Antagonist Super Sets
Most of my clients programs revolve around doing 2 exercises at once and not the traditional one exercise, rest, exercise, rest you see in most gyms.
Most of the time they will do an exercise movement then have a short rest and then do the exact opposite movement. For example
A1) Seated row
A2) Dumbbell Bench Press
These are mirror images of each other and when trained correctly helps keep all the shoulder, chest and back muscles in balance.
Most of my strength training education over the years has come from the Strength and Conditioning field and not the fitness field and yes, they are very different.
I look at the your body as if you were an athlete. Your individual life is your sport. In order to get a better performing athlete we look at the body in regards to joints, and look for ways to increase the force a particular joint can produce. The way you get a joint to produce more force is by BALANCING that joint not by mimicking their sport with weights.
An athlete than can produce more force than an equally skilled opponent is always going to be a better athlete.
Balancing a joint is also how you stay strong, don't get injured, and stave off those aches and pains in life. It basically means no one muscle is overly dominant which can cause these injuries or “shuts a joint down”. Our joints are in a continual arm wrestle between all the muscles that cross that joint and if one becomes too strong proms occur.
Fitness training doesn’t really pay attention to balancing joints it’s more about just doing a workout or exercising in a way that makes you feel like you did something. A lot of fitness programs are very unbalanced when it comes to joints and this isn't so good for us when it comes to injuries, getting older or being athletic. A little tinkering with exercise selection and exercise order, and any fitness program can become much better!
So when I train my clients I see a bunch of joints stacked on top of each other. Ankles, knees, hips, lumber spines, thoracic spines, shoulders, elbows, wrists and neck joints. Change what is happening at one joint and you will affect every joint above and below it in some way. So in order to be as strong as possible and stay injury free we predominantly do the antagonist super set system.
One of the greatest influences legendary Canadian strength coach and my main mentor Charles Poliquin had on the personal training industry was dragging it out of fitness, and into the strength and conditioning world.
The antagonist super set system is just one of the many systems you can still see in effect today that were popularised by him. Even in a little gym in Bondi Junction.
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