Incline, decline, and flat all in one day?

[Descartes]

Originally posted by: Rudee

Originally posted by: Alienwho

Originally posted by: Rudee
Also, the best routine for mass and strength in my opinion is reverse pyramids where you go to your heaviest weight first after a brief warmup, and decrease in weight by approx 15% each set. I relied on Reverse Pyramids for most of the 90's and had temendous gains all over.

I think i'm going to do these next time I switch up my workout routine. How many reps are you doing and do you do every set to failure?

The key is doing them high intensity, thus you keep the rest periods to under a minute. I use 45 minute rest periods. Sets should be taken to near failure. Here's what my typical bench press reverse pyramid looks like. (note: always warmup with a lighter weight for a couple sets before going to you heaviest weight)


Set 1 - 315x8
Set 2 - 265x8
Set 3 - 215x8

After bench press, I take a brief rest, go to the fountain for a drink then get ready to do chest flies. Chest flies are done reverse pyramid as well. After only 6 sets for chest my chest is pumped to the max and I absolutely blast the muscles to the max in a very short amount of time. Reverse pyramids work great for most all compound exercises and many but not all isolation exercises.

Damn son, that's some pretty serious weight, imo. :thumbsup:

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: Rudee

Originally posted by: Alienwho

Originally posted by: Rudee
Also, the best routine for mass and strength in my opinion is reverse pyramids where you go to your heaviest weight first after a brief warmup, and decrease in weight by approx 15% each set. I relied on Reverse Pyramids for most of the 90's and had temendous gains all over.

I think i'm going to do these next time I switch up my workout routine. How many reps are you doing and do you do every set to failure?

The key is doing them high intensity, thus you keep the rest periods to under a minute. I use 45 minute rest periods. Sets should be taken to near failure. Here's what my typical bench press reverse pyramid looks like. (note: always warmup with a lighter weight for a couple sets before going to you heaviest weight)


Set 1 - 315x8
Set 2 - 265x8
Set 3 - 215x8

After bench press, I take a brief rest, go to the fountain for a drink then get ready to do chest flies. Chest flies are done reverse pyramid as well. After only 6 sets for chest my chest is pumped to the max and I absolutely blast the muscles to the max in a very short amount of time. Reverse pyramids work great for most all compound exercises and many but not all isolation exercises.

Sometimes I'll do regular pyramids but I don't vary that much in weight, just the number of reps. First set I'll do 8-10 reps, second I'll do 6-8 and the last I'll do 4-6. I think I'll give your method a try next week to see how it feels.

 

[Alienwho]

Originally posted by: Red Dawn

Originally posted by: Rudee

Originally posted by: Alienwho

Originally posted by: Rudee
Also, the best routine for mass and strength in my opinion is reverse pyramids where you go to your heaviest weight first after a brief warmup, and decrease in weight by approx 15% each set. I relied on Reverse Pyramids for most of the 90's and had temendous gains all over.

I think i'm going to do these next time I switch up my workout routine. How many reps are you doing and do you do every set to failure?

The key is doing them high intensity, thus you keep the rest periods to under a minute. I use 45 minute rest periods. Sets should be taken to near failure. Here's what my typical bench press reverse pyramid looks like. (note: always warmup with a lighter weight for a couple sets before going to you heaviest weight)


Set 1 - 315x8
Set 2 - 265x8
Set 3 - 215x8

After bench press, I take a brief rest, go to the fountain for a drink then get ready to do chest flies. Chest flies are done reverse pyramid as well. After only 6 sets for chest my chest is pumped to the max and I absolutely blast the muscles to the max in a very short amount of time. Reverse pyramids work great for most all compound exercises and many but not all isolation exercises.

Sometimes I'll do regular pyramids but I don't vary that much in weight, just the number of reps. First set I'll do 8-10 reps, second I'll do 6-8 and the last I'll do 4-6. I think I'll give your method a try next week to see how it feels.

Yeah this is the way that I would have assumed doing it. I'll have to give this a shot as well. I can alread feel the pain with blasting the muscles so hard so quickly.

 

[Ricochet]

Originally posted by: Amused

It's all about intensity, not about volume. Everything should be minimized except intensity.

A good read.

http://www.exrx.net/WeightTraining/LowVolumeTraining.html

I have gotten huge following this advice. 6' 210 lbs, about 12-15% bodyfat (this is where I feel healthiest) 18.5" arms, 47" chest. My bench is 285 for 6-8 reps (I don't do max, but would guess it to be around 350-360)

100% natural. My only suppliments are creatine, protein (I rarely use this anymore) and a multivitamin.

Just as the article says, much of the body building advice out there is old, outdated, and written by guys who juice(d) like madmen. If you're not sitting on a needle weekly, Arnold's book and most of the other advice out there is not only worthless, it's counterproductive.

Might have to give this a try. Especially to give me more time to do cardio workouts and/or reduce my overall workout time at the gym.

 

[Whisper]

I personally do all three on the same day, along with flies (incline usually, sometimes flat).

I may give the low volume training another go at some point, but the routine I've worked out for myself over the past five or six years seems to work well for what I want. It keeps my strength and size right where I want them, and helps me to not be in horrendous shape cardiovascularly even though I hardly ever run.