Last week my Bigger Arms & Shoulders, Fast: 5 Tri-Sets and Quad-Sets for Size article was published on T-nation. That article originally contained ten protocols, but it was edited down to five.
In this post in sharing the five other arms and shoulders tri-sets (three exercises done back to back) and quad-sets (four exercises done back to back) that you didn’t get in my T-nation article.
1. Low Cable Quad-Set
You’ll need a low cable set at ankle height and a handle attachment. All the exercises are unilateral – performed one arm at a time.
Perform the following exercises back-to-back:
1a. Low Cable One-Arm Rear-Delt Fly
1b. Low Cable Face-away Biceps Curl (shown in the above video) or Low Cable One-Arm Biceps Curl (Facing the Cable Column)
1c. Low Cable One-Arm Triceps Kickback
1d. Low Cable One-arm Lateral Shoulder Raise
One thing to keep in mind if you’re using the face-away biceps curl is that it also involves an isometric contraction of your front delts to keep your arm in-line with your torso; to resist the cable from pulling your arm backwards. So, if you’re really trying to hit your shoulders, the low cable face away biceps curl is the biceps exercise I’d choose. However, if your shoulders are already gassed, then the Low Cable One-Arm Biceps Curl (facing the cable column) is probably a better option.
2. Low Cable Tri-Set
This is a tri-set version of the above quad-set, minus the rear-delt fly exercise. I’m including it here because it’s another permutation of the low cable tri-set that was feature in my companion T-nation article, which incorporates a different unilateral biceps exercise and a different unilateral shoulder exercise.
Perform the following exercises back-to-back:
1a. Low Cable One-arm Lateral Shoulder Raise
1b. Low Cable One-Arm Biceps Curl (Facing Cable)
1c. Low Cable One-Arm Triceps Kickback
With any of the tri-sets or quad sets featured in this post or in my companion T-nation article, you can perform the exercises in any order you’d like. That said, I like to perform this sequence based on body position. So, I prefer to perform the low cable one-arm lateral shoulder raise exercise right after or right before the low cable one-arm biceps curl (facing the cable column), since both involve an upright torso. Whether you begin the tri-set or end it with the low cable one-arm triceps kickback is up to you.
3. Cable Quad-Set
The following is a quad-set version of the cable tri-set featured in my T-nation article. It involves using both a high and low set-up that you’ll find in a traditional cable column. To do this quad-set you’ll need to place a single handle attachment to the low cable and attach rope handles to the high cable.
Perform the following exercises back-to-back:
1a. Rope Face Pull
1b. Rope Triceps Pressdown or Overhead Triceps Rope Press
1c. One Arm Low Cable Lateral Shoulder Raise or One-Arm Low Cable Shoulder Front Raise
1d. Low Cable Face-away Biceps Curl or Low Cable One-Arm Biceps Curl (facing the cable column)
If you’re looking for the most well-rounded training stimulus on your shoulders, then I’d do the one arm low cable lateral shoulder raise and the low cable face-away biceps curl as the last two exercise. This is because, as stated earlier, the low cable face-away biceps curl also involves the front delta to maintain your arm position. However, may be you want to really hammer your front delts. In this case, I’d choose to do the one-arm low cable shoulder front raise and the low cable face-away biceps curl as the last two exercises. And, if your shoulders are gassed by the time you finish the third exercise, low cable one-arm biceps curl (facing the cable column) would be my go-to option.
4. Dumbbell and Incline Bench Tri-Set
To perform this tri-set you’ll need an incline bench and two different weight dumbbells. The lighter set of dumbbells will be used for the shoulder exercise and the heavier set will be used for the biceps and triceps exercise.
Perform the following exercises back-to-back:
1a. Incline Bench Biceps Curl or Incline Bench Single Arm Preacher Curl
1b. Seated One Arm Overhead Triceps Extension
1c. Prone Incline Bench Shoulder Front Raise, or Incline Bench Single Arm Lateral Shoulder Raise, or Incline Bench Shoulder Front Raise
If you feel like you’re getting enough training volume on your front delts from doing exercises like dumbbells chest press, bench press, push-ups, etc., then the incline bench single-arm lateral shoulder raise is the exercise to choose out of the three options. On the other hand, if you’re trying to get more training volume on those front delts, you’d use either the incline bench front raise or the prone incline bench front raise
Also, instead of doing the incline bench beeps curls you can perform the incline bench single arm preacher curl, which involve standing behind the bench. If you choose to do the single-arm preacher curl as your biceps exercise, then it makes more sense from an efficiency standpoint to do them last in the tri-set.
5. Dumbbell and Bench Quad-Set
The following is a quad-set version of the dumbbell and bench tri-set featured in my T-nation article. It involves using a flat bench and two different weight dumbbells. The lighter set of dumbbells will be used for the shoulder exercises and the heavier set will be used for the biceps and triceps exercise.
Perform the following exercises back-to-back:
1a. Dumbbell Lateral Shoulder Raise
1b. Seated Dumbbell Biceps Curl
1c. Dumbbell Skull Crusher
1d. One-Arm Side-Lying Rear-Delt Fly
Keep in mind the idea with all of the above dumbbell and bench tri-sets and quad-sets is to not consume more than two sets of dumbbells when doing these exercise sequences. So, in both this quad-set and in the incline bench tri-set, you’d use the same weight dumbbells for both of the shoulder exercises and involved – that’s the lights weigh set. And, you’ll also use the same weight dumbbells to perform both of the arm exercises involved – those are the exercise you’ll do with the heavier set of dumbbells.
That said, you don’t have to do the exact same amount of reps on all the shoulder exercise or on all of the arm exercises. This is because, if your triceps are stronger than your biceps, for example, you’d want to do more reps on the triceps exercise in order to achieve roughly the same level of fatigue you achieved with the biceps exercise.
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