What is a Drop Set ? .
A drop set is the simple technique where you perform a set of any exercise to failure or just short of failure, then drop some weight and continue for more repetitions with the reduced poundage.
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Why Do Bodybuilders Love Drop Sets?
Bodybuilders are unique among athletes because they’re concerned purely with cosmetic improvements and not athletic performance. That’s why bodybuilders prefer drop sets – because they’re decidedly geared towards increasing muscle size (hypertrophy). By contrast, you don’t see a lot of football players, sprinters or other athletes using drop sets, because drop sets are not conducive to strength, power or speed gains. In fact, most athletes want strength and power without bulk, so drop sets are usually nixed.
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How Drop Sets Work: Breaking Down Muscle Fibers… Deep Down!
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Let’s suppose you’re doing bicep curls with 125 pounds for a set of 8-12 reps. The 10th rep is difficult. The 11th rep is extremely hard, even with a little cheating. The 12th rep takes an all out supreme effort. Gun to the head – you still couldn’t do a 13th rep. You’ve hit honest failure. But if you strip some weight off the bar – about fifteen to twenty percent or so, you can keep going. Even though you may reach a point of momentary muscular failure after 8-12 reps in a conventional straight set, you haven’t reached absolute failure; you’ve only reached failure with that poundage. You see, in a single straight set performed to failure, you don’t activate every fiber in a muscle group. You only recruit the number of fibers necessary to lift a particular weight for the desired number of repetitions.
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