The hypertrophy series: using back-off sets to accumulate quality tonnage

I just googled "back-off sets" to check the proper orthograph and this is what popped up: "If you've ever got to the end of a workout and failed on the last set, but felt that your target muscles still weren't completely exhausted, back-off sets are the answer. Drop the weight that you're lifting by 40% for the final set and do as many reps as possible to take your muscle growth into new territory."

To me, that's not a back-off set. That's a finisher, a set where you're doing volume in an irrelevant intensity window for an AMRAP on purpose because it doesn't really cost you anything in terms of time investment and it doesn't damage your ability to handle fatigue. However, for the same reasons, it's not going to be all that effective for hypertrophy. There are 3 ways to approach back-off sets:

1. You do the exact same movement you did for your strength work with the same tempo. It can happen right after it or later during the workout (which would result in better performance if you leave the body parts involved in the movement pattern alone). If you go for higher reps (which most people do) it will add quality volume to the session. You can also go for lower reps: regardless, these reps are still performed in relevant intensity windows (usually between 70 and 80%) and taken to failure. Set selection is usually 3 to 4. This has the highest carryover to your main lift while also being the highest earner in terms of tonnage. The issues are a high cardiovascular demand, a high muscular endurance requirement (for rep work), a higher propensity of overuse injuries and a lot of fatigue accumulation (which can lead to difficulties calibrating recovery). This is typically a strategy that offers a good balance between progressing on the strength work and back-off sets through a trickle down effect, although it prioritizes the strength work portion of the training by default because of its place within the session.

2. You do a variation of the movement you did for your strength work. It can happen right after it or later during the workout (which would result in better performance if you leave the body parts involved in the movement pattern alone). If it is a close variation of the main movement, treat it like #1 in terms of rep scheme and sets selection. If it is further away on the specificity spectrum, treat it like its own thing (which also means it might require a new warm-up phase). The intensity can be taken a little bit higher here, especially if you decide to prioritize progression on that lift and utilize the strength work as an effective warm-up / a tool to stabilize tonnage and strength. This has the highest potential to help you fix technical mistakes / weak points of the main movement pattern while also helping avoid overuse injuries. The tonnage will still be quite high, although the carryover might not be as important (the further away in specificity the lift is from the main movement pattern the more true this becomes but the more the lift has the potential to offer brand new hypertrophic benefits as well as injury prevention properties). This is typically a strategy that can promote progression on either the strength work or the back-off sets variation portions of the training depending on how you program it.

3. You do the exact same movement you did for your strength work with a fixated tempo (fast). It can happen right after it or later during the workout (which would result in better performance if you leave the body parts involved in the movement pattern alone). You go for low reps / medium sets (3x3, 3x4... A 3x5 is already too high in terms of volume and reps per set). Intensity should be between 80 and 90% depending on your ability to produce efforts with a constant speed and a similar technique. This offers the highest quality of tonnage although it loses in total tally (quality over quantity). The injury risk is almost zero despite the higher intensity rate (because of the speed component) and it saves time compared to the other 2 options. Issues are it can worsen technical issues in lifters who are already struggling with the movement pattern and does nothing to prevent overuse injuries. It is also only doable with non-paused movements and is most relevant with the main compounds (squats, deadlifts, bench, OHP, pull-ups). This is typically a strategy that sacrifices progression on this particular type of set and feeds it all to the strength work portion of the training.

Keep in mind that you can choose to promote progression on the back-off sets at the detriment of the strength work if you program it so. Videos on strength work for hypertrophy and its relationship with back-off sets coming soon.

tonnage