Drop Set Launch Program
Pump up muscle mass while burning body fat in just 4 weeks with the Drop Set Launch program.
Length: 4 week
Workouts per Week: 5
Training Split: 5-day split, with an optional 4-day split
Equipment: Commercial gym or sufficiently-equipped home gym
Featured Techniques: 10-to-1 drop set technique; reduce weight when “failure” is reached and resume reps, counting down from 10 reps to 1 for more intensity, volume, and impact.
Rep Ranges: 10-to-1 countdown totals 55 reps per exercise.
Rest Periods: 2-3 minutes of rest between exercises; no rest must be taken except to reduce weight during 10-to-1 drop sets.
Cardio: Optional; HIIT cardio between muscle groups or at the end of the workout.
Meal Plan: Dieting 101 is ideal for fat loss or Muscle Building Nutrition Rules for muscle gain.
Summary: Drop Set Launch is the fitting program if your main goal is to build mass in all muscle groups. The program’s combination of volume and intensity is also ideal for fat loss for leaner gains.
The 5-day split means you are training each muscle group once a week which involves high volume training – 3 to 5 exercises per workout for large muscle groups and then followed by a full week of recovery for the trained muscle group.
Things to Consider: If you are a beginner or have been out of the gym for months or years, this Drop Set training will likely be too much for you. You may consider my Beginner to Advanced program before taking on Drop Set Launch.
Prepare your muscles for the real test with drop sets – an intensity-boosting technique that I have been using for myself and shared with others for decades. The Drop Set Launch training is proven to produce stellar results in both muscle size and fat burning.
This 4-week program is named Drop Set Launch as you will be counting down the reps from 10 to 1 in every exercise for leaner and shredded muscle mass.
If you have been a follower of my programs, then you are familiar that I normally add drop sets to ramp up training intensity while allowing you to train past muscle failure. This scheme leads to muscle fatigue which promotes muscle growth.
I typically add drop sets only on the last set of an exercise when your muscles are well rested on earlier sets. This is to maximize strength and workload before going to “failure” and beyond to finish off the exercise. But this one is not your typical program as I have changed things up a bit.
My Drop Set Launch program uses drop sets continuously throughout each workout to boost up fatigue on every major muscle group.
If you want to work on muscle growth, means to break workout plateaus or looking to mix up your current training with something different, Drop Set Launch is for you.
How the Drop Set Launch Works
The standard drop set involves taking a set to failure and then suddenly dropping the weight around 20%-30% and constantly doing more reps until you hit muscle failure again. On a standard drop set, you normally do 1-3 drop sets, depending on how far you want to push yourself.
But for my Drop Set Launch, I have changed this format. My drop set program starts with a weight that will limit you to perform 10 reps then immediately reduce the weight once you reach muscle failure, just enough to let you complete 9 reps.
Continue in this manner on the next sets; 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. My Drop Set Launch will have you perform 10 sets for one grueling, non-stop drop set exercise.
While picking the right weight can be a trial and error on your part, you have the option to just rest-pause until you hit the reps if you cannot hit the recommended reps on a certain drop set. If you went too heavy just keep going until you hit the reps or if you went too light, keep going until you hit failure.
Most people will find that at somewhere around five or six reps they don’t need to drop weight to hit the next lower rep count; the brief rest period you get from putting the weight down and picking it back up again is enough to complete one fewer rep on the next set.
You may even find that when you get down to one or two reps, you’ll need to increase the weight to make sure it’s challenging enough. If you don’t add weight for the last drop set and find that you can do more than one rep, keep going until you reach muscle failure. If you did the Drop Set Launch properly, it won’t be more than two or three reps, tops.
Once all drop sets are done on a given exercise, move on to the next one. But make sure to rest for at least 2-3 minutes between exercises to give your muscles a break and prepare for the next series of drop sets.
A Drop in Progress
The objective of this 4-week program is to increase your starting weight on as many exercises as possible while dropping the amount of weight you need to plop on each consecutive drop set.
Most people following the Drop Set Launch program will see significant improvement within the training duration. And even if you don’t, you will notice muscle build-up. Besides, when you go back to regular straight-set training, you will notice an improvement in performance and endurance.
Once your body has adapted to the program, feel free to add an exercise to each muscle group. And do not forget to incorporate the 10-to-1 drop set on the added exercise. However, if you feel that drop set launch is too intense for you, you may also remove one exercise from each muscle group.
Drop Down Launch Split
The program is designed to follow a 5-day training split that focuses on each muscle group per week. In essence, you are doing 10 sets per muscle group with almost no rest between those sets, causing some serious fatigue on muscle fibers. So, your muscles will need the added rest that a once-weekly frequency provides.
Typically, the 5-day training split is done Monday through Friday, but you can train any five days of the week (depends on your schedule).
Drop Down Launch Diet Plan
The diet program you can follow for the drop set launch can be for muscle building or weight loss.
Muscle Building
To get all the benefits of the high-intensity nature of the Drop Set Launch, proper supplementation is the key. Read my muscle–building nutrition rules article and see that growth you’ve been meaning to have.
Fat Loss
Combine the gains of high-intensity training and meal plans to maximize fat-burning through my Dieting 101 article with meal samples.
Incorporating HIIT Cardio to Drop Set Launch
Add three separate HIIT routines into each workout following the same protocol as my Show Time program to keep some continuity in the cardio training from month to month in the challenge.
In Drop Set Launch, use the 2:1 ratio and three HIIT sessions per workout, but the length of each HIIT workout will increase slightly from Show Time.
On days you only train two muscle groups (Workouts 1, 2, and 3), do HIIT sessions before the first muscle group which is done at the beginning of the workout and after the 2 muscle groups.
On days you train three muscle groups (Workouts 4 and 5), you’ll do HIIT after each muscle group without doing one at the beginning of the workout.
