Training intensification methods are challenging, exciting, and
brutal to say the least. They're used by the best
bodybuilders in the world and programmed by the most
experienced trainers as well because we know the benefits
they hold and just how much they can level up someone's training
program. And what I'm talking about here
is drop sets, Myo reps, rest pause methods, Amraps, giant
sets. And in this episode of the
podcast, I'm going to teach you exactly what intensification
methods are by definition. I will give you multiple
examples of those intensification methods for you
to to use in your training program right away, and I'll be
teaching you how to perform these intensification methods
properly so that by the end of this podcast, you'll know
whether or not you should be implementing them into your
training right away. The greatest things in life all
start with a challenge. You must accept that everything
is hard before it gets easy. Every, every every everything
you want in life begins with a hard path.
First defining what a intensification method is.
Really, this is just any training method we can use
inside of a workout to intensify the workout itself.
This is usually going to be done on any given exercise at the
last set, or you can do it on every set depending on what
exercise this is used on. Usually this means dropping load
and doing as many reps as possible.
It might mean tweaking your rest periods, it might mean tweaking
your tempo where you're pausing within a actual range of motion.
And it could also be adding things to exercises, whether
that's a deeper range of motion like a deficit or we are
combining exercises in a certain way to make it more challenging.
Regardless, all's and intensification method is, is
something that is thrown into a workout to challenge an exercise
even further. You're not doing just a regular
bench press, you are doing a bench press with a specific
method that is going to make it more challenging and ideally
more stress inducing to the muscle because that's the whole
point, adding these for more muscle growth.
Now what are the benefits or the pros of intensification methods?
You know, the first and foremost thing to think about here is
just making the workout more exciting.
I think there's a lot of old school bodybuilders that use a
lot of the methods I'm going to share today, and some of them
have actually been proven in research to be less effective
because it demolishes or diminishes volume accomplished
in a session, which I'm going to get to soon.
But the reality is, is some of those like dungeon style
workouts from like the vault of these old school bodybuilders,
they're just fun because one of the things that we love doing
inside the gym, anybody who likes to lift weights, whether
you're after muscle growth or strength or fat loss or
anything, is kind of go to that pain cave, right?
Go to that dark place where you get to let out stress and you
get to push yourself and challenge yourself in a Safeway
and really let out some aggression.
And some of these things do that.
So outside of muscle growth and strength and, and you know,
neurological adaptations and all these things, just considering
the number one benefit in my opinion, being the, the
satisfaction of challenging yourself.
I think that's the biggest thing.
I think that's the the best pro inside of any of these that I'm
going to share with you is just the fact that they challenge you
in a way that really motivates you.
And when you have something exciting to look forward to in
the gym, in your training session that does a lot for your
effort and your intensity because you are excited, you are
motivated and you are driven to push yourself really hard.
Now, some of these actually have benefits aside from just
mentally being more challenged and excited about the workout as
well. Some of them will help us save
time on a workout because maybe we don't have as much time or
we're trying to fit in a lot of exercises and volume in a single
session. And so we need to throw things
like this in to speed up any given exercise or set so that we
can accomplish more in a single workout.
It might also be that you're trying to squeeze in a 30 minute
workout before work or in a hotel while you're you're
travelling or whatever it may be.
And these come in handy when we need to get a solid workout in,
but we're limited on time, space or equipment.
Last benefit I see inside of these intensification methods is
really learning how far you can push yourself.
I think there's a lot of people who fail to accomplish the right
RIR reps in reserve, which is kind of our gauge for effort and
intensity. They fail to accomplish a high
enough intensity or hard enough effort in the gym to really
stimulate as much growth as they can.
They're not getting the results that they could get because they
don't know how to push themselves to that place or to
that level. And what some of these
intensification methods do is allow us to do to accomplish
that, to push ourselves beyond what we're used to, beyond what
just the sets and reps say on a piece of paper, but really to a
place that shows us how heavy we can lift, how many reps we can
do, or just how hard training really feels.
So for example, if you do a set to failure, you'll actually
begin to learn what training to failure looks like.
But if you never trained with A0R IR reps in reserve, you'll
never actually learn what that is.
Now, you can't train with to failure all the time because if
you do that, you won't fully recover and then you won't adapt
and then you won't be able to progress.
