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THE PYRAMID PRINCIPLE
🕑 Added 2022-06-11 20:40:10 +0000 UTCThat’s amazing how many options are there for changing power load when you work out at the gym. You can make it very light with small weight and workout volume. Or you can make it extra hard by adding heavy weights and increasing intensity. Plus, you can do that not only with weights, volume (number of sets) and intensity (rest between sets) BUT also with various TRAINING PRINCIPLES. Some of them DIRECTLY affect the complexity of the load, others do that INDIRECTLY, by assisting with this hard work. Today I’d like to talk about one of those “assistants”, which is called the PYRAMID PRINCIPLE. You will find out why this technique helps you build your muscles and strength. And also, how to properly use it for this purpose.
THE PYRAMID PRINCIPLE is when you gradually INCREASE or DECREASE weight on the equipment with each subsequent set, while simultaneously decreasing or increasing the number of sets.
WHY INCREASE, WHY DECREASE?
By gradually increasing your working weight set after set you will WARM UP your muscles and psyche, preparing the muscles for hard work in the last sets. This way the principle acts as an indirect assistant. If you decrease the weight set after set, you’ll EXHAUST your muscles out and injure them DEEPER, and also achieve greater growth in the recovery phase. In other words, there are TWO possible uses of the pyramid right there:
- When you START the workout - WARMING UP and preparing your muscles
- When you FINISH the workout - EXHAUSTING and injuring your muscles
That’s just the way it is. In the first case, failure is extremely rare. At this stage, you are only getting ready for the hard work in next sets. Whereas in the second case, failure is common because the muscles are exhausted by working at their limit, and you don’t stop.
Accordingly, there are several types of PYRAMID, depending on the LOAD CHANGE:
- ASCENDING PYRAMID = Weight increases + Reps drop
- REDUCED PYRAMID = Ascending Pyramid + flat load
- DESCENDING PYRAMID = Weight drops + Reps increase
- FULL PYRAMID = ASCENDING + DESCENDING, i.e. you increase the weight in the exercise when your start the workout, and when you’re tired, continue working by reducing it.
- FULL REDUCED PYRAMID = ASCENDING + REDUCED + DESCENDING, i.e. this is a version of a full pyramid when you do several sets with flat (unchanged) weight and reps in the middles of your workout. At first the weight increases, then it’s flat and then it drops.
I must say right away that you will not be able to do a FULL REDUCED PYRAMID per se, as our muscles GET TIRED. If you take the maximum load (weight) after warming up (with the ascending pyramid), it is unlikely that you’ll do the next set with the same weight or the same number of reps (which is necessary for a reduced pyramid) unless you have a good rest. However if you managed, it means that either the work in the previous set wasn’t the hardest possible, or you rested for too long (not typical for bodybuilding, because it reduces the intensity needed for muscle growth).
ASCENDING PYRAMID
Ascending pyramid is a classic. In 90% of cases when you hear about the PYRAMID principle, it refers to the ascending pyramid. The technique has been widely used in bodybuilding since the second half of the last century.
It’s very simple: we take light weights and do more reps in the first sets, and increase weights and reduce reps thereafter. Old school bodybuilders usually lower the number of reps from 12-15 to 5-6 (some athletes to 2-4). At the same time you gradually increase equipment’ weight from 40% to 80% -90% (One-Repetition Maximum (1 RM) = 100%). Here’s what a typical ascending pyramid may look like for a person pressing 150 kg for one repetition:
- 60 kg X 12 reps (40% of 1 RM)
- 80 kg X 10 reps (55% of 1 RM)
- 100 kg X 8 reps (70% of 1 RM)
- 110 kg X 7 reps (75% of 1 RM)
- 120 kg X 6 reps (80% of 1 RM)
If you are doing the ascending pyramid for your legs, do more reps, because the lower-body muscles get tired more slowly than the upper ones, i.e. our legs recover faster and better after sets. So when doing barbell back squats, it makes sense to start with 15-20 reps and gradually go down to 8-10 reps.
The biggest doubt that newcomers have when studying the ASCENDING PYRAMID principle is that they fear to use light load in the first sets of the pyramid. People say: “How so? Did I come here to give a hundred and ten percent or relax? I don’t feel the weight in the first sets. I’m wasting my time..”
This is nonsense, of course. Have you ever wondered WHY A COLD MUSCLE IS ALWAYS WEAKER THAN A HOT ONE? In fact, the answer is very simple - the cold muscle has better TRAUMA PROTECTION for your own safety. This protection works as BRAKES, preventing you from taking the weight your muscles and ligaments are not ready for. If there had not been such protection, you would have often injured your body, which it’s not interested in. That’s why the blocks work. While your muscles are cold, their STRENGTH and MOBILITY are LIMITED. Moreover, this is not only at the physics level, but also in your mind. The colder the body, the weaker the nerve impulses for muscle contraction sent by the brain.
