Over the years I have worked with many people to reduce the duration and therefore increase the efficiency of there workouts.

Supersets are a great way to increase the efficiency and intensity of your workouts

Super setting can include  opposing muscle groups or can be exercises several exercises for the   same muscle groups, depending on your goal.

 When you superset opposing muscle groups you're really able to save on rest time since one muscle gets to rest while the opposite muscle works — examples of opposing muscles groups are back and chest, biceps and triceps, hamstrings and quadriceps.

 When you superset the same muscle groups you're really able to increase the intensity since you're working the same muscle, but with different exercises.

 A normal workout routine will have you concentrating on one exercise at a time, doing a few sets with a short rest in between each set. On average a muscle group takes about  one minute to regain ninety percent of full contractile strength.  Most people will rest about this amount of time before performing a subsequent set.A Superset involves two exercises, going back and forth between the two. You move rapidly from a set of exercise A to a set of exercise B with no rest or very little rest in between sets.The benefits to performing Supersets are apparent. The first is that it saves you time by limiting the amount of rest you need and take between each set which makes your workouts much more efficient. This time decrease also increases the intensity of your workouts. At first you may not be quite as effective as you would performing the exercises in sequence one after the other. However when you continually perform supersets you become tremendously conditioned.

There are several different types of Supersets you can make use of.1. Pre-exhaustion Supersets involve doing an isolation exercise followed by a compound exercise. Doing this takes the muscle you want to target beyond the level it is normally able to handle. You stress it with the isolation exercise and then work it hard again using other muscle groups to assist the first muscle group. An example of this would be to do dumbbell fly’s and then spin around on the bench to do a bench press.2. Post-exhaustion Supersets are the exact opposite of the pre-exhaustion Supersets.3. Compound Supersets involve two compound exercises working the same muscle group like moving straight from lunges into squats. This causes a lot more stress to the body and requires a longer recovery period after the workout. It is also easy for you to get sloppy doing this because of the amount of stress on whole muscle groups. Getting sloppy can lead to serious injury so be careful.4. Isolation Supersets involve two isolation exercises targeting the same muscles. Do barbell curls followed by double hammer curls. Anything where you are working out the same muscle groups.5. Opposing Muscle Supersets are working out opposing muscle groups. The most commonly done ones are working the biceps and then working the triceps. You could do exercises working your calves and hamstrings and then do another working your thighs. This is good because it gives each muscle group a chance to rest and does help with strength training more than other types of Supersets.6. The Staggered Superset is where you work two completely different body parts. This is especially beneficial if you alternate one large muscle or muscle group with a smaller one. Do a big chest workout and then switch to doing crunches. This way you can get a workout on some of the more neglected areas in the middle of a larger workout. Also if there is one body part that is lagging behind in development it is a way  to focus on that one.And here’s an opposing muscle group superset workout: 

• Flat bench/Pull-up superset
• Incline bench/Close grip pulldowns superset
• Rows/Dips superset
• Flat bench fly’s/Reverse fly’s superset
• Biceps curls followed by triceps extensions
•  Leg extension/leg Curls

Supersets make you workouts very dynamic. Give this training method a try, and e-mail me with any questions or feed back you may have,

Kevin