Moving up in weights

Spanaval

Back in the days when I used to go to the gym, one of my instructors used to do the following. Every 6 weeks (I think, could've been monthly), she'd do a pyramid. The idea is to pick the weights you normally work out with, and then two sets below. You do essentially the same strength training routine you normally do, but you do something like this. 12 reps with the lightest, 10 with the middle, 8 with the heaviest, then step down the same way. She said that if you can actually complete the series (especially if you aren't really fighting for that last rep or two), it's time to move up in the weights. Is this a good way to force oneself to work a little harder?