-: Alright, let's talk about supersets
everybody's favorite hypertrophy mechanism
for no reason other than it sounds, like, cool
cause it's got super in it, right?
But actually supersets can be extremely powerful.
There's lots of different ways to use supersets
you know, from supersetting agonist antagonist
to the same body parts
supersets with rest, without rest, you know
trisets to giant sets, like, all sorts of different ways
that we can change this stimulus
change the neurological and metabolic demands
during a hypertrophy work out
to make them better for the individual.
But so, when we use this superset, our goal is
we're trying to pick a superset for that individual person
is gonna allow them to increase the time under
significant tension, alright?
By choosing exercises that are gonna say, hey
if I do this exercise and then I do this other exercise
then, maybe my nervous system is able to switch over there
and be fresher in the second exercise
so my tension can stay high, versus, like
doing the first exercise longer, right?
Or different ways of saying, okay, well
if I want to get to fatigue without expending
without spending a lot of time doing metabolic work
well, I can superset exercises
and one can be really heavy
the other one can be moderately heavy, right?
So, it's more significant tension, you know
than doing a longer set, right?
So instead of doing 12 reps, what if I did two exercises
six and six, right?
Well, I can probably do each of those heavier
and have a heavier total for those 12 reps, right?
So, different ways to increase the time
under significant tension within a work out
'cause that's what we're trying to do
we're trying to get that volume and intensity thing
to go up, right?
And if I can get that intensity to stay higher
I don't need as much volume to get
the same hypertrophy stimulus, right?
So the more efficient I can be with keeping
my muscle contractions intense
then the lower volume I can keep my work outs
which means the easier it'll be for me to recover from them
because it won't just be depleting energy and resources
unnecessarily, right?
So we got different types of hypertrophy supsersets
we can overload different portions of the range
would be one option.
The benefit of that would be, okay
one, we can train more motor units
because your brain will basically have
its favorite muscle fibers for the short position
the lengthy position and the mid position
so when you switch, right?
The nervous system, it's new enough that
the fatigue of the nervous system will be lessened
of an impact in your ability to keep producing
those intense contractions, so it maximizes
intense contractile tension and minimizes the neural fatigue
it also helps us exhaust all of the muscle fibers
with lesser volume.
So if I wanted to exhaust all the muscle fibers
with say, a drop set
because my brain's gonna keep trying to use
the best fibers for that particular movement
over and over and over again as long as it can
it's gonna take time and fatigue before it starts
reaching out for help, right?
My brain may not even have the capacity to use
certain fibers for certain exercises.
They may only recruit them really well
in other exercises, right?
So you have these motor pattern things
that we're gonna talk about in the neurological unit.
But, if I pick different exercises
I'm more likely, especially if they complement each other
I'm more likely to hit all of the muscle fibers
for that particular muscle and get them all fatigued
rather than having to take one set to do
where I can't move, like, even more my arm anymore
so to speak.
So one method we can use for this
is a pre-exhaust method, right?
And so, when we say pre-exhaust
that's gonna be most commonly performed
for the first exercise.
It's gonna overload a small position
or a small portion of the range of motion
so the first exercise in this superset
will only be hard in either the shortened
or the lengthened position, usually.
Very rarely will you do a mid-range exercise
as the first one for this, right?
And the second exercise you'll try and pick
an exercise that either is hard everywhere
or complements the first one so it's
easy where this one was hard, right?
And so what we've done is we've made one particular
portion of the range a little more fatigued
so that when we do an exercise
that is hard everywhere, right?
Now, my body's gonna have to reach out to more fibers
to help in that one particular area
because it's been pre-exhausted, right?
If we did this, right?
We get more high threshold fiber recruitments
and more fast twitch, especially in the area
that was worked in that first exercise
so in terms of the fibers that are recruited there
the first exercise, more fast twitch will
start to be recruited, or taxed, there
because when it starts to fatigue
that muscle's gonna have to reach out
to more and more fibers, so it will recruit more and more
of the fast twitch fibers that are available.
They continue to work in this case out of necessity
rather than high and low.
So I can get fast twitch fibers to come in multiple ways
we'll get into more detail about this
in the neurological unit
but one of this is if it's heavy enough
two, like if my intense is explosive enough
but three is just fatigue, right?
Just that literally they have to incorporate
because the slow twitch stuff is starting to get tired
it's not quite able to keep up
which means we have to be under significant tension
because if the tension is low enough
those slow twitch guys will go all day
and they'll never get to the fast twitch stuff
or it'll take me a really long time to get there.
That's why this first exercise should be somewhat heavy.
You get that fatigue.
