Wednesday, June 10, 2009

What are supersets?

A super set is a workout in which you do two or more exercises back to back with little rest in between. It can be a great way to break through plateaus, burn calories, increase your intensity and endurance, and overload your muscles to facilitate the training effect (aka build/"tone"/strengthen).

Supersetting is especially beneficial when you are short on time but still need to get it all in. A simple example is to do a couple of push/pull exercises for your upper body followed by a lower body exercise.

For example:

pushups/pullups/squats
or
triceps dips/biceps curl/fwd lunge

You could also do an upper body/lower body combo, ie chest flye/split squat. One benefit of this type of split is that one half of the body "rests" and recovers while the other half works.

There are endless ways to put together supersets. The "trick" is to know your purpose and design your program accordingly. Check back tomorrow for our Thursday Workout of the Week tomorrow. Supersets included.

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