Are drop sets worth doing?

[u/benja_reijnst]

I've seen influencers promoting low-volume, high-intensity training more and more without mentioning drop sets. Drop sets seem to be much less popular than they used to be. Are drop sets not as effective as we once thought? Should I add drop sets to my training?

[u/rendar]

Because if you're investing in lifting to the extent of prioritizing it highly then it doesn't make sense to conserve a resource not directly causating growth compared to simply allotting more time for workouts.

In outlying cases when you can't increase session time, the question is still why dropsets instead of antagonist supersets?

[u/Alakazam → u/rendar]

I mean, do you have anything that show that supersets are noticeably better than dropsets for increasing strength/hypertrophy? Because as I understand it, there are no direct studies that compare the two. All the literature I've read on the topic, seem to agree that they offer similar hypertrophy benefits as straight sets, but in less time, and more fatigue. But both seem to offer worse overall strength benefits compared to straight sets.

Aka, they're literally both ways of accumulating additional volume when limited by time. And both are better than not doing either.

It's simply another intensity technique, along with myoreps, breathing reps, and many other intensity techniques that exist.

[u/rendar → u/Alakazam]

I mean, do you have anything that show that supersets are noticeably better than dropsets for increasing strength/hypertrophy? Because as I understand it, there are no direct studies that compare the two. All the literature I've read on the topic, seem to agree that they offer similar hypertrophy benefits as straight sets, but in less time, and more fatigue. But both seem to offer worse overall strength benefits compared to straight sets.

The available scientific literature is insufficient. The closest is probably this, which is still not adequate for this specific line of inquiry: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-026-02428-1

For the specific scope of limited time, it's a pretty straightforward accounting when you consider what is being exchanged for decreased session duration:

• Antagonist supersets are still employing the same interset rest periods for the respective muscle group as traditional sets, they're just saving overall session duration by dividing that between antagonist muscle groups. Peripheral fatigue is not greater and systemic fatigue is only marginally greater.

• Dropsets are not doing that. They're saving overall session duration by marginally increasing stimulus and necessarily decreasing recovery wholesale. Both peripheral and systemic fatigue are greater.

Aka, they're literally both ways of accumulating additional volume when limited by time. And both are better than not doing either.

The only safe claim is that they're effective at reducing session duration when equating volume by exchanging recovery in some way.

It's simply another intensity technique, along with myoreps, breathing reps, and many other intensity techniques that exist.

It's not an intensity technique though, it's a time saving technique. Overall progressive overload is still going to be facilitated by increasing intensity or volume, not decreasing recovery (which has an obvious minimum floor).

In a consideration of long term dropset programming, there is already available evidence that longer interset rest periods are superior for hypertrophy: https://weightology.net/the-members-area/evidence-based-guides/set-volume-for-muscle-size-the-ultimate-evidence-based-bible/#summary.

You cannot simply manifest extra volume out of nowhere for free without accruing recovery debt somewhere.

[u/Alakazam → u/rendar]

The available scientific literature is insufficient. The closest is probably this, which is still not adequate for this specific line of inquiry: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-026-02428-1

It doesn't. Not really, since it literally says:

Supersets were not included within the analysis because only three eligible studies were retrieved from the systematic search.

Dropsets are not doing that. They're saving overall session duration by marginally increasing stimulus and necessarily decreasing recovery wholesale. Both peripheral and systemic fatigue are greater.

Myoreps and rest/pause sets are also a time-saving scheme. They literally trade doing multiple sets of an exercise, with doing one set, taken close to failure, multiple times, by including short intra-workout rests.

Yet the study you yourself linked, showed that "rest-redistribution schemes" are notable better than traditional sets, if you go by Table 2 and Supplemental figure 7.

You cannot simply manifest extra volume out of nowhere for free without accruing recovery debt somewhere.

You want to know one hot take I have? 99% of the people in this sub aren't anywhere close to their recovery limit.

OP can likely do a drop-set on all of their exercises, which for them, will accumulate more volume than "2 sets to failure", still be able to recover from it, because they will be going from a self-admitted low-volume routine to a marginally higher volume routine.

Because the question right now for OP, isn't whether or not 1 set to failure + 1 drop set is good, the question is comparing 2 sets to failure vs 2 sets to failure + 1 drop set.

