The 100 Rep Workout:Adding Muscle With Pyramid Training

If adding muscle is your goal, adding volume to your training is important factor. By adding volume we are talking about performing more repetitions of a particular exercise.

One way to do this is just adding more repetitions to the sets you are already performing. The downside to this is you may limit yourself with the weight you are using do get this done. Lets say we did 5 sets of 15 repetitions (a pretty grueling task for some) we would end up doing 75 repetitions at the conclusion if we didn't break down towards the end.

Performing a Pyramid Workout we can easily get to 100 reps and feel fresher at the end. This would involve performing 1 repetition  to begin with, resting, then increasing each set by one  repetition until we have worked up to 10 repetitions. After the tenth repetition we would work our way back down to 1 repetition. To help visualize this the scheme would look like this: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 grand total 100 repetitions!

We can pair this scheme with an additional movement if you were feeling ambitious to give us a total of 200 repetitions. A suggestion if you are going to pair movements would be not to select competing muscle groups. For example if you are doing a bench press, a bent over row would compete with that movement by actively recruiting the eccentric muscles in the back and shoulders worked in the bench press. Choosing a squat or dead lift may serve you better if you want to feel stronger towards the end of the workout.

Bonus Points: Work with one weight until you have reached the tenth repetition, then progressively add weight as you go back down to one ending with 85-90% of your max for the last rep!