What is your opinion on Reverse Pyramid Training? Like, dislike? Maybe effective for certain neurotypes? Thanks.
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Do you mean starting with the higher reps/lower weight sets or the opposite?
I think he means the opposite, heavy weight/low reps and then decrease weight and inscrease reps
Ah ok, yes that works well for neurotype 1B and 2A. The opposite is better for Type 2B and 3
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Cool, thanks
It’s great for Slow Twitch fibers. However, keep in mind that this is just a intensity technique and you should use different techniques depending on the muscle that you will train. Example: Hamstring will not respond as good as Quads to this model.
Not true at all. That is a gross misunderstanding of human physiology OR blindly quoting broscience without questioning it. I don’t even understand why you would say that. IF ANYTHING it increases FAST TWITCH fiber stimulation. By doing the heavy work first you activate the nervous system, which will increase FT fiber recruitment. And even if you increase the reps from set to set you aren’t getting into “slow twitch zone” unless you are doing sets of something like 50 reps or more.
PLUS when you use “normal” reps (up to 20 for example) and you reach a point close to failure THE FAST TWITCH FIBERS WILL ALSO GET STIMULATED. This has been shown in a recent study by Wilson and al. Heck, that study even found that going to failure with 30% or going to failure with 80% led to the same amount and TYPE (which muscle fibers where hypertrophied) of hypertrophy after weeks of training.
Here’s how muscle fiber recruitment works in normal situations…
Except for some specific exceptions (electrostimulation for example), slow twitch fibers are alays recruited first. The intermediate then fast twitch fibers are then recruited when the need to produce force increases.
As soon as the need for force production reaches 80-82% of your maximum force AT THAT MOMENT you will be recruiting all your “recruitable” fibers. That does not mean 80-82% of your max on the bar. It means that at the moment you are performing a repetition the weight on the bar represents 80-82% of your maximum at that instant. If you are on your 9th rep, fatigue has accumulated, making your muscle weaker. So at that moment it is weaker than it was at the beginning of the set.
With normal weights (in the 60-80% range) you have a fatigue level of 2 to 4% per rep.
So for example let’s say that you are using a weight that is 70% of your maximum.
On the first rep it is 70% of your capacity at the moment,
On the second rep it is now around 73% of your capacity because of the fatigue,
On the third rep it is 76%
Fourth it is 79%
Fifth it is 82% … from that point on, you will be recruiting the fast twitch fibers because the weight represents a high percentage of your capacity at the moment.
So it is not true that doing sets of 10, 12, 15 or 20 reps “target only the slow twitch fibers”.
To target the slow twitch fibers you need to avoid getting over 80-82% of effort at any point of the set.
For example if I do very high reps with a super small weight, something I could do 50+ reps with, the fatigue from each rep will be minimal because the effort required does not create much fatigue… this would not stimulate the fast twitch fibers.
Or doing something like multiple sets of 3 reps with 65-70% with plenty of rest between sets would not recruit the FT fibers (unless you try to accelerate) because you never reach a point where the weight represents more than 82% of your max of the moment.
If you do something like:
4, 6, 8,10,12,15
or even
4,8,12,15,20
If the level of effort is there, you will target all of your fibers WITH AND EMPHASIS ON FT FIBERS because the sets of 4, 6 and 8 would have a big impact on the FT fibers, a good one on intermediate fibers and nothing really on the slow twitch fibers.
Now if we were talking about sets of:
10, 20, 30,40, 50
You might at least have a point, but that’s not what we were taking about and, frankly, who does that???
That would be true if your assumption that it targets the ST fibers more was true (since hamstrings TEND to be more FT dominant). But your assumption, as I explained, is not true.
But again, understand that what he referred to is the reverse pyramid loading scheme. He didn’t even talk about rep number here.
It could mean…
1, 3, 5, 8, 10
Which would certainly be a FT-dominant loading scheme.