So it's not smart and injury risk goes up.
But if you never trained a failure, you never learn how to
gauge your training effort in the gym.
So you have to, right? There's other times too where I
will program for somebody the weight to lift and Max reps if I
don't think they're pushing themselves hard enough.
I will program 40 LB dumbbells for Max reps 'cause I saw them
do 40 lbs for 8 reps last week and I know they can probably do
more. And I want to challenge them and
show them that this is possible. Or if they do a drop set or a
rest paw set, and I can say, hey, if you do more than blank
rest paw sets or blank reps in the rest paw set or blank Mio
reps, both of which I'm going to get too soon.
As far as how to perform these intensification methods, then I
know you're not lifting heavy enough or hard enough.
And so this person can do 6 Mio reps after their last normal Rep
of the set. And I told them, if you get more
than three, we're not lifting hard enough.
So these can be indicators to allow us to better gauge our
training in the future. So what are the negatives or the
cons? Well, one of the main cons of
this I would say is a lack of progression and an ability to
progress or even to track progression, right?
If I'm doing a drop set or a Myo Rep or any of these things that
we'll cover, it's very difficult to actually progress those and
track your progression. If you're doing 4 sets of eight
of dumbbell flat bench press with a 2 minute rest period in
between, it is so standardized and simple that we can repeat
that exact format and increase weight and track the weight that
we increase week after week after week.
But if we are doing 4 sets of eight plus as many mile reps as
possible with the same load or we're doing a drop set with a
25% load reduction, it it's very difficult because you know, did
it take you a little bit longer to walk over to the dumbbell
rack and grab another dumbbell? Did you take a couple extra
breaths? Were the 30 LB demos gone?
So you actually did a drop set to the 20 fives.
Are you doing Max reps? Are you doing 10 plus reps on a
drop? Like there's so many variables
that get thrown around, which is part of the reason why it's
exciting and challenging 'cause you never know what you're going
to get. But the problem with that is we
can't really progress that. And so if we just did all
intensification methods, as fun as that might be, you're
probably not going to progress properly or be able to track
your progress in a way that allows you to standardize it and
progress properly going forward. The next thing I would say is
the injury risk is higher if we are doing crazy drop set methods
and all these things that these, again, dungeon gym style
bodybuilders have done in the past that are really exciting
and fun. They also pose the risk of
injury because if we didn't warm up properly today, if we didn't
get enough sleep, if we're a little dehydrated or glycogen
depleted, or we're on week four of the same program and probably
need to deload. But we didn't take one.
And then we do this monstrous giant set with the drop sets
included or whatever it may be. Or you're at a new gym and use a
new machine and you do this drop set on it and you're not used to
that machine. Any of these things could cause
an injury to a tendon, ligament or muscles.
And we don't want to cause a strain or a tear or anything
like that 'cause that just sets us back from the gym even
further. And when we're doing really well
formatted and standardized exercises that we know we have
great form on, we can control the movement pattern and the
progression pace that we take week to week.
Injury risk is extremely low. There's just more control.
And again, most intensification methods are ballistic.
There's less control. Again, part of what makes it
fun, exciting and challenging, but also does increase injury
risk, especially if we're doing it all the time.
Lastly, the the main con that has been actually demonstrated
in research is that it could potentially decrease the volume
you're doing. So for example, if you do four
sets of eight to 10 on that same dumbbell bench press and you are
just doing four straight sets and you're taking adequate rest,
your general metabolic fatigue and your direct localized
fatigue to the muscle and all these things, it's going to be
lower. You're going to be able to
control those things. If you're doing a drop set on
every set, you're going to get a really gnarly pump, which is
great. You're also going to be
metabolically fatigued because instead of doing 8 to 10 reps,
you did 8 to 10 + 10 to 20 with a lighter load between each set.
So you still have the same rest, but we're doing more reps.
We're going to be metabolically fatigued and our joints,
tendons, and muscles are more fatigued going into set 2.
It's very unlikely we're going to be able to use the same
amount of load as we did in set 1.
And at the end of the workout, if we just tally up the sets
times, reps, times, weight, you are probably going to progress
more if you do more straight sets with heavier loads in your
training than you would if you were doing drop sets on
everything. Because again, the metabolic
fatigue more than anything goes up really high.
