PT Pyramids / Programs at StewSmith.com - Military or Law Enforcement Fitness - Navy, Army, Coast Guard, Marines, RECON, SEAL, Ranger, Police, FBI

The PT Pyramid

The PT Pyramid is a no rest (rest while doing other exercises) workout complete with a warmup, max out, and a cool down all rolled into one workout. It is a great foundation builder to increase endurance and muscle stamina. I recommend this workout 1-2 times a week in conjunction with a superset or max rep workout for the other 1-2 upper body workouts in a week.

If you take a look at one of the pyramids, you will notice that it is numbered on both sides. It goes from 1-5 on one side, with the number 6 on the top, and then 5-1 on the other side. Each number represents a step in the pyramid. Your goal is to climb the pyramid all the way up, and all the way back down. So you can consider each step a "set" of your workout.

At the bottom, you will find "pullups x 1, pushups x 2, situps x 3". What this means is that at each "set" or step of the pyramid, you perform 1 pullup for every step you are on, 2 pushups for each step, and 3 situps for each step.

You start at the bottom of the pyramid, at number one. For each set, you times that set number by 1 and that tells you how many pullups to do. You multiply it by 2 to get your pushups, and multiply by 3 for situps. So you keep progressing until you get to the top of the pyramid, or your MAX At step ten you perform 10 pullups/ 20 pushups/30 situps. Now you start working your way back down the other side. So the next set you do will be at step 9 on the way back down. So, you'll do 9 pullups/18 pushups/27 situps. Keep going until you worked all the way back down to one. So here is a number summary of the pyramid:

Go up the pyramid: (or half pyramid workout)
Set/Step 1: 1 pullups/2 pushups/3 situps
Set/Step 2: 2 pullups/4 pushups/6 situps
Set/Step 3: 3 pullups/6 pushups/9 situps
Set/Step 4: 4 pullups/8 pushups/12 situps
Set/Step 5: 5 pullups/10 pushups/15 situps (Your first set sets are basically a warmup)
Set/Step 6: 6 pullups/12 pushups/18 situps
Set/Step 7: 7 pullups/14 pushups/21 situps
Set/Step 8: 8 pullups/16 pushups/24 situps
Set/Step 9: 9 pullups/18 pushups/27 situps
Set/Step 10: 10 pullups/20 pushups/30 situps (Here is where you should fail / max out)

Go down the pyramid: (or reverse order pyramid = toughest to easiest number of reps)
Set/Step 9: 9 pullups/18 pushups/27 situps
Set/Step 8: 8 pullups/16 pushups/24 situps
Set/Step 7: 7 pullups/14 pushups/21 situps
Set/Step 6: 6 pullups/12 pushups/18 situps
Set/Step 5: 5 pullups/10 pushups/15 situps (Still tough until this point reaching failure at every level)
Set/Step 4: 4 pullups/8 pushups/12 situps
Set/Step 3: 3 pullups/6 pushups/9 situps
Set/Step 2: 2 pullups/4 pushups/6 situps
Set/Step 1: 1 pullups/2 pushups/3 situps (Finish cool down)

In conclusion - the pyramid has a warmup. max out, and cooldown all built in AND will definitely help you with your PT scores.

Other creative ideas:

ADD: dips to the exercises for additional tricep /shoulder burn. I usually do the same number of dips as I do pushups.

ADD: Running 100 sprints to add some killer cardio. These will hurt you and you will lose your juice quickly so bring gaotroade for blood sugar / electrolyte replacement and water to drink...

Enjoy the workout idea. If you are interested in fitting pyramid workouts into a comprehensive training program check out the StewSmith eBook Fitness Store.

Related Articles: Pushup Push, Pullup Push, PT SuperSets

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Stew Smith is a former Navy SEAL and Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) by the National Strength and Conditioning Association. He specializes in military and law enforcement fitness, particularly Special Operations units. Please feel free to email him at Stew@stewsmith.com with any comments or questions.

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