Pump Sets

[WilliamIsaac]

Hey Scott,

I am about to start the second blast of FT, and wondering what your favourite “Pump” style of sets are? Which ones would you implement to bring up lagging bodyparts? And would these vary depending on the muscle worked?

Thanks, Will

[henke_prytz]

This is a great question and I would love to hear the answer to this I have seen the 5's in the hole a lot on here. And a few mechanical "drop sets" that I believe are used a bit for pump sets. But I would love to get some more ideas on what techniques to use.

[Altamir]

I'll throw my 2 cents in here more as guidelines than maybe suggestions, for myself. I overall think pump sets (like any other set) should be highly individualistic, along with what techniques are used. For example, chest is a weak point for me, and when I tried to do fly pump sets (with say 5's into the hole with partials from the bottom), often my shoulders would get goofy and the set would terminate because of that, and not my pecs, by changing what I was doing, I put the focus back on my chest.

Overall, IMO the BEST pump sets are those that you can devise a way to push the set well beyond failure, but safely. Basically combining some type of metabolic work as a standard pump set would, and then by either varying tempo / grip / technique and extend the set. For example some of my favorites right now.

Biceps: Machine Curls 5's into the hole with an open palm, go to failure on partials with an open palm, then close your grip, should be able to bust out another 6 to 8 partials

Back: 1½ reps at about a 2/2 tempo. Rep or 2 shy of failure, switch to standard reps at a 1/1 tempo. Should be able to get another 6 or 7.

Chest: Pec Fly, triple thirds with only the isometric at the top (instead of middle and bottom). Because of the cam system on most peck flies, when you ge to failure at the unilateral movements, you should be able to do another 6 to 8 standard rep flies with both arms bilaterally.

Calves: Reverse 21's done ultra strict. 7 full reps, 7 reps partial top, VERY STRICT partials from the bottom til failure or almost failure, and then controlled bouncing failures til you want to cry.

But overall you get the idea. That coupled with a good good stretch very often gives me the best DOMs out of any set type FT has to offer.

[ebado]

5s into the hole is always a good bet, depending on the muscle worked and exercise being used I often like to use a contracted iso-hold rather than partial reps in between the full reps. This is especially good on unilateral exercises (lats and biceps are prob the best examples, side delts to an extent as well) where you can keep one side contracted while hitting reps with the other side. I also like mechanical drop sets where you can change your grip to get a few more reps at the end. I find sets where you start extremely strictly and then gradually allow a controlled and SLIGHT amount of swinging/momentum/body English to keep getting more reps very effective. Finally, for delts, using a machine lateral raise for triple thirds or Dusty Hanshaw's "trifuckta" set (which you can find on his insta and I think I explained in my log here) are killer.