Here’s how Pavel describes the technique used by special forces personnel to work pull-ups into their busy classroom and training schedule: "We would file out to the pull-up bars and perform what we called ladders. I do a pull-up, you do one. I do two, you match me, etc. until one of us cannot keep up. Then, if we still had time, we started over. One rep, 2 reps, 3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10... 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,... 1,2,3,4,5. We totaled hundreds of pull-ups almost daily without burning out, and the extreme PT tests of our service were a breeze."

If you train alone, you can simply time your breaks by estimating how long it would take a partner to match your reps. That’s what I do, and it works fine. In fact, Pavel says it’s better that way, because "your odds of burning out are lower." To maximize volume without overtraining, you should stop each ladder one or two reps short of your limit. In other words, if you can work up to 10 reps at the top of the ladder, it’s best to stop at about 8, and then begin at 1 again. The non-competitive approach allows you to stop at a preset number that suits your capacity, not that of your partner.

The beauty of the technique is that you get a break each time you return to the bottom rung, which allows you to do more total reps. If you tried to do repeated limit sets or used the pyramid approach (1,2,3,4,5, 6,7,8,9,10, 9,8,7,6,5...), for example, fatigue would build much faster and volume would be compromised. As Pavel says, "The ladder, on the other hand, enables the strong man to grease the groove of his chosen feat with extraordinary volume."

I’ve found that to be true. During the experiment described in my earlier article, I generally did sets of 12 or 13, for about 50 total reps a day. Using the ladder technique, I can easily do 150 chin-ups in two sessions lasting a little over 15 minutes each, or occasionally in one session of about 35 minutes. ( I generally do chin-ups only two days a week, because I don’t want to interfere with my regular training sessions.) Ladders are obviously a more efficient use of one’s time, and they give your synapses plenty of work. As Pavel says, they allow more volume, without burnout, than any other structure