Anyone tried these, recommend them? CT wrote a workout called ‘beast building’ a while ago, seems pretty solid. But I’m not sure of the advantages of this kind of workout over a straight-sets 4 day split (legs, shoulders, chest/tri, back/bi).
I.e. The week would have 4 workouts- torso (chest/back), legs, shoulders (ant/med/rear), arms (bi/tri).
i.e. (A1 and A2 are supersetted, B1 and B2 etc)
Chest/back:
A1: Incline DB press
A2: Chins
B1: Flat DB press
B2: DB BOR
C1: Pec deck machine
C2: Front pulldown
Legs:
A1: Squats
A2: Sumo DL
B1: Step-ups or lunges
B2: Snatch-grip OR stiff-legged DL
C1: Leg extensions machine
C2: Hamstring curls machine
Shoulders:
A1: BB Military Press
A2: Shrugs
B1: DB (hammer grip) overhead press
B2: Upright rows
C1: DB lateral raises
C2: Reverse pec flye machine
Arms:
A1: Close-grip bench
A2: EZ bar biceps curls
B1: Skullcrushers
B2: Incline DB hammer curls
C1: Triceps rope pushdown
C2: Concentration curls
I understand how supersetting can get more done in a shorter time, but would this not adversely affect the weights you’re lifting for each exercise of the superset?
Over the many years of training, the 2 cycles I trained like that were among my most productive.
Paulinho, there’s always some trade-off somewhere. There is no perfect routine. Sometimes your conditioning is a factor. If you feel that your numbers are sacrificed, take slightly longer breaks between sets.
Damn, now I feel like ditching my current routine for the Antagonistic Splits!
[quote]Paulinho wrote:
Yeah, part 3 of the article!
I understand how supersetting can get more done in a shorter time, but would this not adversely affect the weights you’re lifting for each exercise of the superset?[/quote]
Actually with an Antagonistic pairing, the antagonist potentiate’s (sp?) the agonist and vice versa. So, in essence the potentiation (sp?) allows you to be more effective at each movement as a result of this phenomena.
I see a lot of natural BBers using a 3 day antagonistic superset split like this during their cutting cycles for a show. I’ve been kicking around the idea of trying it myself, maybe just for a month or so and seeing what happens (I’m sure my weights will drop considerably though).
Exactly as Iron Dwarf said, there’s always a trade-off or at least in a lot of cases.
Advantages include that if your time is limited, this is a way to get more volume into the same time without going into the situation – not that no one ever wants that situation, they may! – of following sets for a muscle having shorter rest.
And keeping heart rate higher and building up more lactate.
There may be more than one disadvantage, but one disadvantage is that concentration can be less. For example, at times I’ve decided to do biceps work between sets of squats, for example.
However even allowing plenty of rest, for me the mental focus for the squats and the degree of “neural intensity” I can generate is not as good with the antagonistic supersetting as when my mind is able to remain calm through the entire rest period between squats. Working the CNS hard in hard-at-it biceps work does for me limit the extent to which I can do so in the squats. So for me I came to not prefer the trade-off.
On the other hand, back when I trained people, I found many actually performed better and thrived with the supersets. E.g., even though in principle having done a set of barbell rows ought to at least slightly reduce performance in the bench press, and would do so if only the muscles were a factor, in practice many actually did whatever number of sets of bench better for having the rows inbetween them.
Their personal makeup was that having the set of rows in the middle of what would otherwise have been an uninterrupted rest period for the bench actually had them more charged up, in terms of “neural drive,” then resting would have. So for them such supersets were an extremely productive thing to do.
This is one of my favorite ways to train my upper body. I don’t do supersets per se, as I take a 1-2 minute rest between each set, but I very frequently alternate between antagonists.
Doing it this way seems to prevent any loss of weight used, for upper body anyways. Supersetting with major leg movements is just about out of the question these days though, for that exact reason.
Actually to be clearer I was referring in my above example to what tedro is talking about.
The matter regarding potentially intefering with a split applies either way though, as may the “neural drive” question. Not so much if at all on the latter for, for example, say biceps/triceps, but for many other exercises it definitely can be the case.
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
Their personal makeup was that having the set of rows in the middle of what would otherwise have been an uninterrupted rest period for the bench actually had them more charged up, in terms of “neural drive,” then resting would have. So for them such supersets were an extremely productive thing to do.[/quote]
Precisely. Though I’ve found that it is contingent upon my being very well fed earlier in the day, or even the previous day. But that’s just me.
So I hate to be “that guy,” but since I am currently doing this exact program, I will be.
Dude, it’s in the article:
That said, input from guys like Bill Roberts and some of the other vets on this site is always appreciated, but really, it’s right there. Not trying to be a dick, just saying.
[quote]Dan Thompson wrote:
That said, input from guys like Bill Roberts and some of the other vets on this site is always appreciated, but really, it’s right there. Not trying to be a dick, just saying.[/quote]
Stop being a dick… with your fighting stance and all.
