Bust Plateaus With Powerhouse Pyramids

Build your best body with one (or both) of these tried-andtrue training protocols.

- Erin Calderone

When I started lifting at the ripe old age of 16, I really only knew one protocol: pyramid training. Maybe I watched Pumping Iron too many times or adopted too much old-school advice from the pony tailed, leather-skinned “Mr California 1986” at our local gym. In any case, pyramids were then and are now the classic way to organise your daily grind. And with good reason: they work.

Create metabolic anarchy!

Traditional pyramids begin with a warm-up set or two using a light weight and higher reps and progressively increase the weight and decrease the reps until you top out at your maximum possible weight for a certain number of reps (Table 1). Because each set progressively becomes more intense, your body has a chance to warm up and establish a movement pattern, helping perfect form and prevent injury. During the initial sets, your body calls more on the type I motor units — those that produce less force — to get ’er done, but by the time you hit the last and most intense set, it will call on the type II — high force — muscle fibres. These are the fibres that incite metabolic change, allowing you to lift heavier, gain more lean tissue and increase your resting metabolism.