If you’re tired of doing the same kinds of exercises over and over again and are looking to shake things up, try adding drop sets to the mix! Whether you’re trying to maximize your muscle growth, get a little stronger, or both, trainers and fitness enthusiasts alike encourage adding drop sets to your training regimen. These sets combine the intensity of heavy lifting with the challenge of pushing your muscles until failure, adding a difficult but rewarding twist to your workout. Read on to learn more about the science behind drop sets, including how they can affect your body composition and how to do them correctly to get the most out of each rep.  

What are drop sets? 

Drop sets are a multi-part exercise. They involve performing an exercise with a heavy weight for several reps, then immediately “dropping the weight” to a lower weight (or no weight at all), and again repeating that same exercise for a higher number of repetitions. There aren’t any hard-and-fast rules for the number of times you should perform the movement at each weight. However, many people advocate for doing your drop sets until failure — in other words, until you physically cannot do another repetition while maintaining the correct form. Take a bicep curl, for example. One drop set might look like curling:  

• 35 pounds until failure 

• 25 pounds until failure 

How drop sets can take your training to the next level 

Not only do drop sets shake up your usual workout format and add some challenging interest to your usual exercises, but they also let you capitalize on the benefits of both high-weight, low-rep sets and lower-weight, high-repetition sets. 

To understand how this happens, it’s helpful to understand how muscle growth (also known as muscle hypertrophy) works in the first place. 

The golden rule of muscle hypertrophy is progressive overload, which involves gradually increasing the “load” that you lift during your workout. The easiest way to do this is by gradually lifting heavier and heavier weights. Adding more weight to your exercises over time continues to challenge your muscles through the same exercises, which ultimately helps you build bigger and stronger muscles after proper rest and recovery. 

But there’s also something to be said for lifting lighter weights as long as you’re lifting them for a higher number of repetitions. Performing an exercise for a higher number of repetitions in a set can help you build muscular endurance, which has plenty of positive implications both inside and outside of the gym. 

What’s more: progressive overload doesn’t necessarily need to always look like increasing the weight that you’re lifting. It can also mean increasing the number of reps that you perform! 

This finding was highlighted in one interesting study, where participants were instructed to perform the same exercise, but in two different formats: 

• Either performing the same number of weights while increasing the weight lifted, or   

• Performing the exercise with the same weight throughout but increasing the number of repetitions. 

After the researchers evaluated the results, they found that the muscle growth was moderately better in the group that increased the number of reps, but the strength improvements were slightly better in the group that increased the amount of weight lifted. In other words, both high-rep and heavy-weight training led to significant improvements in strength and muscle growth, albeit in slightly different capacities! 

Some researchers also believe that training to failure can help you break through training plateaus. Research indicates that performing an exercise until you physically cannot anymore can better activate your motor units, which are the neurons and muscle fibers that need to be activated in order for your muscles to produce force and move. It also better activates the release of growth-promoting hormones, which are necessary for making gains. However, it’s also important that you’re still lifting weights that are heavy enough to be challenging so that you can reap these rewards. 

Altogether, this means that drop sets — which combine lifting heavy weights, performing a higher numbers of reps, and training until failure — can have many viable benefits in your training. It targets the need for progressive overload in multiple ways, making it a challenging yet interesting workout format that can ultimately help you reach your body composition and strength goals at once. 

When compared to traditional training sets, in which you would perform an exercise with one weight for a set number of repetitions, one of the biggest benefits of drop sets is that they’re remarkably time-efficient. One study found that both drop sets and traditional training led to significant and comparable hypertrophy results, but that the drop sets took half to one-third of the time that it took for traditional training sets to see those results! 

So if you’re looking to shake up your workouts and get an effective, time-efficient workout, adding a couple of drop sets into your workout routine is a great idea. You’ll see similar results when compared to other traditional sets, but you’ll get to challenge your body in new ways and potentially see results a little more quickly. 

Tips for adding drop sets to your training 

Select a moderate starting weight. 

Choosing the right weights for your drop set will depend on your personal strength and fitness level, but you should choose a heavier weight that is moderately challenging but still comfortable to lift. Try starting your drop set with a weight that you can perform 8-10 sets of your exercise with. Then for the “drop,” decrease that weight by about 15-30%. For example, if you’re doing dumbbell shoulder presses, your drop set might look like: 

• 8-10 sets of 35 pounds 

• 12-15 sets of 25 pounds 

Have your weights ready to go 

When you’re performing a drop set, the exercises should be done immediately with no rest in between the different weights. As you’re setting up for your set, have your weights ready to go and within reach so you can quickly grab them without pausing. 

Stay safe.

