How to Build Muscle Twice as Fast: Try Rearranging Your Training Program

Body­builders are con­stant­ly look­ing for ways to build mus­cle as quick­ly as pos­si­ble and with min­i­mal effort. And judg­ing by the lat­est research, this method exists and suits almost every­one. From begin­ners to expe­ri­enced ath­letes.

The jour­nal Sports Med­i­cine Open pub­lished an inter­est­ing study relat­ed to mus­cle growth. Experts, in par­tic­u­lar, stud­ied the effect of drop sets on mus­cle growth and came to inter­est­ing results: train­ing in this tech­nique allows you to increase mus­cle vol­ume faster than clas­sic high-rep­e­ti­tion rep­e­ti­tions or exer­cis­es with heavy weights.

A stan­dard gym work­out for an ordi­nary per­son includes 6–7 exer­cis­es: 4–5 for a large mus­cle group and 1–2 for a small one. For exam­ple, 5 exer­cis­es for the back mus­cles, and after 2 exer­cis­es for the biceps. Each exer­cise is per­formed for 3–4 approach­es, includ­ing 6–15 rep­e­ti­tions. Rest between sets is about 1–2 min­utes.

This is a clas­sic scheme. This work­out will take about an hour, and your mus­cles will grow if you fol­low prop­er nutri­tion, pro­gres­sive loads and use opti­mal weights.

Drop sets are a fun­da­men­tal­ly dif­fer­ent approach to train­ing. Accord­ing to research, their effec­tive­ness is no low­er than that of clas­si­cal train­ing, but the train­ing will take sig­nif­i­cant­ly less time with sim­i­lar (or bet­ter) results.

What is the secret of drop sets?

The main secret of drop sets is the max­i­mum use of all the body’s resources. For exam­ple, let’s say you do a bar­bell curl. Your work­ing weight is 30 kilo­grams. After doing 12 rep­e­ti­tions, you expe­ri­enced mus­cle fail­ure. It is impos­si­ble to lift the bar­bell again with­out cheat­ing.

In clas­si­cal train­ing, the approach ends with this. You rest for a minute and then repeat the exer­cise. But dur­ing drop sets, the ath­lete does not fin­ish the exer­cise, but reduces the weight and imme­di­ate­ly con­tin­ues work­ing. This allows you to ful­ly uti­lize mus­cle poten­tial, sig­nif­i­cant­ly increase endurance and increase vol­ume. After the first weight loss, you repeat the pro­ce­dure and do this sev­er­al times (about 4–5). Only then does the exer­cise end and you move on to the next one.

An exer­cise that pre­vi­ous­ly took you about 10 min­utes now takes only 5, and its effec­tive­ness has only increased. It sounds ide­al, but drop sets have a major draw­back.

This tech­nique is very exhaust­ing. Prac­tice drop sets dai­ly. Espe­cial­ly for a begin­ner, this is a direct road to injury and ner­vous exhaus­tion. There­fore, you need to use the tech­nique only to stim­u­late mus­cles when you have reached a plateau and can­not achieve growth.