What are ladders?

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BokBagok
BokBagok Posts: 345
in Fitness and Exercise
I just downloaded the app “You Are Your Own Gym” and it looks great for my needs. I’m not understanding something though – for some of the exercises, it mentions the workout type as ladders, and I don’t think I understand what it means by that, even after reading the description. Like it will say;

Classic Push-ups
Hands knee height
Ladders: 7.5 minutes

Can someone spell out what it means by that in that context?
Thanks

Replies

  • MoJokes
    MoJokes Posts: 691
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    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuZlmNYgyS8
  • Carol_L
    Carol_L Posts: 296 Member
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    A ladder is a set consisting of 2 complimentary exercises done in an ascending, descending or ascending and descending order.

    To give you a example, push ups/jump squats is one that is fairly common. The pushups work your arms and core, the jump squats work your lower body.

    Your ladder would be going from 10 reps of each exercise down to 1 rep sequentially without a break. That is, you'd start with 10 push-ups, get up and do 10 jump squats, then back down for 9 push ups, etc. If you're doing timed ladders, your goal would be to get through as many of these 10 reps - 1 rep sets as you can within the time limit.

    You can pick the number of reps you start at (10 is pretty common, but it's not set in stone), and in cases where you're doing a descending/ascending ladder, you might want to start of with fewer reps, because the ascending set is tougher, especially after the descending set.
  • aubyshortcake
    aubyshortcake Posts: 796 Member
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    Hello! I use that app as well, I love it!

    Now..I could possibly be wrong, but my interpretation of how to do the ladders is to start at one rep, rest for the amount of time it took you to do one, then do two reps, rest for the amount of time it took to do the two, and continue upward until your number of reps reaches muscle failure (and continue to rest in between for the length of time it took you to complete the reps), in which case you then do the same thing in a descending pattern until you're back to one rep (and of course if there is time left start going back up again).

    Does that make sense? I'm not great at explaining things lol and if I'm wrong someone please correct me, this is just what I've gathered from previous explanations. :)
  • crafty30
    crafty30 Posts: 132 Member
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    If you've got the app it does all the hard work for you, so you set it and it will tell you what do to do but basically you do 1 rep, rest for the amount of time it took you to do 1 rep, Do 2 reps, Rest for the amount of time it took you to do 2 reps, then repeat for 3 and 4 reps and then when it gets to 4 reps it counts back down again to 1..and then back up to 4 etc until the 7.5 minutes is up..I hope that makes sense!
  • nathalier71
    nathalier71 Posts: 570 Member
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    If you follow the workout you will understand very quickly - I'm on week 3 now - phew! not easy workouts!
  • BokBagok
    BokBagok Posts: 345
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    Awesome - thanks guys, I think I get it now, and when I actually start using it, it will probably make more sense too. Thanks again.

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