Achieving high intensity in your workouts is mandatory for stimulating your muscles and inducing them to grow. However, plain sets and reps are often not enough for advanced bodybuilders for achieving the needed intensity levels. To deal with this, many specialized techniques intended to increase the training intensity exist. This post introduces some of these techniques, namely supersets, pre-exhaust training, forced reps, rest-pause training, and drop sets.
A superset is a composition of two exercises performed consecutively in a row with virtually no rest between them. Supersets are especially useful when the training time is limited. Two types of supersets can be distinguished. In the first one, you superset two exercises for two different body-parts (typically two antagonistic body-parts). This allows recovering each body-part while working the other one. Typical antagonistic body-parts that can benefit from this technique include biceps/triceps, but also chest/back or quadriceps/hamstrings. In the second one, you superset two exercises for the same body-part. This allows hitting a muscle from two different angles (or hitting different heads of a muscle) without rest. You can superset any two exercises basically, but it is generally more of application when referring to pre-exhaust training (see next paragraph).
Pre-exhaust training consists of doing an isolation exercise followed by a compound exercise for a given body-part. The isolated exercise fatigues the major muscle and, for this reason, during the compound exercise the smaller and weaker secondary muscles must come into action, which allows pushing the major muscle harder. Typically, weight in the isolation exercise is light to moderate and reps are usually in the higher range. Pre-exhaust training can be approached in two different ways. One consists of first doing all the sets of the isolation exercise and the move to the compound exercise. The other uses the superset concept, namely first doing one set of the isolation exercise and then, without rest, doing a set of the compound one. In fact, the pre-exhaust concept can be extended to an entire workout, for instance by doing triceps first, followed by chest. This applies also to biceps and back, shoulders and chest, or calves and thighs.
Forced reps involve working a body-part to failure. When you reach failure, a spotter gives you a very gentle lift to finish the rep and squeeze out the muscle a bit more. As you can see, the utilization of a spotter is essential in this technique, but providing more a mental boost than actual help. In this sense, typical abuse with this technique comes when the trainer relies on the spotter for assistance during most of the set. Notice that properly executed, this is a very demanding technique, and it should not be done for every set.
Rest-Pause training is similar to forced reps, but when you reach failure, instead of getting help from the spotter, you put the weight back on the rack for a few seconds. Then you do a few more reps until failing again, and repeat this process until you get the desired total number of reps. This technique is useful when a spotter is not present and it is very effective for getting past sticking points.
A drop set entails performing a set of any exercise to failure, then drop some weight (the necessary to maintain the same number reps) and, with little or no rest, continue for more repetitions with the reduced poundage until failing again. Notice that a spotter is recommended to keep rest time short (by helping you to drop the weight). Several names are used to refer to this technique, including breakdowns, descending sets, or strip sets, and it entails also a lot of variations, such as the double-drop (reduce the weight once), the triple-drop (reduce the weight twice), or the down-the-rack sets (use every consecutive set of dumbbells down a rack).
Remember that these techniques are great for increasing your training intensity, stimulating in this way muscle growth, but they are also very demanding on the muscular and nervous systems, taking longer to recover totally. For this reason, using them too often (especially those moving around the failure concept), can lead you to overtraining.
I’ll go in detail on these techniques in future posts but, in the meanwhile, you can check the article “Training Styles: Which One is Best for You” by James Sadek, the article “The 16 Most Advanced Intensity Building Techniques” by Nick Nilsson, and the article “A Question Of Intensity” included in the I.C.E. Training Program developed by Big Cat.
A superset is a composition of two exercises performed consecutively in a row with virtually no rest between them. Supersets are especially useful when the training time is limited. Two types of supersets can be distinguished. In the first one, you superset two exercises for two different body-parts (typically two antagonistic body-parts). This allows recovering each body-part while working the other one. Typical antagonistic body-parts that can benefit from this technique include biceps/triceps, but also chest/back or quadriceps/hamstrings. In the second one, you superset two exercises for the same body-part. This allows hitting a muscle from two different angles (or hitting different heads of a muscle) without rest. You can superset any two exercises basically, but it is generally more of application when referring to pre-exhaust training (see next paragraph).
Pre-exhaust training consists of doing an isolation exercise followed by a compound exercise for a given body-part. The isolated exercise fatigues the major muscle and, for this reason, during the compound exercise the smaller and weaker secondary muscles must come into action, which allows pushing the major muscle harder. Typically, weight in the isolation exercise is light to moderate and reps are usually in the higher range. Pre-exhaust training can be approached in two different ways. One consists of first doing all the sets of the isolation exercise and the move to the compound exercise. The other uses the superset concept, namely first doing one set of the isolation exercise and then, without rest, doing a set of the compound one. In fact, the pre-exhaust concept can be extended to an entire workout, for instance by doing triceps first, followed by chest. This applies also to biceps and back, shoulders and chest, or calves and thighs.
Forced reps involve working a body-part to failure. When you reach failure, a spotter gives you a very gentle lift to finish the rep and squeeze out the muscle a bit more. As you can see, the utilization of a spotter is essential in this technique, but providing more a mental boost than actual help. In this sense, typical abuse with this technique comes when the trainer relies on the spotter for assistance during most of the set. Notice that properly executed, this is a very demanding technique, and it should not be done for every set.
Rest-Pause training is similar to forced reps, but when you reach failure, instead of getting help from the spotter, you put the weight back on the rack for a few seconds. Then you do a few more reps until failing again, and repeat this process until you get the desired total number of reps. This technique is useful when a spotter is not present and it is very effective for getting past sticking points.
A drop set entails performing a set of any exercise to failure, then drop some weight (the necessary to maintain the same number reps) and, with little or no rest, continue for more repetitions with the reduced poundage until failing again. Notice that a spotter is recommended to keep rest time short (by helping you to drop the weight). Several names are used to refer to this technique, including breakdowns, descending sets, or strip sets, and it entails also a lot of variations, such as the double-drop (reduce the weight once), the triple-drop (reduce the weight twice), or the down-the-rack sets (use every consecutive set of dumbbells down a rack).
Remember that these techniques are great for increasing your training intensity, stimulating in this way muscle growth, but they are also very demanding on the muscular and nervous systems, taking longer to recover totally. For this reason, using them too often (especially those moving around the failure concept), can lead you to overtraining.
I’ll go in detail on these techniques in future posts but, in the meanwhile, you can check the article “Training Styles: Which One is Best for You” by James Sadek, the article “The 16 Most Advanced Intensity Building Techniques” by Nick Nilsson, and the article “A Question Of Intensity” included in the I.C.E. Training Program developed by Big Cat.
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