Ladder Primer, Shaf has been holding out.
 

All y'all may have read this elsewhere. For those who have not, Shaf's primer on ladders is a must read.

http://powerandbulk.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=5756

Sort of work safe unless you work at a really crappy job where you can't speakly plainly with lots of swear words, in which case, read it at home.

Early in my CF days I would tweak the WOD and where it would ask for as many pull-ups and dips in say 20 min I would use ladders. Similar thing with the DL. Super potent...have to give these a whirl again.

I've had great success with ladders. As a set/rep scheme it psychologically fits me much better than a 5x5 thing.

I hear you. The only luck I've had with 5's is the good ole' PTP style, one set of five, five days a week with maybe a couple back off singles. I get a way more mileage out of triples.

The thing I love about ladders is that it's scalable to a lot of goals. Some of the most effective VO max interval work I did when I was a trackie is very similar to a ladder format. with increasing bouts of work and then pulling back and repeating. The whole idea being that you sneak up on the peak efforts and as you say "let the volume do the work."

Wow good stuff I've been approaching ladders in the wrong way that's for sure. I always thought it was just another way to do a workout rather than Steve's approach. Thanks a lot for showing me (yet again) that I'm not nearly as smart as I think I am.

Nice article. I have used ladders in the past for pull-ups, but never really considered them as a rep scheme for weight training to build power.

I may have to give that a whirl.