I don't think I've ever understood the logic behind ladders. Can anyone shed more light on this? Seems like you're mostly just wasting time building up to the max set. I mean, it's really the hardest last couple reps of any strength exercise that is really stimulating your muscles, so doing sets of manageable reps to build up to that max set is not pushing your muscles to the limit. Why not go straight to the max number from the get-go?

Pyramids, I can understand the benefit more easily, but mostly in terms those reps on "downward" side of the max set. Funny, Tom, you mention that reverse ladders seem to work better for you, so you're basically just doing the "downward" part of pyramid, which is also the part that makes sense to me.