Supersets: are they super efficient for strength gains?

When strength-training needs to happen fast, can supersets work for athletes? SPB looks at the evidence

Regardless of sport, the evidence for the benefits of regular strength training to enhance performance is compelling and comprehensive. Dozens of studies show that adding in regular strength work to a training program can significantly reduce injury, improve high-intensity performance, and increase muscular efficiency during lower-intensity endurance exercise⁽¹⁾.

The right balance

The challenge for athletes in training however is how to add strength training to an existing program in a manner that is effective but without being overly demanding in terms of time or effort. After all, what’s the point in getting stronger if you’re too tired or short of time to complete your main (sports specific) training?

One way round this conundrum is to strength train in a brief but intense manner; brief in order not to impose excessive time demands while allowing plenty of recovery, yet intensely enough to produce a meaningful and beneficial muscle stimulus. This combination can be achieved by ensuring that any strength training performed is ‘high-quality’. High quality training, which stresses the muscle fibres sufficiently, will produce a good training stimulus, even if training duration is brief. This stimulus will in turn will result in muscle and strength gains. By contrast, no amount of low quality training will produce muscle and strength gains because it simply won’t stress the muscle tissues adequately. As an analogy, think of a coconut shy at the fairground. If you throw marbles, no amount of direct hits on the coconut will dislodge it. Yet one accurately aimed brick would very quickly produce the powerful stimulus you want and dislodge that coconut from its perch!

The brick of intensity

The obvious question then is what should be the ‘brick’ in an athlete’s training armoury to produce the intensity and training stimulus they need to build strength and muscle? The answer in a word is ‘intensity’, but although it’s a simple word, intensity as a concept when applied to training is sometimes hard to grasp, especially for more novice strength trainers.

Generating intensity in a strength workout is most definitely not about running round the gym like a headless chicken throwing the weights about with poor form. What it is about is making muscles perform a greater volume of hard work per unit of time. Athletes who have ever had to cram a normal workout into shorter time period because of time pressure frequently remark how much they ‘felt’ the effects the next day. The reason is simple; in an effort to fit all the exercises in a shorter than normal time period, they unwittingly generated increased intensity!

Supersets and intensity

An excellent way of generating intensity in a strength session is by employing a superset structure⁽²⁾. Supersets take advantage of the muscle agonist/antagonist principle by working pairs of muscles (see box 1) back to back without pausing in between. This effectively eliminates the ‘dead time’ in between sets - which occurs when the same muscle is worked consecutively with multiple sets followed by multiple sets working a second muscle group (see figure 1).

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Figure 1: Superset vs. traditional set structure

In supersets, no or minimal rest is taken in between agonist exercise A and antagonist exercise B, thereby shortening the workout duration and increasing intensity. Supersets can even be condensed into a giant set by repeating the A/B sequence without rest – ie immediately following exercise B by exercise A again.

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Box 1/Table 1: Agonist/antagonist muscle pairing

 Most of the major muscle groups in the body work agonist/antagonist pairs. These pairs of muscles include:

• Hamstrings (which bend the leg) and quadriceps (which straighten the leg).
• Pectorals (which move the upper arm forwards and across the torso) and rhomboids/trapezius (which move the upper arm backwards and behind the torso).
• Abdominals (which bend the spine forwards) and erector spinae group (which extend the spine backwards).

By arranging muscle actions in pairs, we can repeatedly contract any particular muscle group without relying on gravity or other external forces to lengthen the muscle ready for the next contraction – that job is taken care of by the opposite member of the pair. This also means that when one muscle of a pair is contracting (i.e. being worked) it’s impossible for the other muscle to be working. The table below shows simplified examples of agonist and antagonist muscle groups, and commonly used exercises to work each member of the pair. A neutrally balanced workout will contain an equal number of agonist/antagonist exercises. To put together a superset, an athlete chooses an agonist/antagonist pair of muscle groups (eg biceps/triceps, quadriceps/hamstrings etc) and alternates the sets performed on each group, ensuring he/she switches straight from agonist to antagonist without pausing or with very minimal rest.

