There are many better ways to add rep range variety to your training, and this argument alone still doesn’t counter the (many) negative aspects of pyramid sets. Furthermore, the final grind on the last straight set has nothing to do with how much weight you are able to handle and consequently can’t be improved by “being able to handle weight” in a lower rep range. If that were true, anyone able to bench 400 lbs would be able to easily bang out 50 pushups, which, of course, isn’t the case, as different rep ranges result in different types of training (and even different kinds of failures).

What you described in the second paragraph is a a wave, which I covered here:

http://evilcyber.com/fitness/set-toolset-waves/

A good rule of thumb as far as reps go is to count down from five, that is, increasing the weight and dropping the reps by one on each set till you do your 3RM weight for 1 on the fifth set. Now that your strength has been primed by lifting a heavier weight than usual, the real training begins, as you do two backoff sets to decend the pyramid. The goal is to do more reps than you did on the way up. Drop the weight back down to the weight you did for the double on the way up and shock the hell out of yourself by cranking out 3 or 4 no problem. Then drop down again to the weight you got 3 with and go for 4 or 5. Alternatively, you could drop the weight a little lower on that set and get 6-8 reps. Exact reps chosen aren”t important, so long as you vary them to test your strength in different ranges. A real confidence builder is to drop down to your sets-across training weight on the last set and totally obliterate it!

If you use this protocol for about 6 workouts, I can almost guarantee you that when you go back to your sets-across protocol (and you should go back to it, the pryamid protocol will not work indefinately) you’ll be increasing the weight.

Yes, this information concerns beginners. 🙂