A Forgotten Muscle Building Trick: Mechanical Drop Sets

Working out a lot but not getting results? Have ya hit a wall? Well changing up your workouts more often can be key to getting past those plateaus. There’s a lot of ways to vary up your workouts but one of the forgotten tricks (I mean methods, trix are for kids) is mechanical drop sets.

Brad Kelly has put together a good article on that to clear up some of the questions.

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Just like me, you have probably heard the same complaint 100 times and it goes something like this “I train as hard as I can, but never get any bigger!” I usually then will take it a step further and actually watch the person complaining “train” and in most cases am appalled. The fact is most gym goers need an extra push in their workouts, something truly challenging to move them to the next level. Doing barbell curls 5 sets of 12 and then tricep extensions 4 sets of 8 will only get you so far.

If I just tell people the type of training I do, and how often 90% of the time they will respond “That’s overtraining bro!”. But then if I show them the results, I made in just 9 months they change their mind and start asking more questions. If you want better results, you are going to have to train harder, that is the bottom line.

Luckily, for us, there are more ways to advance our training difficulty then merely adding weight to the bar, doing more reps or shortening our rest periods. The amount of advanced training principles you can employ are almost endless, just to give you some ideas I will quickly list a few off the top of my head.

Super Sets
Tri Sets
Giant Sets
Drop Sets
Mechanical Drop Sets
Forced Reps
Negative Reps
Partial Reps
Cheating Reps
21s
1-10 Methods
Ect…

Nevertheless, out of all of those methods, the one that I find works the best with almost everyone is Mechanical Drop Sets, which in my opinion are superior to normal drop sets. With a normal drop set you simply lower the weight after you cannot complete anymore reps on a given movement such as barbell curls and pound out a few more reps, which could look something like….

100lb Barbell Curl x6 (REACH FAILURE)
Drop 25-50% of the weight
50lb Barbell Curl x 7 (REACH FAILURE)

As painful as it may be to perform, I just do not think the extra reps at the much lower weight produces optimal overall hypertrophy gains. Notice I said optimal, because I have no doubt it is a decent technique in provoking intensity and gains in size, however I consider Mechanical Drop Sets a much better alternative.

Mechanical Drop Sets also take you past your first point of muscular failure, but in a different way. To continue to get more reps you will simply switch the execution of the movement by changing your grip, angle, foot placement ect. So instead of what I shown above, you may do something like performing reverse grip barbell curls until failure, then immediately switching to an easier standard grip barbell curl.

This not only adds intensity to you routine, but also hits the muscles from different angles. Another example for the biceps could be Wide Grip Barbell Curls until failure followed Standard Grip Barbell curls until failure then finally Close Grip Barbell Curls until failure. Sets like that hit the biceps inner head more during the wide grip curls and then the outer head more during the close grip curls. This alone is something that really helps many trainees, as they do not focus on all heads and areas of the muscle with their training, which limits overall growth.

As you progress through your own training, I am sure you will find different variations that make a movement easier and work best for you. However, for the sake of starting out I included common mechanical drop set pairings below.

Biceps
Barbell Preacher Curls to Barbell Standing Curls
Reverse Dumbbell Curls to Standard Dumbbell Curls to Hammer Curls
Reverse Preacher Curls to Preacher Curls to Standing Curls
Bilateral Seated Dumbell Curls to Unilateral Seated Dumbell Curls
Wide Grip Preacher Curls to Medium Grip Preacher Curls to Close Grip Preacher Curls

Triceps
Lying Ez Bar Extension to the Top of Head then to Eyes then to Chin
Reverse Overhead Tricep Extension to normal Overhead Tricep Extension

Chest
Close Grip then Standard Grip Bench Press
Wide Grip Then Standard Grip Bench Press
Bench Press to Neck then to Chest

Lats
Behind The Neck Lat Pulldown to Forward Lat Pulldown to Arms Supinated Pulldown
Bent Over Row To Chest then Stomach

Quadriceps
Leg Extensions with each leg separately then both together
Front Squat to Back Squat to Half Back Squat

Hamstrings
Leg Curls with each leg separately then both together

Calves
Seated Calf Raise with each leg separately then both together
Dumbbell Calf Raise each leg then both legs

That should be a good enough of a list to get you started, it is also important to remember there are countless ways to gain muscle , ask a 100 random experts who all get great results on the matter and you are likely to get 100 different answers. Some of the Mechanical Sets I mentioned you may love and some you may hate, it will take a while to try them all ,but I am sure it will be fun and break the monotony of “Barbell Curls 5 sets of 12 ” .

All of the Mechanical Drop Sets I mentioned should allow you to keep the weight moving as you switch positions. One thing you may have noticed is the bilateral to unilateral switches. By switching to performing an exercise such as dumbbell curls one arm at a time, you can squeeze out a few more reps because the neural drive is focused on one side. Also switching to alternating dumbbell curls can work because it begins to allow rest in one arm while the other is working.

If you consistently train hard using methods such as this one and eat well, your body will not have a choice but to grow stronger and bigger then you ever thought possible.

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I hope you found this article helpful and give you some good ideas of how to keep moving forward and add some more intensity and variety to your workouts. Do you use mechanical drop sets? Are there any other sets that you perform that get good results?

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Brad Kelly writes a weekly article every Tuesday. He is a National Academy of Sports Medicine Certified Personal Trainer, Performance Enhancement Specialist, and Corrective Exercise Specialist out of Panama City, Florida. Driven by a passion to help others he not only trains locals, but also performs online personal training and writes fitness articles to reach as many fellow fitness enthusiasts as possible.

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