Supersets – what are they, why they work and a few variations you can try in your next workout to send your body into overdrive.

Supersets – what are they, why they work and a few variations you can try in your next workout to send your body into overdrive.

Why are supersets more effective than regular sets done with rest in-between. There’s a few reasons why they are so effective and some are specific only to superset:

Supersets increase the production of Lactic Acid, which boosts your natural levels of growth hormone (GH) in your body. What happens is that your body responds to the drop in pH (increased acidity) in your body from the production of lactic acid by secreting GH. Now your natural GH is your very own elixir, it’s a very powerful fat burning and muscle building hormone.

Supersets are very time efficient. By doing sets back to back you reduce your workout time while doing the same if not more work. If you are limited for time, which most of us are then high intensity supersets are a great way to burn over 500 calories in 30-45minutes. You’ll be in and out the gym before you know it.

There’s different variations of supersets which help increase muscle fibre activation. What this means is by using specific combinations of exercises you can increase the intensity of work on a specific muscle, helping it develop faster.

As I mentioned above, there are many different types of Supersets that fall under the Superset umbrella. I will go through these different types, telling you exactly why they're so effective and giving examples of each that you can take to the gym and try out for yourself!

Keep in mind when you're doing these, they are intensity techniques and should not be used every day. Your body needs a chance to recover and using these techniques too often can hamper recovery. My suggestion would be to do workout supersets no more than once a week for any particular bodypart.

1. The Single Bodypart Superset

This is the typical type of Superset where you use two different exercises for the same bodypart. An example of this doing a wide grip pulldown for the back then immediately doing a seated cable row for the back.

The benefit of this is to hit somewhat different fibers of the muscle from different angles but without giving the bodypart time to recover from the first exercise. This forces the bodypart to work that much harder to complete the second exercise.

It's a powerful increase in intensity and one that can dramatically ramp up muscle development.

Here are some examples for other bodyparts:

Chest: 
Flat BB Bench press + Incline DB press
Incline Flyes + Flat DB bench press
Cable crossovers + Push-ups

Thighs:
squats + leg extensions
leg press + lunges

Shoulders:
Side lateral raises + rear lateral raises
Dumbell shoulder press + barbell shoulder press

2. Antagonistic Supersets

Instead of doing two sets in a row for the same muscle, you will do two sets for directly opposing (antagonistic) muscle groups. An example of this is doing a bicep exercise then a tricep exercise.

Antagonistic Supersets are excellent for allowing you to compress workout time while maintaining high strength levels. When you work an opposing muscle group directly after the original muscle, studies have shown that the nervous system activation can actually INCREASE strength in the second muscle group when you work it.

Here are some examples of Antagonistic Supersets:

Chest & Back
flat barbell bench press + bent-over barbell rows

Biceps & Triceps
barbell curls + close grip bench press

Quadriceps & Hamstrings
leg extensions + leg curls

The shoulders don't technically have any direct antagonist muscle groups, but you can work with the specific shoulder exercise movements to do the opposite movement. For example, you can do dumbell shoulder press then go directly into pulldowns for the back. You can also do rear delt lateral then dumbell fly's.

The antagonist muscle to the two major calf muscles is called the tibialis anterior. It's a small and relatively weak muscle compared to the major calf muscles (the gastrocnemius and the soleus) and not particularly useful for doing Supersets with.

3. Pre-Exhaust Supersets

This type of Superset focuses on first utilizing an isolation (single joint) movement to "pre-exhaust" the target muscle group before doing a compound (multi-joint) movement to allow the secondary mover muscles to push the target muscle harder.

In English, that means you start with an exercise that works just the target muscle, such as a dumbell flye. When you're done, you use an exercise that works the target muscle with help from other muscles, e.g. the bench press.

The net result is that you first exhaust the pecs with the fly's. When you move to the bench press, the pecs get help from the triceps and shoulders to help keep moving the weight, pushing the pecs much harder than they would normally have to work when doing the bench press.

The result of this is much faster muscle development!

Here are some other examples of
Pre-Exhaust Supersets:

Shoulders:
Dumbell side lateral raises + Dumbell shoulder press

Triceps:
Pushdowns + dips (bench or parallel bar)

Thighs:
Leg extensions + squats

Biceps:
barbell curls + close grip pulldowns with the torso vertical

4. Giant Sets

The Giant Set is another very simple concept. Instead of doing just two sets for a Superset, you do three or more sets in a row for that bodypart using different exercises!

Giant Sets are generally done just targeting a single bodypart. They are very intense and shouldn't be used too often. The goal with the Giant Set is to really shock the muscles, forcing the body to activate many more muscle fibers than it normally would to perform these exercises.

In fact, you can even use the same exercise twice in a Giant Set to really shock your muscles!

Here are some examples of Giant Sets:

Chest:
incline barbell bench press + flat bench press + decline bench press

Back:
chin-ups + wide-grip pulldowns + seated cable rows + hyperextensions

Thighs:
squats + leg extensions + leg press

Hamstrings (here's a case where you can use the same exercise twice in the Giant set): leg curls + stiff-legged-deadlifts + leg curls

Some Giant Set combinations are not as practical, however. For example, if you do a Giant Set for back, you may not have the back strength (or grip strength) to finish with chin-ups.

5. In-Set Supersets

This is a unique type of Superset where you basically mesh two different exercises into a single set. There are a number of very effective variations of this that are EXTREMELY challenging, including one of my very favourite techniques for building powerful triceps.

In a nutshell, you will do one rep of one exercise then one rep of a different exercise, alternating reps until you can no longer do any reps of the weaker exercise. At that point, you finish with as many reps as you can do of the stronger exercise. It's a very intense technique!

This type of Superset maximizes training intensity and allows you to work several different aspects of the muscle at the same time, dramatically increasing workout efficiency.

Here are some examples of the In-Set Superset:

Chest: 
dumbell flyes + dumbell bench press

Back: 
barbell rows + deadlifts

Biceps:
regular dumbell curls + hammer curls

My All-Time Favorite For Triceps: lying barbell extensions + close grip bench press

Finish by doing as many close grip bench presses as you can!

Good Luck and keep me posted Amigos.