Easy Mass Building with Ladder Training

     Sometimes the best workouts for building muscle mass look almost easy to the casual trainee or observer.  Too many times, lifters equate how hard you train at each workout to the results that are produced.  But it just doesn’t work this way in reality.  Some of the biggest, strongest lifters and bodybuilders I’ve known looked as if they were taking it easy in their workouts.  When I first witnessed this as a young man in the gyms of the early ‘90s, I chalked it up to “genetics.”  After all, I was told in many of the magazines from that era that, if you were a “hardgainer,” you needed to train with brief but incredibly hard workout sessions.  But with many years of training—and training others—under my belt, I just don’t think that’s the case.  Now, don’t get me wrong (I mean, really don’t get me wrong), there are definitely times when you should train hard and push it in the gym.  But the majority of the time, believe it or not, you probably shouldn’t.  In fact, the bulk of the time, you should probably just train moderate.  The truth is that just as many times as I saw big, hulking lifters training “lazily,” some of the smallest, weakest lifters I’ve known often trained all-out and “balls-to-the-wall” at every workout session.  Hell, they may have been “hardgainers” for that very reason.

     A lot of time, good results are about managing fatigue NOT pushing each set to momentary muscular failure.  If you can manage fatigue properly in a workout session—or over the course of a training week—then you will end up getting more quality work during a shorter period of time in your workouts.  This leads to a better density of training.  Sometimes you need to do less so you can do more.  Paradoxical but true.  Another way to think about it is that it’s better to do less at the start of your workout so that you can do more later on.  If you show up at the gym, do a couple of incredibly hard sets to the point of muscular failure, you will often find it hard to do much else for that muscle group (or muscle groups) for the remainder of the session.  Same goes for training over the course of a week.  If you show up at the gym on Monday and kill it for one workout—whether that’s for a single bodypart or your entire body—then you are going to have to wait too long before training that bodypart (or your full body) again.  Remember, the more work you can do the better.  And that’s about managing fatigue.  Notice, too, that I didn’t say the more you do the better.  Just showing up and doing a lot of sets isn’t the answer.  The key is to get a lot of quality work done in a relatively short amount of time, and then slowly over the days, weeks, and months increase the amount of work you do in a workout or the amount of work you are able to do in a week of training.

     One of the easiest, simplest, and most effective ways of doing this is through the use of ladders.  You can go up the ladder, down the ladder, or even do ladder waves.  Let’s say you want to improve your chinning strength and you can do 6 chins before reaching failure.  If you went to the gym, cranked out one or two hard sets to failure, you’d get 6 chins on your first set, and probably 3 or 4 on your 2nd, and maybe only 2 or 3 on your 3rd set, and maybe not even that.  This is the problem of doing too much at the start of your workout, not allowing you to do enough quality work throughout.  A better option would be to do a set of 1, followed by a set of 2, followed by 3, and so on and so forth.  Stop at 5 reps.  At that point, depending on how frequently you want to train chins, you could either stop there, so that you can repeat the workout again multiple times per week, or you could continue with the workout and train less frequently.  If I was going to train chins 2x per week, I like something such as this: first ladder of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; 2nd ladder of 1, 2, 3, 4; 3rd ladder of 1, 2, 3; 4th ladder of 1, 2; and then a final set of 1.  That’s going to be 35 quality reps as opposed to the 12 to 15 not so quality reps you would get if you took each set to failure or close-to-failure.  You’re also going to get those reps within a fairly short period of time.  That’s what I mean by a good density training session.

     If you want to use higher reps on a program, try going down the ladder.  This will allow you to push up the volume a little more and might be better for hypertrophy than strength.  Although I think both methods work well for building hypertrophy depending upon the particular genetics of the trainee.

     Let’s say you want to do some high-volume squatting to pack on mass.  High-volume squatting is one of the absolute best methods that can be utilized for quick mass gains.  And let’s assume you could do 20 hard reps with a weight.  If you do 1 hard set with it, then you won’t be able to do much more than that 1 hard set.  A better way would be to start with 10 reps, about half of what you could do to failure or near-failure.  Rest briefly and do a set of 9.  Rest briefly again and do a set of 8.  Rest briefly after that and do a set of 7.  So on and so forth until you get down to 1 rep.  Now you end up with 55 quality reps that you could do in a short period of time.

     Now let’s look at some example programs that would work well if you want to give this kind of training a go.

Full-Body, 3-Days-Per-Week Program

     Do the following program on 3 non-consecutive days each week, say Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  Use a weight where 5 reps would be really tough for one all-out set.  Warm-up with two or three progressively heavier but not hard sets before commencing your work sets

• Squats: 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 reps

• Bench presses: 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 reps

• Overhead presses: 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 reps

• Power cleans: 1, 2, and 3 reps; repeat 1, 2, and 3 reps

• Barbell curls: 1, 2, and 3 reps; repeat 1, 2, and 3 reps

     If you so choose, add in a set or two of loaded carries and a set or two of heavy ab work such as the ab wheel or weighted sit-ups.

Down-the-Ladder 2-Way Split Program

     For this regimen, use a weight (after warm-ups) on each movement where 20 reps would be really damn tough for one all-out set.

Monday and Thursday:

• Front squats: 10, 9 , 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

• Sumo deficit deadlifts: 10, 9 , 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

• 1 set of farmer’s walks, hard but not all-out

Tuesday and Friday:

• Bench presses: 10, 9 , 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

• Chins: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

• Barbell curls: 10, 9 , 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

• 1 set of ab wheel or weighted sit-ups

Wave Ladder, 3-On, 1-Off Push/Pull/Legs Split Program

     Use a weight, after warm-ups, on each movement where 6 to 7 reps would be really hard for one all-out set.

Day One:

• Bench presses: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 1

• Overhead presses: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 1

• Close-grip, thick-bar bench presses: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 1

• 1 or 2 sets of heavy ab work

Day Two:

• Chins or power snatches or power cleans: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 1 (only use snatches or cleans if you’re advanced enough to handle the movement for this many reps)

• Barbell curls: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 1

Day Three:

• Squats: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 1

• Stiff-legged deadlifts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 1

• 1 or 2 sets of loaded carries

     Any of the above programs would be good.  If you’re just starting out with this kind of training, opt for the 3-days-a-week regimen first.  After that, you can go to one of the other two.  You can also rotate between each program, using one for around 6 to 8 weeks before going to the next.  If you choose to utilize one for an extended period of time, only add weight when the ladders feel easy.