Your heart rate's jumping. It's almost like you're doing
cardio now. You're trying to lift heavy
again. And So what they see in research
is that this can actually negatively impact us because it
can lower your load depending on the type of intensification
method you use or how often use it.
And they also see this with supersets, which is one of the
methods we'll cover today. When doing a super set, you
might actually be hurting yourself because if it's not
paired up perfectly, now we are creating more fatigue globally.
So across every general metric of fatigue that we're looking
at, that's going to make your performance worse and your load
and potential, your reps, both key metrics of volume are going
to decrease as the workout progresses.
So in general, the negatives are pretty strong and I would say so
are the positives. Because even if the only main
positive, let's say is which it's not just being more
motivated, that is going to carry somebody consistently
beyond anything else. You are consistently going to
train harder with more effort over time.
If you are consistently highly motivated to work out and if
things like this make your workouts exciting so that you
can be in that state, that is a very, very big pro.
OK, so the first intensification method supersets, this is the
one we're going to cover. This is probably the most
popular. A superset is just where you go
from one exercise to the next. And, and what this might look
like is a, you know, AB structure.
So our first exercise, 1A might be a bench press, 1B might be a
bent row and we are doing 8 to 10 reps on both.
We're going to do 8 to 10 reps on the bench press, go right to
a bent row, do 8 to 10 sets there or 8 to 10 reps there.
Then we are going to take a short rest period, 2 to 4
minutes and then we go back to the top.
This is 2%. Instead of doing all four sets
of the bench and then all four sets of the bent row, we are
going to put them together and go back and forth with taking a
rest period after both exercises have already been performed.
There has been multiple studies that show this to be really
effective. In fact, there has been multiple
studies to show specifically this helped people save 30 to
40% of the time in the gym. Compared to doing straight sets,
which is a lot of time we're spending an hour.
You're almost cutting that in half if you get up to 40%.
And that's a lot of time saved, which also means if you want to
keep going for an hour and do this, you can actually just do
more within that hour and accomplish more volume, which is
huge. Now, one of the things that they
did see that was a negative in these studies was that metabolic
fatigue increased. So again, metabolic fatigue,
think of this as like high intensity exercise.
Your heart rate gets up, you are metabolically challenging
yourself. That is a type of fatigue that
can make performing in the gym really difficult, especially if
we're lifting heavy. What they saw is as metabolic
fatigue increase, it led to potential nausea and literal
nausea in multiple participants. So I would just say as somebody
who has been coaching and training for a long time that
this is just a matter of making sure somebody's a robot capacity
is good. Even if you are a lifter that
just wants to build muscle, you need to do some form of aerobic
training in cardio because if you are not conditioned at all,
it is going to be very difficult for you to hang in the gym and
push yourself in these workouts. You need that your aerobic
system helps you recover and take in oxygen literally between
reps, sets and even days in the gym.
And so if you are completely ignoring cardio, and this is a
side tangent, that is a mistake and that could actually fix this
issue. But 30 to 40% save time is huge.
There is a potential drop in volume if load suffers due to
shorter rest periods. So as I mentioned, you know,
depending on the superset you create as well as just generally
speaking, you might have more metabolic fatigue if you're not
cardiovascularly adapted or or have a high aerobic capacity.
And that might lead to you lifting lighter because you're
just tired, right? And so you might lift heavy your
first set, but then after a couple sets, you're just more
fatigued. And this is going to cause a
drop in volume. And if your load or the reps you
can accomplish each set drop, that's going to lower the amount
of muscle you can build in that session.
So it might be counterintuitive. However, this is only some
people again, like it can potentially lead to nausea.
And I would say that part of the study just tells us that some
people get metabolic fatigue during super sets and others
don't. So if you feel that way, you
just got to step up your aerobic game and get back to it because
I think this is a game changer. 30 to 40% can save you so much
time that you can either A, not spend as much time in the gym or
B, if you like spending that time in the gym, you can do more
while you're there. And then lastly, I would say
that this must be antagonistic for them to be beneficial.
And So what an antagonistic example is or an antagonistic
superset would be is doing opposites.
So a leg extension and then a leg curl, quads, hamstrings,
opposite sides of the leg, obviously of the femur bone that
is going to be opposite muscle groups, opposite movement
patterns from knee extension to knee flexion.
