Your gain train has come to a screeching halt. It has been several years of constant strength and hypertrophy gains with no end in sight and now, nothing. Obviously, you have just reached your genetic potential so this is your physique and strength levels forever, right? WRONG. You simply need to redefine progressive overload and find new ways to implement it.

The progressive overload story goes that in the sixth century B.C., Milo of Croton, a very accomplished wrestler, trained by carrying a small calf up a hill each day until it was a full-grown bull. Each day the calf got a little bigger, and each day Milo got a little stronger. For the body to grow bigger and stronger, we must continually expose it to loads or external stressors to which it is unaccustomed—that is the overload principle. The problem is eventually more volume doesn’t produce adaptations and more load is not possible. When this happens, you need something else in your toolbox if you are going to fire back up the gain train. Let’s take a look at some of the tricks available to you to keep making progress.

Volume and Load

I am wrapping these two together because this is not new information to anyone. To get bigger and stronger, increase volume and load. This is the basis for a lot of great training programs and done with some level of forethought, it will serve you well for a long time. One tip for implementation: only mess with one variable at a time during any given training session.

Podcast: Dave Tate's Table Talk with Cory Schlesinger

One of the first training programs I was exposed to in high school was based on this concept. There was a fixed rep scheme, if I recall it was sets of eight for big lifts (squats, benches, deadlifts, etc.,) and sets of 12 for the other stuff (lat pulldowns, curls, tricep pushdowns, etc.,). When you could do all the sets and reps with a given weight, you increased it and started over. Honestly, this is so simple that even high school kids can’t screw it up as long as someone is there to monitor form. Increasing volume and intensity over a period of time works, but when that sticking point comes, you need some ways to overload your body.

Supersets

Hypertrophy makes everyone happy, so let’s start with supersets. To be clear, I am defining a superset as performing two (or more) exercises in succession for the same muscle group with no rest in between. Supersets have been used by bro scientists around the world as a way to increase total volume and accumulate a lot of fatigue in a specific muscle group.

The good news is there is even some research supporting that supersets increase muscle activity and indirect markers of muscle damage.1 Together, these should produce greater muscle hypertrophy over time. The other great thing about supersets is the absolute ease of implementation. For those of you focused on hypertrophy, simply pick two exercises that work the same muscle group and perform them back to back. These work particularly well as a way to fit in extra training volume on your accessory-type movements like dumbbell curling, triceps extending, single are rowing, etc.

Recommendation: If you are using a typical bro split, the change is simple. For six weeks, perform every lift in a superset. If you are performing six exercises for a muscle group, you will now be performing the same six exercises, but in three supersets. Yes, you are going to have to lighten the load because of the longer sets, but remember, we are trying to expose the body to something new to trigger growth. Growth requires change.

Drop Sets

Sticking with the hypertrophy theme, drop sets are another effective strategy to overload your body to create muscle growth. Pick an exercise and weight, and do it for as many reps as you can. Then reduce the load by about 10-20%, and perform more repetitions. If you are really into chasing that pump, you can repeat this process several times and perform one huge drop set. In theory, this process should engage even the highest threshold motor units and muscle fibers, which have the greatest hypertrophic potential.

In fact, it has been shown that drop sets produce greater muscle activity during a single training session.4 While greater muscle activity does not necessarily mean greater hypertrophy, worst-case scenario, drop sets will increase the amount of volume you perform in a training session, which will likely result in greater hypertrophy.7 A word to the wise with this, it is really easy to overdo it. If you are chronically chasing the pump, and hitting drop sets on everything you do, you will burn out your neurological system and overtrain quickly.

Recommendations: For a four-week training block, perform the last set of every accessory movement in a drop set fashion. Only four weeks! If you are doing this correctly, you will be gassed and bigger at the end. Please only do this on the exercises that are either single joint or a machine. Drop sets with things like deadlifts and squats are a great way to break form and yourself.  

