PHUL Routine — Power Hypertrophy Upper Lower
Two power days, two hypertrophy days. Strength and size in the same week, minus the spreadsheet that usually rides shotgun.
PHUL — short for Power Hypertrophy Upper Lower — is one of the most-run intermediate splits going, and the reason is simple. It won't make you pick between getting strong and getting bigger. You go heavy early in the week, then chase volume and pump later, and your whole body gets hit twice across four sessions. Below: where PHUL came from, the exact structure, how to actually progress on it, who it suits, the mistakes that quietly stall people, and how to run the whole thing without doing the bookkeeping yourself.
Try LiftRing free →What is PHUL (Power Hypertrophy Upper Lower)?
PHUL is a 4-day-per-week split built on one old idea from strength training: heavy, low-rep "power" work and lighter, higher-rep "hypertrophy" work build you in different, complementary ways. Most programs make you pick a lane. PHUL runs both lanes in the same week.
The week breaks into four sessions — an Upper Power day, a Lower Power day, an Upper Hypertrophy day, and a Lower Hypertrophy day. Power days lean on the big barbell lifts in the 3–5 rep range to drive strength. Hypertrophy days come back to the same muscles with more exercises, more isolation, and reps in the 8–15 range to drive size. Each half of your body gets trained twice a week, which puts PHUL right in the frequency band hypertrophy research tends to favor.
One thing to be straight about: like Push Pull Legs, PHUL is a template, not an authored program with a single canonical document. The "Power Hypertrophy" upper/lower concept took off in the bodybuilding-forum era — the name is most associated with a Muscle & Strength write-up by Brandon Campbell — and plenty of coaches have plugged in their own exercise and rep choices since. No single "official" set/rep sheet ships with the name. What follows is the version most people actually run.
The PHUL structure (exact sets & reps)
A typical week runs Mon / Tue / Thu / Fri, resting after each power day and after the second hypertrophy day. Here's the standard layout:
Day 1 — Upper Power
- Barbell Bench Press — 3–4 × 3–5
- Incline Dumbbell Press — 3–4 × 6–10
- Bent-Over Row — 3–4 × 3–5
- Lat Pulldown (or Pull-Up) — 3–4 × 6–10
- Overhead Press — 2–3 × 5–8
- Barbell Curl & Skull Crusher — 2–3 × 6–10
Day 2 — Lower Power
- Squat — 3–4 × 3–5
- Deadlift — 3–4 × 3–5
- Leg Press — 3–5 × 10–15
- Leg Curl — 3–4 × 6–10
- Calf work — 3–4 × 6–10
Day 3 — Upper Hypertrophy
- Incline Barbell Press — 3–4 × 8–12
- Flat Dumbbell Flye — 3–4 × 8–12
- Seated Cable Row — 3–4 × 8–12
- One-Arm Dumbbell Row — 3–4 × 8–12
- Lateral Raise — 3–4 × 8–12
- Cable Curl & Triceps Pushdown — 3–4 × 8–12
Day 4 — Lower Hypertrophy
- Front Squat — 3–4 × 8–12
- Barbell Lunge — 3–4 × 8–12
- Leg Extension — 3–4 × 10–15
- Leg Curl — 3–4 × 10–15
- Seated & Standing Calf Raise — 3–4 × 8–12
Swap the exact exercises however your source does, but the shape never moves: power days are big compound lifts in low reps; hypertrophy days hit the same muscles with more variety and higher reps.
How progression works on PHUL
Most guides hand-wave this part. Here's the practical version. PHUL doesn't ship one official loading rule, so nearly everyone runs double progression — applied differently to the two day types:
- Power days (3–5 reps): add weight once you complete your target sets at the top of the range with clean form. Keep the jumps small — usually 5 lb on upper-body lifts, 5–10 lb on squat and deadlift — because low reps are strength-biased and the bar gets heavy fast.
- Hypertrophy days (8–12 or 10–15): chase reps first. Hold a weight until you hit the top of the range on every set, then add a small increment and drop back to the bottom. Reps lead, load follows.
The catch: double progression is bookkeeping. You have to remember your rep target on each lift, recall whether you actually hit the top of the range across all sets last time, then decide whether to add weight — per exercise, across four different days. That friction is exactly why people end up babysitting a PHUL spreadsheet.
The honest caveat about PHUL progression: unlike StrongLifts 5×5 or a Starting-Strength-style 3×5, PHUL has no "fail three times, deload 10%" rule baked into the name. Deloads, stall logic, increment sizes — those are calls you make. A good app makes those calls for you and keeps them consistent week to week.
Who PHUL is for
- Early-to-mid intermediate lifters with solid technique on the squat, bench, deadlift and overhead press, whose novice linear-progression gains have flattened out.
- Lifters who want both — measurable strength and visible size — and won't pick one goal at a time.
- 4-days-a-week schedules. If you can train four times a week but not six, PHUL fits where a 6-day PPL won't.
Who should look elsewhere: true beginners usually progress faster on a full-body program where every session drives the main lifts. Start with a StrongLifts-style 5×5 or a Starting-Strength-style 3×5, and move to PHUL once linear progression stalls. And if your only goal is maximum size and you can recover from six sessions a week, a higher-frequency Push Pull Legs split packs in more volume.
Common PHUL mistakes
- Turning power days into hypertrophy days. The 3–5 rep work should feel heavy and crisp. Grind it out for 8-plus sloppy reps and you've erased the strength stimulus that makes PHUL "PHUL."
