If you’re new to dropsets, now’s the time to add them to your tool set. They’re easy to learn, easy to fit into your workout, and don’t require elaborate equipment. They do, however, require an elaborate amount of effort to benefit from what might be the most effective hypertrophy technique of all time.

What Is A Dropset?

A dropset is defined as continuing an exercise at a lower weight once you’ve reached muscle failure at a higher weight. For the sake of convenience, dropsets are often performed on machines, since reducing the weight requires nothing more than moving a pin. Dropsets can also be performed with dumbbells, barbells and, conceivably, many other forms of strength training, from sandbags to Atlas stones.

Dropsets are part of the famous Weider System that Joe Weider developed in the 1980s, but their origin dates back even further. Henry Atkins, editor of Body Culture magazine, created the technique in 1947, calling it the “multi-poundage system.” Since then, this ornery approach has gone by a lot of names, including descending sets, strip sets, the stripping method, triple-drops, down the rack, and running the rack.

How Do I Perform A Dropset?

On A Cable Machine

If your workout calls for 5 sets of 10 reps of close-grip front lat pull-downs on a cable machine, here’s how you can turn that into a dropset workout.

Start at a certain weight, say 160 pounds. Instead of stopping at 10 reps, keep going to failure. Stop long enough to move the pin up to a weight that’s 10-20-percent less than your starting weight. In this example, you’d move to about 130 pounds.

On a cable machine

Rep to failure at 130 pounds, then move the pin to the next 10-20-percent lighter weight (about 100 pounds) and do reps at that weight until you reach failure. Continue this process until you’ve done 5 sets total, at which point you and your arms will be done.

With Dumbbells

If you’re using dumbbells, an example of using dropsets would be “running the rack.”

If your top set of lateral raises with dumbbells is 30 pounds, lift this weight until failure. Next, go to the next dumbbell weight on the rack, which is usually 25 pounds, and lift to failure. Continue down the rack using 20 pounds, then 15 pounds, then 10 pounds, and finally 5 pounds.

With Barbells

Barbell dropsets are usually associated with the strip set. In this technique, you load small plates on the barbell and, once you reach muscular failure at each weight, you—or better yet, your partner—strips off the plates one by one.

An example would be doing biceps curls with 105 pounds, which would be a 45-pound bar with three 10s on each side; curl this weight until failure. Then, your partner immediately strips a 10-pound plate off each side, and you do 85 pounds until you reach muscle failure. Repeat the process. You could continue this all the way down to the 45-pound Olympic bar.

With a barbell

Generally, you want to reduce the weight or intensity 10-30 percent per drop, and do anywhere from 2-5 drops with one exercise. Your rest period is usually only as long as it takes you to change the weights.

Keep in mind that these are guidelines, not rules. You can take bigger jumps, smaller jumps, keep the reps the same but drop the weight, or keep the weight the same but drop the reps. You can also change the intensity of the exercise by changing your stance or your grip placement. In short, use the general dropset technique, but be creative.

Why Should I Do Dropsets?

The purpose of dropsetting is to “shock” your muscles by placing more stress on them for a longer period of time than you do in a traditional set. More shock results in more muscle hypertrophy.

Dropsets are effective because they recruit the entire spectrum of muscle fibers, ranging from the powerful fast-twitch fibers down to the slow-twitch oxidative fibers. You work your fast-twitch muscle fibers when you move the initial heavy weight, then call on your slow-twitch muscle fibers as you finish the rest of the set.

The overall volume of blood that moves to the muscle group being trained in dropsets is so large that you’ll experience an amazing pump as you fill the target muscles with oxygenated, protein-enriched blood, setting the stage for peak muscle hypertrophy.

How Do I Work Dropsets Into My Routine?

Some bodybuilders do six or more exercises in a single session, performing a dropset for each. If you’re just starting to use dropsets, I recommend using them with just one exercise per muscle group for each training session.

Dropsets bring about increased time under tension, and you take each set to failure, making this a very demanding technique. Start conservatively, then slowly increase the number of dropsets you do per workout—but do start working them into your program. If you don’t, the only thing you’re dropping is the ball.

But all of this is just advise.

You can do whatever the F**K you wanna do!

Your Friend and Coach,

Crystal aka Barbell_Barbie.NY

NASM CPT

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I’ve got a confession to make: I’m fine with post-workout selfies, but I’m tired of seeing the same old ab and chest shots. Beach-muscle photos abound on social media, but there seems to be a serious lack of well-developed backs out there. I’m talking about dense lats, three-dimensional traps, a wide V-taper, capped rear delts, and lower-back musculature that makes foothills on either side of the spine.

It’s extremely tough work to build that kind of back, so it’s no wonder so many folks only take pics from the front. But if you want to stand out from the crowd, you’re in the right spot; the four techniques in this article are proven winners for unparalleled back development! Use them to take your back size, strength, and symmetry to new heights. Soon enough, you’ll be snapping selfies of your better side. ###Cobra Back ##Back Attack. So lets kick some back and take some names! Here goes!

1 DEADLIFT

Deadlifting forces you to use virtually every muscle in your body as you take the bar from the floor and transition to an upright position. In the chain of muscles involved in this process, nothing is left behind, and everything is forced to contribute.

