hey folks Dr Mike here for Renaissance periodization our training modality video for today is about super sets hey doesn't that sound super anyway what the hell are super sets they're actually two types of supersets we're only talking about one here there is a type of superset called uh an antagonist muscle superset or an unrelated muscle superset where you do muscles one set for a group of muscles and then your next set sup superseted with no rest between is for an intentionally uh uninvolved set of muscles so for example you do your chest and triceps of
close grip bench and then immediately you go into inverted rows and you do your back and biceps with rows that's a superset yes but it's not the kind we're talking about here those are antagonistic or unrelated supersets they're designed to maximize how much total work you get in minimum time in the gym they're not ideal for hypertrophy because if you do close grip work and then you do right after your back work a lot of times especially if you're bigger and stronger if you don't rest between sets the systemic fatigue is so massive it prevents
you from doing a lot of good work on whatever that second set is that second exercise and then maybe it's not ideal great time Savers a lot of you can still use it but since this is a really Advanced hypertrophy stuff we're only talking about today Agonist supersets that is you do an isolation movement for the Target muscle let's say Skull Crushers or triceps and then right after you do a movement that is compound but is still limited by the triceps something like an overhead dumbbell press or something like that so Skull Crushers put the
bar down get up overhead dumbbell press okay that way your triceps get a decent stimulus in that first exercise but then when they are already fatigued close to failure they are the limiting factor you do a compound exercise it used to be that overhead dumbbell presses are for front delts good stimulus and triceps great stimulus but now because your triceps enter that exercise as almost dead and your front delts enter move completely fresh more or less every single of the five to ten reps you'll grind out of those dumbbell presses will be your triceps are
close to failure close to failure close to failure and we know from tons of research and theory that if we train very close to failure more that magnifies the stimulus a tongue it essentially lets us these Agonist supersets take them muscle and train it with an isolation and a compound but the effect is like double the isolation really awesome way to use compounds to extra train that muscle that we want so what you do is set for whatever isolation muscles you want and then with no rest generally or as long as it takes translucent exercises
do a compound exercise at which that muscle is involved it is way way ideally the limiting factor what are the upsides to training this of course afterwards so it's called Crushers dumbbell press rest a normal amount of time and then hit it again Skull Crushers No Rest dumbbell press rest normal and then go again here are the upsides first of all you can get an amazing stimulus especially for muscles that generally have compound exercises that can train them really well and maybe don't respond as much to isolation movement so for example if you do lying
or seated hamstring curls very well on a good machine that hits the hamstrings even though it's isolation so well motherfucker you don't need any super sensors you're good five sets of that shit by itself is gonna fry you the fuck up however some people get in a situation where let's say for triceps they do push Downs till they're blue in the face but what they really like to do is dips because dips fuck their triceps up like crazy but they also fuck up their chest and their front delts it's a great all-around pushing exercise what
they can do especially if they're really strong is take that not so ideal tricep push down and use it not so much to stimulate growth on its own but to pre-fatigue the triceps so that when you switch to something like dips afterwards your triceps are by far the limiting factor they're closer to failure the entire time and then they get most of the effort because think your packs will eventually turn on to try to help you do as many dips as possible but they only get to be active for a few seconds until you fail
completely your triceps are close to failure that entire time which is a really really big deal because supersets well eliminate a whole thing of rest they can actually save you some time generally you do lots of them to pound the volume so it's not a specific time saver but it's certainly less uh time than doing all the straight sets and then doing all the compound sets later on that second movement on that compound movement supersets can allow you to have an unbelievable mind muscle connection for example if you're using dips and you feel the tricep
pretty well but you'd really like more out of your dips pre-exhausting your triceps with something like push Downs can as soon as you start doing dips you go holy shit I feel only my triceps which can be a really awesome thing if my muscle connection is a problem for you and lastly you can use these in a sandwich style which means what you do compound heavy work for that muscle so for example let's say weighted dips or heavy Skull Crushers for triceps check then because the compound heavy work is done and the fast storage fibers
are fatigued we need to pound in the rest of the work then you can go to push Downs superseted with something like old flat dumbbell press put push down super sacrify dumbbell press allows you to get the heavy work in because the big critique against supersets is if you do the isolation movement first you kind of pre-exhaust your muscles and then you're not going to be able to do a compound with much load if you do a compound first but as a stone exercise you check that box then a superset after lets you check both
