Beyond the Basics: Resistance Training Methods Explained

What is the science behind performing different resistance training methods such as straight sets, supersets, tri-sets, circuits, max strength, pyramid, drop set, bookcase etc.

The gains we see in our fitness and physical performance are predicated on an acronym known as FITT. This stands for Frequency Intensity Time and Type. 

The other way of looking at exercise and the results we obtain from all of our training sessions is another acronym called SAID and this one stands for Specific Adaptations to Imposed Demands.

What all of these fitness acronyms mean is that their needs to be a sufficient dose of exercise to produce the desired results. This means that the frequency, intensity, volume of training and the exercises selections must be specific to your goal (that is if you want to grow more glutes, you won’t take up swimming).

We often hear of the term progressive overload, and that simply means as the body becomes fitter and stronger, we need more stimulus to create fresh adaptation. This often comes with lifting heavier loads, performing more sets or training more frequently within a week.

Many decades ago, observant athletes, coaches, and scientists noticed that an additional variable needs to be considered for long-term success. And that is the variable that is called variation. In other words, if you keep doing the same exercise or the same set and rep scheme or the same program split, then the effectiveness of your exercise regime will wear off due to monotony. And this often explain the plateauing in results many experience after the first year of training.

Variation can take place in any number of ways in the fitness setting, but a very successful way of inducing planned variation in a training program is to include methods that are called overload techniques.

An overload technique simply manipulates the load or reps, the range of motion, the volume, the contraction type, or the rest between sets (or even within the set).

Two of the key drivers of muscle growth are (1) training volume, that is how many sets and reps a muscle is exposed to within a session and within a week and (2) tension placed on the muscle, which is another way of saying working with sincere effort, either up to failure or very close to it during a set.

Overload techniques are ways of increasing training volume per unit of time or effort applied to an exercise in the gym.

To that end, the most commonly used overloads are supersets, trisets, circuits and drop sets. 

To the muscle, these are all essentially the same thing. They increase the volume that a muscle is exposed to per unit of time. 

Research has spent a great deal of time comparing overload techniques to traditional sets, also called straight sets. A straight set is where you perform only one exercise at a time and have the recommended amount of rest between sets. For example, performing four sets of deadlifts with a load that you can perform for 8 to 10 repetitions and resting two minutes between sets. 

A superset would add a second exercise for that same muscle group immediately after the deadlift. For example, a deadlift for 8 to 10 reps resting 10 seconds and then performing a back extension. 

A tri-set would see a third exercise for the same muscle group being added: a deadlift followed by a back extension followed by a hamstring leg curl. 

As you can see, overload techniques are often variations on the same theme, and that is to increase the amount of work a muscle has to do in one extended “set."

When researchers investigate the difference between overload techniques versus straight sets, they generally conclude that “when volume is equated, there is no appreciable difference in muscular adaptation.”

I love the sentence “when volume is equated," or the use of the phrase “no advantage," because what this ignores is the time factor:  When you consider the amount of time it takes to perform three sets of squats and three sets of leg press as straight sets versus performing those two exercises as a superset,  then you perform the same amount of work in half the amount of time.

Researchers are also teasing out subtle differences in muscular adaptation that occur during different types of overload techniques, presumably due to the exhausting nature of some of the methods. 

It has only been in very recent years that high tech investigative techniques have been available to analyze the subtle adaptation in skeletal muscle with such high fidelity.

But the reason why coaches for many decades have employed overload techniques is to introduce planned variation and variety over the long-term training process. 

If your goal is to increase muscle mass and strength, then overload techniques must be chosen that are consistent with that training outcome - high training volume and high effort tension placed on the muscle.

The advantage of performing straight sets is that you can focus all of your mental energy on one exercise at a time and not having to swap between exercises in a busy gym. This provides a very high level of stimulus for strength and muscle mass.

But straight sets, just like any resistance training method, can be overused, and can increase the amount of time you spend in the gym due to the rest needed after every set.

This is where overload techniques have their greatest advantage - they allow you to do more work in less time and inherently insert a degree of variation and variety into the program sequence, ensuring that our workouts don’t experience monotony and plateaus. 

In time, a successful program will include straight sets and a variety of goal specific overload techniques that will logically and sequentially increase training volume, effort applied to the set and insert a little bit of spice and excitement into training programs that can sometimes be an overly repetitive and monotonous experience.

Reference:

Burke, R., Hermann, T., Pinero, A., Mohan, A.E., Augustin, F., Sapuppo, M., Coleman, M., Androulakis Korakakis, P., Wolf, M., Swinton, P.A., Schoenfeld, B.J. (2024). Less time, same gains: Comparison of superset vs traditional set training on muscular adaptations.