ramping weight VS constant weight

[hrdgain81]

hahah thats not what I ment eric, I ment its goal oriented, and both have a progression. For instance if my goal was to have a higher max bench I would do something similar to what 0311 posted and we'll just make up numbers here :

Week 1 - 135x5,155x5,175x5,195x5,225x5
Week 2 - 135x5,165x5,185x5,205x5,235x5

or if my goal was to push maximal wieghts for a longer duration

Week 1 - 195x5,195x5,195x5,195x5,205x5
Week 2 - 195x5,195x5,195x5,205x5,205x5

so on and so forth ... thats kinda what I was getting at.

[EricT]

I don't think we're going to get anywhere on this because we're going in circles as usual. I don't want to repeat the same posts I've already made again and again.

[hrdgain81]

I'm not arguing with you eric, just trying to make my earlier post clearer.

[EricT]

I gotcha.

Again, those weights are funny. When it comes to strength someone doing 225 for their top set of ramped can do more that 205 or 195 for their top sets across. It is much closer to peak than that. I think that is one reason for your thoughts on this...thinking that the sets across should be SO much less. It's a lot of weight. Like 0311 was getting at it's tough as shit. A grinder. I'm simply saying that there comes a time when you need that grinder.

Let me just sum up my thoughts like this: Getting more weight on the bar is about introducing enough stress. There will come a time when the first example is simply not very much stress. It will fail to stimulate progress. Pure and simple. Ramped sets are great but they are by no means more effecient at raising your max lift than sets across done at a peak of your ability. As your metabolic efficiency increases what is basically happen if you continue to rely only on progressive sets is that you are leaving too much in the tank. And yes, there is obviously a big difference between, say, 5 pound increments and 20 pound increments.

I don't want this to all come off as me being the big defender of sets across vs ramped. They have their purpose at ANY time during a career.

There may be all sorts of reason for doing either at different times. For instance HS is in football right now so in his above example he might want to do ramped sets for deads since maybe 5x5 deads across could interfere with football practice. You do need to think of the effects of the individual exercise and how that fits in with the overall programming. The 5x5 deads will end up being more taxing than the 5x5 front squats for instance.

BTW, you can argue with me all you want if that were the case! I didn't mean that. I just meant that we may be covering familiar ground and I don't want to look like I'm beating a dead horse and belaboring the issue

[hrdgain81]

^^ That makes perfect sense to me eric, very nice post.

[EricT]

Oh, good. I honestly wanted to make sense out of it. I think sometimes I spend so much time on the details I forget to say the obvious things. That's because I'm more used to helpoing people with the details of their programming than I am with the general stuff. BTW, see my addtional comment I added at the bottom.

You know if you look at it a completely different way it makes even more sense. If you are a total beginner you could just do the ONE set and see some progress. Even not going to failure. For a little while at least. Most of us know that wouldn't do the job for long. But if you look at that you can see the relationship....

[MONSTAFACE]

wow. this is a whole lot of good info on here. this explains a lot abotu osme things i wondered about. i normally would do benches in pyramids. i would do 5 sets starting off with 12 reps of 225 and working up 30 to 40 pounds each set until the fourth and then rep out on the fifth set with 225.

one day i went to just do a straight 5 sets of 10 of 225 and i was struggling midway through the 3rd set. i actually was able to finish, but this explains what happened.

i normally thought pyramids were good because you got the feel of doing reps and lifting heavy all in the same workout.

[HSfootball16]

thanks guys, just as helpful as usual. i think ill stay with a constant weight, its worked so far, but ill save the ramp for when it stops working for a while. no squats/cleans though (twisted ankle). should i make a new journal or use my old one again?

[EricT]

Another obvious use for ramped sets I forgot to mention, even when your goal is straight weight is to gauge your progress. For times when your are not doing some formal 5x5 type programming you might start out your first couple of sessions ramping up with easier to heavier weights. How those sets feel will give you a very good working guess on where to start your sets across.