Hope you are all having a wonderful Friday! I'm looking through emails and messages and have had a few questions lately about supersets and drop sets so I thought I would explain those a little. They are both really important when you are trying to fatigue the muscle.
A superset is a technique where you perform two exercises in a row with next to no rest in between. Supersets are excellent for developing muscularity, but are not however, overly effective for building strength. They are not effective for building strength due to a reduction in the amount of weight you can handle. This reduction in weight is caused by fatigue due to lack of recuperation between sets.
A drop set is the simple technique where you perform a set of any exercise to failure or just short of failure, then drop some weight and continue for more repetitions with the reduced poundage. They're decidedly geared towards increasing muscle size (hypertrophy).
[source:bodybuilding.com]
There are tons of articles and examples on bodybuilding.com so make sure you check those out!
I LOVE doing these because they really push my limits and I leave the gym with a huge sense of satisfaction every time I incorporate them into my routine.
Here is my newest favorite superset for shoulders. Behind the neck barbell shoulder press superset with smith machine upright rows. I did 8 reps for the first exercise (even though it looks like 6, the camera man was a bit sleepy this morning...) and then 10 reps for the rows. Oh, and sorry the video oddly pans out...
Hope that helps clear up any questions and let me know if you give this superset a try!