Going from light to heavy and back to light again in your workouts doesn’t make you stronger or bigger than just doing the same total weight with consistent loads—if you’re already trained.

If you’re already strong and trained, you don’t need fancy workout tricks like pyramids or going to failure to get the best results—just do the same total work with any method.

If you lift the same total weight no matter how you arrange your sets—pyramid, failure, or regular—you’ll get the same results. Fancy methods don’t make you stronger or bigger if you’re already trained.

Whether you lift weights using a pyramid, go to failure, or stick to a standard routine, if you do the same total amount of work, your leg strength improves by about the same amount—around 25%—after 12 weeks.

When people who already lift weights train with different methods—like starting light and going heavy, or doing sets to failure—all of them get about the same muscle growth if they do the same total amount of work.