Rest-Pause Sets

Perform reps until you are one rep shy of failure, rest for 20-30 seconds, and repeat until you reach a pre-determined rep number. Rest-pause sets are that simple. Let me make something clear: this is not how everyone describes rest-pause sets. I do believe this is what most people think of when using this technique, but others describe it as rest between each repetition (we will talk about that in a minute). Either way, this is what I am going with, particularly because in this instance we are aiming for hypertrophy.

Rest-pause sets were one of the first “advanced” training techniques I learned. We used to call them 20’s. Get a weight on the bar you could do six to eight times, do six to eight reps, rest for 20 seconds, go again. Repeat this until you hit 20 reps. This method has been shown to increase muscle hypertrophy in localized muscle groups.6 The great thing about this training style is it allows you to utilize higher training loads because of the rest provided in between repetitions, ultimately resulting in more repetitions at a higher load. This is the ticket for hypertrophy, and this is a great thing to implement for a brief period of time to overload the system and reach new levels of hypertrophy.

Recommendations: I like this technique with your compound movements because the 20-30 second rest period allows you to mentally re-group, hopefully preventing form breakdown. Program a four-week block and perform your large compound movements using 20’s (as described above) and your accessory movements using 30’s or 40’s (for these, pick a weight you can perform 12-15 times to start).

Eccentric Training

Here we will take a look at two popular forms of eccentric training: tempo sets and accentuated loading.

Tempo Sets

Tempo sets extend the eccentric portion of a lift. Typically, a person is instructed to take anywhere from three to six seconds to complete the eccentric portion (the downward movement in the squat) before completing the lift's concentric portion. While the study results on this method are mixed, without a doubt, it increases the time under tension for any given lift, which pretty much every lifter knows does drive greater hypertrophy.8 Additionally, prolonged eccentric motions tend to encourage greater motor control of the movement pattern, which is always a good thing.

Recommendations: If you are interested in strength gains, utilize this method for a four- to six-week block on your compound movements, setting the tempo to a four-second eccentric and a one-second concentric. If hypertrophy is the goal, utilize this method on your accessory movements. Try a seven-second eccentric and a three-second eccentric. This will give you 10 seconds under tension for each rep. That will get the biceps screaming. Again, a four- to six-week block should be sufficient to see some size gains. 

Accentuated Loading

The second form of eccentric training is accentuated loading training. This type of training will use some device to overload the eccentric portion of the movement. Humans are capable of producing greater force eccentrically than concentrically. This particular training method exploits that fact to induce greater strength adaptations.8 This does beg the question, how do we overload the eccentric portion of a lift and still complete the concentric portion? The answer is simple: reverse bands. You will need a set of bands to hang from the top of a rack and loop around the bar. This way, the top of the movement requires you to hold the greatest tension (something in the range of 90-110% of your 1RM), and as you descend, the bands take some of that tension, enabling you to complete the concentric portion of the lift.

Recommendations: You are intentionally loading a bar with more weight than you can handle, which means your system will be overloaded. Yes, that is the goal, but it will burn you out quickly. I would recommend absolutely no more than a 3-week training block of something like this. It works best with squat and bench press (in a power rack) variations.

Accommodating Resistance

Accommodating resistance is the other side of the eccentric overload coin. It is typically seen in the form of chains or bands added to the bar. Here we utilize these types of accommodating resistance to overload the top of the concentric portion of the movement and deload the bottom portion of the movement, where people are typically weakest.

Furthermore, bands or chains work with the strength curve to add resistance where we are the strongest and lessen resistance where we are the weakest. By doing this, we can focus on accelerating the barbell as quickly as possible. Accommodating resistance is an effective method for increasing strength levels, likely due to the enhancement of the neural factors associated with displaying strength.3 One note on the chains: please make sure you have enough chain falling onto the ground to actually allow for at least a 50-pound deload. Watching someone in the gym use chains on a bench press where two links touch the ground makes those of us who understand accommodating resistance cringe.

Recommendations: Compound lifts only on this one. You can use chains and bands on dumbbell curls, but it's not going to alter the strength curve enough to make a difference. With this, you can probably handle something closer to a six-week training block. Use chains or bands to substitute in approximately 20-40% of the straight weight. Therefore, if you're scheduled to squat 405, 80 and 160 pound of that weight should come from bands or chains. Much more than this, and it starts to become an exercise in stability, not strength.   

