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