The warmer our muscles are, the harder the work they can do. Since the load should be progressive (increasing with every training) for our muscles to grow, we have to work as bad as we can (as close to muscle capacity limit as possible). ASCENDING PYRAMID is a right hand in this regard, helping to DO OUR BEST in the exercise.
TIP: Wear a warm jacket when you start the workout. It will greatly increase efficiency by keeping you warm and helping you get tuned faster. This is particular important when it’s cold outside (in winter).
ASCENDING PYRAMID tunes you up for any kind of hard work. Your ligaments and muscles are warming up. Your nerve impulses are getting stronger. On top of that, doing the first sets with lighter weights helps to you get the right technique and muscle contraction in the right muscles. When you work with 50% of your maximum, you nearly always manage to better contract your muscles and follow the technique. By regularly repeating these “easy” steps, you also learn to CONTRACT WHAT YOU NEED TO CONTRACT in more difficult sets.
And lastly, another important advantage of the ascending pyramid is that the TIME UNDER LOAD CHANGES! It’s an important factor that affects our muscles. The longer the time, the more energy spent and the deeper the exhaustion on the one hand, but the less the weight on the equipment on the other hand (and weight also affects the load, as muscles grow from strength training). Using different weights and time under load, we take advantage of each of these points (extending the time and adding barbell weights). In total, this gives us better chances for further growth.
REDUCED PYRAMID
When doing exercises involving strength, energy resynthesizes by ANAEROBIC GLYCOLYSIS. This reaction is not possible without the creation of lactic acid, which burns your muscles the harder, the longer the set (the more reps). One of the functions of muscle acidification at workouts is that lactic acid reduces the ability of muscles to use ATP. That’s why the less you rest between sets, the more strength you lose in each subsequent set. That’s why lifters have long rest periods between sets. Therefore you’ll hardly manage to do a classic reduced pyramid in bodybuilding training with short rests between sets.
Let’s take our bench press example. Ideally, reduced pyramid should look like this:
- 60 kg X 12 reps (40% of 1 RM)
- 80 kg X 10 reps (55% of 1 RM)
- 100 kg X 8 reps (70% of 1 RM)
- 110 kg X 7 reps (75% of 1 RM)
- 120 kg X 6 reps (80% of 1 RM)
- 120 kg X 6 reps (80% of 1 RM)
- 120 kg X 6 reps (80% of 1 RM)
5th, 6th and 7th sets are FLAT: we work with the same weight and same repetitions. Those who have training experience will agree that it’s hard to do in reality. Most likely, the number of reps in the last two sets will drop to 5, or even to 3-4.
Experienced athletes usually follow a “REPS ROW” in their last 2-4 working sets. I use 6-8 reps, for example. So if I have a gradual decrease in repetitions (8-7-6) in the last three sets with the same weight, I’ll not be disappointed and say that this is also a reduced pyramid.
DESCENDING PYRAMID
Decreasing the weight on the equipment with each subsequent set is one of my favorite pyramid options. The base-case scenario recommends to DECREASE WEIGHT + INCREASE THE NUMBER OF REPS. I don’t always closely follow this concept. As far as I’m concerned, the descending pyramid is first of all about load reduction, which is most reasonable to do with the barbell weight. In other words, when I get tired, I DECREASE the barbell WEIGHT, but I do not always increase the NUMBER OF REPS to stay in a more working range of repetitions. The original assumes that you do a WARM UP (2-3 sets with light weights). Then put your MAXIMUM weight on the barbell and do the most difficult approach TO FAILURE. In the next sets, you decrease weight and increase the number of reps as your muscle gradually fatigue. Let’s take our bench press (at 1 RM = 150 kg) as an example. The descending pyramid will look like this:
- warm-up set
- warm-up set
- warm-up set
- 120 kg X 6 reps (80% of 1 RM)
- 110 kg X 7 reps (75% of 1 RM)
- 100 kg X 8 reps (70% of 1 RM)
- 80 kg X 10 reps (55% of 1 RM)
- 60 kg X 12 reps (40% of 1 RM)
That’s an option. You might keep your strength better than in this example. Then you can reduce the STEP (the difference between the working weights). It’s just an example, not a rule. The point is to gradually reduce the load to keep exhausting your muscles.
I believe that the DESCENDING PYRAMID is critical in bodybuilding, as it promotes muscle GROWTH rather than STRENGTH. In this regard, it’s even better for iron pumpers than the ascending pyramid. Why?