- No progression metric. Run PHUL with no record of last session's reps and you're working out, not training. Skip the double-progression tracking and the program has nothing to progress you on.
- Adding weight before you earn it. On hypertrophy days, load goes up only after you hit the top of the rep range on every set. Jump early and you get stuck in a too-heavy, too-few-reps no-man's-land.
- Junk volume on the accessory work. Four hard sets that progress beat eight aimless sets that don't. More isolation isn't more growth when nothing's going up week to week.
- Ignoring recovery. Two heavy lower days plus two volume lower days is a pile of leg work. Skimp on sleep and the power lifts are the first to stall.
Run PHUL automatically in LiftRing
The whole pitch in one line: LiftRing ships PHUL as one of its 15 built-in programs and runs the power/hypertrophy double-progression for you. No spreadsheet, no remembering rep targets, no math between sets.
Pick PHUL and the app pre-fills your next set's weight on every lift, then tells you why in one line — like "+5 lb — you hit all your reps." On power days it moves load in the strength range. On hypertrophy days it runs the rep-first double progression, only bumping weight once you've cleared the top of the range across all your sets. You don't program. You don't track the progression by hand. You lift, and PHUL advances you.
The reason-on-screen part is the whole point. A blank logbook like Strong waits for you to decide your next weight — clean and flexible, but the thinking's on you. An AI app like Fitbod will decide for you, and it's good at it, but it won't show its work. LiftRing pre-fills the weight and states the logic, so you can trust the call or override it. It's the same double-progression you'd run off a spreadsheet, already running.
And to be straight with you: PHUL is a clean fit for LiftRing because PHUL is a double-progression program — no "inspired by" asterisk here. (That caveat applies to our 5/3/1-inspired AMRAP program, not this one.) Around it you get a rest timer with a Lock Screen Live Activity and Dynamic Island, a plate calculator, a warmup ramp calculator, supersets, mid-workout exercise swaps, PR detection with estimated 1RM, and Apple Health sync that writes your workouts and never reads your health data.
Privacy & pricing. LiftRing is local-first with no account required — nothing to sign up for, no social feed, no tracking. Sync is optional, through your own private iCloud. Your first 3 workouts are free with every program and feature unlocked; after that, LiftRing Pro is $4.99/month, $44.99/year, or $99.99 once for lifetime, billed by Apple. The privacy page has the full breakdown.
PHUL: spreadsheet vs LiftRing
| LiftRing | PHUL spreadsheet | |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-fills your next weight | ✓ Yes, per lift | You enter formulas / read it off |
| Runs power + hypertrophy double-progression | ✓ Automatic | You track rep targets by hand |
| Explains each jump ("why") | ✓ One-line reason | No |
| Rest timer | ✓ Live Activity + Dynamic Island | No |
| Plate & warmup calculators | ✓ Yes | No |
| PR detection + estimated 1RM | ✓ Yes | Manual, if you build it |
| Mid-workout exercise swaps | ✓ Yes | Edit cells mid-set |
| Apple Health sync | ✓ Writes workouts | No |
| Works offline at the rack | ✓ Local-first | Depends on your sheet app |
| Cost | Free start, then from $4.99/mo or $99.99 lifetime | Free |
A spreadsheet is free and bends to whatever you want. If you like maintaining yours, keep it. LiftRing's trade is simple: it does the bookkeeping and the math for you, at the rack, between sets.
Start free — first 3 workouts unlocked →Frequently asked questions
What does PHUL stand for?
PHUL stands for Power Hypertrophy Upper Lower. It's a 4-day-per-week split: two power days (heavier, lower reps) and two hypertrophy days (lighter, higher reps), each divided into an upper-body and a lower-body session. The point is to build strength and size in the same week instead of choosing one.
Is PHUL good for beginners?
PHUL is best for early-intermediate lifters who already have basic technique on the squat, bench, deadlift and overhead press and want both strength and size. True beginners usually gain faster on a full-body linear-progression program like a Starting-Strength-style 3×5 or a StrongLifts-style 5×5, because every session drives the main lifts. The day a novice program stalls is the day PHUL makes sense.
How do you progress on PHUL?
PHUL doesn't ship one official progression rule, but nearly everyone runs double progression: pick a rep range (say 3–5 on power lifts, 8–12 on hypertrophy work), add reps each session until you hit the top of the range across all sets, then add weight and drop back to the bottom. Power days move in small load jumps; hypertrophy days chase reps first, then load.
Can I run PHUL without a spreadsheet?
Yes. LiftRing ships PHUL as one of 15 built-in programs and runs its power/hypertrophy double-progression for you. It pre-fills your next set's weight and gives a one-line reason for the change, so there's no rep target to track in a spreadsheet and no math between sets — you just lift. LiftRing is iPhone-only; your first 3 workouts are free with every program and feature unlocked.
PHUL vs PPL — which is better?
PHUL is 4 days a week and keeps power (strength) and hypertrophy (size) days separate, so it suits lifters chasing measurable strength alongside muscle. A 6-day Push Pull Legs split trains each muscle about twice a week with more total volume, which favors hypertrophy — if you can recover from six sessions. Neither wins outright. PHUL fits a 4-day week and a strength-and-size goal; PPL fits higher frequency and a pure size focus.
Explore more
- All 15 LiftRing programs — the full library, from full-body novice tracks to Arnold and bro splits
- Push Pull Legs guide — the high-frequency size split, head to head
- StrongLifts 5×5 guide — the novice program to run before PHUL
- LiftRing vs Strong — the logbook versus the app that runs the program for you
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