Sounds like a deload workout for you(?)
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No, just the usual Friday accessory day.
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Easy enough either way
You think? Not so much. I was hurting by the end. I don’t rest much between sets or exercises though to make sure I get a pump. The last sets of pushdowns, pulldowns and crunches were pretty hard.
Definitely. With that:
Being the one variable that would make this hard for you 
Good work! Is rest time prescribed by Greg in general?
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No, Greg doesn’t specify rest periods except for the short rest days for the main lift.
Honestly though, what the fuck would I be doing if I didn’t take short rests? I’d just be some fat fuck who wondered why he wasn’t gaining muscle. My muscles need stress to grow. So I give it to them. I don’t rest more between sets than to let my breathing slow. I try to flex the working muscles hard while lifting and I try to make sure they stay pumped and tired throughout the sets of the exercise working them. Hell, my lats and triceps were within a rep or two of failure by the end of pulldowns and pushdowns.
I think if I had to pick the biggest factor holding people back in training when you take into account programming and recovery it would be time spent in the gym vs time spent actually working in the gym. I honestly think if you spend over 90 minutes in the gym, you’re fucking around. You SHOULD be able to get in and out, warmups included, in an hour and a quarter on average regardless of volume. Why? Because if its submaximal work, you shouldn’t need to rest that much between sets so you should get through the work quickly. If it’s peaking work and heavy, you shouldn’t be doing so much you need to be there any longer.
How long you spend in the gym and how much work you do in that time has a very, very strong connection with how well you will progress. If you’re a powerlifter, you need to work as fast as you can simply because if you can’t your conditioning is shit and that’s going to bite you in the arse.
This whole idea that if you train for strength you need to rest a certain amount between sets is garbage and results in fat, unfit people calling themselves powerlifters. I remember reading a Dave Tate piece where he noted that at Westside even a max effort session was done in little over an hour.
Sorry, this turned into a bit of a rant. I dislike laziness and I see it a lot.
Bottom line, even with being halfway sociable I’m usually out within that 90 minute mark, often close to 75 minutes. I’m convinced it’s one of the reasons I’m in halfway decent condition despite being relatively big.
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Extra workout
2 rounds of 35 each of
Band pull aparts
Band hammer curls
Light band good mornings
Lying leg raises
Mrs KO joined in. She did 20s.
It’s debatable. Stan Efferding recommends long breaks between sets, hard to say he’s fat and unfit. Amit Sapir said he rests 10-20 minutes between sets of squats.
I rest about 8-10 minutes between works sets. There is research showing post activation potentiation is highest at 7+ minutes after a set. Josh Bryant recommends resting at least 7 minutes after a heavy top set.
For lighter assistance work there is no good reason to rest more than a couple minutes.
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It’s gotta be load dependent. I don’t need much rest with my two plate squats but people playing with 5+ plates are experiencing a different level of CNS and overall strain.
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This is more of what I meant, although I still don’t see how there is any need to rest longer except if you’re close to maximal weights. I certainly haven’t found that longer rests are necessary.
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Woke at 267.9 lbs, looking a bit less bloated.
Conditioning
8x40 metre sprints up 20 degrees
These were around 65 to 70 per cent and while speed of the line picked up after a couple of rounds, pace after that was a lot less than before the two weeks I had to not sprint.
Heart rate normalised pretty fast though.
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There are proven advantages to it. And it wouldn’t draw the line at maximal weights, any hard sets like 10 reps at RPE 8-10 will be more draining than a max single. You don’t absolutely need to rest extra long, but performance on subsequent sets will be better and therefore stimulate more gains in strength and hypertrophy.
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Woke at 270 lbs, looking a little more bloated.
I would imagine that given no time restrictions on training, you’re best off resting maximally to increase performance on subsequent sets.
In the real world though if a 7m rest between squat sets means you get nothing else done in the session you squeeze into your lunch break, it’s not worth doing.
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See, that’s what I’ve experienced the opposite of. Yes, after a higher rep set that is hard, I rest a little longer but still just to the point where my breathing normalised again. The best progress I’ve experienced is when I don’t rest much between sets.
The only time I do is during peaking.
I think the difference is that you’re seeking fatigue while most people are seeking performance during training.
Your loads look light compared to what you put up on the platform.
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You have an excellent point.
I don’t give two hoots about gym performance. Greg sure doesn’t, and in respect of his powerlifting athletes I don’t think Josh Bryant does either.
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If you are really pressed for time then it’s a different story, but maybe less volume is another thing to consider.
Even guys like Mike Israetel and Eric Helms recommend resting several minutes between sets. With shorter breaks, force production will be lower and you won’t be able to do as many reps on subsequent sets. The exception would be if you are doing cluster sets or rest pause, there you have a reason for short breaks.
Since you mention Josh Bryant, he regularly has his lifters going for PRs in the gym. His typical programing has you lifting 85%+ almost every week. He just uses cluster sets for volume work a lot of the time. At his seminar that I attended, he mentioned that he like keeping rest periods on assistance work short, like 2 minutes or less, but he said that a lot of the strongest lifters he has worked with have trouble keeping up with that pace and take forever in the gym. Like James Strickland says his workouts take around 3 hours.
Also Josh is the guy who said to wait at least 7 minutes after your top set before doing the next set for post activation potentiation. If you don’t care about gym performance and still set PRs in meet then that’s great, but if you aren’t lifting progressively heavier weights in training then there is no progressive overload so something is missing.
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