What to Know About Drop Sets Before You Pick Up Those Weights

If you’ve never heard of a drop set, you might think it has to do with dumbbells smashing onto the gym floor. Really, that’s not far off.

A drop set is a strength training technique that involves doing reps of an exercise until you just can’t anymore, then decreasing the amount of weight you’re lifting and doing another set. It’s called a “drop set” because you’re dropping the amount of weight—but there’s a good chance you’ll work your muscles to the point where you’ll actually want to drop your dumbbells, too. Why put yourself through the pain? Drop sets could help you challenge your body beyond what you’re used to and help you reach a new level of strength.

Peloton instructor Ben Alldis, for one, is a big fan. “I like to use drop sets in my personal workout routine and in my classes,” he says. “The technique’s varying rep ranges help target different muscle fibers and can be a great way to promote muscle growth.” Curious how, exactly, you go about dropping it low(er)? Here’s everything you need to know about drop sets.

What Exactly Is a Drop Set? 

A drop set is when you perform a set of exercises to muscular failure with a given weight and then immediately continue doing additional sets of the same exercise with a lighter weight, according to the National Strength and Conditioning Association. Muscular failure is when you’re physically unable to do any more reps or your form starts to break down. 

The Benefits of Doing Drop Sets 

Perhaps the biggest benefit of drop sets is that they make sure you’re challenging yourself enough to make gains. “The technique’s varying rep ranges help target different muscle fibers and can be a great way to promote muscle growth,” Ben says. “If your goal is to build muscle, then this is a great technique to help you do this.” 

After all, the whole point of drop sets is to fatigue your muscles to the point of failure. “We can induce muscle fatigue at a quicker rate using drop sets, which helps cut down the time of the workouts while also increasing volume and overall muscle endurance,” says Clay Ardoin, physical therapist and co-founder of Sculpt U Physical Therapy in Houston.
“Learning how to lift to failure can take years and years of practice and thousands of repetitions to perfect. Most lifters don’t know how to push their bodies to this level of intensity and therefore aren’t getting the max benefits of hypertrophy out of traditional sets.” Thus, drop sets can be an easy way to reach that next level of intensity required for muscle breakdown and tissue growth, he says.

Still, drop sets aren’t magic. Research suggests that drop sets don’t result in significantly more strength grains than traditional resistance training (where you do a set, rest, and then do another set)—though it’s worth noting that research is limited, and most studies done on small groups of men. “Studies show strength gains and muscle hypertrophy can be seen with the use of drop sets and traditional sets; however, traditional sets are generally better for building maximum strength, as more recovery is allowed between sets, which enables you to lift heavier weight,” Ardoin says.

As Ardoin mentioned, another perk of drop sets is that they’re a great way to make your strength training more efficient. “I love using these techniques if I’m short on time,” Ben adds. “They are an efficient and effective way to target multiple aspects of muscle development in one single exercise and a great way to build a good mix of pure strength, hypertrophy, and muscular endurance.” A 2023 research review on drop sets published in Sports Medicine Open found that drop-set training results in hypertrophy increases similar to traditional resistance training but requires less training time.

Finally, drop sets can also pose a unique psychological challenge that may build mental toughness; a 2023 study found that doing drop sets resulted in a higher rate of perceived exertion (RPE) compared to descending pyramid–style training or traditional resistance training.

Do Drop Sets Help Build More Muscle?

Yes, but not because they’re a cheat code for bigger muscles. Rather, drop sets encourage hypertrophy because they keep the muscle fibers under tension for longer and help you train your muscles near failure, which seems to be the sweet spot for inducing growth. “To stimulate muscle growth, the biggest training factor is consistently exposing the muscle fibers to tension near failure because this is where the greatest capacity for high-threshold motor unit recruitment occurs,” explains Alan Bishop, director of sports performance for the University of Houston Men’s Basketball program. “Fast-twitch muscle fibers have the greatest potential for hypertrophy. Thus, recruiting and fatiguing as many of these fibers as possible is the key to growth. So yes, drop sets can serve as a good method if the goal is to build more muscle.”

If you were to take your muscles to failure with another training method, you might experience the same muscle-building results. Case in point: The 2023 review mentioned above found that drop-set training didn’t build any more muscle than traditional training.

How to Drop Set Properly

There aren’t hard and fast rules about exactly how to do a drop set, so you have a free license to play with the rep ranges, number of sets, and amount of weight you’re lifting. As a general guideline, the National Academy of Sports Medicine suggests choosing a weight appropriate for 6-12 reps to start and performing as many reps as you can until you’re too fatigued to continue or start to lose good form. Then, you can decrease the weight by five to 25 percent. NASM recommends performing two to three drops; doing more shows no demonstrated benefit.

Keep in mind, this technique puts a lot of demand on your muscles, so it’s important to maintain correct form and technique so you don’t injure yourself, Ben says.

Here’s an example of what a drop set of biceps curls looks like in practice:

How to Incorporate Drop Sets into Your Workout Routine

Drop sets are pretty straightforward. Understanding how to work them into your strength routine is a bit more complicated. 

Check your ability. For starters, not everyone should tackle drop sets. “If you’re a beginner, I would recommend starting with regular sets and focusing on improving your form, technique, and weight selection before you move into this type of training technique,” Ben says. Ardoin also recommends building a solid base with traditional training before you try to push your limits with drop sets. “Traditional weightlifting is the backbone of all other training,” he says. “Get really good at the basics (body/weight control, proper mechanics/alignment, tempo, and appropriate weight selection), and then we can start having fun with drop sets and other intensifiers.”

Choose your exercise wisely. You don’t need to do drop sets during every session or for every exercise in a workout. “I tend to program them more often with isolation exercises because it really takes that muscle group to fatigue and there’s no question on what muscle groups we are focusing on,” Ardoin says. That means moves that target one muscle group (like biceps curls, leg extensions, and shoulder raises) versus compound exercises, which target multiple muscle groups (like squats, deadlifts, and bent-over rows). You can definitely do drop sets with compound lifts, but it’ll be even more important to keep your form in check.

Leave them for last. “Drop sets are best done towards the end of your sets or workout,” Ardoin says. “And I always program them on the last exercise of the workout for that body part. The reason is drop sets take a huge toll on your nervous system and overall endurance for the rest of the workout. If you fatigue yourself out in the first one or two lifts for the body part you’re training, you won’t be effective later in the training session because you'll be completely gassed.” For example, if you’re doing a chest and triceps workout, you could do all your chest exercises and finish with a drop set. Then, you could move on to triceps exercises, finishing those with a drop set as well.

Takeaway

“As I mentioned, most lifters do not know how to go to failure. This doesn't mean they don't know how to fatigue themselves, it means they don't know how to keep their form while going past failure,” Ardoin says. “That is the mark of experience: being able to push into that pain and fatigue without seeing a breakdown in the form. Drop sets will get you to fatigue, no doubt, but you will see a lot of people fall apart in their form when at this level of exhaustion. Every rep should look the same from the first rep to the last.”

If you're interested in drop sets, you should master the fundamentals first, suggests Ardoin. If you’re new to strength training, focus on building total body strength, learning which weights you can handle, and getting to know the feeling of training to failure in your body—perhaps with the help of one of Peloton’s many Strength Programs. When you do try drop sets, don’t allow your form to falter (and elicit the help of a pro, if needed).