My testimony for Giant sets

[DK II]

I trained Giant sets for a few months now, and have made good results.

I was into the deep discussion we had with Milos a few months ago and all that "pussy weights"-accusations and shit.
At that time, i was doing DC for about a year and had a lot of problems with it.

1. My 'blasts' where getting shorter and shorter and my cruises got longer. I had problems with the high load and was hitting a brick wall. When i put up too much weight, my joints and tendons made problems after 3-4 weeks, so i cruised again with lower weight.
Once back to the blast, the problem kept on reoccuring.

2. I got a bit bored with DC as i wasn't able to progress any further without aching joints and ended up cruising until the pain was gone, then after 4 weeks it was back.

So much for that.


So, when i came to giant sets, it was a relief at first. Volume was high, load was significantly lower but i felt great.
Now after a while i came to love the freedom you have with giant sets. You can work any muscle you want (DC wants you to do certain areas together) and you can do every exercise you like.

Then i started playing around with other training principles. Giant sets superslow? Hell yeah. Giant sets TUT? Oh Yes. Giant sets REST PAUSED?? WTF, i loved it. Giant sets pyramids? sometimes up, sometimes down.
You can do virtually everything with giant sets, sometimes i do a week or two of real high load with slightly lower reps for 2 cycles then 1-2 "normal" giant sets after that.

all in all, i have to say i love the exhaustion and the burn that comes with it, i love the pump but the best is the overall freedom and the frequent changes. It's a new training style for me every week.

[dj181]

post a pic

[natural al]

so did you rotate new movements in when you hit a wall or did you blast-cruise-blast with the same movement?

sometimes you just max out on a movement and have to rotate in a new one until you max out on that.

[chaos]

I trained Giant sets for a few months now, and have made good results.

I was into the deep discussion we had with Milos a few months ago and all that "pussy weights"-accusations and shit.
At that time, i was doing DC for about a year and had a lot of problems with it.

1. My 'blasts' where getting shorter and shorter and my cruises got longer. I had problems with the high load and was hitting a brick wall. When i put up too much weight, my joints and tendons made problems after 3-4 weeks, so i cruised again with lower weight.
Once back to the blast, the problem kept on reoccuring.

2. I got a bit bored with DC as i wasn't able to progress any further without aching joints and ended up cruising until the pain was gone, then after 4 weeks it was back.

So much for that.


So, when i came to giant sets, it was a relief at first. Volume was high, load was significantly lower but i felt great.
Now after a while i came to love the freedom you have with giant sets. You can work any muscle you want (DC wants you to do certain areas together) and you can do every exercise you like.

Then i started playing around with other training principles. Giant sets superslow? Hell yeah. Giant sets TUT? Oh Yes. Giant sets REST PAUSED?? WTF, i loved it. Giant sets pyramids? sometimes up, sometimes down.
You can do virtually everything with giant sets, sometimes i do a week or two of real high load with slightly lower reps for 2 cycles then 1-2 "normal" giant sets after that.

all in all, i have to say i love the exhaustion and the burn that comes with it, i love the pump but the best is the overall freedom and the frequent changes. It's a new training style for me every week.

See?

Did your strength come back up to normal  after about 6-8weeks? Mine did, and then for the last few weeks it improved....crazy, isn't it?

[YoungBlood]

I loved doing Giant sets. Now, it's almost impossible to do them in the gym I'm at. I can barely do straight sets let alone Giant Sets.
I've even tried to slow down the tempo of the current set I'm in, as to let the other person on the next machine (or machines) finish so I can get right to it.
This gym you just can't do it, so I have to bid farewell to Giant Sets, but if I could I would still do them. I did them for about 8-9 months on and off at my old gym and felt I made huge increases across the board.

[DK II]

so did you rotate new movements in when you hit a wall or did you blast-cruise-blast with the same movement?

sometimes you just max out on a movement and have to rotate in a new one until you max out on that.

I did, and it didn't get better. I think it was more the stress on the joints and tendons with high weights.

