I wouldn’t really generalize so much, although there is some truth to what you said. Stan Efferding and Amit Sapir have both said that they use long rest periods between heavy sets and both of them are IFBB pros. If my training involves a heavy top set followed by speed work (CAT to be precise) I wait 7-10 minutes after the to set to begin the following sets. This is based on Josh Bryant’s advice, he mentioned a study that found force production to be maximized after a 7 minute rest period and experience shows that this is true. So I definitely wouldn’t rest that long between all sets but there are reasons to do it at times.
I should have qualified that my statement is aimed at the general PL training population and not those squatting heavy enough to produce enough fatigue to warrant long rest periods. It stands to reason that if you’re performing one top set that you would use a longer rest period to maximize that set. However if you’re working with multiple CAT sets of 80% or below, you should probably work towards increasing the training effect by reducing rest to as short a period AS POSSIBLE - and of course that’s individual.
The first I heard of short rest period training was back in the early 90’s in writings of Bill Ennis a 198 lifter who (correct me if I’m wrong) was either with Frantz or Black’s at the time.
It’s awesome when a strong older timer goes and recommends what you’re doing. Validation much.
I seldom take longer than 50 minutes to complete a session. I gauge my rest time by how long my heart rate recovers. It usually results in 1.5 - 3 minutes between heavy work and 30-45 seconds between sets of assistance work. I feel that if I wait longer than I’m ready that I lose focus and training effect. Our form of training should not gas you.
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Yeah, that’s basically how I look at it. Higher RPE = longer rest, lower RPE = shorter rest, unless you have a reason to do otherwise.
Sounds like you’re in really good shape for your age, I don’t think many people could keep up with that. Do you find that short rest periods like that limit how much weight you can work with? At one time I used a timer to control my rest periods, and back then I was doing all high RPE work sets (I was actually doing some RTS-type training, work sets were basically all @8-9) and I gave myself 3 minutes between bench sets and 4 minutes for squat and deadlift. At first it affected how much I could lift but after a couple weeks I got used to it and my lifts started moving again. These days I’m not so strict except for CAT sets, but I still try not to waste time.
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We played sports all year round when we were younger. There were no cellphones, computers or any other bullshit to occupy our time. As far as training, the dynamic effort squatting and deadlifting are what built it up. Plus I never grind in the gym. Even on max effort days, I stop one set (single) short. I save maxes for the platform. The gym is for training, not performing. After doing this for so long I’ve come to the realization that the Russians are right in manipulating volume and intensity against 70%-85% poundages with an occasional 90% day.
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Sheiko actually said that the max effort method is the most effective way of developing strength but he doesn’t use it due to the increased risk of injury. On the other hand, you have guys like Mike Tuchscherer who use 90%+ singles every week through most of a training cycle (for most lifters at least) in addition to lighter work, he says that heavy singles aren’t really a big deal once you get used to doing them. I have to say that I agree, nobody here is talking about maxing out though, but once you get used to handling 90% and up regularly it is no big deal and is also very specific to what you will do in a meet. In fact, lots of volume is arguably just as dangerous if not more so due to the risk of overuse injury. The risk with near-max weights is acute injury but nobody ever got tendinitis from a heavy single.
Notice I said manipulating volume not lots of volume. Tolerance to volume and intensity for that matter is highly individual. Just as an aside, every time I tweaked something with a squat it was a weight below 85%. At my age now I find I can tolerate max effort for low volume (3-5 singles above 90%), light weight for high volume (DE at 50-70%, 16-25 total reps), but 80% for 5’s buries me.
Yeah, I got you, I didn’t mean to imply that you recommended lots of volume but rather that high volume training (define that as you will) can be equally dangerous as working with weights at 90% or over.
The time I fucked my back up it was pulling 420 after doing some singles around 500, I had pulled a little over 500 in a meet a few months earlier. The moral of the story is don’t take lighter weights for a joke.
“Make light weights feel heavy, so the heavy weights will feel light” - Ernie Frantz, The Ten Commandments of Powerlifting.
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I just do heavy squat walkouts and slingshot benches so that my max feels like no big deal, but that’s another way of looking at things. I saw an interview with Kirk Karwoski, he said he never did any sort of overload work because he wanted the weights to feel heavy in a meet. He was a fucking psycho though.
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Walter Thomas once said that when he came back as a master, he did light full squats and heavy partials because he could no longer tolerate heavy volume. Walkouts are the shit though I’ve used the slingshot and it hasn’t quite worked yet, but my bench sucks and always has sucked.
It seems to me that it was Fred Hatfield who popularized walkout overloads, if you see some of his old programs there were also bench overloads where you do the same thing, unrack 110-120% and hold it for 10 seconds. The way I see it, the slingshot allows you to do the same thing with the added benefit of actually moving the bar. I had a discussion with Mike Tuchscherer about this, before his forum died and was taken over by demented spam trolls. His opinion was that any overload movement where you actually move the weight (like bands, chains, whatever sort of gear or slingshot) is better than one where you don’t and partials would be somewhere in the middle.
I hear some people saying that doing lots of slingshot and/or shirt work helped their raw bench, I never really got any major benefits from the slingshot like that but it definitely makes your raw lifts feel light on top of building up your triceps and your lockout. You could say it’s overrated, the way some people love it so much, but it is still useful.
A productive exchange between jbackos and chris.
I like it.
jbackos, great post on westside.
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