Pyramid vs. Inverse Pyramid

[Scrumhalf]

Thanks! It's good to know that what was intuitive to me is in fact what the latest thinking is.

[Shibby]

I've done both and I found that if I pyramid down, my body failed to perform any harder tham needed as the routine got harder. Felt like my body kept trying to say it's had enoguh. Always reacting to make me cut things short. Like it knew that the sooner it gave out, the sooner I would lower the weight. When I pyramid up, I found my first rep strength wasn't as high as with the pyramid down, but I could push my body harder when fatigued. My body felt like it recovered quicker between sets and was ready to push hard again.

[Bouncer]

I've done both and I found that if I pyramid down, my body failed to perform any harder tham needed as the routine got harder. Felt like my body kept trying to say it's had enoguh. Always reacting to make me cut things short. Like it knew that the sooner it gave out, the sooner I would lower the weight.

sounds mental more then physical.

[Scrumhalf]

I've done both and I found that if I pyramid down, my body failed to perform any harder tham needed as the routine got harder. Felt like my body kept trying to say it's had enoguh. Always reacting to make me cut things short. Like it knew that the sooner it gave out, the sooner I would lower the weight. When I pyramid up, I found my first rep strength wasn't as high as with the pyramid down, but I could push my body harder when fatigued. My body felt like it recovered quicker between sets and was ready to push hard again.

For me, I just don't get the point of doing a set of 5 reps with 65lb dumbbells when I know that I can do a set of 5 with 70lb dumbbells. I'd rather just go to the 70s, crank out the 5 reps and stay at that weight until I don't think I can get another set with adequate reps and then drop down to get the reps back into the right range. I've never had trouble pushing hard. If anything, I end up sticking to the higher weight too long and end up with a set with too few reps, although this has been less of an issue these days since I keep the reps in the 3-5 range.

[Chadd77]

If I jumped right into the heaviest weight (even with a warm-up set) I would be worried about injuring or straining a muscle. Especially, if you already working through an injury. For me it seems to take a couple sets until my shoulder loosens up.