Building muscle doesn’t necessarily mean lifting weights or always picking the most challenging exercises. Another way to improve strength training? Incorporate drop-set training into your workout routine.
Drop sets are a short but effective weightlifting technique that will seriously challenge your muscles and help you achieve hypertrophy or muscle building.
Personal trainer Evan Williams, CSCS, founder of E2G Performance in Chicago, tells SELF that he does drop workouts with most of his clients once or twice a week. He says this technique can pay off nicely for your exercise.
Want to know more about Drop Sets, their benefits, and the best way to incorporate them into your routine ? We’ve got all of that — and more — below. Then, if you want to try the drop sets yourself, we have a sample workout from Williams that you can do today to fully suck up your arms.
First, a quick warning: Drop sets are an advanced lifting technique, so only work if you have You should only try them when you are familiar and comfortable with traditional strength training – more on drop set One Minute Safety. With that in mind, keep scrolling for all the must-know intel!
What do we mean by drop set?
A drop set is a weightlifting technique where you choose an exercise and repeat it with a certain weight until you “fail” – meaning, your muscles Too tired to repeat good forms. Then, you reduce the weight you’re using and do another set until you fail. Then, you drop the weight again and repeat until the final round fails.
In the descending set, there is no rest. “The only thing you need to rest is the time it takes to change your weight,” Williams said.
What are the benefits of the drop group?
If your goal is to build muscle, drop sets can be a technique to help you reach your goal, as they help you build muscle to failure, Williams said. According to a 2018 study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research , the drop group may stimulate Your slow motion – twitching muscle fibers. Because these slow-twitch fibers are endurance-based, they need more time under tension to trigger their muscle growth—and descending sets are great for providing longer time under load. Exhausting your muscles also encourages more nutrient-rich blood flow to the area, which in turn helps your muscles grow, Williams explained.
Basically, drop sets are great for building bigger, stronger physique muscles. Research backs this up: A 2016 study of older adults found that drop training improved muscle mass, strength, endurance, and function. A small 2018 study involving 8 men found that single-set drop-set training may lead to better muscle growth than three sets of traditional resistance training, possibly because of the stress the drop-set puts on the body Increase.
Drop set is also a really efficient use of your time. “It gets a quick workout if you’re pressed for time,” Williams said. “It’s an easy way to not spend a lot of time on a specific muscle group.” Finally, drop sets are a great way to make sure you’re constantly challenging yourself, since the whole point of drop sets is to work your muscles to failure. As you get stronger, this focus will encourage you to keep exercising so you can continue working toward your fitness goals.
What is the best way to exercise using drop sets?
Drop sets are best performed with isolation exercises (i.e. exercises that target only one joint and muscle group, such as bicep curls, triceps stretches, leg curls, and calf raises), Williams said. Compared to compound exercises that involve working multiple joints and muscle groups (think squats and deadlifts), isolation exercises have a lower risk of injury in the fall group. That’s because they’re less complex — compound exercises have more room for form errors when you’re tired, which can be dangerous. Also, in many cases, if your muscles fail unexpectedly, it’s easier to safely lose weight and stop doing isolation workouts. For example, intermediate reps of dumbbell biceps curls are easier to stop than intermediate reps of barbell squats.
