When using multiple sets for a given exercise, doing your first set with less weight for high reps, gradually increasing the weight and decreasing the reps over the remainder of your sets. E.g. This technique allows you to gradually warm up a muscle group and prepare it over the course of a few sets to deal with heavier amounts of resistance. Typically, for upper body, warm up with light weights and do sets of 12-15 reps, adding weight on successive sets until you're doing sets of about 6-8 with your heaviest poundages. Legs have somewhat more endurance than the upper body, so you can increase reps somewhat on your heavier sets.

Muscle Priority Training Principles

Training an underdeveloped or weak area first in your workout, allowing you to subject it to the maximum possible effort when you're still fresh. E.g. If you have a weak body part you want to improve, train it at the beginning of your workout, before you begin to fatigue. Or, is you're in a building cycle aimed at achieving maximum development and strength, schedule your heavy, mass-building exercises at the beginning of your exercise session.

Supersets Training Principles

Working opposing muscle groups in back to back fashion, taking as little rest as possible between each set. E.g. Alternating sets for opposing muscle groups - such as biceps and triceps or chest and back - greatly increases intensity. While you train one muscle group, the other is recovering as you complete the set. With two muscles or muscle groups begin worked, more blood is pumped to the area.

Giant Sets Training Principles

Doing 4-6 for the same bodypart with as little rest as possible between sets. E.g. Giant sets are used to create overwhelming stimulation to a bodypart and totally exhaust the muscles involved. This technique should be used only occasionally since the body needs time to recover from this level of effort. This type of training is not dissimilar to circuit training, which builds muscle endurance and burns calories to a greater degree than it builds muscle size.

Tri-Sets Training Principles

Doing three exercises in a row for the same bodypart with as little rest as possible between each set. E.g. Three exercises in a row - like bent over rows, seated cable rows and front pull-downs for back -more thoroughly exhausts the muscle. This training technique is so demanding that it should be done only occasionally, and is more often used by bodybuilders during their precontest training. It is not optimal for muscle building.

Set System Training Principles

Doing multiple sets of each exercise to apply maximum adaptive stress for muscle growth. E.g. A single set does not maximize muscle growth (hypertrophy). Today's bodybuilders commonly do 2-4 sets of an exercise to fully fatigue the given muscle group. Often the first set is done with a light weight to warm up the muscle and surrounding connective tissue.

Compound Sets Training Principles

Alternating two exercises for the same muscle group, taking as little rest as possible between sets. E.g. Each bodypart exercise hits the muscle involved in slightly different ways, so doing two exercises in a row for the same bodypart with little rest achieves a deeper level of stimulation and muscle pump. Examples include the leg press and leg extension for quads, or the bench press and dumbbell flye for chest.

Staggered Sets Training Principles

Training smaller, slower developing bodyparts like claves or forearms in between sets for your major muscle bodyparts. E.g. Bodybuilders will do a set for chest, back or shoulders, then do a set of calve raises while their major muscle group was recovering for the next set. They'd then alternate sets for the working bodypart and calves. Their calves got plenty of time to recover between sets and, by the end of their workout, they'd subjected them to as many as 15-20 total sets of various calf raises.

Instinctive Training Principles

Experimenting with your workouts and playing attention to how certain types of training feel and what results you get from them, Adjust your training - cycles, exercises, sets and reps, and training principles - according to what works best for you. E.g. The fundamentals for of bodybuilding training are the same for everyone, but we're all individuals. The further along you get in your training, the more you have to fine - tune your workouts to fit your own personal needs. It takes time to develop this "feel" and this type of knowledge. Remember, whatever you're used to is what's going to feel best; the trick is to figure out what produces the best results and make adjustments accordingly.