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There are many set extending techniques or intensifying techniques. Some people call them advanced training techniques, although I’m not a fan of that name.
Physiologically, their pros and cons can still apply to beginners.
Logistics aside though, many of these techniques are misunderstood. Many people advocate for them because they’re different, painful, or their favorite bodybuilder does them. However, let’s take a more critical look at them.
Time to analyze forced reps, drop sets, rest pause, and myo-reps.
Forced reps are exactly what they sound like. You’re forcing more reps despite not being able to complete anymore with the original technique.
This is done via the help of a partner or a compromise in technique/range of motion.
For example, if you hit failure on a set of bench press, you can force out more reps by having your bro assist you for a few more reps. If he’s like most bros, he’ll even claim, “It was all you bro,” – despite it clearly not being all you.
Another example is if you finish a set of db curls, you can start swinging with momentum to force out more reps. Guys love doing this when a hot girl walks by.
But anyways, you’re essentially training past failure. If we look at the research on training to failure, we know that once you reach the final reps towards failure, those last couple reps aren’t much more hypertrophic if any, but the fatigue grows exponentially.
In other words, the final rep within a failure point is at best similarly hypertrophic than the few preceding it, but imposes the most fatigue and muscle breakdown. With forced reps, you’re lifting past this point with lower external resistance.
The stimulus to fatigue ratio logically gets worse. The compromise in form likely increases your risk of injury in those forced reps as well.
The rep quality is also far too low with forced reps and won’t boost strength, let alone much muscle growth compared to ceasing the set and saving your recovery (1,2).
Central nervous system fatigue also skyrockets when reaching failure and lifting past it (3). Subsequent sets and future workouts become less hypertrophic along with increasing the chances of injury and overtraining.
Lastly, forced reps are difficult to quantify and progress. For example, you can’t control how much your bro helps you after failure, so it’s hard to objectively apply progressive overload.
Forced reps are merely popular because people like ego lifting and copying what roided up fitness magazines tell them. They also think more pain means more gains which isn’t always true.
Drop sets are similar to forced reps. Instead of having a partner assisting you to allow for additional reps past failure, you simply strip off weight and keep going.
Not all drop sets are like this. Some implement short rest periods between sets, but the gist is the same. Once you hit one failure point, you reduce to the load to lift towards another failure point.
Training to failure combined with short rest periods escalates metabolic stress and neuromuscular fatigue far higher than traditional sets (4,5).
Costa et al conducted a rest equated and work equated study in trained lifters (6). They found 4 failure points with drop sets caused more neuromuscular fatigue and inability to recover in both the upper and lower body compared to traditional sets. The traditional sets only had 3 failure points though.
Raeder et al did match for failure points though which means it technically can’t match for total work (7). It found 4 failure points with drop sets compared with 4 traditional sets of 6 imposed similar fatigue levels even though the drop set group did less total work.
So does the additional fatigue translate to more muscle growth? Angleri et al found with matched volume load, muscle growth was comparable (8).
However, failure points are more important to compare. Two studies found 4 failure points from drop sets grew marginally more muscle than 3 failure points from traditional sets, but these studies gave the drop set group more failure points and volume load (9,10). This is why it’s so important to read full studies because many studies favoring drop sets often give the drop set groups more failure points (11).
Furthermore, plenty of research finds drop sets to be disadvantageous even with design advantages.
Fisher et al found 2 extra drops (or 2 extra failure points) grew no additional muscle (12).
Ozaki et al found 6 failure points in a drop set group grew the same muscle as 3 failure points in traditional set group (13).
Enes et al found 6 failure points in a drop set group grew the same muscle as 4 failure points in a traditional set group even when the drop set group having much longer rest periods than your typical drop set (14).
Whether drop sets net you comparable muscle growth to traditional sets primarily depends on the number of failure points. You have to do the same amount of failure points (initial set plus every additional drop) or more to match the muscle growth of traditional sets.
So the potential benefit of saving you time comes at a cost of additional neuromuscular fatigue.
