Joshua,

 

It all comes down to goals. Volume and intensity is great for building muscle. Low reps/heavy weights/long rest periods are great for focusing on strength. For bodybuilding, exhausting a muscle and ALL its muscle fibers is critical. Supersets do this in an efficient way. I do supersets exclusively for every workout. Let me give you example:

 

Say you do 1 day of chest and 1 day for back and do 4 exercises and 3 sets of 10 reps for each muscle group. That is (3x10) x 4 = 120 reps total. Since they are on separate days, you have at least 24 hours rest between training.

 

If you do supersets, say you do 2 sets of 2 supersets (say flat bench and pull-ups as 1 superset and incline bench and DB rows as superset 2). Each superset is 10 reps x 2 exercises 5 times. That is 20 reps in one superset x 5 = 100 total reps. If you do the same for the second superset, you have done another 100 reps for 200 reps total. If you keep the rest periods between supersets at 1 minute, you have done 200 reps in a very short amount of time.

 

That is much more volume and intensity done efficiently (as you can train multiple body parts more times per week) than doing individual muscles on dedicated training days. All I can say are my workouts are very intense as I do 4 muscle groups per workout and over 500 total reps and can train my whole body twice each week (4 lifting days) and still have 3 days for rest and recovery :-)

 

John

I wouldn't say that it's more beneficial. There are so many effective options and this is just one among them all. If you've never paired chest and back together, the change itself can be exactly what you need to spark more growth.

Just because you are training chest and back on the same day doesn't mean that you have to superset every exercise though. When you superset exercises for the same muscle group you get a lot more metabolite accumulation, which is GREAT for them gains. When you superset oposing muscle groups such as chest and back, the metabolites flush out of the muscle.

 

Supersets are definitely time efficient and the pump can be awesome when both your chest and back are feeling swole at thet same time. When you pair a chest and back exercise it can become exhausting really fast, but you have to ask yourself... is there a trade off when pairing chest and back together in a superset. Did you have to reduce the weight in order to complete all of your supersets?

 

Bottom line, it's a method that causes it's own adaptive response. It's great to work in to your programming for variety, but I wouldn't become married to one protocol or split, when there are so many that you could work into you yearly plan.

 

Also, I prefer to look at the total volume on a weekly basis. If you are separating chest and back, training them once per week with 5-6 exercises vs training chest and back together twice per week with 3-4 exercises... total volume at the end of the week could be greater when you pair them together. Both options have their advantages and disadvantages. I covered them in this article;

 

http://metabolicmasterpiece.com/how-to-adjust-training-volume-and-frequency-to-unleash-your-anabolic-potential/

 

Don't over think it. The best option is to give it a try and see how your body responds. Then, change it up and see how your body responds to a different stimulus.

I wouldn't say that it's more beneficial. There are so many effective options and this is just one among them all. If you've never paired chest and back together, the change itself can be exactly what you need to spark more growth.

Just because you are training chest and back on the same day doesn't mean that you have to superset every exercise though. When you superset exercises for the same muscle group you get a lot more metabolite accumulation, which is GREAT for them gains. When you superset oposing muscle groups such as chest and back, the metabolites flush out of the muscle.

 

Supersets are definitely time efficient and the pump can be awesome when both your chest and back are feeling swole at thet same time. When you pair a chest and back exercise it can become exhausting really fast, but you have to ask yourself... is there a trade off when pairing chest and back together in a superset. Did you have to reduce the weight in order to complete all of your supersets?

 

Bottom line, it's a method that causes it's own adaptive response. It's great to work in to your programming for variety, but I wouldn't become married to one protocol or split, when there are so many that you could work into you yearly plan.

 

Also, I prefer to look at the total volume on a weekly basis. If you are separating chest and back, training them once per week with 5-6 exercises vs training chest and back together twice per week with 3-4 exercises... total volume at the end of the week could be greater when you pair them together. Both options have their advantages and disadvantages. I covered them in this article;

 

http://metabolicmasterpiece.com/how-to-adjust-training-volume-and-frequency-to-unleash-your-anabolic-potential/

 

Don't over think it. The best option is to give it a try and see how your body responds. Then, change it up and see how your body responds to a different stimulus.

Interesting article Scott. I think at the end of the day you need to find the best training protocol that fits your body - age, muscle fiber dominance, and recovery ability. For me, having over 31 years of lifting experience and being highly red muscle fiber dominate (as confirmed thru a MuscleGenes profile) I respond best to high volume training.

 

I did years of muscle splits but for the last 3+ years shifted to full body modified push/pull workouts 4 days a week. I rely exclusively on high volume techniques like supersets, drop sets, giant sets, and clustered rep sets (like rest/pause). I mix up supersets where sometimes they consist of the same body part and sometimes antagonistic body parts. I keep my rep ranges in the 8-12 range and use weight that is 50%-70% of my max. Sometimes I pyramid the weights and sometimes I do GVT where I do 10 sets of 10 with the same weight and raise it each subsequent workout. Each one of my workouts tend to average 500+ reps total - 200 for large muscle groups and 100 - 120 for small muscle groups. While that seems like a lot of volume, my recovery abilities are a bit higher than normal (as confirmed by MuscleGenes) and my nutrition is 100% wholesome 100% of the time. 4 days of working out and 3 days of rest are the ideal parameters for me. Since embarking on this program, my weight is down 25Lbs (185Lbs to 160Lbs) and body fat is down from around 18%-19% to around 8%-9%.

 

At my age, I am not looking to build huge amounts of size or strength as in my younger days and now it is more about maintaining the size and strength I have with low body fat levels - a much harder proposition when you are natural and over 50 :-)

 

John