[0:00]Most lifters simply aren't limited by recovery, contrary to what you might believe, they're limited by time. And if that's you, this technique is hands down the most efficient way to increase muscle stimulus without spending another minute in the gym.
[0:15]Let me show you the research and how to use this technique properly. When it comes to maximizing muscle building from the gym, there are two primary constraints that can apply to a given individual, recovery or time.
[0:26]The vast, vast majority of people are limited by time, not recovery. What does being limited by recovery mean? It simply means you have enough time and motivation at your disposal to push training in the gym so hard that you will genuinely be in danger of overreaching and overtraining, if you just do as much as you have the time and motivation for.
[0:46]And the truth is that that's quite hard to achieve. The research we have on both overtraining and on training volume suggest that you can, one, recover from far more than most people will ever achieve, and two, benefit in terms of muscle growth, for more than most people ever do.
[1:00]In terms of recovery, we have studies looking at daily max training protocols, where people still after performing insane training protocols do not exhibit signs of true overtraining syndrome.
[1:09]Likewise, anecdotally, pro bodybuilders have been doing insane training protocols for decades, and building their best physique yet without overtraining.
[1:18]There's even modern day practical examples of this, like Eric Helms, who's been doing 30 to 40 fractional sets for many muscle groups at once.
[1:23]And the truth is that that level of volume and time spent in the gym is beneficial for growth. A meta analysis by Palm and colleagues show that doing all the way up to 30 or 40 fractional weekly sets was beneficial for hypertrophy.
[1:36]Achieving that level of volume for many muscle groups at once takes a lot of time, which is why most people will never reach it.
[1:42]Genuinely, to reach that level of volume for many muscle groups, might need to spend 8 to 12 hours in the gym every single week. If you are recovery constrained, you need to start considering how do you maximize the amount of stimulus from muscle growth, while minimizing the amount of fatigue you generate?
[1:57]Because you want to maximize how much stimulus you're able to give your muscles before fatigue simply starts exceeding recovery, and you start dipping into overtraining.
[2:05]However, for the vast majority of people, the real bottleneck to their progress in the gym is time.
[2:11]Like I just mentioned, to maximize your growth, you need to do quite a bit of volume. That amount of volume can take you quite a bit of time.
[2:17]And so, for you, dear viewer, in all likelihood, you need to figure out how to make your training in the gym more time efficient. Training really becomes a game of maximizing time efficiency.
[2:26]How much stimulus can you get per minute spent in the gym? Unfortunately for us, there are a variety of ways to increase stimulus without taking more time.
[2:35]I'll give you a few. One is training to failure. The largest study we have on training to failure by Robinson and colleagues, show that the closer the set is taken to failure, the more hypertrophy it causes, all else being equal.
[2:44]And that relationship followed a linear pattern. For every extra rep you inched closer to failure, the more growth you saw linearly.
[2:52]Likewise, there is some emerging research that I was involved in, suggesting that going past failure could cause even more growth than simply ending at failure.
[3:00]We compared ending a set of cap phrases at failure when participants couldn't get those last two centimeters to extending the set past this point performing partials.
[3:07]And performing those partials past failure increased growth even further by an additional 40%. And so, while this is the first study on the topic we have, it does suggest that training past failure could increase hypertrophy even further.
[3:18]And importantly, training to or past failure doesn't really take you any additional time past doing a few extra reps. So that can be a great way of increasing stimulus without increasing time taken in the gym.
[3:28]Likewise, increasing the stretch focus can be a great way to increase stimulus with no real downside in terms of time, as we have dozens of studies showing that training in a more stretched position tends to beat out training in a more shortened position.
[3:44]So all else being equal, training in the stretched position, whether it's by picking more stretched exercises, doing lengthened partials, or other tools, can give you more stimulus in the exact same amount of time.
[3:50]Finally, the most obvious tip is to perform compound lifts, which train multiple muscle groups well at once, giving you more bang for buck per minute spent in the gym per set performed in the gym.
[4:00]However, all of this is kind of skirting around one of the harsh truths of progress in the gym when it comes to building muscle. Higher volume leads to more growth.
