In a commercial gym, secure everything you need before the set begins. By the final exercise, even weights that feel light under normal conditions become genuinely difficult. They create the highest total metabolic stress of any technique covered here and produce a level of accumulated fatigue that even advanced lifters find challenging. They performed 4 sets of each exercise, separated with only 2 minutes rest between each circuit. Giant sets are a great way of completing all of the necessary sets you need to spark new growth in a time-efficient way. Much like supersets, the idea is to move seamlessly from one exercise to the next. Giant sets weight training is all about volume. For instance, start with a giant set of 4 exercises for 3 rounds, followed by 2-3 sets of a compound lift at 75-85% of your 1RM. For example, a giant set targeting the legs might include squats, leg press, lunges, and leg extensions, each performed for reps with seconds of rest between exercises. But as an occasional means of cranking up intensity or for periods of 3-6 weeks, giant sets can shock you into greater gains. Some professional bodybuilders, most notably Milos Sarcev, constructed routines made up of only giant sets. There isn’t that much research looking specifically at giant sets (study), but there are two good studies looking at supersets (study, study, study). Now let’s reimagine the workout using giant sets. Let’s say you’re doing a typical full-body hypertrophy workout, resting for 1–5 minutes between most of your sets. These are demanding, create high metabolic stress, and are best used sparingly, once per week per muscle group at most. This prevents the technique from becoming the baseline your body adapts to. Limit them to one or two muscle groups per session.