With drop set training’s reduction in average load, you also sacrifice strength adaptations as well.
Rest pause training is similar to drop sets. They’re a way to crunch down the traditional rest intervals and crank out more reps in less time. With rest pause, you don’t lower the load between bouts and take short rest periods usually in the form of a few breaths treating the rest period as an extended pause, hence the term rest pause.
You’re essentially pausing briefly between bouts.
For example, you might bench one set of 15 to failure. Then you rack the bar, rest for a few seconds. Do another set to failure, let’s say like 6 reps. Rack the bar again and repeat until you’ve hit a certain amount of reps.
Each additional bout is essentially another failure point like each drop in a drop set.
Both drop sets and rest pause are essentially combining training to failure with short or no rest periods. Both of these factors are suboptimal for hypertrophy hence why both of these techniques are pretty overrated compared to straight sets.
They can save you some time, but cost you more fatigue (4).
Rest pause research is generally done with lower training volumes and training frequencies which is ideal considering the additional fatigue would be detrimental with higher volume/frequencies.
All rest pause studies are extremely poorly done with the rest pause groups being able to train towards failure, accumulating more hypertrophic volume, and getting more failure points (15,16,17). But even then, the results don’t always favor rest pause training (4).
Enes et al found 6 failure points with rest pause training grew the same muscle as 4 failure points with traditional training (14).
So rest pause and drop sets are similar in the pros and cons. They’re essentially time saving techniques where you need to accumulate more failure points to ensure comparable or more muscle growth, but at the cost of additional fatigue.
I like the idea of saving time while being able to extend volume. The issues we’d need to fix are frequent bouts of reaching failure and excessively short rest periods.
Enter Borge Fagerli’s myo-rep method. However, there are many iterations of myo-reps and no official research on it. That being said, I will discuss how I program myo-reps below which is similar to the original method.
To do myo-reps, you start with an initial or activation set which can be between 10-20 which is done 0-3 reps shy of failure. Then you would rest for at least 5 deep breaths. This should take at least 15-20 seconds. Then you do additional sets of 5 until you’ve reached a desired number of additional sets.
It could look something like this 120 lbs x 15-5-5-5. That would have 4 failure points which hopefully acts similar to 4 traditional sets while saving time. The weight remains the same which minimizes neuromuscular fatigue compared to drop sets. And since the reps don’t drop off like in rest pause, the earlier additional sets are always shy of failure which also minimizes fatigue.
This allows a better stimulus to fatigue ratio across the entire protocol and gives you a good ratio of hypertrophic reps to time invested. Basically, it’s everything you want in a set extender.
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So myo-reps are pretty amazing, but you can’t apply them to everything. The extended nature of them just like all set extenders still imposes much more central nervous system and cardiovascular fatigue than traditional sets. Lingering central nervous system fatigue prevents all muscle fibers from being activated towards the end of the protocol. Furthermore, if your cardiovascular fitness limits you before the targeted muscles, you could miss out on muscle growth.
So myo-reps are best applied towards the end of a workout on low fatiguing exercises like isolation and machine exercises. Doing any set extender with things like barbell squats and deadlifts at the start of your workout will kill you.
But anyways, here’s how to apply progressive overload with myo-reps.
Let’s say you want to do machine bicep curls. You can aim for 15-5-5-5.
You can start with a given load and let’s say you get 15-5-5-5. You can keep increasing the load each week as long as you keep hitting 15-5-5-5. Eventually, let’s say you hit something like 15-5-4-3. You would simply stay at that weight until you can hit your intended 15-5-5-5.
You can also add an additional sets instead of increasing load.
I think regardless of how suboptimal typical set extending techniques can be, there is an undeniable element of fun to them. They are highly intense and feel extremely stimulating, but what you feel and what’s actually effective can be wildly different.
I also think many people find set extenders so helpful because they force you to actually train hard. Many beginners don’t know how to push traditional sets remotely close to failure.
