Drop Sets???

[CyberSteak]

Ok...I've seen it posted a few times on the boards now...but I must be missing something. I don't recall reading about it on the initial write up of HST. So...what are they??? When are they done??? And how??? I'm finishing off my second week of 5's and haven't done these at all (that I know of).

Thanks in advance.

 

[Lars]

Drop Sets - explained; they're done instead of negatives, which is good for us who do not have training partners.

 

[Aaron_F]

Quote[/b] (Lars @ Dec. 22 2003,5:37)]they're done instead of negatives,

not specifically, they can be done in addition to negatives.
While the negatives and 5s may produce the loading stimulus on the muscle, they may not provide adequate metabolic stimulus, so the drop sets are there to provide this stimulus.

 

[Insane_Man]

I'm familiar with dropsets, but I haven't as of yet incorporated them into my HST workouts. I was curious as to how many drops one should do, and if one should go to failure.

 

[Dianabol]

Dear Insane Man,

Failure is not necessary on drop sets. Lighten the weight, and rep it out until you get a good burn and pump. Usually, the burn is restrictive - this can be read as "failure" perhaps.

For me, I'd do a total of 45 reps per exercise. No special reason really, but because I do three sets of 15s which works out to 45 reps, I stick to the same rep count for the rest of the phases. I've been experimenting with isometric holds in order to elicit a serious burn - not sure if this will lead to overtraining but so far so good.

Godspeed, and happy HSTing

 

[Techo]

Quote[/b] (Insane_Man @ Jan. 09 2004,12:51)]I'm familiar with dropsets, but I haven't as of yet incorporated them into my HST workouts. I was curious as to how many drops one should do, and if one should go to failure.

I plan to use them this cycle once I hit my 5's. Bascially the last set of the exercise is a drop set. I've heard they are best during 5s (four weeks) but others as you see have sucess doing them straight thru...

I dont' plan to fail, only get that "unbearable burn" =)

 

[CyberSteak]

Well I have implemented my drop sets in this fashion...
I do a 5 rep warm up, then my 5 rep max, drop the weight for another 5 reps, then drop the weight for my final 5 reps. 15 reps in total if you don't count the warm up, and often times my weight for my final 5 ends up being the weight I used for my warm up.

Before I added drop sets I was doing a warm up set, and then 2 max sets of 5 reps.

So far so good. But there does seem to be a lot of variations on drop sets huh???

 

[Dianabol]

Dear CyberSteak,

You might wish to increase the number of work sets before you employ the drop set.

From what you've typed, I gather that you do only one work set before the dropset, and that's it? Perhaps, do two work sets, three is ideal, before progressing to the dropset. You could reap more growth that way.

Godspeed, and happy HSTing

 

[CyberSteak]

Quote[/b] ]You might wish to increase the number of work sets before you employ the drop set.

From what you've typed, I gather that you do only one work set before the dropset, and that's it? Perhaps, do two work sets, three is ideal, before progressing to the dropset. You could reap more growth that way.

Throughout my first cycle regardless of reps or exercise I did one warm up set and two work. My two weeks of 5's kinda got messed up because of the holidays (gym was closed for more days then I expected) so I added another full week of my 5 rep maxes.

This week is when I added the drop sets. I intended to do dropsets for 2 weeks. The first day I did them was kinda random (I dropped weight on my bench about 5 times) but on this day I still did two working sets. I put my body through a beating that day so I decided to just go with 1 warm up set, 1 work, then drop the weight twice for two more sets. But thinking about it, the first day I did drops I likely wiped myself out by dropping the weight so many times. So I should I do this for the next week...

1 warm up, 1 work, and then a drop set (starting with the weight of my 5 rep max and decreasing the weight twice (essentially 3 more sets of 5)) ?

And should I only do it for that week (then SD) or would you recommend more??? How long should I go before I start a SD???

Thanks for the help btw.

 

[Guest]

A drop set is actually a single set divided into 2 or more parts. For instance, on the last workout for week 6, you've reached your 5RM. So on week 7, you have to add more weight, but still get 5 reps. If your 5RM was 100 lbs., you'd have to go to 105, but now you only get 3 reps. So you have to drop that weight back down after those 3 reps to say 95 in order to get the last 2 reps. When you go from 105 to 95, you don't rest at all from one to the other. If you drop the weight from set to set with rest between sets, that's usually referred to as a pyramid- 1 set at 100, 1 set at 95 and so on. So you still do only one or two sets total per exercise on weeks 7 and 8, but they are drop sets so that you can go beyond your 5RM as you add weight each workout. Negatives serve the same purpose- you have to add weight each workout, so now you're lifting more than you can by yourself, so you have to have a spotter help you lift it, and then you resist on the negative. A 2RM is recommended for negatives because they will do major damage. So in reality you'd probably do drop sets on week 7, and then do negatives with drop sets to get those last 3 reps on week 8 since by then you've gone beyond even your 1RM on the weight. And you SD ABOUT a week if you stop after week 6 or 7, and ABOUT 2 weeks if you go all the way to week 8, because you'll need that longer time to recover and fully SD.