If i pyramid on chest should i do incline bench press along with it or is pyramid on the flat bench good enough ? also what % of my one rep max should i go with each set ? and how many sets ?
[quote]BigMike wrote:
if i pyramid on chest should i do incline bench press along with it or is pyramid on the flat bench good enough ? also what % of my one rep max should i go with each set ? and how many sets ? [/quote]
By pyramiding do you mean doing something like this in terms of reps: 10-8-6-4? If so you can then add an additional chest movement.
I like Dumbbell Inclines. Seems to be less stress on the shoulders. If you do 4 or 5 sets of Bench Presses maybe you could follow it up with 3 sets of inclines, for a total of 7 or 8 sets for the chest.
As far as percent, simply pick a weight that you can do 11 or 12 reps with and then stop at 10. Get my drift? Don’t worry about percentages. Don’t try to make this complicated.
I think one of the best things I ever did as a young trainee was pyramid my sets. It worked great.
Good Luck,
Zeb
Mike,
Read some training articles bro! Read CT, Chad Waterbury, or Ian King for starters. Pyramids are a bad idea because almost nobody does them right!
Better ways to train than that, my friend!
jmo
jack
would 10x3 be suitable for a middle linebacker or fullback ?
[quote]jackreape wrote:
Mike,
Read some training articles bro! Read CT, Chad Waterbury, or Ian King for starters. Pyramids are a bad idea because almost nobody does them right!
Better ways to train than that, my friend!
jmo
jack[/quote]
Take a breath buddy, the guy was asking for advice and this is the beginner section, so he has done no harm. I love the fact that a beginner section has been added, and I see it has given the new-guys confidents to ask basic questions, but if the LAME OVER SAID USE THE SEARCH becomes a trend then this section will become useless.
Reading about MODS and if they are needed on t-nation in another post I had a great idea. If anyone say USE THE SEARCH then the mods should just delete the post.
My 2 cents
Ian King likes to use waves. Isn’t this just a pryamid with fewer sets?
Pyramids are really useful! I would say depending on how advanced you are you could work your way up to your 1RM ie (12,8,6,4,2,1) … looks kinda like westside now that I think of it.
Anyways I tried this a couple years ago and my bench shot up 40lbs in a month. Keep in mind I was only doing this workout once a week and was fairly new to the iron game. My advice is to try this once a week with some added incline dumbell work and then a few days later try some speed work along with your normal chest routine (take a lighter weight and do say 8 sets of three reps and when your doing them push that weight as if its your 1RM and really get some bar speed going).
Add some heavy triceps work (dips, skullcrushers etc.) and you should be very pleased with your results. Best of luck man!
My method of pyramids is to do 10/6/4/2/1 reps @ 60/70/80/90/100% of 1RM.
It’s worked well for myself (I like 10x3 also), but everyone is different so try out some different schemes and find out what works for you.
if you think about it, ‘pyramidizing’ (I think I just came up with a new word) your exercises on “chest” day or any other day for that matter results in you taxing each group of major muscle fibers a little bit. CW really does a beautiful job of explaining how the different muscle fibers work, I suggest you read some of his newer articles if the science/theory interest you. But I would say that pyramidding isn’t a bad idea when you start because as was noted earlier, it does hit pretty much every fiber type in the muslce. As was previously suggested, I would also suggest you incorporate some “speed work” once your progress stalls out, or maybe even from the beginning. I wouldn’t do the speed work on the same day as your pyramidizing though, as that could lead to a little too much volume on one day. This holds true especially if you are doing bench and inclines, and then all the tricep work on the same day.
Welcome to the iron game. Get strong and get HUGE
When I was a rank beginner I liked to to sets of three for my compunds, starting with a light weight and working up to a weight I could just rep three times.
Obviously this means the first sets were easy and the last ones were very hard. I didnt really have any rhyme or reason as to why I did it but it felt good and looking back I built alot of strength.
Cappx…what you say is true but I also believe in a beginer learning the fundametals and disabuding themselves of some of the poor advice they have undoubtedly ran into in the past. So I think it would be a good idea for a beginer to read Program design 101 and Different Destitions Different Journeys. So they get a basic idea of what training is all about. I think the beginer posting should give a general idea of his workout plan so we can tell if he is on the right track then correct specific problems. Thats what worked for me. Those articles I mentioned are by Mike Robertson and Christian Thibadeau repectfully.