I currently do 3 supersets as part of my upper body day with one pressing movement and one machine/cable row with rest in between each exercise. For example, after a set of barbell bench, I rest for roughly 60-90 seconds and then I do a set of lat pulldowns. After the pulldowns I rest another 60-90 seconds and repeat. I know supersets without rest in between exercises are not ideal for strength but how effective are these type of supersets. Would it be more ideal for either strength or hypertrophy to just do each exercise individually with 2 minutes of rest in between sets instead? I don’t compete in any sport.
I have no concerns with supersets for meeting the resistance training guidelines. That’s true for either alternating upper and lower body exercises or “antagonist” muscles as you’re doing.
I don’t think supersets are ideal for strength or power development in general, but I think they can be useful periodically for muscle hypertrophy.
My main concern with programs that use a lot of supersets is the actual program themselves. Most of them tend to be of poor quality and lack some fundamental programming ideas such as autoregulation, varied rep and exercise selection, progressive loading, and more.
2 Likes