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Mega Feature: Layne Norton Training Series + FullPower/Hypertrophy Routine

Layne Norton is a Pro Natural Bodybuilder with the IFPA and NGA. Layne has his PhD in NutritionalSciences with his thesis emphasis in muscle protein metabolism. He is also an accomplishedpowerlifter holding the AAPF Squat and Deadlift American Records in the 220 lb class at 568 & 700lbs respectively.

Read on as he bridges the gap between science and hardcore work ethic inside the gym with his“Never Be Outworked” mentality.

PHAT: Power Hypertrophy Adaptive Training

Written by Dr. Layne Norton

PhD Nutrit ional Sciences

BS Biochemistry

There are some f undamental arguments in bodybuilding. I’m talking about the ones you see ALL THE TIME. Howmuch protein should I take in? What kind of split should I use? How of ten should I workout? What’s the bestrep range f or growth? What’s the best volume f or growth? Most people try to make these issues out to beblack and white to solidif y their stances and of ten f ail to acknowledge that these issues are not black andwhite and there is a substantial gray area. Take the arguments regarding rep ranges f or example. How of tenhave you heard you should ONLY train in ‘X’ rep range because it is the best one f or growth. Then two dayslater you see an article interviewing a 300 lb behemoth who trains in a dif f erent rep range but also looksinsane, so who are you to believe? Recently, there has been a bit of negative bodybuilding press regardinglif t ing in lower rep ranges with heavier weights. Some researchers and bodybuilders would have you believethat low rep high weight training might be next to useless f or bodybuilding. But I think powerlif ters could teachbodybuilders a thing or two in some cases. Konstantin Konstantinovs, Brandon Cass, Shawn Frankl, MattKrockzaleski, and Sam Byrd could easily be stage ready with a f ew months of dieting and do very well. StanEf f erding and Johnnie Jackson both hold world records in powerlif t ing and compete as IFBB prof essionalbodybuilders. Many of the bodybuilders f rom the classic era built their base with powerlif t ing including ArnoldSchwarzenegger and Franco Columbo. Ronnie Coleman, arguably the greatest bodybuilder ever to live nevercompeted in powerlif t ing but was no stranger to heavy weights. Part of what made his DVD “The Unbelievableso legendary and well… unbelievable was the workout f ootage of him deadlif t ing and squatting over 800 lbsand f ront squatting 600 lbs f or reps!

Certainly higher rep ‘pump’ style training has its place for a bodybuilder ’s arsenal, no doubt. But sodoes heavy power training.

Training Frequency

As a person who has competed in both powerlif t ing and bodybuilding I can tell you that the heavy movementsabsolutely made me a better bodybuilder. For the longest t ime my legs were a huge weak point. At my f irst showmy thighs barely measured over 21”. They were absolutely pathetic and I heard about it f rom EVERYONEespecially on the f orums. I was called ‘chicken legs’ f requently and it was so f rustrating. I was working them outreally hard and f ollowing the advice of so called ‘bodybuilding experts’ making sure to train with maximumintensity 1x/week but getting plenty of rest to make sure I wasn’t ‘overtraining.’ I was told I did not need tosquat or deadlif t to get my legs to grow and that was f ine by me because squats hurt and I would’ve rather notdone them. Af ter a f ew years of spinning my wheels (pun intended) a f riend convinced me to take up a hybridstyle routine where I did heavy work (squats, deadlif ts, presses) mixed with lighter hypertrophy ‘pump’ work.Against everything I had read I started working out all my body parts 2x/week. This would go on to become thebasic template f or what would evolve into PHAT (Power Hypertrophy Adaptive Training), a f orm of non- linearperiodization training. Low and behold my legs grew more in 4 months than they had in the previous 4 years. Atmy f ollowing show they came in just over 24”, still very small by bodybuilding standards, but a signif icantimprovement over recent years.

Two years later I won my natural pro card and they topped out over 25” following the same trainingI had been doing, they were getting better, but still not nearly good enough to hang with the best.

