Lengthened supersets for 40% more growth? (NEW Study)
Take-aways
Doing some partials in the stretched position after hitting failure - what I like to call a lengthened superset - likely leads to more growth than just ending the set at failure, at least on a set-per-set basis. At the very least, that’s true of the calf raise exercise for the gastrocnemius; this probably generalizes to other muscles and exercises, but we can’t be too confident until we get studies examining this idea..
If you don’t enjoy doing just lengthened partials, lengthened supersets could be a good way to increase the emphasis on the stretch and potentially see more muscle growth..
Doing standing calf raises - or any calf raise with your knees extended - is very likely better for the gastrocnemius, since it stretches it more. For the soleus, since it doesn’t insert at the knee, any calf raise will work well, though there might be a very slight edge to a seated calf raise over a standing calf raise.
Another HOT off-the-presses study I was involved in was just pre-printed. Let me give you the insider scoop.
In our new study (Larsen et al.), twenty-two untrained men performed single-leg Smith machine calf raises for 10 weeks. With one leg – PlantarMF - participants simply ended the set after hitting full range of motion momentary failure (this occurs near the top of the rep, at short-muscle lengths). With the other leg – DorsiVF - participants didn’t end the set there; they pushed on, doing partials until they either hit volitional failure or were unable to plantarflex their ankle whatsoever.
While lengthened partials have a fair amount of evidence behind them, many people are still reluctant to adopt them. Doing just lengthened partials on a movement can feel foreign and daunting. Instead, it’s become common to continue the set with forced lengthened partial reps. I refer to this technique as a “lengthened superset”, in that you superset full range of motion training with lengthened partials as a way to extend the set. In this study, we sought to see whether this could still be beneficial for muscle growth compared to full range of motion training, much in the same way as lengthened partials seem to be. Therefore, we hypothesized that lengthened supersets would cause superior hypertrophy.
As we hypothesized, we observed 2.9% more absolute and 43.3% greater relative muscle growth in the superset limb vs full ROM limb (+9.6 vs +6.7%/ 1.9 vs 1.4mm growth). Around half of the participants reported this to be a sufficiently large difference to justify the additional discomfort experienced by going past failure. In Bayesian terms, our results indicated “strong” evidence for the superiority of performing lengthened supersets over just full ROM. Notably, the lengthened superset limb also ended up accumulating quite a bit more volume load, as you’d expect. As such, it’s difficult-to-say whether the additional growth stems from the additional volume or the lengthened training.
Why?
Kassiano and colleagues compared the effects of using a full range of motion, doing lengthened half-reps, and doing shortened half-reps on the leg press calf raise on gastrocnemius hypertrophy. For both the lateral and medial measurement site, lengthened partials led to the most muscle growth - around 100% more than just doing full range of motion. As you’d expect, shortened partials resulted in the least muscle growth.
Notably, lengthened partials led to around 100% more muscle growth, whereas lengthened supersets only led to an additional 40% muscle growth in the current study by Larsen et al. So, while we need a direct comparison of lengthened partials and lengthened supersets to be able to confidently answer the question, a tentative conclusion is that lengthened partials probably lead to at least as much or more hypertrophy than lengthened supersets. That said, in light of the results from this study, lengthened supersets do likely still offer a benefit over a full ROM - at least in the context of the calf raise exercise and the gastrocnemius muscle. Based on the broader evidence landscape, my hunch is that this finding generalizes well to most muscles/exercises, particularly exercises that are most challenging in the peak contraction (most back training, for example).
