PHATWorkout guide.

Treat PHAT as three kinds of work

PHAT asks you to organize power work, speed work and bodybuilding work within the same training week. That combination is its attraction and its main bookkeeping challenge. If you record everything as ordinary sets completed, you lose the distinction between a demanding heavy set, a deliberately fast lighter set and a higher-rep hypertrophy set.

Start with the PHAT companion planner for a selected exercise and its prescribed targets. Use the optional rep-range progression workflow only where it fits that exercise’s role. Completing a set of speed triples is not, by itself, an instruction to increase the weight.

The reference here is Layne Norton’s public PHAT article on Biolayne, published in 2016. Norton presents an example within a broader family of PHAT arrangements. Later PDFs and adaptations may differ; keep your selected version identifiable rather than assembling one from unrelated screenshots.

Decide whether the commitment fits

PHAT is worth considering when you want substantial bodybuilding work alongside heavier compound practice and can reliably train five days. You should be able to distinguish productive effort from the urge to make every set maximal, and you should be willing to record enough detail to judge a relatively busy week.

Before starting, schedule all five sessions with travel, warm-ups and equipment access included. Check the difficult weeks too: deadlines, family commitments and the periods when your gym is busiest. A plan requiring five visits will be hard to evaluate if it repeatedly becomes three oversized sessions.

If four dependable days are your realistic limit, compare PHUL. If a small number of barbell targets is the main attraction, Madcow 5×5 or Texas Method offers a different structure. PHAT should solve a goal and scheduling problem you actually have.

Know the public weekly pattern

Norton’s example starts with upper-body power and lower-body power, follows with a rest day, then uses back-and-shoulders hypertrophy, lower-body hypertrophy, and chest-and-arms hypertrophy before another rest day. The public power-work guidance uses a three-to-five-rep emphasis for the main movements. See Norton’s complete example.

The labels describe roles, not permission to improvise the hardest possible version of every day. A week with extra power attempts, every accessory taken to failure and speed work loaded like a strength test is a different workload from the source example.

The speed-work denominator matters

One frequently confused detail deserves a careful calculation. In the public article, the speed-work range is 65–70% of the relevant three-to-five-rep maximum, not 65–70% of a one-rep maximum. Norton describes six to eight sets of three with emphasis on fast concentric execution. Read the speed-work instructions.

Assume, for illustration, a relevant current reference of 120 kg for the selected three-to-five-rep task. Multiplying by 0.65 gives 78 kg; multiplying by 0.70 gives 84 kg. With 2.5 kg total loading steps, 80 kg and 82.5 kg fall inside that unrounded interval. The appropriate choice still depends on the movement and execution.

If you instead entered a 150 kg one-rep maximum, the same percentages would produce 97.5–105 kg. That is a materially different prescription. Naming the input merely max is therefore insufficient. Your record should state the rep reference, exercise variation, date and units.

Do not progress speed work like an accessory

For a conventional rep-range exercise, adding reps at the same load can be a useful progression signal. For speed work, simply completing every triple does not describe whether the intended execution was maintained. A heavier load that changes the task may be a worse match even when all reps are technically completed.

Keep a separate speed-work note: selected reference, calculated range, load used, number of sets and an honest execution observation. Do not label this as measured bar velocity unless you actually measured velocity with an appropriate method. Fast by your judgment and an instrumented velocity value are different kinds of evidence.

Distinguish an omitted set from a deliberately reduced speed-work load. Six triples completed with a lighter, appropriate reference and four triples completed before running out of time are different records. Mark the actual set count and any load change. A single session-complete checkbox cannot tell a later review whether the intended task was performed, adjusted thoughtfully, or left unfinished because the gym closed.

If the speed work becomes slow or changes technique, inspect the load rather than treating the completed reps as a reason to progress. Norton’s source emphasizes avoiding excessive load for this task. The companion planner should support record keeping, while the selected PHAT version supplies the actual speed-work instructions.

Choose the first loads without testing everything

Use recent, comparable sets for the main movements. A gym record from another exercise variation or a very different setup is a poor starting reference. If your usual power movement changes, establish a new working baseline instead of transferring the previous number.

For the higher-rep exercises, choose loads that let you perform the assigned sets within the chosen range and effort target. A first set at the top of the range is not enough if every later set falls below the minimum. Record all the sets before deciding whether the working load fits.

The early weeks should teach you how the whole week feels. Norton explicitly advises avoiding failure during the initial two-to-four-week adjustment period in his public article. Read the adaptation notes. Do not interpret initial enthusiasm as proof that you should add more work immediately.

An optional progression example for hypertrophy work

For ordinary rep-range work, the following is an editorial companion method: maintain the load while building reps across the selected sets, then consider a small increase once every set reaches the top of the range at the intended effort. It is not presented as Norton’s universal PHAT algorithm.