Finally, don’t compromise your form and risk an injury! “Until failure” means that the last rep that you perform should still be done in the correct form. Listen to your body and recognize when to stop your workouts so that you don’t accidentally hurt yourself during your drop sets. This is especially important for heavy compound workouts like barbell back squats or bench presses, in which failure can be dangerous. 

Conclusion 

Drop sets allow you to lift heavy weights and challenge your muscular endurance, both of which can help you accomplish your body composition goals while saving time. To get the most out of your drop sets, choose challenging weights and work through your movements until failure. You’ll get more out of the same workouts, and often in less time than traditional workout formats might take!

It’s happened to the best of us: no matter how dedicated you are to your lifting routine and making gains, life just gets in the way of your carefully planned training schedule. 

It might be an extended vacation, a sickness, pressing responsibilities, or just a temporary drop in motivation … but all of a sudden, you realize that you’ve been out of the gym for a month or more. 

The sad truth is that it isn’t always possible to stick to a consistent and structured workout routine. 

But, as inevitable as lapses in your workout routine can be, it’s still stressful to be out of the gym for long periods of time when you’re trying to improve your health. 

Skipping your lifts can leave you feeling weaker, less physically fit, or maybe even guilty that you’ve taken that time off. 

Your absence also might leave you wondering if your time away from the gym has canceled out all of the hard work and progress you’ve been working toward.   

What actually happens to your muscles when you stop working out for an extended period of time? Let’s talk about it. 

What happens to your muscles when you take a break from weight lifting? 

Most people don’t work out every single day. The occasional rest day is even a good thing, since it allows your body to recover and rebuild after the physical stress of your tough workout. 

But when one rest day turns into a week, then a month, or even longer, something else can happen. 

When you’re working out and training regularly, your body slowly undergoes a series of physical adaptations in response — you gain strength, build new muscle tissue, and even see some changes in your body composition. 

However, if you suddenly stop working out completely, those physical changes can be lost. This is called detraining. 

Over time, detraining can lead to a loss of the physical adaptations that your body created when you were working out regularly. 

But how quickly does detraining occur? Let’s discuss some of the changes that you might see in your strength, athletic performance, and body composition after a short period of detraining. 

Strength 

A major concern that you might have after taking a break from your workouts is whether or not all of those increases in strength are going to be reversed. 

The good news is that your strength likely won’t be significantly impacted by a month or two of detraining. 

One study found that athletes were generally able to maintain their overall strength for up to four weeks of inactivity. 

The caveat: the athletes also tended to lose some power and force that were necessary for their sports. In other words, they were just about as strong as they were prior to their break, but their overall athletic performance did decline during detraining. 

A second downside to detraining is that taking a break from your exercise routine takes away from your ability to improve your fitness skills, even if you’re able to generally maintain your strength. 

Another study found that men who regularly strength-trained then detrained saw declines in performance metrics like their peak power, while men who continued with their resistance training saw no such change. 

Additionally, the men who detrained did not see any improvements in their jump height, while the men who continued their training were able to see improvements.

This effect is something to think about before taking a break, especially if you are an athlete and/or if you have specific strength or performance goals that you’d like to meet in a predetermined amount of time. 

Overall, however, you should be able to lift just about as much as you did prior to your break if you’re out of the gym for a month or two. 

Body composition

While your strength doesn’t seem to be too affected by a short break from weight lifting, it’s also worth considering how your body composition measurements can change through detraining. 

A good example of this is the effect that shelter-in-place orders had during the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic. In one study, researchers evaluated the fitness of men who had previously worked out regularly but stopped due to the pandemic and its subsequent social distancing regulations. 

After an average of 45 weeks off of their regular training programs, the men in this study saw significant decreases in muscle mass, strength, and endurance, as well as increases in body fat and waist-hip ratio. 

However, this was a very long pause in their training program (averaging almost a year for most participants). What about if you’re only taking a few months off? 

Unsurprisingly, the longer you stop training, the worse the effects of detraining will be. So, if you’re only stopping your weight lifting training for a couple of months, you likely aren’t going to see huge changes (if the rest of your diet and physical activity stays about the same).

However, longer periods of detraining can affect your muscle size. A study on older adults found that muscle size didn’t change significantly after a shorter strength-training pause of three to six months. That said, the adults did see significant changes in their muscle size when their detraining periods reached longer terms of 8 to 13 months.  

The effects of muscle loss from detraining can also be seen in other forms of strength training besides weight lifting, like Pilates. 

One study evaluated the effects of three weeks of detraining on women who had done Pilates for two months. The women saw improvements in body fat percentage and visceral fat following the two months of workouts, but those percentages returned to baseline after the three weeks of no training. 

On the plus side, the positive effects that Pilates had on trunk fat, thigh and waist measurements, flexibility, abdominal strength, and aerobic capacity weren’t affected by the detraining period. 