Furthermore, unless everything you do in the gym are isolation exercises you can’t really use muscle fiber dominance to select the best rep range. Take a squat for example. The quads, glutes, hamstrings and lower back are prime movers. Some of these muscles are “FT dominants” while others are “ST dominant” how do you select proper rep range? And not only that, depending on technique and levarage, some people will be quads-dominant when they squat others will be hips dominant.
I agree that some exercises are best performed within a certain rep zone, but it’s mostly due to the neurological and technical demand of the exercise. A movement that has a higher neurological component (harder on the CNS) and a more complex technique, should not be done for too many reps because things can go wrong a lot more easily.
But still, the reverse pyramid does not automatically implies high reps as you seem to believe.
BTW it is not even a technique that I use often, but people trying to look too smart and give a recommendation based on superficial knowledge, something they heard someone say or read on the internet, piss me off. As someone who spends most of his time researching how the body works it is one of my pet peeves. It is NOT a personal attack. It just happens to be the ONE thing that piss me off.
Not at all. It is NOT an intensity technique. It’s a loading scheme. Intensity techniques, or intensifiers are ways to make each set more demanding. Things like…
Drop sets
Rest/pause
Super sets
Mechanical drop sets
Myo reps
mTor reps
Tempo contrasts
Clusters
Post-failure partial reps
Etc.
…are intensity techniques. A more complete (but still not inclusive, I have a list that is a ton longer) would be:
CATEGORY 1 - EXTENDED SETS
Rest/Pause (single, double, death-by) Post-failure isometric hold
Post-failure assisted eccentrics
Post-failure iso hold + assist eccentrics Full reps + partial reps
Drop set (single, double, death-by) Mechanical drop set
Mechanical drop set with intensifier Myo-reps
CATEGORY 2 - SUPERSETS AND TRIPLE SETS
Antagonist superset
Pre-fatigue superset
Post-fatigue superset
Isolation superset
Compound superset
Pre-post fatigue triple set
Post-fatigue triple set
Pre-fatigue triple set
CATEGORY 3 - TEMPO INTENSIFIERS
Tempo contrast (slow/slow/fast/fast/slow/slow, etc.)
Slow concentric
Slow eccentric
Superslow reps (concentric and eccentric)
Tempo drop set (superslow --) slow eccentric --) normal/cheated reps)
Reverse pyramid, pyramid, double pyramid, wave loading, straight sets, plateau loading, etc. are loading schemes, ways to organize the sets and reps for an exercise. They have nothing to do with “intensity” in the way that you implied (making things harder). Even though they do include “intensity” in the true sport-science meaning of the word which refers to a percentage of your maximum effort.
No “BroCiencie” here, just science. It will totally depends on which one of the studies your are taking in consideration for your explanation since the study of the fibers is not clear enough this days. Each author have their own percentage due to different studies that they made. Perfect example of this is that you can find some people that says that Hamstrings have 67% of Slow Twitch fibers and another one will tell you will have from 45 to 55% and it may vary.
Pyramid Scheme is part of a intensity technique since will be a progressive load and then a drop set like you said, but if this were just a regular training method anyone will be able to do it at first in the right way and that’s not the case.
Since recovery it’s very important for muscle grow, it will be essential for someone to take in consideration the amount of time of recovery for each fiber type, taking in consideration that type I fibers take up to 72 hours and Type II/ IIA will take 48 hours to recover, so for a better periodization it will be much better to divide training for each one of this muscles, that’s more the approach of Charle’s Poliquin, but different bodies may react different to each training method.
Talking about fibers, it senseless to try that approach with everyone since there’s no effective 100% way to determine which kind of fiber does everyone has ( since you could be Slow Twitch dominant on your hamstring or fast twitch on your Quads) because that’s how genetic’s works.
Anyways, if you attach those studies will be great and in that way everyone here will be able to discuss their knowledge in the area. Different certification levels have different approach and also it will have different methods.
