Do more with less

Welcome to afitnewyou!  Today I would like to let you in on how you can do more with less.  When strength training in the gym, you don’t always have to lift the heaviest amounts of weight to reach your goals.  Lifting heavy doesn’t always lead to greater gains, and can often even be unsafe or inappropriate.  You can get just as good a “burn,” and workout using something we trainers call a “drop set”.  Drop sets are when you start at a heavier weight, get as many repetitions that you can while maintaining proper form, and then drop down to a lower weight to get even more reps.  This allows you to work through and past your muscle fatigue, and can be beneficial, particularly when dealing with an injury.

Hank, a former competitive MMA fighter in his late 40’s trained with me for a number of years.  He had two distinctive traits that affected his workouts; the first was that he had suffered shoulder injuries during his fighting days, and the second was that he always wanted to know how many repetitions he had to perform prior to doing the set.  While he still had a lot of bravado, and wanted to lift heavier and heavier weights, his body couldn’t often keep up.  There was just too much wear and tear on his body from his previous injuries.  Also, due to his martial arts training being so regimented, he had the mind set that he had to perform concrete numbers of reps, as opposed to working to failure.  He would always insist on knowing the number of reps he had to complete before he started the set.  I told him that didn’t always make sense, and that he should finish a set only after he performed whatever number he could to fatigue.  I initially had a hard time convincing him to change the way he trained, to not worry about the weight so much but rather to focus on form, and to work to failure instead of a set repetition number.  He finally jumped on board when I introduced him to drop sets, where he could get an even better burn, while keeping his shoulders healthy.  He quickly fell in love with drop sets, as was evident by big bad Hank’s “fear” of when we would incorporate them into his workouts.

To properly perform a drop set, you need to start with a weight that you would normally consider being on the heavier side.  The weight should be heavy enough that it is very challenging yet light enough that it can still be done with proper form. Once the appropriate “heavy” weight is selected, perform as many repetitions you can until your reach muscle failure; meaning you cannot perform another rep with proper form.  Then without rest, “drop” the weight to a lesser amount, and repeat the exercise again.  Keep doing this until you either run out of weight to choose from or the number of reps that you can complete is more than the number you did on the initial weight.  For example, with dumbbell curls I will start with 60 lbs. and be able to manage 1 or 2 reps.  Upon completion, I would put those back on the rack and “drop” down to 50 lbs. getting what I can with proper form.  Then I drop down again to 40lbs. repeating, with further drop sets to 30lbs, 20lbs, and eventually 10lbs.  You can do similar drop sets on assisted machines, such as with pull ups and dips, but you give yourself more and more assistance as you “drop”.

Put a drop set in your workout and you will see how you can get an incredible burn, using less weight.  You do not need to use heavy weight because you perform the exercise while the muscles are already fatigued.  Making the weight lighter and lighter is a safe way to get more repetitions completed during that fatigue.  Drop sets are a great addition to any workout, whether you are coming back from an injury, or just looking for a new twist.  It’s not always about lifting more, but lifting smarter.  Drop sets are a great way to reach your fitness goals and safely reach a fit new you!