Don’t let the title of the article fool you. This doesn’t necessarily mean that “saving time” through the use of these techniques makes these exercises any easier. In fact, it generally makes things harder. But the benefit you get is not just a shorter more efficient workout, but often times a more effective exercise.
Minimizing time in the gym with the techniques I’m about to explain doesn’t necessarily reduce the amount of work you are going to do. It simply takes a similar workload and condenses it into a shorter time frame. Certainly if you are training for hypertrophy or increased work-capacity, this is a win-win.
A short note of caution…..for most of these techniques, I don’t advocate using them with the big lifts (squat, bench, deadlift, press, etc). These techniques are best used with assistance exercises for smaller body parts, and most of the time they work best when using machines, dumbbells, your own bodyweight, or cables/bands.
Super-Sets / Mini-Circuits
One of the biggest mistakes lifters make is not resting enough between sets, particularly on the major barbell exercises. I can’t tell you how many times people have told me they rest just 2-3 minutes while performing their heavy 5×5 Squat workout. Sorry folks – for heavy strength work, that ain’t gonna get the job done. I almost always prescribe 5-10 minutes of complete rest between heavy sets across on the major barbell exercises.
But that’s all at the front end of the workout, usually just on the first lift of the day. Once you get the heavy stuff out of the way, you might have a few assistance exercises you’d also like to complete with lighter weights in order to work on weak points, build muscle mass, or improve your GPP.
Depending on how your training split is organized you can often group together 2-4 movements and perform them in a continuous circuit with minimal rests between exercises. I prefer to use this approach with exercises that don’t all work the same muscle group.
Let’s take an example. In the programming I use for my online Barbell Club, every other Squat workout is a high volume squat workout. So in one of our upcoming workouts, we’ll start the session off with Squats for 5 sets of 6 reps at approximately 75% of 1RM. So my guys are gonna be pretty tired after this is done, and I wont’ have anything prescribed after that except for lighter lower body stuff for GPP (and I also usually put some back work on Squat/Deadlift days).
So the workout might read like this:
- Primary Strength: Squat 5 x 6 x 75% of 1RM
- Assistance:
- Lat Pulldowns 3 x 10-12
- Back Extensions 3 x 15
- Weighted Decline Sit Ups 3 x 10
- Standing Weighted Calf Raise 3 x 25
So….if we want to take the long way (and I mean really long way) then we will perform each exercise one at a time, one set at a time, and we’ll rest as much as we need between sets of each movement.
But I think the better way to perform work like this is to either group the workload into 2 super sets or one giant circuit. In the former, I’d group together the Lat Pulldowns and the Back Extensions and do approximately 3 sets of each alternating back and forth between the two movements until all the work was done, and then I’d move onto the super sets of Sit Ups and Calf Raises. Again, with little to no rest between exercises.
Since none of this work is heavily dependent on force production – it doesn’t matter if you are tired. Just push through and get the work done and you’ll build some conditioning and work capacity in the process. And you’ll have a much shorter workout.
I’m not a terribly huge fan of super-setting exercises that overlap too much on the same muscle group. For instance, trying to super-set tricep pressdowns and dips. I just feel like one or both of the exercises has to get compromised so much in terms of load, that it makes it a non-ideal way to do things.
However if you want to build some upper body GPP and save some time then it makes total sense to pair up things like Chin Ups and Dips together or maybe push ups with bodyweight rows on rings, or the ever popular bicep/tricep super set where we match up a curl variation with a tricep extension of some sort.
Rest Pause Sets (My favorite!)
Rest-Pause sets are essentially setting up a certain rep goal for each set and then hitting that total rep goal in a series of “sub-sets” with extremely short rest periods between them. Each subset will be taken to failure or near failure. Generally the rest time between sub-sets is like 10-20 seconds. I usually just count out like 10 deep breaths rather than use a timer. Then you would take a full 2-3 minute rest before you start your next rest-pause set.
Let me give you an example: Let’s say you are going to do a Cable Tricep Pressdown for 3 sets of 20 reps, using the rest-pause technique.
Generally I like to aim for at least half (or just a little more) of my reps on the first effort, and then hit my target goal with no more than 3 total subsets.
So here is how it might look….11 reps x 100 lbs…rest 10 deep breaths…..5 reps x 100 lbs….rest 10 deep breaths…..4 reps x 100 lbs. Rest 2-3 minutes and start another rest-pause set of 20.
