reverse pyramid training by 3J*

Information

Frequency : 5 days / week
Day Type : Day of the Week
Type : Cutting
Difficulty : Advanced

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Description

Reverse pyramid training starts with a warm up set, a over load set, two follow up sets and a dropset. I will discuss each one specifically to make sure you get a good grip on how this works. The first thing I will tell you is that all sets are to failure. It may take some time to figure out the weight that is correct for the specific exercise but that is a part of the game. Keeping a log of your workouts and the weight you use is critical!

Secondly your to have no more than 45 seconds rest between sets and 1 minute rest between exercises. There are exceptions to this with dead lifts and squats which allow up to 1 1/2 minutes between sets. I will give an example of a 5 day workout split, which is what I recommend.

The warm up set

This is simple and obvious. The warm up set is the most important set of the exercise. It prepares your body for the chaos your about to bring upon it. When warming up, take your time with your reps. Do your warm up slowly, focusing on being a bit more explosive on the flexation and coming down slow on the negative. This explosive flexation and slow negative should be done in every rep of every set of every exercise. The recommended warm up set is usually 15 reps. You should be failing at the 15th rep, so do some experimentation and figure out what weight to use.

The overload set

Here is where you fatigue your muscle with a set that is about 85-90% the weight of your max on the exercise. This causes your muscles to quickly reach a point of failure. The reps of this set should be about 4-5 MAX. It may take you some time to figure out what the correct weight for this target rep range is. As I said before, it takes some experimentation to figure out what this weight may be so be patient with the process.

The follow up sets

The next two sets are where you do all that lovely damage to your muscles so they can repair themselves and grow. There are two philosophies i follow in the follow up sets. I will either do two 8 rep sets or a 6 rep set and then a 8 rep set. Again, these sets are to failure so you must find the weight that will work for your target rep range. Always remember to be explosive on the way up and slow on your negative.

Dropset

At the end of each exercise (with the exception of dead lifts and squats) you are to do a simple 20-30 rep dropset. There is no rest between your 4th set and this dropset. Take a light weight and try to do 20 to 30 reps. Again be explosive on the flex and slow on the negative. Your arm day has a specific reverse pyramid superset I will detail in the workout routine.