Powerbuilding For Dummies - Strength And Size
Takeaway Points:
Powerbuilding is the act of combining powerlifting and bodybuilding training - both size and strength - in order to have a good mix of the two.
While there’s some natural affinity between these pursuits, there are also ways that you can easily mess it up, resulting in loss of progress.
In particular, diet is a point of weakness, and requires a lot of care in order to pull off properly, especially if you have competitive goals.
If you do it right - you can certainly get the best of both worlds.
What is powerbuilding?
Powerbuilding is a term for training which attempts to combine the methods of bodybuilding and powerlifting, two of the most commonly pursued lifting sports. Powerlifting is all about strength, and bodybuilding is all about building muscle mass - this means that there can be a lot of crossover between the two, but also a lot of divergence.
Certainly we see a lot of powerlifters with excess bodyfat and unappealing physiques, and we also see plenty of bodybuilders who don’t seem to be able to handle very heavy weights relative to their rippling physiques.
For most people, specializing in one or the other will probably result in better performance in that sport. But at the same time, most people don’t just want to be good at one thing - they’d rather be a good mix of both, jacked and strong. For the average person without elite competitive goals, this can certainly be a superior approach that makes you a more well-rounded lifter.
And the reality is - it’s very possible. But you need to know how to do it correctly.
Benefits and issues combining bodybuilding and powerlifting
There are some key benefits that you can get from this approach, but also some key issues that need to be avoided.
Powerlifters can often benefit from added muscle mass, and thus from implementing size-focused training in their normal program. Likewise, some dietary manipulation can help you to more easily change weight classes optimally, or become more competitive by getting leaner and more muscular in your current weight class.
However, the demands of powerlifting and bodybuilding competition are very different - powerlifters need to maximize strength for competition, while bodybuilders need to get as lean as possible for competition, which involves losing a bit of muscle mass and sacrificing some strength in the short term. This means that ideally, at a minimum, if you are competitive, you would want to schedule competitions as far apart as possible so that there is minimal conflict here.
Lastly, the training methods for the two are simply different.
Strength training relies on heavy sets in the 1-6 rep range, which tend to occur at greater than 80% of your 1 rep maximum, and which is intense enough that it means you won’t build quite as much muscle. Meanwhile, size training typically relies in lighter sets in the 6-20 rep range, focused more on getting in more total volume of training to drive further muscle growth.
The exercise selection and approach varies a little bit as well. For strength, you want to train primarily within the specific lifts and range of motion that you’ll do in competition - deadlifts from the floor, bench presses with a pause at the chest, and squats to parallel but no deeper.
For size, training should always emphasize end range of motion while minimizing excess fatigue, meaning full range of motion squats, alternative methods to increase range of motion on the bench press, good mornings and RDL’s instead of traditional deadlifts, more shoulder and back exercises, and so on.
How can we combine these effectively?
Luckily, it is still very possible. Here’s an example of a basic 3 day workout template:
Day 1 - Bench, Squat, and Deadlift Heavy
3-5 challenging sets at 80%+ of 1RM - This is your strength training day, done in a minimalist format.
Just 1 day per week is often enough to see consistent strength gains, so long as you progress this properly.
Alternately, you could just use, really any progression from any strength program you prefer, to simplify this.
Additional light accessory work for weak muscle groups as desired
Day 2 - Upper Body Size
3-5 challenging sets at 60-75% of 1RM - DB bench, chest press, or cambered bar bench
3-5 challenging sets at 60-75% of 1RM - Row, pulldown, or other back exercise
3-5 challenging sets at 60-75% of 1RM - DB, BB, or machine shoulder press
Additional light accessory work for weak muscle groups as desired
Day 3 - Lower Body Size
3-5 challenging sets at 60-75% of 1RM - Pause squat, squat from pins, or elevated heel squat, with ass-to-grass/full range of motion
3-5 challenging sets at 60-75% of 1RM - RDL, good morning, or hip thrust
Additional light accessory work for weak muscle groups as desired
If you’re able to train more often, you can add in more accessory work on other days - arms, shoulders, core, cardio, etc. - or even consider adding in a second heavy day if you feel good for it.
