If you’re someone who’s ready to kick your workout up a notch so you can see enhanced rates of muscle growth, one thing that you’ll definitely want to consider is the drop set principle. Drop sets work great to fully exhaust a muscle tissue and bring out a little more growth than you otherwise would see.
But, you must note that these are very intense and as such, shouldn’t be used every single workout session and should definitely not be performed on every exercise in a given session itself.
Instead, you should choose one or two exercises per workout where you really want to enhance overall development and then add them in.
Let’s have a look at what drop sets are all about so you can get the facts on this 8 pack ab principle.
What A Drop Set Is
First things first you need to understand what a drop set is. A drop set is where you’re going to take your chosen exercise, perform one set at the typical amount of weight you would normally lift and then immediately after that once the state of fatigue is reached, you’re doing to drop the weight by about five pounds and perform a second set.
Once that second set is completed, drop the weight one more time and then push out a third set. By the end of that third set you should have reached a very high state of fatigue and should definitely be feeling it.
Some people may only be able to do two sets when just starting and that’s fine – work your way up to the third and final drop set.
What To Remember When Doing Drop Sets
When doing drop sets, there are a few important things to note. First, you must make sure that you maintain proper form. Some people, due to the high levels of fatigue they’re experiencing, will start to let their form go by the time they reach the third set.
Make sure that you avoid this. If you want to see the best results from the exercise, maintaining good form is a must. Not to mention this also prevents you from injury.
Secondly, if you’re going to attempt drop sets on heavier lifting exercises such as bench press or shoulder press, make sure that you have a spotter. These could become very dangerous very quickly if you don’t.
Generally most people won’t attempt drop sets for the major leg exercises such as front and back squats as they are simply too intense on their own to consider. If you want to drop set for your leg exercises, do so with leg extensions or hamstring curls instead.
Lunges or leg presses could also be drop setted if you really had your mind set on it, so lean towards those rather than the squat drop set.
Adding Drop Sets To Your Workout Program
So if you’ve decided that drop setting is for you, how do you add these to your workout program? First, always try and perform them closer to the end of the session if possible. Obviously if you are drop setting a compound lift chances are it will have to come at the beginning, but if you’re going to do it on an isolation lift, put that lift at the end of the workout.
Since you are going to be bringing on such a high level of fatigue with this exercise, doing this will ensure that it doesn’t hinder the rest of your performance.
Make sure that you also get sufficient rest between session where drop sets are performed as it is a technique that’s also much more intense on the CNS.
So there you have the important things to note about drop sets. Drop sets, along with supersets which were discussed earlier are both great ways to kick-start stalled progress.