Then when you jump to the next exercise
it's really easy for you to keep forcing work out of there
out of necessity because you've already exhausted
all of the slow twitch stuff there.
And maybe even potentiated some
fast twitch contractions there
by doing something that was actually more heavy
and more intense in that small portion of the range.
So this is a greater opportunity for tension
and mechanical stimuli in the high threshold
of fast twitch fibers.
When we do a pre-exhaust technique
there's gonna be three different ways that
we can look at using pre-exhaust.
We could do heavy, heavy
so basically we do an exercise that's really heavy
in the small portion of the range
and then an exercise that's still relatively heavy
so lower rep, lower rep is also, you know
is what we're talking about here.
So when I say heavy, obviously lower reps.
So, then we would follow it up with an exercise
that's still heavy, but work more of the entire
range of motion, or if the first exercise was lengthened
and then the next exercise is harder so they're shortened.
Or vice versa, or one exercise is harder and shorter
and the other one is harder in the middle
so to speak, right?
Just complements it in just way by not being
overloaded, if anything, being easier
in the place that the exercise was hard.
So we get the most high threshold dominate
if we're going heavy, heavy
out of the three systems that we're gonna use
this requires good execution and neurological efficiency
because you're going heavy, heavy.
So you're going intensity, intensity.
If you're not very neurologically efficient
what's gonna happen is
your loads aren't gonna be high enough
for this rep range to really matter.
You're not gonna get enough stimulus
because if you can't contract enough fibers, right?
We can't get enough intensity
we can't get enough tension
to make the little small enough of volume that this will be
adequate, right?
Like, you would technically need to do more reps
because you're too neurologically inefficient.
So, you need to be neurologically efficient
to use lower reps for hypertrophy, right?
So, to do heavy, heavy, you have to have
some strength or some neurological foundation, right?
And obviously, good execution and good execution
becomes more difficult under heavier loads
and under fatigue, right?
So if you go to the second exercise and you botch it
because the load is too heavy, guess what?
You're not gonna get the stimulus.
So second one is heavy, light.
This is probably the most common one used.
And it works for more people.
Not everyone is efficient enough
to do the heavy, heavy method
so this is probably the most common hypertrophy
pre-exhaust method that you'll use.
So this, when we go from, same principles
but the first exercise is heavy
the second exercise is lighter
so this is gonna be like six reps, 12 reps
type of thing.
Or, you know, it could be as low as two, four
for some individuals, you know.
Four, ten, four, eight.
Like, all sorts of different ways that you can design
this depending on how neurologically efficient
and metabolically conditioned the person is.
The muscles that you're using and the exercises
that you picked.
But, this is still a good way to increase
high threshold work capacity, right?
Not as good as heavy, heavy
but you're still in the scenario because you fatigued it
with the heavy exercise here.
You're still probably gonna get some fast twitch involvement
and make those guys hypertrophy a little bit more
when you switch over to your second exercise
because the first exercise will have been so fatiguing
to those particular fibers.
It increases the time under tension a little bit more
than the other one
so depending on where you are metabolically, right?
This might be a better method in terms
of hypertrophy adaptations, right?
So even if you had the same-
Even if you were neurologically efficient, right?
If you're sitting very good metabolically, right?
This may be the thing that you need
to actually accomplish those hypertrophy adaptations.
Lastly, we're gonna have the light, light
which is the least direct.
This, now, as we're kind of looking
more sarcoplasmic, right?
We're basically-
This is going to, instead of getting a lot of
contractile based hypertrophy stuff in the high threshold
now we're gonna be looking at more of a sarcoplasmic effect
maybe getting more glycogen uptake
in some of those fast twitch fibers
working them a little bit more lacticly.
So, exercises have to be closer to the same overload pattern
with this because if they're too different
there won't be-
the second exercise won't demand enough
from the stuff that was fatigued in the first.
So in this, you can't do, like, shortened
and then lengthened, doesn't work very well.
It's gotta be like, shortened, and then hard everywhere
or lengthened, and then hard everywhere, so to speak
like, you know, type of exercise.
'Cause if you pick-
If they're very opposite
because it's light, light
there won't be enough crossover
for this to actually have a pre-exhaust effect
and extend the work of those high threshold units, right?
So, most low threshold work is done here
out of the three methods.
The least high threshold stimulus
for the same amount of volume
depending on the three stimuluses, right?
So, of the three
this is the least amount of contractile muscle
that is sarcoplasmic
and probably, I would say
the muscle minimal that you would use
in terms of hypertrophy.
If you're going for sarcoplasmic
this wouldn't be my first choice
but I really like the other two versions of pre-exhaust
when I'm focusing on the protein synthesis
or myoneuclearized stimuli for hypertrophy.