Heavy Iron

One basic concept that convinced me it was important to use heavy weights was that it just made sense to mewhen I tried to f ind skinny people who squatted or deadlif ted super heavy weights. Come to f ind out it ’s hard tohave chicken legs and have a really good squat. I told myself “I am going to squat 500 lbs f or reps becausethere is no way I’ll be able to do that with skinny legs.” I’m sure there are people out there who squat over 500lbs f or reps and do not have impressive leg development, but I certainly haven’t met them yet. So I set out on aquest to squat 500 lbs and deadlif t over 600 lbs. Over t ime I adapted my routine to incorporate more and morepure powerlif t ing movements and what I f ound astonished me. I started using bands and chains to help getstronger and I did box squats, speed squats, def icit deadlif ts, and rack pulls. All movements I had never evenheard of when I started bodybuilding. The result? As we sit today my thighs measure over 28” at the largestpart and in addition to that my back has grown immensely. I also own the current AAPF American raw squat anddeadlif t records at 568 and 700 lbs respectively in the 220 lb weight class. I recently squatted 525 lbs f or atriple and 505 lbs f or 5 reps. I placed top 5 in my f irst 4 natural pro shows including the IFPA Pro Natural WorldChampionships and I won the heavyweight class at the IFPA International! At every show the judges commentedon how drastically my legs and back had improved f rom when I won my pro card.

My legs may never be the best onstage because of their shape and structure, but moving heavyiron made them much better and confirmed my initial theory that I would not be able to squat 500lbs for reps with twig legs.

Anabolic Ef fect

Now you may or may not ever deadlif t 700 lbs, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make drastic improvements inyour physique by incorporating aspects of power training mixed with hypertrophy. Probably the most importantthing heavy training can do is increase your overall capacity f or muscular growth through signif icant strengthgains. Training with lower reps and heavier weights is going to stimulate f ar greater increases in strength thantraining with light weights f or higher reps. But how is that anabolic? I’m sure you are thinking “I am abodybuilder; I don’t care how much I lif t!” But by increasing your strength you will increase the amount of weightyou will be able to lif t when you train with a higher rep, ‘bodybuilding style’ training which will increase yourpotential f or growth. For example, if one trained only straight high reps (15-20 reps) on an exercise you mayend up plateauing at a squat of 300 lbs f or 15 reps (not necessarily, just an example). If that same individualincorporated heavy training into their regiment however, perhaps they get strong enough that they can squat400 lbs f or 15 reps. Who do you think will have the greatest potential to increase their mass over the longhaul? Most likely it will be the person using more weight if all other variables are equal because they will be ableto create more overload and greater muscle damage, evoking a greater growth response. So while purebodybuilding style training may give you more growth over the short term, a combination of heavy weights f orlow reps and light weight f or high reps over the long term is going to provide more muscle by increasing yourgrowth potential!

So while pure bodybuilding style training may give you more growth over the short term, acombination of power and hypertrophy training over the long term is going to provide more muscleby increasing your growth potential! This is the basis for PHAT.

The Principles

There are several dozen f orms of the PHAT program but the basic premise is the same. Each muscle getsworked 2x/week. The f irst 2 days of the week are split into upper and lower body power days. This is f ollowedby a rest day. Then 3 days of tradit ional hypertrophy orientated bodybuilding training.

An example of the split would be:

Day 1: Upper Body Power

Day 2: Lower Body Power

Day 3: Rest

Day 4: Back and Shoulders Hypertrophy

Day 5: Lower Body Hypertrophy

Day 6: Chest and Arms Hypertrophy

Day 7: Rest

Power Days

During the f irst 2 days of the week you will f ocus on big power movements f or your upper and lower body likesquats, f ront squats, deadlif ts, def icit deadlif ts, and box squats f or lower body. Barbell and dumbbell pressesand rows as well as weighted pullups f or upper body. Your goal should be to stay in the 3-5 rep range f or 3-5working sets on the compound movements (only use one power movement f or lower body, presses, andpulls/rows, i.e. don’t do squats and f ront squats in the same workout). Make sure you rest enough in betweensets to completely recover and be ready f or your next heavy set. If that means you need to take 5-6 minutesbetween sets then so be it. The purpose of these workouts is to move maximum weight! Save short restperiods f or your hypertrophy days. On your power days you need to have a POWER mentality. Move the heavyass weight at all costs! A good way to make consistent progress is to rotate your power movements every 2-3weeks. A f ew sets of assistance exercises can be done f or smaller body parts like hamstrings (thoughdeadlif ts and squat will involve signif icant hamstring recruitment), calves, shoulders, and arms.

Auxiliary exercises would include things like leg extensions, glute ham raises, good mornings,standing and seated calf rises for legs and dumbbell presses, upright rows, curls, and skull crushersfor upper body auxiliary work.

