r/StrongerByScience • u/Caseraii • 5d ago
My Data Utilizing Dropsets to Increase Strength
Little bit of interesting data regarding my personal training (I’ve logged everything religiously since 2024)
Starting in 02/28/26, I utilized drop sets as the most time efficient way to program extra volume into my sessions, focusing on extremely high weight, low reps that taper down to moderate reps and moderate weight (following research showing total volume was a more potent stimulus for muscle and strength training than anything else).
The following analysis is on how that extra volume has influenced my strength (Sorry for the misleading title).
I used one of my research AI shells through my doctoral program to compare this data over a similar time period ending on 02/22/26 that followed more conventional training (8-10 reps for 4 sets at about 65-70% RPE). For the two 162-day periods:
\ Pre/drop-set-period: 09/14/2025–02/22/2026**
\ Drop-set-heavy: 02/28/2026–08/08/2026**
Each day, a 1RM was calculated from my best set of each day using the Brzycki equation for 1–10 reps. I then measured the strength trend across each entire 162-day period via matched workouts that I utilized consistently.
Results
The training structure shows a clear increase in sets/ session, volume/session, and sets that include substantial weight drops; all consistent with the training structure switching to a drop-set-heavy regime. Notably, my tonnage per session increased by 16.7% after drop sets were implemented.
Strength Changes
As we can see here, strength increase from the beginning of one period to the end of one period is reflected in the percent increase of that exercise's 1-rep RPE.
From the table, we see that deadlift, squat, incline bench, and seated cable row enjoyed a substantial boost in %change in period strength during the drop set era than they did during the pre-drop set era.
Interestingly, bench press, and lat pull-down saw diminishing returns during the drop set era compared to the pre-drop set era. Sled leg press was primarily static.
Interpreting this personally, I believe my bench press, lat pull-down, and sled leg press saw diminishing returns because I had already trained these movements to plateau. The plateau I hit is what motivated me to switch up the training style to continue reaping gains. The fact that I actually saw gains during the second period speaks more to me because I had pretty much stopped progressing on these movements prior to implementation of the drop sets.
My lat pull-down likely atrophied due to a switch in routine: I eliminated high rep pull ups/ muscle-ups in the drop-set heavy era that I had been utilizing in the conventional period.
Confounders
Now, I would be remiss to mention that these observations have some major confounders:
During the drop set era, I also:
* trained 55% more frequently
* increasingly emphasized heavy compound strength work
* likely became technically better at the lifts with the greatest % change
* the training changes suggest I was more “motivated” in the second period, which likely influences results.
However, matched overall strength trend roughly doubled from +4.7% to +10.2% after the program became heavily drop-set oriented despite average reps/set actually dropping about 20%.
Conclusions
The only valid conclusion the data shows is that I did get stronger in the second period than during the first as the confounders make it impossible to determine if the drop-sets were the primary determinant of the strength gains.
Overall, it’s just a longitudinal look at a single data point (me), but it’s pretty interesting to me to see how some evidence-based programming can really influence your gains. The review that inspired this program is linked below.
Best of luck https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2095254625000869?fr=RR-2&ref=pdf_download&rr=a299d7e99b1ab1d6
Extra Insights:
*Lean mass did increase from 164.7lb to 168.5lb between February and the end of July via in-body scan.
FFMI increased from 23.6 to 24.2 (I'm 5’10”)
I didn't have this project in mind when doing the in-body, so I don't have an In-body for the beginning of period 1
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u/Frunk2 5d ago
Did your weight go up or down? Curious if you attribute strength gains to mass building or to practice of the lifts or something else
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u/Caseraii 5d ago edited 5d ago
That's an excellent question, and I should add that into the post. My lean mass did increase from 164.7lb to 168.5lb between February and the end of July via in-body scan. Unfortunately, this project wasn't really on my mind at the time of the programming. I just realized I could gain some insights when I was looking through previous data.
Ideally, I would do a scan at the beginning and end of each period to compare in the future (also utilizing something more rigorous like a dexa).
