Split your sets V.S. Doing them all at once

[scargirl]

Why is everybody performing the same exercise sets all at once instead of splitting them up?​

Wouldn't it be wiser to do curl-back-shrug and repeat that cycle 4X instead of doing 4 sets of curls, 4 sets of back, and 4 sets of shrugs?

Wouldn't that give your muscles more resting time? Or is there a drawback I'm not aware of?

 

[brianwatts]

@scargirl Fatiguing a muscle maximally over a shorter period of time stimulates hypertrophy more. When you space it out leaving more rest between sets of the same muscle group it stimulates less hypertrophy.

 

[mommajulesberry]

@scargirl i actually really like the idea of giant sets, you hit the nail on the head. i agree, being able to dissipate more fatigue on the muscle level will probably lead to being able to get better motor unit recruitment/mechanical tension which seems to drive more growth.

except:

- it would require a lot of forethought and equipment. usually it makes the most sense for me to only superset things that are "close enough" together. i can't be bothered to walk from the bench press to where our lat pulldown is, but i will totally walk from the bench press to where the curl bars are. and im not going to take up 2 barbells at once.

- i imagine there is more benefit with antagonist or unrelated muscles. meaning that it works great when you have days with these pairings in the first place like chest/back, bis/tris etc or full body, but is more whatever for something like push or pull day where if im going from a close grip bench to overhead press, theres so much overlap so whats the point?

- if its a technical move like a hip hinge or powerlifting bench, doing a whole circuit before you do your next set could have some cool motor learning effects but in the short term could just distract you and make you not feel as grooved in

 

[lifesharer]

@scargirl Aside from most people working out in commercial gyms where it is strongly frowned upon to utilize more than two pieces of equipment at a time (and some people even frown upon that because they're afraid to say 8 words to a stranger to ask to work in), there is some science and technique to properly planning when movements occur in a workout.

If you don't care about optimizing your workout/gains and are trying to get through a workout efficiently:

The biggest potential drawback (imo) is pairing or tripling inappropriate movements and fatiguing muscles in such a way that you limit your exertion on more 'important' movements.

Even the example you used is, in my opinion, inappropriate.

I'd never do a curl (fatiguing biceps) before a pull/back movement because my fatigued biceps would negatively impact my heavier, higher intensity pull/back movement. Similarly, shrugs (which I personally find relatively useless and don't do at all anyway) are typically done with a relatively heavy weight, and so now your grip is being significantly impacted as you go through your sets too.

I find pairing antagonistic planes of movement (bench followed by row, or pulldowns followed by OHP, for example) to be a better way to save time without impacting performance on either one.

If you have an empty enough gym that you can feasibly be using more than two pieces of equipment at a time without someone coming along and stealing one of them (or pissing off people afraid to ask to work in...) I'd tack on some small isolation movement for a third muscle group or plane of movement... like do bench, row, calves or something like that. Something small enough and low enough intensity that it acts like rest time before hitting the two bigger antagonistic movements.

Just my .02.