PHAT in 4 Days

[musicmoney11]

Hi guys I wanted to ask here, as I know some of you enjoy PHAT.

I simply prefer to train 4 days a week (with days of cardio on off days). It just works for me, keeps me mentally and physically refershed. With that being said, I love PHAT- but don't want to be in the gym 5 days a week.

Does anyone have any experience running it 4 days a week, and if so how did you do it?

I'm assuming something like:

Power Upper
Power Lower
off
hyp Upper
hyp Lower
off
off

Or is there another way to do it? Or, if that way how much volume did you use on the hypertrophy upper day, how did you set it up?

[Pullup17]

I did it for 6 months, off season and all the way through my prep.

I tweak the program to suit my needs and I merely use the principles instead of using that exact routine. Instead of 5 training days per week, I did 4 days. 2 Hypertrophy and 2 Powerlifitng Days. 1 Upper and 1 lower for each of these days. My split generally went something like this:

Monday: Rest
Tuesday: Hypertrophy Upper Body
Wednesday: Hypertrophy Lower Body
Thursday: Rest
Friday: Rest
Saturday: Powerlifting Upper Body
Sunday: Powerlifting Lower Body

Of course you can switch the order of the days here and there to suit your needs and maybe even push a rest day in between training days.

For exercise selection mine went something like this but it always changes for hypertrophy days as I believe in always switching stuff around for hypertrophy purposes:

Hypertrophy Upper Body (rest time: 20 secs to 45 secs)
BB Bench 3 x 8-15
Cable Flyes with different angles 3 x 15-20
Cable Rows 3 x 8-16
Pullups 3 x 6-10
Rope Lat Pulldowns 4 x 6-15
DB Shoulder Press 3 x 8-12
Lying Lateral Raises 3 x 8-16
Rear Delt Flyes 4 x 8-20
Hammer Curls 2 x 8-14
Incline DB Curls 2 x 8-14
BB Drag Curls 2 x 8-12
Tricep Rope Pushdowns 3 x 6-20
Overhead DB Extension 6-12
Close Grip DB Press 3 x 8 -16
Traps

Hypertrophy Lower Body (rest time: 30 secs to 60 secs)
Single Leg Seated Hamstring Curls 6 x 8 -16
Leg Press 4 x 8-30
Leg Extensions 3 x 8-15
Calf Raises 6 x 8-20
Abs

Power Upper Body (rest time: 3 mins)
BB Bench 3 x 3-5
Seated BB Shoulder Press 3 x 3-7
DB Rows 3 x 3-5
Lat Pulldowns 3 x 3-5
DB Hammer Curls 2 x 5-8
Close Grip DB Tricep Press 2 x 5-8

Power Lower Body (Rest timeL 4 mins)
Front Squat 3 x 3-5
Stiff Legged Deadlift 3 x 3-5
Traps

In any hypertrophy day, depending on how I feel, I do include negatives, partial ROM with constant tension, drop sets, rest-pause etc. Power days, strictly resting 3-4 minutes or until I am ready to go and just lift the weight.

[musicmoney11]

I did it for 6 months, off season and all the way through my prep.

I tweak the program to suit my needs and I merely use the principles instead of using that exact routine. Instead of 5 training days per week, I did 4 days. 2 Hypertrophy and 2 Powerlifitng Days. 1 Upper and 1 lower for each of these days. My split generally went something like this:

Monday: Rest
Tuesday: Hypertrophy Upper Body
Wednesday: Hypertrophy Lower Body
Thursday: Rest
Friday: Rest
Saturday: Powerlifting Upper Body
Sunday: Powerlifting Lower Body

Of course you can switch the order of the days here and there to suit your needs and maybe even push a rest day in between training days.

