CLIMB THE LADDER

CLIMB THE LADDER
By Shane Robert

Strength training is such an interesting activity. There are few activities that are as malleable. If you wanted to get better at, let's say, basketball, and you asked me what the best way to go about doing that was, there is a tried and tested method that involves a lot of shooting practice, dribbling, and drills. Strength training is different.

If you ask me what to do to get bigger and/or stronger, I could say just about anything. There have been people who got crazy big and crazy strong doing vastly different things. You can’t say that any of them are wrong as results speak for themselves. Sometimes this can make people feel overwhelmed with what to do. After all, if everything works, there must be something that works best. I’d love to say that that is true. I can’t, in good conscience, say that is the fact. Even sports science can’t say what the “best” is at this time (nor do I think it ever will). We do know that some volume, some intensity, and some specificity are important. Outside of that, such as how much, how often, etc., it’s a big shrug, and “it depends.”

While others might find this frustrating, I love it. It means I have a lot of options to work with that will assuage my boredom while still getting the strength and hypertrophy benefits that I am seeking. One example of a different training method that produces powerful results is Ladders. No, not the kind you climb. These are rep ladders.

A strength training ladder is a series of “sets,” aka rungs, where the number of repetitions increases or decreases in sequence. The sets usually go from one end of the ladder to the other, then reset. Sometimes the sequence will work its way up. Sometimes it will work its way down. Sometimes it will do both, either up-down or down-up. You rest a short while between each rung, enough to recover to be able to complete the next rung, which acts as a form of rest-pause training. The advantage of ladders is that you accumulate a ton of volume with a heavier weight than you would be able to do. For example, let’s say you can press a 50-pound dumbbell 8 times. With a ladder, you may end up doing 10-15 reps per set with that same weight, while never doing more than 5 reps at a time.

Here are some examples of ladder workouts that I have used and enjoyed.

Sipes Ladder (1-10…or whatever number)

I first learned about this idea from Chuck Sipes. I could write a whole book on this guy, but, briefly, he was a badass natural lifter from the 1960s with a 600-pound bench press and the physique of a superhero.

The concept is simple: 

• do 1 rep, rest a short time
• 2 reps, rest, 
• 3, rest…and so on until you do 10. Then start over at 1. That’s 56 reps for 1 series up the ladder. Do that twice and it’s 112. Which is a lot. This can be used with movement, I suppose, but you’d have to be really sick to do this with something like squats or deadlifts. I recommend pushups or dips, pull-ups and swings. Put them all together as a circuit and you have one hell of a conditioning workout.

Dragon Door Ladder (2-3-5)

This comes from the kettlebell world and I first learned of it from Dan John, who, I believe, learned it from strength guru Pavel Tsatsouline. It works like this:

• 2 reps, rest
• 3 reps, rest
• 5 reps, longer rest. 
• Start over at 2. 

This equals 10 reps per ladder.

DJ Special Ladder (2-3-5-10)

Once again, Dan John brings the heat. This is the same as the one above, with the addition of 10 reps at the end. Obviously, the weight will need to be lighter than the one used for the 2-3-5 ladder, but the hypertrophy effect is nuts. This ends up being 20 reps per ladder. If you do 5 rounds, you’ve done 100 reps. Ouch. 

Waving Ladder 

This concept alternates between the low rep sets and the high rep sets. I learned of this little twist from Chad Waterbury, but Josh Bryant also uses something like this in his Juarez Valley Method in Jailhouse Strong. It looks something like this if you were using 1-8:

1-8-2-7-3-6-4-5

Double Ladder (3-6-12)

This beast is a spin on a Charles Poliquin workout of 6-12-24. That workout used different loads and movements. This is sticking to a true ladder concept of the same movement. It can be any number of reps as long as the next one in sequence doubles the previous one.

There is really no limit to how you can set your ladders up. There are a few good rules to follow to ensure success.

1. Never reach failure. If you aren’t able to complete a rung, don’t try to force it and remove that rung the next round if needed. This is about accumulating volume, and failure is far too fatiguing to accomplish that.

2. Use the correct load. Generally speaking, whatever the top reps of your ladder are should represent between 60-70% of your best. This means, roughly, something like a 5RM if your top rung is 3, or a 7-8RM if your top is 5. A top of 10 will be something like 14-16 rep max ability. Don’t forget that you end up doing more total reps in the ladder than that rep max, so the benefit is still huge.

3. Rest appropriately. The goal is to get all the reps, so don’t feel the need to rush into the next rung, but don’t take all day. I like to follow a breathing system that is deep breaths equal to 2-3x the rep amount. In other words, after 3 reps, I rest 6-9 deep breaths before going again. The higher the reps, the longer the rest you need before the next rung. The nice part is that going from the highest reps back to the lowest feels so easy that you almost have to laugh.