[DK II]

I loved doing Giant sets. Now, it's almost impossible to do them in the gym I'm at. I can barely do straight sets let alone Giant Sets.
I've even tried to slow down the tempo of the current set I'm in, as to let the other person on the next machine (or machines) finish so I can get right to it.
This gym you just can't do it, so I have to bid farewell to Giant Sets, but if I could I would still do them. I did them for about 8-9 months on and off at my old gym and felt I made huge increases across the board.

That's really the biggest problem with giant sets, you need a big gym with no people in it. i train in the morning before going to work usually, so it works fine for me.

[DK II]

See?

Did your strength come back up to normal  after about 6-8weeks? Mine did, and then for the last few weeks it improved....crazy, isn't it?

Same with me. Strength and endurance going up.

[jr]

Can you give an example of one of your giant set workouts. Also what percentage of your 1RM do you typically use in each exercise of the giant set?

[DK II]

Can you give an example of one of your giant set workouts. Also what percentage of your 1RM do you typically use in each exercise of the giant set?

i don't measure my 1RM, so i don't know exactly at how much i workout. I use the weights i wrote down in my last WO plus my training experience and that days feeling on deciding the weights. As i wrote above, i also use many other principles, so naturally on a rest pause giant set i will use less weight than on a superslow set and so on. normally, i plan NOT to reach muscle failure on every tenth rep, but this also depends on the principle i mix in. One week, i will reach muscle failure on every exercise (obviously for things like rest pause etc.), next week i will reach muscle failure on every exercise of the last giant set. i try to have something different every week or two, and it works surprisingly well.

usually, i set up 6 to 10 different exercises and aim at about ten reps for each exercise. When i go heavy i aim at 9 reps- with one negative in the end or 10 sec static. This is also only one option.
then i do this cycle 3-4 times.

not much to it i guess. i don't know if this is EXACTLY what Milos had in mind, but it works pretty good for me and is fun. Remember, i do not plan to step on stage or sth, i'm just a recreational natural BB.

[local hero]

ive switched to this kind of trainin due to joint problems... i love trianing this way now, ive found im alot leaner now too and vascular with out doin hardly any cardio

[pumpster]

Good example of the fact that it's not essential to increase the weight, which can be tough on joints, but instead to focus on increasing intensity over time.

If you can't do giant sets because of the gym setup, use other options that are in some way similar such as tri-sets/supersets which are easier to coordinate in a gym if you chose the right exercises ie one machine, one DB exercise side-by-side, shorter rests between sets, rest-pause, 21s, partials, super-slow, negatives, etc. that do some of the same things, also without hurting the joints in using heavier weights.

[Bluto]

what improvements did you make as far as strength and/or hypertrophy?

[chaos]

what improvements did you make as far as strength and/or hypertrophy?

I can answer this as I have used the giant sets before. At first your strength drops and you have a hard time finishing a set, but after about 6-8 weeks you start catching up to where you were before, then at the end of 12-13 weeks your are doing giant sets with the amount of weight you were using before you started. It's strange, but it really does work, not saying you can gain infinite strength but it is a nice change for awhile.


Pumpster also gives good advice on ways to make a "lower" weight more difficult.

[Bluto]

please be more specific.

in terms of weight gain, measurements around bodyparts, improved bench etc

and of course there's many ways to make a weight more difficult. moving the weight after 30 sec rest rather than 2 minutes is  a different thing for example. anyone that trained more than 2 weeks know this from personal experience.

however, that doesnt mean that both methods are equal when it comes to end result.

[chaos]

please be more specific.

in terms of weight gain, measurements around bodyparts, improved bench etc

and of course there's many ways to make a weight more difficult. moving the weight after 30 sec rest rather than 2 minutes is  a different thing for example. anyone that trained more than 2 weeks know this from personal experience.

however, that doesnt mean that both methods are equal when it comes to end result.

I didn't keep track of that stuff, can't help you there.

[Bluto]

I didn't keep track of that stuff, can't help you there.

i just hope that donkey kong got some real life tools to actually measure that he has improved when he changed from dc to giant sets because the impression i got was that he based a lot of it on how he "felt" i e "he felt great" when he compared the two different methods.

