Clean eating is vital to any person wanting to achieve a good build. Nutrition accounts for well over half of the results (or lack thereof) of what we see when it comes to the gym and fitness. After nutrition than we look at training. There are so many approaches to lifting and training when it comes to bodybuilding. You can do a 5x5 program, pyramid sets, drop sets, straight sets, giant sets. When a person however wants to get the most of their precious time, they can’t squeeze the minutes out to jump on a treadmill and only can go a few days out of the week, superset lifting is the way to go.
What is superset lifting? It is a tried and true form of lifting that was glorified and utilized the most in the ‘golden era” of bodybuilding in the 1970s. The likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Frank Zane, Franco Columbo, and Dave Draper trained this way to name a few! Training is intense because it is non-stop isolated movements (not big compound ones) so the heart rate is put in a high moderate, fat burning zone throughout the session. The training session consists of two separate muscle groups being trained together. So, you are burning fat while you lift!
To super set lift, you are training two separate muscle groups with no breaks during the set. An example would be back and triceps. This is the most common because the back is a bigger muscle group than triceps and there are different indirect muscles being worked (with training back the biceps usually have to work for pulling so we let them get trained indirectly and work the triceps directly).
You start the session doing a warm-up set of body weight pull-ups to failure, then you go right into bodyweight dips for a set of 15. After that set, you take a short break (1-2 minutes) and then repeat the set. You can do as many sets as you want, but the most common are 3 to 4 sets so you do not get too drained before the next set of movements.
Following those movements, you decide to the dumbbell rack and knock out some bent over dumbbell rows for a set of 12 on each side. When you are done, you go and grab a lighter dumbbell and get in some single arm triceps extensions for a set of 12 on each side. Short break and then repeat.
Are you getting the theme here?
You are in constant go mode and your heart rate is up, but not too high. You are also getting 2 muscle groups knocked out in one session. This kind of training is good also for utilizing amino acids as an intra workout BCAA (drink while you lift instead of water). This will just help with keeping the muscles fueled and keep catabolism to a minimum. The key is to really find out and focus on what movements work best for you. This kind of training is not about doing “cute” movements you might have seen in a magazine somewhere. You are only doing what works and keeping the movements for each muscle group minimal yet effective.
So, when you are in the gym next time, give superset training a try. Be prepared to sweat and hurt, but in a good way.
