I don’t mean to be combative, just setting the record straight. Dennis Prager has a saying, “I prefer clarity to agreement.”
You can go up and back down but that’s even harder lol.
I wrote an article called “Step by Step Shredded: The Methods” over on the Mike Rashid website- google it and it should get you started for the most part, but the cliff notes are:
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Pick a diet and training approach you know you can get results with… Meaning you should be able to say “if I eat these foods in these amounts I should start losing weight.” If you dont know, figure this out before you try to lean out or you should seriously consider hiring a coach.
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The initial goal should be to lose weight for 2-3 consecutive weeks without any cardio
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From there you use a “step by step” approach either dropping calories or increasing cardio.
As I said, those are the cliff notes, the article goes into a bit more detail and has more of a road map and an example. Feel free to ask any Q’s here about it.
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@bobbyPGA either I do less sets and/or exercises or don’t go to the gym that day. Not talking contest prep here though.
i choose only one exercise per body part and try to kill it with as much sets as possible so i dont have to switch from exercise to exercise in my precious limited time.
i generally choose :
chest - one arm incline dumbbell press
delts - arnold press
back - one arm barbell row or meadows row
triceps - overhead db extension
curl - concentration curl
quads - barbell front squat
hams - single leg deadlift
I cant let this thread die out…
What does everyone think about Super Sets / Drop Sets?
Where do you like to put them in the workout?
Do you use them every workout or only to “shock” and provide extra stim every once in a while?
Any other strategies you like with them? (I’m really all about Thibs Growth Factor mechanical-drop-sets right now, hence my interest)
I used to do a fair bit of drop sets and supersets, not sure if you have heard of muscle rounds, fortitude training? Basically you do a hard set of around 8 reps wait 10 seconds or 5 deep breaths, do another 4 reps repeat 6 times. Might do 1 or 2 a workout.
My C workouts are all drop sets. You start at the rep range 4-8, which I will refer to as 5’s, and 8-15s which I refer to as 12s.
The set goes 5-12-5-12-5-20-5-12-5-20-5. Done without rest between sets. These workouts get a laonger time between rest periods and only make up 1/4 of the workouts that I do.
I should add that I do not do any other of what people refer to as advanced principles, this is the only one. B workouts are straight sets to failure, within the two main rep ranges, making up 1/2 of the workouts I do. A workouts are straight sets short of failure, they make up 1/4 of the workouts I do.
Is that ONE drop set done with like 10 weight drops?
i like intensity techniques but never overdo them.
i do dropsets only once per workout and in the last set of the exercise. i generally use it in weighted push ups, curls, overhead triceps extensions, one arm barbell rows and dumbbell sumo squats. i tried it once with barbell front squats but never again.
i am not a fan of supersets but do it from time to time. for chest, landmine chest press - dumbbell squeeze press superset was extremely effective and painful. i dont do them for pulling muscles because my forearms get pumped immeadiately and ruin my entire workout. for legs i love supersetting front squats with back squats, romanian deadlifts with swiss ball leg curls.
other intensity techniques i really love are bottom partials, rest pause and 1 1/2 reps.
I’m a big fan of dropsets, but I won’t do them every workout. I typically like to switch what intensity technique I use each workout (week 1, chest – drop set; week 2, chest – rest-pause; week 3, chest – cluster; etc). I’m not sure where I picked this up, but I have this odd feeling that the body is way more adaptive than we give it credit for.
I’m with you on the mechanical dropsets…those are the best! Plus, it gives the added bonus of not having to use extra dumbbells or plates when the gym is extra crowded.
Supersets, though…not a huge fan. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with them, per se, but they are difficult to do in a crowded gym sometimes, but mainly I’m not good at them – I always seem to equate supersets with speed and, therefore, do them too quickly. So…that’s a personal screw-up of mine.
Here’s a question I have for the general audience:
How many people have gone to a doctor to get tested (blood, urine, whatever they do) in order to find out your nutrient or insulin or testosterone levels/deficiencies so that you can create a better nutrition and supplement regimen? Furthermore, if you did this, was it worth it?
I actually go through a site called Private MD Labs. Basically you decide what to order and the MD who runs the site sends the order in to Lab Corp and you go in and get the tests. Its all out of pocket I believe, but its fairly cheap for what we need.
You actually want to order the Hormone Panel For Females, which is just the name they use for a grouping of tests (the male one has tests we done need as body builders, costs way more, and they set the reference ranges to Male so it doesnt matter). If you sign up for their email news letter you get 15% off codes every week (current week is PLK876D). Results in 24 hours.
I’ve only done it twice, but its a very easy experience and with the coupon code its like $56 so it doesnt break the bank either.
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I love these. I’m not the biggest fan in adding every single technique to “up the intensity” though. I used to think that you needed them all the time, and that if you weren’t making things absolutely crazy to the point that steam was coming out of your muscles that you were half-assing it. Eventually I settled on just straight work sets, with the occasional adjustment such as:
- 1 1/2 reps, or merely focusing more on the bottom portion of the ROM for example
- pre-exhaust - although I would usually just sequence my movements accordingly rather than run from one side of the gym to the other as quickly as possible
- Drop sets - not so much to intensify matters and need 5 sets of dumbells for one set, but because I believe that there is benefit to increasing blood flow to a worked area, and a high rep continuance of a lower rep set is a nice way to apply two different pathways to muscle growth in the same set.
S
Yes, though I should have added that the 5, the 12 and the 20 are meant to be different exercises. I did not come up with this idea, this is right out of Dr. Squat’s Natural Bodybuilding book. So for example, I do Flat Dumbbell Press for the 5 exercise, Decline for the 12 and the 20 exercise is flyes. Within the program he allows a second drop-set for lagging bodyparts, so I do that for Chest and Back. Though in that case I cut off 4 sets from the end. And also in that case I do them with mostly different exercises. For Chest, I do incline exercises under that scheme and for Back I switch from lat exercises to upper back exercises.
one exercise per muscle group per workout gets some kind of intensity treatment. I’m loving the DC-style rest-pause, currently.
I’m a fan of super sets and even giant sets to keep my heart rate up and total workout time short. Drop sets / rest-pause / clusters / etc I typically only use as a shock here and there.
I really should start adding them in more often, because these are typically the only times I’ll get DOMS like when I was lifting in high school! Love it.
What about slow negatives with a pause for front squats and RDLs? Great catalyst for grown or an injury waiting to happen?