-: And then we also have a post exhaust
way of doing super sets.
So this is basically the reverse.
So this time, the complete exercise,
the exercise that's hard everywhere,
the balance resistance profile is the first
and then you follow that up
with an exercise that's only hard
in a small portion of the range.
And so now, instead of using a pre-fatigue
to extend work there,
what we're doing is like okay,
we're fatiguing the whole muscle
but then we're just kind of like metabolically taxing
one small area in terms of the range of motion.
So we're trying to just extend fatigue in one area
by working it on the back end this time.
So in this case we will get some
higher threshold recruitment in the subsequent exercise
but it does not overload them the same or as much.
So this is more of the sarcoplasmic again, if you will,
but not as much as the light, light method per se.
So this is typically performed as exercise one matches,
exercise two isolates a small position.
And this is always done with a second exercise
either equal or at a lower intensity than the first.
So you would never do this exercise
in like a light, light fashion.
So the second exercise is always gonna be
pretty much a lower intensity
so there isn't really a heavy, heavy here.
Usually, for the most part,
this is gonna have to be done in a heavy, light method.
Very rarely, like unless you're doing like
a medium, medium I would say,
most of the time you're gonna have to do heavy, light
to actually get this stimulus to work.
So if you think of what's happening here,
when you do your full range of motion exercise
that's hard everywhere,
you're fatiguing everything basically to a moderate degree
depending on how deep you go into fatigue with that.
And then when you work in that one small point,
at that point, if you pick the high intensity
because you're kind of fatigued everywhere,
it's hard for you to reach out for help
from other parts of the muscle
that would normally be helping this part.
So say my second exercise is the short position.
In a heavy, light method that's a pre-exhaust,
when I do that short position I'm fresh
so I can work those fibers as hard as possible
right at the beginning.
And then the second exercise,
it's not hard there but because those are fatigued
it's still a lot of work there
and so what my body's gonna do is like
well we're fatigued here, it's not overly hard,
but if I reach out to some fibers
that normally aren't very active here,
I can get enough help to keep going and extend this set
so I can work a higher intensity
in the other portion of the ranges
and then recruit a little extra help
in this part that's pre-fatigued.
Here, everything is fatigued going in
so it's harder for me to get help in that one position
so I will still need to go to fast twitch
but the intensity that I will be able to do
for that second exercise is gonna be a lot lower.
So usually it's always gotta be a heavy, light fashion.
That second exercise has to be
a much greater drop in intensity
so that I can essentially require less help
to work that small position.
Continuing on here,
moderate stimulus in exercise one
will work out of necessity.
Same thing as the pre-exhaust, right?
So the fast twitch, the high threshold fibers
that come are only working out of necessity
even less because there's no heavy, heavy version here.
Pretty much always gonna be heavy, light for the most part.
And we're gonna get more of a metabolic effect,
so more metabolites here, more lactic acid accumulation,
that per se.
And when you do extend for help
in the post exhaust exercise to finish that point,
you will recruit more help from other slow twitch fibers
rather than from other fast twitch fibers
in the post exhaust whereas in the pre-exhaust,
you're gonna recruit more help
and you're more likely to get some help
from some other fast twitch fibers and get more of that.
So pre-exhaust, more high threshold,
post exhaust, less high threshold.
The inefficiency is greater for muscle metabolic work
in this case so the fact that there's less help available
makes it so that metabolically
the muscle's gonna have to work harder
whereas with the pre-exhaust,
because a lot of stuff is able to help,
it's gonna be more intensity based.
Now let's talk about drop sets, load drop sets here.
So we talked a little bit in the metabolic phase
about the difference between doing drop sets
versus multiple exercises.
So that stuff is still gonna kinda play true.
So depending on your neurological efficiency,
you may be able to recruit more
when you're fatigued versus not.
So you need to have a decent amount
of neurological efficiency to be able to make drop sets work
in terms of contractile based hypertrophy.
But they work really easily for sarcoplasmic hypertrophy
because you're extending that time under tension
and you're hitting fatigue
and then you're finding a way
to keep working by lowering your weight
and you're hitting fatigue
and finding a way to keep working by lowering the weight.
So that's a prime example
of how to achieve oxidative stress within a single set.
