Picture this, you’ve been working out for a year and you have pretty much progressed as well as you’re used to all the exercises, pushing yourself a bit further than you were yesterday. But at this point, you find it hard to see the results. If you are one of those who are struggling to see the results, then don’t worry. This is a common issue. Unless you push yourself or your body, you will definitely find hard to see results compared to a beginner. And when we talk about pushing your body, we’re talking about adding some new elements in your workout routine which you have not included previously.

Here’s the thing about progress. In general, your goal should be to increase the weights or repetitions in order to progress. However, it is not possible every time. So, despite this, you should have the knowledge of intensity building techniques and one of those intensity building techniques which has helped me personally and which I include in my workouts from time to time when I don't see any progress are dropsets.

 

What are dropsets?

In a simple way, dropsets can be defined as “you finish your regular set and you drop the weight and continue on with the set by pushing it beyond the failure.” The basic protocol of doing dropsets is by picking up a weight that you can do for 8-10 repetitions until failure, then you stop and decrease the weight by 30-35%.

For example, if you’re doing bench press of 100 kilos, then you decrease the weight by 20-25 kilos from the bar and do it until you hit failure.

 

How to do dropsets?

Dropset is a technique that stresses the Central Nervous System (CNS). So, you should use it wisely and not overuse it or else you would get overtrained. Your body will hardly get recovered if you use dropsets in your every set and this will backfire your body to get negative results. It will affect your next working set as well.

You cannot use dropsets for every single workout. If you’re doing dropsets in your first set, then you won’t be able to reach your full potential in your next set. This technique should be used every once in a while. However, when you use it, make sure you are doing dropset only on your last set. So, if you are doing 3 sets each in your chest workout, then use dropsets only on your third set i.e. your last set.

 

Do you want to take it a step further?

Dropsets are generally very intense technique. Those people who have never done dropsets, I hardly recommend them to use it as mentioned above and incorporate it into your workout. However, if you’re advanced and if you’re used to doing dropsets, then you can do a double or triple dropset.

This means, if you are doing 100kilos of bench press for 10 repetitions and you drop the weight by 30-35% to 70 kilos to do 4-5 repetitions, then this is called a single dropset. However, you can do another dropset by decreasing the weight 25-30% doing another set to failure, then this would be a double dropset. And if you’re really advanced and you drop the weight again by 25-30% doing another set to failure, then that will be triple dropset which is like the most brutal workout technique.

 

Although to get results, these advanced techniques are important but it’s even more important that you don’t overdo it because “slow progress is still better than going a step backward”.

Be wise with these intensity building techniques.