Cathe Friedrich's Pyramid Strength Training Workouts

Cathe's third volume in her Intensity Series offers killer pyramid workouts for both lower and upper body. With pyramid training, you go from high reps/low weight to low reps/high weight for a unique and challenging workout. In this video, many exercises are performed in a superset format (alternating 2 exercises for each muscle groups) for 5 grueling sets, making this one of the toughest strength workouts out there. Luckily, there are plenty of premixed versions available for shorter but still challenging workouts. This is a great choice if you want a tough strength workout for the entire body.

The upper body workout targets the chest, back, shoulders, triceps and biceps and most exercises involve supersetting - alternating two exercises for each muscle group. The workout uses a variety of dumbbells, a step and an exercise ball.

For each exercise, you perform 12 reps, increase the weight for 10 reps and then increase the weight again for 8 reps. You then work your way back up for a total of 5 sets of each superset.

Here's the breakdown:

• Chest: Alternating chest flies and chest press. This is a tough one because you may need different weights for these exercises.
• Back: Dumbbell Pullovers and double-arm rows
• Shoulders: A tri-set with rear delt raises, lateral raises and front raises
• Triceps: Kickbacks and seated extensions
• Biceps: Hammer curls and regular curls. In my opinion, this is the hardest of the bunch because Cathe keeps the count slow (2 counts up/2 counts down) for each set.

There's an abs section as well using a stability ball and it includes crunches holding the ball, toe touches, rolldowns, leaning side rotations, seated rotations with a dumbbell and very tough knee tucks and pikes. The workout ends with a nice stretch, bringing it to about an hour in length.

And one note, as you move into the heavier weights and shorter reps, Cathe often slows the moves down which really adds intensity, so you should be an advanced exerciser for this workout!

Overall, this is a very challenging workout and great if you're looking for high intensity training. It can get a bit tedious, but you can also do the shorter premixes if you want a shorter workout.

The lower body workout operates the same way as the upper body. For each exercise you do 5 sets, starting with 12 reps, then 10, then 8 and then back up to 12, increasing and decreasing your weights as you go. The main difference here is that there aren't as many supersets - a relief since you're using a barbell for most exercises and changing the plates for every set takes a lot of time.

This workout involves a barbell with varying plates - Cathy works between 25 and 40 lbs - a high step for leg presses and a stability ball for the toning moves. Don't forget that you can always use dumbbells in place of the barbell. Here's the breakdown:

• Leg Press
• Lunges
• Alternating Squats and Plie Squats
• Deadlifts
• Calf Raises

The workout also includes stability ball work for toning and includes hamstring rolls, butt lifts and outer thigh work on the ball. The cool down stretch is relaxing and feels great on the legs.

The main drawback of this workout is simply the weight changes, but , as Cathe mentions, you can always do the workout with dumbbells to save time, which is something I do often. And, like the upper body workout, there are short premixes with just three sets as well, although I don't find this quite as challenging as the full workout.

Overall, this is a great workout and perfect when you want an intense lower body workout. You should definitely be an advanced exerciser for this workout!

The pre-mixed segments are a wonderful addition to the DVD, giving you more options for shorter workouts...a blessing for those days when you can't make it through the entire pyramid or if you're simply not ready to tackle five sets of each exercise.

The pre-mixed workouts are very straightforward. For both the upper and lower body, you can choose to follow the pyramid up (starting with the heaviest set and moving up to the lightest set) or the pyramid down version (starting easier and getting harder). With these choices, you end up doing just three sets and spending half the time on each workout.

Bonus Combo

The bonus combo is a total body workout which mixes and matches different exercises for the upper and lower body. All of the exercises go from lighter weights/higher reps to heavier weights/lower reps. The workout includes:

• Squats/Plies
• Leg presses
• Chest press and flies
• Pullovers and rows
• Leg presses again
• Lunges
• Rear delt lifts, lateral raises and front raises
• Deadlifts
• Calf raises
• Kickbacks and triceps extensions
• Biceps hammer curls and regular curls

This makes for a great total body workout that lasts just under an hour, including the warm up and stretch. It isn't quite as challenging, since you're only doing three sets of each exercise, but it's a great way to work the whole body in less time and to change things up.

As with all of Cathe's videos, I find more pros than cons with her Pyramid series. The high points include:

• A very challenging workout that can help you bust through strength plateaus
• A great way to practice using heavier weights
• The DVD offers a variety of pre-mixed workouts so you can change your routine regularly and avoid boredom
• Cathe's excellent form pointers ensure you're doing all the moves with great form

The only real complaint I would have about this one is the length of each workout. If you do the full version, each workout takes an hour and the weight changes, especially with the lower body barbell exercises, get tedious over time. For that reason, I tend to do the full versions less frequently and stick with the shorter premixes for most of my strength workouts. But, it's nice to have so many options. I would definitely recommend this one for advanced exercisers.

One other note: While home exercise videos seems to be more of a woman's domain and this video is, of course, taught by a woman, I think this is one that would also appeal to men. It's very straightforward, it focuses on building muscle and strength and I think most men would be impressed by the amount of weight Cathe uses.