And so when we fire our quad, we are releasing tension in our
hamstring, and then when we fire our hamstring, we are releasing
tension in our quad. This is similar to a bicep curl
and a tricep extension. You can do a bench press or a
bent row combination. You can also do an overhead
press like a military press and a pull down or a chin up.
They've even shown calf raises with leg presses or squats to be
beneficial as well, which is most likely less to do with the
actual blood flow or tension inside of a muscle and more to
do with the range of motion. Because when we do calf raises,
we're taking our ankles through complete planner and
dorsiflexion under load. When we open up our ankle, we're
going to be able to get into a deeper squat or a deeper a leg
press. And what that's going to do is
create a fuller range of motion, a longer stretch or a bigger or
more tension based stretch phase of that movement.
And we know that the stretch phase of any movement is a key.
It's a direct correlation between stretching the muscle
and muscle growth. So if we can stretch the muscle
more under load, we're going to build more muscle.
And so I think the calf raises actually allow us to do that
with the leg press or squat. But all these other variations
are all upper body except the leg extension of leg curl.
And as you can see, it's opposites, Tricep curl, tricep
extension, leg curl, leg extension, bench press, bent
row, military press, pull down, vertical, vertical push, pull,
horizontal push, pull, elbow flexion, extension, knee
flexion, extension. And this again is is directly
taking blood flow out of the muscle from the last exercise.
And that actually speeds up recovery.
So now we're able to accomplish plenty of load in tension on the
muscle while doing it and then take away some of that tension
to help recovery so that we can get back to it and keep the
loads higher. And This is why they have seen a
lot of success with supersets and muscle growth for
antagonistic muscle groups. However, just know that this
does not apply to the same muscle groups.
Meaning if I do a supinated like a barbell curl or easy bar curl,
supinated grip, bicep curl, and then a neutral grip like a
hammer curl, bicep curl, I'm not going to progress faster.
I'm actually just going to fatigue myself more, potentially
overtrain my bicep or my elbow tendons and ligaments.
And that's not going to help me create more volume for growth.
So it's very specific to opposite muscles.
You don't want to superset them together.
However, there is something called a giant set which does
exactly what I just said don't do and I still advise not to do.
But it is an intensification method that is very popular and
I think it makes sense to share it on this video.
So a giant set is super setting three to five exercises that all
target the same muscle. You take no breaks from going
one to the next. And it it typically decreases
difficulty as the set progresses.
And so this is doing again, exactly what I said not to do.
And so I wouldn't recommend doing this very often, but
there's times where this might come in handy at a hotel, you
don't have any, you know, much to to work with.
And so you're just going to hit chest really hard today.
OK, cool. Do a chest giant set and just
demolish your chest. Get a good pump, get out the
door. You're not training in a hotel
expecting to build muscle. You're just in there to release
some stress. Stick to the plan, maintain
muscle, maybe get a workout in. So there's times where this
makes sense and this is a very old school bodybuilding
approach, but it clearly limits your ability to lift heavy or
create maximum tension because it is so fatiguing.
And I would say injury provoking because if anybody has ever had
a bicep tendon or rotator cuff injury or even a a PEC minor
major tear or anything like that, you know that you should
not do heavy loaded chest presses in three different
styles of exercises back-to-back to back and expect not to
potentially get injured. So an example of this would be
really simple. You could do a chest press.
So this could be a bench press or a hammer strength machine
chest press, then go right into a chest fly, then go into a push
up. And so typically you lift
heavier and it is a little bit harder to do a heavy chest
press, whether it's a barbell or a machine.
Then it's a little bit easier, but still very difficult from a
tension perspective to do a chest fly, whether it's a PEC
deck or a cable or anything like that.
Would not recommend dumbbells on that chest fly because you can
drop the dumbbells, a machine or a cable.
You can drop those, not injure yourself.
And then lastly, a push up, which is self limiting.
So you're going to go until you just can't and you're not going
to get injured because you're just not going to be able to get
off the floor on your last push up.
So this would be, again, chest press, chest fly push ups, doing
them back-to-back. Usually, let's say you start
with 10 reps, 10 to 15 reps, and your goal is to try to stay in
that range or just do as many as possible as the sets progress.