Suppose your selected cable-row task is three sets of eight to twelve with a 45 kg stack setting. You record 12, 10 and 9. The first set has reached twelve, but the entire task has not. On a later exposure, 12, 12 and 12 with comparable execution gives a clearer reason to review a load increase.

Stack numbers are specific to equipment. A 45 kg setting on another machine is not automatically equivalent. Save the handle, seat position and machine identity with the example so the comparison stays useful.

Watch the interaction between days

PHAT can become difficult to diagnose if each session is reviewed alone. A poor chest session may relate to what happened earlier in the week, and a lower-body session can be affected by changes in assistance work elsewhere. Keep a short weekly view beside the detailed exercise log.

Record any added sets, changed movements or unusual activity rather than listing only the planned program. If the lower-power session stalls after you added several demanding hinge sets, that change belongs in the review. Without it, the program can appear to stop working for no visible reason.

Use a consistent technique reference for the lifts you are tracking. The squat guide, overhead press guide and Romanian deadlift guide provide movement explanations when those exercises are part of your chosen routine. They supplement rather than replace the source program’s exercise instructions.

When performance stalls

First separate a lift-specific plateau from a week-wide decline. If only one accessory stops improving while the power movements and other exercises progress, changing the entire program may be unnecessary. Check that accessory’s increment, setup, place in the session and rest periods.

If performance falls across several exercises, review the full workload and schedule before adding more. Have sessions been compressed? Did you increase sets and loads together? Are all the recorded reps comparable? A clean description of the problem is more useful than an automatic decision to work harder.

For the editorial companion, a stalled rep range prompts review rather than an invented fixed-percentage reset. Your chosen version or coach should determine the next adjustment. If you reduce work, record exactly which loads or sets changed and what improvement you expect to see in the following sessions.

Understand the source deload example

Norton’s 2016 public article discusses deloading every six to twelve weeks and gives an example of one to three weeks at 60–70% of normal training weights. These are the source’s published terms; they are not percentages of your one-rep maximum. See the deload paragraph.

For arithmetic only, if the relevant normal training load is 80 kg, 60–70% is 48–56 kg before rounding. A normal load must refer to the correct exercise and task. Do not use the speed-work load for one movement as the normal reference for another.

A deload should also be recognizable in the actual log. Calling the week lighter while keeping all hard work and adding new exercises makes the change difficult to evaluate. If your selected PHAT edition provides different instructions, follow that edition and label it. Mixing the public article’s percentage with another version’s set rules creates an untested hybrid.

Missed sessions and time pressure

Do not automatically combine two complete hypertrophy days after missing a visit. Look at the sequence, the next demanding workout and the time you actually have. Continuing the order with sensible spacing can preserve a clearer training record than cramming the calendar back into place.

If work repeatedly removes one of the five days, reconsider the chosen structure. A four-day plan completed consistently may serve you better than five sessions that exist mainly in a spreadsheet. That is a scheduling decision, not a statement that one brand of routine is universally superior.

After a longer interruption, reassess loads from current performance. Freeze automatic increases on exercises you did not perform. A dated note such as missed lower hypertrophy due to travel helps a future review distinguish missing information from an unexplained plateau.

Make substitutions traceable

PHAT is adaptable, but changing an exercise changes the measurement. Keep separate histories for dumbbell presses and barbell presses, supported and unsupported rows, or different squat variations. A substitute can fill a similar training role without sharing the same working load.

If your selected power movement changes, its related speed-work reference must also be reviewed. Applying a previous movement’s three-to-five-rep load to a new variation defeats the point of specifying the denominator. Match the reference to the exercise you are actually performing.

For temporary equipment congestion, log the exception. For a permanent equipment limitation, plan the change across the whole week before starting. Avoid replacing several different movements with the same convenient exercise and assuming the original workload relationships remain intact.

Read an illustrative before-and-after log

The following illustrative training record contains invented entries. It is a demonstration of documentation, not a real athlete’s transformation or a claim about expected results.

These entries support statements about training performance and record quality. They do not establish changes in muscle size or prove that PHAT outperforms another program. Separate the result you measured from the result you hoped the routine would produce.

Choose the next step from the evidence

Stay with PHAT while the full commitment fits your life and the work is producing useful, interpretable progress. If the workload is consistently larger than you can manage, compare PHUL before adding more complexity. If your priority becomes a narrower strength target, revisit 5/3/1 or Texas Method.

For a specifically bodybuilding-focused paid plan with its own exercise instruction and split options, compare Jeff Nippard Pure Bodybuilding. The programs answer different preferences; their public descriptions do not establish a head-to-head winner.

Export the PHAT companion planner to CSV for Excel or Google Sheets, or print the calculated exercise plan. Keep the original Biolayne article available for the full schedule and instructions. Sources were checked on 15 October 2026. All worked records and optional companion decisions here are independent editorial examples.