This has an advantage over simply doing a set of 20. Primarily – load. To do a set of 20 reps without stopping requires extremely light weights, but just by breaking that set of 20 up with some very short rest periods, I am raising my average workload tremendously. Same volume, but more weight = more strength and more muscle mass.
The way most people screw these up is going too heavy. If you aim for a total rep count of 20, and your first sub-set fails out at 4 you are in big trouble. You don’t want to do 8 sets of 2 all the way up to 20. That’s why I advocate getting 50-60% of your reps with that first effort and then limiting the total number of subsets to 3. One big chunk at first and then two smaller subsets and you should be at your goal. You should adjust the weight accordingly from set to set to make sure that this happens.
Descending Sets & Drop Sets
This is the perfect follow up to the rest-pause set explanation. Descending sets and drop sets both do the same thing. They lower the weight from set to set, thereby allowing you to shorten rest intervals between sets.
The main differences between the two (and it’s big differences) are the (1) rest time (2) and the degree of the reduction in weight between sets.
Let’s use a Seated Dumbbell Press as an example since I like this exercise and I like both these techniques applied to this exercise.
Most commonly people use “straight sets” for this exercise. Let’s assume the goal is 4 sets of 8-12 reps. With straight sets the lifter would simply choose a weight that he can perform for 8-12 reps on all 4 sets with let’s say a 3 minute rest between sets. We’ll say he can do that with a pair of 65 lb dumbbells. The downside of this, is that in order to achieve all 4 sets of 8-12 reps on a 3 minute rest our lifter is probably using weight that isn’t really taxing him that much on the first set or two. If he did go all out on set 1 (when he’s the strongest) he’d empty his gas tank and fall out of his desired rep range….unless he added rest time.
But remember the point of the article is to save time, not add time to our training sessions.
With descending sets, our lifter would take a weight that causes him to fail out between 8-12 reps…the heaviest weight possible he can do with good form. Blow it out, go all in on this first work set while you are the strongest. Let’s say that weight is 75 lbs x 8.
But now, since he’s gassed….let’s rest 2-3 minutes and drop down to 70s for another set. Maybe 8 or 9 this time. Another 2-3 minute rest and drop down to 65s for 9 or 10. Another 2-3 minute rest, drop down to 60s for 10-12. So basically the same protocol, but aggregate load was much higher than with straight sets and especially his top end set was much heavier.
Drop sets are a little different. Drop sets generally only occur on the tail end of whatever exercise you are doing. They might follow a series of straight sets, a series of rest-pause sets, or even a series of descending sets. It’s a little exclamation point at the end of an exercise. If you are training for hypertrophy, it creates an incredible pump.
Drop sets occur immediately following the last regular set of an exercise with little to no rest in between and because of that, there is generally a large drop in weight. So let’s say our lifter (from the previous example) ends his shoulder workout with 60 lb dumbbells for a set of 10. If he wants to do a drop set then he will rack the 60s immediately following his 10th rep and walk directly over to say…the 40s, and perform a set of max reps. He’d rack the 40s and immediately pick up a pair of say..25s. And rep those out as well. Then we’d say our lifter has performed 2 drop sets.
There are no real rules as to how this is supposed to work in terms of reps, but I generally like to average about 10 additional reps per drop set. The goal with these is blood volume into the muscle, so it doesn’t make that much sense to do too many low rep drop sets.
Timed Sets and Rep-Total Sets
These are essentially two sides of the same coin. It’s essentially setting a pre-determined workload and then using time as measured variable and not just reps.
So for a timed set, I might say something like “Barbell Curls for 3 minutes and 65 lbs.” And so the lifter does as many curls as he can in 3 minutes with a 65 lb bar and writes down his total reps achieved. Next time, we might do the same time and the same weight, but try and achieve more reps in that 3 minute period.
Rep-Total sets are actually a lot like rest-pause sets. You’ll set a predetermined number of reps to achieve with a given weight and then hit that number in as many sets as it takes. Then you will time how long it takes to get there. Typically though, when I talk about rep-totals I talk about very high rep totals like 50-100, usually done in sub-sets of 10-20 reps at a time.
I really like this for bodyweight stuff. So maybe we end an upper body workout with 100 push ups for time. And as an example our lifter does 35, 27, 19, 11, 8. He’d time how long it took him to do all that and then next time try and hit 100 in shorter time with perhaps less sets. Maybe next time he does 42, 31, 20, 7.
