A common barrier to continued progress from you strength training is the deadly plateau. Everybody experiences them but what can you do? Well its time to mix things up and this is where super setting can come into play. Super setting is a high intensity overloading technique that comes in a few different forms. The two most common reasons to super set are to provide specific overload to a muscle group, generate greater fatigue within the specific muscle being trained or purely and simply to save time in a workout.

For any weight training program there will be a period of rest between sets while the muscles recover from the exercise. For increasing size and tone (hypertrophy) around one minute, where as for strength commonly 1-3 minutes between sets is used. This can make for a time consuming workout, so to save time some people will use super sets to get the best bang for their buck.

One way of super setting focuses on using the rest time between sets to work the opposing muscle groups, or agonist followed by the antagonist. For instance, working the biceps with a preacher curl followed by the triceps with dips allows you to work the one muscle group while the other rests before going straight into the first exercise again.

Another use for super setting is to target the same muscle group with two different exercises in quick succession, say squats followed by lunges to target the quads and gluteal regions. This overloads the muscle group which is paramount to muscle performance gains and keeps the workout interesting.

Super setting, however is not recommended if you're a beginner and as always remember to pay particular attention to technique as your body starts to fatigue toward the end of a set or workout.

For more information on exercise and resistance training go to www.lifestylemedicine.net.au.

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