Strength Training - Intermediate Routines

Articles by Nathan Smith, Add Nathan Smith on Facebook

Welcome to the world of Intermediate Strength training. Now that you're trawling around these articles it's a safe bet to say you're either reading this for the fun of it or you've advanced to a point in your training where you need the next step in routine.

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1st Routine: Reverse Pyramid Training

Reverse Pyramid Training. Reverse Pyramid Training is hilariously effective even when you're at a very advanced level. Reverse Pyramid Training is something I stumbled upon through Martin Berkhans website, although I believe it was founded by Randy Herring. 

RPT is compromised of 3 sets;

1st Set: Max Effort Set - Firstly do your warm up, with a light weight for 10 reps to get blood flowing, then a weight that is 75% of what you're going to be doing for 4-6 reps. So if you're using 60kg on bench (1 plate either side) then you'll use like 40kg, just round it to the nearest. This set is going to be the heaviest you can do, if you don't have a spotter then you just need to be very aware of your limits, I've never used a spotter and always progressed fine doing this routine, you know what you can lift.

2nd Set: Drop the weight by 10% (round it to the nearest whole kg you can make since obv gyms all have different place), and try to beat your previous set by at least 1 rep. You're going to failure.


3rd Set: Repeat step 2, drop the weight by a further 10% and beat it by 1 rep. This should mean your first set goes 4-6 reps, second set is 5-7, third is 7-8. So there's a good mixture of volume in these sets, it's good for growth and since there's only one difficult set it makes life nice and easy, the workouts are really fast.

Rest 3-5 minutes between all sets.


Routine:

Day 1: 
Deadlift
Weighted Chin Ups
3x Max hanging leg raises

Day 2: Rest 

Day 3:
Flat Bench Press
Tricep Rope Cable Push Downs

Day 4: Rest

Day 5: 
Squats
Calf Raises (3 sets of a heavy load to failure, 10-20 rep range)
Weighted Crunchs 3x8-12 (just for some ab work)

Day 6: Rest
Day 7: Rest

And repeat. If you want it to be even simpler, alls I did was deadlift, weighted chins, squats and bench and I got fantastic strength gains from this. It really depends on what you're lifting for, people who are considered with just strength over aesthetics will benefit from going without accessory exercises, and with a high deadlift or squat you will no doubt have a well developed core. 

The routine looks deceptively easy and low volume at first...as though there must be something you need to be doing that you're not. Well low and behold there isn't, it is that easy. This is a routine I encourage for people who don't want their life to be bodybuilding, who want to have as much free time as possible and don't particularly care about having crazy cardio or being well conditioned...which is not a crime because some of us do lift just to look better or be stronger. As you start progressing towards 1.5x bodyweight bench presses, over double bodyweight squats and nearing triple bodyweight deadlifts you may start to notice slightly slower progress - but really up until that point you should be able to consistently put at least 2.5kg on your first lift each session.

If you do come to stall but enjoy the routine too much to want to change, just start working on increasing the rep range of your first set each session. When your first set ends up being 8 reps with a weight you once used for 2-5, increase the weight by 2.5-5kg and go again. An alternative is also to deload the weight by 10-20kg (which should take you back to 4-8 sessions of old weight) and start working up again from there with 2.5kg increments each session - that should break you through plateaus by the time you come to your stalled weight again.


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