Hypertrophy Days

On your hypertrophy days you should do some speed work (6-8 sets of 3 reps) with 65-70% of your 3-5 repmax to start your workout with the power exercise you used earlier in the week. For example if you did squatsf or 3 sets of 3-5 reps with 300 lbs earlier in the week. Then you would do 6 sets of 3 reps on squats with 195-210 lbs with an emphasis placed on moving the weight through the concentric phase of the lif t as quickly aspossible. Do not go too heavy on your speed sets; if you cannot move the weight explosively then it is tooheavy! Rest no longer than 90 seconds in between each of the speed sets. This builds explosiveness andspeed and may stimulate growth as well. Even though you are using less weight, you should still be applyingmaximum f orce to it. To elaborate on this point, you can apply the same f orce to 250 lbs that you apply to 400lbs, 250 lbs will just move f aster, and that is the point you want your body to be explosive. If you have accessto chains or bands they can be VERY helpf ul in building your explosiveness. If you choose to use themhowever you may want to lower the weight you are using to compensate f or the increased loading at the topend of the movement.

Make sure the weight is light enough that you can move it explosively. If you are slowing down atany point during the concentric phase then it is likely too heavy.

More Important Notes

Af ter you f inish with your speed work f or the day you should trainbasically like you normally would f or a bodybuilder. Your rep range shouldbe 8-20 and keep your rest periods to 1-2 minutes between sets. I wouldincrease the volume of these sessions by approximately 50-75%compared to your power days. Make sure you do not over use f ailure onyour hypertrophy days or you will burn out quickly. I only recommend goingto absolute f ailure on the last 1-2 sets of each exercise once you haveadapted to the routine. On prior sets stop 1-2 reps shy of f ailure.

This may seem counter intuitive but it will help you maintain a greateroverall power and volume during the workout and it will preventneural fatigue and burnout. For the first 2-4 weeks you should NOTtrain to failure at all until your body becomes accustomed to thevolume and frequency.

Overtraining Factor

Now I know you are thinking “I will overtrain if I workout each bodypart2x/week!” While the f irst f ew weeks you may be very sore, t ired, and not f eel great, if you push through thisaf ter about 4-6 weeks you will f ind that your body will adapt to the increased f requency and you will hardly getsore more f or more than a day. You will also f ind that your strength will start to skyrocket! I do recommenddeloading once every 6-12 weeks however. A deload would consist of 1-3 weeks of lif t ing at 60-70% of yournormal weights. This will be enough to maintain your strength, but light enough to allow you to actively recover.

Keep in mind one thing when starting this routine, it is not for the faint of heart, but heavy iron, is nomatch for an iron will. If you are mentally and physically tough enough, you may just power yourway to new gains!

Power Hypertrophy Adaptive Training Routine:

Note: Make sure you warm up thoroughly for all exercises, stretch, and use precaution when usingheavy weights.

Day 1: Upper Body Power Day

Pulling Power Movement: Bent over or Pendlay rows3 sets of 3-5 reps

Assistance Pulling movement: Weighted Pull ups2 sets of 6-10 reps

Auxiliary Pulling movement: Rack chins2 sets of 6-10 reps

Pressing Power Movement: Flat dumbbell presses3 sets of 3-5 reps

Assistance pressing movement: Weighted dips2 sets of 6-10 reps

Assistance pressing movement: Seated dumbbell shoulder presses3 sets of 6-10 reps

Auxiliary curling movement: Cambered bar curls3 sets of 6-10 reps

Auxiliary extension movement: Skull crushers

3 sets of 6-10 reps

Day 2: Lower Body Power Day

Pressing Power Movement: Squats3 sets of 3-5 reps

Assistance pressing movement: Hack Squats2 sets of 6-10 reps

Assistance extension movement: Leg extensions2 sets of 6-10 reps

Assistance pulling movement: Stif f legged deadlif ts3 sets of 5-8 reps

Assistance pulling/curling movement: Glute ham raises or lying leg curls2 sets of 6-10 reps

Auxiliary calf movement: Standing calf raise3 sets of 6-10 reps

Auxiliary calf movement: Seated calf raise2 sets of 6-10 reps

Day 3: Rest

Day 4: Back and Shoulders Hypertrophy Day

Pulling Power Exercise speed work: Bent over or Pendlay rows6 sets of 3 reps with 65-70% of normal 3-5 rep max

Hypertrophy pulling movement: Rack chins3 sets of 8-12 reps

Hypertrophy pulling movement: Seated cable row3 sets of 8-12 reps

Hypertrophy pulling movement: Dumbbell rows or shrugs bracing upper body against an incline bench2 sets of 12-15 reps

