How to Do Burnout Reps

Step-by-step Instructions

Here is what you need to do...
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

Special Attention

Difficulties people often experience or parts that need special attention to do it right.

Burnout reps are hard simply because they take every ounce of your energy. It's also time consuming to strip weights as you go, so your best bet is to have a partner to do that for you. Also, because they require so much energy from my muscles, I'm always sure to take Creatine when I do workouts that involve burnout reps. Look below for a link to the kind of Creatine that I use.

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Funny or interesting story about this topic...

I have a million funny stories of people failing during sets of burnout reps, the weight nearly getting stuck and their faces as red as a field of strawberries in the sunrise. Instead, I'll tell the story of my good friend Nick. Nick did the best burnout I'd ever seen in my life. He was doing bench presses, and he had 10 10s and 2 5s on each side. He started with 6 hard, rough reps. Then he stripped the weight and got another 6. I couldn't believe he was still going full force. He did 8 reps after that. Then 8 again. His neck veins were pulsing and he had a crazy look in his eyes. He did 10, then 12, then 12 for each set until there were only 2 10s on each side. Then 20, then he did 75 reps for the last leg. I don't know what came over ol' Nick that day, but he did the best God damn set that the history of weightlifting has ever seen.

When did you first do this & how did you get started?

I first started burnout reps early in my lifting days. Everyone I knew did them, and they seemed like a lot of fun, so I started doing them too. To this day I'll do a burnout at least once a week, and they've always been great for having fun and getting big in the gym. Hopefully, after following the advice above, you'll never stop doing burnout sets/reps either. So get burnin', and happy lifting
J

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