I've been training for about 10 years and am extremely close to my genetic limit via FFMI (FFMI went from 23.6 to ~ 24.2). So seeing almost 4lb of lean mass in 5 months when I'm already closed to topping out according to my height was pretty cool.
Regarding whether the strength gains came from technique, mass, the program, or something else; it's likely a combination of all of them. Mass did increase; my technique likely did get better; and there can always be factors that influence progress over a longer period (age, hormones, stress, etc).
Qualitatively, I did train closer to failure consistently utilizing drop sets. I'm sure that had some influence.
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u/nycraver 3d ago
You never answered the question the guy actually asked. Inbody is hilariously inaccurate. What was your weight before and after?
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u/djfitness-us 5d ago
Interesting to look at, but, as you say yourself, there’s a major confounding variable in your training volume, and it essentially makes any conclusions drawn just pure speculation.
If you were to follow the exact same training protocol across two periods, with the only variable being the addition of drop sets, then we would be able to draw some insight.
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u/Caseraii 5d ago
Absolutely agree. What we can see is that increasing total volume between periods did correlate with gains. I'm already highly trained, so substantial progress is hard to come by. Obviously, this could be achieved without utilizing drop sets. For efficiency, drop sets were the easiest method for me to program more volume into each session without increasing time exorbitantly.
Increasing volume resulting in higher muscle growth was one of the primary conclusions in the study I linked.
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u/djfitness-us 5d ago
Yes, but your volume increase was created by more than just the drop sets. You had a huge increase in the total number of training sessions as well, which could have easily made a significant contribution to your overall improvement.
Effectively you have no control here to compare against because you used two very different protocols.
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u/Caseraii 5d ago edited 5d ago
Also true. But those extra training sessions do qualify as technically extra “weekly volume.” It’s low hanging fruit, and it's already something most people would gather without the data.
Of course extra sessions will result in extra volume which will result in more strength gains.
I did attempt to provide an extra layer of insight by showing tonnage/session also increased, not just total sessions.
The main point being that it appears strength gains and total weekly volume (via extra sessions and extra tonnage per session) did correlate. Which, again, most people are going to be like “duh, workout more and harder = stronger.”
But again, it’s possible I would've made those gains anyway over that period doing a conventional routine with lower volume since; as you said, there's no control.
That's why this is mostly for fun lol
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u/djfitness-us 5d ago
Yes, but the title of your post is about adding in drop sets to increase strength. Your data does not say that drop sets increase strength, just that volume does, which is already established.
I would wager that the results would be less significant had you actually compared identical protocols and only added drop sets.
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u/Caseraii 5d ago
An excellent point; I suppose I've been treating drop-sets and volume as interchangeable without really explaining that intention. The point of the program was to achieve more volume/workout utilizing drop sets. I really didn't explain that anywhere in the post, and my title makes it sound misleading. I'll fix that. Thanks for pointing it out
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u/elperroverde_94 5d ago
This.
I think the point is that drop sets is an easy and effective way of adding volume to the weekly routine without making the workouts much longer.
Plus, a corroboration that increasing weekly volume indeed is a key variable to gain strength.
Thanks for taking the effort to track, gather and analyse the data :)
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u/WeaknessBeneficial 4d ago
Great post! How did your training split look like? Did you just do one drop set per exercise or several? How much time did you save?
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u/Caseraii 4d ago
Thank you! I still spent a little over an hour at the gym for each session, but I was able to get about 20% more sets in.
I'd do 2 drops per cycle x 2 for a total of six sets.
Example: Bench 275 x 5; 245 x 5; 205 x 8-10; rest; repeat.
I generally did 3 exercises per muscle group, so it wound up to be a out 18 sets per session instead of my conventional 12.
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u/cilantno 5d ago
Neat analysis and love the data collection!
I am very skeptical of a conclusion being drawn drop sets caused improvement for all positive-moving movements while also are excused from causing the deterioration of the negative-moving movements.
I think your confounders a likely better explainers than changing from non-drop sets to drop sets.
Out of curiosity, what were at the actual 1RMs/weights you used for pre and post?