And you would take a long rest period before doing it again.
Or you would just never do it 'cause it's really not that
smart of a intensification method to try.
Next we have drop sets. So drop sets are really popular,
really well known. And typically you just drop the
weight and do another set. Really simple, right?
These are great. These are.
This is a great way to add intensity to a training session.
It's also a really great way to increase volume.
As long as you're not doing this every set.
This is an awesome way to train because I do believe this can
actually progress you faster. Doesn't take very long at all.
It's very intense and challenging.
It's fun and it can accomplish more volume.
For example, if I were to do 4 sets of 10 on any exercise and
do a drop set in between each set.
So I would go four sets of 10 + a drop set 4, or I'm sorry, I
would do a set of 10 + a drop set 10 + a drop set 10 + a drop
set for all four sets. After each drop set, I'm going
to be more fatigued locally, globally, metabolically.
Now moving into set 2, it's going to be harder for me to
stick with that same weight. So if I had £100 dumbbells on
set one, it's very unlikely I'm going to be able to do set 2
with those same 100 LB dumbbells.
And if I have to drop to 90s or 80s, that's a dramatic drop in
volume. When we do sets times, reps
times load the total tonnage and that's a disadvantage for
overall volume and muscle growth.
However, if we do sets one through 3 without a drop set, we
can still do set four with that same load.
So now I can do 100 lbs for set 123 and 4, but on my 4th and
final set, I'm going to throw a drop set in there.
So I dropped the weight. I grabbed 50 to 60 LB dumbbells
and I do as many as I can on that exercise.
Say it's a dumbbell bench press. Again, that's an easy way 'cause
now I have four sets of 10 with 100 lbs, which is a great amount
of volume. Then I added in a drop set,
which if I didn't, that wouldn't have happened at all.
So I went from zero extra volume to, you know, one set times
however many reps I got. Say I got 15 reps times 50 to 60
lbs. That's a lot of total tonnage
added into a workout that took me an extra 30 seconds to a
minute. So it can be a great tool.
However you have to do it in that way.
And I would also say that you you make got to make sure that
you don't have another chest exercise coming up or exercise
for whatever muscle grip you're training with that drop set.
Because if I did that on my first exercise, which is a bench
press, and then I have a dumbbell bench press and then a
chest fly, the dumbbell bench press and the chest fly are
going to suffer because of that drop set on the initial bench
press I did. So when doing this, what you
want to do is set it up for your last set of an exercise that is
the last exercise for that muscle group during that
specific workout. And so a traditional drop set
would look like immediately reducing the load after your
last Rep and performing as many reps as possible.
So again, last set, I do 100 lbs, I drop them, I grab 50 LB
dumbbells up to 75. I always recommend 25 to 50%
load reduction depending on the exercise you're doing curls
with. You know 30 LB dumbbells because
you might not want to do a 50% drop because now you're going to
fifteens. You can do a 25% drop and go
towards 20 to 25 lbs, right? You can also take the math out
of it and just go down a dumbbell depending on the
exercise. But point is you you reduce the
load and then do a Max Rep set right afterwards.
And then there is a mechanical drop set, which is a really cool
variation as well. And with this one, you decrease
the performance advantage as the sets progress by changing
something like the angle. So for example, a incline bench
press is more difficult than a flat bench press and a flat
bench press is more difficult than a decline bench press.
So you can do a dumbbell incline bench press for 10 reps, sit up,
have your training partner drop it to a flat bench, sit back, do
10 more reps because now it's easier than it was.
Even though you reached near or to failure on the incline,
taking that small 5 second rest while the person drops the bench
down on the angle, you have enough in you to do another set
of 10 reps with the flat. Because a flat bench is easier
than the incline. Once you do 10, you sit back up,
they drop it to a decline, then you go into a decline bench
press, which is easier than the flat, and you might be able to
accomplish 10 reps, 10 reps, 10 reps, or even just close to it.
So maybe it's 12108. That's fine too.
Either way, we're increasing volume to the chest and we're
just doing it by changing the angle of the bench, right?
You could do this with a row, you could do this with a lot of
exercises. And what we're really doing here
is we're decreasing the disadvantage or the advantage,
however way you want to look at it.
