If you’re into bodybuilding, you’re either doing drop sets already or you have at some point. They’ve been a staple of bodybuilding programs for decades, and the beauty of the technique is that you’re only limited by your imagination.
1. Down the Rack / Up the Rack — Start with your heaviest dumbbell, crank out reps, set it down, immediately grab the next weight down, and keep going. Example with lateral raises: 25 lbs × 10, 20 lbs × 9, 15 lbs × 7, 10 lbs × 6, 5 lbs × 4. Don’t worry about hitting exact numbers — your reps will vary naturally. “Up the rack” is the same idea in reverse.
2. Barbell Drop Sets — Same concept with a barbell. Use smaller plates so you can strip weight in small increments. Load up, hit a set, have a partner strip a plate off each side, keep going until you’re down to just the bar.
3. Halves — Drop 50% of the weight each time. Rep ranges will swing wide — say, 100 lbs × 6, then 50 lbs × 20.
4. Tight Drops — Small decreases in weight each drop. Dumbbells naturally work well here since the jumps between sizes are small.
5. Wide Drops — Bigger decreases in weight — 50%+ drops. Good for barbell work with 45s: 315 × 8, 225 × 12, 135 × 9.
6. Stack Drops — Done on selectorized machines where you can pull the pin and drop weight fast. Leg extensions are a great example — start at 100 lbs, hit failure, drop to 90, keep going. Painful, effective.
7. Low Rep Drops — Keep the weight heavy and the drops small, so reps stay low throughout. Good if you want to stay in a heavier training zone while still using the drop set technique. Example squat sequence: 365×4, 345×2, 325×1.
8. Ascending Rep Drop Sets — Choose weights that let your reps climb as weight drops — a 6-12-15 scheme is popular, hitting heavy, medium, and light in one sequence.
9. Descending Rep Drop Sets — The opposite: start light-ish and heavier, reps drop as weight climbs slightly — 15-10-5 is a good example. Tighter drops than the ascending version.
10. Weight and Band Drop Sets — Combine bands with barbells or dumbbells. Example: barbell curls with just the bar (45 lbs), hit 8 reps, drop the bar, keep going with a 25 lb band until failure. Brutal.
11. Drop Supersets — Combine two intensity techniques at once. Example: superset leg press and leg extensions, no rest between them, stripping weight as you go through multiple rounds. Use this one sparingly — it’s extremely taxing.
12. Fiber-Type Drop Sets — Based on training methodology from strength coach Charles Poliquin, tailored to your dominant muscle fiber type:
- Fast-twitch dominant: 4-rep max, drop 10-15% and rep out (low reps), drop another 10-15% and rep to failure, rest, repeat 2-3 times.
- Mixed fiber: 8-rep max, drop 5-10% and rep to failure, drop again 5-10% and rep to failure, rest, repeat 2-3 times.
- Slow-twitch leaning: 6-rep max, drop 20% and rep to failure, drop another 20-25% and rep to failure, rest, repeat 1-2 times.
13. Mechanical Drop Sets — Transition from mechanically hardest to easiest version of a movement to maximize fatigue on a target muscle, using the same weight throughout:
- Shoulders: Strict overhead press → push press → push jerk, 8 reps each.
- Shoulders (alt): DB lateral raise → DB front raise → DB upright row, 8 reps each.
- Quads: Sissy squats → leg extensions → squats, 8 reps each.
- Chest: Incline bench → flat bench → decline bench, 8 reps each.
A Word of Caution
Don’t go overboard and try to use drop sets on every muscle group in a session. I like to reserve them for one focus body part at a time. If you’re building them into a full program, cut back your overall training volume a bit to avoid overtraining.