How to use drop sets

Men's Fitness, April, 2003

I've been told that drop sets stimulate muscle growth, but since I started doing them after each set, I've been losing size. Why is this?

--D.P., BOCA RATON, FL

"You're overtraining," replies Will Thompson, a medical exercise specialist certified by the American Academy of Health, Fitness and Rehabilitation Professionals. "You're overusing a valid training technique, and the result is overfatigued muscles, which causes your body to tear down muscle tissue minus the benefits of recuperation and growth."

Drop sets are often referred to as "stripping" the weights, or "burnouts." After you reach failure with your working weight, a partner quickly reduces the poundage you're lifting--by stripping off the weight, as it were--so that you can complete more reps, taking you beyond your threshold for failure at your initial working weight. Thompson explains how to correctly implement drop sets to stimulate muscular development.

* Use a drop set as the last set of a particular exercise. You should not use a drop set for more than one set of any exercise. "Pyramid up in weight for each set, then include a drop set for the last set with your heaviest weight," Thompson says.

* Perform only one or two drop sets in a given workout. "This technique places a lot of stress on your target muscle in a very short period of time," Thompson says. "Only use it for one or two exercises in any workout."

* Perform drop sets only once or twice a week. "Use drop sets to train a lagging body part, or a particular body part you are targeting for growth," says Thompson. Target-train these body parts for six to eight weeks before switching your training strategy. Drop sets should be used for extra stimulation. If you use them all the time, your body will accommodate itself to them, as it does to all training strategies. This may be part of the reason you're not seeing the development you expected to from using this technique.

* Use your judgment to determine how many drops to perform.

"In a given set, you can use one, two or even several drops," Thompson says. "As long as you stay strict with your form, you can really tax your target muscle by going all the way down until you're only lifting about 10 to 20 percent of your initial weight for that set."

* Decrease weight in increments. "The first drop should bring you to about 80 percent of the working weight for that set," Thompson says. "If instead you cut the weight in half and pump out 20 reps, you're missing out on the benefits of drop sets." For subsequent drops, Thompson recommends going to about 60 percent to 70 percent of the initial weight, then on the next drop to 50 percent. "But this can vary based on how much fatigue you feel in your target muscle."

* Use a partner. Finally, Thompson advises enlisting a partner unless you're using a machine and can quickly change the pin. "If you have to get up to change the weight, then you're taking too long between the set and the drop. That allows for too much recovery and undercuts the benefit of the drop set."