Anyone know anything about Pavel's Ladders???

[solidj55]

This is a way to increase your work load, endurance, strength, reps, etc. Mostly it is used on things like Pullups, chinups, situps, dips, etc. I was thinking of trying it on Pullups, situps, dips if anyone could explain the particulars. I am not sure how many days per week it is used nor am I exactly sure how the ladder is used. If anyone can explain this further I would appreciate it.

[solidj55]

This is a sample that I found but it is a little vague.

Do 1 pullup, hop off the bar, and let your partner do one (or, if you train alone like I do, take a few seconds break and imagine someone else taking the time to complete their repetition.) Then hop back up and do 2, and drop down so your partner can do 2, then 3 rest 3, try 4 rest 4 and so on until you find a number that you cannot complete. Drop back down and start again with 1, ramping back up until you reach fatigue. Someone who can do 5 pullups in a row but who wants to increase endurance might do a ladder like this: 1 2 3 1 2 1 for 10 repetitions in a set, double their current level. Once they can make it to 4, the ladder might be 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 1 2 1 for 20 repetitions, 4 times starting point. You can immediately see how this will increase finger, forearm, lat and core endurance and translate to the endurance needed on a climbing wall where sometimes you can link together a series of moves, and other times you stop to rest.

[AbsolutelyLethal]

What happens if you can do like 15-20 pullups of bodyweight? Should you add weight so that you can max out at reps at like 6-8 or should you Pavel ladder ALL the way up with bodyweight?

[solidj55]

Ok I have been researching this further and this is what I have found.
The goal is to be able to do as much volume as possible without ever reaching failure, without hypertrophy(little as possible), and to be able to do it often. Its basically teaching your body to adapt to more volume more often. It also teaches strength/muscular endurance through the path of the exercise used.

To answer your question about the amount of pullups you have two options. If you are going for muscular endurance continue up the ladder to a point where you are just short of failure, then rest and go back up the ladder. OR if you are wanting more muscular strength then go with weighted pullups and follow the same procedure. Pavel seems to recommend that once you are able to go up the ladder to 6(1, rest, 2, rest, 3, rest, etc..up to 6) that you need to increase the amount of ladders you do. So what I gather is to find a weight that you can do 4-5 times with your pullups and start off with three sets of ladders. Once you get where your ladder goes to 6 before coming down you need to start adding more ladders or more weight rather than going up in reps on the ladder.

This sounds like a bunch of crap but it makes sense if you read how he writes it.