[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
mertdawg wrote:
There seems to be a split among trainees who use a traditional pyramid-type arrangement of sets, and those who do the minimum necessary warmup and then multiple sets with their work weight.
CW, and Poliqiun and really a lot of others would use something like arrangement 1:
OPTION 1
1-2 moderate warmups
6 x 6 at a work weight (3 x 10, 4 x 8, 8 x 3 whatever)
But the BIGGEST guys I know still use a pyramid system more like this:
OPTION 2
Easy 15 reps
15 reps at a work weight
10 reps at about 20% more weight
4-8 reps with 20% more
Sounds like you got things a little wrong?
BB ramping/pyramiding up example:
Bench
1358
2258
3158 (or less reps, depends on the trainee… Some keep reps the same on all warm-ups, others do less and less reps before their top-set to save energy for it)
405as many as you get (your “work set” basically, where you constantly try to get more reps/weight)
That’s what you see 99 percent of pro’s etc do.
I don’t see any really big people go to failure on three ramping sets.
What’s the point?
Some do a 8-12 rep set after their top-set, but that’s very rare. (in that case, they usually try to progress on both their top-set and their 8-12 rep set every time they train)
Which do you think is ideal as a normal rep scheme?
If you can handle high volume (actually manage to gain strength at a good pace while doing stuff like 4 sets of 12 with the same weight or whatever… Well, then you probably wouldn’t ask questions on this forum, anyway.
Regular people generally make faster progress with 1-2 heavy sets per exercise instead of… A lot.
Warmup followed by several same-load work sets?
Another thing to consider: If you do low reps and especially when staying a rep or two short of failure, like many powerlifters do on their main exercises, then multiple sets at working weight are usually needed.
But 4*10-12 at the same weight is usually just going to hold people’s strength progression back.
Pyramid with at least 3 sets at different loads pushed to fatigu , say 12-15; 8-10; 4-6. If you want to pyramid/ramp up, then look at my example above again and read this thread:
http://www.T-Nation.com/free_online_forum/sports_body_training_performance_bodybuilding/professor_x_a_request
From start to finish.
(that’s pretty much the standard system in use for bodybuilding today)
[/quote]
Your response does clear up some things in my mind. I remember reading a post from Prof X about 3 years ago where he said that he pyramided up but he felt that all 3-4 sets were “working” sets, yet his weight jumps were pretty large. I think his point was though that those sets were done as seriously as the hard set-that you still practice intensity and concentration.
I know about the ramping system, but you still see Ronnie Coleman Ramp up with sets of 12-15 (and huge jumps) but then he’ll still do a max set of 8, and possibly a real heavy double on something like squats or deadlifts, or maybe 4-6 on presses.
Ramping up to a baseline weight is a given (although if I was going to try to hit a work set of 10-12, I would probably ramp up with sets of 4-6. Why isn’t that better?
Basically it sounds like oyu are saying that most pros use, and have used something like 1 hard working set. I think that has been the primary method of training since the early 90s. Most workouts I have read in the last 15 years have 135 x 10, 225 x 10, 315 x 10, and then 365 for 6-10 for example.
Anyway, again, your response helps me because basically what I take away is that there are not really 2 strikingly different theories of how to build muscle.
Everyone “ramps” and then when they reach a training weight, they do something to produce intensity which can be:
- 1 hard set, possibly with controlled forced reps
- 1 hard set in a rep range, and perhaps another heavier hard set for fewer reps to build strength
- A heavy weight, say 70% max done for a challenging set-rep scheme like 4 x 6. (sometimes for example, I have taken a 12 rep max on a movement that I feel I need to get stricter on, like rows, and I would instead do 4 x 6, or 6 x 4 at that weight, but with better focus on each rep.