[4:09]But higher volume takes more time. And unfortunately, with higher volumes, you get diminishing returns, meaning that while you're linearly spending more time in the gym for each additional set you do, you're not getting linearly more growth, you're getting diminishing returns.
[4:21]So your time efficiency in the gym actually gets worse as you perform more and more volume. But if you want to build as much muscle as possible, you have to buy into that deficit.
[4:30]And there are ways around this deficit to an extent. You can immeliorate this relationship. For example, I've spoken about antagonist paired super sets before, or paired super sets in general.
[4:38]The idea that you're training one muscle group while the other muscle group rests. For example, in an antagonist period super set, you're training one motion, a chest press, while you're resting from the other motion, a row.
[4:48]Because the two motions are opposite or antagonistic, there is no overlap in the muscle groups being trained. But the truth is, to super set two movements and get the benefits from a hypertrophy and time efficiency perspective, they don't even need to be opposite.
[5:01]They just need to be two movements that don't pose any interference risk between one another. For example, a calf raise and a bicep curl. As a good practical rule of thumb, if your performance is the same when you're super setting versus doing the movements on their own, you can super set them and get a time efficiency boost.
[5:16]However, there are a couple limitations to super set technique. For one, if you're short on time and you're time constrained, chances are you might be the sort of person making working out a priority in your lifestyle, however you can.
[5:28]And that sometimes means training at rush hours. If you're training at rush hours, say at 8:00 a.m. or 9:00 a.m. or at 4:00 or 5:00 p.m., even worse, then you may not have the luxury of picking two pieces of equipment that are high priority and then high demand by many gym goers.
[5:40]If you want to level up your training, check out MyoAdapt, the app I co-founded to help you apply the science from this channel.
[5:48]It builds evidence-based routines around progressive overload and smart exercise selection. Let's you emphasize the muscles you care about and tracks progress automatically.
[5:57]Train anywhere, at home or in the gym, in as little as 15 minutes, and switch between gyms seamlessly. Head to MyoAdapt.com and use code wolf for a free two week trial. You can also book a free call below to see if we're a good fit.
[6:09]I'll work with you directly to optimize your training, nutrition, and recovery. Big thank you as always to Rascol Apparel for supporting the channel. You can use code wolf for 10% off their training gear at RascolApparel.com.
[6:17]Additionally, there are movements that aren't really suitable to be super seted, like a leg press, where it's so systemically fatiguing that you can't necessarily do a leg press and then any other exercise productively 30 seconds later.
[6:29]And as a result, super setting may or may not always be practical for every exercise. But fortunately, there is a second technique, which can fill the gaps that paired super sets leave behind.
[6:39]And that technique is a drop set. Drop sets have been studied in exercise science across several studies. The most recent synthesis of the research on drop sets comes from Coleman and colleagues.
[6:48]In their meta-analysis, they compared all studies, which compared drop sets to traditional training. When summarizing the results of these six studies, Coleman and colleagues found the same growth from drop sets versus traditional training.
[6:59]However, drop sets took participants 30 to 70% less time to complete. It is worth noting that on average, within these six studies, participants in the drop set group performed around 60% more sets than participants in the traditional set group.
[7:13]For example, if the participant in the traditional training group performed three traditional sets, the participant in the drop set group would perform around 3 times 1.6, aka 4.8 sets, so one hard set followed by four drop sets.
[7:27]I'll give you a solid drop set protocol later in this video. But before I do, let me give you a few more caveats with these findings. First one is that drop sets, like most ways of increasing time efficiency, does tend to increase session difficulty.
[7:38]Whether it's training to failure, or training past failure, or it's training compound movements versus isolation movements, or whether it's paired super sets, or whether it's drop sets in this case, all of these methods of increasing stimulus efficiency, how much stimulus you're able to get per minute in the gym, do also tend to carry the risk of increasing session difficulty, and sometimes things like nausea.
[7:58]For example, in a super set study we carried out just a year ago or so, we found that participants in the super set group did experience slightly higher session RP, especially at the start of the study, when first doing super sets, compared to traditional training group participants.
