Highly Effective Chest Building Superset
Highly Effective Chest Building Dropset
I’ve been experimenting in the gym with some really cool elastic band variations for different muscle building chest exercises. In this article, I will show two unique chest building exercises that can be linked into a very effective muscle building superset.
Mess You Up
The key to really creating adaptations and change in your muscles is intensity. Many advanced lifters and athletes typically create dropsets for their supplemental work.
A dropset is when you utilize the same exercise and keep performing the movement, lowering the weight progressively as you burn out. The intensity is still high with dropsets, but the issue arises when the weight has to be lowered, typically the range of motion is shortened and the quality of the movement suffers.
Dropset Example:
Exercise: Bench Press
Set 1 – Perform the set with a specific weight, drop the weight, no rest
Set 2 – Perform the set with the lower weight, drop the weight, no rest
Set 3 – Perform the set with the lower weight, drop the weight, no rest
Set 4 – Perform the set with the lower weight, drop the weight, no rest
Like dropsets, supersets are another effective training variation to kick up your training to the next level in the gym. But unlike dropsets, you don’t use the same exercises when you perform a superset. For supersets, after performing the first exercise, you can either incorporate another exercise to target the same muscle groups OR change the focus to the antagonist, stabilizing muscle groups (reverse movement pattern). The idea is that you can keep the intensity high because the focus on your muscles changes as you progress through the set. In reality, there are literally TONS of different superset variations and you are only limited by your imagination. The key is to try and not affect the performance of the secondary movement by choosing one that is too similar to the first movement.
Superset Example 1 (antagonistic muscle groups):
Exercise 1: Push-ups
Exercise 2: Inverted Rows
Set 1 – Exercise 1, no rest, Exercise 2, rest
Set 2 – Exercise 1, no rest, Exercise 2, rest
Set 3 – Exercise 1, no rest, Exercise 2, rest
Set 4 – Exercise 1, no rest, Exercise 2 – DONE
Superset Example 2 (same muscle groups):
Exercise 1: Band Resisted DB Bench Press
Exercise 2: Band Flyes
Set 1 – Exercise 1, no rest, Exercise 2, rest
Set 2 – Exercise 1, no rest, Exercise 2, rest
Set 3 – Exercise 1, no rest, Exercise 2, rest
Set 4 – Exercise 1, no rest, Exercise 2 – DONE
Both dropsets and supersets are great for the advanced lifter who has the ability to control every exercise and perform quality repetitions, even in a fatigued state. Because of the intensity, you must also be mentally focused and ready to go before the set begins. Be aware, don’t forget to be honest with your rest periods. You’ll want to rest longer as each set with take a lot out of you.
In the comments, post your favorite dropset exercise or superset combination!
By Smitty on March 14th, 2012
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It only take one rep to know this is going to be great and take your workout and your body to new places … awesome .. thanks
Very Nice, Different, Good actually to warm up the chest region.
Smitty,
thanks for posting. I’m RBT certified through Dave Schmitz, and I use bands a lot….attached, unattached, partner…love bands for power, joint mobility, conditioning, etc.
But I haven’t used either of these movements w/ bands, & I look forward to trying it myself before I pass it along to my clients.
keep up the good work. I have learned a lot of great content from you & Diesel
….as well as great life perspective
Sincerely, Keith
Just a coincidence but I did a very similar workout with the bands this morning and just read your article…that’s some firm confirmation. Keep up the good work smitty!
Great stuff Smitty. Who was the knucklehead trying to distract you and dropping f bombs?
I have recently started experimenting with Flat barbell press and farmers walk
hit like 6×3 on the bench around 80-90%% 1rm
then all kinds of farmers i.e overhead walks, suitcase, bear hugs
on other news, this post is bad ass, keep them coming
my favourite/most hated superset at the moment is 45 degree hypers against a band, paired with ab wheel rollouts
My favorite is double KB cleans and presses (each rep is both a clean to the rack and a press) and chin-ups (palms facing me). I do these in volume within time style–I set a Gymboss for 20 minutes and perform 4 reps of each, moving from one to the other and only resting VERY briefly between super sets–maybe 5 or 6 breaths. My best so far has been 24 super sets in 20 minutes with 24kg KBs, so it amount to about 10,000 lbs of volume in 20 minutes. It can get pretty gruelling
Nice Post.
Love all the ideas.
A nice superset for the shoulders I have used is
1a Prone rear delt flys
b Band DB Lateral Raises: you will need a light band for this.
Lead with the pinky on b and you will get a nice med and rear delt fire!
I love supersets ! some of my favorites..
Upper body:
Bench press – Barbell rows
Incline bench press – Pull-ups
Overhead press – Chin-ups
Lower body & core:
Goblet Squats – Upright rows
Front Squats – Step-ups
Reverse crunches – Ab wheel (kneeling)
Now looking for something to pair Split-squats or Walking lunges with.. any ideas?