Cathe, or educated forum friends...

[jloewe]

For those of you who own the Pyramids series, would you classify them as more endurance training, or heavy training?

Thanks!!!

 

[Stebby]

I use them two ways:

(a) Heavy training, where I just do the pyramid up premix and heavy up on the weights
(b) Endurance training, where I do pyramid up and down and use a bit lighter weights

When I do (a) I get serious DOMS!

Stebby

 

[Amy Steppe]

For those of you who own the Pyramids series, would you classify them as more endurance training, or heavy training?

Thanks!!!

I think it is more a heavy training set, at least for me.

 

[jodijodi]

I think it is more endurance, but it is different from some of the other endurance workouts.

I asked a similar question last March, here's the thread if you want to read the responses I got:

http://www.thecathenation.com/forum/showthread.php?t=188994

 

[kathryn]

I think of them as more endurance (as are most of Cathe's workouts) if you do them as-is. You could make them more strength by putting in longer breaks between sets (to allow for muscle recovery and use heavier weights). That's what I do with PLB.

 

[fit_fairy]

Ditto what Kathryn said

 

[Sherri C.]

This totally doesn't answer your question, but I get great results from Pyramids. I don't necessarily think of them as heavy training, but when I mix them in between a heavy training week and an endurance week, I just feel like they make me way stronger. This is one of my favorite workouts (until STS came along).

 

[coloradomama]

There now...isn't the answer clear as mud?

 

[petramom]

Since there's no rest between the sets, and such a high number of reps (52, if my math is correct, or even more for the supersets) I think technically it's an endurance workout. But as other posts have noted, it's a very flexible workout. It would be pretty easy to stop the workout for a rest period in between weight changes so that instead of doing, say, 52 reps for one giant set, you do a set of 12, rest, then a set of 10, rest, a set of 8, rest ... you get the idea. This would make it more technically similar to a hypertrophy/strength workout.

As mentioned above, it's an excellent workout regardless of how you classify it.

 

[morningstar]

I more or less think doing the routine as set is endurance, but doing just the down pyramids like I do is muscle-building, because it really works the muscle to fatigue quickly as long as you choose the heaviest weights you can handle to begin with. I do that with Ripped workouts too - take an endurance workout and do down pyramids with it. PUB and PLB are very versatile workouts, but still, not my favourites.

 

[larks mom]

You know, I never even considered the question before. Pyramids are one of my favorite workouts. I just did them--often upper and lower body the same day. Always felt great after. I'll miss them till I finish this STS rotation