And so the disadvantage of an incline bench is that when
you're in an incline, you're going more overhead, you're
doing less chess, a little bit more dealt, but regardless, it's
more difficult. So we can essentially decrease
the difficulty by changing some factor like the angle of the
bench. Next we have Myo reps and rest
paw sets. Rest paw sets are really well
known. They've been used in many
different types of weightlifting, whether we're
talking about powerlifting or strength training or CrossFit.
Myo reps are almost exclusively known in the old school
bodybuilding world. So if you've never heard of
that, I'm going to explain it, but it's very similar.
So I put them in the same category.
And this is really just a way to take your muscle to absolute
failure. It's really what it is and it's
a Safeway to do it. So I, I do like this.
So a rest pause set is pretty simple.
You're going to perform a set of reps until near muscular
failure. So let's say you know, one Rep
in reserve, then you're going to take a very short rest period,
usually 10 to 20 seconds. And then you're going to
immediately continue to perform as many additional reps as
possible. So this is similar to a drop
set. The difference here is you're
not changing the load, you're just taking a short break and
then you're doing as many reps as possible.
So if I did 10 reps on a bench press, I would rack it, I'd wait
10 to 20 seconds, and then I would do as many reps as I can.
And I would suggest doing this with an exercise that's safe.
Not like a barbell bench press where you can drop it on your
throat and die. Don't do that.
Do this on next size like curls or leg extensions or something
like that, or if you have a training partner that can spot
you. Now, Myo reps are very similar,
but you're going to do what they call an activation set, which is
really just your first set. You do your 10 reps, you rack
it, then you're going to take 3 to 5 seconds.
A lot of times the way I coach this is just take three to five
breaths. You don't want to worry about
having a timer. Just breathe three to five
times. Once you do that, you're going
to move into back off sets. And so these have the same load
just like the rest pause. But the difference is, is you're
only doing 3 to 5 reps. So what this looks like is doing
your normal set of 10, you rack it, wait 3 to 5 seconds or take
3 to 5 breaths, unrack it, do three to five reps, rack it
again, take a three to five second break.
And then you repeat that as many times as possible until you can
no longer get 3 full reps. So I would rack it, do three to
five, rack it, do three to five, rack it, do 3 to 5 over and over
and over again with just three to five seconds or three to five
breaths in between each of those mini sets.
These are called Myo reps and when I can no longer get more
than three, so let's say I get 5 and then I get 4 and then I get
3, then I get 3 and then I get 2, I'm done.
As soon as I hit 2 or I cannot get three or more, I am done.
And you can add a lot of volume with this.
So this is another one I really like and just like the drop set.
I suggest doing this when you don't have any more exercises to
target that same muscle in that last session so that you don't,
you know, decrease the performance of the load used in
the this the next exercises coming up for that muscle group
and you do it on your last set. You don't want to do this on
every set. It just doesn't make sense.
Descending RIR is another really good one and this is probably
the one that I would recommend using more than any other one.
That's why I put it last. A descending RIR is an
intensification method, but really it's a coaching technique
to help make sure that your clients are reaching near enough
to failure to really stimulate muscle growth or get the best
results possible. So if you're not a coach, you
can just use this on your own program, obviously.
And So what you do is you start with leaving a few reps in the
tank and you get progressively closer to failure as the sets
progress. And this is something I've been
doing ever since reps in reserve has been studied extensively.
And so the last couple years I've used this and it has taught
people how to train harder. It has taught people what real
failure looks like. It has taught people how to use
an RIR scale better. And it has ensured to me that I
know my client is going at the exercise hard enough to really
get the good result. And if I question their ability
to do so, then I'm going to program something like I
mentioned before, where I throw in an exercise with a specific
weight for Max reps and I ask them to track the amount of reps
they got. And then we compare it to when
they were doing that same load for only 8 reps at A1 RAR to
show them and deprove, like disprove, you know, that isn't
enough weight for you on that exercise.
And this is actually a really cool method that I talked with
Doctor Brad Schoenfeld about on my podcast about a year ago as
I'm recording this when he was on as a suggestion from him as
well. And it was something I brought
up that I do and he suggested it and says that he does it with
his clients and he really promotes it now after seeing the
studies that he was a part of inside of muscle hypertrophy.
So an example of this is pretty simple.
