Old Forum Ladders

[morrisda]

All

 

I know Ladders in general are done with KB to enable a person to work hard with one bell, befiore jumping to the next, i.e. KB weight between standard bells is fairly large.  Ladders also help get volume in.

 

Is there any reason a person couldn't use a barbell or dumbbell and use the Ladders Principle with MP, Bench, Squats, Rows ect.

 

Has anyone here use such a protocol?

 

Dan

 

[Steve Freides]

I have done it with barbell deadlifts.  It's pretty brutal - hard to keep focused mentally, IMHO, and much harder than with a one-arm kb press.

Ladders are all about volume with a moderate weight, absolutely.

The ladder protocol also achieves volume in a way that is, IMHO, conducive to hypertrophy.  It's not bodybuilding, but a set of 5 after sets of 1-2-3-4 is different than, e.g., doing a 5-4-3-2-1 scheme - you'll get a bit of a pump from your sets of 4 and 5 in a ladder.

Could you do this with a barbell lift?  Sure - I don't think I'd make a steady diet of it, but it might be a plateau buster for a cycle, a way to get in a lot of volume and maybe put on a little size at the same time.

JMO.

-S-