I assume if you are training regularly you want to gain muscle and/or burn some fat too. We all lift to make progress in strength and/or size and I’m sure you want to be and feel healthy. Not to mention, just love lifting.
We all get to a point at every few weeks that the training needs to be changed up. The progress has slowed, or you feel you’ve reached a plateau. We all try to vary the rep ranges, change up all the exercises and deload. You’re now at a loss and start to look at your nutrition and supplementation first to see if maybe there are holes you’ve missed.
What you need is something that completely shocks the system reignites the biological pathways of muscle growth. What you need are GIANT SETS! Did you know you can shock your body into building muscle like this?
What are Giant Sets?
Giant Sets have nothing to do with using a lot of weight. Instead, Giant Sets are big supersets. For a giant set you will do several exercises (usually 4-6) in order without any rest in between. A set may be on just one body part or using a few and even your entire body. I feel that full-body giant sets are better for endurance athletes than a bodybuilder. But you can try out all of these variations. No matter how you are doing the giant sets, be sure that you don’t sacrifice form for heavier weight. Doing a giant set 4-5 “sets” is like doing 16-20 single sets. Another benefit of giant sets is that you can complete a workout in about 30-40 minutes if you are on a time crunch
Giant sets are hard on your muscles and conditioning. During each giant set, your muscles and cardiovascular system starts to burn. By the last 1-2 exercises you’ll be dying for that rest period before beginning again. You don’t get to rest for too long, rest only 2-3 minutes between each giant set.
Benefits of Giant Set Training
Giant Sets can help you improve muscular endurance, increase athletic performance, and save time in the gym. If you know you’ve only got 30 minutes, that’s a great time to utilize Giant Sets. They’ll make your training time very effective both in terms of burning calories and in building muscle. If you feel you have reached the dreaded plateau or are just needing a change up in training, giant sets can be something to incorporate for a few weeks.
Bigger muscles are just one benefit, but there are a few other benefits too.
- Hitting that muscle from all angles within one “set” creates an evenly built muscle that is the shape you are looking for.
- You don’t have to go as heavy to blast a muscle group and you will still benefit with growth. Even large muscle groups like back and legs. By focusing on form and keeping the blood flowing through each exercise of the giant set before resting you are attacking the muscle and shredding it preparing it to grow.
- You will speed up your metabolism with the high volume and limited rest and increase calorie burn. That’s a win-win. Giant sets are great for hypertrophy, fat loss, and conditioning.
Giant sets will not be easy, growing muscle is never easy. It takes all you’ve got to push through each set, let alone the whole workout.
How-To Perform Giant Sets
Perform each exercise in the giant set back-to-back with no rest in between them before resting for 2-3 minutes MAX.
After resting begin the entire set again. You want to be sure to maintain proper form in each set. If you are unable to do that, this is key to lower the weight. Usually you will try to achieve 10-12 reps of each exercise and complete 4-5 rounds for the entire workout.
Here are a few examples of giant sets:
LEGS
- Back Squats
- RDL’s
- Leg Press
- Leg Extensions
- Leg Curls
CHEST
- Barbell Bench Press
- High Incline DB Press
- Low Incline DB Press
- Standing Cable Crossovers
- Pushups
FULL BODY
- Leg Press
- Lying Leg Curl
- Incline Barbell Bench Press
- Bent-Over Barbell Row
- Lateral Raise
- Any Ab Exercise
CHECK OUT THIS VIDEO WHERE PJ BRAUN EXPLAINS MORE ON GIANT SETS
Making progress with giant sets is easy. Work to increase the weight. Maybe change up the rep ranges. You can even lower the rest period between sets, if you dare.