For exercise selection mine went something like this but it always changes for hypertrophy days as I believe in always switching stuff around for hypertrophy purposes:

Hypertrophy Upper Body (rest time: 20 secs to 45 secs)
BB Bench 3 x 8-15
Cable Flyes with different angles 3 x 15-20
Cable Rows 3 x 8-16
Pullups 3 x 6-10
Rope Lat Pulldowns 4 x 6-15
DB Shoulder Press 3 x 8-12
Lying Lateral Raises 3 x 8-16
Rear Delt Flyes 4 x 8-20
Hammer Curls 2 x 8-14
Incline DB Curls 2 x 8-14
BB Drag Curls 2 x 8-12
Tricep Rope Pushdowns 3 x 6-20
Overhead DB Extension 6-12
Close Grip DB Press 3 x 8 -16
Traps

Hypertrophy Lower Body (rest time: 30 secs to 60 secs)
Single Leg Seated Hamstring Curls 6 x 8 -16
Leg Press 4 x 8-30
Leg Extensions 3 x 8-15
Calf Raises 6 x 8-20
Abs

Power Upper Body (rest time: 3 mins)
BB Bench 3 x 3-5
Seated BB Shoulder Press 3 x 3-7
DB Rows 3 x 3-5
Lat Pulldowns 3 x 3-5
DB Hammer Curls 2 x 5-8
Close Grip DB Tricep Press 2 x 5-8

Power Lower Body (Rest timeL 4 mins)
Front Squat 3 x 3-5
Stiff Legged Deadlift 3 x 3-5
Traps

In any hypertrophy day, depending on how I feel, I do include negatives, partial ROM with constant tension, drop sets, rest-pause etc. Power days, strictly resting 3-4 minutes or until I am ready to go and just lift the weight.

Repped. Thanks for the response. But WOW thats a LOT to do on the Hypertrophy upper day! I feel that would either whipe me out, keep me in the gym forever, or have me doing less weight for everything!

Anyone else care to chime in?

[wrkoutfrq]

Repped. Thanks for the response. But WOW thats a LOT to do on the Hypertrophy upper day! I feel that would either whipe me out, keep me in the gym forever, or have me doing less weight for everything!

Anyone else care to chime in?

That's pretty standard volume for the upper body hyper work... I actually did a touch more that that on a 5 day split. the 4 day split works fine if you have the time to put into the hyper days. just make sure you stay on the program for a good amount of time, since the first few weeks will feel like someone's beat you with a baseball bat. after that you become accustomed to the volume and frequency and you'll be fine

[jon69]

OP- I agree its a lot of volume but a simple solution is to just rotate the days each week, so the 5th day gets rolled into the next week. Frequency is a tad bit lower but volume remains the same.

[JanesLastResort]

or just use the strength/hyperrtrophy split with legs/push/pull.

works like a charm really!

[musicmoney11]

or just use the strength/hyperrtrophy split with legs/push/pull.

works like a charm really!

As in, 2 sessions for Legs, Push, Pull, one hyper session, one power/strength session?

[JanesLastResort]

As in, 2 sessions for Legs, Push, Pull, one hyper session, one power/strength session?

Yes, with 1 or 2 rest days between every legs/push/pull cycle.

[Pullup17]

Repped. Thanks for the response. But WOW thats a LOT to do on the Hypertrophy upper day! I feel that would either whipe me out, keep me in the gym forever, or have me doing less weight for everything!

Anyone else care to chime in?

I didn't jump into that kind of volume from the get go, I built up my volume and intensity gradually over the course of a few months, every week, I add an additional set here and there, over time it is something like what I described here.

[Heracles26]

or just use the strength/hyperrtrophy split with legs/push/pull.

works like a charm really!

exactly what im on, love it!!

[musicmoney11]

exactly what im on, love it!!

Anyone else do it-PHAT 4 days, and if so how you set it up?

[Mundungus]

Depending on your leg development, you could do power chest/ tris, power back/bis, legs (alt hyper/power days or mix it up during workout), hyper full upper body. Throw in some abs and shoulders on cardio days as you feel needed.

I've done this split before but my legs are pretty well developed so I don't feel like I need to hit them twice. Now I do it on a 5 day split while rotating legs and rest days as needed to give my upper body a break. It's nice to have the time to be in the gym 5 days a week, allows for more flexibility.