This weekend I decided I wanted to go hard and heavy on my max effort lower day and decided to use a “Reverse Pyramid” rep scheme to get volume in after I maxed out. Later in the day I was talking to a friend who asked my why I chose this vs a full pyramid, or just working up to a top single. I thought this was a great question and a better topic to discuss.

Starting with “what is a reverse pyramid”. In short, this is going to be when you start with your top or max set first and work backwards. You can either work down to a bottom set and stop, or work down to a bottom set then back up. I would modify how heavy your top set is if you wanted to work back up. Doing this on max effort day my Saturday looked like this:

• Warm up sets taking plate and quarter jumps
• When you’re close to a 1RM, guess what it will be and hit it
• Single at 100%
• Single at 95%
• Double at 90%
• Triple at 85%
• Quad at 80%
• 5 at 75%
• All %’s based off your max single

Rather simple when you think about it, and most people would look at this and say “it’s not that hard once you get back under 85%”, I wouldn’t necessarily agree…

Why this is so effective is it starts you with your hardest set first and you start building fatigue right away. So the second you hit that 1RM single, your 95% is no longer 95% because of the slight fatigue from the last rep. Frequently, you’ll find this single no easier than the one at 100% you hit before it. Same for the double after etc…

If you looked at this as RPE (Rate of Perceived Exertion) based, it would probably wind up looking more like this:

• 1 at RPE 10
• 1 at RPE 9.5
• 2 at RPE 9.5
• 3 at RPE 9
• 4 at RPE 9
• 5 at RPE 8.5

Looking at it like this does a better job of visualizing the difficulty of the set, you can also see why its effective as you accumulate 6 working sets at 8.5 and above with 5 of them coming in at an RPE 9.5 or greater.

What if you want to work back up?

Very simply, I just wouldn’t start off at RPE 10 or 100% for your top single. Maybe 95% or 90% depending on your training age or skill level. Those sets would look like this:

• 1 at 90% (RPE 8)
• 1 at 85% (RPE 7.5)
• 2 at 80% (RPE 7)
• 3 at 75% (RPE 7)
• 4 at 70% (RPE 6.5)
• 5 at 65% (RPE 6.5)
• 4 at 70% (RPE 7)
• 3 at 75% (RPE 7.5)
• 2 at 80% (RPE 7.5)
• 1 at 85% (RPE 8)
• 1 at 90% (RPE 8.5)

In this case your RPE’s are much lower as you never get above 8.5 on your last single. The trade off however, is that your getting in 11 extra reps vs the reverse pyramid that started at 100%.

The question is which should you use? My answer would be that it depends (don’t you just love vague answers). If I was a younger lifter learning the lifts, or earlier in my training cycle, I’d want the lighter pyramid that goes back up. If you’ve been lifting longer or are later in the training cycle, I’d want the heavier one that works at a higher RPE. Its also worth noting, some people react better to different RPE’s, if you know you don’t handle working over a 9 well, don’t do it…

Reverse Pyramid vs a Traditional:

So why would you use a reverse pyramid vs a traditional one? Lets start with looking at what a traditional pyramid would look like. In practice it would look something like this:

• 5 at 75%
• 4 at 80%
• 3 at 85%
• 2 at 90%
• 1 at 95%
• Max
• 1 at 95%
• 2 at 90%
• Etc….

Again, you don’t have to work back down, its up to you and how much work you can handle, but you get the gist. The major difference in layout is starting from the bottom vs starting from the top. So which is better and why?

My preference is the reverse pyramid for a few reasons. First things first, when you use a regular pyramid you’re reliant on percentages taken from past lifts to be accurate for the training you’re doing that day. If you’re much stronger on this day or much weaker, it can greatly effect the stimulus you get from this workout.

I’m going to give you credit and say today you’re stronger, you attempt to do the workout above with the written percentages but because you’re now stronger the work really looks more like this:

• 5 at 70%
• 4 at 75%
• 3 at 80%
• 2 at 85%
• 1 at 90%
• 1 at 95%
• 1 at 90%
• 2 at 85%
• Etc….

Looking through this, you really only got effective work on the 3 singles above 90% and the rest of the sets may not be adequate to stimulate muscle growth or neurological adaption. The caveat to this is that if you’re a newer lifter, it takes less stimulus for you to trigger adaption and the lower weight allows you to focus on your form better. So I’d support this for someone with a lower training age.

Now back to the reverse pyramid and why I think it’s better. Starting at the very beginning where I talked about working directly to your max. I’ll admit, you’re going to have to feel out and estimate some things to get to the max, but working up to it may look like this for a 300lb bencher:

• 10 at 135
• 8 at 185
• 5 at 225
• 2 at 275
• Max or 300

The key is to use that double at 275 to tell you how strong you are today. If you grind it, maybe you only hit 285 as your top single. If the reps fly up, maybe you move to 305 or 310. After this your 95%, 90% etc… are all calculated off of the single you hit today, not your previous max, meaning that all of the corresponding sets are the correct percentage needed for you to get a training stimulus from them.

In training terms: A Reverse Pyramid that starts with a max effort attempt auto regulates itself.

For those of you that don’t know what auto regulation is, it is simply the act of adjusting your training to your strength level on that given day. For example Mike Tuchscherer or Reactive Traning Systems will teach his lifters to gauge RPEs and writes programs without percentages at all. So you would work to a set of 8 at RPE 9, drop 10% off then hit sets of 8 until it gets back to an RPE 9.

That would be an example of an auto regulated program because the weights may be different 5 weeks in a row to do the same thing. On a percentage based program you’d use the same weight, but it would be easier or harder vs how you feel that day.

Getting to the reverse pyramid. Why I prefer it is that top single does a great job of telling you exactly where you are that day, so you don’t have to guess or gauge what RPE you just hit your set at. This is a huge advantage for newer lifters or people that don’t have a training partner working with them that can give live feedback on how their sets look.

Another major advantage: You can have confidence going into all of your sets because you already hit the hardest one. Confidence getting under the bar is a big deal for newer lifters, particularly with squats.

Conclusion

I’d argue that most all of the common rep sets you’ll see will work somewhere if utilized correctly and for the right reasons. The Reverse Pyramid should be looked at as just another tool in your box (club in your bag for the golfers out there) that you can use when needed. Its not the only rep scheme nor is it the best, as I’d tell you that best doesn’t exist.

Experiment with it, find a way to work it and see how you like it. If anything it can be used to break up monotony if you’re running a boring program. Preferably, it can be something you rotate in periodically when you want to accumulate a number of heavy reps. Find what works best for you and have fun using it!