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!