[slaveboy1980]

I trained Giant sets for a few months now, and have made good results.

I was into the deep discussion we had with Milos a few months ago and all that "pussy weights"-accusations and shit.
At that time, i was doing DC for about a year and had a lot of problems with it.

1. My 'blasts' where getting shorter and shorter and my cruises got longer. I had problems with the high load and was hitting a brick wall. When i put up too much weight, my joints and tendons made problems after 3-4 weeks, so i cruised again with lower weight.
Once back to the blast, the problem kept on reoccuring.

2. I got a bit bored with DC as i wasn't able to progress any further without aching joints and ended up cruising until the pain was gone, then after 4 weeks it was back.

So much for that.


So, when i came to giant sets, it was a relief at first. Volume was high, load was significantly lower but i felt great.
Now after a while i came to love the freedom you have with giant sets. You can work any muscle you want (DC wants you to do certain areas together) and you can do every exercise you like.

Then i started playing around with other training principles. Giant sets superslow? Hell yeah. Giant sets TUT? Oh Yes. Giant sets REST PAUSED?? WTF, i loved it. Giant sets pyramids? sometimes up, sometimes down.
You can do virtually everything with giant sets, sometimes i do a week or two of real high load with slightly lower reps for 2 cycles then 1-2 "normal" giant sets after that.

all in all, i have to say i love the exhaustion and the burn that comes with it, i love the pump but the best is the overall freedom and the frequent changes. It's a new training style for me every week.

yeah the change is fun. but your not growing in the long
run with that kind of training. your fooling yourself.


and notice chaos didnt pay attention to if he made progress or not. but hey it was fun.    PUMP PUMP IT UP.

[chaos]

yeah the change is fun. but your not growing in the long
run with that kind of training. your fooling yourself.


and notice chaos didnt pay attention to if he made progress or not. but hey it was fun.    PUMP PUMP IT UP.

Define "made progress". Because I didn't measure myself doesn't mean I didn't notice a difference in the mirror. If you can lift the same amount and look better, isn't that progress?

I didn't keep track of #'s, but I was stronger on all my lifts at the end of the 12-13 weeks we did giant sets. I think a big part of that was the breathing. BTW I don't do Milos' style of giant sets, in other words, I strung only 5-6 exercises back to back.

[slaveboy1980]

Define "made progress". Because I didn't measure myself doesn't mean I didn't notice a difference in the mirror. If you can lift the same amount and look better, isn't that progress?

I didn't keep track of #'s, but I was stronger on all my lifts at the end of the 12-13 weeks we did giant sets. I think a big part of that was the breathing. BTW I don't do Milos' style of giant sets, in other words, I strung only 5-6 exercises back to back.

are you trying to say you dont know what progress is ? 

[chaos]

are you trying to say you dont know what progress is ? 

Enlighten me "boy"....

[slaveboy1980]

Enlighten me "boy"....

why dont you ask milos "mr"    ?

[chaos]

why dont you ask milos "mr"    ?

He's a busy guy, you are here, now......so tell us, what is "progress"?

[DK II]

i just hope that donkey kong got some real life tools to actually measure that he has improved when he changed from dc to giant sets because the impression i got was that he based a lot of it on how he "felt" i e "he felt great" when he compared the two different methods.

feeling good for me has to do a lot with training. when i feel like shit all the time, aching joints tec, then i stop training this way, no matter how much i possibly could get better. It's not worth it.

But, as i said, improvements so far are that i look better when i look in the mirror, my chest is bigger, my lats are wider. Also, my shoulders improved a lot, they were lagging with DC training. Arms come along too, they didn't get the right attention in DC from what i felt. Now i can focus on single bodyparts, which i enjoy a lot more than sticking with the same routine all the time.

My weight has gone up and my bf down. noticably.

As far as strength goes, like i said i don't measure my lifts, but as i compared my training logs i saw that my giant set rest paused are close to the DC numbers. They are a little lower, but that a result from the increased volume. I COULD go heavier, but it would not make sense with giant sets.


So i"m sorry, no numbers for you here, but training and feeling good belong together for me.

[Bluto]

sounds good dk