Sets question

SM01

Quick question about what's the best way to do weights session.

When I do a session I have about of ten different exercises that I do (so bench press, arm curl, dips etc) and I do each exercise four times (usually reps of 12).

I generally go through the work out doing exercise 1 followed by 2 and so on with minimal rest and repeat that 4 times rather than doing exercise 1 x 4 times followed by exercise 2 x 4 times and so on.

Is there any advantages or disadvantages of doing it this way?

Cheers.

EileenG

So you are doing supersets?

Lots of advantages of supersets. You get a lot of work done in a lot less time, and burn lots of calories while you are doing it.

The one thing I would suggest is that you make sure you are not supersetting two major lifts (squat and deadlift for instance) so that your central nervous system has a chance to rest. I'd superset big lifts like squats with smaller lifts like bicep curls.

Mind you, I'm inclined to superset any lifts that use the same bar, so that I can go straight from one to the other without having to stop to change weights.

rubadub

Not sure if it is supersets. Supersets are no rest in between right? and usually just 2 exercises I thought.

Sounds like he is just going randomly through 10 exercises with short breaks and then doing another round.

I know for hypertrophy you are supposed to take short breaks, like 1min between sets. So by doing this method you could have longer breaks between muscles. Dunno if hypertrophy is a goal.

EileenG

Doing all ten exercises, one after another is a circuit. Generally considered better for fat burning than for muscle building. Ideally, you should be lifting heavy (if you can do 12 reps, your weights might be a little light), with a short rest and then lifting again, without giving the muscle too much time to recover. You want to stress the muscle enough that it has to make itself stronger to cope with the workload.

One practical disadvanage of circuits is that you lose your place on each station when you move on, so you have to spend more time waiting and fiddling with weights.

SM01

Thanks for the replies - I should elaborate - I play ball and do a lot of sprints, fartleking etc. to keep fit for that however I've little upper body definition and mt aim would be to add a modest bit of muscle definition to keep myself looking 'proportional'. I'm not really interested in getting too big and the weights session of my training doesn't really interest me - I see it as a necessary evil but I'm not sure if I'm going about it correctly (or efficiently).

After a warm up of 15 min I generally go straight from one exercise to another without taking a break except at the end of the circuit (probably the correct definition in hindsight). I'd benchpress approx 50kg and curl 22kg per arm (I weigh 11.5 st / 5ft 10).

I openly admit i'm quite ignorant when it comes to best practice.

itsallaboutheL

SM01 wrote: »

Thanks for the replies - I should elaborate - I play ball and do a lot of sprints, fartleking etc. to keep fit for that however I've little upper body definition and mt aim would be to add a modest bit of muscle definition to keep myself looking 'proportional'. I'm not really interested in getting too big and the weights session of my training doesn't really interest me - I see it as a necessary evil but I'm not sure if I'm going about it correctly (or efficiently).

After a warm up of 15 min I generally go straight from one exercise to another without taking a break except at the end of the circuit (probably the correct definition in hindsight). I'd benchpress approx 50kg and curl 22kg per arm (I weigh 11.5 st / 5ft 10).

I openly admit i'm quite ignorant when it comes to best practice.

What the f*ck is ball?

legend365

SM01 wrote: »

curl 22kg per arm

Arnold?.....Is that you?

SM01

Foot... ball. Not a huge leap of faith or intelligence to work that one out, is it?

And I've never answered to Arnold before. Is that post an attempt at humour there I'm missing, is my wording incorrect or are you attempting to take the pish cause I lift an inadequate weight? Do please reveal all...

King of Kings

itsallaboutheL wrote: »

What the f*ck is ball?

grow up and use some intelligence

rubadub

SM01 wrote: »

take the pish cause I lift an inadequate weight? Do please reveal all...

Dunno what he means either. 22kg is a fair amount for one arm curls, it seems disproportionate to your benching, if you can curl 22kg for reps I would expect your bench to be a lot more.

Are you working your legs, squats, deadlifts, lunges, stepups, all important for overall growth, they stimulate your entire body into muscle growth. You will not get "too big", that would take many years of total dedication, and if a muscle ever did get too big you just stop lifting and it reduces in size. I have seen videos of soccer players doing heavy squats. The "modest" bit of muscle you want will take a lot of hard heavy weight training to develop.

SM01

Cheers Rubadub, I did do deadlifts regularly until about a month ago. I developed tight calfs and painful sensitivity in my achilles tendons and automatically attributed it to the deadlifts - probably incorrectly.

Based on the comments in this thread and also in in Black Venom's "Weightloss / Muscle Gain" thread I get the impression I need to reintoduce them with other compound moves (that the correct term?!) with heavier weights to see improvements.

hooplah

SM01 wrote: »

Cheers Rubadub, I did do deadlifts regularly until about a month ago. I developed tight calfs and painful sensitivity in my achilles tendons and automatically attributed it to the deadlifts - probably incorrectly.

hmmm, what do people think of this?