If you have a lat pull down and you're doing 4 sets of eight to
10 reps set 1, you would do three RAR and you leave 3 reps
in the tank, 3 reps in reserve set #2 you have a 2 RAR so you
leave 2 reps in the tank on your final Rep.
Set 3 you have one RAR so you only leave one Rep in the tank
on your final Rep of set 3 and then your final set set for zero
RAR. You take it all the way to
failure. I wouldn't recommend doing this
on a back swat or something, you know, intense like that, or a
deadlift, a compound lift, but on a lap pull down a curl, A
dumbbell bench press, anything that you know you can bail or
you can't hurt yourself because it's self limiting.
An inverted row, you can't hurt yourself on that.
You just aren't going to pull yourself back up to the bar, any
kind of row really. But maybe a dumbbell bench
press, you're a little bit more cautious.
OK, well, if you're good at bailing and throwing the
dumbbells off to the side, you can use this with it.
But essentially what you're doing is you're descending the
RAR. Descending as in dropping 4321,
right? It's that simple.
On a compound lift, on an accessory, in isolation, 3210.
So you're going all the way to failure on your last Rep.
Now, knowing all of this, how do you apply it?
Really, really simple. You probably gathered a lot of
that throughout the context of the entire video after I went
through each of these different intensification methods.
But here's what I would suggest in a nutshell.
Here's my Cliff notes. Use supersets when you need to
save time. I think everybody should do this
when their antagonist exercises big compound lifts.
You're probably not going to do this.
You can do this on a bench press in a Ben row.
And they have seen positive results from that.
I still do believe if you really want to see strength
progressions on that, you probably should just keep them
as straight sets. But you know, for 90% of your
training, I, I see no reason why, at least upper body
training, there's no reason why you can't use super sets.
You can save time whether you're in a time crunch or not 'cause
if you're in a time crunch, here you go.
Training's less stressful to fit in your calendar.
If you're not in a time crunch, there you go.
You have more time in the gym now to put more volume into your
training and build more muscle. Use drop sets, myo reps, and
rest paw sets up to once per workout on a non compound lift
as a way to intensify your session.
I like doing this with clients. I like doing this with myself.
One exercise per workout. I'm going to throw something
crazy on it. A drop set, a Myo Rep set, a
rest pause set, you know, go all the way to failure kind of set
something different that I can just put in there to make that
work out fun. It's waiting for them.
They know after they get through these things, they got that one
death set, let's say, which is made famous by John Meadows.
And if you want to really a long list of cool intensification
methods, look up John Meadows, the Mountain Dog.
RIP. He was a legend in the strength
industry, but especially with bodybuilding.
He has so many that I've taken over the years.
But these are great to throw in just for one exercise on a given
can work out. It's not overkill and it gives
enough to really create some challenging efforts in the gym
and excite somebody to go to the gym.
Use things like giant sets almost never but or multiple
intensifications methods like I've been talking about with
this when training out of hotels or you're travelling or you're
in your home gym because you, you can't, you know, it's
snowing outside and you can't drive to the gym.
And all you got is some bands and a set of Bowflex dumbbells,
which is a really common pair that people have in their garage
and that's all they have. If that's all you got and you
have no other way to get a workout and you just want to get
something in or you're travelling, do it.
Do giant sets. They're a great way to create
intensity. And if you're in that situation,
you probably don't have heavy enough weights to really cause
injury anyway, so it's good for those sessions.
And then lastly, use a descending RR model on 90% of
your training to ensure effort is high enough for optimal gains
and to make sure that you can actually gauge your progress and
progressively overload with the right intensity over time.
And so literally 90% of your training, you should follow a
descending RAR going 3210 on any four sets of any exercise.
That 10% where you're not doing that is going to be on your
compound lifts, So your squat, leg press, and leg press, you
honestly can too, but you just got to be safe.
Dead lifts, overhead press, all those kind of big compound
lifts, especially with barbells. Don't do a descending RIR model
all the way to 0. You can still use a descending
RIR model, but go to 1. Leave one Rep in the tank at
least on your last set to keep it safe and keep it progressive,
and everything else go all the way to 0.
There's nothing wrong with that as long as it's a safe exercise
for you, and that's probably going to stimulate more growth
and gains in the future.