Hyper Hypertrophy - 3 special sets you're most likely not doing

Everybody that has ever set foot in a gym has done a "set" of something with an X amount of repetitions.... duh.  The problem is that people sometimes get too comfortable and adjust to the typical sets with a given rep range.  Sometimes this isn't enough and something is further required to really shock your muscles into hypertrophy for more growth.  When your workouts are looking prime, your failure points and weights are dialed in it's time to start tweaking your sets into something more savage (yeah we're going there.)

Triple Drop Sets
If anyone has every done Neil Hill's Y3T - 9 Week Trainer then you know all about these but can still be incorporated into your workout to help maximize gains.  Well what is a triple drop set?  It's much more than your standard 8-12 rep range because it's tripled.  How?  By lowering the weight each time. 

Here's how it breaks down per set for something simply like chest fly's.  
1. Pick a weight with for a desired failure point and carry out your set normally until failure
2. Without resting, lower the weight in accordance to fail within the same rep range and work again until failure
3. Drop the weight a final time, without rest, and perform the same rep range. 


Hill's program has you go through this with varying rep ranges of 10-12 or 14-16 per drop depending on the workout.  I personally find satisfaction in starting this out heavy for a solid 8 reps and gradually increasing the rep target to the 14-16 range if possible. This is definitely something to gear toward the end of your workout and can be combined to enhance endurance and super muscular breakdown of your troubled areas.  

Another cool tip for triple drop sets?
Use them on a final set of an exercise.  Why stop at the last rep of your leg press?  Throw some plates off, bang out another few reps and drop the weight again!  It's a last ditch effort to milk each exercise for what it can truly be worth. 

Breathing Ladders
Taking a page from The Governator's Blog is something called a Breathing Ladder.  This is a sort of pyramid of repetitions that are determined by your breathing; stay with me. 

The ladder works out like this (using squats as an example):
1 squat - 1 breath
2 squats - 2 breaths
3 squats - 3 breaths
4 squats - 4 breaths
5 squats - 5 breaths
6 squats - 6 breaths
7 squats - 7 breaths
8 squats - 8 breaths
9 squats – 9 breaths
10 squats - 10 breaths

Each is basically it's own set but rest is determined by your own breathing intervals.  When I use these, adjusting the weight accordingly, it can be an helpful tool to incorporate a lot volume into a workout as well as keeping the exercise heavy and proper without beating myself to death.

This is great to throw either in the beginning or middle of a workout and is meant for compound movements after a good warmup.  Further isolation really gets the blood flow to all the right spots once you're good and primed after these.  

Timed Sets

Sometimes a muscle won't grow, you get mad and need to get savage... it's ok we feel you.  Time to let loose and hit up some timed sets and always leads to great experimentation.  The basic idea is to set a timer (3-4 minutes can do it for me) and just go. 

Had enough of chest day? Hop on a chest press machine and start pressing!
Need to get those abs hurting? Hop on a bench and start crunching!
Legs not busting out of those pants, yet?  Grab a squat rack or leg press and get going!

They key is not to go heavy but to pick a weight that the first reps can be obtained relatively easy.  After that you still might have another three minutes to go and will have to take pauses and pump out as many as you can before resting.  The lighter the weight will yield a higher volume and lower injury chances (which is what I prefer). 

3:33 mark shows Antione Vaillant going heavy on deadlifts at the end of his back workout.  This is right where the maniacal kind of volume and little rest needs to be.  This is a great finisher to those stubborn parts that you're just sick and fucking tired of.  



-Pq