I’ll be posting my current workout routine which I am following as part of my first workout experiment, shortly. First, I want to write this quick post about supersets, since these are essential to my workout routine.
“Normal” Sets
Usually when working with weights, you’ll be doing several sets of each exercise. The stressed muscles require some rest between the sets and most experts recommend something between one and three minutes of rest. So, the “normal” sequence in a workout is as follows:
1st set => wait a few minutes => 2nd set => wait a few minutes => 3rd set => wait a few minutes… etc.
And of course, there’s nothing wrong with that. It just so happens to be that I am a very, very impatient person and all that waiting around doesn’t suit me one bit. Luckily, I can do supersets to save some time and eliminate the waiting periods.
Supersets
A superset is simply when instead of waiting in between sets of exercise A, you go and do a set of exercise B. During the time it takes to do exercise B, muscle group A gets to rest and vice-versa. This completely eliminates the need to wait between sets but still grants your musculature all the recouperation it needs between sets. A superset sequence looks like this:
1st set, exercise A => 1st set, exercise B => 2nd set, exercise A => 2nd set, exercise B… etc.
Doing supersets also makes a weight-training session more exhausting, cardiovascularly, since you’re constantly on the move. It’s basically a higher overall intensity, which might be great for anyone trying to lose some weight.
Antagonistic Supersets
Antagonistic Supersets are supersets where you’re training two directly opposed muscles. For example, you could do one set of cable pull-downs (targeting the triceps), followed by a set of bicep curls (targeting the biceps, obviously). Another example of an antagonistic superset would be: Lat-pulldowns and Arnold Presses or Military Presses. You get the idea.
Why do supersets like this? In theory, there’s an added benefit because each muscle gets contracted and stressed and then lightly streched as you contract and stress it’s antagonist.
Benefits
As mentioned above, there are many benefits to super-setting. I personally prefer this type of workout for it’s increased intensity as well as the fact that it saves quite a lot of time. If you’ve never tried sequencing your exercises like this, I definitely recommend you give it a go!