[8:11]Likewise, they also experienced a higher degree of nausea compared to the traditional training group. So, as with all of these techniques, I would recommend easing into drop sets.
[8:20]Before I give you a solid protocol for how to implement drop sets into your routine, we need to discuss why they actually work. Because getting the same gains in 30 to 70% less time almost sounds too good to be true.
[8:31]And to be clear, they might kind of be, in the sense that I'm not sure that drop setting every single exercise across every workout in your routine would deliver the same results, because drop sets do acutely cause a bit more fatigue, both systemically and locally.
[8:44]So if you go from doing 20 straight sets for your chest in the workout, to doing the equivalent amount of work for your chest in a third of the time, your performance would likely drop so much by the end that you may not get the same stimulus.
[8:54]But as a way of filling in the gaps left by paired super sets and improving time efficiency even further, drop sets can be amazing, as long as you don't make them the only tool in your training.
[9:02]So why do drop sets work? Well, in part, it probably has to do with the way that motor units or muscle fibers are recruited. The prevailing view of how motor units and muscle fibers are recruited is referred to as Henneman's Size Principle.
[9:13]Simply put, Henneman's Size Principle dictates that the smaller, slower twitch muscle fibers and motor units are recruited first. And then, as fatigue increases, or as the force production requirements increase, the larger, faster twitch motor units and muscle fibers are recruited in ascending order.
[9:29]Basically, as you get closer to failure or more tired, all of your muscle fibers will be recruited, or if the weight is heavy enough, all of your muscle fibers have to be recruited from the get-go.
[9:37]What does that mean in the context of drop sets? Well, when you're performing a drop set by the end of the first set, the activation set so to speak, all of your muscle fibers will have been recruited if you went close to failure.
[9:47]So when you drop the weight and immediately perform another set, all of your muscle fibers are being recruited and stimulated. That might mean that all else being equal, drop sets are somewhat unique in their benefits for muscle growth.
[9:58]In the sense that from the get-go on the subsequent sets, you're getting all muscle fibers involved. Likewise, in a purely mathematical sense, drop sets can be a great way to get a lot of volume load in not much time.
[10:09]Volume load is simply sets times reps times weight, and it can be a rough approximation how much tension your muscle fibers might experience across a workout.
[10:19]Volume load doesn't typically predict hypertrophy that well, but it can be thought of as a proxy for tension. And tension is the primary driver of hypertrophy. And drop sets simply allow you to accumulate a lot of volume load in not that much time.
[10:30]By simply shifting the goal post of failure several times within a set. Think about it. If you're doing a set of five, your set is over when you can no longer lift the weight that corresponds to your five rep max.
[10:41]That might be around 85% of your max. So effectively, your muscle has dropped in its capability to produce force from 100% to 85%.
[10:47]But what if you drop the weight to 70%? Okay, now you keep going and you end that set when you can no longer produce enough force to lift 70%.
[10:55]So you've dropped from 100 to 70. And you repeat that process with 60 and then 50. By the end of that drop set, you've done enough work, and volume load, to drop your muscles capability of producing force from 100 to say 50%.
[11:06]You can calculate the volume load if you like, but the simple truth is this. You've performed a lot more work than you would have if you simply took a set of five to failure. And that work may or may not help boost hypertrophy.
[11:15]Without further ado, here's my practical guidelines for how to perform drop sets. I personally think the ideal rep range for a drop set to start off with is likely 4 to 12.
[11:24]A meta analysis we conducted show that lifters are most accurate at gauging how close to failure they are below around 12 reps per set.
[11:30]So that 4 to 12 rep range might make it easier to go close to failure on the first set, which is pretty important. From there, I recommend doing 20% weight drops.
[11:39]So if you started with 100 pounds, go to 80 pounds immediately and perform another set. Then from 80 pounds, for example, go down to 64 pounds, aka a 20% drop relative to the previous weight.
[11:53]Making sure the drop is relative to the previous weight, simply means that you will never drop too low in weight, because some research does suggest that there is a kind of floor to minimum weight to be lifted for maximum hypertrophy, around 20 to 30% of your max.