the heavy high tension low rep box and the metabolite super high rep box at the same time minimal amount of total effort max amount of stimulus superception of the shit they're especially good if a muscle just won't fucking grow and not only will it not grow but the isolation movements you're using with it you do them and you finish them and you're like ah yes I guess I feel a bit of a pump I guess I feel some tension but I'm really not pushing my muscle to the limits if you combine that isolation movement and
intelligently use a compound after that still hits that muscle group that you are targeting you can get way more stimulus and be like holy fuck I don't know what I would do if not for these supersets there are downsides of course as with everything if you can't check the four Factor rest boxes before that compound shows up it's not a good idea so somebody could say like okay well let's see isolation if I'm doing lap prayers I can do a whole set of lat prayers and then a set of pull downs and it'll be an
awesome superset maybe but for some people that prayer is such a huge range of motion for such a large group of muscles that after you finish a set of lap prayers you're like it doesn't feel like an isolation it feels like you did some fucking work if you do pull Downs right after you're just so tired the set of pull Downs is mostly junk volume so the good thing about isolation supersets is you generally start out with an isolation movement but if that isolation movement is so hardcore for you that afterwards you need to rest
a really long time to do the compounded benefit it's probably not a good idea so this is not an end-all be-all it has to be that the muscle you're targeting generally covers quite quickly and doesn't tax your systemic abilities at all the cool thing is is we use supersets precisely four muscles that are struggling to develop and oftentimes those same muscles they just barely do hardly shit at all so it doesn't even make you that tired right a last set of downsides this is a very sort of uh very insightful insightful patting myself on my
back a little bit more of a thoughtful biomechanics related critique research has confirmed that if you pre-exhaust your triceps with isolations and then you do a compound pushing move in which there's really only two degrees of freedom elbow and shoulder okay then what ends up happening is if your triceps are really tired but you're still pushing the bar your pecs are actually called upon more to contract than your triceps are and they end up getting a good stimulus an even better stimulus than your triceps and all the fuck up we didn't do all those Skull
Crushers to get into the bench and have our chest take over and get the the biggest effects we want our triceps to take over how the fuck do you do that well if you have only two degrees of freedom shoulder elbow then if your triceps are mechanic or like let's say chemically we just turn them off like we just deadened the nerves for a while just with your pecs alone you can do a close grip bench no problem because the pecs bring this joint here and that's actually the only thing going on two degrees of
freedom means really just one thing happening right it's like extension and this flexion happening at the same time and either muscle can be taken over no problem so if your triceps are too tired your pecs take over it violates the whole purpose because your triceps aren't even pushing close to failure you're actually hey we got this tries to smoke sweet take over uh I'm done anyway I'm tired from the isolation before no bueno we want an extra degree of Freedom so here's the deal instead so you do some push Downs don't go lying down and
do close grip bench try this instead try dumbbell press because here's the thing how the fuck are you supposed to dumbbell press with gesture packs if your triceps are so fucking weak they don't do anything watch this I tried a bench only with my packs ready my triceps have to turn on to do this I'll just knock the dumbbells in and guess what your triceps are already tired and now they have to turn on to extend your hands and because they have to do it your chest is only playing a supporting role now we're back
in that ideal version of supersets where your chest was like Hey I'm going to help you as much as you can triceps to cross the finish line and the triceps like fuck I had to do shit myself they're going to be going super close to failure the entire time and your ability to press those dumbbells will be limited by your triceps they will be the ones that lead to the failure they will be the ones that get the most stimulus similar idea let's say you do leg extensions for your quads and then you go into
leg press well yeah it can kind of work as a pre-exhaust however leg press again there's just hip joint knee joint that's really the only thing that's involved you can have completely deactivated quads and still do the entire leg pressing motion no problem with your glutes so if your quads are tired your glutes just take over and Dick happens and now you have a better glute pump than quad pumping like fuck I think I'm doing something wrong so a better exercise is if you do leg extensions pretty close to failure as the first set in
the superset the isolation what do you do after uh I would say a good idea is to get into the squat because again if you only use your glutes in the squat and not your quads okay here's your uh femur here's your upper body you're going to be down here if you only use your glutes you're just going to fall backwards this part here to extend your knee has to be your quads there's no other way out of it so if you do a crap load of leg extensions and then you run over to the
squat rack or smith machine or something you can't possibly just use your glutes it's impossible you have to actually use your quads then their limiting factor then they get the most benefit all right so give this some thought if you have any questions put them in the comments below if you absolutely love what I'm saying subscribe if you really love what I'm saying just send me money please look at how thin I've gotten I can't even afford to eat anymore see you guys next time
