Reverse Pyramid Training – “Isn’t that really dangerous?”

Over the last couple of months, I began to get active on Twitter.

Elon Musk, like him or hate him…

He’s an innovator.

I have 26k followers now, which isn’t close to my Insta or YT.

But I’m kind of liking the format.

Anyway, a few days ago I had a post go viral.

Almost 700,000 views now.

I was explaining that Reverse Pyramid Training has been my secret code to getting strong.

This video shows me benching 315 for 5 reps at a bw of 176 pounds.

I have another Tweet in that thread…

Where I am benching 360 for 2 reps (over twice my body weight).

Click here if you want to see the whole thread.

Someone had a great question.

I figured it warranted an email.

These heavy sets definitely don’t happen before a warmup.

I like a warmup like this.

• Set 1: 5 Reps at 60% of your 5-rep max
• Set 2: 3 Reps at 75% of your 5-rep max
• Set 3: 1 Rep at 90% of Your 5-rep max

So let’s say your 5 rep max work set is 200 pounds. You would want 5 reps of 120 – 3 reps of 150 – 1 rep at 180.

This shouldn’t feel challenging at all.

Rest 1-2 minutes in between these warmup sets, but extend the rest to 3 minutes for your work sets.

The two work sets would look like this.

• First work set: 200 pounds for 5 reps
• Rest 3 minutes
• Second work set: 180 for 6-8 reps (you simply reduce the first work set by 10% for the second work set).

Most of the time two work sets are plenty.

So just to recap.

You absolutely do want to do warmup sets before you get to the heavy work sets.

Also…

Follow me over on Twitter if you haven’t.

Trying to post at least once per day.

Talk Soon,

Greg O’Gallagher