The thing is that BODYBUILDING differs from LIFTING primarily in that we don’t train STRENGTH, we train MUSCLE PERFORMANCE (WE’RE EXHASTING OUR MUSCLES)! That is we need not so much strength as the ability to demonstrate it set after set. In this respect, the descending pyramid is more useful for us than the ascending one. We keep wearing down the MUSCLES THAT ARE ALREADY TIRED (rather than fresh as in the ascending pyramid)! In my opinion, this is better muscle growth as it better promotes adaptation to long-term power load.
Bodybuilding has a similar technique called DROP SETS. It’s all about the same: decreasing working weight so that a tired muscle keeps working. The only difference is that when you do DROP SETS there is no or minimal rest between sets. Whereas the DESCENDING PYRAMID includes rest between sets. You see that they’re very similar though. Both methods allow for deeper exhaustion of trained muscles.
FULL PYRAMID
We finally made it to my favorite part. You may have noticed that our DESCENDING PYRAMID example included warm-up sets that come with the job (a cold muscle is a weak muscle). Did you have any ideas about this?
I immediately had a simple idea: if we should do 2-3 warm-up sets anyway, WHY DON’T WE ENHANCE THEM WITH THE ASCENDING PYRAMID before doing the descending pyramid? That way we’ll get ALL the advantages of both types of pyramids and a warm-up in one place. That’s actually what I usually do. Going back to our bench press, it will look like this:
- 60 kg X 12 reps (40% of 1 RM)
- 80 kg X 10 reps (55% of 1 RM)
- 100 kg X 8 reps (70% of 1 RM)
- 110 kg X 7 reps (75% of 1 RM)
- 120 kg X 6 reps (80% of 1 RM)
- 110 kg X 7 reps (75% of 1 RM)
- 100 kg X 8 reps (70% of 1 RM)
- 80 kg X 10 reps (55% of 1 RM)
- 60 kg X 12 reps (40% of 1 RM)
And here’s an example of a FULL REDUCED PYRAMID:
- 60 kg X 12 reps (40% of 1 RM)
- 80 kg X 10 reps (55% of 1 RM)
- 100 kg X 8 reps (70% of 1 RM)
- 110 kg X 7 reps (75% of 1 RM)
- 120 kg X 6 reps (80% of 1 RM)
- 120 kg X 7 reps (80% of 1 RM)
- 120 kg X 6 reps (80% of 1 RM)
- 100 kg X 8 reps (70% of 1 RM)
- 80 kg X 10 reps (55% of 1 RM)
- 60 kg X 12 reps (40% of 1 RM)
On the one hand, the full reduced pyramid offers all the advantages of the ascending and descending pyramid. On the other hand, it greatly increases the number of sets in the exercise.
WHAT PYRAMID TO CHOOSE
I wouldn’t recommend the beginners to use the DESCENDING or FULL PYRAMIDS. Why? The descending pyramid requires a very good warm-up, which is usually poor with beginners. From this perspective, it is more reasonable for them to warm up in the ascending pyramid (this also shapes the correct technique). While the full pyramid will require a lot of strength and recovery resources of the body beginners don’t have (there may be overtraining).
The less you are trained (beginners), the better the ASCENDING PYRAMID works. The more experience and the more the muscles are adapted to load (experienced, trained), the better the DESCENDING PYRAMID will work.
THE PYRAMID PRINCIPLE is when you gradually INCREASE or DECREASE weight on the equipment with each subsequent set, while simultaneously decreasing or increasing the number of sets.
- When you START the workout - WARMING UP and preparing your muscles
- When you FINISH the workout - EXHAUSTING and injuring your muscles
Accordingly, there are several types of PYRAMID, depending on the LOAD CHANGE:
- ASCENDING PYRAMID = Weight increases + Reps drop
- REDUCED PYRAMID = Ascending Pyramid + flat load
- DESCENDING PYRAMID = Weight drops + Reps increase
- FULL PYRAMID = ASCENDING + DESCENDING, i.e. you increase the weight in the exercise when your start the workout, and when you’re tired, continue working by reducing it.
- FULL REDUCED PYRAMID = ASCENDING + REDUCED + DESCENDING, i.e. this is a version of a full pyramid when you do several sets with flat weight and reps in the middles of your workout. At first the weight increases, then it’s flat and then it drops.
Ascending pyramid is a classic. In 90% of cases when you hear about the PYRAMID principle, it refers to the ascending pyramid.
- 60 kg X 12 reps (40% of 1 RM)
- 80 kg X 10 reps (55% of 1 RM)
- 100 kg X 8 reps (70% of 1 RM)
- 110 kg X 7 reps (75% of 1 RM)
- 120 kg X 6 reps (80% of 1 RM)
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