TABLE 1: Agonist/Antagonist examples

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Science of supersets

What does the science say about supersets; how effective are they and why might they offer an advantage over conventionally structured workouts? In regard to the latter, some research indicates that employing a paired agonist/antagonist structure of exercises offers a distinct advantage through a process of increased ‘neural activation’^(3,4). Essentially, this means that when training one muscle group of an agonist/antagonist pair, the other muscle group experiences electrical activation (even though it’s not being worked), which then enhances its capacity to perform when it is worked. This in turn allows for an increase in training volume and intensity in that muscle group. And of course, when that muscle group is worked, there is increased neural activation of the first muscle group!

What about effectiveness in practice? A 2010 review study suggested that supersetting exercises for agonist-antagonist muscle groups is a time-efficient alternative to traditional strength training⁽⁵⁾. However, the authors caveated their conclusions because at the time of that study, there was only limited data available to draw upon. In another study, researchers compared superset training to traditional training. In this randomized controlled trial, 15 trained males performed high-intensity loaded (using 3–6 repetitions) bench press and bench pulls for eight weeks in a superset versus traditional manner⁽⁶⁾. The results showed that both groups showed similar improvements in 1-RM (maximum weight that can be lifted for one rep) bench pull and bench press, bench press throw height (using 40% of 1RM), bench press peak velocity and bench press peak power. However, the really interesting thing to note for athletes who don’t have unlimited time to train was that the training time for the superset group was roughly half that for the traditional training group, but with just the same strength gains!

In a 2017 study, researchers investigated the acute and short-term (up to 24 hours) effects of traditional and superset resistance training protocols on perceptions of intensity and physiological responses⁽⁷⁾. The authors of the study concluded that superset training can enhance workout efficiency and may even improve post-workout testosterone levels (a key anabolic hormone for muscle growth and development) compared to traditional training. However, they also noted that athletes using superset training may require additional recovery post-training to minimise effects of fatigue compared to traditional training.

The findings above have been corroborated by a range of other studies^(8-11). These studies support the notion that, when training to failure at an 8-12RM loading scheme, superset training, using paired exercises for agonists and antagonist muscles, can be performed in approximately half the time as traditional training, without compromising training volume or quality. These studies also indicate that superset training induces higher lactate production and higher levels of fatigue than traditional strength training, which suggests ensuring optimum recovery post workout should be a priority.

Practical advice

What’s the verdict? Should athletes consider supersets? Are they actually preferable to traditionally structured strength training? Well, the evidence is very persuasive that supersetting can produce at least as good strength gains while cutting down workout durations by around half. Indeed, due to neural activation, they can be used produce even more intense loading on muscles. So when time for strength training is tight, supersets should definitely be considered an excellent choice.

Be aware however, there are a couple of potential downsides to supersets. Firstly, the higher intensity they generate makes them less suitable for novice or less experienced athletes who are starting out on strength training. These athletes should get 2-3 months of standard strength training under their belts in order to develop good form and ensure a decent level of base conditioning of muscles before moving to supersets. Secondly, the higher intensity generated can lead to increased post-workout fatigue, which means athletes should allow adequate post-workout recovery – eg not perform them just before a regular bout of sport-specific training, in the run up to a competition etc.

Thirdly, there is a practical aspect; athletes who use busy commercial gyms to conduct their strength training may find that actually performing supersets (with minimal/no rest between sets) is very difficult. This is because the weight station or piece of equipment they need to immediately move to following the first exercise in the pair is being used by someone else! Waiting around for it to become free will of course defeat the object of a superset. One way round this is to partner up with a friend of similar ability. One athlete uses station A for one muscle group while the friend uses station B for the opposite muscle group in that pair (see table 1). If the exercises are started simultaneously, both athletes will complete their sets at roughly the same time, when they quickly swap A/B stations with each other to ensure no interruption. This process can repeated for as many supersets are required!

References

1. J Funct Morphol Kinesiol. 2021 Mar 17;6(1):29
2. ‘Essentials of strength training and conditioning’. 4. NSCA -National Strength & Conditioning Association; 2016
3. J Strength Cond Res. 2014 Sep; 28(9):2529-35
4. J Strength Cond Res. 2017 Oct; 31(10):2777-2784
5. Strength Cond Res. 2010 Oct; 24(10):2873-82
6. J Sports Sci. 2009 Dec; 27(14):1617-25
7. Eur J Appl Physiol. 2017 Sep;117(9):1877-1889
8. Sports Biomech. 2018;17(4):502
9. J Strength Cond Res. 2014;28(9):2529–2535
10. J Strength Cond Res. 2017;31(10):2777–2784
11. J Exerc Sci Fit. 2015;13(2):104–110