If you have been lifting weights for several months and you have been religiously hitting the gym and suddenly you seem to be at a standstill with your muscle growth and development, chances are you have hit some sort of a plateau. Your body is now conditioned to the weight lifting program you are doing. What you need to do to continue to encourage muscle growth is to try doing some Supersets. Supersets are probably the most effective method of weightlifting for maximum intensity and quick muscle growth. If you walked up to one of the buff-est guys in the gym and asked him to tell you what a superset is…he might be able to tell you. But, most people that frequent the gym wouldn’t be able to tell you what a Superset is.
A Superset is simply defined as a combo weight lifting technique where two exercises are performed in a row with opposing muscle groups without taking a break in between sets. For example lifting one set of chest and then going straight to a tricep workout. You continue through each set doing them back and forth until you have completed that particular exercise. Then you would take a rest period after each combo set. This technique helps encourage muscle growth because it requires a high level of intensity and keeps focus on those muscle groups through your entire workout. You will want to increase weight with each set to encourage muscle failure(breakdown). For this type of workout you will probably want to do four sets for each specific exercise, increasing weight with each set in order to get the best results.
Supersets are probably one of the most effective methods of weight lifting for maximum intensity and muscle growth. Another very important weight training technique is called the drop-set. This is a method of weight training that can be used in combination with supersets or alone. What you will do to perform a drop set is after your warm up set and three sets at increased weight you will begin dropping weight until you have achieved complete muscle failure. This technique is also called a burn out effect. For example if you were doing bicep curls with an easy curl bar. You would perform a warm up set. Then you would perform your next three sets at increased weight by adding plates until you have achieved your max limit on weight. Then your next set you will drop the weight possibly up to three times and continue pushing through the set until you have a complete muscle failure. At the end you might even just be curling the easy bar. You might look a little weak to the occasional passerby…but they will have no idea that you have already completed heavy sets and are in complete muscle failure mode. You may have witnessed this yourself on the weight room floor. You might have seen a muscular guy huffing and puffing as he is curling a simple bar with no weights. Chances are…he has just completed a drop set. Trust me, he probably doesn’t feel like a weakling because he is familiar with the technique.
The drop set technique actually tears down the muscle fibers because of the muscle failure…you weaken your muscle to the point that it actually has to rebuild itself to repair the muscle fibers. This is a good thing when you are wanting to increase muscle mass. What happens when the muscle fibers are broken down is they become stonger and increase in size. Doing drop-sets effectively will help you increase muscle mass more quickly when done in cooperation with a consistent weight training program and nutrition. If you want to learn more about supersets and drop-sets you can find multiple articles online through various bodybuilding websites.
