That's an awesome podcast episode, Louis.
And yes, it is possible to do what you are talking about. Though it might depend on where you are at with your strength levels currently and where you hope to go.
If I remember right, Pavel mentions some of that in the podcast. I thought he briefly talked about his Russian Bear program from Power to the People. Essentially you perform 2 sets of 5 with a weight near your 5 rep max. After that you drop the weight significantly and perform 10 to 20 sets of 5 at the lower weight. Strength first, then hypertrophy. That is grossly over-simplifying the program, and if you are interested in it you should get the PTTP book.
There are other examples of this as well. Jim Wendler (not a strong first guy, but a super strong guy) has an excellent barbell program out there, 5/3/1. It has a lot of variations, but the big barbell exercises are at the heart of it: bench, squat, deadlift, press. Each day focuses on one exercise and you get 3 sets of strength work in. After that, there are options to work on volume and hypertrophy with either the exact same exercise (at a greatly reduced load, like the Russian Bear) or similar exercises.
Many people stay on 5/3/1 for long periods of time. So you can really explore with it. The Bear is a different type of intensity and people generally don't stay on that for a long time.
So yes, it's possible. But in my experience it is a little difficult. It is generally easier to focus on one main thing at a time. I like to spend most of my time focusing on solid strength programs. Then once or twice a year I do a hypertrophy block where I get more volume in and really dial in the nutrition. Although saying that, I guess I was able to gain almost 7 pounds of lean mass and a good amount of strength this spring by following Pavel's classic Right of Passage workout with some zercher squats on the variety days.
There are a lot of different bodies and lifestyles out there, so I'm curious to hear what other people's experiences are with this.