[12:01]Making sure the drops occur relative to previous working weight, kind of makes sure you never drop below that minimum effective floor. On every set within that drop set, I would like to see at least four reps per set.
[12:12]Research generally suggests that at least four reps per set is beneficial for growth versus sets of fewer than four reps. So even though it's speculative, as a good sort of precaution, I think it's a good idea.
[12:21]You can go even further with drop sets and combine it with lengthened super sets, which you can think of as a mechanical drop set within each drop set.
[12:28]For example, if you're doing a leg extension drop set, you could do a full range of motion set of 4 to 12 reps until you hit failure.
[12:35]Then when you can't get another four rep, just do partials until you can't do another partial. Then when you can't get another partial, re-rack the weight, drop it by 20% and do another set. Four range of motion reps until you get to failure.
[12:45]Then when you can't get another four rep, do partials. Then when you're done with partials, drop the weight by 20% again. You get the idea.
[12:50]You get both the benefit of a drop set in terms of time efficiency, and also the benefit of extra work plus stretch emphasis via the lengthened super set. And that can be an insane amount of stimulus in not much time.
[13:00]It's worth noting that when it comes to drop sets, I would typically recommend restricting the number of drops to about four. For example, you would do 100 pounds, followed by 80 pounds, followed by 64 pounds, followed by 52 pounds, followed by about 42ish pounds.
[13:12]But I wouldn't go lower than 42 pounds or perform a fifth drop, because by that point many lifters have mentally checked out, and there's the potential to go too light in load.
[13:21]Instead, if you wanted to perform more of your volumes drop sets, you would be performing multiple drop sets.
[13:26]In this example, after performing your last drop of 52 pounds, you would take a minute or so of rest, and then start again at around 80 to 100 pounds depending on how fatigued you are.
[13:34]And again, start the same process at that weight. However, the caveat here is that performing multiple drops like this reduces the time efficiency gain, because you are now taking traditional rest times between multiple drop sets.
[13:45]Which brings you back to the start, just with a slightly better setup in terms of how much stimulus you get per set.
[13:51]So I'd recommend performing drop sets mostly for exercises you would otherwise do for two to five sets. Additionally, because drop sets can tie you out quite a bit, I would recommend doing a drop set right before leaving the gym.
[14:00]Since you're about to leave the gym, you can afford to have slightly higher fatigue, being out of breath, etc., without it impacting your performance down the line in the workout.
[14:07]Similarly, because drop sets can be quite draining, I recommend interspersing them with less draining stuff, whether it's traditional training with traditional rest times that don't fatigue you or tie you out too much, whether it's antagonistic paired super sets, where you do still get some rest times.
[14:20]Likewise, I would recommend using drop sets on selectorized machines where you can simply pick the weight and get going, because it makes it super easy, even in a busy gym.
[14:28]All you need is one piece of equipment versus being the guy who's using 10 pairs of dumbbells in a busy gym. Additionally, use drop sets on compound stack loaded lift machines with lengthen super sets makes for a lot of stimulus.
[14:38]Another tip I would recommend when it comes to drop sets, especially if the movement isn't spinally loaded, and you feel comfortable doing so, feel free to breathe in and out throughout the rep.
[14:46]Because you'll tend to get quite out of breath with drop sets, being a bit more liberal about your breathing technique can allow you to actually push the target muscle closer to local failure, versus being limited by simply being out of breath and giving up.
[14:58]Final tip, you can actually combine this technique with paired super sets. For example, a machine preacher curl drop set plus lengthen super set, then, once you've done your drop set, say one main set followed by three drops, go over to the machine tricep extension and do a drop set as well.
[15:13]And then come back to the machine preacher curl for your drop set lengthen super set. And in 10 to 15 minutes, you'll have gotten the equivalent of 10 to 15 sets for biceps and triceps. It is a lot of stimulus.
[15:22]Drop sets are an amazing tool, nearly no matter the gym you're in. Thank you for watching and I will see you in the next one.
