what qualifies as a "working set"?

[cs2toktos]

sup guys, i've been lifting for a little over a year now without much guidance and i've come across the term "working set" a couple of times. i do push ups and bench presses and when you are working your chest 8-10 sets, your triceps get it pretty bad too. now here's the question: according to bodybuilding.com i should do 4-6 working sets on my triceps, but if i'm doing 10 sets of push-ups/bench and i'm killing my triceps, how many working sets is that for the triceps?

btw, i usually do like 10 sets of push ups/bench then do 3 sets tricep extension and some dips.

 

[suncloud]

its hard to relate this to pushups.

working sets are the ones after warmup. lets say you bench 225. your warmup would probably be 1-2 sets of 135, one set of 185, then your working sets of 225. you could also include 185 as your lightest "working set".

with relation to pushups, this probably doesn't translate very well. i guess they would all be considered working sets, because you can't really go up in weight - unless you have a backpack you can stuff

 

[cs2toktos]

haha i do stuff my backpack. i think i might've made things a little complicating when i asked my question. i meant, would that be 12 working sets for my triceps if i did 12 working sets for chest exercises that involved using my triceps? or would i have done no working sets on my triceps?

 

[suncloud]

haha i do stuff my backpack. i think i might've made things a little complicating when i asked my question. i meant, would that be 12 working sets for my triceps if i did 12 working sets for chest exercises that involved using my triceps? or would i have done no working sets on my triceps?

none. triceps would be the secondary muscle, as opposed to the chest, which takes the brunt of the workload.

close grip pushups, where your thumbs are touching is an altogether different story, since the tricep is the PRIMARY muscle doing the work, with your chest as secondary.

 

[cs2toktos]

thanks!

 

[pinchharmonic]

i thought about this for a while and realized it's an iffy term.

but now I think it's this:

a working set is one that after performed, the muscles involved are no longer as capable as they were before.

a warmup would not be a working set since you could warm up all day long and not really lose any strength, or endurance or anything.