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Bodyweight Ladders

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Ricky01

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Hey folks.

Loving diamond pushups just now. I have been using them in ladders adding difficulty/volume eg 10-1 became 11-2. What are your thoughts on ladders such as these on a daily basis?

Thanks

Richard
 
Glad someone brought the topic of daily ladders up :). I've started doing daily ladders in the last couple of days. I'm doing tactical pull-ups and ring dips supersetted together.

Taking inspiration from Easy Strength and what Dan John says about ladders, I'm doing 3 ladders of 3 rungs each. I'm starting with 3x(1,2,3), and, adding one rep to one rung on one ladder each session, working my way up to 3x(2,3,5). When 3x(2,3,5) becomes easy, I'll add weight and start again from 3x(1,2,3).

I don't see how daily ladders like this would cause any issues in terms of burning out or what have you, so long as you play it conservative, since the idea of ladders is to get a lot of volume in. In my case, adding only one rep per workout and starting with just my bodyweight at very low reps, even though I could probably handle more weight or reps if I wanted to. I'm being especially careful not to push too hard on progressing the dips as I'm also greasing-the-groove with OAPUs during the day. Freshness is still the name of the game.

I should add that I'm not an instructor of any sort, so I'm just drawing from personal experience, and while my approach to ladders is a little different to yours, I hope it offers you something! :)
 
Interesting....my ladders have been roughly in the range of 10-1.

Yesterday was Diamond Pushup 11-1 SS with pullapart 10x10
Today was a tri set:
Lateral raise (shoulder was sore going overhead - long story) 10-1
Shoulder elevated on swiss ball weighted glute bridge 10-1
Shrugs (same weight as glute bridge) 20-11

Tomorrow or Friday will be diamond pushup/pullapart again

Richard
 
@Ricky01, can you clarify what your notations, such as 10-1 and 20-11 mean? This is not how ladders would normally be indicated so I'm not sure exactly what you mean.
 
Sorry - I mean I do 10 reps, then next time I do 9 reps. All the way down to 1 rep. 20-11 means I start with 20 reps all the way down to 11 reps.

Rich
 
Ricky01 said:
Sorry - I mean I do 10 reps, then next time I do 9 reps. All the way down to 1 rep. 20-11 means I start with 20 reps all the way down to 11 reps.

Rich
Click to expand...

That's not really a ladder. Ladders are most commonly done ascending, starting at with the fewest reps and working upward. But the most significant feature of a ladder is that the sequence is repeated, such as 1,2,3,1,2,3, etc, starting at the bottom rung each time. Even if you do the rungs descending, it would be 3,2,1,3,2,1.

For a great explanation of ladders, see the article by Steve Shafley in Dan John's newsletter (or, of course, Enter the Kettlebell by Pavel):

http://danjohn.net/pdfs/vaug.pdf
 
Yeah I just read it properly, it's not a ladder. I think that would be defined more as a drop set.
 
@Steve W. Thanks for the link to that article by the way! It's a good read. I especially like the look of the 'breathing ladders' (one rep, one breath, two reps, two breaths, etc.) and I'll definitely be trying them; I've been attempting to do a 1:1 work to rest ratio by just imagining myself doing the reps (I don't have a partner), but doing breathing ladders definitely looks like a more consistent way to measure time between rungs. :)
 
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