Understanding Drop Sets For Muscle Building

Even though drop sets are claimed as part of the Weider System (what isn’t?), they were originally called the multi poundage system by their creator, Henry Atkins, editor of Body Culture magazine, in 1947. Since then, they have become known as strip sets, the stripping method, descending sets and down the rack or running the rack and have become a staple of advanced training. Now, my recent article on the rest pause technique can be considered an advanced training article. This article will continue that idea. Drop sets can be done with barbells, dumbbells or machines.

You set up 3 progressively lighter bars/dumbbells or use the machine’s weight stack pin, take your first working set after warm-ups to a point of positive failure, grab the next lightest bar, dumbbells or change the pin to a lower weight and again go to failure, do it one more time after that and that equals one set (you can continue with more drops but 3 are typically the average, this is also where the term “triple drops” comes from). Pins on machine weight stacks make this an easy to use technique as do pre-set up dumbbells. Bars are harder because usually, you need two spotters to pull plates. You can set up several progressively lighter bars but this becomes a little unpractical if you’re doing bench presses or squats.

So unlike other techniques, you may have to limit drops to certain exercises. As is the case with all intensity techniques, drops allow you to continue a set beyond normal limits. Recently I’ve seen something of a controversy over whether or not techniques like this are actually worthwhile and“ are you really stimulating the muscle or are you merely promoting faster fatigue? I feel you are stimulating a muscle with the use of any intensity technique. If you perform a typical set to failure and simply stop there, you have reached positive failure. However, that does not mean the muscle can’t do more work, it only means it can’t do more work with that weight. So, let’s get more out of it by pushing beyond failure to a point where anything meaningful in terms of reps would be impossible. There are lots of techniques for this and they can be combined but drops can certainly be a primary technique to use.

But wait, isn’t there a problem here? My routine calls for 8 sets per muscle group and when I train this way I can only do 4 sets, does that mean I’m shortchanging my routine and myself? No, why would it? If you can completely stimulate a muscle with less sets then what’s wrong with that? In some philosophies, you hear about training heavy for optimum overload.

But heavy is a relative term and a muscle that has just done 6 reps with a heavy weight will “think” a weight reduction is just as heavy. Any set will produce fatigue – the muscles tire as you train. Efficiency would indicate getting the most out of a set and workout before you deplete your glycogen stores. A fatigued muscle will still receive maximum overload because the reduced weight is proportionally as heavy as the weight you used when you were fresh, at the beginning of the set.