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Effective Muscle Building Workouts Include Supersets
on Friday, July 10, 2009in Workouts & Exercises
A superset is a combination of two different muscle building exercises performed consequtively with no rest between them in order to increase workout intensity. Supersets are advantageous to a exercises for a number of reasons.First of all, supersets allow you to save time by eliminating rests between sets. You’ll spend less time in the gym while enjoying all the benefits.
Supersets offer a metabolic boost due to the increased intensity, adding a fat burning component to to your muscle building workouts.
Variety is the spice of life. Supersets keep your workouts interesting with a mix of exercises and very little rest. You won’t find yourself watching the clock waiting to pump out your next set.
There are a number of different types of supersets. One of those involves working 2 different (antagonist) muscle groups. For example you might pair up back and chest with a set of seated rows followed immediately by a bench press. Or perhaps you combine quads and hamstrings with a set of leg curls right after squats.
Pre-exhaustive supersets work the same muscle group with 2 different exercises. First an isolation exercise is performed and second is a compound exercise. For example if you were training your quads you might do a set of leg extensions followed by a set of lunges . Or if you were working on pectoral exercises that day, maybe you’d do a set of push ups followed by a bench presses. The idea is to fatigue the muscle group prior to the compound exercise. This type of superset needs extra special focus and attention because of the compound move following the isolation. Compound exercises like squats, deadlift and military press require stability in order to avoid injury. Since pre-exhaustive supersets are capable of overloading the muscles without the use of heavy weights, it makes them ideal to use when you don’t have a spotter.
Post-exhaustive supersets have a similar purpose to the pre-exhaustive but work in reverse. The compound exercise is performed prior to the isolation. In this case squats would be done before the leg extension, or a set of bent over rows before the lat pulldown.
Try adding supersets to your muscle building program to add some intensity, variety and a boost in caloric expenditure. You’ll spend less time in the gym and more time out in the world showing off those hard earned gains!
About Shauna 
Shauna is a personal trainer, nutrition consultant and health and fitness writer for Workoutbox.com. She is also the creator of the "Soccer Mom weight loss program". Related posts
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2 responses to “Effective Muscle Building Workouts Include Supersets”
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Great article, Shauna!
I have competed in martial arts for years, and train pretty much daily myself, very partial to interval style for cardio and core, and weight training.
What you are saying about supersets though very text book, may not ring true in application across the board.
Supersets in antagonist muscle groups is much less effective in larger muscle groups. For example, you should not train the chest opposite the back. The recovery time is far too long, and pooling of blood in major muscles is no conducive to hitting either set of muscles effectively. You end up with a tiring, ineffective set on both groups.
This has been proven by the top athletes in the world from kickboxing and MMA to motocross.
Antagnositic supersets should be limited to lower blood and lower blood oxy demand groups such as forearms, front and back of calves, front and back of shoulders, etc., never larger groups.
Great article!
Ron
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Shauna August 14th, 2010 at 08:37
Hi Ron. Thanks for the comment and for checking out our website!
While agree that supersets involving antagonistic groups may not be the optimal practice for sports such as MMA and motocross where cardiovascular fitness is of high priority, it is effective in sports that mainly focus on muscle building alone as was the topic of this post.
There are numerous ways to incorporate supersets involving antagonistic groups such as manipulation of rest periods or in a push/pull routine where perhaps on the push day you supplement with lighter sets of pull exercises immediately following the push.
In regards to blood pooling and oxygen supply, problems can be avoided by playing around with rest periods or by using strictly isolation exercises for said muscle groups.
There are many other examples of how to perform this type of workout effectively but again, every workout needs to be sport and goal specific. A powerlifter wouldn’t train the same as a triathlete for example, nor would an MMA fighter train the same as a bodybuilder of gymnast as each sport requires specificity.
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@RonDavies December 12th, 2009 at 16:40