Mechanical Drop Sets are a highly effective way to build muscle and can easily be implemented during home workouts, even without weights.

A standard drop-set involves you performing a set of an exercise, almost to failure, and then dropping the weight to achieve more reps. A Mechanical Drop Set requires you to use the same load throughout but to change the mechanical setup of the movement so that you perform an easier variation of the exercise on each drop, to achieve more reps. This typically means simply changing the angle of the movement. By varying the movement in this way, the muscles have greater time under tension, and are also hit at slightly different angles; all leading to greater muscle growth!

In the video here we have shown a bodyweight example of a Mechanical Drop Set, which is currently featuring in this month’s Virtual Shared PT programme.

The exercise in question is the Press-up. We start in a decline position with the feet elevated; get as many reps as possible and then drop to a standard press-up with feet on the floor to finish; with the change in angle allowing you to complete more reps. You could also then drop to your knees to get a further few reps out.

Another example of a Mechanical Drop Set for the Press-up would be to go from a narrow hand placement, to mid to wide. Give these a try, or let us know any other examples of Mechanical Drop Sets that you like to work with!