Supersets, tri-sets, giant sets and pre-fatigue

Supersets have been common among bodybuilders for a long time but it seems like they have fallen out of favor in the strength community the last decade. Let’s examine a few ways to do them and their benefits.

First let’s start with a basic definition. Supersets are basically when you alternate two exercises. For instance, you might do one set of squats followed by one set of leg curls, back to another set of squats, and again back to leg curls. That would constitute two super sets. The rest periods can take just about any shape. You can take little or no rest between the exercises or you can take long rest periods. You can take a very short rest period to finish one super set, then a longer before attempting the next. There are several possibilites.

Antagonistic supersets

Perhaps the most common way to do super sets is by alternating opposing muscle groups, for instance hamstrings and quadriceps or biceps and triceps. The theory behind it is that while one muscle contracts, the opposing muscle (known as the antagonist) relaxes and vice versa. That would, again in theory, allow the relaxed muscle to rest and thus allow for faster recovery. It’s a time saving way to train.

Theory and practice are not always the same. You will often see people superset squats with leg curls or romanian deadlifts, with the squat being the exercise for the quadriceps and the other two examples being exercises for the hamstrings. True isolation is however impossible and one of the most persistant myths in training. This is especially true in compound exercises like squats that greatly involves hamstrings, glutes and the lower back… Just like the romanian deadlift. In that case the rest from the opposing exercise isn’t much of a rest at all. Your body doesn’t care if you call something a quad exercise or a chest exercise, other muscles will be involved as well, many times it will even be muscle that you haven’t been taught by your PT school or fitness media should be involved.

Pre-fatigue

Related to supersets is the concept known as pre-fatigue. It’s essentially the opposite of an antagonistic superset with the goal being to fatigue a particular muscle (typically with a single joint exercise) before doing another exercise (typically a compound exercise) using the same muscle. Isn’t this the same as simply doing two exercises for the same muscle group? The devil is in the details.

The purpose is to give a different effect in the compound exercise, not just simply training the same muscle. Examples would be to pre-fatigue the quadriceps with a leg extension before doing squats to ensure that the muscle reach proper momentary failure in the squat for people where the lower back normally gives out first. Another example is doing pullovers to pre-fatigue the latissimus dorsi so they can reach proper failure in chinups instead of the biceps.

The best way to use the pre-fatigue method is to take no rest between the single-joint exercise and the compound exercise because too much rest will make the muscle recover which is what you’re trying to avoid. The only rest should be moving between the two exercises. I also suggest not doing multiple super sets in this fashion, instead just doing one or two sets of pre-fatigue and then one all out set in the compound exercise but your milage may vary.

Giant sets

Related to supersets are the so called tri-sets and giant sets. These are simply supersets including more exercises, three or more. Again they’re a time saver and you can rotate between even more muscle groups, for instance triceps, biceps and lats. When more exercises are used like this they’re essentially similar to circuit training.

Should you use these methods?

While common among bodybuilders for good reasons, supersets aren’t normally found among strength athletes and they shouldn’t be, at least not in the main lifts. The reasoning is simple, for a powerlifter or a weightlifter the skill of performing the lifts is the goal, not inducing fatigue in a certain muscle. Many weightlifters and powerlifters will however perform so called assistance exercises after the main lifts, such as rows, various presses and so on. It’s in this part of the training session that these methods should reside if you want to use them. For people not training for a specific sport you should definitely give them a go at some point to see how you like them.

Good luck.