Hypertrophy pulling movement: Close grip pulldowns2 sets of 15-20 reps

Hypertrophy shoulder movement: Seated dumbbell presses3 sets of 8-12 reps

Hypertrophy shoulder movement: Upright rows2 sets of 12-15 reps

Hypertrophy shoulder movement: Side lateral raises with dumbbells or cables3 sets of 12-20 reps

Day 5: Lower Body Hypertrophy Day

Lower Body Power Exercise speed work: Squats6 sets of 3 reps with 65-70% of normal 3-5 rep max

Hypertrophy pressing movement: Hack squats

3 sets of 8-12 reps

Hypertrophy pressing movement: Leg presses2 sets of 12-15 reps

Hypertrophy extension movement: Leg extensions3 sets of 15-20 reps

Hypertrophy pulling movement: Romanian deadlif ts3 sets of 8-12 reps

Hypertrophy curling movement: Lying leg curls2 sets of 12-15 reps

Hypertrophy curling movement: Seated leg curls2 sets of 15-20 reps

Hypertrophy calf movement: Donkey calf raises4 sets of 10-15 reps

Hypertrophy calf movement: Seated calf raises3 sets of 15-20 reps

Day 6: Chest and Arms Hypertrophy Day

Pressing Power Exercise speed work: Flat dumbbell presses6 sets of 3 reps with 65-70% of normal 3-5 rep max

Hypertrophy pressing movement: Incline dumbbell presses3 sets of 8-12 reps

Hypertrophy pressing movement: Hammer strength chest press3 sets of 12-15 reps

Hypertrophy f ly movement: Incline cable f lyes2 sets of 15-20 reps

Hypertrophy curling exercise: Cambered bar preacher curls3 sets of 8-12 reps

Hypertrophy curling exercise: Dumbbell concentration curls2 sets of 12-15 reps

Hypertrophy curling exercise: Spider curls bracing upper body against an incline bench2 sets of 15-20 reps

Hypertrophy extension exercise: Seated tricep extension with cambered bar3 sets of 8-12 reps

Hypertrophy extension exercise: Cable pressdowns with rope attachment2 sets of 12-15 reps

Hypertrophy extension exercise: Cable kickbacks2 sets of 15-20 reps

Day 7: Rest

Keep in mind this workout would be for someone who is relatively adapted to higher frequency andvolume, so you may want to cut out an assistance/auxiliary exercise on each day to start until yourbody adapts.

Frequently Asked Questions:

What do I do when I plateau on this routine?

The f irst thing I would recommend doing is changing your power/accessory exercises. Just doing that canof ten make a dif f erence. Beyond that you need to look at where your sticking points are on various lif ts.Where are you having trouble in the lif t and how can you improve that aspect of the big lif ts? For example, ifyou really want to improve your deadlif t and you are having trouble with them, specif ically moving the bar of fthe f loor and through the f irst part of the movement, then I would start f ocusing on doing def icit deadlif tsstanding on a 2-4″ box. If you are having dif f iculty locking out the deadlif ts then I would do rack pulls f romslightly below the knee to help you get stronger in that part of the lif t.

I have included exercises/accessory work that can help you on various lifts.

Squats:

Typically people are weak in the hole and I would recommend doing below parallel box squats to help f ix this.Make sure you sit down to the box and pause on it. Also good mornings may help back strength to maintainyour arch in the hole and deep hack squats may help increase quad strength f or deep reps.

Deadlif ts:

If you are weak of f the f loor, then f ocus on def icit deadlif ts f rom a 2-4″ box. If you are weak at the lockoutthen do rack pulls f rom just below the knee. If you have access to bands or chains I would also recommendadding those in as they will make the lockout more dif f icult.

Presses:

If you are weak midway through the movement or at the lockout, really f ocus on triceps strength using closegrip presses, dips, or skull crushers. Adding bands or chains will also help with lockout of a press. If you areweak at the bottom, try doing presses where you pause f or a 3 count at the bottom bef ore pressing.

Deload:

If changing exercises and f ocusing on weak portions of the lif ts themselves don’t improve things you mayneed to deload f or 1-3 weeks. I don’t schedule deloads, I take them when I need them which is typically every 6-12 weeks. How long you take it f or will depend on how long it takes you to f eel mentally and physicallyref reshed and f ocused. For a deload I recommend doing your normal routine, but only using 60-70% of normalweights. So f or if you would normally do 3 sets of 5 on squats with 300 lbs., I would recommend doing 180-210lbs. on squats f or 3 sets of 5.

