The Best Supersets For The Gym
Posted on 24 November 2009
When heading to the gym its best to be efficient with your sets and exercises so that you can maximise the benefits without wasting time in the gym.
Some exercises especially compounds allow you to work a huge proportion of your body in only one movement, take for example:
- Dumbell Squats (Legs/Upper Back)
- Pushups/ DB Press (Chest/Shoulders/Back)
- Pullups (Back, Shoulders, Abs)
- Deadlifts (Back, Hips, Legs)
The exercises above are just a small proportion but go to show how they can strenuously work your major muscles while also taxing your smaller muscles like Biceps, Triceps and a host of other stabilising muscles. Even better once you superset the exercises you work the Cardiovascular portion of your body ramping up your metabolism and making you fitter.
You see just by doing a short circuit involving a few supersets of compound exercises you will work near every muscle in your body plus work your heart rate up. All this leads to empty your glycogen stores (giving food a place to go) and provide a healthy gene expression (more muscle, less fat). The beauty of it all is that it takes half the time of a conventional workout, provokes no inflammation and is fun.
Try Some Of These….
1. Dumbell Squat
2. Dumbell Press
Simply combining these two with about 1 minutes rest between supersets is a great pairing to start your workout. It will get your whole body pumping plus warm up your shoulders. It’s also great as the Dumbell Squats work a bit like Deadlifts in that they will get your upper back/traps working and stabilising.
1. KettleBell Swings
2. Dips
This is great as the Kettlebell swings will work your full posterior chain including the hamstrings, lower back and upper back. While the Dips will hit your Chest, Triceps and Upper Back. So this is really a full body superset, plus the swings will get your heart pumping!
By simply doing two main supersets a total of 3 times with a minutes rest in between each you have a great simple workout that will work your entire body in a short amount of time….
It would be cool to get some comments seeing what Supersets you reccomend or have discovered recently that work well together…..
13 comments so far
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Comment by Grok
24 November 2009
Great list. These are about the only movements I do lately. I’ve been slacking on the pull-ups a bit though.
I don’t dip yet, as I still have some weak muscles from old injuries, but I hit the triceps with a few sets of narrow & good form incline pushups.
I rotate heavier days and bodyweight days.
@ Grok: Thanks for the comment! Dips are a great exercise but they must be done in good form with healthy shoulders, then they work very well and don’t do any damage….Your doing the right thing sticking to pushups for the time being to keep your shoulders healthy.
Comment by William
24 November 2009
I like and do them all. The kettlebell swing video shows them swinging the bell WAY WAY too high as far as I understand it.
The arms are supposed to be just holding the bell and all the work is done on the posterior chain.
The highest it should go is to chest level.
Comment by Ariel
24 November 2009
My current favorite superset is to do squats with a bar (either front squats or with the bar resting on my shoulders) and then rack the bar and do body rows. A few cycles of this gets my heart rate going and my muscles tired.
I don’t have access to a kettlebell so I do the swings with a 25lbs plate. Is that an okay substitution?
@ Ariel: Doing swings with a plate is fine. It will not be as good as a kettlebell but can get the job done….Have a look into local KB suppliers, they are cheap and easy to get hold of.
Comment by sian-girlgetstrong
25 November 2009
Great list-I will have to try these on Friday right after the turkey day-happy thanksgiving to you!
@ Sian: Thanks for checking in. Happy Thanksgiving to you and all of my readers in the USA. Enjoy your workout on Friday!
Comment by Studio Element Personal Training
27 November 2009
I’m not sure how effective these “supersets” are. Supersets are generally done with back to back sets of opposing muscle groups. Say, for instance, a lat pulldown coupled with a push up variation. We employ this strategy with many of our clients in Saint Louis, MO.
Comment by Mike OD - Fitness Spotlight
30 November 2009
Supersets are a great way to train for those who want quicker workouts and get a good fat burning/growth response with GH release. Epecially when you get the blood flowing back and forth from the upper to lower body (peripheral heart action). I use them whether reps are 5 or 10 just to keep moving in the gym, and still allow plenty of time between same exercise movements to use heavier weights. I usually just simplify and break exercises into “push” and “pull” and then do one of each per superset…so no workouts ever have to be the same as well.
Comment by Jim O'Connor
3 December 2009
I really like doing supersets that consist of isolated movements followed by compound movements. For example, leg extension followed by leg press. If I am targeting the quads, I pre-fatigue them before I hit the compound movement such as leg press where other muscle can assist in really taxing the quads.
Good article!
Comment by Vasopro
7 December 2009
Whenever I do supersets in the gym, I start with the largest muscle groups first, and work my way down to the smaller muscle groups.
And normally I would work out opposite muscle groups (don’t remember the ‘official’ name for this).
For example, I would do chinups + dumbbell presses as 1 super set.
Or leg extensions + leg curls.
@Jim O’Connor – I believe what you’re doing is called the Pre-exhaust principal
Comment by natalie
8 December 2009
What a great list. It helps me get a grip on what I should be doing when I got to lift weights. Can’t wait to read more.
Comment by Tomas
26 June 2010
Nice video collection! And great website
Stumbled upon a few days ago.