Whatever happened to them. When I was Tanners age 25yrs ago it was considered the way to lift. The most effective and efficient. After reading Swanso reply in another thread were he recommended 10X3 at high intensity it made me think of it. Dont pyramid sets give you the best of both worlds. The reps for tone and the weight for building? Have they been outdated or proven wrong? I havent seen them mentioned here or on any other sites that I can think of.
For those people that might not be familiar with the term it goes something like this.
1X12-15 of say 60% max weight
1X 8-10 of 70-80% max weight
1X 4-6 of 90-100% max weight
1X 8-10 of 70-80% max weight
1X 12-15 of 60% max weight
Pyramid sets?
Moderators: Boss Man, cassiegose
No they still happen, but the problem I would forsee is, if you're bulking, they won't do enough as a few meaty sets of 6, because you activate different muscle Fibres depending on the rep range you use.
If you want solid Bulk, there's no point doing some sets with a muscle endurance style, so that's possibly why they aren't advocated as much these days.
If you want solid Bulk, there's no point doing some sets with a muscle endurance style, so that's possibly why they aren't advocated as much these days.
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elgatogrande
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Thanks Bossman for your prompt reply. So youre saying a more effective way of gaining size and strength would be something like
1 X 10-12 @ 60% +/- for warmup
5-10 X 3-5 @ 90%
Im a little confused about some of th terms. Is buffing and toning and cutting the same thing? Bulking is just putting on muscle mass? And. even though Im already large with a high body fat % I should still bulk up muscle mass while trying to burn fat at the same tiime?
1 X 10-12 @ 60% +/- for warmup
5-10 X 3-5 @ 90%
Im a little confused about some of th terms. Is buffing and toning and cutting the same thing? Bulking is just putting on muscle mass? And. even though Im already large with a high body fat % I should still bulk up muscle mass while trying to burn fat at the same tiime?
Bulking refers to gaining Muscle bulk.
Cutting refers to reducing bf%, so you look cut, ripped, shredded call it what you will.
Buffing is what you do to Shoes or a Car
. No in all seriousness though, Buffness, is not an exact science, it's just a guy who's 180lb's and 10% bf could be buff, or a guy who's a 210lb natural, and 20%bf could be buff.
The only stipulation for most peoples idea of buff, I would say, is that if you're a 300lb natural, 35% bf, you aint buff. Even if you could Bench 250+ lb's.
I think most people just interpret Buffness in their own way, based on the person they're looking at.
As for the 5-10 x 3-5 yes, in a way.
You can bulk quite well with an 8-10 rep range, but some like to go lower say 6 reps per set, or even a 3-5.
I did read somewhere once that reps, stimulate different fibres.
I think they were called Type 1,2 and 3 Fast Twitch Muscle Fibres.
recollection is a bit hazy, but I think the site I saw said, Type 1 work at a ratio of 1-3 reps.
Type 2 work at 4-6
Type 3 work at 7-10 or something like that, and anything over that would be going into muscle endurance territory.
Cutting refers to reducing bf%, so you look cut, ripped, shredded call it what you will.
Buffing is what you do to Shoes or a Car
. No in all seriousness though, Buffness, is not an exact science, it's just a guy who's 180lb's and 10% bf could be buff, or a guy who's a 210lb natural, and 20%bf could be buff.The only stipulation for most peoples idea of buff, I would say, is that if you're a 300lb natural, 35% bf, you aint buff. Even if you could Bench 250+ lb's.
I think most people just interpret Buffness in their own way, based on the person they're looking at.
As for the 5-10 x 3-5 yes, in a way.
You can bulk quite well with an 8-10 rep range, but some like to go lower say 6 reps per set, or even a 3-5.
I did read somewhere once that reps, stimulate different fibres.
I think they were called Type 1,2 and 3 Fast Twitch Muscle Fibres.
recollection is a bit hazy, but I think the site I saw said, Type 1 work at a ratio of 1-3 reps.
Type 2 work at 4-6
Type 3 work at 7-10 or something like that, and anything over that would be going into muscle endurance territory.
most programs are set round pyramids basically either up, down or both...most inexperienced trainer's go to failure on the 1st half the pyraimd for all sets so by the time they get to their 4 or 6 rep wt which should be a max effort just about, they have already fatigues themselves by going all out for 20 - 30 other reps...so if your doing 5 x 15, 12, 10, 8, 6 than the 1st 3 sets would be very easy and used as warm up sets but would still count in the pyramid (the 5 sets)...as boss man said though you need multiple sets at a max wt to get enouf=gh stimulation for growth (volume basically) so you need to regukate your volume. ecspecially during the warm ups (don't want to do too many, too few etc)...i think that there are plenty of better systems to go by personally