But even though there does seem to be some muscle loss after certain periods of detraining, there’s some good news for lifters: the effects of detraining don’t seem to be as bad in people who lift versus people who prefer cardio. 

In a study that evaluated detraining effects in resistance-trained vs. endurance-trained young men, the men who lifted weights still saw gains in strength and lean muscle mass even after 24 weeks of detraining. These gains were maintained for longer than the ones seen by the endurance-trained group. 

Can you recover after a long workout break?

Yes! If you get back into the gym and start your training again, the evidence indicates that you can get close to where you were before, especially if you’ve only taken a break for a month or two. 

However, some factors might cause you to take more time to fully recover from detraining. 

For example, researchers evaluated the effects of training and then detraining on older women. After detraining for 12 weeks and then retraining for another 12, the women were able to mostly recoup their fat mass and body fat improvements, but their upper and lower body strength was still somewhat lower than it had been after the first round of training. 

Another interesting study on older men found that, after 12 weeks of detraining, participants still preserved much of the strength, power, and Type 2 muscle fiber changes that happened after training, which led to fast recovery once they started working out again. 

The bottom line: as discouraging as it might be to be forced by life events to take several weeks off from your workout routine, it doesn’t have to mean that you’re starting from scratch. 

Once you get back into the gym and into a consistent workout routine, you’ll start getting back in the groove sooner rather than later (even if some things take a little longer to improve, like your body composition). 
Conclusion

Taking a few months off from strength training can feel scary, but rest assured that you likely won’t lose all of your gains after just a month or two of no training. During your extended break, find ways to stay active where you can and focus on eating a good diet. This will help you recover more quickly after your break from weight lifting.

After enjoying the wonderful treats and indulgences that the holiday season has to offer, many of us resolve to lose weight once the new year comes around.

But all too often, those well-meaning resolutions tend to peter out after a couple of weeks, especially when they involve unsatisfying diets or extreme exercise routines that are just too hard to stick to. 

The good news is that there’s a better way to approach your New Year’s resolutions this year. Forget about weight loss — here’s why you should focus on your body composition goals in 2024 instead. 

Why losing weight isn’t always the best goal 

A number of different factors contribute to your weight, but ultimately, weight loss comes down to one thing: an energy deficit. 

Your body uses energy in the form of calories, which come from the foods that you eat. If you eat the same number of calories that your body burns every day, your weight is maintained.

However, if you eat fewer calories than you burn, this can lead to weight loss as your body burns through the energy that it has stored. 

As a result, traditional weight loss goals often focus solely on calorie deficits. Unfortunately, focusing purely on the calories you take in versus the calories you use does not always work out in everyone’s favor, nor is it the healthiest way to approach every health goal.  

For example, if you are only focusing on being in a calorie deficit, you might not just lose body fat — you might also lose some muscle mass in the process. 

Focusing solely on weight loss can even lead to weight regain, especially if you aren’t establishing long-term habits that extend beyond the few weeks that you’re following your diet and/or workout regimen.  

Finally, many diet and exercise plans that are designed for New Year’s resolutions and fast results often depend on extreme or unrealistic calorie deficits. 

These so-called “crash diets” are notorious for promoting unhealthy habits and can even lead to an unhealthy mentality around your relationship with food and exercise. 

A Better Resolution for the New Year: Improving Your Body Composition

This year, don’t look at your weight alone: instead, look at the components that make up your weight! 

Your body composition is the measurement of how much of your body is made up of muscle (also known as Skeletal Muscle Mass) versus your body fat (Body Fat Mass). 

Along with bones and fluids, or body water, these two different kinds of tissues contribute to your total body weight, but they play wildly different roles within your body. 

Setting goals around your body composition (sometimes referred to as body recomposition)  involves making specific goals for improving both your muscle mass and your body fat. 

For example, a reasonable 2024 fitness goal might include gaining or maintaining lean muscle mass while reducing your body fat percentage. 

By focusing on these factors rather than weight alone, you’re setting a goal that is a healthier, more holistic way to improve your body and overall health. 

Why Body Composition Should Be Your Focus in 2024 

Focuses on fitness 

The first big benefit of improving your body composition is that it can put you on a better track to fitness than focusing on weight loss alone.  

If you are only focusing on lowering your body weight, it masks the importance of your lean muscle mass. In fact, you might even find that you’re losing muscle as a result of your calorie deficit. 

However, when you make goals that are based on fat loss, not total weight loss, you can also work on preserving or gaining muscle.  

Muscle mass is hugely important for any health goal you might have. Aesthetically speaking, it’s denser than body fat, which means that a pound of muscle is going to visually be much smaller than a pound of fat. 

Maintaining or growing your muscle mass is also important for building strength and improving your metabolism, both of which can further support you on your fitness journey. 

What’s more, making sure that you’re keeping your muscle mass up during your fitness journey can also support your health as a whole. 

