Super-Sets to Super Man!

Phil vs Kai--the greatest love story (Muscle and Fitness)

The predicament of increasing time efficiency in the gym and also increasing the perceived intensity of a workout is one that plaques many gym enthusiasts. We all want to cut down how much time we spend in the gym, but we all also want to feel like we hit each muscle as best as possible. Every bodybuilding website has workout templates that outline regiments with super-set exercises (i.e one set of rows followed immediately by a set of bench press). They never say why do supersets because it just sounds like a good idea.

Of course there are different versions of this: you could do a super-set of the same muscle or of different muscles. These various options allow for better manipulation of your lifting schedule.

Here, I want to discuss what research has to say about the efficacy and efficiency of supersets vs the traditional weight-lifting method. It may seem intuitive, to some, that doing super-sets or even tri-sets would result in a “better work-out.” And by that I mean you’d get sweatier, a little more out of breath, and the heart rate would be a little quicker. Almost as if it were mocking a cardio-type of workout with constant movement. For the most part this is true. I’ve done my fair share of supersets with a minimal rest period between each super-set and it is like cardio with weights! Like the best of both worlds! Right?!

The only thing that I did notice, however, was that I fatigued a little bit faster during my workout—not being able to lift my heavy weights for as many repetitions as I could using a traditional approach. Nonetheless, I still got a fantastic workout in and would recommend it to anyone looking to switch up their routine or just be a little bit more efficient.

What are the implications of doing these intense workouts on the body over a period of time? Some of the research out there shows us that our bodies remain a little bit more fatigued following a super-set or tri-set workout routine (Weakly et. al., 2017). Weakly et. al.’s research showed that there were higher fatigue markers post super-set workout such as lactate and creatine kinase. This data was supporting the hypothesis that there is greater neuromuscular fatigue, but I figured that might be a bit much for the lay reader. [Essentially, neuromuscular fatigue is the decreased muscular responses from neuronal impulses.] So long story short, it does make the muscles more “tired.” The implication of this is that if you do super/tri-set workouts on a daily basis you will be more fatigued by the end of the week. You might perceive yourself as weaker by day 5, however your muscles are just tired.

Moral of the story is that if you want to improve workout efficiency and perceived intensity then you should try to incorporate some super/tri-sets BUT don’t overdo it and incorporate some rest days.

Citations:

Weakley, J., Till, K., Read, D. B., Roe, G., Darrall-Jones, J., Phibbs, P. J., & Jones, B. (2017). The effects of traditional, superset, and tri-set resistance training structures on perceived intensity and physiological responses. European journal of applied physiology, 117(9), 1877-1889.