What are ladders?
Ladders are a rep scheme that can be used to increase the total volume of work. Ladders are similar in concept to pyramids, except that ladders go up and don’t come back down the other side.
How to do ladders…
You will take the exercise you are working on and start off with 1 rep. Take a short break and the do 2 reps. Take another break and do 3 reps. Continue this way until you reach your target rep. Let’s say your target rep is 6.
When you get to 6, you would’ve done 21 total reps. On some exercise, that might be enough. But let’s say you want to do another ladder. Then you start off at 1 again and work up to 6 reps, like before.
It ends up looking like this:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
rest 1 minute
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
The terminology used to describe the previous reps and sets would be, 2 ladders/6 rungs. This means work up to 6 reps and do it for a total of 2 sets.
As you can see, this is a great way to get volume in while still being fresh. This is a great way, along with pyramids, to increase max reps on an exercise. For example, let’s say you can only do 10 pull-ups. By doing ladders of 6 rungs, you do what you can and still get a total of 21 reps of work.
Try not to do to much when first starting out. Because it feels easy, it’s also easy to do too much work and end up really sore. Maybe only do 1 ladder of 5 one workout and then see how you feel the next day. If that was too easy, then either increase the rungs or stay at 5 and do another ladder. That’s a total of 30 reps.
Give them a try and let me know how it goes.
photo credit: ladder
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