Giant sets are a great way to save time, build muscle and burn fat.

Losing body fat - and keeping it off long term - is about more than just nutrition and aerobic exercise. As any trainer will tell you, strength training is absolutely crucial is sustained fat loss. Muscles are like fat-burning incinerators, and the more muscle you add - the more calories your body will burn each day. Adding muscle is one of the best ways to lose fat and keep it off.

Enter giant sets. Though their name sounds a bit intimidating, giant sets are great for people looking to burn extra body fat in a short amount of time. I’ve always said that going to the gym is about quality of the workout and not quantity of time spent exercising - and giant sets hold my philosophy to task.

A giant set really consists of four sets (usually of 10-ish reps) of four different exercises working the same muscle group. For example, a chest giant set might consists of 10 reps on a flat bench press, 10 reps of dumbbell pec flies, 10 reps on an decline bench press and 10 reps of incline dumbbell presses. You can tailor the giant set to whatever muscle group you’d like to work (i.e., back, legs, arms, etc.), and you can create any combination of four corresponding exercises.

When performing a giant set, quickly move from exercise to exercise. Your rest period should not exceed 10 seconds. It’s fast. And it’s not easy. It may take a bit of adjusting to figure out how much resistance you should be using in each exercise, as you will certainly be fatigued from the previous exercise. Nonetheless, you’ll really need to push yourself! When you finish a giant set of the four exercises, rest for 60 - 120 seconds.

Then, perform two more giant sets. When you are done, you will have performed three giant sets in total - which is really 12 sets of exercises. It’s a great, high-intensity workout packed into a short amount of time.

Beyond providing some amazing strength training benefits, giant sets get your heart pumping and your metabolism racing. Since there is very little time for rest, giant sets actually provide some decent cardiovascular benefits, too. All in all, giant sets are extremely effective at building muscle and burning fat; I’d encourage you to try ’em in your next workout routine.