"Thoughts on back off sets?"
"Thoughts on back down sets?"
"Why did you do a second set, isn't that just mOAR faTiguE?"
"Why do a second set? Not challenging, just curious"
I was trying to get them all in there.
1. Back off sets or back down sets whatever you choose to call them are NOT drop sets. They also are not "magical". Meaning, just think of them as a "second working set". Just start there and repeat that a few times before going on to the rest of the points. Say it with me - "it's just a second working set. Nothing special about it."
Here's the syntax -
2. You do your heaviest set (after warm ups of course). Say it's 315 x 5 reps @ 1 RIR
3. You reduce the load. Example might be down to 275.
4. You rest until recovered (like normally). Let's say this is 3 minutes before you "feel" ready again.
5. Then you do the set @ 275 and do reps to 1 RIR again OR, you go to task failure.
6. There's nothing "magical about them" other than they add more stimulating reps to increase the overall stimulus for those fibers.
So that's just an example.
7. How I generally do them is like so
8. Heaviest set is 4-5 reps (usually)
9. Take some load off, I don't actually "pErCenTAge" this for me. I literally just can look at how much loading needs to come off
10. Then for the back off set I'm still trying to stay in a similar rep range eg nothing more than 8 and nothing less than 4.
11. Since my first set is always 1 RIR if there was going to be a failure set, it's always on the BACK OFF SET because if you go to failure in the first set, it will make the second set less productive. This is because if you take the first set to failure, there's a lot more peripheral fatigue that sets in due to a longer duration of Ca2+ influx. This is why if you're going to do more than 1 working set for that exercise, do not take the first set to task failure.
12. As for the back off set itself, yes THERE ARE STILL STIMULATING REPS TO BE HAD IN IT. So yes I'm still getting stimulating reps in the back off set
13. No I don't do "over warm ups" anymore because I found that the warm up sets can get you the PAP (post activation potentiation) if they are heavy enough right before the main top set (or you can do very high effort warm sets, eg being more explosive in intent, however I don't like that personally.)
14. Anecdotally, I find that a back off set gives you a "second chance" at a good set in case the heaviest set was off, or just "felt bad" that day. I've often had that happen and then the back off set felt amazing. There's a lot of reasons that could be but don't worry about that part. Just understand the magic of the back off set.
And that there is no magic. Because it's just another working set. :)
