Drop Sets - How Much Weight Should You Use? | Muscular Development
Drop Sets - How Much Weight Should You Use?
It has been well-established that gains in muscular hypertrophy are best when multiple sets are utilized in conjunction with high-intensity. The only problem when doing high volume is that with each set, the number of reps performed usually goes down. For example, powerlifters— give them anything less than a five-minute rest period, and they are dying. In an earlier study that examined bodybuilders compared to powerlifters after a high-intensity bodybuilding protocol, many of the powerlifters felt nauseous, wanted to puke, and were lightheaded, because it was not how they typically trained. The bodybuilders demonstrated greater fatigue resistance because of metabolic muscle adaptations associated with the bodybuilding style of training (e.g., moderate-to-high-rep sets, with shorter rest intervals).5 These adaptations may have included development of the fast glycolytic energy system, with higher activities of anaerobic enzymes (e.g., phosphorylase, phosphofructokinase, and lactate dehydrogenase), thus delaying lactate accumulation.
Previous research has demonstrated significant reductions in repetition performance when 1 minute or less is utilized between sets.1,2 Squats are definitely the worst in my personal opinion; I remember many days almost puking after doing multiple sets of squats, trying to maintain a set repetition criteria. In a previous study, researchers examined repetition performance for the back squat over 4 sets with a constant 8-rep maximum (8RM) load and 1-minute rest intervals between sets. Subjects performed 7.9 percent reps on the first set, followed by 5.9 percent, 4.5 percent, and 4.2 percent reps on the second, third, and fourth sets, respectively.2
With each set of squats, they were not able to maintain the work capacity with a minute rest period. Another study examined bench press load reductions over 5 sets of the bench press exercise when performed at two different intensities (i.e., 10RM and 5RM) and with five different rest intervals between sets (i.e., 30 seconds, 1, 2, 3, 5 minutes). Load reductions of 2.3 to 6.9 kg were instituted when necessary to maintain repetition performance.
The findings demonstrated that, irrespective of the intensity, the load significantly decreased with each set in succession, when resting 30 seconds or 1 minute between sets.3 So if you have to drop the weight, what is the correct amount to drop by?
Drop Sets: Bring the Pain!
Drop sets are a common tool used by bodybuilders to stimulate muscle growth and are especially utilized during the pre-competition phase when bodybuilders are trying to burn fat by maintaining a high intensity workout. In bodybuilding and weight training, using drop sets is a technique for continuing an exercise with a lower weight once muscle failure has been achieved at a higher weight. Other names for drop sets include breakdowns, descending sets, down the rack or strip sets. Whatever you want to call them, they are painful... but the results are nothing short of astounding— if you can bear the pain.
One thought I have always wondered was how do you know what weight to drop down to? Some people, when they do drop sets may drop the pin one slot down, while others drop the pin maybe five or six notches down. So if you are doing let's say 5 sets of 10 with 405 on squats with 1-minute rest periods, how much do you have to drop the weight to maintain 10 reps? Researchers from Eastern Illinois University set out to determine what was the exact drop in weight that had to occur in order to maintain repetition volume during leg training.
The researchers had the subjects go to the lab and perform a set of squats to determine their 10-rep maximum on squats. The subjects in the study came back for four different experiments:
1. Constant load for all sets.
2. 5 percent load reduction after each set
3. 10 percent load reduction after each set
4. 15 percent load reduction after each set
The subjects performed the following leg exercises: back squats, leg curls, and leg extensions. The subjects were allowed 1-minute rest between sets and 2 minutes rest between exercises. The subjects rated their fatigue levels after each set as well.
The 15 Percent Rule
The researchers found that if you want to maintain the same amount of reps for back squat for a given workload with 1 minute rest periods between sets, a 15 percent reduction in weight was needed after each set, to maintain 10 reps in both the back squat and leg curl.
Interestingly, despite the fact that leg extensions were performed last, there was no need to drop the weight after leg extensions, as subjects demonstrated greater fatigue resistance for the leg extensions than for back squats and leg curls. So you may be asking how come there was not a decline in strength for the leg extensions when the squats predominantly utilize quadriceps?
The researchers hypothesized that since squats exhaust multiple body parts, (i.e., legs, lower back, abs, quadriceps) the lower back or abs could have fatigued to the point where the subjects could not squat further, which caused them to stop before the point in which the quadriceps were fully fatigued.4 So if you are squatting with 405 for 10 reps, the load needs to be dropped by 15 percent per set to maintain the workout per set.
After training this way for several weeks, you may notice that the amount of weight will be less as your anaerobic enzymes increase in your body as you develop a higher lactate threshold, but for those just trying this routine, 15 percent seems to be the starting number. No more randomly dropping the pin between sets, now that you have a starting reference point.
References:
1. Willardson, JM and Burkett, LN. The effect of rest interval length on the sustainability of squat and bench press repetitions. J Strength Cond Res, 20: 396-399, 2006.
2. Willardson, JM and Burkett, LN. A comparison of three different rest intervals on the exercise volume completed during a workout. J Strength Cond Res, 19: 23-26, 2005.
3. Ratamess, RA, Falvo, MJ, Mangine, GT, Hoffman, JR, Faigenbaum, AD, and Kang, J. The effect of rest interval length on metabolic responses to the bench press exercise. Eur J Appl Physiol, 100: 1-17, 2007.
4. Willardson JM, Kattenbraker MS, Khairallah M, Fontana FE. Research note: Effect of load reductions over consecutive sets on repetition performance. J Strength Cond Res, 2010 Mar;24(3):879-84.
5. Kraemer, WJ, Noble, BJ, Clark, MJ, and Culver, BW. Physiologic responses to heavy-resistance exercise with very short rest periods. Int J Sports Med, 8: 247-252, 1987.