So you will begin to overload more
and more of the most disadvantageous portion of the range.
So if there's a portion of the exercise that is harder
in terms of why the exercise is hard
within the range of motion,
as you're doing this,
what you'll get is the exercise will become
more and more and more difficult in that particular point
because the most fibers are needed
simultaneously at that point.
So you'll hit kinda like those dead spots
so you wanna pick exercises where,
these work really well when you're doing this for metabolic
if that dead spot is in the short position
so that your reps can just get
a little bit smaller if needed.
If the hardest part is the bottom,
what happens is you fail early in the drop set
because you go from being able to do it
to not doing at all
instead of being able to do it
to then being able to 90% of a rep,
and then 85% of a rep,
then 80% of a the rep.
That's great.
Being able to do it and then not at all,
well then you gotta drop again
but you haven't quite taken it
to the same degree of fatigue.
It takes a lot of mental effort for drop sets,
especially in people that aren't trained
or unaccustomed to extended sets
and lactic work and stuff like that.
So for a beginner, sometimes multiple exercises,
that small change and the fact that it's something different
and new is easier mentally
versus if you've just been grinding and you're a masochist
then you might love drop sets.
But most people tend to loathe drop sets
because it's like oh, I'm sitting here,
I'm here doing the same thing for a long time
and it's just getting increasingly more painful.
So there is kind of like that you know,
how hard is a person willing to work
plays a lot into how successful a drop set will be for them
versus doing multiple exercises
because they need to maintain high tension work here
because they're not just focusing on metabolic only
when we're doing drop sets for hypertrophy.
So same things that are gonna take into account,
execution, the neurological efficiency,
whether you pick an exercise
that allows you to finish with partials
and then your mental toughness.
It's not possible or safe to do this in all exercises
without a spotter, is what that should say there.
So obviously things like bench press and stuff like that,
sometimes they're just logistic.
It takes too much time to move weights
but then there are also exercises
where you can get pinned at the bottom or whatnot.
So when you're doing something like this, like squat,
with squat we have the issue that it's hardest at the bottom
and we also have the issue of
well what if the core fatigues first or something
and the fact that I'll be breathing really hard and whatnot,
that might limit my ability to actually get
the effect that I want in my quads or my glutes
or whatever I'm trying to train
because I'm gonna break down somewhere else.
Something else, the fatigue and the systemic fatigue
is going to take account first.
Or I'm gonna get stuck at the bottom
if I go down a little bit too far
or my form gets a little bad on one rep
because the exercise is hard there
and I'm gonna fatigue way faster
in the bottom inch of the squat versus anywhere else.
Mechanical drops, basically all the same principles
are going to apply here instead of dropping load.
We're changing body position
or something so that the exercise is becoming easier
but it's becoming easier from a change in mechanics.
Because we're basically working from
like full range usually to smaller range or whatnot
or it's a slight different stimulus,
it tends to be easier to fatigue the whole muscle
than the load drop set
because if I'm naturally getting into
smaller ranges of motion
then that weak point tends not to be the limiting factor,
it tends to work at some
to tend to be working out of that weak point
in a mechanical drop set.
I'm working closer and closer and closer to my strong points
which means I can keep working at a higher
and higher and higher intensity throughout that.
Requires a proper progression.
Obviously if you go from a mechanical advantage place
to a place of mechanical disadvantage,
this is not gonna work.
You're gonna get there
and all of a sudden you're not gonna be able
to continue performing.
You need to make sure that it goes from
your place of most mechanical disadvantage
to the most mechanical advantage.
Greater chance of getting high threshold output here.
Again because those reps are getting smaller
and we're getting away from that part
that would be otherwise more difficult.
And it tends to take more volume and reps than a drop set
because those reps get smaller.
So in terms of when you start working this
like if you're doing a drop set
and you're like okay I'm gonna do like three drops in weight
and then I did a mechanical drop.
If everything was kind of relatively the same
in terms of resistance and whatnot
but your mechanical drops,
the reps are in some way, shape, or form
the portion of where you're working
is getting smaller and smaller
so you may do more reps but some of those reps
might have been half reps or quarter reps
or two thirds reps or whatever.
So the volume is close to about the same.