I have been trying to get in better shape and improve my body comp after a decent winter bulk. Right now I’m doing a twice weekly upper lower split with first half focused on strength and second half focused on looking good naked. It’s somewhat similar to CTs beast building phase 2.
Anyway I log everything in my training book and I decided to start keeping track of my rest periods. During the strength workouts if I give myself a minute break an actually stretch the opposite muscle groups and watch the clock, I find I can go heavier with each set when already at a working weight.
This isn’t a big deal the suprise for me was that on my hypertrophy focused workouts when I forced myself to use less than 30 seconds between sets all the way thru my workout I still hit the same numbers set and rep ranges as last week. The difference being I’m soaked in sweat breathing hard for 20 min after I leave the gym and it cut my workout time down by over half an hour. I was impressed.
on paper for the past month I’ve been doing the same workout but by resting more on heavy days I’ve gotten stronger and by really cutting the rest periods I’m getting a whole new workout that sends my metabolism thru the roof. I’m going to keep using this method to tweak my workouts and save some time.
It’s just food for thought since everyone is trying to lose some holiday pounds. Id be interested to hear if you guys have tried anything similar. Those little changes can really change the effect of your training
what % of your one rep max are you using, and how many reps?
IIRC, it takes about 4 minutes to recover creatine phosphate for the low rep/high weight exercises. after that, your muscles switch to glycogen.
That’s for peak output and the contraction time, so it’s about 4-6(or probably less) reps.
I ask, because it’s impossible for me to do 2 more reps after 30 seconds of recovery. (using 4-6 reps and like 80% of one rep max)
[quote]tbiggz wrote:
what % of your one rep max are you using, and how many reps?
IIRC, it takes about 4 minutes to recover creatine phosphate for the low rep/high weight exercises. after that, your muscles switch to glycogen.
That’s for peak output and the contraction time, so it’s about 4-6(or probably less) reps.
I ask, because it’s impossible for me to do 2 more reps after 30 seconds of recovery. (using 4-6 reps and like 80% of one rep max)[/quote]
Me? I do take to heart how accurate my ‘don’t put much thought into it’ was in regards to my cutting phase.
I take a sequence of exercises I like with weights that I find heavy, and do the same volume in less time. I do not know exactly what percentage it is, but if I were to take a guess, it seems to be around 80% and 70% (As each exercise has 2 phases, I do the heavier first one until I can’t anymore, then drop to the second; which allows my heart to beat me to death)
An example is something like, I do 15 reps with the 130’s for DB rows, 3 sets. Favourite exercise, my record is completing all 3 sets in 10 minutes. Next time in the gym I will aim for 9 minutes. Not much more thought than that.
YES… About a year or two ago i got a GYMBOSS interval timer, and have been gradually using it more an more.
Now, I almost use it ALL the time. For me though, tracking my rest breaks made me aware of a few things. Mainly, I usually dont rest nearly LONG enough when training heavy. A three minute rest break seems like an eternity, and really I need to be forcing myself to rest for 5 minutes many times.
Here is my thinking on rest breaks.
If you are training anywhere near concentric failure, and are pushing pretty hard, you are going to need 2-3 minutes rest, maybe 5 minutes if you are focusing on hitting a new max or RM.
Keeping the weight constant and decreasing rest breaks is a waste of time (ie: starting with 60 second rest breaks and trying to decrease by 5-10 seconds each week)
Shorter rest breaks of 10-30 seconds work really good with submaximal weights. (ie: clusters of 2 reps with a 5rm, with 15 seonds between clusters for 6 total reps/set).
Lastly, weight training is best aimed at STRENGTH and STRENGTH ENDURANCE. Dont turn your weight training sessions into cardio or endurance training. If you are getting noticeably weaker each set, because you aren’t resting sufficiently, then you are going to end up noticeaby weaker.
And, playing around with clusters and learning how to use them effectively is one of the best things you can do for getting stronger and in better shape. They have a TON of potential for leading to success, but can very easily be misused. Sets for a set amount of reps with longer rest breaks may be the mainstream way of training, but that doesn’t mean they are the better way of training. Submaximal sets with shorter rest breaks allows for the use of greater weight, better form, and thus more potential for strength and growth.
Rest as little as possible until you are ready to lift again. It may be 20 sec or 3 minutes, but don’t measure or wait for a determined period of time.
You can’t predict your capacity to recover in your the next 6 weeks. Sometime you will have to wait longer between and sometime you will only take the time to add some plate on the bar and you will be ready to hit it again.
Just lift the weight and wait until you can do it again, push your self to the max.