Cluster Sets

Last but not least, we arrive at cluster sets. Cluster sets are similar to rest-pause sets, only aimed towards gaining strength and power, not hypertrophy. Performing cluster sets is quite simple. You load the bar, typically with something akin to 65-85% of your 1RM, you perform one rep, wait 20 seconds, then perform another, and so on. Usually, you will complete something like three to four reps in a set. The big advantage here is the ability to maintain barbell speed and, thus, power. These are beneficial for enhancing power output, both in one training session and for a training block.2,5 Most commonly, these are used by athletes and Olympic lifters during peaking phases, but if you have hit a wall in your big compound movements, this may be worth a shot.

Recommendations: This can be a longer training block, and I would say the longer you've been stuck with your strength gains, the longer the block. Program your compound movements at 65% of your 1RM for three weeks, followed by 75% of your 1RM for three weeks. I’d wager you hit a PR in week 7. Also, feel free to pull back on the accessory movements during these blocks. Remember, cluster sets are about allowing for recovery, not about grinding out hard reps.

Conclusion

I want to conclude this by making one thing clear. I am not advocating that you now exclusively train in a drop set fashion or exclusively using accommodating resistance. If your progress has stalled, these are simply tactics you can employ for short blocks that may help you continue your long-term progress and get you back on the gain train.   

References

  1. Brentano, M. A., Umpierre, D., Santos, L. P., Lopes, A. L., Radaelli, R., Pinto, R. S., & Kruel, L. F. (2017). Muscle damage and muscle activity induced by strength training super-sets in physically active men. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 31(7), 1847-1858.
  2. Davies, T. B., Tran, D. L., Hogan, C. M., Haff, G. G., & Latella, C. (2021). Chronic effects of altering resistance training set configurations using cluster sets: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Sports Medicine, 1-30.
  3. Ghigiarelli, Jamie J., et al. "The effects of a 7-week heavy elastic band and weight chain program on upper-body strength and upper-body power in a sample of division 1-AA football players." The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research 23.3 (2009): 756-764.
  4. Goto, Masahiro, et al. "Effects of the drop-set and reverse drop-set methods on the muscle activity and intramuscular oxygenation of the triceps brachii among trained and untrained individuals." Journal of sports science & medicine 15.4 (2016): 562.
  5. Latella, C., Teo, W. P., Drinkwater, E. J., Kendall, K., & Haff, G. G. (2019). The acute neuromuscular responses to cluster set resistance training: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Sports Medicine, 49(12), 1861-1877.
  6. Prestes, J., Tibana, R. A., de Araujo Sousa, E., da Cunha Nascimento, D., de Oliveira Rocha, P., Camarço, N. F., ... & Willardson, J. M. (2019). Strength and Muscular Adaptations After 6 Weeks of Rest-Pause vs. Traditional Multiple-Sets Resistance Training in Trained Subjects. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 33, S113-S121.
  7. Schoenfeld, B., & Grgic, J. (2018). Can drop set training enhance muscle growth?. Strength & Conditioning Journal, 40(6), 95-98.
  8. Suchomel, T. J., Wagle, J. P., Douglas, J., Taber, C. B., Harden, M., Haff, G. G., & Stone, M. H. (2019). Implementing eccentric resistance training—Part 1: A brief review of existing methods. Journal of Functional Morphology and Kinesiology, 4(2), 38.

Kelton Mehls completed his undergraduate degree in biology at Robert Morris University, master's of exercise science at East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania, and Ph.D. in Health and Human Performance at Middle Tennessee State University. Currently, he serves as an assistant professor of exercise science at Walsh University. Teaching a wide variety of courses, he strives to not only teach the nuts and bolts of training and exercise physiology but to provide his students with hands-on, applicable classroom experience. A former college thrower himself, he volunteers his time working with the track and field team at Walsh and currently trains himself to compete in the Highland Games.