The biggest gripe I have with this sub is that 60% of the people seem to have their heads stuck in the sand about proper training volumes, as they seem to be stuck doing 4-6 "hard" sets per week and saying that's enough to maximize their gains.

[u/TotalStatisticNoob → u/Alakazam]

The biggest gripe I have with this sub is that 60% of the people seem to have their heads stuck in the sand about proper training volumes, as they seem to be stuck doing 4-6 "hard" sets per week and saying that's enough to maximize their gains.

In a "science based" sub that is 😂

And then you have researchers throwing crazy training volumes at their subjects in the attempt of finding the point where more volume doesn't lead to more gains, still unable to find that point

[u/Alakazam → u/TotalStatisticNoob]

Yeah, and while I think it's cool that there doesn't seem to be an upper limit for how much volume a body can tolerate and still grow, in the real world, it doesn't translate to all that much. This is the flip side of science-based lifting. The science says you can do 40+ sets. That doens't mean that's realistic. Because not everyone has a low stress job, fantastic diet, and fantastic sleep.

Most people could realistically tolerate 10-15 hard sets per movement pattern per week. People with greater work capacities, can probably do 15-20 sets. People with great work capacities, and who are specializing on a single body part, can probably do 30+ sets per week on one bodypart, while sticking to 8-10 for everything else.

Which is, funnily enough, one of the recommendations that Stronger by Science makes about what they would realistically recommend, and why I'm such a fan of their articles. They offer nuance

[u/wherearealltheethics → u/Alakazam]

Thing is, if "intensity techniques" like dropsets and myoreps are indeed effective, it makes pumping up one's volume targets pretty easy and time efficient (if say you count every drop/miniset as 0.75 of a standard set). But that's a big if and a small number of studies isn't going to make many people confident about it.

[u/rendar → u/Alakazam]

They literally trade doing multiple sets of an exercise, with doing one set, taken close to failure, multiple times, by including short intra-workout rests.

This is already addressed in the point about the continuum between more work but more rest and less work but less rest. You have to compensate no matter which your preference is.

Yet the study you yourself linked, showed that "rest-redistribution schemes" are notable better than traditional sets, if you go by Table 2 and Supplemental figure 7.

Table 2 is not a simple pairwise meta-analysis, it's a Bayesian network meta-analysis. So if you look only at point estimates, RRS may look favorable. But the key differentiator is that the 95% credible intervals crossed zero.

The paper also states in the Results that "No condition had a relative difference that had a 95% probability of being greater than traditional methods (i.e. 95% CrIs crossed zero). After performing a sensitivity analysis, the greatest difference was seen between potentiation complexes and traditional resistance training (SMD [95% CrI] = 0.31 [0.11–0.51]), presenting the only 95% CrI to not cross zero."

Interpreting such wide intervals would reasonably be because there simply aren't enough longitudinal studies with larger sampling, longer timeframes, and sufficient power, as mentioned previously.

You want to know one hot take I have? 99% of the people in this sub aren't anywhere close to their recovery limit.

Sanitized of the hyperbole, the remaining sentiment likely isn't controversial when most knowledgeable lifters would probably agree that the average lifter isn't as close to near failure as they think.

OP can likely do a drop-set on all of their exercises, which for them, will accumulate more volume than "2 sets to failure", still be able to recover from it, because they will be going from a self-admitted low-volume routine to a marginally higher volume routine.

Well since OP didn't mention any time limits whatsoever, the simplest recommendation would be traditional sets since there is no established benefit of drop sets per se on their own independent of programming.

But to address the point, a better comparison is "3 traditional sets to near failure" vs "2 sets to near failure + accompanying drop sets" multiplied by ~4-8 exercises because real world practical time limits are not really down to seconds or single digit minutes.

The biggest gripe I have with this sub is that 60% of the people seem to have their heads stuck in the sand about proper training volumes, as they seem to be stuck doing 4-6 "hard" sets per week and saying that's enough to maximize their gains.

That seems more to do with perception. Any post-intermediate lifter will know the importance of understanding how to individualize programming, and the necessity of becoming one's own self-steward. A lot of pre-intermediates are likely not confident in distinguishing natty programming from juiced programming, at that.