Thanks for the comment buddy
Oh, I almost forgot to say sorry, since I keep it simple. Maybe that was the problem.
-Simple questions need simple answers.
BTW , the reasons why we tend to believe that sets of 10-20 reps are bad for fast twitch fibers is that training in that zone doesn’t have a big impact on 1RM (or low reps) strength. So we assumed that the FT fibers did not grow, that only the weaker ST fibers grew and that it explains the low gain in strength.
In reality it is simply that lower weights/higher reps work does not improve the neurological factors of force production as much. That’s the main reason why strength gains are lower. For, example the study I mentioned had the same muscle size gain with sets of 30% and 80% if done to failure AND the hypertrophy type was the same BUT the 80% group had twice the strength gains. This was due to neurological adaptations.
Low weights/high reps work does not, for example, improve your capacity to rapidly recruit FT fibers. It also doesn’t do much to increase FT fibers firing rate, which is the most important element to modulate force production, not fiber recruitment.
So if you only look at the outcome (strength gained vs. size gained) it is easy to assume that higher reps = slow twitch hypertrophy and lower reps = fast twitch hypertrophy. But the real reason really is neurological adaptations.
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Yeah, because a lot of those certificat levels use the same material that was used in the 80s, 90s and early 2000s in college physiology classes. I know all about what you just said. I covered all that material during my B.Sc. and M.Sc. studies and I even thought the material myself. But most of what you mentioned is actually practically incorrect. Well to be more precise there is some superficial truth (which is why it was being taught in college) but more recent work, with newer techniques and approaches have shown that things are not exactly as we believed. And more than that, real, in-the-trenches experience has often shown that the theory was not 100% accurate. My forum is not a place to engage in debates. It is to allow me to help people out with their training issues. While I love to talk training, and if we ever met I’ll be glad to talk with you four hours, I don’t have the time to argue. Anyway, from experience nobody has ever made someone change their mind via an online debate because it’s mostly about looking smart.
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Not at all buddy, I’m always open to learn.
That’s why olympic lifters train the same muscles everyday? Sometimes twice a day?
Charles is a friend. And his basic model has you training everything once every 5 days, he doesn’t have the variation per muscle that you mention in his programs.
As far as I know and as I understand. Training for hypertrophy and training for strength are two different part of the scheme. Both are related, but one could coexist without the other. Olympic training have different approach with reps, sets and techniques. Aren’t we talking about hypertrophy here, are we?
Maybe it’s sound sarcastic but remember that everything will depends how you read it on your side. I’m no trying to argue, I’m I will also be more than happy to talk about training with someone like you (y).
It’s not buddy, relax. I think that we have different perspective here. I will stop the comments in this post and we avoid confrontation or misunderstanding.
Of course. But we still use the same body. So if FT fibers take longer to recover, it would mean that the athletes who rely most heavily on FT fibers to perform would need a lower frequency to allow these fibers to recover. So it should be impossible for an olympic lifter to squat every day, yet they do and often perform better at the end of the week, after 5 sessions.
And bodybuilders, those who (based on your perception that higher reps do not work the FT fibers) rely on the fibers that recover the fastest, only tend to train a muscle once a week.
Theory is one thing. But real life trumps it IMHO.
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No need. I’m admittedly on edge today. Wife is pregnant and we had a scare this morning. I also have to write two articles in the next few hours because I’m leaving tomorrow for a seminar, and I just got back Monday from another one.
Not correct, based on a general perseception. There’s a sentence that said specifically that people may react different to different training methods depending of there genetics. You could have more Slow Twitch of Fast ones depending on different factors that just experienced ones will be able to reconize. For that reason there’s different training methods:
German Volume
Heavy Duty
Antagonist-agonist
Japanese method
Ect… If everybody reacts the same to the same training, everybody will be able to use the same training method to have results and that’s not the case, but your point of view is interesting.