For example, losing muscle mass can increase the risk of sarcopenia, or an age-related loss of muscle and muscle function as you age. 

Working on body recomposition and preserving your muscle mass with the right diet and exercise routine can be a healthier approach than just running a calorie deficit, as it helps preserve physical function. 

Promotes a better mentality around your fitness goals 

Body recomposition is also a better choice for you if you want to make long-lasting healthy changes rather than seeing short-term, temporary results. 

Body recomposition is not a quick goal. You can’t take shortcuts like following extreme diets or doing short-term exercise challenges if you want to make meaningful changes to your muscle mass and body fat percentage. 

However, the sustainable lifestyle changes you make when setting body recomposition goals have the potential to change how you look and feel all year round.

Rather than focusing purely on a calorie deficit, which can be unsatisfying and even detrimental to your health, body recomposition requires a more holistic understanding of your body mechanics and the roles that proper exercise and nutrition play. 

You’ll need to have a deeper knowledge of the importance of nutrients like protein and calories for your body, as well as understanding the different kinds of exercise you’ll require to reach a more balanced body composition. 

Because of this, body composition goals can teach you so much about your body and health, which are lessons you can take with you through the rest of your life.  

Better overall health 

Finally, body recomposition is a better goal than pure weight loss since it addresses the real underlying issues that affect your body.

Weight alone is not always the best indicator of your health. For example, some people have a body type called “skinny fat”. 

These people may technically be at a healthy weight by Body Mass Index (BMI) standards; however, they are still at risk for other health problems because they have more fat mass than is necessarily safe.

Or vice versa, some people may weigh in as “overweight” or “obese” by BMI standards but be perfectly healthy since much of that weight is due to muscle tissue rather than fat. This is especially common in athletes. 

The purpose of body recomposition is to reduce fat tissue, which is the real reason why obesity increases your health risks. 

Rather than potentially leading to muscle loss or masking underlying health risks, like weight loss does, improving your body composition directly improves your health as a whole. 

How to measure your body composition 

BIA scale

One of the easiest and most accurate ways to keep track of your body composition is with a bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) scale. These devices send a gentle electric current through your body which measures your muscle mass, body fat, body water, and other metrics, such as your basal metabolic rate. Unlike a traditional body weight scale, a BIA scale can break down your weight into its separate parts and give you a more accurate picture of your fitness progress. Having these numbers can also help you identify how your diet and exercise are impacting your health. For example, if you notice that you are not making much progress in gaining muscle mass, you might try adding more protein to your diet and heavy resistance training to your workout plan. 

Take caliper measurements 

Taking measurements of your body fat with body fat calipers is another good way to monitor how your physique is changing throughout your fitness journey. It’s also a good tool for identifying areas of your body that you may want to focus on during your resistance training. 

Quick tips for improving your body composition

Know your caloric needs

When working on your body composition, you will need to think about your caloric needs in a different way than you might be used to. Weight loss ultimately comes down to lowering your calorie intake, but to hit your body composition goals, you may have higher calorie requirements, depending on how much muscle mass you want to gain. For example, most people approach a weight loss goal knowing that they need to be in a calorie deficit. However, a major calorie deficit isn’t appropriate if you’re looking to improve your muscle mass at the same time. In fact, one of the biggest nutrition mistakes people make when trying to preserve muscle is to run a calorie deficit of more than 500 calories per day. Your caloric needs can also vary widely based on your current age, height, and activity level. Because of this, knowing how many calories your body burns on a daily basis and mapping out your specific muscle mass goals can help you determine the correct number of calories to consume. 

Diversify your exercise routine

You’ll need to include a variety of workouts in your exercise routine if you want to improve both your muscle mass and total body weight. Resistance training, like weightlifting, is key if you want to preserve or grow your muscle mass. However, you may need to add more cardio to your routine if you’re also trying to lose body fat at the same time, since it is an effective way to burn more calories. To reap the full body recomposition rewards of exercise, make room in your week for several kinds of workouts.

Make sure you’re eating plenty of protein

Protein is often referred to as the “building block” of our muscles, since it helps muscles recover and repair after a big workout. So, whether you’re trying to gain muscle or simply preserve it, protein is a major key. Eating an adequate amount of protein is especially important when you’re trying to cut down on body fat at the same time. In one clinical trial that evaluated the effects of protein on a calorie deficit, participants who ate more protein saw more improvements in lean body mass and fat loss when compared to participants who ate less protein.

Conclusion  

There’s a better way to approach the “New Year, New You” mentality than focusing purely on being in a calorie deficit. This year, focus on improving your body composition instead! It’s a more involved goal than just losing weight, which means that it requires dedication and knowledge to do correctly, but the results will pay off far more — and for longer — than losing the pounds alone.