I actually am now starting to incorporate a little more rest time between super sets.
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Fascia doesn’t stretch though
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I’ve been following a Charles Poliquin routine with super sets. He kept tract of rest periods, just to switch them around.
Like 1 month goes Biceps/Triceps then rest and repeat. No rest between bis and tris so you get a nice pump.
Then the next month goes Biceps, rest, triceps, rest. That way you get longer between lifts and you can use more weight, so you get stronger.
After that, back to biceps/triceps, then rest. To get a nice pump again, only with higher weights because you’re stronger.
4th month, Biceps/rest, then Triceps, rest. So you work up to new heavy weights because you’re bigger.
At the very least, it’s fun to switch around the rest periods and make the workout “feel” different.
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Who’s gonna tell Hany Rambod?
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I still have the book The Poliquin Principles. Some of it is outdated…like 40 grams of BCAA around training… lost a ton of $ on that piece of shit advice. You see any success with it?
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It retracts… otherwise your muscles would explode all over. HA. Rambod pushes FST which is bro science at its peak. We all know a lot of trainers are not exactly legit, so to speak. Their clients are genetic outliers, heavy drug users, etc…
I don’t use them that often. I’ll do it every now and then just to up the intensity a little bit when I’m smoked after all my main work
Don’t think it helps any with strength, which is all I care about
No reason why it would
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I suppose what surprises me is that some of you believe that the most effective training program has been discovered and there is no better method. You strongly argue for the best program. I don’t begin to believe that the optimal training program has been discovered.
i started lifting weights in 1968 and have seen people make good progress by a number of different methods. I am more in the camp that changing programs when plateaus are clearly reached is the best “program.” That is, there is no best program. At least that is what I believe now.
You talk about genetics. Surely you know that genetics is on the normal distribution curve. Might your location on the curve be a HUGE factor that influences the best program for you. Obviously, on or off AAS influences your best program.
If you actually believe that science determines the best program, when do you believe that science has found the best anything that science didn’t discover a better something as it looked deeper?
The reason bro-science is called a “science” is because it continuously was in search of a better program. Might you be in search of a better program, or have you decided to follow the masses that say “follow the science” not having a clue how science continuously searches to advance? Has Covid taught you nothing?
The inquisitive mind is always open to new methods.
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“BTW, I would never try supersetting a compound chest exercise with a compound back exercise.”
ALWAYS open to new methods?
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Bench and chins is so classic
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Fair enough. If I have a defense, it is that I couldn’t see an advantage, never saw anyone that had any muscle try it, and doubted that I could perform the second exercise with anything close to a 90% effort.
In all honesty, I never tried anything that I didn’t know someone who had success doing that, whether I saw or heard it from someone I trusted.
Example: Before it was common for bodybuilders to do cardio for contest prep, I would never have done cardio until I saw a few achieve a good result.
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Some of his stuff has been really great.
“Heavy” weights plus tempos have helped me get stronger on weird stuff like hand grippers and shoulder internal/external rotation.
By switching hand positions and bar paths around all the time I’ve been able to do good moves like skull crushers and reverse curls without elbow pain.
And doing a ton of reverse curls really bulked up my skinny elbows.
Poliquin’s periodization is really organized and specific, but also really simple and straight forward. One month “pump” or accumulation, next month “strength” or intensification. Varied enough to keep it fun, but short enough to keep from driving me crazy worrying about it. For awhile I was working with really boring conditions and limited equipment, and this jut helped keep me going.
Honestly, chest and back together, for muscle mass seems crazy to me too.
But strength focused lifters train that way all the time. So it can’t be totally worthless.
And according to my Bro Science, it worked for Arnold 50 years ago and it worked for grab-asstic college kids recently. If it works for very best and the very worst genetics, why wouldn’t it work for guys with middle genetics?
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I had seen some massive routines in Weider magazines of Arnold, but I don’t recall seeing chest and back supersetted.
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Sorry, I may have misspoke, everyone. I don’t superset a back exercise with a chest exercise. I superset chest with chest and back with back. I just do chest and back on the same day.
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Quite literally the entire of this guy’s programming is either superset or giant set based.
(Maximum muscle mass is not his goal, he’s a strongman so there’s a caveat there, but hey there is someone with muscle doing it).
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Frowny Face!
This thread has inspired me to superset today’s workout! Today’s my full body day and it always ends up taking longer than I’d like. Antagonist supersets should help fix that. When I’ve done these in the past, I usually rest 60 seconds or so between exercises – doing that makes a chest/back pairing (for example) much more doable.
I go back and forth on supersets and keep getting caught up in the “what’s optimal” for gaining muscle rut. When what I really should be focused on is what’s the most efficient way to maintain muscle because the reality is for those of us who have been at this for a long time (more than 25 years in my case) we’re almost certainly not going to be gaining any more muscle. Edit: So I’d say for any lifter who has been at this for more than a few years, supersets are a great option.
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That’s a cool way. More rest between lifts, and less BS time spent standing around while you rest. It’s a double whammy!
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