This will be light enough to allow active recovery but heavy enough for you to maintain your musclemass and strength.

How can cardio be incorporated into your routine?

You can adapt to almost anything with this routine but it will take time. I did PHAT training all the way up to myshow and by the end I was doing cardio almost everyday. In the of f season I typically incorporate 1-2 days ofhigh intensity cardio per week including car pushes, sled dragging, sprints with a sprint parachute, as well assome other circuit style workouts f or cardio. I also do the typical elliptical/bike cardio intervals as well. Whenyou f irst start with PHAT you may want to limit the cardio to 1x/week until your body adapts to the volume andf requency of the routine. If you f ind your legs are overly sore then I would suggest just doing some moderateintensity cardio to get some blood f low in the area and perhaps skip the HIIT f or the week until your body getsadjusted to the training.

You can also focus on cardio that does not involve the legs so much like using the rowing cardiomachine or doing some heavy bag training for cardio.

Why aren’t all sets to failure?

Failure is a tool and has to be used correctly. During the f irst 3-6 weeks of the routine I would NOT recommendtaking sets to f ailure as doing so will burn you out physically and mentally very f ast. I’d recommend stopping 1-2 reps shy of f ailure. Once you get adjusted to the volume and f requency then you can start adding in f ailuref or your power movements and some of your accessory/auxiliary work as your body gets more adjusted. Youshould never train to f ailure consistently more than 6 weeks in a row without at least a partial break f rom it.The reason I recommend this is because if you constantly train to f ailure it will decrease your perf ormance,strength, reduce the volume you are able to tolerate, and ult imately reduce your hypertrophic capacity. There isthis notion out there that any set not taken to f ailure is a wasted set, but that’s complete NONSENSE that hasbeen perpetuated over the years by people who have not read the research.

Indeed, research has shown that sets taken near, but not to failure are almost, if not as effective assets taken to failure on inducing growth and there is the added benefit that they do not overtax yournervous system to the point where it reduces your strength, power, and volume output.

Example:

For example, if you train to all out maximum concentric f ailure on bench press and hit f ailure on your 6th rep.The next set you probably will only get 3-4 reps, and the f ollowing set you might get 1-3 reps. As you can seeyour output decreases very quickly. But if you only took the f irst set to the 5th rep, it is quite likely you couldtake each subsequent set to 4-5 reps and so overall you have actually had a more ef f ective workout bystaying away f rom f ailure because you were able to maintain your power/strength output over several sets.

People don’t realize that overload is cumulative over the workout and adding more volume isactually a way to induce more overload, not just by adding more weight/reps. Again, there is nothingwrong with taking some sets to failure once you are adapted to the routine, but it has to be properlyperiodized to avoid performance decrements and CNS overtaxing.

How can regular deadlif ts be implemented into this routine?

I recommend putting deadlif ts on the power lower body day. Some people seem to believe that deadlif ts are anupper body exercise and while they do involve the back muscles, the deadlif t is moreso a posterior chainexercise and requires a good deal of hip f lexion. The movement is like cross between a good morning and asquat essentially and so there is also substantial lower back, hamstring, glute, and quad activation. Thus Irecommend keeping them on leg days. I would not do squats and deadlif ts on the same day unless you havebeen doing PHAT f or a long time and you are very adapted to the routine and are able to tolerate it. Otherwise Iwould suggest alternating the movements or doing a squat movement f or a f ew weeks on your power day andthen a deadlif t movement f or a f ew weeks. If you are someone who has really good quads and weakhamstrings/lower back then maybe 3 out of every 4 weeks you do a deadlif t movement f or your powerexercise.

If you are like me and have strong hamstrings and lower back but weak quads then maybe do asquat movement 3 out of every 4 weeks and then do a deadlift movement for your power moveonce per month. That said you can always work in some form of a deadlift variation or squatvariation as an accessory exercise as well.

Training Series Part 1

Training Series Part 2

Training Series Part 3

Music By: Chimaira

About The Author

Dr. Layne Norton is a pro natural bodybuilder with the IFPA and NGA and pro powerlifter. Hecompleted his PhD in Nutritional Sciences with his area of emphasis in muscle protein metabolismfrom the University of Illinois.

Website: www.biolayne.com Bodyspace: www.bodyspace.com/str8f lexedPhotography: http://nmlif estylemag.com/Copyright – Simplyshredded.com