We are always looking for the next thing we aren’t doing to give us the results we don’t have. Inevitably, when we are training through physical exercise, we venture to strength training. With strength training, most people buy into the 3 sets of 10 reps per exercise, and that’s good. But what happens when 3 sets of 10 isn’t cutting it? There’s only so heavy we can go until we can’t do 10 reps of an exercise, and doing 6 or 7 sets just seems…unexciting. So what next? Let me introduce you to giant sets.
Giant sets are exactly what they sound like. Big sets of something. In this case, it’s actually a FEW exercises in a row. Those exercises are all going to hit the same type of movement you are trying to grow in. Let’s use chest for an example. What most people will do, is maybe bench press, incline press and cable crossover and pushups. The prescription might call for 3 sets of 10 or 4 sets of 8 etc. Here’s how you would do a giant set. Instead of doing 3 sets of 10 at the bench, you’d go from the bench, do maybe 8 reps, directly to incline press and do 8 there, then cable crossover and get 8 and then finish with a mx out of pushups. You are going to have a MASSIVE pump by the end of that, and THEN you rest. maybe 2 minutes or so. Then you do it again. And again. By the end of the giant set, your pushing muscles will be screaming. I myself would make it a little bit different, as maybe I’d do some vertical pressing with my horizontal pressing, to where I’m really changing the dynamics of the task demand, but this works too. I’d maybe go bench, then T-Pushup, then some sort of shoulder press, then maybe back to that cable cross, but it doesn’t really matter unless you are really dropping the amount of weight you can handle.
The point is, giant sets are an effective way to increase muscle size when you are stalling out on your “gainz, bro”. Give them a shot once a week and see how that treats you.