It all starts with your lower back. Nothing will build your spinal erectors like the repetitive action of heavy deadlifting for reps. The deadlift is more than a lower-back exercise, though. As you move through the full range of motion and transition from the lower part of the lift to the lockout phase, your grip, lats, traps, and other upper-back muscles take over.

When you lock out the weight, you’re holding a very heavy weight in a dead-hang position, which places anabolic-spiking pressure on your traps, creating a synergistic combination that builds thickness in your upper back and shoulders.

TRAINING TIPS
To more effectively target your back, use a conventional hip-width stance when deadlifting. Furthermore, because the range of motion is greater than in a sumo deadlift, more mechanical work is done, and the muscles are under greater tension for a longer amount of time. Sumo deadlifts can maximize leverage for powerlifting, but aren’t great for building size, whereas conventional deadlifts serve as the gateway to hypertrophy heaven. When growth is the objective, you want to keep reps in a variety of ranges, working both low and high.
Everything in training operates on the risk-to-benefit ratio. When using good form, the risk is relatively low on this continuum, and the benefit is high. Stop deadlifting for the day before your form starts to breaks down. Otherwise, you’ll lose the desired training effect and potentially win the local chiropractor or orthopedic surgeon a new patient.
If you’re unsure of how wide to place your feet, use the same stance you’d do with a standing vertical jump. From here, you can adapt your stance to your personal preferences.

2 SINGLE-ARM DUMBBELL ROW
This movement is a tried-and-true bodybuilding basic, but I’m putting a unique spin on how you complete each set. Instead of following a vanilla formula of 3 sets of 10, let’s instead do as many reps as possible for a given amount of time! Your goal is to go for 30 seconds. For a 30-second set (each side), you’ll want to use a weight at which you can perform about 10 reps.

You’ll likely reach failure (at 2 seconds per rep), so you’ll continue with partial reps until you hit 30 seconds. Don’t stop your set when you reach failure! Start with your weaker side, and match the number of reps on your stronger side.

TRAINING TIPS
Start with your first set as your heaviest. On each subsequent set, reduce the weight by approximately 20 percent. So, if you’re using a 100-pound dumbbell for your first set, the second set would be with 80 pounds, and the third set with 65.
Doing the rowing movement unilaterally allows you to better concentrate on each rep, and then take the set beyond failure. Ultimately, this results in your backside muscles spending more time under maximal tension and enduring greater amounts of metabolic stress, two keys for hypertrophy.
This is about building a big back, so don’t let your grip be a limiting factor! By all means, throw on straps as needed.

3 STRAIGHT-ARM PULL-DOWN
Here’s one you’d never expect to make a list of big-back moves, because it’s a single-joint exercise, but it was a favorite of powerlifting bench-press world-record-holder Doug Young, a man who was built like a bodybuilder and even became a training advisor to a younger Arnold Schwarzenegger. In every upper-body workout—not just on back day—Young included 6 sets of straight-arm pull-downs.

In some pulling movements, the biceps are the limiting factor. But when you do a single-joint movement like this one, the biceps are taken out, which allows you to better isolate your lats. And this exercise does that especially well.

Straight-arm pull-downs can be performed with a lat bar or rope attachment on a cable lat station. Knock them out for one minute straight—don’t worry about reps—with a weight around your 20-rep max. Go at a controlled pace, focus on range of motion, work the muscle, and control the negative.

TRAINING TIPS
Some movements aren’t ruined by cheating and may even be enhanced, but this is not one of those movements. Keep it strict!
At the top of the movement, focus on stretching your lats; on the way down, focus on tightening them, keeping your arms extended throughout. By keeping your torso slightly inclined, you’ll more effectively target your lats.
Keep the negative portion of the rep under control at all times, taking up to five seconds to reach the top position before starting your next rep.
If you have trouble feeling your lats during the movement, do a lat-spread bodybuilding pose for six seconds prior to performing the exercise, and slow down the negative to a full five seconds.

4. Neutural Grip Pull Ups

Most of us are familiar with the overhand-grip pull-up; a neutral grip simply means your palms face each other. Here, you want them about shoulder-width apart. This movement is much more friendly on the wrists, elbows, and shoulders than either the overhand or underhand (chin-up) version.

The primary function of the lats is to pull the humerus (upper arm) down and into the body, but they also have a synergistic role in extension and lateral flexion of the spine. Both of those functions take place with the neutral-grip pull-up, which is why many bodybuilders feel it is the king of lat-building movements.

Start the pull-up from an arms-extended position, and hold the bar keeping tension in your lats and shoulders while squeezing your glutes. Pull your chin over the bar by driving your elbows down; lower your body under control to the starting position.

TRAINING TIPS
Why be normal? Do these pull-ups in cluster sets so you can sneak more volume into a minimal amount of time. Do 3 reps, rest 15 seconds, and repeat this sequence for four minutes.
If this is too easy—which is highly unlikely, because you won’t know until toward the end—by all means, add weight. If this is too difficult, do these band-assisted, or use an assisted pull-up machine.
To increase intensity, do these with a five-second eccentric; once you can no longer maintain that tempo, switch to a traditional tempo.

But all of this is just advice. You can do whatever the fudge you wanna do!!

Keep Punching, Lifting and growing Strong,

Crystal aka Barbell Barbie NY

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