Ultimately, set extenders do save you some time at the cost of additional fatigue. They’re best suited for low fatiguing movement more towards the end of the workout. If you’re going to do them, myo-reps are far better than rest pause or drop sets. Forced reps should be completely avoided unless you love telling the world your ego is fragile.
1. Discipline of Exercise and Sport Science. “A Brief Review of Forced Repetitions for the Promotion of… : Strength & Conditioning Journal.” LWW, https://journals.lww.com/nsca-scj/Fulltext/2015/10000/A_Brief_Review_of_Forced_Repetitions_for_the.3.aspx.
2. Drinkwater. “Increased Number of Forced Repetitions Does Not Enhance Strength Development with Resistance Training.” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, U.S. National Library of Medicine, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17685709/.
3. PMC, Europe. Europe PMC, http://europepmc.org/article/med/12905088.
4. Centre for Exercise Science and Sports Management. “A Cross-Sectional Comparison of Different Resistance… : The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research.” LWW, https://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/abstract/1999/08000/a_cross_sectional_comparison_of_different.12.aspx.
5. Sciences, 1Department of Health. “Can Drop Set Training Enhance Muscle Growth? : Strength & Conditioning Journal.” LWW, https://journals.lww.com/nsca-scj/Abstract/2018/12000/Can_Drop_Set_Training_Enhance_Muscle_Growth_.14.aspx.
6. Costa . “Acute Effect of Drop-Set, Traditional, and Pyramidal Systems in Resistance Training on Neuromuscular Performance in Trained Adults.” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, U.S. National Library of Medicine, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31009435/.
7. Raeder . “Neuromuscular Fatigue and Physiological Responses after Five Dynamic Squat Exercise Protocols.” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, U.S. National Library of Medicine, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26349042/.
8. Angleri, Vitor, et al. “Crescent Pyramid and Drop-Set Systems Do Not Promote Greater Strength Gains, Muscle Hypertrophy, and Changes on Muscle Architecture Compared with Traditional Resistance Training in Well-Trained Men – European Journal of Applied Physiology.” SpringerLink, Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 27 Jan. 2017, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00421-016-3529-1.
9. K;, Fink. “Effects of Drop Set Resistance Training on Acute Stress Indicators and Long-Term Muscle Hypertrophy and Strength.” The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness, U.S. National Library of Medicine, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28474868/.
10. Goto. “Muscular Adaptations to Combinations of High- and Low-Intensity Resistance Exercises.” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, U.S. National Library of Medicine, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15574075/.
11. Sports | Free Full-Text | Drop-Set Training … – Mdpi.com. https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4663/9/9/119.
12. PMC, Europe. Europe PMC, http://europepmc.org/article/med/26439789.
13. Ozaki . “Effects of Drop Sets with Resistance Training on Increases in Muscle CSA, Strength, and Endurance: A Pilot Study.” Journal of Sports Sciences, U.S. National Library of Medicine, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28532248/.
14. [email protected], Alysson Enes, et al. “Rest-Pause and Drop-Set Training Elicit Similar Strength and Hypertrophy Adaptations Compared with Traditional Sets in Resistance-Trained Males.” Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism, 14 July 2021, https://cdnsciencepub.com/doi/abs/10.1139/apnm-2021-0278.
15. Preste. “Strength and Muscular Adaptations after 6 Weeks of Rest-Pause vs. Traditional Multiple-Sets Resistance Training in Trained Subjects.” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, U.S. National Library of Medicine, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28617715/.
16. Marshall, Paul W.M., et al. “Acute Neuromuscular and Fatigue Responses to the Rest-Pause Method.” Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, Elsevier, 20 Sept. 2011, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1440244011001526.
17. Moro. “Effects of 6 Weeks of Traditional Resistance Training or High Intensity Interval Resistance Training on Body Composition, Aerobic Power and Strength in Healthy Young Subjects: A Randomized Parallel Trial.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, U.S. National Library of Medicine, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32521745/.
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