Are you looking to gain a lot of muscle very quickly? Something many bodybuilders will do is incorporate what’s called a drop set into their workout. This is a resistance training technique that pushes you to keep going until you can’t do anymore.
It’s a great way to ratchet up your training a few notches and move on to the next level, pushing past plateaus in muscle development. If you feel like you hit your peak and can’t go any further with the way you’ve been training, then knowing how to do drop sets can make a huge impact on your results.
This is one of those high-level training, muscle gain exercise methods. It won’t be right for everybody, and you want to be careful about pushing yourself too hard if you’re not physically fit or if you’re already pushing yourself quite hard.
We’ll discuss how often to do drop sets and how to do some variations of the typical drop sets.
How to Do Drop Sets Correctly
The idea behind the drop set is to focus on completing a set until you can’t do another rep. You keep going until you fail, essentially. At that point, you’ll lighten your load by around 20% and then do it again.
You’re not giving yourself any rest between sets, or you’re at least getting very little rest. The whole point of the drop set is to try to explode your muscle gains.
You are trying to maximize the potential of your workouts, and this drop set method works with all sorts of different exercise routines.
Here’s an example of how this would work with a seated dumbbell shoulder press. You start out with 10-12 reps at a specific weight. Do the next set using the same specifications, and then do it again. Keep going until you can’t do that many reps with that weight.
At that point, you’ve entered what’s known as workout failure or rep failure, and from there you can drop the weight. So, you drop your weight down a level and do another 10-12 reps. Keep doing that until you can’t do it anymore.
You keep going at it, dropping the weight each time you hit failure. Continue doing your reps until you can’t even lift the weight anymore.
That sounds exhausting, doesn’t it? And that’s kind of the point. You’re supposed to push yourself as hard as you can until you can’t go any further. It’s a great way to push your limit and get more out of your workouts. You’ll feel completely exhausted afterwards, but the gains you’ll make will likely be impressive.
You probably don’t want to make drop sets a regular thing, but adding them in every once in a while can really help boost your results.
How to Do Triple Drop Sets
Does a drop set sound like it’s too easy? You may need to move on to the triple drop sets. What’s that, you say? This just means doing triple sets or reps.
So, you’re not technically pushing yourself to the limits with each set of reps you do. You go until you hit three reps, which may be 12 bicep curls. Rest very briefly and then continue. For this to work, you need to have challenging reps.
Each time you do three sets, you stop and lower your weight or make some sort of adjustment to make the workout easier, keeping up the same number of reps. Do three more sets, and then drop your weight or the number of reps and continue. Of course, you keep going until you can no longer continue with the exercise.
Why Do Drop Sets
Drop sets are useful because they help break through barriers and get you to do more reps than you normally would.
Typically, you might stop your workout after you get tired out of doing the same set of reps, but with drop sets, you are lowering the weight and making the workout easier so that you can keep going.
Many people will use these for muscle development and as a way to get past plateaus in their development. If they find that they are not making the gains they want to anymore, they may incorporate some drop sets to keep on pushing themselves and growing.
It’s the same concept of cross training, where you do something different or push yourself in new ways to get past the barriers in muscle development.
This is just a simpler way to do that, and it doesn’t require you to get good at a new exercise or learn anything new to make it work. It allows you to stick with what you know and yet still keep on developing further than you normally would.
How to Do Drop Sets Correctly, for Women
Drop sets are a great way to build muscle quickly, but women should be careful about overworking their muscles, just as anyone should. You can overtire your muscles and make them extra sore the next morning, which may prevent you from working out that day.
That’s why you want to be careful about doing drop sets too often. They shouldn’t be a regular part of your workout routine, but there’s something you can incorporate maybe once a week.
Many women are concerned about their muscle development and looking too bulky and big. This is something you may have to watch out for when doing drop sets, which is why I recommend most women don’t do too many drop sets each week.
You also want to be careful about starting out at too high of a weight load when it comes to weightlifting. It can be helpful to use your normal workout weight when you start the drop sets.
I recommend this for anyone who wants to know how to do bench press drop sets. Use your regular weight to start with, and then drop down from there. If you start out with a higher weight than what you’re used to using, you’re not going to get through as many reps.
Drop sets work best for men and women alike when they start out at the speed, intensity, and difficulty level that’s normal for then and then work their way down. When you don’t do that, you’re not getting the full benefits of the drop set exercise.
How to Do Drop Sets for Chest Development
If you’re looking to build up your chest muscles, you probably want to start with drop sets that include bench pressing or pulldown bars. These exercises are great for chest development, and if you’re incorporating them into your drop set routine, you’ll see some great gains in short order.
Pay attention to how your body feels as you do the drop sets. You’re not necessarily waiting for your arms to tire out. If your body feels too tired, you may need to stop before your arms run out of energy.
If you’re trying to build up your chest muscles, that could be because they are underdeveloped and weak. Pushing them too hard can cause respiratory problems, so be careful about how far you go with chest exercises when doing drop sets.
Sticking with the drop set until you feel fatigued creates metabolic and mechanical fatigue. These are important for muscle development. If you’re not working until you’re tired out, you’re not getting the full benefits of the drop set.
Do be careful about doing this kind of exercise, though. If you are being treated for a medical condition, if you’re not used to working out regularly, or you start to feel severe pain as you do the drop set, you need to stop and talk to a health professional before you do any more.
