power workouts as well.

Upper body hypertrophy day includes similar exercises as upper power day with curls, extensions, etc.

Lower body exercises include squats, deadlifts, and lunges. Leg exercises like split squats, front squats, calve press, Romanian deadlifts, and sumo deadlifts are all good lower body exercises to consider.

How to make progress with the PHUL workout

You will notice each exercises has a rep range for each set. The idea is to pick a weight that you can only lift for 8 reps in a set. As you train you will notice that you are now doing 9 reps in a set with the same weight.

Once you can do 10 reps in a set with the same weight it’s time to increase the weight.

Next workout you should increase the weight by roughly 5-10 pounds, or however much weight required so you can only do 8 reps in a row for that exercise.

Then you repeat this process for the duration of the program. That’s progression.

There are a few ways to make progress on the PHUL workout. The first thing you can do is to increase the number of reps. Simply increate the amount of reps you do with the same weight.

Then you increase the weight and repeat.

As you move through the PHUL routine you should make progress in reps and/or weight every week or two.

For bonus points I like to work in dropsets and burn sets on my hypertrophy days.

Upper and lower body workouts trying the same muscles but just in a different way. The

Benefits of PHUL workout routines

You can expect significant strength gain from a well executed phul workout routine. Beginner and advanced trainers alike typically see an increase in quality muscle mass within a few weeks or months.

For those who want to achieve the following types of fitness goals, the PHUL workout is a good one to consider.

Muscle Growth

Something about the blend of powerlifting and hypertrophy training makes PHUL superb for building muscle. It’s a great bodybuilding routine.

In fact a lot of the old school bodybuilders training with the same principles. They incorporated powerlifting and strength training into their muscle pumps.

The hypertrophy workouts of the PHUL program exhaust the muscles to their breaking point and forces them to grow larger to handle the workload of the weightlifting program.

Increased Strength and power

Not only is it potent for muscle growth, the PHUL program is good for anyone who wants to get strong.

The upper and lower body power days revolve around the big three lifts squat, deadlift, and bench press, which are well documented for build strength and power.

Weight Loss

Although the PHUL routine wasn’t created with weight loss in mind, if you lift weights and build muscle you will burn calories. The more muscle on your frame the more calories you burn.

A quick punch list of things worth noting for the PHUL workout program

PHUL workouts typically start by targeting the major muscles and then shift to the small muscle groups.

Lifting volume on power days is lower compared to hypertrophy days.

Chill out on rest days. Don’t stress. Eat well. Sleep well. Stretch. Have fun and live life.

what should you eat to build muscle with PHUL workout?

Hypertrophy workouts have more training volume but use lower weight per set. The power workout days are lower volume with heavy weights. The nature of PHUL makes it an effective workout for strength gains and building muscle.

All workouts contain compound exercises. But you will notices that the exercise selection, total volume, and weight load varies.

Lower body workouts are especially intense. Performing deadlifts and squats in the same workout is tough. You don’t have to kill yourself but you should by pushing hard each workout. Scale the sets x reps and weight in a way that suits your goals.

For best results track everything so you know you are making progress.