This format relies on 1x/week of strength focused training and 2x/week of size focused training. This is in part because while we see a strong correlation between additional size focused training and additional size, the same cannot be said for strength - strength is more possible to build consistently with a minimal 1x/week training frequency, and thus we get more of a benefit from training size more often.
Dietary Approach
The bigger question here is dietary approach, since this has a lot more potential to be an issue that holds you back, especially if you have competitive goals. Eating with the wrong approach for your goals can much more easily sabotage your progress when simultaneously training for strength and size than your training can!
Bodybuilding for physique generally involves alternating between bulking (gaining weight/muscle mass while also adding on fat mass) and cutting (losing weight to lean out and look goo, while also losing a bit of muscle mass. For a bodybuilder, cutting results in the need to cut back a bit on your training volume and the weights used as you lose some muscle mass during the cut, but this isn’t too important because you’re not looking to be as strong as possible. For a powerlifter, this would feel terrible, feeling your hard earned strength slip away.
It is still best to train for strength to the same extent while cutting weight, even if you’re seeing your numbers slowly go backwards as you get deeper into a cut. This is because at a minimum it helps you to retain as much strength as possible, and sets you up in a good position so that when the cut ends, you can immediately start pushing it hard again. You’ll regain your strength rapidly when you switch out of the cut and start rebuilding, and can again plan to push to new limits.
A typical bodybuilding approach for a year might look something like:
8 months of bulking
3 months of cutting
1 month of cutting/meet prep while tapering your training
You could do this with smaller cycles/more than one competition per year, but this would mean less time spent bulking consistently, and potentially more difficulty putting on muscle mass from year to year, especially as you get more experienced.
A typical powerlifting approach is more flexible. Powerlifters can compete more often, and the main thing that they need is about 1 month of tapering/peaking to prepare for competition. So on its own, a 1x/year powerlifting training cycle might look like:
11 months of maintenance (or maybe a bit of bulking/cutting to get to near your target weight) while training focuses on building strength and muscle
1 month of maintenance while tapering/peaking training for competition
Assuming you want to balance the two evenly, you can plan to do 1 competition for each during the year, and your strategy might look something like this:
5 months of bulking/general training with a slight focus on strength
1 month of maintenance/tapering and peaking (ideally, near the top of the weight limit for your weight class)
Powerlifting competition
2 months of bulking/general training with a slight focus on size
3 months of cutting/general training with a slight focus on size
1 month of cutting with bodybuilding focused training, tapering training into competition to focus on posing/etc.
Bodybuilding competition
Repeat
Bringing it all together
Powerbuilding is certainly a little more complicated than either bodybuilding or powerlifting alone, especially if you want to do it right in a competitive format.
If you don’t have competitive goals, that’s fine as well, and greatly simplifies the process - you could just stick to the 3x/week training format forever, not worry too much about specific yearly cycles, and just alternate rough bulking/cutting cycles periodically whenever you feel like it. Likewise, you can just periodically test your 1RM’s on your own to measure strength progress, or measure strength progress otherwise in normal training based on how much you improve, and not have to go to a powerlifting competition.
Training for strength and size can certainly however be a fun pursuit, and give you a bit of the best of both worlds. You won’t be as jacked as a bodybuilder or as strong as a powerlifter, but you’ll have a good mix of both.
About Adam Fisher
Adam is an experienced fitness coach and blogger who's been blogging and coaching since 2012, and lifting since 2006. He's written for numerous major health publications, including Personal Trainer Development Center, T-Nation, Bodybuilding.com, Fitocracy, and Juggernaut Training Systems.
During that time he has coached hundreds of individuals of all levels of fitness, including competitive powerlifters and older exercisers regaining the strength to walk up a flight of stairs. His own training revolves around bodybuilding and powerlifting, in which he’s competed.
Adam writes about fitness, health, science, philosophy, personal finance, self-improvement, productivity, the good life, and everything else that interests him. When he's not writing or lifting, he's usually hanging out with his cats or feeding his video game addiction.
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