How to Do Burnout Reps

Step 1

If you feel like your muscles are hitting a plateau in growth and strength, there are a couple of different ways to go about breaking through to the next level. One such way is by performing burnout reps on one or more exercises in a workout routine. Burnout reps are the most fun and badass way to work the muscle to its limit while still minimizing time in the gym. Below I'll explain what burnout reps do in a little more detail, but first let's look at an example.

Step 2

If you're planning to do burnout reps for any muscle group, on any exercise, the principle is generally the same. Because of that, I'll only lay out one example- I'm sure you're smart enough to apply it to every other exercise. Bench presses: burnout reps. Load the barbell up with a bunch of smaller weights (10s, 25s, 5s) until you have enough weight to get 6-8 reps with. Lay down and do a set, and when you fail to do any more reps, pull one of the small weights off of each side. Then continue doing reps until you can't, then pull off another weight, then continue, and so on. The key is to never rest between each set, but to strip the weight and keep going at full speed. Once there's no weight left to strip, burn out as many reps as possible and then take a few minutes of rest.

Step 3

Burnout reps are great because they allow the muscle to get the best of both worlds: heavy weight/high reps. The heavy weight at the beginning of the set will do some work on your fast twitch muscle fibers, and then the high reps throughout the set will push your slow twitch muscle fibers to the limit. I recommend doing them at the end of your workouts, because they do take a ton of energy. However, some people prefer to do a few burnout sets every workout, which can be difficult but worthwhile. If you do a few burnout sets, make sure you do them at the end of each exercise